Thorns
Anthy
Utena entered our shared dorm room wet with sweat from a pickup
basketball game. Doubtlessly she won it handily and, knowing her, with a
team that consisted solely of herself. The sleeve of her tank top
slipped slightly to the side so that I could see the pink sports bra she
wore underneath.
It was her face, flushed with exercise, and the self satisfied grin she
wore that broke my reserve. She had been denying me my rights as her
bride for a long time, due to some misguided thought that this all was a
game and that my role in it was symbolic. I decided it was time to up
the ante, so to speak, and trade words for action.
She turned her back from me to put her gym bag down and when she stood
up, I wrapped my arms around her waist, pressed my breasts to her back
and whispered, "Utena, I'm yours, please take your reward."
She drew in a deep breath and held it, the pulse point I could see on
her neck beating wildly. I turned my head and kissed it gently. Her
breath hissed out, and then she took a deep breath in again. I nuzzled
her neck, unmindful of the sweat. But she pulled herself out of my arms,
her hands held out at arms length to keep me away. I stepped toward her
anyway.
"No. Anthy, I'm not going to just," her voice becoming harsh, "have my
way with you just because I won some duels. I told you, I think this
whole thing is barbaric!"
"But Miss Utena, I think you want me." I knew I wasn't reading her wrong
in this.
She shook her head, a motion of denial. With a quick motion I undid my
bun so that my hair fell freely down my back. I started to walk toward
her, and if I had not been so irritated, I would have laughed to see her
back away from me with a look like a frightened cat. I stepped forward
and she stepped back, and I stepped forward and she stepped back until
finally her back hit a wall and she could step backwards no further. Her
hands were still in front of her, but I batted them away easily, and
took my rightful place between her arms.
"I think you want me. And I want you." One of my hands was at her waist,
holding her in place with a gentle pressure that my athletic prince
could easily escape if she really wanted to. My other hand lay between
her breasts, a light touch on her upper chest.
She opened her mouth to disagree, but I stopped her words with a finger
pressed to her mouth.
"I don't want you because you won me in a duel," and here I placed a
delicate kiss along her collar bone, easily visible because of her loose
tank top.
"I want you because you won me again," another kiss, "and again," kiss
and words both so soft, "and again."
The last kiss I placed in the v of her cleavage, just visible within the
wide collar of her tank top. Was this perhaps one of the reason's she
did so well against the boy’s basketball team? But no, that was a
disloyal thought. I banished it completely.
A low sound, a barely discernible sound over the thunder of her heart
beat, issued out of her mouth. I looked up and saw that my Utena had
bared her neck to me, her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open. She
relaxed against the wall and into my arms. I've no doubt that if I
wasn't there to give support, she would have slid to the floor. She was
mine. I reached up and tipped her chin down, then took the kiss I so
wanted from her. She responded, lips and tongue passionate, as her arms
closed around my waist. Finally, in need of breath, we both withdrew our
lips regretfully.
Her eyes swam with lust and awe. I leaned forward to kiss her again, but
before I did, a bell tolled. It was the six o clock bell, calling us to
dinner in the dining hall. Clarity returned to her eyes in a snap. Her
arms released me as mine reflexively tightened around her. But she broke
my grip with one strong push of her arms. I sometimes regret that my
strength has never been strength of arms.
In a flash she darted into the bathroom. I tried to follow but she
slammed the door in my face and I heard the click of a lock.
I banged on the door in frustration.
"Go away!"
"Please come out, Miss Utena."
"No! I don't want you SEDUCING me again."
"I didn't seduce you!"
"Yes you did!"
"You wanted me to!"
"I don't want you! Go away!"
Most people would have given up hearing that. It just made me angry.
"Miss Utena! Move away from the door!"
"What?"
"Move back, I'm warning you."
I waited a couple seconds; then when I had decided she had had enough
warning, I blew the door open, breaking the lock in a shock of
splinters. I'm a witch. I can do things like that.
"Shit!" she yelled, the usual care she took with her words around me
gone in the face of my sudden violent act of magic.
She was standing against the other wall of the bathroom with her back
pressed against the tiled wall. I did not advance on her. I was angry.
