Hard Corps (4 page)

‘Jean, shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Oh, don’t I? So you deny that you were told to drop and do thirty push-ups? And that he kicked your ass each time you lifted up? And then you left with your new guy and went back to his room? Do you deny it?’

‘How the fuck do you know all that?’ I exploded, completely taken aback by her total knowledge of my whereabouts and behaviour. Did she peep through Jacob’s window, too? Jean laughed derisively.

‘I have my sources,’ was all she said, grinning smugly. I felt my right fist curling into itself, as my body tensed in pleasurable anticipation of knocking her flat on her ass.

‘Move it, girls. This isn’t time for chit-chat.’ Joan, the assigned cadet company officer of our barracks for the month, was all business. She insinuated herself between us, breaking up any possible fight as she folded her arms, each elbow pushing us apart. She was the one responsible if Sergeant Roster decided there were any problems at inspection.

I realised how stupid it was as I made myself take a deep breath. I forced my body to unwind, to relax its fighting stance. I would deal with Cadet Dillon another day. Jean turned away, but not before I heard her hiss, ‘Coward.’ I bit my lip; she wasn’t worth it.

Inspection went reasonably well. Roster seemed preoccupied and in a hurry to get it over with. She found a few things to fault, just to keep us on our toes, but in a matter of minutes she had swept out of the room with her usual theatrical flourish.

‘Maybe she’s got a date,’ one of the girls suggested, as we congratulated ourselves on getting off so easy this time.

‘A date?’ said Joan. ‘I didn’t even know she was a woman. I thought she was an army-issue robot.’ We all laughed, but I was still badly shaken by Jean’s spying on me. It was study period, so I grabbed my books and headed for the computer rooms.

The days passed quickly after that. My classes took a lot of my time and I enjoyed the challenge of college studies. With a major in computer science and a minor in English Literature, I was plenty busy. I got into the habit of rising very early, just as the sun was spilling over the windowsill each morning, so that I could study before PT (physical training) and classes, leaving me more free time after school for Jacob.

After that first time together, I had raised the obvious concern of birth control. Jacob said he despised condoms. They ruined the spontaneity, he said. At his strong suggestion, I went to the university clinic and got birth control pills. I was embarrassed when I was called in to see the examining doctor. He was a heavy-set man with a double chin. I was subjected to a perfunctory and unpleasant gynaecological exam, attended by a sour-faced, middle-aged nurse who glared disapprovingly at me throughout. I was then told to dress and come to his office to ask any questions I might have.

I decided to cut to the chase; this whole thing was wearing on my nerves. ‘I’d like to get birth control pills, sir.’

‘So.’ The doctor leaned back, ducking his head so that the two chins became at least four. ‘I presume you are sexually active?’ He waited, looking bored, his eyebrows raised in an imitation of interest.

The question, which I felt was unnecessary, embarrassed me. But dutifully I answered, ‘Yes, sir,’ half expecting him to launch into a lecture about promiscuity. Instead, to my vast relief, he simply pulled a pen from his lab coat and scribbled something on a prescription pad. Tearing it off with something of a flourish, he pushed it across the desk to me.

I reached forward and took the little piece of paper, half feeling it might disintegrate if I didn’t grab hold of it right away. I stood, thanking the doctor. He nodded, adding a final warning not to skip a day.

I told Jacob that night that I had gotten the contraception. He was pleased, though his remark was something less than romantic. ‘Thank God for that. Last fucking thing I need is a kid!’

Still, Jacob’s magnetism was undeniable. He wasn’t like any boyfriend I had ever had. We didn’t talk much about our lives or our dreams. Really, we didn’t talk much at all. Whenever I had free time, I would come to his room and knock softly on the door. After a moment, he would open it just enough to let me slip through. Sometimes, before even saying hello, he would press me up against the door and, taking my head in his hands, roughly kiss me until I was panting and ready for more.

Often he would stay fully clothed, or almost so, but I was always naked. I would stand in the middle of his room, arms loose at my sides, as he unbuttoned my uniform. I would stay still as he slid the heavy, cotton clothing from my body, leaving only my T-shirt, bra, and panties. He would lift my arms above my head, smiling at me as he pulled the T-shirt up and off, and then unhooked my bra.

