Annihilation

Paul's nose itched, but he couldn't seem to reach it to scratch. He swam blearily back to consciousness and realized the low moaning he heard was his own.

"Paul? Honey? How are you feeling?" Gentle fingers traced his jaw line, scraping across several days' growth of beard.

"Annie?" Paul's voice was harsh with confusion. He could feel crisp sheets beneath him, and his vision was severely blurred. His mind was a welter of fragmented images, observed but not understood. "Where ... am I?"

"The hospital. You've been ill."

He again tried to scratch his nose. Panic tugged at the recesses of his mind as he realized he was manacled hand and foot to the bed. Escape instincts kicked in.

"Don't struggle, Dear. You were delirious, fighting the doctors; they had to restrain you." Soft lips brushed his, and a tentative hand ran under the top button of his shirt to caress the tender hollow at the base of his throat.

Alarms rang dimly in Paul's brain. Images of handcuffs and street clothes, unfamiliar voices and scents floated through, begging for attention, then disappeared before he could grasp their significance. He struggled to hold onto them.

Can't ... remember ... think ... "Who ... are you?"

The gentle fingers never stopped stroking him, running soothingly along his throat, under his jaw, through the silky silver hair at his temples. "Annie, of course."

"Don't sound ... like her."

The voice grew sad. "The doctor said things would seem strange to you for a while. You've been hallucinating for days."

"How ... ?"

"Hush. All that matters is you're here, with me." The lips again brushed his, then returned yet again to linger more firmly, open and inviting.

Paul pulled away. "Kermit."

The delicate fingers stopped. "Paul Blaisdell! Only you would turn aside a woman's attentions to ask to see a ... a ... mercenary!" She spat the last word.

Anger? Annie adores Kermit. MUST be ... sick ... hallucinating. "Doctor." Drugged? "Release ..." He began to struggle feebly against his restraints.

"Everything in its own time, big guy."

Her face hovered bare inches above his own. He could feel her rhythmic breath wafting past his cheek. He felt the tickle of her fingertips, poised a hairbreadth over that same tender hollow just below his throat. Suddenly, one set of sensations stood out bright and clear: the seductive touch of his beloved wife. Primal instincts reared up, and he raised his head to claim those inviting lips.

She responded hungrily, bruising his lips against her teeth, thrusting an aggressive tongue almost down his throat.

More alarms rang; more dissonant images ghosted through his fogged mind. But the heady scent of a woman in heat filled his forebrain, obscuring all else, demanding his manhood respond. He wanted to push her away, to clear a space to sort his splintered thoughts -- but his hands were chained, and he was helpless before her onslaught.

At last, when he thought he would surely asphyxiate, she sat back and chuckled deep in her throat. "Oh, Lover! The legendary Paul Blaisdell, completely at my mercy. Your Annie will take good care of you."

With a single, vicious, double-handed yank, she ripped open his neat white shirt, sending buttons flying every which way and laying bare his aging but muscled chest. Slowly she raked well-manicured fingernails down through the light scattering of hair from his throat to his navel. As she crossed below his ribs, an involuntary shiver shook him, evoking another laugh from her. "See? Veeeerrrrrry good care."

Paul closed his unfocused eyes, yielding to the drumbeats of his body. Surreal, warning images continued to float across his mind's eye, but he was too distracted to fight through the confusion to any level of understanding.

She bent to run a very wet tongue into and around his vulnerable navel. Another shiver; another deep-throated chuckle.

Slowly she worked her tongue up his exposed chest. When she reached his collarbone, she pushed his torn shirt as far down his shackled arms as she could force it. Once she'd ministered to every inch of flesh she could reach, she sat up on the edge of the bed and smiled down at the object of her affection. "Feeling any better, sweetheart?"

Paul opened his eyes and tried to look at her, but saw no more than a dark fuzzy blob. "Can't ... see," he complained.

