[Officelover]

I visited him nearly every day of the week after that.
We were a couple. We never said we were. If he tried to say it, I would have kicked him in the testicles all over again. But that did not change the simplicity of the fact that we were... together. I called him Shitface, but it was more of a pet name. He called me “Mistress”.
I liked to pretend I had power over him. Every so often I would feel the need to assert myself, by digging my heels into his cock or pissing all over his face. But... most of the time, now, we just talked. About books he swiped while the librarians didn't look. About the few secrets he had been witness to in his wanderings. About the different types of rats one is likely to meet in the sewer. In return, I told him about the comforts of life of Omelas. I described the plays and films I'd go see, tell him what was happening with my friends at school, describe to him the light parts of our city.
We would kiss often.
One day, after a couple of months, we were making out, and... I let him love me. I didn't need the Viala to get him hard. He was the rider, you could say. It felt more like sex, you could say, than before. Whatever happened before was masturbation. This... was sex.
I didn't admit that to myself either. I said to myself that nothing had changed. I told my friends nothing about the increased feelings I had for the Child.
I noticed more bruises on him, as time went on, and I asked him one day after a particularly steamy sex session, “Shitface, why has your body been more blemished, lately?”
“I've been beaten more.”
“Why?” I was concerned. Who was beating my man?
He flashed me one of his toothy grins. “Because I have become resistant to beating.”
“What do you mean?”
“The body only feels so much pain; the mind can only be lowered to a certain point, Mistress. When you're at the bottom, you can only go up.”
I had noticed more hope in him since the day we first kissed. He no longer hung his head in the corner; he would even walk more in the light that I had so painstakingly described to him. Everyone noticed it; even the newspapers published op-eds about how society had become increasingly lenient on the Child and how we would collapse on ourselves unless there was a grassroots movement to punish him.
One day I saw a public shaming of the Child. He was tied to an old oak near the center of Omelas, and smeared with honey. Everyone took cover as they opened a box full of flies. I heard him shout, but I never heard him cry.
Not long after that, the Child and I were in the basement, making out passionately. We heard a door open, but disregarded the sound at first, until a voice yelled, “What is going on here?!”
It was the head librarian, the one who had showed me the Child for the first time.
“Nothing. I'm using the Child as I see fit.”
“But, honey, is this an appropriate usage of it? Normally, I wouldn't question your taking advantage of it for sexual gain, but... a kiss! And with the Child so infamously spoiled!”
“Sorry, ma'am. I thought I was allowed to do whatever I want to the—”
“That is beside the point,” the head librarian said, “I'm sorry to say this. You've been an excellent help to us, but, uh... I think I have to ask you to take a long, long break from the Child. We have to make sure it suffers. You of course will not be punished for this; I can assure you, the Child will be punished severely for allowing itself to be... linked to a citizen.”
“That's not fair!” I yelled.
“Please,” she said, “make this easy on yourself.”
I turned to look at the Child, and left.
That night, it came to my house. It told me that I was its only reason for living, and that it didn't care about punishment or avoiding it. “They've taken you away from me,” it said.
I was scared. I didn't understand. I slapped Shitface in its face. I said, “What do you mean, they've taken me away from you? Since when did you own me? If anything, I own you, you useless piece of shit. I... I hate you, and I never want to see you again!”
I never did.