31_days | [15-May-2007] [Noir] With Knives

Title: With Knives
Challenge: 15-May-2007 "je te dis vous [I say "vous" to you]"
Based on: Noir
Characters: Chloe, Kirika, Mireille
Type: Drama / humor / suspense; about 4500 words
Warnings: Mild adult language, nudity, and explicit adult themes and humor.

This contains the weirdest creepy fan-service I've written in a couple of years, and the most creepy fan-service I've ever crammed into one story. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

Noir © Bee Train / ADV Films.

Mireille knew, without looking up from her breakfast, that someone was watching her.

It might have been from how she had learned to use the very edges of her peripheral vision, and to recognize the softest sounds that only a trained assassin would notice. It might have been her female intuition, though she would scoff at that idea. Given her intelligence and dry wit, she might have simply expected something to happen, since so many strange things had happened to her lately.

She had just walked up to her apartment's small table near the window, carrying her breakfast plate and a cup of tea in her hands, and holding today's rolled-up newspaper under her arm. She had not yet dressed, and she wore only the over-sized white shirt that she often slept in. She had sat at the table, and laid out her breakfast and paper, but had not yet pulled up her chair, when she froze.

"Chloe," said Mireille.

Chloe walked up to the table, emerging from the cold early-morning shadows within the apartment, and facing Mireille's left side.

"Good morning," Chloe said politely. "Is Kirika here?"

"No, she went out," Mireille said icily. And she obviously forgot to lock the front door, she thought to herself. "She'll be gone for about an hour. Can I take a message for her?"

"No, no," Chloe said. "I have no business, this morning. I only came to... say hello?"

"I see," Mireille said.

A long awkward silence fell over the room. Both Chloe and Mireille remained still and silent.

Mireille finally cleared her throat. "Do you want something else, Chloe?" she asked in a pained voice.

"I have not yet had breakfast," Chloe said, in an odd way that was slightly awkward. "I was wondering if I might... join you?"

Mireille breathed out heavily, and forced herself to stay calm. "Chloe... I think it would be better if you came back later, when Kirika is here."

"But I have nowhere to go," Chloe said sadly. "As I said, I have no other business today. I am hungry, and I am... bored."

She's whining, Mireille thought to herself. The last thing I need, this early in the morning, is another assassin whining at me!

"I will ask you nicely one more time," Mireille said out loud. "Please leave me alone."

Chloe raised an eyebrow, and held up her open hands, as if in surrender. "Do you intend to make me leave?" she asked, in a more typical vaguely mocking voice.

Without turning her head, without moving at all, Mireille glanced past her breakfast. Her Walther was lying on the table, but it was out of reach from where she had pulled out her chair. Damn it, Mireille thought to herself. That was careless. It's a quick-draw, then.

Again, the room was silent. Chloe and Mireille stared at each other, with their empty hands in plain sight to each other, waiting for the other to make the first move.

Mireille felt her heart race. A rush of adrenaline made her nerves sing. Without fully realizing it, she felt most truly alive at times like this— at times when she might soon die.

Three..., Mireille thought to herself. Two... One...

Mireille lunged for her gun.

*TING!!*

Mireille froze again. Her fingers rested on the stock of her gun... but a throwing knife was embedded in the table, between her hand and the gun. Its edge brushed the soft flesh between her thumb and her palm.

Damn it, Mireille thought again. She sighed, and visibly slumped. After plucking the knife from the surface of the table, she began to turn to where Chloe had stood. "You win," Mireille said. "What would you— URK!!"

In an instant, Chloe was standing over Mireille. Taking advantage of Mireille's lack of concentration, she grabbed Mireille's fist, holding Mireille's fingers down around the knife, and jerked the knife up and back, under Mireille's chin.

"Thank you, Mireille," said Chloe. "But exactly what have I won?"

"Breakfast is on me," Mireille said, glaring at her attacker, too angry at the moment to be frightened. "Is that good enough for you?"