"That's okay. You don't need to see to do this." She leaned down to smother him with another breath-stealing kiss, then bounced up to walk across the room. She snapped closed the lock on the door and fiddled a moment with a small box on the wall.

Frigid air suddenly blasted straight down on him from a vent directly overhead. Each moist trail that remained from her attentions froze to his nerve endings, until he trembled from sheer cold. He craved the hot touch of her skin and suddenly wanted to please her in any way, just to be rewarded by that blessed body heat somewhere, anywhere, against his hypothermal skin.

"Cold," he forced out through his disorientation. Drunk? Drugged? Brain ... wrong. Annie ... help! His thoughts floated loosely in waves of biochemical chaos. Only biochemical reactions made sense; he surrendered, and anchored himself to their offer of reality.

As he turned toward her to beg for warmth, he realized that the woman returning to his side was now a pale flame, voluntarily naked in the same dropping temperature that was chilling him to the bone.

With panther grace she mounted the bed and stretched full-length on top of him. She lay still, mimicking his breathing and heartbeat, cheek upturned against the sandpaper of his beard, her white-hot skin burning into him. Soon the only noticeable movement in the room was the erratic thrusts of his swelling staff against the confining charcoal twill of his pants.

Abruptly she rolled off, to perch once again on the edge of the bed. She gently traced the outline of his trapped desire, the playful touch causing it to jerk frantically. He moaned as its sensitive tip scraped painfully back and forth across an exposed section of metal zipper.

"It's a shame I can't pull off your pants, what with your legs being strapped down like that," she commented thoughtfully. "Guess I'll just have to get creative." She leaned forward and tugged open the drawer of the nightstand beside the head of the bed. She fumbled inside it for a moment. "Ah, just the ticket!" Something thudded against the lip of the drawer as she pushed it closed.

Even through the current muddle of his brain, Paul recognized the distinctive rasp of metal being drawn from a leather sheath, and his dazed blue eyes widened in shock. His sweet, gentle, blind wife was now holding a long (probably ten-inch, he guessed) hunting knife.

**********

"Annie, what ... you ... do?" he whispered brokenly, every inch of his body suddenly still.

"Why, what do you think? Get rid of those pesky pants, of course." She laid the wicked blade against his paled cheek and drew it slowly, coldly down his ribcage to rest just above his waist. Leaving it lie, she turned her attention to loosening his expensive calfskin belt and drawing it slowly through the belt loops, lingering over the snakelike sensation as it slithered from beneath Paul's body. As it slid free, she whipped it sharply across his chest and let it fly with a snap to the far wall. As he winced, she laid a casual hand on the small welt the belt had left behind. "Oh, I'm so sorry! It slipped."

"Maybe ... not good idea ..."

"Shush! You don't mean to tell me this doesn't feel good?" She slid a finger under the waist of his pants and barely grazed the tip of eager flesh she found there. She smiled when he groaned and flinched away from her touch. She carefully wiggled his pants zipper down its metal track. As the captive sprang free, she grabbed the knife and twisted it against the base of the zipper, breaking open the track and slicing cleanly through the fabric to the center of Paul's crotch. Abruptly the knife caught on a seam and skittered sideways to tear through the left pantleg. Paul yelped as the keen blade nicked his inner thigh.

"Oh, poor baby! I guess I should watch what I'm doing, huh?" she crooned as she slid between his legs and began to lick the trickle of blood. With one hand she began to trace lazy circles on the fleshy pillar that bobbed against her shoulder. Licks turned to kisses, then to gentle sucking, as she savored the blood.

When she realized she'd gotten no response to her flippant apology, she wriggled up his torso to plant another open-mouthed kiss on his parched lips. Her breath was sour and salty with the taste of his blood; Paul's mind recoiled, but some deeper impulse thrilled to the exotic tang. He gave in to the clearer emotion and drank deeply of her kiss.

