Thrust and Release

Whenever Peter was pissed off, he walked.

The activity allowed him a chance to think--to distance himself from whatever it was that he was angry about. The length of the walks varied: a minor annoyance might be a walk of a half kilometer or so, being ridiculed by his fellow Death Eaters might warrant on two two to three kilometers.

He was now on kilometer five, having recently fought with the bitch, as he had taken to calling her recently.

If he gained nothing else from his experience with the woman, he thought ruefully, it would be nicely sculpted calves.

Calm down, Peter said to himself as he pulled his coat tightly around himself. The air was nippy and the wind chapped his cheeks as he plowed ahead through the snow. She\'s in terrible pain right now and has every right to be upset.

She took it out on me, he thought. I\'m tired of being her personal doormat--I\'m bloody tired of it! He kicked a can lying in the center of the sidewalk.

You\'re the only one to whom she can vent! Once she\'s calmed down a bit, you can reason with her.

Reasoning with her is like reasoning with a mule! I don\'t want to reason with her anymore. I just want to be rid of her!

You don\'t mean that.

Yes I do.

You love her.

No, not anymore I don\'t. Peter slipped on a patch of ice and nearly fell.

If that were the case, you\'d not be thinking about her right now.

\"I DON\'T LOVE HER ANYMORE!\"

\"Well, friend,\" spoke a voice. \"If indeed you don\'t love her anymore, perhaps you could love me for a while?\"

Peter looked up.

\"Over here,\" said the voice.

Peter gazed into the alley and into the brown eyes of a petite young blond wearing a long overcoat. She leaned against a wall, trying to smoke a cigarette and failing. She took a long drag and proceeded to cough heavily. Glancing back at Peter, she straightened herself up and made eye contact with him.

\"Who are you?\" he asked, stepping into the alley.

\"My name\'s Ivy, mate.\" She attempted another drag on her cigarette. This time, she was more successful, and managed to blow a smoke ring, before another coughing fit seized her; she threw the butt to the ground and stepped on it. \"I\'d like to give you a dose of holiday cheer!\" She then proceeded to unbutton her , lo, lowering her gaze as she did so. Underneath she wore only short black miniskirt and a push up bra.

\"Fitting for the day, your name,\" Peter said sardonically. He doubted highly that \'Ivy\' was her true name. Most likely an alias, given her probable occupation. rac rack she has there though, he thought with a degree of admiration. Not as nice as Tessa\'s, but perky nonetheless…

\"A little ch--chilly to be walking around without any c--clothes on, don\'t you think?\"

The wiry woman wrapped the overcoat around herself once more and shivered slightly. \"I\'m never out here for very long, especially on the holidays. I seem to have something the men want,\" Ivy sta

\"Ah,\" said Peter.

\"So what\'ll it be? Twenty for a blow, forty to fuck me against the wall, but for one hundred you get me in a room and the condom of your choice,\" she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a vast assortment of prophylactics in various colors, textures and sizes.

Peter mentally rolled his eyes. \"You\'re b--barely an adult and not in my league, sweetheart!\" he said. \"Why don\'t go hgo home and play with your d--dolls?\"

Ivy crossed her arms over her chest and blew air through her poorly rouged lips, feeling quite stung by Peter\'s comment. \"If I\'m such a little girl, what\'s that all about?\" she asked with adolescent defiance, pointing at the bulge in his trousers.

Peter shifted where he stood.

\"I can give you what she never will,\" Ivy insisted.

\"No, I don\'t think you c--can,\" Peter said, backing away.

\"I assure you that I can,\" Ivy stated. \"After all, a twat is a twat in the dark. They\'re all pretty much the same.\"

Gah, thought Peter.

\"You\'re r--rather a cheeky wench.\"

\"And I\'m out of your life entirely unless you\'d rather partake in one of the seven deadly sins with me. Come on, now, I haven\'t all day! I want money, and you obviously want sex. What\'s it going to be?\"

The image of Tessa screaming at him flickered across Peter\'s brain. He could almost hear her yelling at him, putting him down once more. A flame of anger ignited in his soul as he looked to the prostitute before him. Her body began to change and, for a moment, it was Tessa standing there, her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing, her lips quivering with ire.

\"You don\'t have the stones,\" said the Tessa-who-was-not.

\"What if I do?\" Peter asked through clenched teeth.

\"Beg your pardon?\" queried Ivy.

Instead of answering her, Peter gripped her forearm as tightly as he could. \"We\'re going to find a hotel,\" he snarled.

\"I want the money first,\" Ivy stated.

\"You\'ll get the money when I s--say you get the money,\" Peter snarled, his voice like ice.

It was in that moment that Ivy wished that she had never spoken to the man. Despite her feeling that she was in over her head, however, she allowed herself to be led down the alleyway to a cheap, seedy hotel that advertised rooms by the hour. Aed-led-looking clerk took Peter\'s money and handed him a key without looking up from his magazine. Peter half-dragged the girl up the stairs and to the room. After he unlocked the door, he pushed the girl inside and slammed the door behind him.

The room was nothing special--a double bed against the wall, a dim bulb swinging from a ceiling connection, a small chest of drawers by the lavatory, where, without looking, Peter knew a Gideon Bible rested. How ironic, Peter thought. Those Gideons--redeeming the souls of the world one hotel Bible at a time! There would be no s res redeemed in this room today, although, he thought briefly, seeing 3:1 3:16 in over forty languages was rather amusing.

