Warnings: Please read! Here's where the sexual content really comes in, though I promise it's not just porn. Non-explicit sexual content, dub-con and non-con elements, mention of rape, debatable attempted rape. Violence and coercion. Some of the sexual stuff it is fairly consensual though-at least as much as possible in the characters' circumstances.

...

January, 1945

"Why?"

Blue flicked to his face, found his gaze. An eyebrow arched.

"Why what?"

He wet his lips.

"Why are you doing this? Keeping me here instead of in the infirmary. I can't do my work. I'm useless to you. Sir."

It had been nearly a week. Nearly a week of being spoon-fed and helped in the restroom and staying in the officer's bed nearly twenty-four hours a day, including when the Obersturmführer went to sleep—inches away, never touching.

Even if Obersturmfürher Beilschmidt's superiors knew he was now under the officer's direct supervision, he was sure they knew nothing of the sleeping arrangements.

Six days of this, being treated as and reduced to a child—no, something more helpless than a child, for even a child could make demands. A child knew what it wanted and pursued it doggedly. A child was not afraid to ask questions. And yet it had taken this long for him to ask the question that had been pounding in his skull since the moment he resurfaced from the void.

The officer stilled, poised on the stool next to the bathtub and holding the washcloth just above the shallow water in which the patient sat. The cold eyes were carefully focused on the placid surface of the water.

And then the cloth moved again to swipe languidly across an exposed chest and shoulder.

"You're quite wrong, if that's what you think."

The cloth rubbing over his skin was lukewarm only, but it burned him, like ice searing his skin. His arms were still bound before him, and he was forced to sit motionless, exposed, at the bottom of the tub, the water that barely rose above his hips providing no protection or modesty.

It was perverse. Actions that outside the triangle would be signals of love, tenderness, care, became acts of violence here. Though he had never seen an SS-man act towards a prisoner as the officer did towards him, this mockery of affection was just another form of punishment. The torture continued, not bound to the confines of the penal block where he had been shattered apart, not even confined by the walls of the camp itself. It was the same, really, only without the physical pain. Symbolically, intellectually, it was the same. The Obersturmführer played God, the doppelgänger that meant his death. He was subsumed into him, existing only as the thing that the officer bathed and fed and dressed.

Was that why? Objectively, there was no reason the officer should dedicate so much time to what, to an outsider, one not of the triangle, would seem to be nursing him back to health. But he knew better. And he knew there was no such thing as objectivity here.

It was simply another way for the officer to assert himself. Expand himself. Conquer and consume, much as his Reich had done to the map of Europe itself. (But not anymore, he had heard. Already they were evacuating the camps in Poland, he had heard. The Thousand-Year Reich was collapsing in on itself—but what did that matter, here in this bathroom, where he and the officer were the entire world?)

Perhaps he asked because he would rather be in the infirmary. Just to be assured that a world still existed beyond this house—even if it were only the camp. But that made no sense. It would be suicide. The infirmary was the waiting room to death.

He needed to hear it from the Obersturmführer's mouth. He needed an explanation, anything to grasp onto that allowed for his own existence, no matter how insignificant.

"Wrong? How so?"

What did the officer need him for, other than to leech him dry of life and will?

Cool, steady eyes. He couldn't breathe.

"Can't you guess?"

He couldn't look away, but was saved from the effort when he was gently tugged forward so his back could be reached. His face was pressed into the Obersturmführer's shoulder—smooth black shirt like snakeskin, heady scent filling his nose and throat. The washcloth dabbed delicately at the closing welts on his back.

Can't you guess?

He couldn't breathe. The cologne was clogging his lungs and stifling his brain, thick and sleepy. A fever shivered over his skin as the cloth dragged along his spine.

Can't you guess?

He didn't want to guess. It hurt too much to think about it, about anything. The rubbing along the small of his back was lulling him, or incapacitating him.

It was very smooth. Too wonderfully smooth as it traced over his hip—when had the burning stopped? Or had he simply grown accustomed to it?

Or had he come to crave it. His own punishment.

The touch was light on his hip. Fingers, not cloth. That was the sensation of skin. Calloused and rough against his softness. Perhaps he should have been unnerved by that. But he was too tired.

Until he felt them wrap around his member.

His head shot up as he tried to pull away, but the officer was stronger. He was trapped by the walls of the bathtub and a hand holding his head in place against the broad shoulder. His arms twitched, threatening to come out of their slings.

"Careful of your shoulders." Obersturmführer Beilschmidt's voice was low and calm, warm against the shell of his ear in a way that made his skin prickle and his stomach lurch. The simple words, the matter-of-fact tone of voice; they broke him.