So angry.
-----------
Utena
I pressed myself against the wall of the bathroom, afraid of Anthy
Himemiya for the first time in my life, as I never had imagined I could
be. She had just blown the door right open! It was as if she was the big
bad wolf. I suppose that meant I was the little pig. She stood there in
the doorway, her violet hair free of its bun looking incongruous when
paired with her school uniform. It moved around her face, though there
was no breeze. She was beautiful, I had to give her that, somehow even
more so with anger flushing her cheeks and a power I could not deny
practically cracking around her.
"Miss Utena."
It was a phrase I had heard from her lips many times before, but never
in this voice. It was low, seductive, and faintly mocking.
"You don't seem to understand things very well. I am the rose bride. You
are my champion. My body is yours. But since you seem so insistent that
I make up my own mind about things, I have. And I have decided that my
body is yours, if you would only take it. But you won't take it, and I
was so afraid that was because you didn't want me. But now, I know you
do."
I felt phantom butterfly kisses along her collar, as if Anthy's words
had pulled them to the surface of my skin.
"Anthy, please, I'm not like that. I'm a normal girl." This only seemed
to enrage Anthy more.
"I am the Rose Bride and I have chosen you. You are mine."
With those words, rose vines -impossibe!- grew out of the walls on
either side of me and curled around my wrists. I hesitated perhaps a
moment too long in pulling my hands away, by the time I tried the vines
had grown thick, as if I had stood there a year and not just a moment.
Feeling trapped, I pulled away desperately, the rose thorns pricking
into my skin and making it bleed. These were the thick kind of thorns
that curved to a wicked point and clung and ripped when they got a hold
of your skin, not the small straight ones that that brushed off the vine
easily. Roses bloomed, a deep blood red across the vine.
Anthy rushed to me, touching my arms and shoulder and face, anywhere she
could reach, with soothing strokes.
"Don't try and struggle, love, the thorns will only prick you if you
struggle," she whispered urgently into my ear.
I stilled, struggling to hold back tears from the pain caused by the
scratches the thorns had given me. The instant I stopped moving, the
thorns seemed to withdraw. My wrists still burned, the prick you get
from a rose thorn hurts more than the slice of a sword.
"Let me go, Anthy," I said, my voice coached low and threatening.
She didn't reply, just pulled one of my wrists up to her face. I
couldn't make the rose bonds give at all, but since she controlled the
roses, she could make them do whatever she wanted. So my other hand
remained drawn against the wall. She kissed my palm and 'tut-tut'ed the
blood that had begun to stream down my wrist. A little bit of it ended
up on her finger, which she brought up to her mouth to suck. She's a
witch. I was struck by the thought. It was something I had always
laughed down before, disbelieving. Somewhere I had come under the
mistaken impression that she was a nice girl.
"Himemiya, this hurts, would you please let me go?" To my disgust, my
voice was loosing its threatening edge and starting to sound pleading.
Finally she stopped stroking my wrist and looked me in the eye.
"No. I don't think I will."
I don't know what I was thinking when I caused the rose vines to grab
her, but once I did, I couldn't seem to make myself banish them. It was
the picture of her; pink hair tussled, her eyes wide, her face even more
flushed than before, her arms pulled up against the wall by the thorns.
I regretted the tears in her eyes and the blood that coated her wrists,
but I had never wanted her more than I did at that moment.
Besides, it was unlikely that Utena would forgive me for binding her.
She wasn't the kind to bend her will to others, which was why she made
such a fine duelist. I might as well go all the way if this was to be my
only chance.
I started to kiss her neck, at her pulse point again, enjoying the way
it fluttered against my lips. At first she stood stock still and her
pulse was only thing that betrayed that she was affected at all. And
part of that of course was from fear. But I kissed, and then nibbled and
sucked, and even licked that one spot on her neck, waiting to do
anything else until a reluctant groan came out of her throat. I smiled
against her neck. Then I began laying kisses and nibbles up her jaw. I
got to her mouth and kissed her lips, but she kept them firmly pressed
together no matter how I coaxed them.
