She ran the tips of her fingers down the cool, shiny surface of the doctor's metal workbench. Her eyes played along the sharp edges of each deadly tool. The time had come for her to choose, and choose she would.

Should she use the saw? Or perhaps the wicked-looking set of surgical scissors?

Marilyn was still deep in contemplation, weighing the benefits of each instrument against another, when a powerful deep-throated scream pierced her ears.

"Jesus fucking Christ," she muttered, turning from the workbench to fix a stony glare on Lana. "Give it a rest already. You know the basement's soundproof."

"Get me out of here!" the reporter shrieked as she pulled like a madwoman at the leather restraints on her arms and legs.

"It's been forty-five minutes already, just let it go," Marilyn said, almost feeling a twinge of sympathy for the other woman. She had never successfully escaped Thredson's clutches but she could imagine how soul-shattering it must be to get out once and somehow find yourself back here in this dark, hopeless place.

Lana dissolved into a series of anxiety-stricken sobs; she was probably bordering on a panic attack, but if she passed out the doctor would just revive her with an oxygen tank, so Marilyn went back to perusing the tools intently.

"How is she?" Oliver asked in an excited voice, descending the stairs with the playful energy of a little boy on holiday.

"Loud," Marilyn responded absently. She touched the handle of what looked like a forceps and found it surprisingly cold.

"Oh, our Lana's plucky, that's for sure." Thredson moved across the basement like a determined jungle cat that's spotted its prey. When he reached the bed he seized Lana's face and forced her to meet his eyes. "Breathe. Slowly."

The words were not a suggestion, but a command. Her breath hitched in her throat but after a moment the sobs stopped and she grew quiet.

Convinced she was behaving, Oliver released Lana's face and turned towards Marilyn as she looked his apparatus over with great interest.

"Have you chosen?" he whispered in her ear, slipping his arms around her waist from behind. She arched her back against him.

"I can't decide," Marilyn said thoughtfully, and he tilted her head towards him, capturing her lips with his, delving his skilled tongue deep inside her mouth. A fresh burst of weeping erupted from Lana's direction but they paid her no heed.

"Please," she begged, broken, tugging helplessly at the tight restraints on her limbs. "Please, please, please…"

Oliver ignored her and drew out the kiss, cupping Marilyn's left breast in the palm of one strong hand. When they parted he smiled, both innocent and devious all at once.

"The scalpels give the cleanest cut," he murmured, bringing his other hand up to caress her waist. He started to feel along the rounded curve of her stomach but Marilyn twisted away, grinning playfully, and searched the wall of shiny metal tools for the one he'd suggested.

"You can't," Lana wept, hiccupping through her tears. "Please, Marilyn, I trusted you—"

"Shut up," Marilyn muttered. The persistent desperate thrum of the reporter's words were like termites eating their way through her brain – she could barely think.

"Oliver!" Lana abruptly switched tactics, fixing her frantic eyes on the doctor. "Oliver, don't let her do this, please, don't let her hurt me!"

"Shut up," Marilyn repeated, but Oliver moved towards the bed, and the first alarm went off inside her skull.

"You thought you were so clever," he said in a low voice, lightly fingering the leather cuffs that circled her wrists.

"Oliver, please," Lana begged. Her terrified eyes were that of a wounded animal in a trap; she looked frantically from the doctor to Marilyn, a sick sweat beading on her forehead. "You can't do this, please, you know I'm-"

"Baby?" Marilyn cut in, wary of the look spreading across Oliver's handsome face. She approached the bed slowly and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Don't let her confuse you."

Thredson turned to study her, his dark eyes scanning her expression as they so often did, determining her intent. She met his gaze without flinching.

Her will to escape had ebbed since the unsuccessful attempt to kill her captor, but not her will to survive. Survival had turned into a game, a treacherous game, one that must be played fast and smart.

There was simply no time to let Lana get the upper hand. She hadn't learned the game, and she became them, one of the enemies.

