Free Your Hate

Chloe had become a bit of a stay at home mom, lately - with an emphasis on staying at home. She avoided leaving the house for any reason, and tried to keep the children home too. This met with limited success; Dalia and Amber in particular had so many friends they wanted to see again after their time away.

Today was one of Malara's days off from work. Chloe had found some of her work-out clothes when she was unpacking, and now she was wearing them. She wandered around their home until she found Malara.

"I need to hit something really hard," she announced. "Mind if I use your workout room?" Her padded-gloved hands held a rolled-up piece of paper and some scotch tape. She was restless, simmering with anger and just a hint of fear.

@Kadakism

She had almost forgotten how much Malara would get out of this. Not to mention how much Malara would get out of Chloe seeing her in this state. Not that this was a problem.

"Sure." At least she would be making herself useful.

Even in Chloe's workout clothes, she was still wearing the spider-silk collar Pandora was making her wear. Chloe didn't mind it too much. She knew going in that Pandora would probably make "owning" Chloe weird. Her only concern now was how well the thing would stand up to sweat.

The roll of paper was a printout of that picture making the rounds on Manta Carlos twitter. Two men who were supposed to be responsible for the disappearances. She taped them to one of the punching bags, then she got into her boxing stance. She spent a moment just bouncing on her toes, sidestepping a little, staring at the faces on the picture.

Her anger peaked.

She put her whole body into the first punch. Even though it had been a while since she drained anyone's strength, she could have killed someone with that punch. She moved on to doing a few drills - a jab or a tail slap to stun them, then going in with elbows and knees, loud THWACKS and THWUMPS, killing intent. Each time she imagined one of them would be good and dead, she would back off and do it again,

Was she holding back?

Chloe was pretty sure she was hitting the fucking thing like she was trying to kill a man. In fact, the suggestion that she was holding back was making her angry. She wouldn't even be any good at defending herself. Malara wouldn't even get to finish talking about how well her hand healed before she would hear it.

It was somewhere between a shout and a roar. In the middle of it, WHOMP! She kicked the bag, her sharp toes tearing through the picture and into the punching bag. The chains holding it in place strained against the force of the kick. The printout came off, falling to the floor, and Chloe followed it and started stomping on it. Through gritted teeth she spat out the broken pieces of four letter words.

When her tantrum subsided, she took a deep breath. "Sorry about the bag. And the mats. It's probably for the best I'm banned from sparring now."

As sore as her arms had gotten from all the earlier impacts, this didn't make her feel better yet. She was still restless, insides crawling with hate like a kicked anthill.

Chloe hesitated.

On the one hand, she knew that Malara got off on getting hurt. She would definitely get off on getting hit really hard. This was tantamount to Malara propositioning her. That connection by itself was a pretty serious turn-on.

On the other hand, she didn't know how she felt about hurting someone she liked. At least, serious hurting. She had done a few things that hurt a lot without being dangerous - cuts, scratches, a few submission holds - but this was a new frontier. Her anger was definitely cooling off a little bit. Hatred gave way to sexual confusion.

"...If that's something you want." She took up her fighting stance again, light on her feet, arms up and ready to block or throw punches. "It should be good practice, you know. I haven't done this sort of thing to a person before. Except for... well, the maze, I guess." Thinking about the maze brought up a whole host of bad memories and emotions. Malara would probably appreciate it. "Let me know when you're ready."

As soon as Malara gave an indication she was ready, Chloe would move in. She lunged forward, starting to throw a jab at the goddess's face, but pulled it back. This was just to distract from the sharp tail swinging around to stab into Malara's exposed side. A moment later, a solid right cross was colliding with Malara's throat. Chloe grabbed her at this point, slamming her knee into Malara's chest until she felt things break. It was all over in a matter of seconds, just like one of her drills.

"How was that?" she would ask, backing off. She could have just gone with a punch, but she wanted to impress. "Think I could get away with that in a fight?"

Chloe saw that big grin on Malara's face. She was loving this, and she could really take a lot of damage. It was really no wonder she was getting married to Pandora.

She hoped Malara wouldn't be able to taste jealousy. Even if it was an open marriage, even if Chloe could still be just as involved with them, even if Malara had already been married to people and Chloe hadn't been jealous of any of them. Chloe hated the way she felt about the engagement. She hated her stupid feelings about that, and why was she even dwelling on this right now, watching one of the women she loved un-cave-in her chest? Why couldn't she just stay really mad about one thing right now?

Hurting Malara didn't make her feel much better, but Malara's praise was hitting the spot. She was able to focus on the next thing.

"Show me some things? I'm not going to turn down a lesson from the Goddess of battle. What'd you have in mind?"