Erasing the Anger Management Disorder
I'll erase any jokes about anger management disorder.
Sliiiide.
My thumb glided down the hollow valley between her shoulder blades as if sliding along a groove.
"Hnnn, uugh! There, th-that's... Ah! No, nooo!"
This is pure hentai...
Even under the pretext of psychological treatment, even if I was only laying hands on her for a moment, I never expected the effects to be this potent...
As if pressing the keys of a piano, I worked my way down each vertebra one by one, and Ruby's reactions grew more violent in real time.
She thrashed, trying to push her upper body up, but I pinned her back down firmly with my other hand.
"Please don't move. Your spine will twist."
"Twisting isn't the problem... Hic?! Hey! Your hand, where the hell is your hand going...!"
My palm settled onto the narrow curve of her waist.
Sensitive? Sure, it was sensitive.
But the more I touched places like this, the more she would be able to focus on training her sensitivity down.
Well, the problem was that the Sensory Amplifier was making her body even more hypersensitive as it coursed through her veins right now.
This spot might not be a danger zone so much as a pure erogenous one...
I gripped the muscles of her waist with the practiced air of an expert and kneaded them gently.
Squeeze.
"Haaaaaaaaah—!!"
Ruby's head snapped backward.
Her eyes rolled until only the whites showed, and a spit-flecked scream tore from her lips.
"Ah! It hurts! No, it tickles! It's hot! What the hell is this?!"
"This is why you're so sensitive that anyone who picks a fight, anyone who shoulder-checks you, anyone who comes at you trying to kill you sets you off. You really were an impossible patient."
"Wh-who... H-hnn... s-said that was meee..."
"Oh, is that so?"
I answered shamelessly and put a little more strength into my hands.
Every time my fingers dug into the flesh of her side, her abs contracted in spasms.
"Ugh...! St-stop... Please, stop..."
Ruby clawed at the bedsheets.
The luxurious linen fabric tore under her grip with a harsh rip.
The tough act in her voice had already melted into a wet, pleading tone.
"Are you going to surrender? Can I take that as a surrender?"
"No, no! I'm not surrendering! I'm not... Uuugh! Just stop for a second!"
"Unfortunately, treatment loses its effect if you stop. It has to be nonstop or the sensitivity never dulls."
I mercilessly lowered my hands further.
What remained was the end of the spine.
Right above the hips, the sacrum where the tailbone began.
Perhaps because Aris Mardia's knowledge included medical anatomy, I knew exactly which places were especially nerve-dense.
The sacrum in particular was packed with nerves and sensitive even on a normal day—and now the amplifier was in play?
It was practically a power switch.
"All right. This is the highlight. Take a deep breath."
Press.
My thumb drove hard into the area around her tailbone.
"Ugyaaaaaah—!!"
It wasn't a scream so much as a raw shriek.
Ruby's body arched like a bow until it looked ready to snap, then locked rigid.
Her toes curled; her thighs slammed together and trembled violently.
In that instant, crisis arrived.
Ruby Scarlet's defense mechanism has been activated.
Zzzzzzt!!
Through Psychological Insight, the tinnitus in my ears rang even more fiercely.
Her body began to leap with crimson light.
The stimulation had been so intense that her sensitivity had pushed past the point where she could even feel anger; she had hit her limit.
Red heat rose from her skin, and the air around her back began to shimmer.
If I left this alone, the hotel would turn into a charcoal briquette—and I would be grilled well-done right along with it.
"It's hot...! Burn it all! Get away! Get the hell awaaay!"
Scarlet light blazed from Ruby's eyes.
The shirt wrapped around her body began to scorch from the heat.
But I did not back down.
How do you put out a fire? You don't pour water on it.
You short-circuit the psyche with an even greater stimulus.
Until she can't even form the thought of casting magic.
"Ah-ah! Patient! Relax your strength!"
I focused on my fingertips.
I pressed hard into the most intimate nerve cluster nestled in the cleft of her hips.
"───?!?"
Ruby's mouth worked soundlessly.
Not even a scream came out.
