The Bitter Aftertaste

Lying on my back, over his couch, I focused my eyes on the white ceiling and pretended I was elsewhere. And to ease the angry agitation rattling my bones, I'd throw a ball I found lying around – I'd throw it up, watch it swirl around itself before falling back down, and then I'd catch it again as it tried to land on my chest. Then I'd repeat it, each time paying attention to a different detail – the sound, the texture, the speed, the distance… still those intrusive thoughts wouldn't let me go. The first time I slept with Sycamore, I was blessed by exhaustion's release and remembered very little of how that night ended, and the awkwardness that followed. Today I had not been spared: Sycamore held me down against his desk and rocked me back and forth as he slid into me… His rhythm grew erratic, and at length he began to shudder, to move spasmodically and moan a muffled, moist moan… Two or three deep, long thrusts, and I realized he spilled himself inside me. The embarrassment of his breathing resuming its normality, of the calm satisfaction his face showed as he let me go, pulled out from inside me, and wiped his member on my undershirt… it all made my blood boil… It boiled still!

So this is what it was like to face him after sex: a turmoil of anger, embarrassment and that annoyingly pull, the lingering feeling of having felt him as I did; the tissues that had been touched, rubbed and pushed against burned in physiological memory, my legs were weak and trembling slightly, and – specially now – I had quite the pain in my lower stomach.

"Darling, I am glad you have found an amusement for yourself…" he spoke from his distance, sitting at his desk and reviewing a series of papers, occasionally scribbling a hurried note on them "…but the noise is quite distracting!"

I ignored the hint and continued with my joyless fun. Only when I saw by the corner of my eye that he had risen his head from his work to look at me, did I stop and looked at him back. He stared, expectantly – and I, challengingly: I scowled and threw the ball upwards again, with more strength. Sycamore sighed as if impatient and made a motion to push back his chair… that's when two small knocks echoed through the door.

"Professor Sycamore?" A voice followed, and soon after one of his assistants waltzed in.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but – Oh!!" The woman stopped on her tracks, surprised into silence by seeing me on the couch. Whatever that image invoked, it disconcerted her and prevented her from resuming proper speech.

"What is the point of knocking if you are not going to wait to barge in?" The Professor observed sharply, without raising his eyes from his desk.

"I...I'm sorry, I..." she lost her words, her eyes moving quickly from the professor to me, trying to make some sense out of that situation.

I looked her way in my annoyance and recognized her as the same assistant I had met before, – the first time I was left alone with him - the one that uttered that unfortunate comparison that would never leave my impression... specially now!

"Is… is everything o-"

"Miss Anne is feeling unwell at the moment and has decided to rest here for the remainder of the afternoon." The professor dryly interrupted, having noticed her lag and promptly attributing it to my presence there.

"I-is there something I can do for her?" She found her voice at length.

"I have it under control, but thank you!" he quickly replied, then raised his head to smile – probably remembering that his charming manipulation didn't work as well without faking one. It wasn't too effective though: his ill-humor leaked.

"Maybe I should call her mother..." she insisted.

"As I have said before, it is well under my control. Now what was it you came here to do again?" he inquired with the shallow smile he had put on for show.

The woman sighed. Her eyes looked into mine expressing something like "sorry, I tried!", which only made me more annoyed that she should see us there, and that she should know I had fallen, even though she tried to warn me against it. My pride had really started bleeding that day!!

"Johto's research director would like to schedule a meeting."

"Set it for tomorrow..." he busily replied, returning to his papers and his keyboard.

She nodded and left the room, stopping to throw one last peek my way, probably hoping I would explicitly ask for her rescue...

…I turned away, threw the ball up and down again. She closed the door, sealing both of us, privacy and smothering silence resumed, as if nothing else could reach us there.

I heard Sycamore's ball pen running through the paper… I heard the ball I tossed cutting the air.

"It is so curious..." he sighed out of the blue. I looked his way: bent over his desk, firm and pale fingers holding the pen with the usual gentleness they possessed… His lips were red – I had established they looked particularly so after kissing for too long – and the collar of his shirt was loosely open, dissipating the heat his chest possessed just an hour ago. How irresistibly beautiful he looked! How that unnerved me!

I figured he expected me to ask 'what?', so I returned to playing with the ball. His silence lingered a while longer, then he gave in:

"It is so curious that I should sense this."

I rolled my eyes.

"Aren't you going to ask what, dear?!" He smiled, looking in my direction.

"What?" I grumbled below my breath.

"This heavy hostility in the air! Do you not sense it, too?!" He mocked. I eyed him with anger, then resumed my boring distraction.

Sycamore's voice went on through the rustling of the dry paper sheets he handled:

"Curious that you should be the one emitting it when it is I who have all the reasons to be upset!"

