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“Stand up,” he prompts me again.
“Is there some other way to resolve this?”
“You have put yourself in lethal danger,” he says, his tone calm and patient, yet firm. Maybe he doesn’t look like an accountant. Maybe he looks more like a headmaster. He seems genuinely disappointed in my behavior, which makes sense. He doesn’t know me, so he doesn’t know that this behavior is actually very reasonable, all things considered.
“I’m not going to do what you’re saying. Sorry.”
He clenches his jaw, and I wonder if his face is going to come bursting out of his face.
“You need to be disciplined. I was shot because of your behavior.”
“You were shot because Sheriff shot you. He’s the one you should be taking this up with.”
He reaches down and pulls me up to my feet. I know how much strength is lurking beneath the human suit. I know what horrors and dangers have me in their grasp at this very moment. But I am looking into the mild-mannered face of a man, and my human brain just won’t acknowledge my foolishness.
“I am going to take you for my own. The others will be paid as necessary to pursue other mates. You will learn to submit to me and to my law. And you will start now.”
He waits for me to undress, but of course I can’t now. I’ve already said I wouldn’t, and doing as he says up front would really set the kind of precedent that…
His finger peels back from his suit, and a long, bladed claw emerges in its place. Wordlessly, he cuts the clothing from my body, running his finger against my skin with the most delicate of touches, so carefully that he does not so much as leave a scratch on me. It does destroy every bit of clothing I am wearing. It slides from my body and flops to the floor in a pile of fabric scraps which will require mending if I am ever to wear them again.
“I will ensure you obey me,” he says.
He turns me around and pushes me firmly down over the back of the couch. The rest of his suit stays in place, but when I glance over my shoulder, I see the flash of that single scythkin claw giving away the true nature of the beast who has me in his grasp.
The cane whips through the air. I hear a swish, and then a CRACK.
For a brief moment, I feel nothing. Maybe he didn’t hit me. Maybe… oh no. An icy-hot flash bursts through my body, making me suddenly aware of every inch of my being. The stripe where the cane landed is especially painful. It feels as though there is some ongoing damage occurring in its wake.
I scream in outrage and fly back up off the couch. His hand is there, pushing me back into position, but I have no interest in submitting to a beating from a judgmental alien. I don’t like pain, and I don’t tolerate it. But he is powerful and much, much stronger than I am, so what choice do I have? A second and third stroke land, each of them met with a screech and wail on my part.
“Let me go, monster! Let me fucking go!”
“Quiet,” he says, looming over me in this mid-century mad interior. “You will learn to be disciplined with some kind of decorum. I will not have a human mate who thinks yelling is appropriate.”
“You’re hitting me, you oversized fucking roach!”
“Now that is just disrespectful,” he says, his tone mild, but his disappointment clear. “None of us is able to choose the form in which we are incarnated. Calling me a roach because I am bothering to do what should have been done to you long ago is very rude.”
I almost feel guilty on the receiving end of that lecture. He’s right, I am rude. But that is the least of my sins, really.
“It hurts!” I exclaim. He is still keeping me pinned to the couch, but he has not used the cane again. It feels incredibly vulnerable to be naked and beaten, especially in what looks like some old fashioned living room. The scene is domestic, and almost human. It calls to some part of me, an ancestral memory of living this way.
“It is supposed to hurt. I see you have been mated, too. You have been used by another because of the position you put yourself in. Do you realize how furious it makes me to know that this perfect body has been defiled by another male? Do you know how completely you belong to me?”
I squirm against the somewhat rough material of the couch, feeling it brush against my nipples and belly as I try to arch my ass away from the cane. That does nothing to stop it from landing for a fourth time with a flick of his wrist that ignites fresh sting.
“I will take your silence as an indication that you do not yet understand how important you are.”
“Why?” The question comes in an anguished wail as a fifth stroke lands.
“You are human. You are a little oasis of potential, rare genetic material. You are a unique creature among unique creatures, and you are acting in a way that will get you killed. There is numahn Sheriff who wishes to execute you. That is unacceptable.”
“You won’t let him, will you?”
SMACK! The sixth stroke lands, making me writhe and cry and all the usual reactions to being punished. I cannot help myself. Any remnants of dignity are gone, shredded in the wake of his damn cane.
“This is a traditional method for punishing wayward humans,” he says, standing back to let me squirm and try to process the pain. “I think it is very effective. You seem to be listening in a way you were not listening before. I hope that this has been a lesson to you.”
