Darkest Descent

10. 10

10

Alice

It was easier now to pretend this was fine. Hunter was starving us, messing with us, twisting everything up in our brains until we were desperate for him. For each other. For any sensation or thought other than the hunger in our guts or the desperation of our situation.

I found it hard to let the care in anymore. It was on my periphery, banging on the doors of my mind, but just… not… sticking. Watching Hunter and Asher’s quiet, intimate moments made the last of my fight disappear. They’d looked nothing like captive and captor. Asher didn’t appear forced into anything. He enjoyed every touch, every lick and groan. Hunter acted with kindness towards him, not following through on threats, making him feel good. They had been two men enjoying each other’s bodies, nothing more.

I’d heard the grunting, the pleading, and expected it to go even further, but Hunter took pity on my brother. Instead, giving him the orgasm he stole from me. What game was he playing with us? Though it was clear he had a plan, I just couldn’t see it for what it was. Making our lives about baser needs. Sex, sustenance. Touch.

My gut still ached from what he’d done in the shower, from the buildup and ruined pleasure. The shame of those sensations, from the twisted up way I wanted one of them to come over and rip an orgasm from me. His torture went deeper than just on my body. He was fucking up my mind in a way that was far, far worse.

The light came on with a flicker, glaring and sudden, maybe an hour after Hunter left the room, and Asher and I had no words for each other in the glow. The darkness had taken us both, and now we had to confront it. We were silent, going through the ringer in our own minds. The thought of having to discuss it, to let him know what I’d seen, that I watched him enjoy Hunter’s touch, barely even fight it… to admit that whatever Hunter was doing was working. Shit.

Asher and I sat on our separate sides of the room, not ignoring each other, but not speaking. We just stared at the other twin. I studied Asher’s face as he studied mine. Was he different? It was hard to decide. He might have done his trick, his ability to sink away when things were rough. I wanted to tell him it was okay, that Hunter had twisted me up too, that I’d enjoyed the humiliation he’d wreaked upon me, that the darkest parts of me craved the idea of exploring it more. But would Asher judge? Would he hate me? Was he even in there anymore?

I was learning the truth of myself down in this dungeon, and I didn’t know if it was buried deep, only emerging now due to circumstance, or if it had always been there. I’d never had a sexual thought about my brother until we were down here, never considered I’d like being dominated in such a consuming way. But my body reacted and lusted and peaked for it.

“Asher?” I asked, breaking the hours of silence at last. He didn’t reply, not until I begged him to. “Please,” I whimpered. “Asher, talk to me.”

“What the hell am I supposed to say?” he blurted, loud enough that it made me jump. He was still with me, then. “What the fuck is there, Al?”

I gasped in relief to hear his voice, so flooded with emotion. “You did what you had to—”

“I liked it,” he admitted, before, as low as he could, “And I know you did too…”

My heart squeezed, and I dropped my head. We’d both seen the truth of the other. The truth of our reactions, our newfound desires. It sickened me. Who knew this depravity would be so easy to bring out? That it was so close under the surface of our skin.

“Ash, this is—”

“Stop.”

I snapped my mouth shut, eyes wide and flooding with tears at the sight of him broken. “I want to touch you, Asher,” I confessed. “You are my other half and you’re all the way over there, ashamed , angry. I— I can’t cope.” The teardrops broke from my eyes, pouring down my cheeks and to the floor, flowing fast. “Please, Ash, please, comfort me? I need it.”

“Get over here,” his voice strained, sounding closer. “Al!”

I looked up, finding him in the center, reaching for me, angry and straining, almost rabid with his desperation to claw his way closer. The rope around his ankle squeaked from the pressure. I scrambled, raced across the small space to fall into his arms. His hands grasped me, squeezed me tight as I buried my face into his chest, breathing him in.

“Ash…” I sobbed, breathing in his comforting scent. He smelled like home. Like safety and love. It didn’t matter that down here, it had warped. This might be the only place we ever had now. This might be it.

So I tilted my head up, pulled his down, and kissed him hard. He sucked in a breath through his nose as my mouth smashed to his, then kissed me back, slowing me, pressing his gentle lips to mine. This was without force, tentative even, without Hunter looming over us and threatening, but it was the only thing I could come up with to bring my twin brother calm. We were together, only us.

We kissed with such a tenderness it hardly even felt sexual, just the warmth of two pairs of lips moving together, sharing love as he cupped my cheeks with his hands and deepened it. When I probed my tongue out, swiping across the seam of his lips, he groaned something guttural and opened, massaging my tongue with his.

Everything heated around us, between us, our touch burned, our lips grew more urgent, our teeth clacked, and we moved, shifting our bodies to get closer. It was everything I needed in the moment, a declaration of our love for each other. So what if it was twisting up down here? So what if we’d been manipulated and messed with? This, together, was our truth. Our path through the pain.

Asher’s hands drifted from my face to my hips to bring me even tighter against him, a moan from his throat telling me he was sinking as deep as I was into this. Hunter had to be watching. When he was down here, he looked up at the ceiling enough times that I was sure a camera captured this moment .

We didn’t stop. It didn’t go any further, but we didn’t stop. Even past the ache in my knees and the soreness of my lips, we kissed, touched and held each other until our tears slowed and our hearts pounded as one. Asher was my twin, my other half, the second part of my soul. And in those moments, where the line blurred and we leaped over it, I felt possessive of him. He was mine . Not Hunter’s. Not anyone else’s. I was going to fight for his freedom, for my own. And once we had it, we would face the darkness we’d formed together.

***

I dragged my mattress to the middle of the room and Asher and I laid on it together, still clinging to that solace we created. We didn’t discuss the kiss, but we never really ended it, either. I couldn’t stop touching him, brushing my fingers over his skin and shivering when he did the same to me. I knew every inch of him – well, almost all, and living in the comfort of that soothed my soul. His smell, the way his heart beat behind his ribs, the mumbles at the back of his throat. It had been by my side since before I was even born.

With my head tucked up under his arm, my cheek on his chest, we dozed. Our feet faced opposite directions, only our torsos on the thin mattress, but it was enough. He was enough to get me through .

He kissed the top of my hair. “How much longer do you think this is going to last?” he asked, staring up into the room. The ceiling was bare save for the lightbulb, and nothing lined the walls. No shelves, no furniture at all. I eyed the light fixture swinging just above our heads, the most obvious location of the camera. I wonder what Hunter considered of our kiss? Was he jealous?

“Until he’s done,” I muttered, staring the light down, hoping it was where the camera lay, that Hunter was looking right back at me through it. “Or until we overpower him.”

“You can’t talk like that, Al,” Asher sighed, his tone chiding even though he didn’t pause stroking my hair. “The things he’s already done…”

“Let him come, Ash,” I replied. “We have each other. It’s obvious he has no one if he has to steal us away and force us to fuck him. If he has to rape us to get his kicks, he’s a lonely fucking man with more strength than brains.”

Asher stayed silent for a moment, his fingers digging into my upper arm. “Please stop.”

“What do you think does it for him? The power or the taboo? Or a mixture of both?” My words were said to Asher, but aimed at wherever the camera lay. I hoped it was making Hunter furious. Belittling the depraved asshole as he’d tried to belittle me .

But he made a mistake in taking twins. Our bond was too tight, too strong – together we could face everything. We weren’t two halves of a whole, we were two wholes, forged together and unbreakable. He’d tried to fuck us up with twisted sexual games, but we relished in it. I would bend, break, do whatever it took to save Asher. And I knew he would do the same.

Hunter was fucked.