Because a bolt of pleasure so intense it felt ready to burn her brain white had raced up her spine and slammed into her skull.
Fsssshhh...
Was it thanks to the stimulus?
The crimson flames that had been rising vanished as if they had never existed.
Defense mechanism or not, every thought circuit had frozen solid before the overwhelming tidal wave of sensation.
Thud.
Ruby's body, which had been stiff as a board, collapsed onto the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Haaah... Haaah..."
She stared into empty air with unfocused eyes, only able to gasp for breath.
A thin strand of clear saliva trailed from the corner of her mouth.
The great Ruby Scarlet had been half-unconscious from nothing more than a few pressure-point presses.
I wiped away sweat and checked my watch.
Fifteen minutes remaining.
"Whew... That was close."
I scolded her in a deliberately stern voice.
"Ruby. If you tense up during treatment, it's dangerous. Just now your back nearly gave out—I was the one who caught it, you know?"
Ruby could not answer.
No—she was incapable of answering.
She could only clutch the sheets with trembling fingers.
Her mind was no longer filled with rage, but with a sensitive terror she had never felt in her life.
It could hardly be otherwise.
For someone whose anger management was so poor that emotional control was impossible, this training was vital.
And no one had ever approached her and touched her like this—not even once.
"...All right."
I rubbed my hands together again and wore the merciless smile of a demon.
"It's only been five minutes. We still have fifteen left. Collapsing already would be a problem, wouldn't it?"
I lightly peeled up the sweat-soaked shirt that clung to her skin.
A white, smooth, yet flushed-red line of spine was laid bare.
"Haaah, haaah... Haa."
Drooling, she exhaled sticky breaths.
"Get up. Round two. Shall we? If it's a little hard, we can rest a moment. You'll get dehydrated."
I picked up the glass of ice water from the table.
Droplets slid down the surface of the glass.
Ruby lay sprawled on the sofa, mouth working like a goldfish.
"Haa... Haa... You, you really..."
She looked up at me.
The rims of her eyes were red and swollen; the usual venom was gone without a trace, replaced by nothing but fear and confusion.
The eyes of a lamb being dragged to the slaughterhouse.
"Thirsty, right? Drink it down. Cool that heat a little."
I kindly brought the glass to her lips.
Tap.
The cold rim of the glass touched her lower lip.
"Hiiik?!"
Ruby recoiled as if struck by lightning and jerked her head back.
"C-cold! Wh-what is this?!"
"What do you mean? It's just ice water."
"F-Fuck! Don't bullshit me! What kind of ice... Did you put dry ice in it? My lips, my lips feel like they're freezing solid!"
She protested, lips chattering.
The amplifier's effects were not limited to the skin.
The thin mucous membrane of the lips. Zero-degree ice water touching that place would have stabbed into her brain like a hundred degrees of cold.
"You're overreacting. It's just water. Come on, say 'aah.'"
"N-no! I won't drink it! Get that away!"
"You sweated that much and you won't rehydrate? You'll collapse. Then the bet is void."
I tilted the glass with deliberate force.
"Here it comes."
Glug.
A cold stream of water flowed between her parted lips.
In that instant.
"Mmph?! Mmmph?! Mmmmmph!!!"
Ruby's eyes bulged as if they would pop out.
Zzzzzzt!!
Once again the tinnitus of Psychological Insight rang out loudly.
Overreacting this hard just from drinking water...
"Pffft—!!"
In the end Ruby could not swallow and sprayed it out.
Splash.
The water that burst from her mouth ran down her chin and soaked the already sweat-drenched shirt.
A rivulet traced the line of her collarbone.
The thin linen shirt turned transparent, blatantly revealing the bare skin beneath.
"Cough! Cough! Ah! It hurts! My throat, my throat feels like it's tearing...!"
Ruby clutched her own neck and coughed violently.
A face a mess of tears and snot.
The lofty dignity of a high elf was nowhere to be found.
"Oh dear. You spilled all that precious water."
I clicked my tongue and pulled out a napkin.
"Even your internal senses have opened right up. At this level, the treatment effect is rock solid."
