Whipping Girl by L. Jacobs
Chapter 6 – Alexander - 8 years ago
“It doesn’t matter if you’re attracted to her or not, it’s your fucking job!” Ivan hisses. He has officially been assigned as my one and only Handler, I am no longer a trainee, I am now an Elite Assassin for The Guard. Ivan will be my guide and mentor for the foreseeable future, he pretty much has been since I’ve been here but now it’s official. I already want him dead for telling me to do this.
“I’m not saying that I can’t get my fucking dick hard, Ivan. I’m sixteen, I could get hard while rubbing against sandpaper, I’m saying I don’t want to fuck anyone.” I keep my tone respectful even though my words are not.
“Oh! Well, why didn’t you say so? I’ll just go let the higher-ups know that from here on out you will only be taking contracts that you “want” to take... Link will really love that idea.” The slap to my face is light enough not to damage my face but hard enough to reaffirm his sarcastic reply to my statement. He’s saying I don’t have a choice, I already knew that but the thought of fucking this woman makes me want to rip the skin from my bones.
“Ivan… what about Ally?” I have to close my eyes at the mention of her name, I haven’t seen her since The Guard started readying me for this contract a couple of months ago. I’ve been learning about the art of seduction, emotional manipulation, reading books, speaking to experts, and watching several videos about skills that I will eventually need to efficiently make a women orgasm. I know that my outside appearance is why I was chosen for this, I am told regularly how attractive I am so it makes sense that they would use someone that women wouldn’t want to say no to but I don’t want that someone to be me.
It feels as if I am betraying Ally in the worst way possible. She’s only 12 years old, we don’t have a sexual relationship in any form, it’s more intimate than that, we are part of each other. This is the longest we have been apart since she was given to me, it’s killing me to be away from her but it’s probably for the best until I can figure out these fucking urges. I hit puberty a bit late but once it started, it bowled me over like a fucking train. I’m growing taller and filling out at a rate that I worry Ally won't even recognize me when I am able to see her again, I’m not just tall and lanky anymore, I’m very quickly turning into a man, a man being contracted to kill a few specific women. First I need to learn their secrets and that requires a certain level of intimacy that I have yet to experience.
“We didn’t get Gifts back when I was recruited, Alex. They didn’t give us women to keep us in line so I don’t know the struggle that you're dealing with, I was just happy to get my dick wet at your age.” He smirks. “But I do know that you don’t have a choice. For whatever reason, Link has taken a personal interest in you, he seems to be pushing you harder than anyone else. You have to do this.” His brow furrows and I see a rare glimpse of emotion cross his features, Ivan might be my Handler but we’ve always had a strange relationship, I'd probably consider him a father figure if we were in different circumstances. “You’re lucky that you have her, she’ll keep you focused on why you need to do these things… and you’ll keep us from making her your whipping girl.” My nostrils flare with the rage that I feel at his warning. Ivan is the only person that I have ever heard use that name for the girls but it fits. The Guard has trained us to be unresponsive to physical pain but if we fuck up badly enough then there is a very real threat of them using our Gifts to punish us, I’m the only one on my team that has yet to earn that kind of punishment, I have become everything that I need to be to keep Ally from that pain, I can shut down everything in me other than my feelings for her, if they were to harm her because of me I truly don't think I could take it, the thought of anything or anyone hurting her rules out over the thought of betraying her with my physical body. I’m hers, nothing is going to change that. I’ll fuck who they tell me to fuck and I will kill who they tell me to kill, I’ll use my body as their goddamned robot but they can’t touch what’s inside of me.. Because that belongs only to my girl.
“You’re right.” I shut myself down, turning into the man that he has trained me to be. Ivan’s grey eyes narrow waiting for me to add to that but I have nothing left to say. I don’t have a choice, we don't get to choose our contracts, The Guard does that for us. Link has given the order so it’s as good as fucking done.
“I know I’m right, I always am, Alex. This is the first time that I’ve ever felt badly about that but it still doesn’t change things. We all do what we must to protect the people who matter most.” This time it’s me who narrows my eyes, Ivan has no family, no one who matters to him.. Unless he’s talking about me?
“Ivan...”
“Siena is waiting, she’ll teach you the rest of what you need to know.” He turns on his heal and walks toward the door, opening it and beckoning me to go through, I do without another word or look toward him.