I stepped back and stared at her with an eyebrow raised. She finally
opened her mouth.
"Release me. Release me, Anthy, and I...I'll sleep with you. Don't tie
me here."
I bit my lip. "I should, Oh, Utena, I know I should, but I don't believe
you would." I had heard the hesitation in her voice, the lie. "I think
you would run away, to Wakaba, perhaps, or maybe from the school
entirely."
I sent a tendril of vine around each ankle. She looked down as she felt
them, surprised.
"Utena, I need to you to stand very still or this will hurt you a lot."
The vines encouraged her to spread her legs apart, which she did. Then
green vines shot from the floor and traveled up her legs, entered
through the bottom of her shorts, and continued up underneath her loose
tank top to come out the collar and through the arm holes as well.
She was breathing hard, clearly fearful of the thorny vines that now had
her surrounded and touched against much of her skin. But at least she
was still.
"Don't move," I said again. And with a push of will, each strand of vine
under her clothes burst away from her at once, tearing off the first
layer of her clothes. As the vines withdrew, the ripped pieces of cloth
fluttered to the floor.
-----------
Utena
I shuddered as the vines, so dangerous against my skin, pulled suddenly
away. The relief I felt from not getting scratched was enough that I
didn't even protest to find myself half way to naked. I had my pink
sports bra on and a simple pair white underwear underneath. 'She didn't
even let me take a shower first!' I thought indignantly. But Anthy did
not really seem to mind a bit of sweat, because she was back to licking
and sucking on my neck and chest.
It felt good. I wanted her to stop. "Please..." I licked my lip. It
seemed to be dry.
Anthy paused in her ministrations to look up. "Please what?" she
breathed, and brought a hand up to cup my breast through the bra.
"Please do this?"
"N..no." Why was my mouth so dry?
"Ah" Anthy said smirking. Then she snuck her hand under the bra. "Or is
this what you meant?"
I gasped, as the feeling of her bare hand against my breast sent a
betraying flare of desire straight down to my crotch and I felt my legs
weaken. I sagged for a second. Then came the agonizing sting of the rose
thorns around my wrists. I yelled, and tears filled my eyes so much that
I couldn't see.
But I could feel Anthy rising up to catch me. She pushed me up against
the wall and pressed me there with the weight of her body. "Oh, baby,
I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen," she sounded truly
regretful.
"Anthy let me go. This has gone on long enough." I whispered it directly
into her ear, my voice harsh with lack of water. "I've learned my
lesson."
Still pressed against me, she asked, "What have you learned?"
"You are your own person. You know what you want. I shouldn't have
thought you were just mindlessly obeying the rules of The Tournament.
You want me. And I want you."
"Yesss" Anthy said, a long drawn out sigh of a word. She hugged me
tighter to herself, as if trying to seek comfort in my arms. At that
moment, had I been unbound, I would have wrapped my arms around her too.
"So then, unbind me."
Anthy stepped away from me. "You've learned your lesson," she said,
nodding slightly. My heart thundered with hope. "But I have not yet
learned mine."
-----------
Anthy
I wanted to continue. My champion stood against the wall with wrists
bloodied and tears in her eyes. She'd truly learned her lesson. If I let
her go now, she would forgive me. We might even continue what I'd
started in bed. She didn't deserve anymore torture, no matter how much I
softened it with pleasure. I should soothe her wounds and treat her
gently. But I have never been good at giving up my beloved ones when
they are in my grasp. Dios, my brother, had been the first one I'd
caged. And now...Utena.
"Come," I said. "We will go to bed."
My vines followed me, and they forced Utena to come along as well.
Several times she stalled, begging me with words to reconsider. But my
vines were merciless. We arrived at our bunked beds. This would not do.
I reached forward and did a simple spell of transformation. It was easy;
the beds were already used to being beds, and did not mind becoming one
great king sized bed.
"Anthy, if you're so powerful, why do you keep being part of this stupid
Tournament." Utena asked; the frustration evident in her voice.
She was standing in the middle of the room where I had left her. Now I
turned to her and touched her warm cheek. "Cages you make for yourself
are the hardest to leave," I told her softly. Then I grabbed her hand.
