Warnings: Explicit Content; Smut; Oral Sex (F-receiving); Discussion of FGM/Clitorectomy; Allusions to Child Abuse; Allusions to Scars; Angst; Mention Cutting;
Word Count: 1.2k
Summary: You cannot carry all your pain on your own.
Author’s Notes: When I was five years old, I was subjected to a clitorectomy, a procedure that was a violation of my human rights and bodily autonomy. It has fundamentally changed the way I view my sexuality and challenged my ability to see myself as a person worthy of sexual pleasure and love. This procedure was done very deliberately to make me a person who did not have sexual autonomy and did not derive pleasure from sex. And for a long time, it worked.
When Dibs at @gotnofucks #dibspositivitychallenge came out, it really only felt right to do a piece that represented this story, because if I don’t give voice to this pain, then there’s a good chance no one else will either. Which is why I’m submitting it as part of the challenge — and it was a challenge! I’ve alluded to FGM in other, now mostly-abandoned pieces, but never anything where it is acknowledged and soothed, and for the most part, endured it alone.
And before this note becomes almost as long as the piece, thank you, @gotnofucks, for the opportunity to be okay with the things we are not.
The first time he touches you, it is a shock.
No, not like that.
Helmut Zemo invades your life like a virus, consumes your loneliness in greedy kisses, winds his arms around you like he might just swallow your pleasure whole, might make you a part of him to carry away forever. Bare yourself to him and he might sink his fangs into you, drain you of all your fears and leave only obsession in its wake, might turn you into the same cold lover as him, might just make you fall in love.
The first time he touches you, it is a shock.
You are soft and delicate and precious under his lingering gaze, under appraising fingers, under appreciative hums. He bids you Lay still, sweetling, bids you Let me look at you, bids you You are a masterpiece made flesh, and you believe him, and you forget.
You forget, as he claims your soft mouth with his own, willing and wanting. You forget, as his tongue explores the pleasurable symphony of your surrender. You forget, you forget everything. There is only the hunger of his lust, the wanting he leaves on your skin, marking you with nips of teeth and suckling kisses, makes a game of your yelps and whimpers, chuckles against your tender form, So needy for me, sweetling.
And you are.
Helmut, you plead, running fingers through his hair as he simpers with lips wrapped around the pebbled skin of your breast, watching him wide-eyed and enamored, a halo of dark locks around your face and you are made of adoration and to be adored.
Darling, he purrs, fingers sliding along your sides, Do you trust me?
And oh.
Oh, you do.
Let him kiss along the planes of your body, let him love the soft lines of you in the early morning light and bid you spread your legs for him Yes just like that, darling, good girl…
Helmut Zemo hums against your skin, takes in the sight of you full of want and wanting, your hands tangled in silk sheets and lips curved around the praise of your love and he is lost to you just the same.
The first time he touches you, it is a shock.
The softness of your sex is an intoxicant and the kisses he places to the plush apex of you is a whisper of a promise, seeking the sweetness of you on his senses and if he notices the scars where the missing parts of you are then he does not speak and if he notices the way your breath hitches and you tense then he does not speak. He only presses the flat of his tongue against that which you have, taking a decadent lap of your sweetness while you whine and if there are tears in your eyes, sweetling, let him pause to wipe them away, let him watch you in adoring silence to see if you will utter to him the words which will put a stop to this worship and bring about another kind. You are exalted and let him raise you to the heavens just like this, Just like this, sweetling.
He does not devour you, he is no beast, but he does drink of your pleasure, letting his tongue delve into your softness. Gentle hands holding you in place, encouraging you to surrender, writhe and move and let him nuzzle deeper, let him moan, soft and hungry against the feast he adores so much and when you surrender, sweetness, he is overcome.
The first time he touches you, he asks nothing.
The first time he touches you, he sees everything.
Does it hurt?
The next time he touches you, he is curled around you in bed, fingers languid and lazy against the plushness of your sex, finding the space where nerves are made scars and watching you turn, watching your eyes grow desperate and realize he saw and he touched and he loved you anyway and you say nothing at first, not until he asks again, Does it hurt you, sweetling?
Sometimes.
But today?
No.
Will you tell me?
Someday.
And he asks nothing further, only whether you are warm and comfortable here in this home he had made out of your bed and when you nod he is calmed and when you nod he is taking another hungry kiss from your plush mouth and when you nod he is patient.
He is always patient, and careful, and skilled, and waiting.
One day it does hurt, and for once, you do not hurt alone.
One day it does hurt and you tell him.
He holds you while you cry, just as he is, kissing your fingers and promising divinity in your adoration and you tell him of the girl you once were and you speak of the knives and the crimes and he listens.
He listens and in his heart, he simmers with the pain and rage you have absorbed for all your years, the iceberg shelves of his heart cracking under the weight of your hurt and your confession and he asks no questions but sweetling, you tell him every word, pressed against his chest and tears in your eyes, Let yourself cry, darling, and Helmut Zemo might be a murderer and an extremist and a villain but in this moment he is yours and there are no greater villains than the ones who drove you to this, who charged a child with crimes she did not know the names of, demanding reparation from her in her blood and flesh.
So you tell him. You tell him of the dusty hospital and the sneering faces. You tell him how your mother could not bring herself to come with you and so you stood, too young to remember your native tongue with no interpreter to make your grandmothers understand that you were afraid.
You tell him of a bird with her wings clipped before she even knew she could have flown, you tell him how you thought you would never, you tell him how it used to hurt and sweetness… you tell him how you thought he would leave you if he saw.
It’s not their fault, you tell him too, and he does not believe you but it is not his place to tell you what to feel and so instead he runs fingers through your hair and holds you to his chest and kisses your temple.
It’s not their fault, you insist, They trusted the wrong people, they were misled, they—
They are not yours to defend, sweetling, he tells you in his softest voice, breaking you from your guilt, They are not yours to justify.
And so you do not give it.
You give nothing, only your tears to a man who demands nothing, only bids you seek refuge in what safety he can give but sweetness he knows the meaning of revenge and the power of loathing and you have carried your burden for so long and justice has failed you so often — Let me carry this pain with you, my darling — and oh sweetness, you will.
You will, and he will carry you through the days you try to give a name to your anguish.
You will, and he will find the means to demand the justice you were denied because you deserve your justice, because you cannot be allowed to hurt while they go home and pretend they are correct to do this to you and your sisters in faith.
