The transition had been immediate. Quick as the razor cut that marred her throat. Abigail, slashed and sputtering blood and gasps on her hard kitchen floor, had been neatly handed over from the hands of her father to those of Hannibal Lecter. That choice was out of her own hands.

This fact did not trouble her unduly. Abigail Hobbs, a girl pale and pretty and clever, had always been prey. Since she was clever, she knew that she could not change her nature. She also knew she had choice and control within a limited field. (The deer could choose to die in the woods or in the field; to choose her own hunter and to engineer her own death was to own her life.)

She could not control what would inevitably happen to her; she could control how, and when.

She did not choose her monster father any more than she chose what she brought out in him. But the first time she spoke with Hannibal, she recognized in him the wolf. When he had sealed their bond by helping her hide the body, she knew she wanted him to be the one to claim her. When he took her in his arms, she knew how he wanted him to do it. She also realized that he had made a similar decision—she would be is.

He was perfect: a perfect monster, tall and lean and handsome, with dark maroon eyes like blood pooling on a wooden cabin floor, set in a haughty face.

He was what she wanted to consume her.

But even as he bound them inextricably, he kept her at arms length. And prey must plot as monsters do.

Abigail was one of the few who could read Hannibal, but not enough to predict his responses. Some experimentation was in order.

At first, she decided to excite him through displays of vulnerability.

SETTING I: DINNER
TACTIC I: Weeping/confession

Will and Freddie had left. Both had tried to hang around to corner Abigail; Lecter had neatly sidestepped them and told them that as his guest it was his responsibility to see Abigail home to the hospital. Now, she was wiping down glasses while the doctor kept himself occupied at the sink.

Abigail felt dizzy, almost electric. Which was good. Trembling and fear were better if they were real. She cried as she confessed to Hannibal (most) of her secret, about her father, about herself. He looked down at her, sadly, inscrutably, and moved to take her in his arms. She cried into his beautiful shirt as she luxuriated in his strong hold, in being cradled and stroked.

(The best lies are not the false ones: she really was reaching out to him, and he caught her.)

It was the first time she had really felt him, and she was a little taken aback at his strength and firmness. She only started reacting in an unplanned manner at his smoky whisper in her ear, that Will and he would protect her. It was meant to reassure her; all it did was let her know that Hannibal considered Abigail to be HIS, and no one else's.

"You'll protect me?" she murmured into his chest, softly emphasizing the pronoun. He smelled-amazing, distracting, like spice and musk and wine. She couldn't help but nuzzle slightly, enjoying the warmth of his body through his thin fine shirt.

He exhaled; a sort of chuckle. "I'll protect you," he said, echoing her emphasis.

Abigail pulled back first, curving her hands around his back as she pressed her hips against his, ostensibly as an anchor so she could see his face better. She tried her usual tack, which was to part her lips slightly as she looked into his eyes, then dropped to linger on his lips, then returned to his eyes.

"What if I don't want you to protect me?" she asked.

The secret to parsing Hannibal's thoughts and emotions was to watch his mouth instead of his eyes. To watch how those overly full, overly delineated lips as they quirked and pulled, as he licked them, as he salivated and sneered. She saw a promising pull at her words, a glint of tooth-but it resolved into a calm, indulgent smile.

"I am afraid," he said, a dark dryness seeping into voice like blood into cotton, "that you will have to work to earn what you want."

He didn't ask her what she wanted, of course; he knew.

She could feel her own lips curve down in disappointment as he leaned forward to press a kiss on the corner of her mouth. It was not a chaste kiss-his lips didn't close until they were pressed against her skin. He could have been aiming for her cheek and missed. He could have made a mistake.

But Hannibal Lecter didn't make mistakes. And Abigail Hobbs could always navigate a challenge.

CONCLUSION I: Performative vulnerability through crying and confessions gets one kissed in the corner of the mouth.

SETTING II: Abigail's (the guest) bedroom
TACTIC II: Feigning nightmares

She wasn't lying, exactly. She did have nightmares. She just hadn't had one that particular night.