He gave a strangled sob as the calloused fingers moved over him, like sandpaper against the sensitive skin. His eyes, nose, mouth left wet marks on the slippery smooth cloth in which his face was buried, as if he could hide there, burrowed into a strong, warm shoulder. The shoulder seemed to belong to a separate entity altogether than the hand that was working him so torturously slowly.

"Shh, shhh." He could hear the rumble like thunder in the officer's chest. The man patted his head comfortingly, as though what the other hand was doing was simply some necessary unpleasantness to bear through.

And he let himself sink into it. Into the shoulder, into the soft hushes, into the fingers carding through his hair. Into the fingers stroking him, rough-smooth torture and bliss. He was reduced to a quivering, wet mess, hitching breaths and barely-voiced sighs muffled against the Obersturmführer's chest.

He could hear a heartbeat. Elevated, but not racing. Almost in time with the precise, efficient movements of the hand. He tried to count the beats, but he lost track near fifty as the white heat in his gut tightened, leaving no room for ordered thought. He tensed, the officer's firm grip holding him in place though his irregular spasms, until finally he convulsed, forehead pressing hard into a collarbone as electricity jolted and stuttered through his entire body.

In the moment of uncanny, vacant stillness that followed, he had a brief glimpse of clarity; he realized that the distillation of pure physicality, pure embodiment at the point of climax was sickeningly reminiscent of the ego-disintegration he had undergone strapped to that instrument of pain. A little death.

The Obersturmführer drew back, releasing him. He shuddered at the loss of warm contact in spite of himself.

…

September, 1945

"I was wondering when you'd come looking for me."

"Who says I was looking for you?"

The haughty face turned to him. "So, you came poking around in this shed for…" A perfunctory glance around. "…spare machinery parts?"

He shrugged. "Maybe I thought I would find spare uniforms. Mine's worn rather thin, see. But, my mistake."

"So then leave."

"I will."

He walked over to the other man and sat beside him on the worktable.

"I thought you said you were leaving." Skeptical voice and eyebrow.

"I will. Never said when."

"Hm."

They sat in silence. Dusty sunlight filtered through the slats of the thin wood walls and fell across them in bars.

"So, how does it feel?"

"What?" The same skepticism as ever, only now it sounded defensive, less condescending. Aware of its own performance and fragility.

"To be mortal."

…

January, 1945

The officer released his arms from the slings the next day.

He was sitting on the bed, watching the cloth being folded with exact movements of surprisingly nimble fingers.

"Have you learned your lesson?" The deep voice startled him.

He blinked; stared at the man. A lesson. What lesson? Not to provoke a man in the uniform? He had known that already, but had done it anyway. It seemed so long ago, so insignificant, what he had said. Obersturmführer Beilschmidt's sexual appetites aimed towards men. Aimed towards him. He had learned that, too.

"What lesson, sir?"

Dangerously cold eyes slid up to his face. He swallowed, continued.

"Do you mean that a man can be broken apart and still survive; is that it? Because that is what I learned. Sir."

The blue eyes were blank with disbelief.

He wet his dry lips with a nervous tongue; he laughed. "Surely you can't mean that I should never mention a certain subject, that speaking of it leads to pain. That would imply that punishment is the result of bad behavior. That for every action, there is an equal reaction, according to the laws of the universe. The laws don't apply here. They don't apply. What you call punishment is not punishment, because it is not allotted for punitive reasons. There is simply pain for the sake of pain. Torture is not a threat but a promise. If there is any governing law here, it is only that of sadism."

The officer took two steps to stand directly in front of him. His hair was yanked back in a harsh grip, forcing his face up to meet the dead stars of eyes.

"How is a creature like you still alive." A whisper. "How has no one put a gun to your head and blown your brains out." The expression in the eyes was akin to wonder and rage.

"It has something to do with luck, I would suspect, sir." The position of his neck strained his voice.

"I could do it right now. Maybe your luck's run out." A finger pointed, directing his gaze to the side. "There is my holster and my gun. Shall I fetch it?"

His skin crawled, his stomach twisted. "It might make quite a mess, sir."

"I could take you outside to shoot you. To the Appellplatz, perhaps, make an example of you."

He was caught in the officer's gaze. The cold stars did not seem strange nor far. They were near and full of freezing flame.

"You could," he whispered. There was no arguing. He thought of the stories he'd heard, people obediently digging their own graves before being shot into them, waiting patiently in line for their own execution. He had hoped never to understand that, but he did now. All too well.

"I could."

They were still. The moments stretched to hours, an eternity. Until finally the officer spoke.

"Don't try me, Weill."

With a final tug of the hair he was released.

…

Soon he was back to work. Typing didn't put too much strain on his shoulders, so the Obersturmführer allowed it. Cooking as well, as long as he didn't exert himself too much.

