Gap [1] The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict by Stephen R. Donaldson Page B

helpless beauty, and the more he exercised himself on her flesh, the greater her hold on his imagination became—the more power she seemed to have over him.
    It was madness to stay where he was: stationary, hidden, defenseless. He should have been on his way to the nearest bootleg shipyard days ago. It was weeks or months away under hard boost, inside the borders of forbidden space, where cops never went; he should have gotten started immediately. But he kept thinking of things he could do to Morn—of ways to enjoy her imposed compliance—of outlets for his most intimate and personal rage. The firm line of her thighs and the soft pillow of her belly haunted his dreams: he was kept awake by the way her breasts lifted to him despite the intensity of her loathing. For several days, he was simply unable to think about anything else.
    Finally, during one of the periods when he released her from the zone implant’s control so that he could take a look at her despair, abhorrence, nausea—look at them and savor them—she asked, “Why are you doing this? Why do you hate me so much?”
    They were in the sickbay because its berth was easier to use than any of the others. She sat on the floor, against the bulkhead, with her legs hugged to her chest in misery and her face hidden between her knees. He’d seen sewer rats on Com-Mine Station and elsewhere, derelicts, nerve-juice addicts, even null-wave transmitters, with more energy and hope than she showed. She was breaking, as he’d promised she would. Already it seemed impossible that she would ever have the courage to threaten him again.
    And yet she was still groping—still reaching for something—
    “Why are you doing this? Why do you hate me so much?”
    She was like Bright Beauty: she had surprises in her.
    “What difference does it make?” he growled, just for something to say. “How come you’re the one with gap-sickness, instead of me? Who knows? Who cares? I’ve got you. That’s all there is.”
    She lifted her head a little: her eyes showed, black as rot and ruin, past her kneecaps. Her voice twitched as if she were afraid or crazy. “You can do better than that.”
    He sucked his upper lip, thinking casually. For some reason, he felt expansive, almost magnanimous. It was possible that she was crazy. Possessiveness warmed him as if it were a species of affection.
    Abruptly he said, “All right. I’ll tell you something about me. A little story to help you understand.” He was sneering. “I had a roommate once.”
    Morn Hyland stared at him without any reaction at all.
    “Back on Earth,” he explained. “In reform school. I was a snot-nose kid—didn’t know enough to keep them from catching me. Fuckers. Caught me helping myself in a foodvend. But of course they didn’t care I was doing it because I was hungry. All they cared about was reforming me. Make me ‘a productive member of society.’ Break me. So they locked me up in school.
    “I hated it. One thing I promised. Nobody is ever going to lock me up again—”
    That was a digression, however: Angus had no wish to think about being locked up. If he did, he would lose his present sense of indulgence and fall into a fury. Over the years, he’d done some desperate things—reckless things, things that probably made him look brave. But courage had nothing to do with them. He’d done them to escape the danger of being locked up.
    “I had a roommate,” he resumed. “They told me I was lucky I only had one. Crowded three or four into a room was more like it. But it wasn’t luck. They put me alone with that shithead because they thought he’d be good for me.
    “They were all cops.” The taste of their power over him made him want to spit. “Like you. They talked about protecting and reforming, but what they really liked was muscle. Just like you. Muscle to kill me. Or break me—it’s the same thing. I was just a street rat who got caught raiding a foodvend. I couldn’t defend myself. They