Archive | July 13, 2017

Beauty-Beast 21: Change of Pace

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As if understanding how overwhelmed Ctirad was feeling, Timaios gave him simple, direct orders for breakfast. “Sit here by me on the bed, we’ll eat off the lap tables, and eat as much as you want to eat but no more.” Ctirad, freshly scrubbed but still feeling like his brain was foggy and strange, managed a quiet “yes, sir” and nothing more.

Timaios left him sitting like that on the bed while he dressed and cleaned up for the day. Ctirad had fallen into a pleasant trance of time-to-my-self-in-comfort by the time he felt his master’s hand on his chin.

“You would tell me if something was wrong, correct?”

Not normally. This was not normal. Ctirad reviewed the day and found himself blushing. “Sir, I. That was wonderful. I liked it. I wanted it. I just… you’re so uh. I.” He couldn’t look away but he focused on Timaios’ lips and not his eyes.

“May I guess?”

“You’re in charge, sir. I mean – yes, of course?” What was he supposed to say when Timaios asked him permission?

“The attention is more than you’re used to and you’re overwhelmed. You need some time to re-center yourself?”

“…Oh. Ah.” To the list of new things with this Owner Ctirad added understands me. “Yes, sir.”

“I’ll tell Shel to give you an hour to yourself before the shopping trip. That should be long enough?”

“…Yes. Yes, sir?” An hour. “What should I do, sir?”

Timaios chuckled and tousled Ctirad’s hair. “Stay up here, in my rooms, until Shel comes to get you – this time, after this, you can use the gym when you’re left alone. But you can do whatever you want up here. It’s time to yourself, the idea is to do things for yourself.”

He really was different. Ctirad half-bowed, because he had no idea what to say. “Thank you, sir.” Well, that seemed like a good start. “I mean – I mean it? Thank you very much.”

“You’ve been lovely and patient, Ctirad. You deserve a little peaceful time to relax.”

“Thank you,” he repeated. “I’ll do that.” He knelt and waited for Timaios to leave, because… because he didn’t know anything else to do. He wasn’t scolded or laughed at or told to move, so he supposed it was not the worst idea.

Once he was sure Timaios was gone, Citrad stood and rolled his shoulders and his head. He did jumping jacks, checking to make sure the floor made little-to-no-noise, and push-ups and sit-ups. Then he did it all again, squats and lunges and running in place, until he actually wore himself out.

He showered again and toweled off, put on the one pair of sweat pants he had been given to wear, and paced around Timaios’ rooms, exploring every nook and cranny.

There were a lot of those – nooks, crannies, hidey-holes, everything tucked away in its own concealed place. He found a drawer of sex toys and handled every one of them, making sure he wouldn’t be freaked out when the time came for Timaios to use them on him.

When his hour was up, the knock on the door almost surprised him. Ctirad was in a full split, head down on his knee, trying to gauge exactly how much flexibility he’d lost. “I’m here,” he called.

“I’m Shel.” The man that walked in was an irish-looking man with islands-brown skin. He was taller than Ctirad but not a giant like most people here, and he was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt and carrying what looked like the same over his arm. “My stuff won’t fit you well, but it’ll fit well enough for you to get into the stores. Ah, I’m supposed to take you shopping, that is. I mean, looking like you do, they’d let you into the stores in your altogether, just to get a chance to look at you, but I’m imagining that’s not what you want.”

Want again. Ctirad considered the question, as much as it wasn’t really a question. “I think,” he said carefully, “It wouldn’t do for Tim Kaprinsky’s new … boyfriend? or whatever to be wandering around town naked. Wrong sort of gossip, right?”

“Mmm, you’re probably right. Besides, at least with you clothed, I won’t be upstaged quite so – shit, I’m sorry.” Shel sat down in front of Ctirad. “You’ve got a really, really good poker face, dude, but you’ve got some tells. I was teasing, I promise. I’m not into guys, that’s not what I do for the boss, and I don’t really mind that you’re prettier than I am. That’s, uh, in your job description. My job description is to look sleek in a suit and buy everything, find everything, clean everything, and making things disappear. Today, my job is to get you clothes.” He handed Ctirad the pile of clothes he’d come in carrying. Ctirad took them, feeling a little numb. “If you don’t mind – and I mean that, if you mind, tell me to butt out – can you tell me where I put my foot in it?”

Ctirad flipped through the pile of clothing and pulled on the shirt, suddenly feeling shy. “I- uh.” He minded. On the other hand, he was trying to be friendly and polite here. No need to start off on a bad foot with the staff. “I’m self-conscious about my appearance,” he managed, sounding as bland and clinical as he could.

“Hunh. Right, I can see that. So, is clothes shopping going to be stressful for you?”

Ctirad peeled off his sweats and pulled on the jeans. They were too long for him, but cut so that looked purposeful. “That’s a face I’m doing for the boss,” he explained, trying to still sound clinical and mostly succeeding. “That’s not about me, it’s about what the boss wants me to look like.”

“Okay.” When Ctirad looked up, Shel was nodding slowly. “So you can do it, as long as we make it a job. Right. That’s going to make casual clothes hard – no, it won’t,” he corrected himself, “we’ll do it the same way. All right, did you eat something?”

“Yes, sir, I mean,” Ctirad coughed. “Yeah. I ate.”

Shel snorted. “I’m a wage sla – I’m an employee, just like you. Well, a little different, I suppose. I volunteered.”

Ctirad’s head snapped up and he stared at Shel wordlessly. Fuck, he knew?

🔒

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Funeral: Shower Negotiations

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“They’ll be at it all night,” she whispered as she led him upstairs. “Or at least a few hours. They always are. It’s how they handle… being them. All right, here’s the shower. You’re not body-shy, are you?”

