"In words?" Ulquiorra frowned severely, his still-empty eye socket darkening further, a look of irritation crossing his face. "You seem determined to speak in riddles. How else would you explain something?"

Orihime averted her face from his gaze. "Well… just… you know. By showing. Doing."

He sat down on the bed and regarded her, raising his eyebrows. "So if I saw you washing your hair, that would show me what you meant with your cryptic comment about 'overriding' experience?"

She sighed. "Not exactly. I was thinking more… " She frowned. "When you're hurt, when you're being hurt, you can numb yourself, you know. Go somewhere else. So you don't feel anything. But it still happened. Happens."

Orihime's eyes moved to her hands, plucking nervously at the bedclothes. "I was thinking… it's better to—write over it." She shook her head in frustration. The same thing, but different." The wanted touch to wick the others away.

Orihime was never the most articulate explicator of her own thoughts, of course; and right now she was suffering under another burden. Her hips shifted awkwardly on the bed, the maddening salve still performing its cruel work in and on her sex. Ulquiorra's eyes registered the movement there and rose to her face.

"You're still in discomfort. That concoction should be removed at once if the healing's complete."

She hadn't yet made him understand, and if he touched her there again, she would be all demonstration. She knew it. The girl gave a small moan of protest, flushing crimson. "No…"

Ulquiorra snorted. "Well. I see that you're not averse to Grantz's products after all. Is that what you mean then? Is this the equivalent of washing your hair?"

Orihime blew out her breath in frustration, shaking her head vigorously. "No, no. That's not…" Suddenly she stopped and looked at him. "Yes. It is, actually. When you were doing it—I didn't feel the way I felt with… in the room, there."

She cleared her throat looked down, then tried again. "Do you know… Aizen … he talked to me about—will."

Ulquiorra nodded. "Presumably about obedience to his. You would be well advised to take heed."

She shook her head. "No—not exactly. That was part of it. But it was more than that. I understand something now."

There was a long silence while she contemplated what it was she wanted to say. He waited silently.

"It's all—lost. Everything." Her voice was sad and distant.

He snorted, turning his head to look at the far wall. "Another meaningless statement. And so obvious as to be unnecessary. You're in Hueco Mundo, after all." He brushed his forefinger over his nose. "We're not getting anywhere."

The awkwardness between them was so miserable. Why am I even bothering? she thought. But she raised her eyes to his to try. "Okay. But even if that's so… If I choose something—then it's different."

The horned helmet moved from side to side and he spoke, still not looking at her, his voice weary. "Why it should make a difference I don't know. But I understand you now, I think; you seek meaning in exerting your will." There was a long and awkward pause.

"It's foolish. If you're able to move this much"—he held up thumb and forefinger, spaced about an inch apart—"you can convince yourself that you're not a mere instrument of Aizen-sama's volition. And yet you are. " He sighed. "As am I."

There was another long silence while Ulquiorra appeared to stare beyond the white and featureless wall on which he'd fixed his gaze. Finally he spoke again, slowly and almost without inflexion. "So. If you choose, it's different. And what, precisely, do you choose?"

She raised her head and looked at him furtively. "Well… that's what I'm saying. When you touched me..."

He turned his head, his eyebrows high, his eyes fixed on her. She gasped. In the moments he'd spent staring into the distance, the missing eye had reconstituted.

"Ah. Yes." He spoke coolly. "So—you believe that I am at your disposal?"

Orihime shook her head. "No—it didn't come out right."

"I'd say not." His lip curled slightly. "I've already told you, I believe, that you should not confuse me with a servant. And your words are nonsensical. I'm no different from the others who've already had you. If I touch you you're adding to a growing list. Nothing more."

A growing list. For a moment she was stung into silence. And rather than arousing his sympathy, her lack of response seemed to goad him further.

"It would be no different with me than with the others. You take me lightly." His finger came to rest on her chest, his eyes narrowed in irritation. "What do you think I eat, woman? Why would you imagine me biddable in this?"