I caught the ball with particular hardness as it fell down this time, and turned to him:

"What reasons do you have?!!" I inquired.

"Why, the same as before: There is this little girl who has shamelessly escaped me, who hasn't even repented, and who plans on doing so again very soon..." he chuckled to himself, as if it was cute and pitiful at the same time. "what do you feign are your reasons?" he casually asked.

I went back to throwing the ball, sulking: I knew he only asked because he wanted to hear me talk about what he had done to me – which would probably only excite his perversion more and tease him into reassuring he did only what I inwardly desired, resorting to descriptions of what happened as proof to his point!

"Dear me!" he sighed "Did one as smart as you really think you could vanish as you did, and get away with it completely unscathed?!"

"You are so cynical it hurts!" I ground my teeth. He laughed, amused by my anger.

No wonder I was so eager to escape the first time he bedded me – again, my decision was justified and I regretted nothing: his voice afterwards possessed a slightly higher tone, carrying a full feeling of entitlement and impenetrable, overjoyed confidence. His laugh was too freely expressed, too deeply felt, almost mockingly in an intimate way.

"Come now, you darling thing! Let's not exchange injuries! Tell me at once: why are you so angry?! Do you resent my sullying of your shirt? Forgive me, but it was only natural for me to assume you'd retreat to my house for a shower and a change of clothes!"

The insinuation, the subject… all of it made me angry and bashful!

"Have I assumed wrong?" he probed "…Why! Are you going to be comfortable, dear? Resuming your journey and going your way when I've…" and a malicious chuckle sufficed to illustrate his thoughts.

I scowled, clenched my jaw, tossed the ball harder!

"Suit yourself!" he mocked, then resumed his writing.

Silence – my silence – began choking me. I tried to endure it, held it in… but eventually it bubbled up to the surface, and I couldn't help me:

"You've raped me!"

It took so much courage… so much strength to say those words, and yet how little impact they caused! Sycamore didn't stir… he didn't move, nor was he shocked by the accusation. The corner of his mouth merely moved with a short smile, his eyes barely distracted from the paper he perused when he dismissed me so lightly:

"Nonsense, dear. You can't rape something that is yours!"

What a sting! What a smart! It made me want to get up and punch him!

"Come now, I'll indulge you…" he dropped his pen and sighed, as if I was a bother "What makes you use so strong a word?"

"Because you've… you've…" I grimaced, my scowl twitching at the peak of my anger. "You've made me..." I now looked for a word that didn't sound awfully embarrassing, awfully descriptive… The images ran through my mind, taunting me, making the air grow thinner. Sycamore pushed his chair back, got up, walked slowly towards me.

"You made me..." I chased the anger back trying to finish it.

"...scream, perhaps?!" he laughed near me "moan, definitely!"

I threw the ball hard, wishing that it would hit the ceiling loud enough to make everyone in the building wonder what happened, but he held it in the air, bent down to observe me from above and smiled, challenging me to fight him. It took me a few seconds to recover from the paralysis his blue eyes inflicted once so near, and then I pushed him away, stretched my arm trying to reach for the ball... he held my wrist.

"Say whatever you will to that busy, paranoid brain of yours: your body disagrees through and through!" he smiled condescendingly, smugly, teasing me into rage.

"No!" I fought angrily, pulling back my arm. He grabbed it again in both hands this time, and sat on the couch next to me, seizing the bracelet from my wrist.

"I would prove it to you again since you appear so bent on disputing my veracity... but I won't, for you might murder me if I try!" he chuckled, too busy pulling out my mega-ring to notice me blush and give up on the fight "Now please lend me this, if you will." And he returned to his desk, where he sat and observed it under the light of his lamp, moving it from one side to the other. I blushed from the unexpected embarrassment of being left alone when I thought he would… well! He took notes on his papers, aloof again. My anger burned unheard… then it subdued into an annoyed curiosity:

"What are you doing?!"

"I wonder if I can calculate the amount of energy this thing can conduct, based on its size and structure..." he scribbled on.

"Find a way to make it work while you're at it!" I grumpily added, lying back on the couch.

"I might learn a thing or two, it is true... If I set my mind to it, I might uncover some news for you. That is, if you really do want it..." he talked while he worked, visibly absorbed. Then his eyes left the papers for a second and quickly flashed my way. His voice changed "...perhaps if you drop by my residence tonight? I might have some answers for you then..."

I expected a smirk to follow, so I could mock his poorly-subtle attempt at taking me back to his house, but there was none: he genuinely tried to trick me into returning to his house, and during the proposal his eyes dodged mine with more anxiety than usual about the effectiveness of his attempt. My heart skipped a beat: the solid suspicion that he might actually lock me inside if given another opportunity hit me, and it made me instantly desperate to leave.