"How many men have you killed, Lover?" she murmured against his lips. "How much blood have you drunk?" She scraped her soft cheek across his bristle and tangled a finger in his mussed hair, tugging sharply to focus his attention. "A man's blood is almost as sweet as a woman's." She nipped his lower lip, then sucked his tongue deeply into her mouth, feeling his gorged cock rap against her leg as it started to search blindly for the portal that lay scant inches beyond its reach.

Breaking the kiss, leaving him panting, she slid back down his body, teasing the throbbing supplicant with a moment's taste of jungle heat, then sliding roughly past. She paused again to feel it kick against her firm belly, trapped and powerless in all its bloody might. With a satisfied laugh she relented and rolled to one side, tucking her belly along his ribcage, one leg thrown across his chest, her musky mound close enough that, if he pulled hard against the handcuffs, Paul could bury his mouth against it in a sustained downunder French kiss.

As he explored, the cords of his neck stretching taut and his shoulder muscles straining with the awkward position, she slid a hand into the ruins of his pants and began to caress the folds of his scrotum, gently cradling his balls. She ran a light finger around the base of his penis, feather-soft and ethereal, making it prance and grovel anew. Paul's back arched in a spasm of arousal, breaking his oral contact.

She laid her head on his stomach and repeatedly darted a wet tongue at the quivering post before her face, leaving damp streaks that chilled in the cold air, causing it to flick away before returning again to beg for the wet heat it sensed nearby. So intent was she on her new game that she failed to notice Paul hadn't returned to his assigned task.

Instead, he stared in dreamy fascination at the angrily purpling bruise on his left biceps. Two tiny beads of blood stared back at him from its center. "Snake ... bit? ... when?" he mumbled.

She raised her head from her play and looked over her shoulder at him, puzzled. Then she followed his gaze to the site of the needle punctures. She grinned as inspiration hit. "Oh, Paul, don't you remember anything? That's why you're in the hospital. That snakebite made you SO sick! We all thought you were going to die."

He tilted his head back against the pillow, eyes closing in embarrassed confusion. "No, Annie ... remember ... nothing." He stopped trying to force memory to return as she began to lick his throbbing phallus as though it were an ice cream cone, around and around, sometimes pulling it whole into her steamy mouth, sometimes delicately lapping the salt from its tender tip.

Images of a sweeter Annie chorused through the depths of his soul, obscured by the seaweed layers of pollutants that sang through his blood. The gentle words of warning she mouthed were lost in the red flare of pain beginning to shoot from his unindulged gonads. "Now!" he commanded.

"Do you want something, Paul?" she asked innocently, her voice dripping with concern.

"I want ... to make love ... to you. Now." he responded softly, remembering a snatch of another place, another time.

"Wrong answer, Mr. al-fuckin'-mighty Blaisdell." She retrieved her sprawled leg and sat up, leaving him totally exposed to the unkind air.

He blinked at her, wounded, perplexed.

She tapped her fingertips impatiently on the bed. "Try again, Paul."

"I ..." He stopped, uncertain. "I want ..." He stopped again. "Fuck me, Annie," he finally blurted.

"And ... ?" she prompted.

"Fuck me, Annie. Please?" he begged, his soul on its knees before her.

"Good boy!" Her kiss was long and brutal, and the long-ago little boy she'd laid bare exalted at such a reward from his beloved.

**********

Paul squirmed, a mountain lion caught in a leg trap. Love, pain, and chemicals swirled in his brain, paralyzing him in indecision. Bits of the past taunted him: Annie's soft touch bringing instant erection ... Annie wild with orgasm ... Annie his partner ... Annie his nurturing other half, taming the lion that roared through the shadows of the world ... Annie setting aside his gun that first time, baring her soul in total trust ... Annie opening her body to receive his first, powerful thrust ... Annie teaching him tenderness. Annie ... not predator ... Is she?

Paul struggled, a sea lion caught in an oil spill. Had her blindness made him see her as physically softer than she was? Had seeing her made him blind to her true nature? A tear glimmered briefly down his right cheek, then blinked out of existence.