For a girl who had spent her life to that point denying or at least hiding her femininity, Jacob’s domineering treatment of me had a curiously freeing affect. Somehow he made me feel beautiful, feminine, sexy, in a way no boy I had been with had ever managed. I felt completely sexual, completely vulnerable and open to him. It was electrifying. It was almost terrifying, but too much fun to be really scary.

At first he made gentle, careful love to me, taking his time and making sure I was completely satisfied. I was no longer even the slightest bit shy: I wanted to be fucked. I craved to be used and sated and spent like someone’s fuck-toy.

As the days passed, he started adding some twists to the game. Sometimes he would hold my wrists over my head while he forced my thighs apart with his knee. Then he would take me, sometimes roughly, making me cry out. I found it oddly thrilling when he did this, like he was some medieval knight claiming his prize. It never occurred to me to protest: he was my mentor, my teacher, my experienced lover. I accepted everything he did without question. I didn’t want to think about it, really. I just wanted it, all of it.

Though it seemed in some ways as if we had always been together, really it had only been a few months, with meetings taking place only several times a week. A cadet’s time is not her own, for the most part. I thought I was falling in love with Jacob, and assumed he was with me, though neither of us ever said as much. Then one day, things changed.

We had just spent an idle first few minutes, getting naked and snuggling together. Suddenly Jacob covered my mouth with one hand, grabbing my wrists in the other. Then, without warning or provocation, he slapped my cheek, hard. I gasped from the sting and the shock of his action. Twisting under him, I pulled away and managed to get free of him. Jacob was on me, all at once. He threw me back on the bed and pinned me flat with his body.

‘Going to fight me, are you?’ he said in a low voice, breathing hard from his exertions.

‘Jacob, stop it! You’re scaring me. I don’t like this. Let me go.’ My heart was pounding. I felt a rush of adrenaline not unlike the feeling I get when competitively cycling or wrestling, but with a definite sexual overlay.

‘You don’t like this? I think you do.’ Jacob’s voice was insistent, harsh. As he spoke, I felt his fingers entering and opening my pussy. He brought his fingers to my face then, smearing my juices along the cheek still hot from his slap, and on to my lips. I turned my head away, humiliated and embarrassed, yet, at the same time, secretly and intensely thrilled.

‘Jacob! No! Stop it!’ I started to struggle again, as much to distract him and myself from my own arousal at this treatment, as to escape.

‘No, Remy. You stop. I want you to stop resisting me. I want you to submit. Enough of these games. I’ve given you time. I know what you’re made of, slut girl. You can handle this. Don’t offer the coy little virgin shit anymore. We both know better. I want you to let go, to surrender all your inhibitions. To take it for me. To suffer. For me.’

As he spoke, he gripped my wrists tightly, while his other hand found my pussy and began to tease and caress me until I was moaning with desire. I didn’t understand what he was saying at the moment. This certainly wasn’t suffering. It was surrender, of that there was no doubt. And even though at the time I refused to focus on the meaning of his words, I understood the intent. He wanted to drive me wild with lust, and he was doing just that. And because I was held captive (though I admit now I could have probably gotten away if I had really wanted to), I was suddenly free to feel it all, without worrying about how I appeared to him.

‘Spread your legs, whore.’ His voice was low, insistent.

I felt a curious mixture of embarrassment and lust. It was stronger than anything I had ever experienced. Obediently I spread my legs, my naked pussy pouting and opening. I could smell my own musty desire.

‘That’s right, slut. You want it, don’t you? You need it, don’t you? You need what I give you?’ When I didn’t answer, he took my chin in his hand, forcing me to look at him. ‘Answer me, slut.’

Part of me hated him, but most of me adored what was happening. ‘Yes, sir, yes!’ I admitted it, not understanding what magic he was weaving, but just giving in finally and totally to what he offered. I was rewarded with his fingers again, opening my pussy, leaving lines of swirling, aching pleasure over my body. Liquid fire was pumping through my veins. I was falling into a perfect darkness, waiting and desperate for the shock of stars that would be my release. I was so close to coming and so intent on doing so that I cried out with a little whimper of dismay when, suddenly, his hands were gone from my body.

I felt the sting on my cheek; Jacob had slapped me again! My eyes, which had been shut in blissful sexual abandon, flew open with shock and surprise. He was sitting back on his heels, straddling my still-spread legs, looking intently at me.

