The air in the cottage felt thick, charged with a static that only Tadao seemed to breathe. He was chopping wood behind the cottage, the repetitive thwack of the axe a desperate mantra against the noise in his head. A week. For one whole week, Dex had not shoved him, had not called him 'Null-point', had not "accidentally" tripped him while carrying water. The silence was worse. It was a held breath, a predator playing with its food. The mark on his stomach, that intricate purple brand just below his navel, was a constant, low-grade warmth, like a stone left in the sun. It pulsed in time with his heartbeat, a silent, sickening metronome.
He wiped sweat from his brow, the axe handle slick in his palms. His thoughts were a shattered mirror, each fragment reflecting Penny. Penny's forced smile at breakfast. The way her eyes skittered away from his and lingered a beat too long on the door whenever Dex lumbered through it. The new, careful distance in her touch when she handed him a bowl of stew. She's just stressed, he told himself. We all are. The axe came down. Thwack.
A sharp, twisting cramp seized his gut. He gasped, the axe dropping from numb fingers as he doubled over. It wasn't pain. It was a deep, internal clench, a visceral suction low in his abdomen. The tattoo blazed to life, not with heat, but with a cold, purple light that seeped through his rough tunic. He could feel its patterns writhe, the lines squirming like parasites under his skin. A wave of dizziness washed over him, the world tilting on its axis. The forest around him bled of color, sounds muffling into a distant hum. No. Not again.
His vision tunneled, then shattered.
There was no transition. One moment he was kneeling in the dirt, the next he was… elsewhere. Floating. Insensible. A ghost made of pure, horrified awareness.
He reconstituted in a small, sun-dappled clearing deep in the forest, a place he didn't recognize. He had no body. He was a point of view, anchored several feet above the mossy ground, unable to move, to blink, to scream. The first thing he registered was the sound. A wet, rhythmic slurp. A choked, guttural gasp.
His perspective was locked, facing a large, moss-covered log. And against that log, he saw them.
Dex was leaning back against the wood, his pants open and bunched around his thick thighs. His head was thrown back, eyes closed, a look of profound, smug concentration on his face. One of his large, calloused hands was tangled possessively in chestnut-brown hair.
Penny's hair.
She was on her knees between his spread legs, her body mostly hidden by his bulk. Tadao could see the curve of her back, the tense line of her shoulders in her simple linen dress. He could see her hands, braced on Dex's muscular thighs, her knuckles white. And he could see, in terrible, explicit detail, her face.
Her lips, usually so soft and quick to smile, were stretched wide in a tight, glistening 'O' around the thick, ruddy head of Dex's cock. Her cheeks were hollowed with fierce suction. A strand of saliva and something thicker, pearlescent, trailed from the corner of her mouth down her chin. Her eyes were squeezed shut, tears etching clean tracks through the dust on her skin. Every few seconds, her body would convulse with a suppressed gag, her throat working visibly around the invading girth.
Slrrrk. Glrk. Hnnngh.
The sounds were obscenely loud in the silent forest. Tadao tried to vomit. He had no stomach. He tried to roar. He had no lungs. He was trapped in a prison of pure perception, forced to consume every detail.
"That's it," Dex groaned, his voice a low, satisfied rumble. His hips gave a shallow, insistent thrust upwards, pushing another inch into her mouth. Penny's nose buried in the coarse, dark hair at his base. "C'mon, Penny. You made the deal. A week of peace for your useless boyfriend. You wanna be a liar? Huh?"
She made a frantic, negating sound around his flesh, Mmm-mmm! Her head shook minutely.
"Then take it," Dex ordered, his voice dropping into a cruel, intimate whisper. "All of it. Show me how much you love little Tadao. Show me what his safety is worth."
He fisted her hair tighter, pulling her head back just enough to pop the slick crown from her lips with a wet plop. A thick string of spit and pre-cum bridged the gap. Penny gasped for air, her chest heaving. Her eyes fluttered open, dazed and unfocused, staring at nothing. At Tadao's disembodied viewpoint. She didn't see him. She saw only her shame.
"Please," she whispered, her voice raw and shredded. "Dex, I…"
"You what?" he sneered, using his grip on her hair to tilt her face up, forcing her to look at him. He tapped the weeping head of his cock against her flushed cheek, leaving a sticky smear. "You love him? You're doing this for him? Funny way of showing it, sweetheart. Your mouth is mine right now. Your tongue is mine. You're swallowing my spit, my taste. You think he'd even want to kiss you after this? Knowing where your lips have been?"
Each word was a razor scoring Tadao's soul. A fresh, searing heat erupted in his phantom loins. It was immediate and brutal, a bolt of pure, unwelcome lightning. He felt a corresponding, agonizing pressure in his own groin, a throbbing, insistent erection that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with the curse drinking deep from his devastation. The purple mark on his absent body burned like a brand.