"Treatment my ass...! You, just wait till I get out of here... I'll kill you, uugh!"
She tried to spit curses, only to let out another moan.
Because the shirt soaked in cold water had begun clinging to her chest and stomach.
Dampness.
Cold.
That unpleasant, hypersensitive sensation spread through her whole body via the wet cloth.
"H-uugh... Cold... Weird... The clothes, the clothes feel like they're digging into my skin..."
Ruby twisted, clawing at her own clothes.
Her shoulders jerked and twitched.
I looked down at the sight and murmured quietly.
"I'll have to wipe you down. You'll catch a cold."
I tossed the wet napkin into the trash and reached out with bare hands.
"Ruby, excuse me a moment."
"D-don't come! Don't touch me! Uwaaaah!"
She tried to crawl away in retreat, but the sofa back blocked her; there was nowhere to run.
My hand settled onto her glistening collarbone and the wet shirt below it.
Slap.
"Haaaaaah......!"
Body heat transmitted through the wet cloth.
Friction made even more acute by the moisture.
"Stay still. I'm only wiping the water."
I swept my palm broadly from her collarbone down across the upper swell of her chest.
As if wiping water away with a wiper.
But the pressure was never light.
Sliiiide.
"Hiiik! Hic! Khhnnn! Stop! There, don't touch theeeere..."
Ruby's head fell back, her white throat pulled taut.
Her legs kicked weakly at empty air, already drained of strength and flopping limply.
"Ah-ah, it's gotten dirty. We have to clean it properly."
I slipped my fingers lightly between the buttons of the wet shirt.
That narrow gap where cold moisture and her hot body heat coexisted.
"...No. Really, really no..."
Ruby grabbed my arm with hazy eyes.
But there was no strength to push me away.
If anything, she looked as if she were clinging to my arm, craving even greater stimulus.
"Please... spare me... I was wrong..."
The first apology.
A plea.
Psychological Insight showed me a color, as if confirming she was not lying.
White.
The color of self-reflection.
Her lips trembled.
But I glanced at my watch.
Ten minutes remaining.
Exactly halfway.
Stopping here would be a shame.
"I'll hear the apology after we finish the full twenty minutes."
I did not shake off the arm that held me; instead I wrapped my other arm firmly around her waist.
"The upper body seems loosened enough."
My gaze dropped to the trembling navel and pelvis beneath her wet shirt.
"Shall we finish what we started earlier?"
"Uugh?! D-don't come...!"
The moment my eyes landed there, Ruby flinched and clamped her legs shut.
An instinctive defense mechanism.
But her motor nerves, marinated in the Sensory Amplifier, were far duller than expected.
"Relax your legs. You'll get a cramp."
I lightly took her knees and spread them.
Sliide.
"Aaah! Ah! It hurts! It hurts, I said!"
I had only gripped her knees over her jeans, yet Ruby screamed as if burned.
The rough texture of the denim fabric must have felt, to her hypersensitive skin, like being scrubbed with steel wool.
"The lymph nodes behind the knees are completely blocked. No wonder heat is pooling in the lower body."
I diagnosed shamelessly and pressed my thumb hard into the hollow of her knee.
Press.
"Hiiiiiiik?!"
Ruby's waist jerked upward.
The backs of the knees are ticklish even on ordinary days.
And now?
It must have been a bone-chilling mix of ticklishness and pleasure, as if thousands of ants were crawling up her veins.
"It tickles! It tickleeees! Please, please not there...! Uuugh!"
Ruby sobbed and thrashed.
Her feet flailed, trying to shove against my chest, but I casually snagged her ankle.
Thud.
A slender ankle that fit easily in one hand.
Her bare white toes twitched and convulsed inside my grip.
"If you keep thrashing it'll only take longer. Take it quietly."
"You, this is sexual harassment! I'll report you! I'll kill youuu!"
"Since the patient is trying to assault the doctor, I'll have to restrain you a little."
I set her ankle on my thigh and let my other hand travel up the inner thigh.
Sliiiide.
The seam of the denim pants scraped along the soft flesh of her inner thigh.
"Hiiik, khnnn... No... Don't come up..."
