A Need to Suffer

A New Path

Chapter Six

A New Path

Ramsay could still feel her hand stroking his scalp and caressing his face long after he’d watched Sansa leave. The sensation sent a flutter through him of longing and fear; he didn’t understand why, but he wanted so badly for her to touch him again. He should carry a burning soul rendering hatred towards her for what he’d endured by her command, but all he could think about was the gentleness Sansa had treated him with before she had last departed. To touch him with care; Ramsay had sensed it far greater than Sansa had even realized she was portraying, but to a person who had felt so very little in the ways of such attentions, especially now that he was a broken wretch of what he’d once been, the fact that she’d imparted as much at all to him seared Ramsay to his core.

Even Miranda had never been the type to afford him tenderness, theirs was a relationship of hunger and want. They had fucked like animals in heat, biting and scratching, until Ramsay eventually roughly took Miranda in whatever way his lust required. Miranda had never minded, and as such, she’d never bored Ramsay enough to hurt her for his other amusements, at least not much anyway. She’d fed into whatever desires he’d placed on her like an empty shelled mirror just waiting to reflect back anything Ramsay had projected. In this way, he’d never been able to respect Miranda, he had been fond of her though. He’d known her since he’d been a young boy; in fact, many of his dogs he’d gotten from her father’s litters. She’d never shown fear when dealing with Ramsay, and that was the only reason he’d not hunted her down for sport long ago. Still, there was no love lost when he’d found her crumpled body in the courtyard. All Ramsay had felt was irritation that she was no longer around to amuse him further. It wasn’t easy to find others that enjoyed his hobbies like she had after all.

What Sansa had instilled in him now was wholly different. Ramsay had never respected a woman in his life, save his mother whom he’d never actually respected and instead felt a mix of indifference and very little gratitude towards for never being an active role in his life. His mother afforded the same indifference to Ramsay outside of preening him enough to approach his father; of course such embellishment served a purpose mostly to rid herself of the burden he’d caused upon her own life. Reek had already worked to twist the boy in such a way that she was more than happy to send him packing. His mother had never wanted Ramsay; all he was to her was a reminder of everything that had been taken from her the day he had been conceived, a point that she could never fully move on from until he was out of her life. Ramsay had never looked back.

As he’d become a man, women had been his play things, they were second class citizens, and he’d wanted to hurt them to make up for the anger he felt in his own life. To be forced to respect one now only served to twist Ramsay’s mind further in its already broken state. Sansa had made him feel pain, she’d made him feel guilt, and now she was making him feel something else. It stirred in him, a tumultuous wave of emotion. It was needy and unbidden; he wanted her comfort, he craved it because it evoked something else much deeper within him that had been scarred and tucked away too afraid to see the light of day. It was easier to feel nothing at all, and those walls had been painstakingly built so long ago to protect him from feeling anything for anyone, but Sansa had knocked loose his resolve, tore down his pride, and left him bared both physically and mentally to her, and it left Ramsay fragmented now in the wake of his own thoughts ripped asunder by her ministrations. She was molding him to be hers, and Ramsay would please her if only so that she would grace him with another tender touch. Her tenderness felt so much better than the pain that came from her anger. He didn’t want her anger, and these choices really were the only two options Ramsay had.

These thoughts warred within him as small parts of his past-self told Ramsay not to yield to these new emotions he was garnering towards Sansa, but Ramsay really had nothing left to stand for, he was nothing except what Sansa told him he was to her. The question he’d asked Reek, “Do you love me Reek?” It had been stated as a cruel taunt, but the fearful dispirited eyes that locked on his had responded in earnest, “Yes, of course my lord!” He’d turned Theon into his Reek; Ramsay had relished that power over the man. It had been easy to rub it in his face and force Theon to no longer even consider himself to be who he’d once been, and now Ramsay’s own mind was muddled with fear from the realization that he was starting to unwillingly take on the same mentality.