Chloe's face was still partly hidden behind her cowl, but she was still visibly amused. "...yes," she said. "That is good enough for me. I accept your offer, Mireille."

And then, still holding the knife in Mireille's hand under Mireille's chin, Chloe forced Mireille to stand, to turn away from the table, and to fall back against its edge.

"What are you doing?" Mireille asked nervously. "Let me go, so that—"

"No," Chloe said. She pushed Mireille's breakfast, and her gun, aside with her free hand. "Lie back on the table."

"WHAT!?" Mireille said angrily. "What do you think you're— AAAHH!! ALRIGHT!!"

Chloe had pushed the knife in Mireille's hand up against Mireille's neck. Mireille hopped up, sat on the edge of the table, and then fell back, all in one motion, to avoid having her throat slit by the knife in her own hand. She had jumped well back on the table, and her bare legs draped over the table's edge at her knees.

Mireille was seething with anger. "Is it necessary to humiliate me like this?" she snarled.

"No," Chloe said, as she suddenly released Mireille's wrist. "But, as I said, I am bored."

Mireille moved her hand away from her neck, but just as she cast the first knife aside, and before she could reach for her gun again— *TING!!* *TING!!*

"I have just pinned your neck to the table with two longer knives," Chloe said. "Since you cannot see them from your position— they are angled in, and the edges of their blades are against your neck, just under your jaw. I would advise you not to move your head. No, hold your arms still at your sides, unless you want my knives through them."

Oh no, Mireille thought. Oh no—

*TING!!* *TING!!* *TING!!* *TING!!*

"I have pinned down your wrists in a similar manner," Chloe said smugly. "I should not have to tell you that you cannot move without injuring yourself, yes?"

Oh God, Mireille thought. She's crazy. She's completely insane. There's no good reason for her to do this. An insane killer is toying with me because... she's bored.

Chloe suddenly came into Mireille's now-limited field of vision. "Tell me, Mireille," asked Chloe. "Are you frightened?"

"Yes," Mireille said in a steady voice.

"An honest reaction," Chloe said, "and an honest answer. I am happy that you can be honest with me."

What!? Mireille thought to herself. Just what kind of game are you playing at!? But she remained silent, and motionlessly looked up at the ceiling, as Chloe hopped up on the table to sit beside her.

"You are an intelligent and well-read woman," Chloe said, as she made herself comfortable. "I assume you have heard of vivisection?"

Mireille involuntarily whimpered. Oh no, she thought. Oh God...

Chloe reached back, produced another knife, and toyed with it over Mireille's face. "I have expert clinical knowledge of human anatomy," she said proudly. "I know the human body's weakest points, and I know how to use knives to cause immediate death at these points. But I also know how to use knives to cause intense pain without lethal injury... Pain so intense that it cannot be easily described in words. Agony so exquisite that it subsumes all other sensations. Suffering so profound that it breaks the strongest man, or woman, and leaves them wounded to the end of their days."

Suddenly overwhelmed, Mireille felt hot angry tears form at the corners of her eyes. Unable to hold them back, and helpless to brush them away, she felt them trickle down both sides of her face.

Chloe continued. "The last person I pinned down like this was an assignment. I was told to make him suffer, as few have suffered before or since. It might surprise you, how much damage can be done to a human body before it finally fails. Fortunately, I cut out his tongue early on, so that... why, Mireille! Are you crying?"

"Please," Mireille said weakly. "You must know that I do not torture people. If I had trapped you like this, I would not do such things to you. Please..."

"My dear Mireille!" said Chloe. "I was only teasing you! I would never do that to you! Kirika would never forgive me!"

Mireille had to choke back a sob of both humiliated anger and relief. I see where *I* stand, she thought to herself.

"But I must say," Chloe said, "that I had not expected you to cry, or to beg, so quickly."