"I—I don't." She looked at the black-tipped digit that still sat lightly on her sternum and swallowed hard. "I'm not trying to command you."

"But it's absurd. You're absurd. Do you consider yourself irresistible?" His eyes raked her body as if assessing her and finding her wanting.

"No," she answered, frowning. "Of course not." And really, how could she? She had Kurosaki-kun's incontrovertible evidence to contend with. She had no exaggerated ideas about her ability to seduce—if that was what she was even doing. What am I doing?

Ulquiorra rose from the bed and put his hands in his pockets, walking away several paces before turning to pin her with his eyes again, his nostrils flaring. He had become strangely inflamed by the topic, as though she had insulted him by raising it. "Then perhaps you think I was aroused by the revolting spectacle of your being used by that filth?"

At that second gratuitous dig, the girl's head fell and she gasped. Her heart pounded and her anger flared. She narrowed her eyes and glared up at him. "That's—I don't know how you can even say that. That's awful."

Another lengthy and pregnant silence fell upon them. Orihime dropped her head again. But if she was expecting an apology, she was to be disappointed. Indeed, her outrage had made little impression, though when Orihime looked up through her eyelashes, she could see that the Espada was still watching her intently.

Finally he spoke. His voice was lower now, cooler, but still insistent. "Do you suppose that…" He stepped closer. "That having watched you bathe and touched your body…" There was a long pause. "…I lust for you."

She lifted her head again to meet his eyes. And though she frowned at this continuing and ridiculous inquisition, her chin was high. "I have no idea," she said. "You've been courteous in that department."

That seemed to placate him, because he once more approached the bed to stare down at her. "Yes," he said. "Because those were my orders. And you have evidently mistaken my attention to duty for some kind of special favour." He looked at the wall. "Or some particular interest."

Orihime's eyes had begun to sting. What am I doing? Here, so far from home, sentenced to this interminable, no, permanent exile… He had been kind, hadn't he? Well, certainly not at the beginning. She bit her lip. No, he hadn't been kind at all. He was nothing like Kurosaki-kun, with his kind little smiles and his protectiveness.

But he had done something else; in the context of their situation, he had treated her with respect. No matter what he said, he might have fulfilled his orders otherwise. Even Aizen had noticed it, hadn't he? And Ulquiorra had tried to intercede for her…

My friends are gone forever. She sighed. Perhaps she was, like many a prisoner before her, reaching toward something that in the brighter light of liberty would have repelled her. It didn't matter. What mattered was the reaching. It means I'm alive. She pushed herself up to a seated position and looked the Fourth Espada in the eyes. "I don't expect you to understand."

"And yet you expect me to comply!" His voice was uncharacteristically sharp and hot, dropping to a tone that sounded almost petulant. "To follow your whimsical and invisible logic."

The girl sighed heavily. "It's not a question of logic. You know…" She was silent for a moment while Ulquiorra stared at her impatiently. "There's a book… it's about… Well, I'll spare you all the plot stuff. But in it a fox tells a boy that the most important things are invisible to the eyes. That it's only with the heart that you see things as they are."

She closed her eyes. "'Kokoro de minakucha yoku mienai. Kanjin na koto wa me ni wa mienai. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is most essential is invisible to the eye.'" She opened her eyes, frowning. "I think that's how it goes."

Ulquiorra hissed in undisguised irritation. "That's the kind of twaddle I would expect from a human being. Trite and vacuous. And… untrue, as my own eyes demonstrate. What is invisible to them, what you call most essential, does not exist. My eyes see both koto and mono. Concept and object. No heart can do the same."

And Orihime had to admit that he was right—after all, what he had shown her with his own eye: that had been something essential, hadn't it? To be sure, he'd shown her the scene with its players and movements: But the revealed emphasis, the movements of his eyes, the editing: these had shown her more.

Analysis, perception, and maybe even… the thinnest veneer of feeling. And a thought struck her, too mad to be revealed to him. Can an eye stand for a heart?