“What?” He stared at her, and then at the bathroom – so suburban, with its pastel decorations clashing with the Human Anatomy shower curtain Chitter had insisted on.

“Your body? Can I see it naked?”

“…you Own me. You were there for that part, right? The part where you agreed to own me as your Bound Servant?”

“I was there.” If she was the sort of owner he thought she was, she might slap him for that tone, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t where she wanted to go with this and even more sure that it wouldn’t change his behavior in any helpful way. “And I’m asking. Can I see you naked?”

“…You really are young,” he muttered again, not quite looking at her.

“Can we hold off on references to my age except in cases where I’m missing a pop culture reference or didn’t actually see Lincoln assassinated, please? I’m young. Yes. I want to not steamroll over you, yes. I don’t think those are necessarily the same thing.”

“You’ve got to have a reason, then.” He looked uncomfortable, possibly because she was snapping at him but just as likely because they were standing in a pastel bathroom that was not really designed for two adults at once.

“Of course. I have to own an assassin Named Death Comes Silently for five years. I’d like to survive my sixth and seventh years from now. In addition, I like to think I’m not a screaming bitch, unlike most of my family.”

He smiled crookedly. “White sheep.”

“At your service. Or, ah, you’re at my service, I suppose. So are you going to take your clothes off, or am I going to shower while you watch?”

He blinked. “You’d do that?”

“Listen. That is….” Senga shook her head. “Have you noticed what I do?”

“Something like femme fatale with a side order of honeypot traps and a whole lot of kicking ass. Explains why you clean up so nicely.”

“…Thanks. There’s a story behind that comment that you will tell me someday, but today is not that day. Yes. I’m more uncomfortable with someone seeming me unarmed than undressed. Why don’t you help me with these buckles?” She turned her back on him and presented him the buckles.

“The dress has three bullet holes in it.” Still, he began unbuckling the dress. He had giant hands, but they seemed more than deft enough as he worked the buttons and buckles. “You could just step out of the holes.”

“Not quite. It’s a surprisingly durable dress, other than a couple holes. I just need to get better at mending these things. Ezer gets all swoony and silly when I ask him to fix up bullet holes. Ah, thank you.” Erramun peeled the dress down off her hips and pushed it to the floor and she stepped out of it. That left her in heels and stockings with a long run.

And then he started rolling her stockings down off her legs, his touch somehow far less intimate and far more careful and almost-clinical than she’d have imagined possible. Still, his breath was trailing down her back as he pulled off first one stocking and then the other and Senga found herself shivering.

“No holes in the stockings,” he commented quietly. “So the only bullets you took were body shots and somehow you managed not to run your stockings while fleeing from gunmen.”

“Really expensive pumps,” Senga answered, or tried to. Somewhere in the middle she gasped a little, as his breath hit the back of her knee. “I can run like the wind in them and they still look pretty damn sexy.”

“Yes, they do.” He lifted her foot to pull one of those shoes off. “But I imagine you don’t want to shower in them.”

“You know,” she managed, almost conversationally, “when I met you, you didn’t seem to be the sort of man who was skilled at, ah, playing valet.”

“I have quite a bit of skill undressing women, thank you.” His voice held a bit of a chuckle in it. “But this, no, I haven’t done this in a long time.” He reached up for her lace panties and both hands stopped, resting on her hip bones. “Do you like it?”

It should’ve sounded needy. Instead it sounded like a challenge.

Senga thought about turning around to see his face, but with him now kneeling behind her, that would put his face – “I do like it,” she answered quietly. “Do you?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. Senga didn’t give in to the urge to turn around.

“I believe I do.” He hesitated again. “I didn’t think I would, you know. Being yours. Serving you.”

“I didn’t think you would, either.” Now she turned around. “Here, stand up so I can return the favor?”

She managed to catch a glimpse of a strange look – somewhere between surprise, shock and discomfort – on his face before he stood up. “Of course. You didn’t think I’d like it?”

“It’s not like we really had a good choice in the matter… I should’ve gotten your shirt off before you stood up.”

He pulled his t-shirt off and dropped it on the toilet. “Let’s just assume you meant my pants.” He gave her a small but genuine-looking smile.

Senga returned it with her own, a little broader. “I did not mean to wander off for a whole day when you were still adjusting to the Bond and all that comes with it.”

She unbuttoned his pants and slid her hand between the zipper and his skin. His stomach was flat, with just a bit of fuzz.

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Time to Move – a story of Dragons Next Door for Patreon

This is set early in the life of Aud and Sage. 👪

So there we were, living in a tiny studio apartment between the artsy district and the tracks, holding our first child, Jin, just an hour after birth.  The midwife had come and gone and we were staring and the faint glow coming off of our first child with a bit of consternation.

“You,” I said, feeling far too calm (it had to be the tea I’d brewed for childbirth), “are not a wizard.”

Sage raised those eyebrows at me.  “You are not a witch.”

We’d both known it for a long time, of course, or at least suspected strongly.  You don’t go into a relationship with someone while they are still in school at a prestigious institution for wizards or witches and not notice a thing or, and if that hadn’t done it,the forms we’d each chosen for the wedding vows might have, or the family members that did and didn’t attend the wedding. Continue reading

Side Quest – a Camp NanoWrimo Story – Six: The Evil Idol

Six: The Evil Idol

Raizel was in a plane of white in front of a black spectre, without fifty sed and nowhere near the train station.

If she got out of here, she was going to curse Trinner Traln and that idiot Esterzon Gorenz with every trick and hex and lie all of her grandparents and great-grandparents had taught her.

If.

That was looking to be the problem.

The spectre opened its maw. You will kill the idol.

Why did everyone want her to kill and destroy and get rid of things? What was she, the trash-picker? Was this more of the ridiculous nonsense about the “mountain people?”

read on…

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