"I am sorry to have disappointed you," a sniffling Mireille said bitterly, "but it's difficult to hold up against mental torture when I haven't even had my morning tea."

"You have not made your morning toilet? And still, you look like you do? You are very beautiful." Chloe rested the blade of the knife in her hand against Mireille's left cheek, near her nose. So very slowly, she pulled it across Mireille's face.

Mireille held her breath until Chloe took the cold knife away from her skin. "What are you doing!?" she whispered fiercely.

"Brushing your tears away," Chloe said. "Such a beautiful face should not be stained by tears. Ah, so very beautiful. I should like to imagine that I could carve such beauty myself..."

Mireille closed her eyes and whimpered again as Chloe pulled the blade across her other cheek. Is she flirting with me!? Mireille thought to herself. I think I might prefer vivisection.

"So beautiful..." Instead of taking the blade away, Chloe continued to trace it down Mireille's face and jaw, and then along her neck. "And like all beautiful things... so very fragile..."

"What do you want from me!?" Mireille gasped. "Do you want me to beg!? Do you want me to call you 'Mistress'!?"

"Of course not," Chloe said. "You are your own woman, as I am my own woman. I thought it might be nice to spend some time together before breakfast. And you may call me whatever you wish. We are in France, so a simple 'vous' would do."

Mireille felt like she was drowning. "You... you..." she sputtered.

"Just one more thing before breakfast, then," Chloe said, after she slowly scooped her knife along Mireille's collar-bone and finally pulled it away again. "Open your mouth."

Mireille immediately opened her mouth, and cursed herself for obeying so quickly. She knew she had no choice, and yet...

Chloe held the knife by its blade, and put its handle between Mireille's lips. "Close," she said. "The knife you hold in your teeth is extremely sharp. Since you cannot move, it is certain that, if you let that knife slip, it will cut your beautiful face as it falls. I hope you will not let this happen."

"*ngh*," said Mireille.

Chloe scooted off the table. Mireille heard her pick up Mireille's untouched breakfast and tea. "Since you are temporarily incapacitated," Chloe said, "I shall prepare my own breakfast. I think that I know where everything is. And I'll freshen yours. I do beg your pardon for keeping you from your breakfast."

"*ngh ngh-ghn ngh*," Mireille said.

"Don't clench your teeth so tightly," Chloe said as she walked away. "It will tire out your jaw muscles. You must hold up that knife by yourself for at least a few minutes."

Mireille helplessly stared at the ceiling, and reviewed her predicament as she overheard Chloe putter in her apartment kitchen. A few minutes ago, she thought, I was sitting down to a quiet breakfast on my day off... And now, I'm pinned down to my table with razor-sharp knives, I'm holding another knife in my teeth to keep it from gashing my face, and that knife-wielding psychopath is making herself at home in my kitchen!...

My night-shirt has long sleeves. I wonder if I can get the thickest part of one sleeve between my wrist and the knives. If I can do that, perhaps I could push against the blades and work them free.

Mireille wriggled in place, trying to roll down her sleeve by rubbing it against her side. But she almost immediately felt the blades press tightly against her right wrist, and she gasped. And then, she just barely remembered to keep her teeth clenched.

Okay, that didn't work, Mireille thought. All I did was work up my shirt... Oh, damn it! I'm not wearing underwear! Did my shirt ride up high enough to—

Chloe called out from the kitchen. "Do you have any juice?"

"*ngh*," said Mireille.

"What?" said Chloe. "I can't hear you!"

"*NNNNGGGH*!!," said Mireille, almost squealing in frustration.

Chloe giggled. Mireille's eyes widened— she had never heard Chloe giggle before.

"I am so sorry," Chloe said as she walked back up to Mireille. "I forgot myself for a moment. Alright, I am holding the knife now."

Mireille sighed heavily. "The juice is on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator," she said in a resigned voice. "It might be behind the milk."