She sighed again, then laughed. "You know, there's a whole theme park in Hakone devoted to that book. It's one of the most popular books in the world, right? And yet I don't think having millions of people read it has changed anything, so you're probably right about the trite and vacuous part."

Leaning back against the headboard, she pushed her bright hair back over her shoulders. "But you know what? I still think it's true somehow. So I won't be able to explain myself logically. But that doesn't make what I say less true. Because I am. I'm speaking from my heart."

The slender black-tipped finger emerged from a pocket to touch her chest again; the bright eyes followed it, then rose to burn into her darker ones. "The heart. It sees better than my eyes, evidently, even through…. all this… flesh." His finger trailed down over the contour of her breast, quickening her nipple, and rose as swiftly to the divot of her collarbone. "And apparently it talks, too, this heart of yours," he murmured, biting the words off at the end with a bitter snort.

He was still for a moment, as if exhausted by his own sarcasm, and then sighed. "Very well. So your heart evidently counsels you to copulate with me. That doesn't answer the question of what might make me consent to such a preposterous thing"—his lips twisted—"in the absence of my own coronary adviser."

Orihime frowned at him, shifting on the bed and pulling her knees up to her chest. "You're making fun of me. And I don't know why you'd want to. That's—that's your business." His motivations, she knew, could hardly resemble her own, as incompletely as she understood those. What am I doing? "I don't know. Perhaps curiosity. Perhaps loneliness? Maybe just—wanting to."

"Wanting to?" The Espada snorted again, lifting his finger from the amply endowed chest and replacing it in his pocket. "I ceased to want anything long ago. And with the cessation of desire comes freedom from loneliness and all of the other aches that humans and their hearts fall prey to." He sighed and pressed his lips together primly. "There are my orders, and aside from that, only the pathetic instinctual residues of a lower nature subdued by evolution and will."

"Ah." Orihime smiled bitterly, reminded of her conversations, if one could call them that, with the shinigami who ruled Hueco Mundo. Ulquiorra had treated her differently from the others; but his worldview in this moment, was pure Aizen.

Still, the Espada's volubility was intriguing; it seemed directly proportional to his dismissiveness, his incomprehensible irritation at this topic of conversation. And that was odd. If his mind was so made up, why continue to harry her? It was as though he enjoyed argument for its own sake.

He was silent for a moment, watching her, and then spoke more quietly. "Aren't you going to try to convince me of the superiority of the heart's reasoning?"

Orihime cocked her head. "No," she said. "I told you what I think. And I don't get the feeling you'd be easy to convince."

He snorted as if in surprise, one corner of his mouth twinging slightly. Then he stared at her in silence for a moment, his eyes fairly burning into her. "You're a strange human, woman," he said. Then he gazed directly at her hips. "Well. I admit to curiosity. But I won't be your servant."

He leaned forward and gently unwrapped her arms from around her knees, his eyes on her face. She held her breath, watching him closely as he pushed her knees down and apart. Her cheeks flushed, but she permitted it. "You'll be mine," he murmured.

He glanced down at her hips again and flicked his wrist swiftly, sweeping her skirt up to the waist so rapidly that she gasped in surprise, both hands flying to her chest and her thighs attempting to close before his hand thrust them apart again. Then he produced the discarded salve, once more daubing his fingers with it.

Eyes on her face, he sat beside her and, without preliminaries, inserted a cool finger into her wetness to the accompaniment of her sharply indrawn breath. He felt for the wounded area. For a moment her hips pressed back into the bed as if to evade him, but her body remained soft and pliant under his hands. I choose.

"It's truly gone," he said. "That in itself is intriguing. It can't have been much if Grantz could mend it. And yet…" His hand paused, his forefinger pressing against the spot inside her. Her thighs parted and trembled against his arm. "You could restore the shinigami in the passage and recuperate an arm long lost, but this trivial wound conquered you. It interests me. You… your powers interest me."