"No," Penny sobbed, the tears flowing freely now. "Don't say that."
"It's the truth," Dex said, matter-of-fact. He guided his cock back to her lips, rubbing the slick head against them. "And you know it. You're a hypocrite. A pretty, desperate little hypocrite. Now open up. Finish what you started. Earn his peace."
With a sob that sounded like it tore from her very core, Penny opened her mouth. Dex didn't push. He waited, making her lean forward, making her choose to take him back in. She did. Her lips closed around him again with a soft, sobbing shlup. Her eyes closed, more tears escaping.
Tadao was screaming inside his silent prison. Stop! Get away from him! Fight him! But another part of him, a part that felt cold and alien and horrifyingly awake, was… watching. Cataloging. The way her throat bulged as he pushed deeper. The obscene, wet noises of her effort. The sheer, brutal dominance in Dex's posture. The powerlessness in the curve of Penny's spine. The curse fed on his jealousy, his rage, his love turned to poison, and in return, it pumped this corrupted, exhilarating energy through him. He was hard, achingly hard, and the sight of his girlfriend servicing his bully was the only thing that existed in the universe.
Dex began to move in earnest now, his hips pumping in a slow, relentless rhythm. "Yeah… just like that. You're getting better. Gonna make you my little secret cocksleeve. Every week. You'll get on your knees, and you'll thank me for not breaking your boyfriend's face." His breathing grew ragged. "Fuck, your mouth is so warm. So fucking tight."
Glrk. Slosh. Uhhhnn.
Penny's hands scrabbled on his thighs, not pushing away, but gripping as if for anchor. Her body rocked with the force of his thrusts. A low, broken moan vibrated around the shaft in her mouth. It wasn't a moan of protest. It was a guttural, involuntary sound of a body being pushed to its limit, a sound that held a dark, shameful kernel of something else. Her hips shifted subtly on her knees, a tiny, unconscious grind against nothing.
The curse showed Tadao everything. It amplified everything. He could see the damp patch forming on the front of her simple dress, between her legs. He could see the frantic flutter of her pulse in her throat. He could smell the mix of forest loam, male musk, and Penny's own sharp, terrified sweat.
"Gonna cum," Dex grunted, his voice straining. His thrusts lost their rhythm, turning shallow and frantic. "You're gonna swallow every drop, Penny. That's the deal. You swallow my load to keep him safe. You understand? Nod if you understand."
Penny, her face a mask of tear-streaked misery, managed a small, jerky nod. Her throat convulsed around him.
"Good girl," Dex rasped, and the praise, twisted and degrading, seemed to hit her like a physical blow. Her body shuddered. "Now take it! Take my fucking cum for your worthless man!"
With a final, brutal shove that buried his entire length down her throat, Dex held her there. His back arched off the log. A raw, animal sound tore from his chest. Tadao saw the muscles in Dex's abdomen clench violently.
Inside Penny's mouth, it began.
A first, thick spurt hit the back of her throat with a muffled gurgle. Her eyes flew open, wide with shock and panic. Dex moaned, hips jerking. Another pulse, and another. Splurt. Glug. Penny's throat worked desperately, trying to swallow the overwhelming volume. It was too much. A white, viscous trickle escaped the seal of her lips, oozing down her chin and onto Dex's balls.
He pulled out halfway, his cock glistening and utterly spent. "Open," he commanded, breathless.
Penny, choking, gasping, obeyed. Her mouth was a mess. Strands of thick, glue-like semen coated her tongue, pooled behind her teeth. More dripped from her lips. It was on her chin, her neck.
"Swallow," Dex said, watching her with dark, hungry eyes.
She tried. Her throat bobbed. Some of it went down with a wet gulp. But so much had leaked out. It was a grotesque, pornographic still life. The curse burned the image into Tadao's mind forever.
Dex sighed, a sound of deep satisfaction. He tucked himself back into his pants, not bothering to clean himself. He looked down at Penny, who remained on her knees, trembling, cum dripping from her face. He reached down and cupped her cheek, his thumb smearing the mess further.
"See? That wasn't so bad," he said, his voice gentle now, which was somehow worse. "You did good. Tadao gets his peace. You get to be the hero." He leaned down, his lips close to her ear. Tadao heard the whisper as clearly as if it was for him. "Same time next week. And Penny… if you tell him? The deal's off. And I'll make sure he knows it was you who broke it."
He straightened up, gave her one last pat on the head as if she were a dog, and turned, ambling out of the clearing and disappearing into the trees.