"Ah," Chloe said. "I had not looked behind the milk... no, that's alright. Work your jaw for a moment, since I've interrupted you."

Mireille opened and closed her mouth a few times. "...thank you," she said meekly.

"You are welcome. Close." After releasing the knife, Chloe gently patted Mireille's cheek in a friendly way.

Mireille whimpered again. What am I doing!?, she thought to herself. I have to play along, but I cannot act like I'm alright with this!!

After a brief yet interminable time, Chloe returned with a tray. "Here we are," she said pleasantly. "Fresh fruit, warm biscuits with butter and honey, your tea, and juice for me. How is your jaw?"

"*ngh*," said Mireille.

"Good." And then, Chloe began to unbutton Mireille's night-shirt.

"*NNGGH*!! *NNGGH*!! *NNGGH*!! " Mireille frantically wriggled in place again, and also swung her legs, impotently kicking at air.

"What is wrong?" Chloe said, in honest petulant surprise, as she took the knife away from Mireille's mouth again. "You said I could!"

"I said no such thing!!" Mireille said, not knowing exactly what Chloe had in mind, but easily imagining the worst.

"You did!!" Chloe said, like a small child arguing with her play-mate. "I heard you say it! You said, 'breakfast is on me'! Remember?"

Mireille's mouth fell open; it was lucky for her that Chloe had set that knife aside. "Wha— Uh— Chloe, I didn't mean you could literally—"

She cut herself off. Chloe was standing close enough for Mireille to see her face, and Chloe's eyes had hardened. If Mireille had been able to move, she would have shuddered.

Oh, God, Mireille thought to herself. Is there no end or limit to this madness?...

"Alright," she said, slowly and carefully. "I do not understand why you want to do this thing, and I maintain that you misunderstood me. But if you must interpret my words in this way, so be it. But only on my stomach! So help me, girl, if you touch me anywhere except my stomach, I will pull myself free, and I will kill you with my bare hands, though it might be the last thing I do as I bleed to death—"

"Mmm," Chloe said. "No, that is perfectly acceptable. I did not intend to touch your body with my hands at all, anyway. But I must open your night-shirt and pull it back. I do not want it getting in my breakfast."

Having run through almost every other imaginable emotion in the past fifteen minutes, Mireille was now acutely embarrassed. Her cheeks burned with an angry red blush. But she didn't care anymore. She only wanted this to end. "Fine," she said.

Chloe's voice immediately took on a more relaxed tone again. "As to why... actually, Kirika gave me the idea, in an indirect way. I have tried to keep up with Japanese popular culture, and I have heard that sushi is sometimes served from the bodies of women. Perhaps you and Kirika have already?..."

Mireille felt the cool morning air on her exposed body, and felt even more helpless and vulnerable than before. "No!" she said. "I do not do such things! And I do not do such things with other women!..."

Chloe carefully transferred her breakfast to Mireille's stomach. "You have now," Chloe noted. "Life is short, and the life of an assassin especially short. I have lived much of my life in seclusion, but you seem a worldly woman. And you are very beautiful, Mireille. You would have no shortage of suitors.

"Women such as us do not live by the same rules as most people. Perhaps you should reconsider exactly what you will not do, and what you will do."

After setting out her breakfast to her satisfaction, Chloe held up two more knives. But instead of tucking into her own breakfast, she cut a bite of fruit from Mireille's plate, speared it on one knife, and held it over Mireille's face.

"You also intend to feed me, as if I were a child?" Mireille asked.

"Of course," Chloe said. "I would not eat my breakfast over you, when you cannot help yourself. That would be rude."

Mireille accepted the fruit from Chloe with a peculiar half-gargled sound. It was all she could do to keep from breaking into hysterical laughter. THAT would be rude!? Mireille thought to herself.

"Steady your breathing, please," Chloe said. "My breakfast is moving around on your stomach."