His finger now ceased its exploration of the previously marred area, but it didn't withdraw. Instead, it moved slowly in and out of her, thrusting slowly, joined moments later by another. The crawling sensation was amplified with each finger stroke, as though the friction itself increased the medicine's effect. He slipped the fingers out and began to rub at her vulva, his eyes moving ceaselessly between it and her flushed face. "You are restored."

Of course, precisely the opposite was true. Her chest rose and fell with ragged breaths; her eyelids lowered, and her hips began to move miserably against his hand, once more seeking relief from the salve's wicked effects.

"And this substance brings you pleasure. Understandably: its strange effects even penetrate my hierro." He spoke thoughtfully, almost clinically, but his hand continued its work.

Orihime gave a little moan as the substance inflamed not just her insides but her twitching clit and the pink lips that guarded her entry. Everything seemed to be swelling at once, growing hotter and pulsing in time with the motions of the Espada's demonic hand. He snorted, staring at the spot between her legs where his hand was working, three fingers now pushing into her while his thumb bedeviled her stiff clit. "How hot, here," he said contemplatively; but the corner of his mouth turned up and his nostrils flared.

The girl's head tossed. She was silent, concentrating on the hands, remembering the ones that had tugged at and bullied her in Aizen's chambers, that had spread her crudely for the fucking.

Yet these hands: they caressed her insistently, to be sure, but gently. She let their touch wash over her and replace the others. She looked up to see the Espada watching her with that same look of deep thoughtfulness she'd seen when she bathed: his tongue once against flicked back and forth almost imperceptibly along the edges of his sharp teeth in that strange gesture both delicate and bestial.

As if reading her thoughts he spoke. "You're doing it, aren't you? But no. Woman. I am no different from the others."

"I know," Orihime gasped. "I know." Ulquiorra took his other hand from his pocket and raised it to cup her jaw. He stared intently into her eyes

His hand moved from her jaw down her throat and over her collarbone, finding its way to her chest, where it cupped and hefted one generous cloth-covered breast. She closed her eyes and pressed her head into the pillow, exposing her throat. Then the Espada leaned forward and pressed his lips to her ear. "Nothing. Woman. You must expect nothing. This alters and means… nothing."

And she knew it was true. For a moment she doubted herself; what had she been thinking, believing that she could create something different out of the wreckage of these days? Aizen had taught her clearly and implacably that she would not be able to build a bastion around herself.

Not for her the cry Only if I want to. It seemed to her a kind of impossible wistful dream now, to say that her body would be touched only with her consent. And that being out of reach, she had thought: Wouldn't it be wonderful to do it because I want it.

Was that then why she had convinced herself she did? And how, after the numbing violence of these days, could she still desire anything but oblivion? These were the thoughts that tormented her as Ulquiorra's hand continued to stroke her, his breath light in her ear and his hand on her shoulder. She opened her eyes and turned them to the side to see his face close to hers, his eyes also closed, his lips parted. "Woman," he breathed.

She looked at him. "Y-yes."

"Your plan. Does it call for a complete repetition?" His nose had moved into her hair and he was sniffing her, his breath soughing softly behind her ear now. He held his face close to her on both inhale and exhale, his nose and lips tracking over her skin as if he were a dog on a trail. The hand left her vulva now, sliding up along her side to grasp her other shoulder so that both were now confined within his grip.

It took her a moment to understand what he was asking. "Oh!" she said, once again flushing. Oh, if Tatsuki could see her now… "I don't know," she murmured.

"Ah." His body relaxed against hers, and he moved his face to her jaw, nuzzling her a little and then swiping the tip of his his tongue across her cheek and up over her nostrils. She quivered. "Unhhh," she breathed. Yes, this was what it felt like; desire, a little hot blue flame burning in her hips and in her head, its heat spreading out from those doubled origins to make her body quicken and tremble. Desire, not submission.