Sienna is a beautiful woman, she’s about ten years my senior and has a body that would have most men on their knees before her but she’s not what I want. If I had it my way then I would have waited for Ally to become a woman so we could have experienced this for the first time together but I don’t have the luxury of decision making in my own life. I don’t know if Sienna wants to be here any more than I do, The Guard contracts her as their own personal whore to the rich and powerful, her assignments are not unlike the one I am about to start, still she stands from the small bed and gives me a seductive grin while removing the black robe that barely concealed her from my eyes. I take in her gorgeous, naked body and play on my own training, neither of us have a choice in this but the least I can do is try to make it easier on this woman by putting my training to good use. I walk casually toward her, a lazy fluid swagger that subliminally tells her that I’m in no hurry, that she’s lucky that I’ve chosen her. Once I am stood before her I lean over her smaller frame and whisper in her ear. “How do you want it?” I see her skin break out in goosebumps as she shivers at my provocative tone.
“Make it hard.” She says. I hesitate for only a moment before I remember why I have to do this.
“You better hold on to something.” I smirk. Grabbing the back of her neck I swing her around and force her to bend over the bed. Her breath catches as she grasps the mattress on the other side, her hair hides her face from me but the goosebumps covering her tanned skin tells me she likes this. My dick is hard, it seems like it always is lately but her black hair is wrong, her dark eyes are wrong and her fullness is wrong. No choice. I shut myself off completely then and I let my body take control.
The water is too hot on my naked skin, it pelts down on my body like it’s on a mission to burn all of my skin off. I wish it would. Ivan says it will get easier, the more woman that I am with the more my body will go on autopilot when I’m with them, I should be able to get a woman off in my sleep he says. Sienna said I was perfect, I know she wasn’t blowing smoke up my ass, her job was to tell me what I needed to do to improve but she thought my technique was ‘flawless’, that ‘the dominant thing was really hot.’ I hadn’t meant to be dominant exactly but it just came naturally.
“Alexander!” I hear loud knocking follow that beautiful voice and my heart stutters before working triple time. Fuck, they hadn’t told me she was coming... I want to see her so fucking badly but I don’t know how I’ll be able to look her in the eye and lie by omission.
“I’ll be right out!” I yell over the water. I shut the off the tap, grabbing my black towel to wrap around my waist as I step out of the shower. I squeeze my eyes shut tightly as I walk to the sink, trying to get my shit together so I can face my girl. I just showered but I still end up washing my hands then I brush my teeth again trying to buy myself a little more time. Suck it up, Alex, I think to myself. l breath heavily through my nose, catching my reflection in the mirror I look at the face that I’ve come to hate more and more, feeling bitter for being born this way. I have dark brown hair and even darker eyes that give me an almost sinister quality, my nose is aquiline and my jaw is square and stubbled.. I look like a man so why do I feel like a scared little boy at the thought of facing the young girl waiting for me in our room? Jesus. I scrub my hands over my face waiting for an answer that will never come and wishing for a different life for us. A life of freedom and choices, is that too much to ask for? After a long breath I bend down and scoop up my black pants, pulling the cotton up sans underwear and tying the strings to keep them up, I grab a clean scrub top and pull it over my head I’m about to go out there when I remember my gun. I dig through my dirty clothes to find the Desert Eagle I was issued a few months ago, I usually have it checked when I know Ally will be with me but I wasn’t prepared to see her today. I don’t want to scare her or have her ask more questions so I hide it behind the extra toilet paper under the sink, making sure it’s fully hidden before opening the door to see the girl that I have missed with every beat of my heart, but it suddenly drops into my stomach at the sight of her hunched over, holding her stomach and crying.
“Ally, what’s wrong?” I ask as I rush over to her, dropping to my knees in front of her so I can look into her tear filled eyes.
“I-I think I’m dying.” She stutters. My brows furrows in confusion as I look her over, I don’t see anything that could be causing her distress but I see her face heat up when she looks away from me. “I’m bleeding.” She whispers.
“What? Where?” I’m panicked as I try to remove her arms from around her, thinking it may be her stomach but she fights me, I could easily overpower her but I don’t want to hurt her.
“It’s not my stomach.” She says almost inaudibly. I’m not catching on, and she seems more than reluctant to give me more information as I keep trying to figure out where it is she might be bleeding… until it hits me.
“Is it your period, Ally?” Please let it be her period. Ally looks back at my face but now it’s her face that shows confusion, she has no idea what I’m talking about and it makes me infuriated at the girls’ Handlers. As a trainee I had received an education that would probably beat most private schools but the Gift’s education has been minimal unless it's essential in providing a stimulation that we might enjoy from them, it also deepens our bonds to one another because we are responsible for teaching them the things that we want them to know, further forcing their dependence. It’s been something that I have enjoyed doing with Ally but it has also pissed me off that they see these girls as objects of entertainment rather than the human being that they are, I guess that explains the name that they were given- Gift, a thing that is given.
“You’re not dying, Angel.” I say softly. “It’s your period, every woman goes through it when they reach puberty.” It’s the first time I have ever had to explain this but I did have anatomy and sex education so hopefully I can help her understand, I should have thought of this sooner.