Ruby's pupils shook as if in an earthquake.
Because my hand was climbing higher and higher, toward the most intimate and sensitive place of all—the groin.
"There, there is really no... Uugh, I feel weird... I think I'm really going to go weird..."
"To purge the toxins we have to free the inguinal lymph nodes. This is the core."
Without hesitation I pressed the edge of my hand firmly along the innermost line of her thigh, the boundary where leg met pelvis.
Firmly.
In that instant.
"────!!!"
Ruby's mouth fell open wide, but not even a scream emerged.
A silent shriek.
It felt as if I could hear the fuse in her brain blowing out.
A thrill of pleasure that made her hair stand on end shot up her spine and pierced the crown of her head.
"Hup?! Mmmph?!"
Ruby hastily clamped both hands over her own mouth and strained with all her might to cross her legs.
Her face flushed as if it would burst; fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Hnnnnnnngh!!"
The scream she had been holding back erupted as a grotesque moan.
Her head fell back; rough breathing scraped out of her spit-slick mouth like metal on metal.
"I-it's coming... It's going to come out... Uuugh! No, nooo!"
"What's going to come out?"
"It's not! It's not that! You devil bastaaard!"
She must have wanted to die of shame.
But her body was the opposite.
Every time my hand touched her, her waist twitched and lifted as if welcoming it, and her thighs trembled while remaining wide open.
I checked my watch.
Three minutes remaining.
Time to finish.
Time to sever her reason completely and make her admit defeat.
I brought my lips to her ear and whispered.
"Ruby. Three minutes left."
"Hnn... Uuuh..."
"If you surrender here, I'll stop. But if you insist on holding out to the end..."
My hand crossed the inner thigh and lightly brushed near the zipper of her pants.
"I'll go somewhere truly irreversible. Choose."
Tap.
The cold sensation of the metal zipper grazed her lower abdomen.
That trivial stimulus was the finishing blow.
"...I."
"Yes?"
"I surrender... I surrender! Hwaaaah! I'll surrender so please just get that awayyy!"
Ruby burst into full-throated sobs.
A perfect declaration of defeat.
The woman who had looked so strong at the start was now a mess of sweat and tears on the bed, crying like a child.
I considered the situation for a moment, then soon wore a small smile.
Actually, this worked out well.
With this, whether it was anger management disorder or anything else, if she had a brake she was afraid of, she would talk about the disorder less.
"Surrender declaration confirmed."
Only then did I stop my hands.
"I won the bet, but..."
I grinned and moved the hands that had stopped once more.
"Treatment still has to go all the way, right? What kind of doctor abandons a patient halfway?"
"...What? Hey, hey! You just said you'd stop if I surrendered! Liar! Fraud!"
"I said I'd stop. I never said I'd finish. We still need two minutes and fifty seconds of cool-down stretching."
Two minutes and fifty seconds remaining.
"Nooo! Save me! Mommyyy!!"
Inside the hotel room, Ruby Scarlet's wretched, pathetic screams echoed once more.
...And exactly three minutes later.
In the room where everything had ended, only rough breathing remained.
"Whew..."
I wiped away sweat and sat on the edge of the nightstand beside the bed.
On the sofa... a thoroughly wrecked Ruby lay sprawled.
Shirt half-undone.
Hair a mess of tears, sweat, and ice water.
Unfocused eyes stared blankly at the chandelier on the ceiling; her mouth hung open and would not close.
"...Uuh."
The occasional twitch of her body showed she had not fainted.
But her mind had clearly already left for Andromeda.
I tossed a towel over her face.
"Good work, Ruby."
"...I-I'll... kill you..."
A voice crawled out from under the towel.
But there was not a single degree of venom in it.
It was closer to the sulking of a child throwing a tantrum.
"Yes, yes. If you don't listen again, I'll look forward to another twenty minutes tomorrow."
"...Hiiik."
At the words "twenty minutes," her body jerked in a conditioned reflex.
Confirmed.
To her, I was no longer a doctor but a natural predator.
I smiled and left the room.
The sobs drifting from behind me sounded especially sweet today.