It was the same, and yet it was changed. The reports, the meals, the massages at the end of the day. Obersturmführer Beilschmidt gave the orders, he followed them.

But at night. At night he entered a lion's den.

He slept by the officer's side as before; inches away, cushion of space between them carefully preserved. Until one night he felt the officer breach that space, reach for him under the cover of darkness.

The touch was feather-light, merely grazing the fine hairs of his neck, not even touching the skin. He couldn't help the way he convulsed at the sensation.

He did not turn to look at the other man. Not even when he felt the weight shift on the bed and a large, warm mass draw near.

Muffled by covers, in the darkness of the room, none of it struck him as real. The feel of dry lips pressed to the pulse under his jaw was like a dream; the hand skimming along his bare stomach was a dream.

It was not like it had been in the bathtub. That had felt clinical, almost. Like a procedure, cold and calculated. This was all warmth and softness—so much so he felt lost in it. The tongue, tracing along his neck and ear as he shivered; the touch that gently ventured under the band of his pants.

He let the officer pull him closer, turn him so they were nearly facing. Manipulate his limbs and guide his hand down to the officer's own arousal, show his fingers what to do there. He let the officer do these things, bending as the tree to the wind, and he did not break.

He did not break when he felt fingers at his lips, pressing and feeling as they had so many weeks ago when they had choked him; but they did not choke him now, even when they slipped inside. Merely pet the softness of his tongue, felt its hollow indent. The officer's breath was heavy in his ear.

He did not break when the Obersturmführer's hand closed around his own on the foreign member and demanded completion; he did not break when he felt the tremors shake the larger body, fingers clenching inside and around his mouth. He did not even break when the officer turned his attention to him and finished him quickly with a steady hand and a mouth on his neck.

He lay quivering for a long while after the Obersturmführer had turned away and slipped into sleep, but he knew he was not broken, because a dream could not harm him.

…

When Obersturmführer Beilschmidt made him clean the sheets the next day, he knew it was no dream.

…

February, 1945

The nocturnal encounters became nearly a matter of course. Obersturmfürhrer Beilschmidt no longer hesitated to reach for him, touch him more firmly. His own hands quickly learned what to do, and did it without asking.

To say he looked forward to it would be too much. But he anticipated. It set his teeth on edge, the waiting. Like the beachgoer who sees the wave coming from miles off but is unable to move, can only wait in dread until it is almost sweet relief when it finally crashes over them, drowns them. And he did drown, every night, in the horribly wonderful sensations that swooped through him at the officer's touch.

During the day everything continued as normal. The work was the same. The officer gave orders, he obeyed them. There was no mention, not even an insinuation, of what they would do when night fell.

That changed one evening when he was removing the officer's boots. Hands on either side of his face pulled him forward between spread legs in a gentler mirroring of the officer's drunken actions on the night of the party. The heavy hand on his head and the shameless bulge in front of his nose made it clear what was wanted. He felt as though his internal organs were twisted around his spine like garlands about a Maypole.

The belt buckle was undone, the front of the pants opened. He turned his head away.

It's so much more real here, now. Not covered by darkness or a duvet. Practically indecent. It's not fair. I can't do that.

"Weill." The voice was low, laden with expectation.

Against his better judgment, he looked up.

It was the eyes that compelled him to do it—that's what he told himself. The Obersturmführer didn't even have to push. He couldn't disobey those eyes.

The taste was thick on his tongue, but it wasn't as bad as he'd expected. He could keep this up, if the officer didn't try to choke like he had before with his fingers.

The hand on his head guided him. He kept his eyes fixed upward, locked on blue.

And then a strange thing happened.

He had never seen the officer's face before; not like this, not when they were in the darkened bedroom. But now, for the first time, he saw the affect he had on the other man. And now, for the first time, he was not controlled by the eyes that gazed at him so hungrily.

They were distant, lost, wavering between furious need and awe. They had no power over him. He was the one who determined their expression, the fluttering of the shutters that occasionally blocked the stars from sight.

The ice melted. It could not hold its form. Overcome by the lapping waves, it became one with the sea, adrift and dissolved.

He had done that. He had thawed the frost.

When it was all over (briny bitterness in his mouth as a testament) the ice froze over again, almost immediately—but after that he didn't mind it so much whenever his head was tugged to the officer's crotch.

…

Obersturmführer Beilschmidt's grip was harsh on his hips. Fingers kneaded roughly into his thighs and backside, hard enough to leave bruises that would stand out stark and purple for the next week or two. The officer rubbed against him haphazardly, demandingly, pushing him into the mattress. Teeth clamped down, marking his neck.

Third time tonight. That's going to be hell to keep covered. Not that anyone else will see them. He'll gloat over it though, in his own silent way. He's noticed he's slipping. Overcompensation.