“I don’t understand... I’m going to bleed forever?” The confusion and fear in her voice makes me feel like crap, I should have thought to explain all of this before now. Shit. I need to get her more information.
“Come on.” I say softly.
I stand and grab her hand, pulling her out of her self-imposed shell. We are allowed to leave the room together since I became an Elite, I just can’t take her out of the underground facility. Ally and I were excited about the new freedom at first but now we rarely ever leave our room, we have no need to be around other people. I lead her down the white halls with the bright overhanging lights, if I didn’t know every inch of this place it would be extremely easy to get lost down here. Ally always says that it’s hard to believe that bright lights and white walls could be so depressing but when that is all you see day in and day out, it becomes almost painful to look at. I always agree with her so she’ll go on to tell me about all of the color that she’s going to have in our place if we are ever able to leave here. Ally is in the first generation of Gifts, I didn’t know that until last year when Ivan had let it slip, apparently Link had wanted a bigger motivation than currency for the Trainees to come back since it isn’t uncommon for them to go MIA after making enough money and thinking they knew enough to be able to slip out of detection, he also thought it would help us to keep a little bit of our humanity by allowing us to have the Gifts as a way to come down after a contract. The Guard finally agreed after having to kill an entire team who had tried to cut ties after being released after their 20th birthdays. Don’t get the wrong idea, released is just a term they use to signify the moving out of the Elites, we are able to move out of the facility when we are 20 years of age and into our own places, it’s a stupid word for it because it’s not so much a release as it is them giving us a longer chain to run around on… the only real form of release from The Guard is death. I’m not sure what their plan is with the Gifts when they release my team, it’s been on my mind a lot lately, I would never leave Ally behind, I don’t believe any of us would leave our girls. They would have to expect that so are they planning to force us to stay in this building forever? The uncertainty is what bothers me, I just want to know what to plan for and what to allow Allyanna to believe.
I knock on the glass door of our in house clinic and watch as Dr. Rachel turns toward us and smiles slightly at Ally, she doesn’t like the Elites very much so she tries to avoid us as much as possible. Someone should tell her that we didn’t have a choice in this life either, we didn’t choose our occupation any more than she did. She and Ally have had minor run in’s over the last couple years, a sprained ankle trying ballet and a cut on the palm of her hand while trying woodworking, she seems warm enough toward my girl so I guess she can’t be all bad.
“What can I do for you?” She asks through the speaker. I look down at Ally to answer then remember she has no clue what the hell I’m doing with her.
“We need a pamphlet on periods and maybe some pads?” I know about women’s periods only to the extent that they get them and they need to stop it from getting through their clothes... that’s about it. Ally nudges me a bit then looks around us as if she is afraid people will hear but I don’t understand her embarrassment, all women go through this, what is there to be ashamed of?
“Oh! Of course!” Dr. Rachel seems much more animated as she runs around her clinic, searching drawers to find what she needs, she places them in a paper sack then brings them to the slider on the side of the door to pass them through. “Congratulations on becoming a woman, Ally.” She smiles warmly at my girl as we gather the sack and head back to our room. Woman? I look down at her small frame looking for the changes that I may have missed the last couple of months but I don’t really see anything that could have alerted me that it was time for this talk.
When we get back to the room we both sit on our bed and read through the pamphlet, Ally is mortified about me knowing all of this but I reassure her over and over that I want to know all of this stuff, that there is nothing about her that could ever disgust me or make me feel differently about her. I mean every word.
“How long?” I ask, combing through her hair with my fingers as she lays by my side later in the evening. I know it won’t be long because I have a contract to fulfill but I want to be prepared.
“Tomorrow morning.” She answers sadly. I know she has been crying quietly because my shirt below her cheek is soaked with tears. I hate it. I hate when anything makes her cry but I especially loath that I can’t make it easier for her when I leave, I’ve tried.
“I’m surprised that they allowed it at all.” I think this is the first time that I wasn’t notified beforehand.
“Ivan cleared it after I told him that something was wrong, he said it would be good for us to be together, that’s why I thought that maybe I was dying.” I’ll have to remember to thank him for this time with her... then punch him in the face for letting her worry over such a small thing.
“Everything else okay?” When she doesn’t answer I pull her chin up from my chest so I can see her eyes, she can’t hide anything from me as long as I can see into those emerald eyes.
“Oh, you know, just the usual stuff... The Handlers keep forcing new stuff on me and Candace is still being mean but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” She smiles and tries to shrug it off but I know that Candace is a real problem for Ally, that little bitch has always had it out for my girl and if it weren't for Zeke I would probably have taken her out years ago, damn the consequences. “What about you? Anything you need to tell me?” I stiffen under her but I keep my face impassive when I reply.
“No, Angel. Same old stuff.”