“I didn't give you the command to move, did I? I didn't say this was over, either.” Again the leather bit her bottom with a hard, unexpected whack.
She gave a guilty little giggle. Maybe he wasn't quite as stupid as he seemed to be.
“You think this is funny?” William cut the leather down several more times, until she was wriggling under his securing palm, her clit rubbing against the bed sheets with every grinding attempt at evasion.
“I prefer to be nice,” he informed her from on high. “But if mean is what you need, I can do that too.” He proved it by cracking the leather down across the super sensitive area where her cheeks met her thighs, not once, but six times. The barrage of swats made her cry out, but not for mercy. She knew she deserved this, this and so much more if he was truly capable of being her mate.
The next time he stopped she made sure to lie still. Her hide was growing too tender to test him any further. He reached down and cupped her chin, letting her turn to look at him. His face, always handsome, was quite different in that moment. The expression of determination made his features seem more severe, closer to those of an apex predator. She saw the hawk in his eyes, the big cat in his hands.
A submissive impulse took her. She wanted to be curled up with him, she wanted to see his gaze soften, though she knew it would not that day. He nodded down at her, apparently understanding their silent conversation.
He reached for her, drawing her up. She pressed his face to his chest and breathed his scent deeply. There were no words for what she felt, but he understood her actions and wrapped his arms around her in a silent acceptance of her apology. Nuzzling against the hard planes of his chest, Sarah felt safety such as she had never known whilst running wild in the forest. She had been alone for such a long time, leader of her own little pack. She had quite forgotten what it was to trust another person, even for a few moments.
Three
William's home was full of wonders. A big box-like structure out of which food came, crisp and ready to eat. When it ran low, more was delivered. Lights burned inside whether it was day or night, and when the sun fell below the horizon they seemed to burn brightly all across the city. In her wild days she had wondered why the place glowed. Now she knew.
There were ample means of idle entertainment too. Where Sarah had once watched streams trickle by for hours on end, now she could experience a device called a holochamber, where images were flashed all around her and it seemed as though they were real, and as if she could go wherever she wished in the world or beyond the world even. There were many different destinations, which William called 'shows' which could be called up at the press of a button. Sarah did not much like the machine; it made her uncomfortable on an animal level, so she avoided it.
The house was filled with the buzzing of a thousand little devices. Everything seemed to be controlled by what William called computers. The doors opened and shut if one approached, sliding walls she did not trust. What if it were to decide to close on her when she was but part way through? She spent her first weeks in captivity learning to trust that the myriad of devices bore her no ill will. They had no will at all. There was no life to them. They were but mindless automatons with less sense even than a mayfly, though the feats they performed were complex.
Zziiippppppppp... Swooooossshhh...Zziiippppppppp... Swooooossshhh...Zziiippppppppp... Swooooossshhh...
“Sarah, what are you doing?”
William came upon her sitting in front of her bedroom door, pressing the control panel open and closed, open and closed, open and...
“Stop that, please,” he said, moving her hand away from the sensor. “What are you trying to do?”
“I'm trying to see if it will get tired.”
“It's made not to get tired, though I imagine it could burn out if you did that to it all day and all night.”
“And then what would happen?”
“It would stop working.”
“It would die.”
“I suppose, in a manner of speaking, but it could be fixed.”
“Nothing lives and nothing dies in this city,” she said morosely.
“People live here. You live here.”
“I'm just waiting to escape.”
William's expression drew grim. He did not like it when she intimated that she would escape. He thought the wonders of hot baths and sliding doors and things that went 'bing' in the night would be enough to satisfy her. He was wrong. She yearned for the sky, for the breeze, and the little creatures which filled every niche of the world. The city was dead, filled with nothing but people. Not so much as a sparrow flew in the sky. Everything was sterile. The air was absent bloom or pollen and carried no scent or spore. She hated it. These people did not live, they existed in a technological twilight. William had spent time in the wilds. He knew the beauty of the place, which made the fact he'd ripped her out of it all the more unforgivable.