Mireille felt metal on her stomach, and gulped down her fruit with an astonished gasp. She's using her knives to eat from my stomach!? she thought to herself. If she should slip as she cuts a bite!... or if *I* should sneeze!!...

And then, Mireille felt the edge of a knife quickly trace across her ribs. She couldn't raise her head to see if Chloe had done it on purpose, but more importantly, it took every bit of her remaining will-power not to convulse against the knives that held her down.

Yet another problem for Mireille was that she was moderately ticklish.

Chloe carefully dripped some tea into Mireille's mouth with a spoon. "That is enough," Mireille said. "I have had enough."

"As have I," Chloe said. She scraped a knife across Mireille's belly to scoop up a bit of honey. Mireille wanted to scream.

Chloe raised the knife to her mouth, licked it clean, and then sheathed it. "I think I will take my leave now," Chloe said. "Thank you for breakfast, and thank you for a most enjoyable morning."

"Wait!!" Mireille said. "You're not going to leave me like this!?..."

"I am not?" Chloe asked. "...well, I suppose not." She reached over Mireille's body. Mireille felt one of the knives that pinned down her right arm move, but only slightly.

"There," Chloe said. "I have loosened the knife against the inside of your right wrist. Curl up your hand. Can you reach it with your fingers?"

Mireille frowned with the effort. "...just."

"Very good," Chloe said. "Push against its inside edge with your wrist, and then push back on its outside edge with your fingers. But push gently, or you will slice open your wrist and your fingers. If you are very patient, and very careful, you should be able to work that knife free in a few minutes without hurting yourself. Or, you could wait for Kirika to come back and release you..."

Chloe leaned towards Mireille's head. Mireille rolled her wide eyes to see Chloe's smirk, and she felt Chloe's breath on her own cheek.

"...you will not wait, will you?" Chloe asked rhetorically. "You are too independent, and too modest. But also, you do not know Kirika as well as you might think. Kirika is much more like me that you might first think. If Kirika found you like this? Pinned to the table, helpless and naked, and smeared with juice and honey? You cannot be sure that she would release you, now, can you? Oh no, you cannot be sure of what Kirika would do with you. You might never be a free woman again. Imagine spending every day of the rest of your life like this..."

Lies, Mireille thought. Madness and lies. But she felt her heart pound.

Chloe lightly kissed Mireille's cheek. "Farewell, Mireille Bouquet. Until we meet again... if we meet again." Then she turned away from Mireille, and left without another word. Mireille heard her close the apartment door behind her, and then, tread each step outside the door until she reached the street. And finally, Chloe was gone.

Mireille carefully felt for the slightly loosened knife. OUCH!! she thought. The damned thing is so sharp that I can barely touch it. But touch it I must...

Even as she worked at the knife, she pondered some of Chloe's words. There does seem to be some kind of odd relationship between Chloe and Kirika. And Chloe said that Kirika indirectly gave her the idea for... that.

I wonder if the two of them have?...

Frustrated, humiliated and threatened as Mireille was, some small part of her felt a twinge of... jealousy?

She resisted the urge to shake her head in order to clear it. I am not yet thinking clearly, she thought. I must concentrate on freeing myself before—

She heard steps outside the apartment door again, but drawing closer now. Kirika!? she thought. She has returned early!?—

Mireille knew her apartment and the area around it well, as a matter of self-protection. She knew exactly how many steps lay outside the door, and so she knew how many seconds she had left. Come on, you damned knife!, she thought. Come free!!

She felt moisture on her fingertips as she worked at the knife. She prayed that it was only sweat, or juice from breakfast, and not blood.

Kirika stopped at the apartment door, and Mireille heard her rattle its handle. Perhaps she has forgotten her key, Mireille thought hopefully.

Then she heard the sound of a key in the door. Or perhaps not, she thought, fighting to remain calm.

And then, just as the door latch clicked— the knife against Mireille's right wrist fell away, miraculously without cutting her at all.

