Chapter 12

Birds were nesting in a niche above the balcony. She watched the loving couple making loops from the ground, carrying pieces of feather and grass to weave into their construction. The male bird perched on the balcony railing, preening, the feathers of one wing spread as he ran his beak through them, the pretty green feathers catching the light with an oily sheen reminding her of the emerald eyes of the man from the slave market. What would it have been like, she wondered, if he had become her owner instead of this one? Sometimes when her owner touched her, she imagined it was the other man, and the fantasy never failed to bring her to orgasm. When her owner had to work and she was awake, he would insist she lay on the couch, with her head in his lap, whilst he did so. He would absently run his fingers through her hair or over her skin, as if she were a pet to be stroked. He spoke on his phone-like device, with the tablet like device open on his knees scrolling with figures she could not read, though she was perfectly positioned to do so. She listened to the male voice on the other side and wondered if it was her green-eyed man. She rolled onto her back in order to look up at her owner. He glanced down at her movement, making sure she was not trying to free herself, and then returned to what he was doing. She was allowed to look at him, encouraged to do so, and to touch his scars. He often lifted her hands to his skin and stroked them along the patterns. The sun caught in the ink of his hair, on the tips of his eyelashes, and in the glitter of the scars on his cheeks. It s gentle glow and his distraction softened his features. The muscle at the point of his jaw did not knot as tightly, his brow did not scowl as heavily. His was an arresting face, strong and determined, similar enough to humans to be handsome, but also foreign, subtle differences in the structure of his bones, the brightness of his eyes and the scars all combining to the otherness of him. His lips were soft at the moment, but they could be hard, and cruel. He never kissed her. Several times he had closed his mouth over hers and stroked his tongue between her lips, but it was for other purpose than kissing – he liked for both of them to taste his seed or their come. She wondered if his people simply did not kiss. He was obsessed with smearing their come on them both. She often woke to him doing it, his fingers delving into her and then stroking it over his skin or hers. It happened so frequently that sometimes she slept through his ministrations and woke with her skin stiff and caked. When he grew frustrated, or very aroused, he would feed it to her. He had finished his conversation, but continued to work on the screen, humming in the back of his throat. There were different sounds he produced. Some made her body arc and crave his with a desperate urgency to be sated, as if he were a drug and her body addicted. Other sounds were a contented hum, that made her eyes heavy, lulling her into complacency. She did not like his sounds - they were another method through which he controlled her. She felt the ridges of his scars over his stomach under her fingertips and the purr of sound changed rhythm. He was pleased with her, that sound told her. This rhythm did not make her sleepy, and so she encouraged it, continuing her exploration of his scarring. It was a fine line she walked, however, between pleasing him with her touch, and him becoming aroused. She preferred it when he lay so that she could stroke her fingers through his hair. It pleased him when she did so, and often caused him to drift into an almost sleep. If she timed it perfectly, he would let her lay beside him, and they would both nap peacefully, without him turning it into sex. If she moved away from him, he would immediately snap into awareness and then sex was a certainty. In the times when he simply lay with her, she almost enjoyed the experience. He set his free hand onto her breast, his fingers finding the piercing he had placed there and toying with it. The piercings had healed now, no longer causing her pain, but their presence recalled it to her, along with the terrifying experience of him binding her to the bed, and the way the light had gleamed over the metal tools in the kit he had used to mutilate her. Worse than feeling the needle through her flesh had been not knowing what he intended to do to her, and her complete helplessness to prevent him from doing whatever he wanted. For a moment, she had contemplated using her power against him, but if she had, her situation would not have improved – harming him would either result in her death or certainly some form of harm far worse than he dealt with his sharp needles. He was becoming aroused. She could feel the hard throb of him beneath her head. She rolled onto her stomach and released him from his trousers so that he sprung free. She slid onto her knees on the floor between his feet, and he set the tablet like device to the side watching her through narrowed eyes, waiting to see what she would do, like a cat watched a mouse it was toying with. She ran her tongue up him, up the scarred ridges that corrugated his skin, to the smooth head, catching her tongue on the sensitive underside. His hum changed pattern and he slid his hips a little more towards her in invitation, though he continued to watch her. There was a lift to the corners of his lips which implied amusement. She took him into her mouth, stretching wide and sucked on him whilst she traced the slit with her tongue. She felt his reaction and heard it in his growl. She pressed her tongue against his underside, placing her hands on his hips so she could lift from her knees and take him deeper into her mouth. She felt his hips tilt in gentle thrusts, rubbing himself against the roof of her mouth. He spread his knees, lifting slightly in order to shove his trousers down, and caught her hand, sliding it over his thigh. The sound he made when she cupped his balls had her body aching in response, and she could feel the wet as her body prepared for him. She kept her touch gentle exploring the loose heat of skin, and the round slide within, feeling as they tightened, drawing upwards towards his body. She pushed her tongue against his slit as she lifted and dropped her mouth over him, and felt him close his fingers in her hair, stroking and not holding her forcibly as he did when he punished her in the shower, encouraging her to give, and not taking. She increased her efforts to please him, her mind clinically observing his responses and adjusting. Under her tongue, she felt the reaction along the underside of his c-k as his body prepared to come and she debated whether it was better to swallow, or to encourage him to finish inside of her. He decided for her, lifting her from him. He stripped the dress from her and lay her out on the carpet positioning himself between her knees, but he did not thrust into her, instead sliding down her body, closing his mouth over her. "Oh, f-k," she gasped, the rough texture of his tongue along her sensitive flesh too much to handle – it had been intense before he had pierced her, and now she wanted to grab his hair and pull him back. Instead, she gripped her own hair. As if reading her reaction, he eased off, stroking his tongue along the sides of her clitoris. "Oh." It was better, good even. "Oh, yes." He rumbled, and the vibrations notched the pleasure up another level. "Oh…" He lifted over her and swept his tongue between her lips as he eased into her, being gentle. She lifted her eyes to his anticipating his request, and heard his growl change again as he pressed his chest against hers, so it shook through both of them. She dug her heels into the carpet in order to press back against the rock of his hips and he growled a sentence, the growl not alarming her because the tone was approval. His hand caught her hip, encouraging her motion. Her hands rested against his shoulders, feeling the flow of skin under her palms, before stroking over his back, the corrugation of his scars over the heat of his muscles fascinating. His hair was loose, as he had not been out, and the strands caught in her fingers. She reached up to stroke it back from his face, and he turned to lick the palm of her hand. For a big man, he could be very gentle when he wanted to, she thought as he rocked their bodies together, and he was working very hard to be gentle with her. He had been gentle with her for many days. Her bruises had faded and were barely noticeable now, and he had placed no new ones on her skin. He was also spending increased periods of time out of the bedroom, working on the couch, which gave her more time to think clearly, free of the exhaustion of his demands on her body and the drugging effects of his growls. She needed to think clearly in order to make plans. Most of her plans were about improving her daily interactions with him – the small trade-offs she could make to distract him from sex, shorten the length of time he was inside her, or in any way improve the experience. Small wins that she could measure. But other plans were developing. Bigger plans.