As she watched Peter pondered over the bible, the prostitute walked over to the bed and bounced upon it nervously. This man was beginning to give her the willies. Despite her outward appearance of being street-wise and saucy, inside she was beginning to panic. Her pimp would be pissed off if she returned from her first night on the job sans cash. Her prospect was examining the damned Gideon Bible as if it was a priceless artifact.

\"So are we going to have a bibledy ody or are we going to get it on?\" she asked, removing her trench coat.

Peter clapped the book shut and dropped it with a bang on the desk. For a moment, he ly sly stared at it, and then, ever so slowly, he turned to Ivy. \"You d--don\'t make the rules, my dear; that\'s not how it works,\" Peter said. \"You don\'t get a say, b--because what you want doesn\'t matter.\"

But even as he spoke, he wondered whether he was speaking to the prostitute or to himself.

He took in the sight of her sitting on the lumpy mattress: her eyes made up too heavily, her left stocking sporting a hole just above the knobby knee, her tiny breasts so undeveloped that she saw fit to enhance them with the push-up bra and shuddered. Is this what it had come down to for him? Sex with women barely of age in squalid hotels?

The young woman bouncing childishly on the bed interrupted his thoughts.

\"I want to be paid up front,\" Ivy said, her lower lip beginning to tremble slightly. This man was definitely out in left field and beginning to scare her. Why was he making her job so hard? Her friends had told her that this work was so easy: convince the client to take you to a hotel, lay on the bed, spread your legs and they\'re done within five minutes or so…ten at most. Money would change hands and the client would be on his happy way. Instead, her particular client was making cryptic remarks and eyeing her up in a manner that made her skin crawl.

\"I want to see what I\'m p--paying for,\" Peter said, almost robot-like.

\"Show me the money,\" Ivy said, sliding slowly from the bed and taking a tentative step in Peter\'s direction. She removed the bra and stood before him topless, her tiny breasts barely more than small bumps against her bony torso.

\"Clever,\" Peter demurred. He pulled out a small stack of bills and placed it on the bedside table. \" As you can see, I\'m more than a--adequately prepared to pay you, although I feel it fair to w--warn you that I e--expect satisfactory service. Are you a virgin?\"

\"I can be if that\'s what you want,\" Ivy answered, paling slightly. Her experience was limited; a virgin she was not, but she was not exactly overworked, either.

\"If the money\'s there, you\'ll get it,\" Ivy said, her brown eyes staring hard at him.

In two steps, Peter was in front of her, his face drawn with rage. His silver hand flashed forward, grabbed her chin and tilted her it upwards so that her eyes were forced to look into his. \"First things first. You do n--not make eye contact with me. Ever.\" Immediately, the young woman looked downward.

Ivy nodded dumbly. She reached towards Peter, her long fingers shaking slightly as she began to fumble with the buttons on his shirt.

\"No,\" he said, \"the shirt stays!\"

\"What sort of tosser are you?\" Ivy asked, now irritated, as well as scared. If she left now, she thought, she could have a new client in a half-hour.

\"The k--kind that\'s going to teach you your rightful place,\" he hissed, grabbing Ivy by the arm and pushing her to the bed.

Clothing was removed in a flash (with the exception of Peter\'s shirt, which he refused to remove), niceties ignored, no words spoken, as he preferred it that way. Before he realized what he was doing, Peter found himself slipping his belt off and tying the woman\'s hands to the bedstead with it. Silencing charms were placed on the room and Peter placed him palms flat against the headboard, eyes to the wall. A wallpaper pattern of ugly violets met his gaze, but he didn\'t look away.

He didn\'t want to look at her. That would indicate that he might care.

He did not care.

He wanted to hurt, to destroy, and to purge himself of her.

Her…

From somewhere far away he could hear the prostitute…the voice confident at first, urging him on as he forced himself into her tight, dry anceance, but as the act progressed further, it became desperate and pleading. Cries of pain, begging him to stop went unheeded. His anger did not dissipate; instead it grew…grew…until he heard that her voice was no longer controlled…until it was a moan of pain.

Then, and only then, did Peter look at her. Instead of the face of a prostitute barely of legal age, Tessa\'s face assailed his vision. She was smiling nastily at him, mocking him. Peter spoke to her, roughly and coldly:

\"I told you I was out of your league, little girl. You\'re going to work for your hundred pounds!\"

You\'re the biggest bitch I have ever known, Tessa, and sometimes I just want to push you up against a wall and give you a taste of your own medicine!

No kind and loving words for you, Tessa, just sex--hot and dirty--my mouth on yours would silence your cries…oh the joy of shutting you up by sticking my tongue in your mouth…the thought makes my heart sing!

You\'d fight me at first, of course…after all; you\'d feel the need to be loyal to Harry. But it wouldn\'t take long before you were grinding yourself against me, desperate to impale yourself upon me and just when you couldn\'t stand the waiting anymore…oh…

You would rather defend your sorry excuse for a husband\'s actions than dream of leaving him for me. You never dismiss the opportunity to throw how much you love him and only him in my face at every turn, despite the fact that he was fucking another woman, for the love of Christ!

You\'ll never listen to me. If Peter says it, it can\'t be true, right? However, if Harry would say these things to you, you\'d believe it as bloody gospel…

You\'ll never believe in me! It doesn\'t matter what I do or what I say because in the end, you will never love me!

I hate you. I hate the way you look at me, with your eyes full of arrogant superiority and condemnation. You don\'t understahat hat I\'ve done…the bad things I\'ve done…how it is that I\'m here...

Do you realize that Voldemort is never going to let your daughter live if Harry doesn\'t come for you?

She\'ll die in her crib, gray and sweating, her limp body lying helplessly on the sheets, her mouth slack.