She had imagined moments like this, back in her apartment with her own hands serving her pleasure. But those imaginings had been rose-tinged. Even at their filthiest, when her mouth shaped audible words of the crudest kind, she had imagined not merely sex but love. Love as only a schoolgirl can envision it, uncomplicated, mutual, and saccharine. And this?

Nothing of the sort. And yet she desired. Not the desire of teenaged romance, but something gaunt and hungry, something that wandered forsaken in the desert and sought shelter where it found it.

Something willing to curl against the body of someone completely incapable of love—not because it expected anything in return but because it yearned itself. And was desperate.

Something that said, clear-eyed and unspeakably sad, grasping at what looked like life: Here I am. Show me you.

Something that looked, and saw. Not a prince, nor a saviour. Don't expect anyone in Las Noches to make such a promise. Another creature, unfree, unreachable and yet reached for.

And she reached for him, her arms snaking up and around the helmeted head. One hand buried itself in the shaggy hair, the other rising to grip the solitary horn. He made a sound something like a grunt. She felt the hole in his chest tug at her breasts through the layers of cloth between them; a thick wave of reiatsu washed over her. And then he growled and pulled away from her. Her hands flew off him and into the air, palms toward him placatingly. He rose to consider her, his lips parted, his tongue visible, his pupils wide and heady. "Don't," he said, pinching his nostrils shut as if to seal out the smell of her. His chest rose and fell with his breath.

"What—what did I do?" She lowered her hands, keeping them well away from his body.

He looked at the wall above her head. "For us… " He cleared his throat. "You must remember that you contain a soul. A powerful one. To me you smell…" His voice dropped. "You smell good. Excitement, impulse: they flare. So don't touch me without warning me. Asking me."

She nodded. "I… I didn't understand. Maybe this isn't… Maybe we should…"

But before she could finish, he dropped back down upon her, his lips at her ear. "What I want. Do you understand?"

Once again she nodded her head against him, her eyes on the ceiling. She hadn't been thinking of that, but it struck her now as brutally obvious. It wasn't just the absence of love—it was the presence of something, that residue of which he had spoken. She was his prey, and she was offering herself to him.

She was, of course, protected by Aizen's orders, to which Ulquiorra Cifer was perhaps more dedicated than any of the others. Why should he feel something to which the much less controlled and rational Nnoitra had seemed oblivious? It was a puzzle. She frowned at him. "You won't… hurt me."

He appeared to have regained his composure. "I won't," he said. "It would contravene my orders."

It was an odd response, perhaps, but Orihime laughed. "Yeah," she said. "Wouldn't want that." It was a strange thing; that little flame of desire had guttered a bit with their conversation, but it remained there like a pilot light. If he touched her, she knew, it would leap up and ignite again. Here I am. Show me you. Enough warm in me for both of us. She reached up and pulled at the collar of his jacket.

His eyebrows rose. "Leave that on," he said. "The hole." Orihime's eyebrows lowered. "I know," she said. "Take it off." And ignoring his previous caution, she raised her hand and seized the horn again, pulling his face to hers and pressing her mouth against his. His head pulled back.

"Ah," he breathed. "What are you doing… I said"—and the girl's pink lips pushed themselves against his again, her hands rising to tug at his lapels so that the jacket was pulled over his shoulders, imprisoning his arms. He lifted each arm in turn and shook the sleeves off irritably, rearing over her with his slender torso revealed as it had been when he bathed her, the hole hovering now above her plump breasts, the gothic numeral inky against his pale skin.

"Kiss me…" she said, pulling him by the shoulders and onto her. The hole suckled and tickled at her, producing a sensation like a little menthol-impregnated wind. She pushed against it, eliciting a tiny moan from him, followed by that same low growl he'd given before. His eyes were once again wide and dilated as he gazed at her.

Then he pushed her shoulders back against the bed and fell upon her with a vengeance, sucking and licking at the skin of her throat and cheeks, his tongue moving over her face and even into the recesses of her nostrils and eyes. He licked her carelessly, greedily, tenderly like an animal.