Marilyn would not become one of them. Not if she had anything to say about it.

"I'm not confused," he said at last.

"The scalpel?" she urged, nudging him a little with her hip. Oliver's brows twisted in thought. Something was happening, Marilyn could sense it, and it wasn't good.

"Perhaps," the doctor murmured, drawing her close, one hand on the slim curve of her waist, "we should take our time."

Marilyn's eyes traveled a slow path from Lana's tear-streaked face to Oliver, who stared at her now like a lion waiting for a weakened gazelle to fall.

"What do you mean?" she asked after a moment of tense silence.

"We destroyed the tape," he said, taking a blonde curl of her hair and smoothing it over thoughtfully with his thumb. "The threat is gone. She's ours now. To simply end things so quickly before we've had any real fun..." The doctor examined Lana's restrained body as a faint grin surfaced on his lips. "...it would be such a waste."

Marilyn hoped her face didn't betray the dread this suggestion stirred in her. She swallowed, and smiled, and pretended to consider his words.

"What did you have in mind?" Her tone was bright, curious, but oh this was bad, his warped mind was working in ways she couldn't even imagine, she could do nothing to stop him.

Oliver stepped closer to the bed, tugging Marilyn along with him, and took one of her hands in his. Lana stared fearfully up at them, silent at last.

"Did you know," he said softly, his hand on the back of hers, guiding her fingers towards the pale skin of the reporter's terrified face, "that our clever little Lana is something of a deviant?"

As Marilyn's fingertips began to caress her cheek, she winced and strained to move out of reach.

Marilyn frowned.

"I don't understand," she mumbled, watching the doctor move her hand against Lana's flesh in slow, tender strokes.

"She likes women," Oliver breathed huskily in her ear, and Marilyn could tell he was excited; the predatory pitch his voice took on when he became aroused was unmistakable. "She likes women the way she should like men. I did my best to cure her of this illness-"

"You raped me, you monster," Lana whispered, but her caged animal eyes remained on Marilyn, wary of her every movement.

"-yet she remains afflicted." The doctor swallowed and tightened his grip almost imperceptibly on her hand.

"I thought that was just a nasty rumor," Marilyn said, still frowning, trying to grasp what it was he was asking of her. The reporter lay unnaturally still on the bed, focused on Marilyn; her silence seemed to confirm Oliver's accusation.

"We could continue her treatment," Thredson murmured, lacing his fingers with hers, "together."

"Stay the fuck away from me," Lana spat, but Marilyn hardly heard the words. She was staring at the doctor, overcome by a strange new emotion seeping through her veins like a slow-acting poison.

Was he really suggesting they keep Lana alive? And why was he staring at the restrained woman with the same hunger Marilyn had grown to know so well?

Jealousy began to gnaw at the pit of her stomach with vicious little rat teeth.

"I don't know," Marilyn said softly. "I just... this seems wrong, somehow. Can't we just kill her? Be done with it?"

Lana barked a short incredulous laugh.

"You're both insane," she said, almost to herself. "You're out of your goddamn minds."

Marilyn felt a sudden wave of hatred, one so intense it nearly left her lightheaded. She untangled her fingers from the doctor's and placed the palm of her hand on Lana's throat. Their eyes locked, recognizing each other for what they were: two very different women caught in very different traps.

She began to squeeze, slowly.

"You would be wise to watch that smart mouth of yours, Ms. Winters," Marilyn said icily. She tightened her grip until Lana started to struggle against her bonds again. When she was sure the reporter was listening, Marilyn held her still, her red-laquered fingernails sunk firmly into the soft flesh of Lana's neck.

"If you're going to be here, you'd better learn the rules," she hissed, relishing the way Lana's muscles tightened beneath her palm, the rapid fluttery beat of her terrified pulse. "Do you understand?"

Lana's desperate eyes flicked to Thredson, seeking help, but he didn't move.