"Come. Lay down."
She fought. By the time I had her spread out on the bed, her wrists were
bleeding again, and now her ankles were too. Half my face was red where
she had slapped me, a slap with the full power of her arm behind it.
After slapping me, she had calmed down, been remorseful even. I could
see that she hated to think she had anything in common with the other
Duelists who had possessed me. She needn't have worried.
Now she lay on the bed in front of me, breathing in and out in hard
gasps.
"Water," she croaked.
I poured her a cup, then helped her to drink it. Before she had a chance
to put up her walls after accepting my help, I dipped down and seized a
kiss from her. I pulled it from her mouth, my tongue swirling and
tasting the clear clean taste of water. To my delight she returned the
kiss, our tongues caressing each other. She changed my kiss from the
plundering of a battleground into an act of love. When I began to draw
away, her head followed as she attempted to stay locked into my kiss.
But with her hands bound with roses above her head, she had no way to
make my lips stay.
Now I sat beside her on the bed, staring into her eyes. A rose on a long
leafed stalk resolved itself out of the coiling mass of vines that now
surrounded us. I picked it from the bottom of its stem. I pulled this
rose across her bare belly, making it jump and squirm. She giggled
nervously. I drew the rose down across her underwear, its thorns
pricking and pulling at the cotton, then across her inner thigh. Her leg
spasm and she yelped as the vines encircling her ankles pricked anew.
"You are going to have to try and stay still, dear," I told her, and
drew the rose wand up the side of her other inner thigh. The muscle of
her thigh moved reflexively, but she was able to keep it from kicking. I
brushed my hand over the muscle soothingly but that only seemed to make
it worse. I bent down and put a kiss there, then left it alone. I
returned to consider the problem of her breasts. I was sure they were
beautiful, but right now they were trapped within the tight elastic
confines of her sports bra. I could not remove this garment the way I'd
removed the top layers because that would scratch her horribly. So I
improvised. I walked over to my desk and opened it, nudging some of my
nocturnal furry friends out of the way. They blinked at me in sleepy
confusion. Finally I found my sewing box. I opened it up and pulled out
a large pair of scissors.
-----------
Utena
When Anthy walked away from me, I tried to figure out a way to slip my
bonds. I'd already figured out that force did not work at all. The rose
vines just grew stronger and their thorns longer and more cruel. I tried
pulling lightly, trying to easy my way out of the coils that even now
were not very tight. But the thorns pricked me, and even without Anthy
there to guide them they seemed to understand my intention. They pulled
my wrists higher above my head so that I had no room at all to move
with.
What right did Anthy have to do this to me? If she continued down this
path it would become rape, if she hadn't already passed that line when
she'd stripped away my clothes. I could not figure out what she was
getting out of this. Did she get sadistic pleasure from hearing my
sounds of pain? Besides, wasn't I supposed to have the power in this
relationship? I had won her in the Tournament, not the other way around.
Anthy returned to my side. I felt the bed sag where she sat beside me.
I'd had my eyes closed as I thought and now I opened them to see the
very disturbing site of Anthy leaning over me with a large pair of
scissors in her hand. I struggled to pull away from her, my fear
overcoming the pain of rose thorns that continued to rip into my wrists
and ankles. She lowered the scissors and glared at me impatiently.
"Right now, Utena, if you value your skin at all I advise you to stop
moving."
Goosebumps forming over my whole body, I forced myself to stay still as
she put the edge of the scissors underneath my bra. I didn't even say
anything, not wanting to startle or anger her. In a few quick snips, my
bra was in pieces on either side of my body, my breasts exposed. The
cool air, and god-damnit, my own arousal made my nipples into hard
little peaks.
"Beautiful,” she breathed, and reached down and placed her lips around
one nub. Her warm mouth felt delicious after the cool air, and I shifted
restlessly. Then she pulled away.
"I want more," she muttered, seemingly to her herself. She started
taking off her school uniform. I had seen her do this before, out of the
corner of my eye, in the months since I had started rooming with her.