Abigail stood in the doorframe of Hannibal's home office door in her nightshirt, canting her stance to appear timid and vulnerable.

He didn't look up when she entered. She noticed he usually liked to make her make the first move.

"I had a nightmare," she blurted. Abigail knew she always tended to play her hand too aggressively; she was working on it. But it wasn't like he didn't know what cards she held. Abigail was wearing a long nightshirt and panties. Enough to be modest. Also, enough to be provocative. She wrapped her arms around herself. It was chilly, downstairs.

He didn't look up. This evening his hair was slicked back, making him appear even more icy and forbidding. "I hardly see how that's possible, seeing as though you haven't slept tonight. Unless you are referring to hallucinations.

His round vowels were clipped and taut as ever, pushed forward by tongue and lip and tooth. Monster's weapons, those.

"Fine, then," she admitted, crossing her arms in defense against him instead of the cold. "I'm afraid if I go to sleep I'll have nightmares. I've had them for the past three nights." She jutted her chin out at the last phrase; Abigail had a way of speaking to elicit a reaction that was confrontational yet simultaneously needy. She made it far too clear she was relying on the others' reaction. She knew it, but she always caught herself too late. Trying to soften her words and stance, she continued. "You said you'd help me with nightmares."

Lecter stopped writing and looked up at her then. His eyes were bright and piercing and bloody, his smile sent shivers-or would have, had she not steeled herself. "I did, didn't I?" He cocked his head briefly in acknowledgement. "Well. I suppose I must live up to my promise."

Hannibal always moved faster than Abigail calculated; his clipped loping steps had him by her side before she could prepare herself for his possessive hand at the small of her back as he forcefully guided her upstairs.

Disappointingly, he pulled back the covers of her bed and told her to get in. She sighed as she obeyed, facing the nightstand and pulling her knees up to get comfortable as he covered her to the waist with the comforter.

Less disappointingly, he folded his coat over the bottom of the bed and joined her on top of the covers, folding his long body to hers and placing one hand on her waist.

"Won't you be cold?" she said. "You can get under the covers."

"I'm fine," he said. "You're quite warm enough." At that, though, he pushed up her nightdress to trace the curve between the swell of her hips and her ribcage, over and over.

Abigail muffled a moan; she wished she could relax, but every muscle was tight with anticipation. She pressed back, fitting herself into him.

He responded with an inhalation and by pulling her closer. He nuzzled her hair and breathed in, even as he continued the calm steady pace of his strokes.

And that was all.

This man was a monster, she knew, and yet no matter how she pressed into him and sighed, she could get nothing. Not even a pulling back or a directive to stop.

He stopped after some minutes, his hand resting on her waist. The stillness of his body and slow regularity of his breathing lulled her into thinking he was asleep.

She reached her hand down to between her legs-

And gasped as he drove his fingernails into her.

Just a reminder he was still awake.

Rather than deter her, it only made Abigail want to touch herself more. But Hannibal really did wait for her to fall asleep to leave.

When she wakes up, she wakes up startled and starving to dreams of him inside her. There is a profound ache between her legs.

CONCLUSION II: Feigning nightmares invites being held but nothing else. II(a): Being held by him was like being intoxicated.

SETTING III: Hannibal Lecter's bedroom
TACTIC III: Being direct

It didn't seem fair; all Red Riding Hood had to do to be consumed was to exist in the path of the wolf. And yet Abigail with all of her cleverness and charm was getting no response.

At eighteen, Abigail had more experience than most girls her age in dealing with men and monsters. She could have the boys she wanted; she could keep her father at bay with the girls he wanted. But she was still very young, and the beasts she dealt with did not require any sort of special finesse or cunning.

There were only so many methods in her repertoire and she had exhausted them all.

