Back on Earth-121698B, a week had passed since Alex started his arrangement with Susan and sent the two of the Fantastic Four to another world, while the third—Susan's brother—was out doing his own thing, occasionally checking up on his sister remotely. He hadn't yet been allowed to come meet with her, but they had talked on the phone.
In that time, Alex had completely solidified his control over the world by capitalizing on the resources and connections of Victor Von Doom. He hadn't outright stolen the man's identity and had instead chosen to establish his original self by using the connections and resources of Victor Von Doom. Within another week, he would be in control of the White House, and by the time Susan was discharged from her special isolation room, he would have implanted the shield generator at the core of the planet. At least that was his plan. Whether it came to fruition at the same timeline or earlier was dependent on some other factors, the main one being Susan herself.
As for the lady in question, she had grown to enjoy Alex's company quite a lot. They ate all three meals together and spent eight hours training Susan's powers while also hanging out casually as they watched a movie or something together. All in all, they were spending at least twelve of the twenty-four hours of every day together. While it may seem like a lot, eight of those twelve hours were spent in training, leaving four hours of casual leisure time.
For the rest of the duration, while she spent six to eight hours asleep, that still left her with four hours of alone time. That was the time she spent trying to satisfy herself. And it was slowly increasing. It had come up to the point that she both started and finished the day by touching herself, and even tried to get some in the time that Alex went to get her a meal or something else. The woman was having it bad, and unfortunately for her, while she was successful in bringing herself to a climax, it was completely unsatisfactory and only left her wanting more.
Still, until now, she'd made sure to keep her growing habit hidden from Alex, at least as far as she believed, by making sure that he didn't take the reading for her heart monitor, or any of her vitals. Unfortunately for her, there were only so many excuses that she could use to delay him from checking the pattern of her heart's beats, and she was going to run out of them sooner or later.
As usual, he came by at around nine with their breakfast. Susan was in bed while browsing the news when he entered the room. She immediately turned to look at him and tossed the remote to the side.
"Did you get it?" She asked.
"Yeah," he nodded while glancing at her damp hair that fell down her shoulders. "Need me to brush your hair for you as well?"
"No, just getting me the dryer is enough," she said with a sly smile and got out of bed. "Give it."
He handed her a box, which she quickly took to the bathroom.
"You can set up breakfast. I'll be out in just two minutes," she told him. He heard a loud tearing sound, followed by the sound of a hair dryer running, and shook his head.
"Nice try, sucker," he spoke as the loud sound of the hair dryer drowned out his words. "Cardio comes first."
He walked over to their dining table slash coffee table and placed the bags that held their breakfast on it before sitting down.
The woman came out of the bathroom after almost ten minutes, making Alex raise a brow.
"You're early. Usually, it takes you…" He trailed off as he saw the broken brush handle in her hand. "…twenty minutes. Broke your brush?"
"No shit," she said. "What now? My hair could probably house squirrels right now."
"What are you talking about?" Alex laughed. "Your head could, at best, house a few crows in that nest situation you have going for you."
She threw the handle of the broken hairbrush at him, and he caught it. "You got me a thousand-dollar hair dryer, but you couldn't get me something better than a dollar store hair brush?"
"Whoa, entitled much?" He asked. "For all you know, this could have been an important heirloom in someone's family. I got it from a pawn shop, after all."
"You mean it wasn't new…" Susan's eyes narrowed scathingly. "You're telling me that I've been using someone else's brush for the past week?"
"I'm kidding," Alex said. "Why would I go through the trouble to get this from a pawn shop, huh? Anyway…" He held the handle before a black slime extended from his hand and wrapped around it, and reformed the broken part of the brush. "See? Good as new. Now come here. I'll brush your hair before we move on to stretching and cardio."
"Can't we skip it?" She asked. "You always push me until failure. What kind of sadistic trainer pushes someone to failure when doing cardio?"
"Do you want me to brush your hair or do you want to do it yourself?" He asked again with emphasis.
"Don't try to peek at my body," she pointed at him before sitting down on the floor between his legs, facing away from him.
"I have better ways to see you naked," he teased her before gently stroking the brush through her hair.
"You know, Apex…" Susan said with a comfortable tone as he repeated the movement of the brush for a few strokes. "Are any of your other hosts like me? Needy, slightly childish, and a little unreasonable at times?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Because you encourage that kind of behaviour," Susan said as she leaned back and rested her elbow on his thigh. "This kind of princess treatment is instinctively bringing out the side of me that wants to be pampered by you. You shouldn't do this too much."
"But I like pampering those I care about," he said. "There shouldn't be anything wrong with that."
"It's not a sustainable frame of mind," she said. "In the past week, you've practically babied me. Everything I asked for, you got for me without complaints. You went above and beyond to make sure that my time here is even more comfortable than when I'm home. As a temporary attitude, it's understandable. But if you keep it up all the time, you'll get exhausted, you know? Relationships require reciprocation."
"I'm not a human, remember?" Alex reminded her and ran his fingers through her hair to fix it in place. "I can pamper my hosts all the time. As for the reciprocation that you are talking about, I'm simply satisfied when you accept my princess treatment with a smile. Maybe a little reward here and there, but that's all I want from my hosts."
"Sounds too perfect to be true," she said. "Are you sure you aren't hiding a deep, dark secret from me? Something that will make me run as far away from you as possible?"
"I'm pretty kinky when it comes to intimacy," he said. "I regularly push my hosts to their sexual limits and slowly go beyond them. When in the bedroom, I expect a level of obedience that not everyone is comfortable with."
"I knew it," she said. "So there is a caveat. You are a sadist."
"You can say that," Alex said. "But I'm not particularly into the kind of sadism that is dependent on physical pain. What I want is submission…trust. For you to put your trust in me. That I accurately know what is best for you, even more than you. To give up control. To give yourself to me fully, both in mind and in body. That's the thing that's going to either turn you on or make you run away."
"Well, I'm not turned on by your words, that's for sure," Susan said. "That stuff sounds fun in fantasies, but reality? No thanks."
"Yet, you aren't running away from me," he said teasingly.
"I need my hair brushed, don't I?" She said. "I wouldn't feel good walking around with a crow's nest on my head."
"Fair enough," he said.
In another minute or so, Alex was done brushing her golden locks as she comfortably leaned against his knee. "Can you do this every day for me?" She asked.
"I'd love to," he agreed without much thought. "Hell, once I bond with you, you won't have to do anything and can put all your focus on more important things."
"I still haven't agreed to it, Apex," she said. "Don't get mad at me if I end up refusing to bond with you later."
"I'm confident in my ability to charm you," he said. "Plus, I can always cheat and slow down your training, extending this isolation by a few more months."
Susan clicked her tongue before standing up. "Come on, I'm getting hungry. Let's get that damn cardio over with."
***
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