After Maison Blanche

Chapter 3

John ate his first meal in nearly a week, and within twelve hours, Stefano started his psychological warfare. Puccini's Tosca had been blaring over speakers, while a strobe light flashed, for the past five hours on a loop. John had to acknowledge the genius way Stefano decided to begin the process. Sleep deprivation. Lack of sleep, combined with psychotropic drugs, would break most men. John had a vague recollection of Stefano standing over him, at one point during the night, saying, "Your mind is mine again, just as Marlena will be mine," Stefano said.

Marlena. No, Marlena would never belong to Stefano. John would die first. If anything or anyone could keep him firmly tethered to his mind, it was Marlena. His mind had been wandering the whole time, through years of memory, he sifted, but John had done what Marlena said. He focused on the thing he loved the most. Her. John laid in the bed, face down to shield his eyes from the flashing light, and he thought about Marlena. The drugs kept trying to pull him under, and his mind drifted...

"Marlena...I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it," John said sitting down on the ground behind her. The air in the cave was cold, and Marlena sat in front of him shivering. He touched her shoulder softly, "I've got a special feeling for you."

Marlena spun around to look at him, her hazel eyes flashing with anger, "Don't you say that to me!"

"Right from the very beginning, before I knew anything about myself...I knew, that I cared for you," he whispered, running his fingers along her jaw.

John's fists clenched as he fought to stay in control of his own mind. He could feel his fingernails digging into the palm of his hands, as he screamed, "Doooooooc!"

"What are we going to do?" she asked him, staring up at him with wide eyes. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't ever want to let you go," he whispered, staring down into her hazel eyes. The wind blew her honey colored hair across her face, and he stepped closer, saying, "Ever."

"What?" she asked him with a soft smile. "I'm your hostage now?"

John was immobile, and his body was rigid. Stefano watched on the monitor in his office, and asked Celeste, "Is he asleep? What is he doing?"

Celeste smirked, almost glad that Stefano's attempts at brainwashing John, and breaking him down, were not succeeding. She wanted him to give up these plots, and stop this obsession he had with John Black, and the Brady's. Celeste asked him, "Can he hypnotize himself? He seems to be—"

"—No! He cannot hypnotize himself!" Stefano roared, but he wasn't so sure. John wasn't reacting the way he was supposed to. He was too calm. The music, the strobe light, it should be driving him mad, and it wasn't working.

"Honey," Marlena whispered, sliding her palm under the neckline of his shirt. "Tell me."

"Doc," he whispered. His lips softly played over hers, gentle kisses that sucked softly at her mouth."Do you want me to stop?"

She stared into his eyes, breathing heavy, "No."

"Then shut up," he whispered. Kissing her softly again, he said, "I love you."

Marlena groaned into his mouth, "I love you too."

Stefano turned the volume of the music louder...hoping for a reaction. He got no reaction at all. If anything, John disappeared further into his own mind. Stefano roared in anger, "I do not understand! It has been hours of this, and he sleeps?"

"Life is passing so slowly, and it's all your fault," Marlena said teasingly, slowly unbuttoning her shirt as she turned away from him.

"Oh, yeah, now how's that?" he asked her, glancing over the curves of her backside, and thinking about all of the ways he'd like to lick her body.