"On…na," he breathed against her flesh. His hands, similarly tingling, crept over her hard and insistent, moulding her breasts and pulling her nipples taut through the cloth of her uniform, carving their way through her waistline and finding each hip to pull her to him. And she felt him, hard and thick through his hakama, the bulk of his cock nudging against her pelvis and thighs. He pulled back from her, tugging at her bodice impatiently until her breasts were revealed. "Disrobe," he said. "As I've seen you. This time for me."

She didn't say no. With trembling hands she pulled off her bodice, winkling the strange keyhole-shaped peplum up and over her head; then she unbuttoned her skirt and lifted her buttocks to pull it down. But he wouldn't wait. "Move," he hissed, seizing the cloth and jerking it roughly down over her legs and off. Then he sat back and looked at her, creamy, soft, and naked on the bed in front of him, his face utterly impassive but for the slight flare of his nostrils.

Suddenly he flipped her onto her belly, then pulled her hips up into the air until she was folded and kneeling in the messed bedclothes with her face and breasts against the mattress, her belly nearly touching her flexed thighs, everything exposed to his gaze, "Present yourself to me, woman," he said.

"What?" Orihime murmured. How she could be more presented than she was right now she didn't know. Her ass was in the air, the coolness of the room's air plucking at her wetness. Without responding, Ulquiorra pushed her thighs further apart and pulled her labia open with one hand so that her cunt was totally opened for him. Then she felt him slip two fingers inside her. "Tell me then how this is different," he murmured.

She pushed her hips back against him, the heat of the salve quickening again under the friction. "Oh…. Because I… Ahhhh… I want…" The one who cannot love me. Not a cure, but an anaesthetic. He thrust his fingers in and out of her, almost as roughly as Aizen had. But it was different, not in form but in substance. She rubbed her face against the bedclothes.

"And this you like," he said, pushing himself back and kneeling between her legs, then lowering his face and pressing it into her sex. He smelled her, slowly and carefully, like an animal, and then slowly licked her from perineum to clit. She whimpered. His breath huffed out on her, cool against her hotter flesh. "Oh," she gasped. "Oh don't stop…"

He chuckled sardonically. "All right," he said. "But my face is tingling." His mouth lowered itself to her again, his nose dipping between the folds of her sex and right into her opening. "Hunh," he grunted. "Your… smell."

And he was right. She liked it. Unambivalently, now, unlike when she had been forced to it. "Ahhh," she said, pushing her cunt back against his face and then stiffening as something strangely long and slender slithered into her. Of course. He too. It was his tongue, now extended to its full length. It was so different from a human's, lengthy and somehow sticky.

As Nnoitra's tongue had done , it slapped into every crevice of her, making her hips pump against his face and eliciting a chuckle from him as Ulquiorra seized her thighs and held her still for the tonguing. He sucked her labia into his mouth,, then released her altogether and sniffed at her, long and slow, rubbing his nose through her slit and against her clit. His teeth rubbed against either side of her, imprisoning the entirety of her vulva, which he sucked into his mouth before releasing it to return to slowly tonguing her slit itself.

Her excitement mounted, and her hips began to rotate slowly and needily against him, "No," he said. And he chuckled and pulled back, rising on his knees and pushing her legs farther apart, then thrusting three fingers into her and pumping them in and out. A moment later and the hands and face were both gone.

She heard the rustling of his hakama and looked back over her shoulder at him with a bit of trepidation. "Don't look, human," he said. "No fainting." But she looked. He too. She had seen one Arrancar; she knew they must all be like that. And sure enough, it was different. Not human. Outsized, membranous, club-shaped. The organ of a bat, erect and pointed menacingly at her cunt.

She swallowed as he gripped it in a hand, rubbed it against her wet slit. And of course she moaned, pushing herself back against him. "Oho," he chuckled, seizing her by both hips and pulling her onto him with a sigh until the tip of his cock slipped well inside her. "Onna," he said.