But this was a transformation. Her school uniform had served to make her
look younger, an 8th grader like me. But somehow, as she pulled her
clothes off it struck me that she had to be older. Her beauty was a
mature kind, with full curves and breasts that hung like ripened fruit.
She had to be at least 18. She did not stop at her underwear. She took
that off too.
Then, completely naked, she crawled on top of me and straddled my
stomach. She didn't put all her weight on me, but I could feel her damp
curls brush across my skin. She bent down and placed her mouth over my
nipple again, rolling it around with her tongue, biting it lightly with
her teeth. Then she began to suck. I shuddered. It felt like I would
come right out of my skin. Her hand moved around, now massaging my other
breast, stroking my waist, and tickling a sensitive spot underneath my
breast I had never known existed. She broke off that and began biting a
licking and sucking a sensitive path of fire down my stomach as she slid
down my legs to get into a better position. I was gasping and moaning,
and interspersed with that I muttered "no" "stop" and "don't." She
ignored the words and sought more of the gasps. She reached my
underwear. There was a spot on my hip bone, right above the juncture of
my thigh. It was not covered by my underwear. When she found it, I
giggled and moaned and sighed, and felt myself flood with wetness. She
stayed there for a while, and I did not tell her to stop once while she
did. Finally she climbed off me, and delirious with my own desire, I
tried to reach up and make her stay.
But then I saw the scissors in her hand and I remembered. I did not want
this. I pressed my legs together.
-----------
Anthy
"Anthy, don't do this!" Her voice was a sob, her face was flushed, and
her eyes were half hooded with desire.
I slipped my scissors under the elastic band of her cotton underwear. I
snipped here and there then pulled the pieces of cloth away from her
cunt. Her pubic hair was pink, which did not surprise me. My own was a
few shades darker than the hair on my head, but it was still purple. I
stirred my fingers through it. She pressed her legs more firmly together
and glared at me.
"You will enjoy this more if you just let this happen," I admonished
her.
"I cannot."
I nodded. I knew that she would loose a part of herself if she did that.
Probably she didn't understand it herself, that so much of her identity
was bound to the iron rule that she would never give up, never surrender
herself to another, or even to fate. The steel within her heart was
true.
I made the thorny vines around her ankles pull her legs apart. I said
she had struggled before. Now she thrashed, crying like an animal as she
tried to pull herself out of the grasp of the rose vines. But the rose
vines were my limbs and I held her firmly in place.
In the end, she tired herself out. By that time, she was well and truly
trapped. I'd made her bend her knees so that her thighs were bound to
her calves, the rose vines wrapping around her inner thighs, where the
thorns had welted and rent her flesh. Blood flowed in streams down these
seams, mixing with her sweat and the arousal that already coated her
cunt. Now that she had finally stopped struggling, the vines had
withdrawn their claws from her flesh, but the damage had been done. I
stared down at her, spread before me. My breath caught in my throat. I
had never seen anything more beautiful in my cursed life. She was
prettier than a rose.
"If you do this, it will be rape." Her voice was quiet. She was too
physically tired to fight anymore. "I do not consent to this. I do not
consent."
She turned her head away from me and stared over her shoulder.
I reached up and cupped her face, forcing her to look at me. "Darling,
Fate happens whether you consent or not."
I slid my hand down her chest, across her belly and down to her cunt.
There is a strange thing about pain, certain kinds of pain at least,
that I know. The body often reacts to it like pleasure. She was slick
with the dew of her own arousal. It coated the folds of her vulva. It
pearled on each individual hair. The blood that had mixed in made it
slightly pink. I slid my fingers through it, coating them as well. Then
I brought them up to her face and painted her lips with it. "This is
Fate," I explained. She stared at the ceiling, not reacting to me at
all. I settled myself between her legs, wrapped my arms around her
thighs and bent my mouth to her cleft.
-----------
Utena
I hurt. My wrists and ankles were on fire, and I cannot describe the
feeling of the welts and scratches on my sensitive inner thighs. Fire is
too tame. But even through that pain I could feel the throbbing of my
cunt. It ached for something that I did not know.