Suddenly his scalp was being stabbed with a million tiny needles as his hair was grasped and twisted, hard. His face was shoved down into the mattress so he couldn't breathe.

Then he felt it. The sharp burn of a push that shouldn't be there, against his backside.

He would have gasped if he'd been able to draw breath. He squirmed away, stomach a mess of panicked somersaults.

"Hold still." A grunt through clenched teeth.

He pushed away groping hands. "No." He was surprised by the firmness of his own voice; it sounded far bolder than he felt, trapped as he was under a hard, wide body.

The hands stilled. The officer lifted himself to look down at him.

"What did you say?" A whisper.

"No." This time the tremble was audible, but his voice was just as loud as before.

Without seeing it happen, his wrists were caught and pinned to the bed, nails biting into his skin so hard he knew there would be little crescents visible there for several days.

A low growl rumbled from the officer's chest. "You forget that I can still punish you in ways—"

"I know why you want to hurt me!"

He blurted it out before he knew what he was saying. Maybe it wouldn't help, but at least it made the Obersturmführer pause.

He wet his lips, wishing he could make out the other man's features better in the darkness. He continued, saying the first thing that came to mind, just to keep the beast at bay.

"I know why my very existence agitates you so much."

The officer's breath was heavy on his face.

"You envy me."

A bark of laughter escaped; fingers tightened to bruising.

"I? Envy you?"

"Yes." His head felt floaty: the light-headedness of courting danger. "You envy my humanity."

The officer didn't respond, but there was a pause in the perpetual in-out of the hot, moist breath.

"You cannot be like me," he whispered. "Not a man, but internally transformed into a man-like creature by blind fanaticism and the delusion of invincibility. You cannot be like me, as long as you are that. So you seek to control me."

Spurred on by the Obersturmführer's silence and the sick giddiness in his own gut, he continued; "That's your weakness. I'm you're weakness. You want me. You want but you don't know how to have and to hold. You know only conquest and destruction. The emptiness of everything you believe in reveals itself. Here is where you run up against the limitations of ultimate power, where your supposed godly omnipotence runs out. You want to be human, but you cannot be as long as you play at being God."

No sooner had he spit the last word off his tongue than he felt the resounding smack slice across his cheek. His whole face smarted.

"God? I'll show you a god!"

The officer attempted to flip him onto his stomach, but he twisted his arms away and lunged to the side, nearly making it off the bed before he was pinned, arms like a vice around his legs.

He kicked with all his might; it landed squarely in the Obersturmführer's chest. The vice opened with a grunt; he rolled and fell to the floor.

"Given the choice to be a god, what fool would choose humanity?" The voice seethed behind him.

He made to stand, but a hand snagged his ankle. He came crashing down once more.

His lungs refused to expand as he lay aching on the carpet. The officer slithered off the bed and landed on top of him; he tried to writhe away but it was no use. He was straddled, hands around his throat.

"You insolent fool! Who do you think you are, compared to me? You are nothing! Nothing!"

The hands shook his neck so his head banged against the floor.

"You have no right to refuse me! You've been lucky—I've been gentle. But I don't need to be. I can do whatever I want to you. Where would you run? Who would you run to?"

He scratched desperately at the hands that began pressing down on his windpipe. His nails dug deep into the skin, enough to draw blood.

With a hiss of pain Obersturmführer Beilschmidt pulled back.

"You could!" He coughed, raised his hands against further attack; the Obersturmführer loomed over him.

"You're right, you could do whatever you want to me." His was voice hoarse, soft now. He felt so tired, suddenly. "You could rape me. Right here, right now, and as often as you like after that. I couldn't stop you. No one would care or intervene." He let the truth of those words sink in, for the officer and himself. He felt very small, and very alone.

"Maybe they'd never even find out," he whispered. "No one would even know what you did to me. Except me, of course. And you."

The room was silent as death, save the pounding of his own heart in his ears. He no longer had the energy to fight what came next.

But nothing happened. Obersturmführer Beilschmidt rose slowly to his feet, and walked out the door.

The carpet was scratchy on his bare back, but he didn't move. He lay shaking from cold and adrenaline. A laugh bubbled up to his lips, unbidden. And then another, and another, hysterical and hyena-like. Almost indistinguishable from crying; he only lacked the tears.

It was a long time before he gathered the strength to crawl back in bed. He burrowed under the warm duvet that smelled so strongly of the officer, and fell into a deep sleep.

...

Notes:

"A little death," or in French "la petite mort," as it is often called, is an idiom for orgasm that was especially popular in the Renaissance. It can be used in non-sexual contexts as well, simply to describe "dying a little inside."

The idea of an "internally transformed" fascist "man-like creature" comes from Vasily Grossman's monumental work "Life and Fate," which was inspiration for parts of this chapter.