Marilyn wet her lips, then leaned forward so she and Lana were nose to nose.

"I may be a foolish little girl," she whispered, "but I sleep upstairs and you sleep in the basement. There's a reason for that."

Her gaze flicked to Lana's full lips; Marilyn smiled, then placed a chaste little kiss on the reporter's quivering mouth.

She barely had time to withdraw before Oliver seized her from behind, pulling her into his arms until his erection pushed gently into the small of her back.

"You never cease to surprise me," he growled in her ear. As Lana stared, horrified, the doctor slipped a hand beneath the hem of the little black dress Marilyn had chosen to wear for her final trip to the asylum. His fingers ran tenderly along the soft folds between her legs.

Thredson made a low sound of approval when he found her already warm and wet.

Marilyn was breathing heavily, still on a strange high from exercising her dominance over the doomed reporter - who now seemed to be grasping the hopelessness of her situation.

"Take me upstairs," she said bluntly over her shoulder. Oliver obliged at once, taking Marilyn by the hand and leading her away from Lana's bed.

"Wait, please," Lana begged as she began to thrash against her restraints again. "Please don't leave me down here, please!"

Marilyn paused to watch her struggle in vain.

"You're still alive," she murmured at last. "Enjoy it."

Oliver nudged her up the stairs, excited and insistent. As they ascended Marilyn listened to Lana's screams and, with great satisfaction, hit the lightswitch, plunging the basement into darkness.

They had only just entered the living room when the doctor pulled her against his chest, trailing ravenous kisses down the slope of her neck.

"You're the one," Thredson mumbled into her skin. "I was wrong about Lana, I was so wrong, it's you, it's you..."

The unfamiliar gnawing sense of jealousy skittered through her stomach on cold feet. Marilyn placed her palms on Oliver's cheeks, tilting his face towards hers.

"How long are we keeping her?" she asked frankly.

A strange little smile tugged at his lips.

"You don't like our new toy?" He began to guide her towards the couch, his hands on her waist. She tried to resist but his fingers had sparked a fire between her legs she couldn't ignore.

"You know I don't," Marilyn murmured as she leaned back onto the cushions, reaching for the zipper on his pants. The doctor moved liquidly atop her and returned to the curve of her neck, licking and biting with fervor.

"Poor baby," he said huskily, and while his condescending tone brought her back to her days in the basement, she felt a surge of wetness in her loins at his words. She wrapped her thighs eagerly around him.

"Why do you need her?" Marilyn released his erection from the confines of his neatly pressed work slacks and pulled his hips roughly against hers, burying him deep in her hot secret place. Thredson moaned against her skin, unprepared for how wet she was.

For a moment they were slaves to the sweet sensations between their legs; the doctor pumped in and out of her and she sighed softly, running her fingers through his thick dark hair.

Marilyn raked her red nails down the back of his neck and he groaned.

"You have me," she said at last, breathless.

Oliver bared his teeth and picked up speed, hitting over and over again that sinful spot deep inside that made her weak with pleasure.

"I do," he agreed. Then his brows knit together and he shuddered as he came, eyes drifting closed, hips slowing to a stop.

After savoring the afterglow Oliver pulled himself from her and stood to compose himself.

Marilyn remained on her back, unsatisfied. It was unlike him to forgo her orgasm and she found herself strangely bereft.

He buttoned his pants, then looked at her on the couch. Her disappointment must have been painted on her face because Oliver made a patronizing little clucking noise and returned to her side.

"I'm not replacing you," he murmured. When she didn't respond, Oliver began stroking her cheek tenderly. "Lana had her chance. She'll never be to me what you are."

And what was that? Lover, mother, or captive?

The doctor slipped an arm around Marilyn and pulled her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead. She stared beyond him at the stairs that descended to the basement.

In the silence she thought she heard Lana screaming, but she couldn't be sure.

It was hard to be sure of anything.