His expression wasn’t loving, or even lustful. It seemed distant, even angry. ‘What? What is it? Why did you slap me? What’s wrong with you?’ I asked, trying to close my legs, suddenly self-conscious of my lewd and wanton display.

‘I don’t want you to come, slut. Not yet.’ He held me in position, hands over my head, my naked body completely exposed to him. I could still feel the heat pulsing through my swollen, needy sex. My wrists were still caught in his grip so I couldn’t even touch the heated folds and offer myself some relief.

‘What?’ Anger was beginning to take over the confusion and arousal I had felt.

‘You heard me, Remy. I don’t want you to come. I want you to learn some self-control. I want you to learn what it is to wait, to suffer.’

I stared at him, refusing to comprehend.

With a sigh he let go of my wrists and pulled away from me. ‘Remy, we have been making love for over a month now. You come to my room and let me fuck you every day.’ I blushed and ducked my head, but he didn’t seem to notice. ‘And I have enjoyed it, and enjoyed teaching you the pleasures of the body. But there is so much more, Remy. There is so much more we can experience together if you let me take you there. I like you. I see enormous potential in you. I want to claim you.’

I sat up, hugging my knees, still confused and still flushed with my unrequited desire. More than anything, I was terribly hurt by his little phrase, ‘I like you’, which he seemed to throw in almost as an afterthought. I had thought we were in love; in my eighteen-year-old mind, when you became lovers, it meant you were in love. But he only ‘liked’ me, maybe only because I ‘let him fuck me’.

I tried to mask my confusion with bravado. ‘What the hell are you trying to say, Jacob? What more is there? What do you mean, claim me? This isn’t the Dark Ages, you know. People don’t just go around claiming other people, for crying out loud.’

‘Don’t they? Are you sure you know so much about it?’ He was smiling as he spoke, but his eyes had a steely expression that I hadn’t seen before. I felt a shiver go through me; this was a side of Jacob I hadn’t seen and didn’t understand. He continued, his voice quiet, though his eyes were blazing.

‘I want to explore with you. There is something about you — I sensed it from the moment we met — something ready to yield, ready to taste a new world. You are almost all potential right now, untapped. I want to exploit that potential. I want to mould you, to use you, to create you.’ He was staring at me as he spoke, his voice suddenly husky with intensity.

‘Remy,’ he said, leaning toward me, grabbing me by the throat so I could barely breathe. ‘I want to teach you to submit.’

Now he was scaring me. I pulled at his hands, trying to get up and away from him. As I twisted and pushed at him, he let me go suddenly, and I fell back on the bed, panting to catch my breath.

I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. I lashed out. ‘What are you, some kind of pervert? What the fuck are you talking about? Me, submit? Oh, you think you have me all figured out. It’s always been my dream to be someone’s sex object, sir.’ My voice was heavy with sarcasm. He was scaring me, though not only because of what he was saying and doing. It was my own reaction that scared me most. Here I was, feminist tomboy cadet who had made it into one of the most rigorous programmes in the country, and I was turned on by a guy who wanted me to be his sex slave, for God’s sake! It was really more to deny myself than him that made me respond so harshly. But Jacob didn’t know that, couldn’t see how much of my response was generated by fear. He recoiled at my words, at my biting tone. There was to be no second chance.

‘Get out, Remy. I must have been wrong. You’re not ready yet. This is my fault. Maybe I thought you were something you’re not. Maybe I want something you aren’t able to give.’ His voice was cold. He was standing, already pulling up his khakis, his face averted from me.

My heart was pounding. At the time I chalked it up totally to anger at his cruel treatment of me, but in truth there was more to it. I wasn’t ready to know that yet, though. I focused instead on my bruised ego. He had told me to go. Tears were threatening to erupt but I wasn’t going to give the crazy bastard the satisfaction.

‘Listen,’ I said through clenched teeth, pulling on my clothes as fast as I could. ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, or what’s going on here, but I don’t think I want to be a part of it. Anyway, I’ve got to get to PT.’ It was a stupid parting statement, but I hadn’t had much time to rehearse. I ran out the door, still buttoning my uniform blouse. Jacob didn’t try to stop me; he didn’t say another word.