For a moment he was still. Then he pushed firmly, hissing a little through his teeth as he watched his length disappearing inside her and felt himself snugly embedded in her body—alive, quivering, warm with pulsing blood and vital fluids, crawling with the residue of the salve that he now felt coating him, making his member twitch and tingle. His eyelids fluttered.

She arched her back. "Ahhh," she gasped. He pulled out slowly, the pale shaft glistening with her wetness. "You… can take it. Strange human." he breathed. And then he pushed into her again, harder this time.

The friction and the fullness reactivated Grantz's ointment fully, and Orihime felt her cunt twitching and swelling around the bestial cock as Ulquiorra leaned forward over her, his hands reaching under her and finding her breasts, gripping them hard and fingering her nipples as he began to pump into her in earnest. He released her for a moment, only to tug her hips up further and closer to him.

With each stroke his cock drove farther into her. How many times was this now, in such a short time? And yet it was different. Only this. Because I wanted it. She thrust herself back against him harder. "Oh… oh…" she panted, her head hanging down as her spine flexed to offer him deeper access.

And then he was lifting her by both thighs, parting them further to piston her smoothly over top of him, moving her body almost more than his own. Whether because of the salve or because of her own readiness, there was no pain, only a sensation of complete fullness and a strange delirium that mounted somewhere inside her, though she couldn't tell whether it was in her head or between her legs,

Her cunt, both swollen and sloppy, grabbed gluttonously at the Arrancar's thick member, now smoothly driving into her to the fullest extent possible so that with every stroke she gave a little gasp not of pain but of completion.

Her entrance seemed to clench, while the rest of her opened, a new wave of slickness issuing forth from her as her muscles twitched and rippled around the turgid cock. And then, quite surprisingly, she was coming on him, her vagina contracting rhythmically and her body writhing in his hands, her own hands digging into the bedclothes and an astonishing wetness drooling down over him.

His eyes were fixed on that spot now, the place where his body was driving into hers; and the combination of the feeling and sight of her orgasm pushed him to his own. My hierro… is overcome, he thought, a deep coiling sensation wrapping itself around something inside him behind his balls and then lashing forward like a whip, unfurling in a series of pumping drives that shot him into her hard. He convulsed, his breath hissing out as he folded himself over her back and banged her for all he was worth, gasping quietly and finally sinking his teeth into her shoulder as his member jerked and spurted inside her.

For a moment they were both quiet, his body draped over hers, their breathing slowly moderating. Orihime sighed, moistened her lips, and prepared to speak, for she suddenly felt lonely. She had been taken from behind again, and she wished now to see her partner's face. She turned her head to the side, and he rubbed his forehead against her cheek. "Ulquiorra-san," she said, smiling weakly .

Before the Arrancar could respond—if indeed he intended to do so—the sound of two hands clapping rose discordant in the quiet air of Orihime's room. Both heads jerked and looked back at the origin of the sound. It was Aizen Sosuke, and he was standing in the doorway as though he'd just dropped by, his magnificent control of his reiatsu enabling him to bypass even Ulquiorra's highly refined pesquisa. No door could bar him.

"Ah," the Shingami said, smiling. "I'm interrupting. How rude of me."

Ulquiorra hastily tugged the bedclothes up, turning and pulling himself out of the woman's body and placing his own body between her and his lord. "Aizen-sama," he said, his face completely immobile.

Aizen waved his hand. "Yes, Ulquiorra. I'm sorry to have interfered. I'm delighted though. I didn't think you'd permit the lower ranking to access a privilege without enjoying it yourself. That would hardly be proper." He chuckled. "And there's evidently enough to go around, eh Orihime?"

The girl cowered in the bed, trembling, mortified, and bitter. Even in her cell, what she'd tried to make hers would be stripped from her. You monster. He always wins.

"Well, I'll be on my way," said the rogue Shinigami, stepping through the door before turning back as if he'd forgotten something. "But I'll look forward to seeing you both in my chambers. Hmm?" And he was gone.