At first she tried to spend as many nights at Will and Dr. Bloom's as she did at Dr. Lecter's. (Although, to her crushing disappointment, it wasn't like she had to keep up appearances as nothing enormously untoward was happening at Lecter's.) Will would dote on her; Alana would take her shopping.

On one of her shopping trips, the older woman had helped her choose pajamas—not lingerie, but more sophisticated nightwear to "help her transition into adulthood" as Abigail had pitched it. Alana had smiled at Abigail's phrase, her tight reflective bright-eyed smile she sported when she was both genuinely pleased and when she was filing away certain information for later.

That night Abigail wore one of the selections—a pretty bright ice-blue that brought out her eyes and enhanced her dark hair and pale skin, and hugged the curves of her breasts and hips. She very deliberately crossed through the hallway-she had to make herself take every step-to enter Hannibal's beautiful room, and to sit on his beautiful large bed. And she waited.

She was sure he knew exactly where she was the moment she entered. Still, he made her wait a very fidgety hour.

"Hello Abigail," Hannibal said as he walked into his room, with only a bored polite look thrown her way.

Abigail had worryingly not planned for him being casually unsurprised. She said nothing.

He didn't seem perturbed; only went about his usual business removing and putting away his tie and jacket. She watched as he moved about the room, fluid and precise. "I hope you are aware," he continued, closing the closet door, "that it is very rude to enter someone's bedroom without their permission."

"I wanted to talk to you," she said.

"I was downstairs, if this was the case. And we spoke at dinner." He stood at the side of the bed she was occupying—looming. He reached a hand out.

Abigail swung her legs over the side, making sure they were parted enough to be suggestive but not wanton. His eyes flicked down; his lips twitched. She caught it. "Are you angry with me?" she asked.

"Of course not. Sexual advances such as these are common coping mechanisms for victims such as yourself. Up you get."

The girl had not counted on being so disappointed. "Don't you like me at all?" she sighed, taking his hand, allowing herself to be pulled up.

"I like you very much, as you know." He scooted her along by her waist, much closer to her hipbone and much tighter than say, Will, would press.

She scoffed, leaning against the wall at his doorway, folding her arms. "I'm not a victim, you know. I can handle myself. I can handle everything that has happened. I mean I wouldn't even have to, if it weren't for you and WIll fucking up my life and—"

She had looked to the side when she cursed, so when Hannibal, moving faster and fiercer than she imagined anyone ever could, pinned her against the wall, his hands on either side and leaning into her, she actually cried out.

"Language, Miss Hobbs," he smiled, and it was a genuine smile, and she wasn't sure she liked it. "Now. Listen to me. Are you listening?"

She nodded, stricken.

"Tell me you are."

She swallowed. She wished she wasn't so turned on. "I'm listening."

"If you are not a victim, than stop acting like one. And I will stop treating you as one. The crudity of the tools and methods you have been displaying to exert control only further reenforce my assessment of you."

"I just…I want you to…"

"Of course you do. But you want it all over so fast. You are so anxious about the WHEN that you do not consider the WHAT." He didn't go on. He didn't move. He waited.

His face so close, his smell. She wanted to kiss him. But instead she panicked, and pushed him away roughly. He responded by slamming her back against the wall, pinning her by her shoulder.

He kissed her roughly, briefly, on the lips, flicking his tongue over her mouth and in before pulling back just as quickly." She gasped.

"That's my girl," he said, brushing his other hand, warm and rough, up her thigh, pushing the blue silk fabric up and away and leaving little tingling fire-trails in the wake of his touch.

She gasped as he brushed up her panties before pulling away.

Lecter continued. "Show me you are no one's victim but mine."

The girl nodded, and he pulled away to kiss her chastely on the forehead. "Good night, Abigail."

She stepped unsteadily out. It took her some time catching her breath on her bed before she could even contemplate laying down; much longer before sleep came.

But in that time she realized something.

No, she had not gotten what she wanted. But she had gotten something perhaps more valuable: a new tool.

CONCLUSION III: Violence and obedience was rewarded with sex.

And that's when the game changed.