The past sprang away and the ponderings drowned as she grabbed his aching post in one hand and brusquely rammed it home. Their bodies arched together as the sharp motion drove lightning through their backs to fry the logic circuits in their brains.

Paul managed a deep, shuddering breath as she began to slide her hips up and down, working the machinery of his well-oiled piston, using muscles as strong as a handshake to stretch him and squeeze him, the friction bringing him to the brink, then restraining him. He growled in frustration when she allowed him to slip to the surface, then groaned in almost-pain as she forceably submerged him again. Once, twice she shrieked and clawed at his arms as she brought herself to climax on his solid stake, never letting him quite reach the top with her. His silver hair grew dark with sweat as his abused body screamed for release.

Finally she pushed herself up until she sat perpendicular to his lap, the heels of her hands digging cruelly into his glistening chest. Slowly, rhythmically, she began to rock, bending his swollen staff backwards and forwards, forcing it harder and deeper into her own inner flesh, gasping at the exquisite pain of its deeper penetration, delighting in the baritone anguish of her partner. "Much better than Peter," she confided, bending forward to pant the name directly into his ear.

"Peter?" he repeated, scrambling to disengage his bewildered brain from his cock long enough to make sense of this non sequitur.

She giggled, nibbling at his earlobe. "You remember Peter. The young stud you brought home from the orphanage a few years ago?" She pushed her hips down hard, eliciting a strong upthrust on his part. "Quite a nice boy toy, he is," she whispered, returning to her upright and rocking position.

The cold air blasted again across Paul's naked chest, sucking away the heat she'd momentarily lent him. With the cold came a moment of partial clarity. A bitter sense of shock and betrayal staggered through his heart and ripped its vengeful way across his soul. With a cry of angry despair, he began to pound his hips upward against hers, as though seeking to impale her soul as she had nailed his.

Gleeful, she laughed. She rode her rearing stallion higher and higher, long hair flying loose in a dark blonde cloud, head thrown back in blind ecstasy, arms flung wide as she leaned back against the curve of his iron rod, driving herself and her captive farther into the depths of hysterical passion.

Without warning, the door to the room crashed against the wall. She turned her head to see who dared disturb her--and howled in fury as she recognized the white-streaked black hair and the formidable gun pointed directly at her. Her fully dilated eyes grew wild. Sneering, she bent further backwards, drawing a tortured groan from her mount, and, reaching swiftly down and behind, crushed his testicles in a steel grip.

Paul bucked and screamed, a high-pitched, terrifying wail, as his buried staff erupted in molten fire.

Thunder exploded. Her naked chest blossomed red, and her lifeless body thudded against the bedside wall.

As the hot stream of blood spurted across Paul's chest, and the warm trickle of his own semen leaked across his thigh, Paul screamed again. "Annie! NO!" He fought frantically against the restraints on his wrists and ankles, trying to reach his dead wife.

Kermit's mouth set into a determined line as he strode to the bed. "Paul..."

Paul's efforts became even more frenetic as he tried to reach the man who had killed his wife, the man he could neither see nor recognize.

"I'm sorry, old friend," Kermit sighed, and slugged his colleague. As Paul fell back limply against the pillow, his avenging angel began to systematically dismantle the steel bed to release the cruel restraints.

**********

"Her name was Anne Magnuson," Kermit explained to Annie in a low voice, mindful of other families awaiting word on their own loved ones. "She was the daughter of one of our old associates. Paul's known her since she was a baby."

Annie shifted impatiently in the uncomfortable plastic waiting room chair. "So he trusted her, let her get close. But how did she ... overcome him? Paul may be getting older, but it would take more than a mere woman to take him down!"

Kermit smiled dryly at Annie's indignant defense of her husband. All men should be so blessed in a mate. "Not all of our old associates are as enamored of your husband as you, Annie. She had professional help. Guess they figured that when she'd broken him, they'd take their own shot. They didn't figure on her losing him."

