The Forest.

The children are told not to go into the forest that lies just beyond the safe confines of their village. There is no law there, only wilderness, wild animals, and the absense of chaperoned eyes. But there is the chance to explore, the alluring darkness, and the fact that it is prohibited...these are impossible to resist.

And once inside, they want to go farther and farther.

*

I think to myself, What am I doing here? What's wrong with me? Why am I approaching his house in the middle of the night, shaved and scented, teetering on these black stilettos and wishing that the thong didn't cut into my skin so tight?

There's a knot in my stomach. When I reach the front porch I feel like swaying. The breaths that I remind myself to take are shallow, panicked.

Just as I reach a trembling hand out to knock on the door, he opens it from inside. Has he been waiting on me? I want to find a clock somewhere so I can check on the time—he said midnight, exact. Am I on time? I have to be. I can't have been late.

He doesn't say any kind of greeting, and his face is unreadable. He just gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and places a hand on my lower back, pulling me inside, into a house with no lights. Not that it's very dark; he has placed red candles on every available surface. Tabletops, bookshelves, coffee tables. I'm thankful for the golden light and the warmth that they fill the house with—it is New Year's Eve, and snowing.

There is only one spot there the candles do not rest; a small cabinet stand. On the flat top is a small black statue of a woman, in a prostrate, almost bowing position, obsidian hair covering her face entirely.

I'm shaking beneath my coat. Nothing to do with the outside temperature—truthfully, I feel feverishly hot. I try to quit trembling, but I can't. I can't speak, either, so I just give him a terrified smile for a greeting. What's about to happen to me is going to leave me changed forever. I don't even know what kind of girl I'll be when I leave, but I'm certain that, when I leave here, when I leave him, I will be a different person.

Just like me, he doesn't say a word. But he's completely different from me: he is so comfortable with the silence that fills me with tension.

The candlelight makes his eyes black and red. He just looks at me, straight, no possibility of breaking eye contact. I remember my sixteenth birthday, where my father said that I was growing into a young woman. I had thought that they were kind words, but now I see just how wrong he was, because I feel like a speck of dust on the hide of a mouse, standing here in front of a this ruby-eyed god. I know he's going to do things to me. I know he's unstoppable.

But the last thing I want is for him to stop.

Very slowly, he unzips my coat. The zipper moans beneath his steady fingers. I don't move an inch, until the coat falls to the floor. The sound makes me jump. He doesn't even smile at my weakness, proof that he is not easy to please.

I want to kiss him. I don't even attempt to try.

I want him to kiss me. He won't. He just looks me in the eye with all the patience of a black panther waiting in the treetops. Never speaking. I break eye contact—so painfully shy, I've always been like that—and instead focus on his hands. My body is already waiting for their touch. But I say nothing.

It almost comes as a shock, the realization. I'm savoring this. The anticipation. The waiting. The not knowing. This is the first time that I'm living out my fantasies with him, but he's not the same young man that I see every day, he's someone else. Someone more powerful, more in control, more skilled than the already magical being that I know. I came here tonight expecting a powerful man, not fully understanding just how powerful this man could be.

He uses both hands and with feather-light control he steers me further into the house. My mouth is dry. He reaches out one hand for the back of my neck. I think, for a second, that he's going to pull me close, going to take me in his arms, but he doesn't. He just threads his fingers through the strands of hair at my nape.

My heart is pounding. I suck in air. I lower my eyes. I listen to the silence. A heavy, penetrating, all-pervasive silence, the kind that makes you feel like you are not only alone, but helpless against any threat.

And here I am. A virgin at the mercy of a living demon.

He takes a step back, removing his hand from my hair, and I have to choke back a protest. I want him to touch me. I want him. I'm his. From now on, forever, I'm his and no one else's. My body screams for the tips of his fingers that leave fire wherever they roam. I can even feel his eyes on me, focused between my thighs, cutting through my clothing like an incision.

I savor those burning eyes.

"Listen to me."

I jump.

The sound of his voice is like a chidori to my brain, and I'm immediately alert and ready. Ready to do anything. He stares at me for a while, not at my eyes but down there, then at last walks up to me and reaches out a single hand. It stays low, reaching underneath the hem of my dress and I feel it—blind and slow and accurate—touch the black material over my swelling cunt.

His fingers are very, very precise.

"Pay attention."

His words are my air. I want him to kiss me so badly. I want his fingers on my skin, on my pussy, but they stay on the barrier of fabric and it makes me want to scream.

I look at him.

"You're mine, Sakura. You'll stay mine. And I want to be proud of you."

I'll do anything to make him proud.

Anything.

The ghost that are his fingertips are sliding over the black silk. "What you experience with me tonight, you will never be able to experience from anyone else. No one has ever treated you like the way I'm going to treat you."

Truer words have never been spoken.

"Tonight, you will want to scream. But you'll be silenced."

My voice is mute, yet that hasn't stopped my body language from crying out.

"You'll want to watch what I do. But you'll be blindfolded."

I can't see through tears of ecstasy, anyway.

"You'll want to escape. But you'll be tied up."

I will never leave you.

"You'll want to beg, and you'll hope that I will do certain things. But you'll have no control. And I will do whatever I want with you."

Yes.

YES.

Do anything you want to me, Sasuke.