He laughed to himself, possibly detecting the loud noise of my shortened breath.

"It's alright, darling. I shall even be as cliché as to promise not to bite..."

I sat up on the couch, feeling slightly uncomfortable. I was used to his flirtations and plots, but this one sounded strangely ominous – because for a second, I sensed his anxiety. And why would Sycamore be anxious? It implied more important consequences than just another night like the first one we had... Something bigger was at stake, bigger than that which he had already so easily achieved. What was he plotting? What would happen, if I obeyed him?

"Maybe this time you would be so polite as to stay until morning? Learning I won't devour you for breakfast, but rather seeing me eat like regular people do, might make you less reluctant to come to me..."

Sycamore stopped what he was doing to examine me. My face betrayed it – I looked too disturbed.

"...or even drive away that infantile ghost that haunts you." he walked up to me and sat by my side. I stiffened – he smiled.

"Now, this is much better, is it not?" His hand slid its way to my nape, where the fingers played against my skin.

I allowed myself to close my eyes for a second. His voice grew softer, leaning closer to my ears.

"A little Anne that doesn't stare at me with hatred, but rather looks away in timid denial..."

His palm held the side of my face that looked away, pulled it back against his warm lips and soft breath, kissed my cheek...

"One that doesn't try so eagerly to resist me..." he grabbed me by the back of the knees, pulling me to his legs. Once on his lap, it felt like all I could do to faintly try to stop him from ruling over my nerves and dictating their sensations was to hold my arms together against my chest.

Sycamore effectively detected that, and pulled them apart, smiling as he broke down my defenses, finding them to be not hard at all. He wrapped his arm around me, pressed me to his chest and brushed his lips against my face, landing a kiss here and there.

"And you are that good a girl inside, dearest..." he murmured to my ear as his hand pressed tightly against my thighs, teasing its feelings "beneath all this lying and all this denying that you put up to try and impress me." He kissed my mouth, lightly pressing my lips between his teeth "I know you from the inside now, Anne dear... And there are things you can conceal from yourself, but no longer from me..."

My body was hot again – the all too fresh sensations burning deeply and intensely now that the same string was pulled... However, there was something missing: His hands pressed, caressed and held me... but they failed to gently move my body against him as they usually did in situations as such. His voice was perhaps more involving than it had been before – the smile he enjoyed sounded clearer through it. Though foggy under the influence of his hands, my neurons managed to make it out: Sycamore was pretty satisfied himself, now only deriving a more behaved, moderate amusement from playing and controlling me.

"And if you promise to cease this silly war you have started against me for pride's sake, I promise I won't inquire any further..."

"I-inquire?" My eyes opened lazily, he looked deeply into them:

"Yes – Inquire!" His lips hovered close to mine as his hand gently, yet firmly gripped the hair on the back of my head and held my face close to his "...make you tell me everything you hide inside that silly young heart of yours, in the most sordid details... For I can do it if I wish to..."

My body shook, he smirked, capturing this feeling, too. "...How about it, dearest? You keep your immoral little secrets and all those compromising words you are so embarrassed of..." His fingers held my face, ran down my neck, as if he collected them right there: "Love, devotion... enthrallment... I won't wring them out of your lips. In exchange, you will give yourself to me – freely, though with a little nervous fit here and there, for I love them too – as it was before..."

Here I realized it wasn't simply for his amusement that he toyed with me. One hand held me firmly by the back of the neck to maintain the spell, the other slid down, subtly, to the pocket of his coat, from which he drew my Pokédex.

"A fair deal, wouldn't you say so?!" he deviously smiled, offering me the device "Come, dear..." He pressed his lips to mine in a hard peck, sealing the electricity inside as I longed for more "won't you take it?"

As with mostly all the rest, he impressed the consent upon me with his kiss, and as I closed my eyes, his hand casually opened my bag and placed the Pokédex inside. The Professor then proceeded to kissing me harder, closer and for longer - like he had made me crave for - in a way of reward. He kissed me and embraced me until I was numb, like a never-ending, never-relenting torture... but it did end, and it was only more frustrating: he smiled me the smile I hated... the one that said he knew I loved him!

As I left his lab, Professor Sycamore tried to coerce me into going to his house with him that evening. Fortunately the dread I had felt was sufficient to pull me back to function before he could take me, and I instead agreed to having lunch with him in three days' time – when he calculated I would have gone through Snowbelle city and earned my last gym badge. I bargained that it would have to be in a café – of course, stating only that I felt like going to one, instead of 'no way I will be alone with you', and he responded with a pleased remark that I was "finally bringing myself to asking him for stuff", as it apparently gave him some sort of higher-level claim over me... Perhaps it made whatever was going on between us a little more official, a little less like abuse? I hardly knew how to read him anymore...