Penny stayed on her knees for a long time. She didn't move. Then, a ragged, shattered breath escaped her. She raised shaking hands to her face, staring at the white, sticky fluid on her fingers. A dry heave wracked her body. She wiped frantically at her mouth on the sleeve of her dress, but it only smeared it. She scrambled to her feet, her legs almost giving way, and stumbled to a nearby stream Tadao hadn't noticed. She fell to her knees again, splashing cold water on her face, scrubbing at her skin until it was raw and red. She rinsed her mouth, spitting again and again into the current.
She hugged herself, rocking back and forth, silent sobs shaking her shoulders. "I'm sorry, Tadao," she whispered to the empty forest. "I'm so sorry. I love you. I had to."
The vision began to fray at the edges. Tadao felt a violent, sucking pull. The forest scene blurred, streaked, and vanished.
Thwack.
He was on his hands and knees in the dirt beside the chopping block, vomiting violently. Empty bile and breakfast burned his throat. His whole body trembled, slick with cold sweat. The erection the curse had given him was still painfully present, a throbbing, shameful monument to what he'd witnessed. He retched again, his mind a whirlwind of broken images: stretched lips, white cum, tear-tracked cheeks, Dex's smug face.
He rolled onto his back, gasping, staring at the gray sky through the tree canopy. The tattoo on his stomach had faded to its usual dull warmth, but it felt different. Fuller. Sated. And he felt… different. A strange, unsettling clarity cut through the horror.
The curse wasn't just about suppression. It wasn't just a punishment. It was a transaction. His pain, his jealousy, his betrayal… they were currency. The vision was the price he paid, but the intense, unwanted arousal, the surge of animal heat in his veins… that was the change he got back. A twisted, physical empowerment. He remembered the feeling of strength when he'd lifted the water barrel days ago, after seeing Penny blush at Dex. It was the same. The curse fed on his negative emotions and gave him corrupted mana in return, but only for internal use. Only to make his body stronger, faster, harder.
It made him a better fighter. A better tool. A spectator who paid for his tickets with pieces of his soul.
A footstep crunched on fallen leaves. Tadao jerked his head to the side.
Dex stood at the edge of the clearing, hands in his pockets, a casual, easy smile on his face. He looked… relaxed. At peace. There was no trace of the brutal predator from the vision. He saw Tadao on the ground and his smile widened, not into a sneer, but into something almost genial.
"Whoa there, Tadao. You alright? Looks like the wood got the better of you." His tone was light, almost friendly. The bullying was gone. The deal was in effect.
Tadao stared up at him. He saw the faint, smug satisfaction deep in Dex's eyes. He saw the man who, minutes ago, had been grunting his release down Penny's throat. The man who held a week of peace in his hands like a leash. A white-hot, pure hatred, cleaner than any emotion he'd felt in days, ignited in Tadao's chest. It burned away the confusion, the arousal, the shame. For a second, it burned so bright he thought the curse might react, but it lay dormant, sated for now.
He pushed himself slowly to his feet, his muscles coiling with a new, unfamiliar tension. The phantom strength from the vision felt… accessible. Like a clenched fist waiting to be opened.
"I'm fine," Tadao said, his own voice sounding strange and flat in his ears. He didn't look away from Dex.
"Good, good," Dex said, nodding. He took a step closer, his gaze flicking over Tadao's disheveled state. "Just came from a walk in the woods. Clears the head, you know?" He paused, his eyes glinting. "You should try it sometime. You might… see things differently."
The double meaning hung in the air, thick and poisonous. Dex knew. He didn't know about the curse, but he knew about the power he wielded. He knew the humiliation he'd just delivered, and he was savoring Tadao's ignorance.
Tadao said nothing. He just stared, memorizing the lines of Dex's face, the set of his shoulders.
Dex's smile didn't falter. He clapped a heavy, companionable hand on Tadao's shoulder. The touch made Tadao's skin crawl. "Keep up the good work with the wood," Dex said, and with a final, infuriatingly cheerful nod, he turned and walked back towards the cottage, whistling a tuneless tune.
Tadao watched him go. The axe lay in the dirt. He bent down, his fingers closing around the worn handle. He didn't pick it up to chop. He just held it, feeling its weight, its balance. The hatred in his chest was a cold, hard stone. The curse' revelation was a map to a darker path. Penny's sacrifice was a debt written in a currency of degradation.
And for the first time, he didn't feel weak. He felt… focused. The curse had shown him the true nature of the game. Now he had to decide how to play.
From the cottage door, Penny emerged. She'd changed her dress. Her face was scrubbed pink. She saw him standing there with the axe and offered a tentative, fragile smile. It didn't reach her eyes, which were still puffy and red-rimmed. "Tadao? Lunch is ready." Her voice was soft, careful.
He looked from her to the path Dex had taken, then back to her hopeful, guilty face. The cold stone of hatred in his chest didn't melt. It grew colder.
"Coming," he said.
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