The Tiger: Part 2

As promised, here is the next third of my short story, “The Tiger.” For those who missed it last week, part 1 is here.

Daniel followed two steps behind me until the door clicked shut between us and the living room. He leaned against the wall with his hands at his sides.

I looked about the room first. The bed was actually a futon on a sturdy frame. There was a bathroom attached, and a plate of fruit and cheese on the dresser. I looked through the dresser drawers. Gena had left a nice supply of toys for me. I pulled out the riding crop and sat down on the bed.

Daniel hadn’t moved.

The map of my sexual psyche was simple. My taste compromises on androgynous men, with bodies taut enough to hum under my hands when I rub their backs or slap them, and effeminate enough that I can’t be sure of their gender when I look upon them the first time. I like long hair and very wide eyes. I prefer them too strong and proud to beg. I craved the young, the novice, the virginal, or the just plain helpless.

“So,” I said, “The lady or the tiger?”

Daniel looked up sharply. “What?” He had a sweet face, even now with tension written so plainly in every line and his mouth curled into a pout.

“Are you really that submissive?”

“No.”

His denial was a bit too fast and loud. I felt the first prickle of doubt.

“Are you really that cruel?” Daniel asked.

“Yes.” I wondered if he believed me.

Daniel’s hands clenched, then loosened. He fastened his eyes securely on a point to one side of my face.

“So tell me,” I said. “Why do you do this?”

“Which?”

“Why are you Gena’s slave? And please sit, or have something to eat, if you wish.”

Daniel took a seat in one of the chairs across the room from me. He met my eyes for the first time, arching one of his eyebrows just a bit. His was the smug look of someone who knew something that I did not.

“A real slave would laugh to hear you say that. My submission to Gena was, and is, by choice, renewed daily if necessary. If we need a word, we use ‘bond servant.’”

“All right. Why are you Gena’s bond servant?”

“Mostly for the sex.”

Of course Gena, the perfect top that she was, would be giving Daniel exactly what he wanted.

“And then, there is the money. Work-study is a joke when your tuition and fees top $19,000 a year. If it weren’t for Gena, I’d probably have joined the Navy, and I’d hate to cut my hair.”

“Would she dismiss you if you used a safeword?”

Daniel blinked. “I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

I twirled the riding crop between my fingers. “I needn’t push you that hard. What would you prefer? I could settle for vanilla, or something a little more… complicated. Or we could do nothing.”

That last was a blatant lie. I was not in the least prepared to walk out of here without taking some advantage of Gena’s gift.

Daniel’s eyes narrowed.

He said, “Let me show you something,” then stood, turning his back to me. Daniel pulled off his shirt, then gathered his hair together on one side of his neck.

The smooth, tan of Daniel’s back was interrupted high on his right shoulder by a ripple of white. The mark was shaped like Gena’s stylized signature “G.”

“Have you ever seen a freeze brand on human skin before? You can’t scare me. If Gena requires me to do something which I find distasteful, then I only owe it to her. I will not pretend that I like it, though. If you need feigned gratitude to get off, then I’m deeply sorry to disappoint you.”

I am not, and never have been, one to pass up a dare.

“Sit down,” I told him. “Cover your eyes with your left hand.”

Daniel blinked at me once and then obeyed.

I got up from the bed. He moved just a bit under the pressure of the urge to look.

“You are not permitted to move until I say so.”

I reached out and cradled his chin in my fingers. The riding crop was a thin wisp, almost too light to transmit the full snap of my arm.

To Daniel’s credit, he did not move when the crop whispered and bit his cheek. I made certain that the second and third blows caught not only his face, but his fingers.

“Your composure is admirable,” I said. “Take your hand down.”

When he had done so, I turned his head until he was facing the mirror over the dresser. His eyes narrowed as he watched the three welts on his cheek rise and darken.

“So is your aim,” he said.

We watched each other in the mirror.

“You will lose that self-control,” I said. “Either give it over of your own will, or I will take it from you. Believe that I can do it.”

Daniel’s upper lip twitched in a savage, theatrical snarl. I was being provoked again. But then, as any bottom, Daniel had the ultimate control over this scene, and he was determined to keep it.

I dropped the crop, leaned over, and ran my tongue down the marks. Daniel stiffened at my touch, then sighed and let me creep around to his lips. I wrapped his wealth of hair once around my hand, then kissed him.

His mouth opened for me, passive but hardly still. Daniel’s breath quickened at each light touch of my fingers on his skin. These caresses of mine, that sought out the places he loved to be touched, won from him a delicate shiver. He moaned when I tickled the roof of his mouth with my tongue, yet was too impeccably mannered to penetrate my mouth with his own.

So perfect…where had Gena found him? He was as responsive as a dark mirror, returning pain with provocation and pleasure with an appreciation so sweet and intense that it made me ache inside. Before him the memory of so many other submissives, lazy and demanding, who expected me to do all the work, faded like a bad odor in a breeze.

I trailed my fingers across his collar bone and down his chest, lazily circling his left nipple. Daniel froze. His breath caught on something sharp. He let his head fall back a little further, exposing the vulnerable arch of his throat, a plea without words. I learned something else then, that Gena kept him hungry. Taking the nipple in my fingers, I stroked his flesh to stone hardness.

Daniel’s hands had the arms of the chair in a death-grip. His eyes were closed. It seemed that his mind had fled into that small part of himself that I teased with the edge of a nail. And then, when Daniel had melted into my hands, I seized his nipple between my fingernails and twisted it.

He barely checked himself before he bit down. Breaking our kiss, he turned his head, coughed, and spat.

“Don’t tease me like that.”

I slapped him on his welted cheek. The force of the blow knocked Daniel sideways. I had to pull him back by his hair so I could look him in the eye.

“Do not command me. Do you understand?”

I relaxed my grip on his hair enough to let him nod. Reaching down, I tugged on his belt until it unbuckled, then pulled open the button fly of his jeans.

“Either you’re extremely well-trained,” I said, probing the length of his erect cock, “Or you’re enjoying this much more than you’re letting on.”

All of Daniel’s exposed skin acquired an endearing blush.

I freed the head of his cock from his jeans and squeezed it lightly.

“Would Gena beat you for speaking with such disrespect?”

“Yes.”

“Do you expect any less from me?”

Daniel shook his head. Had he been maneuvering me into this? If so, I was determined to make him sorry.