Outside

It was only when she got angry that she would make him suffer as much as he wanted to suffer. So although he didn't want to make her angry, he was constantly making her angry, in some kind of way, and he was being rewarded for that, and that meant it would never end. Claire was tired of being angry. Anger was energizing, but then afterward, exhausting. It left scars.

She couldn't help loving him. It was something he'd done to her, a scab of guilt he picked at constantly, telling her how sorry he was for having done that to her. Apologizing for it and by so doing, arousing both his own shame, and her frustration, her anger yet again. That was another thing that would never end. Actually, it was a part of the same thing.

Even though it was something he'd done to her, though, she couldn't help loving him. It was a hungry kind of love. She craved his blood, all the time, though too much made her sick. Even when she wasn't angry, for the blood, she enjoyed cutting him. And it didn't really hurt him that much - his skin was smooth and cool as marble, and nearly as unfeeling, though the layers of flesh underneath were sensitive to a twist of the blade. And she loved to touch him, when his skin was unyielding, cover him in ice and then slide her body along the iciness. If she kept his body, and especially his mouth, immobile, so he could not bite - she could do as she liked and he would only thank her afterward. And when she did let him bite - but she had to be careful with that, though it felt so good...

When he made her angry, though, she would burn him. The scars from that lasted days on him, yet still longer inside her. If she was not quite that angry, she would taunt him with the fire, but not apply it. And when rage held her in its tightest grip - when she wanted to hurt him most, but wanted him out of her sight - then she wrapped him with carefully placed exposure and set him to await the dawn. Blindfolded, to protect his sight, and so that the first notice he got of the sun's anathemical presence was the pain.

He'd put himself through so many dawns that he knew when the time came to retreat from the sun's countenance. Now, though, only as she compelled. Even that was a source for her anger. She thought about freeing him to choose for himself - but she could not. What he'd done to her would not allow that. Her love would not allow that. She feared, she knew, that if she did allow him the choice, he'd let the sun burn him so much he might never waken - partly out of his own desire and self-despite, partly to punish her for not doing what he wanted, for slacking in her duty to control his suffering.

What, then, she thought, as she rolled the possibles around in her mind. A vision of him wrapped and next to the window with eastern exposure came to mind... blindfolded and restrained... the blinds coming down to block it. Him denied his pain. That could work; she'd have to nail down the details though. Nails. More ideas filled her imagination. She let them carry her away, enjoying the respite.