Then Anthy's mouth was upon me and I knew. She lapped at me like a cat,
and sucked my clit like she was a baby. I refused to let out a sound,
and I couldn't move, so instead I shook from head to toe. Her fingers
began teasing me as well, swirling around the entrance of my vagina, and
dipping in. Two of her fingers pressed into my vagina and began to
stroke the upper side, which induced more moisture to flood out.
Her motions began to become measured, speeding up, becoming harder. I
could keep still no longer. I started to pull against my bonds, ignoring
the pain. By now pain and pleasure were so mixed up I didn't know which
was which, only that I had to move.
Then Anthy pulled away from me for a moment and I whimpered at the loss,
until I felt her lightly touch my thighs, ankles, and wrists. The rose
vines that bound me melted away. I pulled her to me and kissed her, and
felt her tears falling on my face to mix with my own. I moved against
her. One of her legs inserted itself between my own. Her hand ground
itself against my clit. She was straining against me as much as I was
against her, and she came first.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, Utena, I'm sorry."
I found myself reaching a plateau, cresting it. I had a vision of the
castle that hung upside down above the dueling platform.
I came back and found myself soothing Anthy within my arms, petting her
hair and muttering platitudes in her ears like, "its ok," and "it will
all be fine."
Eventually, we both simply lay together on the bed, Anthy on top of me.
We pulled apart, and found that we were both sticky with my blood. Rose
petals were scattered across the bed, and in some places stuck to us
both.
"I'll draw a bath," Anthy said, her voice subdued. She left the bed to
enter the bathroom.
I looked down at myself. On my wrists and ankles, and on my inner
thighs, there were red angry scrapes and welts, some of which still
oozed, most of which were crusted over with dried blood. They stung like
a bitch, but it was a low level pain I was able to ignore. Mostly, I
thought about myself. Does my soul look like my body did on the outside?
Anthy came to the bedroom door. "The bath is ready."
I followed her to it. Not because I was afraid that she would force me
to, because I sensed that she would not. Something had happened to us
and I wasn't sure yet what it was.
I got into the bath, hissing as the hot water stung my wounds. I let
Anthy wash me, knowing that it was an act of atonement on her part. She
picked up one of my torn wrists.
"Do you trust me?" she asked softly.
I didn't know. I shrugged. "Go ahead."
She bent down and began kissing my wounds. Where she kissed they healed.
For the most part, they all healed as if they had never been, except for
the ones at my wrist. Those left scars. Perhaps because I'd been tied
there longest and therefore the wounds had been deeper. Perhaps it was a
bit of magic, because the faint tracery of scars looked strangely like a
band of thorny vines.
"I'm sorry," Anthy said again, for the scars and for all that had put
them there.
After the bath, I put on my boy style school uniform and Anthy put on
her girl style one. Her hair was up in its customary bun. She walked
toward me. I stepped back, a little bit wary with a sense of Deja Vu.
But Anthy fell to her knees at my feet. She took my hand, the one where
I kept my Duelist Signet on my ring finger. "Utena Tenjou, I release you
from our Engagement," she said, kissing my hand. The words were formal
but her tone wavered. "Leave the Tournament. It will destroy you."
I brought my hand up to my face and stared at the ring. To leave the
Tournament. I'd entered the Tournament on accident, in order to protect
the honor of my friend. Then, I had continued in order to find my
prince. I soon realized that I would probably never find my Prince, but
by then, I had found a new cause. I had wanted to save my friend Anthy
from the cruel game she seemed trapped by. Now, I was realizing that I
never really knew Anthy Himemiya at all.
"No," I said. I pulled Anthy up from the floor. "I will not leave the
Tournament."
"Why?" Anthy asked, honestly confused.
The words seem to come out of my mouth from deep within. "Because, I
want to save you from your cage thorns. And I won't let anybody get in
my way, not another Duelist, not the End of the World, not even you
Anthy. Not even myself. I don't know what will happen afterward. I don't
know how it will be between us, but I promise you," and now I went to my
knees before her, "I will win the power to revolutionize the world, and
with it I will set us free."
Back to Revolutionary Girl Utena Shoujo-Ai Fanfiction