Just as the door handle fully turned, Mireille pulled the knives away from her neck, and then from her other wrist, with her free arm.

As the door slowly swung open, Mireille bolted up from the table, grabbed all of the knives, and began to run for the apartment bathroom. She caught a glimpse of Kirika from the corner of her eye as she ran.

"Mireille?" said Kirika. "Is something wrong?"

"I— spilled some juice on myself!!" Mireille shouted. "I'm just going to wash it off!! Would you, um, wipe off the table!?"

"Alright," Kirika said, just before Mireille slammed the bathroom door shut behind her.

Mireille fell back against the door, set Chloe's knives aside, held up her hands and checked her wrists for injury, and then held her face in her hands.

Her open night-shirt was still on her shoulders. After a moment, she shrugged it off, stepped into the shower, and turned on the water. I did not lie to Kirika, she thought to herself. I do need to clean off. I feel so... dirty...

Mireille knew that she was not a good person. Some part of her had to be twisted, in order for her to take life quickly, cleanly and ruthlessly, and for her to take pleasure in a job well done. And while she felt no real joy in taking life, some part of her still enjoyed the thrill of her work. She had been in constant danger since Chloe had indirectly challenged her to a draw, and only now did she begin to relax. Only now was she able to reflect on how truly alive she had felt... and how excited she still was.

She also knew that, in order to take life, she had to be at least slightly mad herself. And she imagined that she must be more than slightly mad, when she realized just how incredibly turned on she was now.

Mireille suddenly turned the shower stall's cold water tap as far open as it would go.

After an uneventful day, Mireille and Kirika were quietly eating dinner together at dusk.

"Mireille?" asked Kirika. "Are you... alright?..."

Mireille frowned. I must still be out of sorts, she thought to herself, for Kirika to notice.

She changed the subject with another question. "Kirika? Have you seen Chloe lately?"

"No," Kirika said, "I have not seen her since we both last met her."

"Ah," Mireille said. "Good. Good..."

And then, in a nervous lapse of judgment, Mireille asked another question. "Kirika? Do you have much training with knives? I mean, training in techniques similar to those Chloe uses?"

Kirika seemed to take just a moment to consider her answer. "Do you mean, as in pinning someone to a table with three pairs of knives, at the neck and wrists?"

Mireille gasped. "But!... you said you had not seen her!..."

"It is obvious," Kirika said. "Look at this table. Those six deep gashes were not there yesterday. I was neither the attacker nor the victim, so it must have been you and Chloe. Did it happen this morning?"

Mireille sighed. There was no use in trying to keep secrets like these from another expert assassin. "Yes," she said. "Chloe came to visit shortly after you left, and left just before you returned. And I..."

"I see," Kirika said. "I am sorry to have missed her visit. I wish she had stayed a bit longer."

Mireille raised an eyebrow. "You forget what she was doing to me, Kirika."

"No, Mireille," said Kirika. "I do not."

A long awkward silence fell over the room. Mireille felt even more ill at ease. But Kirika's emotions were nearly unreadable, as always.

"I am sorry," Kirika finally said. "I did not answer your second question. Yes, I am familiar with Chloe's techniques. But I have not practiced them as extensively as Chloe has done. Perhaps I should do so.

"Do you want me to start practicing these techniques, Mireille?"

Mireille felt her heart pound again. Why did she phrase the question like that!? Mireille thought to herself. Why did she have to phrase it like that!?

And why am I compelled to answer truthfully?

Mireille hung her head. "...yes," she whispered.

"I see," Kirika said again. She set down her chopsticks, and looked around the table. The only knife on the table was a dull serrated bread knife... but Mireille knew that, in Kirika's hands, it was just as deadly as Chloe's sharpest dagger.

Kirika picked up the knife. "There we go," she said absently.

And then, Kirika stood up, and walked around the table towards Mireille. Her knife was pointed at Mireille's heart.

Yes, Mireille thought to herself. Here we go...