"Broken him?" Annie pounced on the phrase, her indignation fading back into the fear that had carried her into the hospital. "What did she want with Paul? What did she DO to my man?"

Kermit shifted uneasily, but not due to the chair. "It seems she always had a ... a crush ... on Paul. Over the years, she obsessed over him. He never thought twice about her flirtations, acted like a fond uncle toward her. But she ... " He swallowed hard, remembering that last vision of her twisted face, her wild eyes. "She apparently had other ideas."

Annie grew very still. "Kermit, what aren't you telling me?" When there was no response other than the restless rustle of Kermit in his chair, she took a deep breath and laid an almost-calm hand on his arm. "Tell me."

Kermit stared bleakly down the long, empty hospital corridor as he stated in a cold, flat voice, "She kidnapped him. She drugged him. She raped him. She fucked with his head. You asked why? Because she had a warped idea of love." Only his keen instincts allowed him to catch his friend's wife as she fainted.

**********

"Annie?" Paul's voice was harsh with suspicion. He could feel crisp sheets beneath him and his vision was blurred, though his mind seemed clearer.

"Paul? Honey?" came the soft reply. Gentle fingers traced his clean-shaven jaw line. "How are you feeling?"

With a deep growl, Paul reached up and roughly pulled her face down to his, kissing her fiercely, ignoring her alarmed squeaks of protest. In a single moment, several sensations overwhelmed him: the pain in his unconstrained limbs, the sweet scent of gardenias in her hair, the taste of cinnamon in her mouth. This time there was no doubt, no confusion: this was the real Annie.

Paul was instantly contrite. "Oh, God, Annie! I thought ... I mean ... can you ..."

She shushed him with a finger against his sputtering lips. "You're alive, Paul. You're safe. That's all that matters."

More emotions flooded Paul, threatening to overwhelm him as bits of new memories floated through, flotsam on the rising waters. A well-worn mask fell over his features as he fought to lock mingled fear, chagrin, and anger within himself until he could sort through his fragmented images of the past several days.

Annie froze as her husband pulled away from her touch. "Paul?"

"Annie, have Kermit take you home." For the first time in all their years together, there was no hint of warmth, of love, of reassurance in his voice.

She turned sightless eyes toward her heartmate and stared straight into his benighted soul.

"No! There's a time for secrets, and there's a time for trust." She placed a single shaking finger over his heart. "This is the time for trust. You are not some undercover warrior now. You are my husband." She replaced the single finger with the warm palm of her hand. "I love you."

Paul's mask shattered. "You don't know ..." he whispered.

"No, I don't. Kermit told me the words. Only you can tell me the truth."

He turned away from her, pulling away a second time. "You don't know what you're asking."

"Oh, no, you don't! Don't turn away from me, Paul Blaisdell!" She plopped down on the bed next to him and fumbled for the chin she knew would be pointed stubbornly toward the wall.

He turned back to her, letting her find and stroke his chin. He repeated in a voice that was low and full of sorrow, "You don't know what you're asking."

She traced tender fingertips down the cheek she knew so well, reading his anguish in each line and small temperature fluctuation. Softly, cradling him in her loving voice, she responded. "I don't yet know what we have to do to get you healed. I know it will be the hardest thing we've ever been through. But I do know that the only way we're going to make it is together. Apart, we'll both break."

Paul damned the drug-blurred vision that kept him from seeing his wife's face. Then he realized that this was something else he didn't need to see to do. Her love and courage glowed clearly in his heart, and he drew on their strength.

"All that matters for now, Paul, is that you're home. You're safe. The rest will come."

"No. You're what matters, babe." Paul wrapped both aching arms around her waist and, with a little cooperation from his surprised but willing spouse, tugged her onto the bed, nestled partly beside and mostly on top of himself. The tension that had terrorized his shoulders and back abruptly fled lower, hardening another part of his anatomy.

As Annie's hands began to roam in response to Paul's concentrated attention, a nurse stepped in to check on her patient. Just as quickly she retreated, closing the door quietly.