I came-to.

“Andrea.”

“(Hmf?)”

“Release me.”

“(…Hrmf?)”

“Remove your teeth from my neck.”

“(Mf—!)” Indeed, there was something in my mouth, between my teeth. I removed my mouth and saw that I had bitten her on the neck. “(Ah, shit.)”

“What were you thinking?”

“I…”

“Out with it.” The gentleness of her voice was only outweighed by her fury.

“I don’t know… what… but… maybe…”

“Go on.”

“I want you to be mine—and—I—biting—it just happened—I bit you, I was thinking about owning you and I—and then it happened when I came—I guess I thought that maybe if I bit you, you would belong to me forever.”

She favored the bite. “This is going to bruise, and people are going to see it. Is that what you wanted?”

“N—‍” ((Don’t lie.)) “Yes, Mistress. I’m sorry.”

“Do you wish for the whole world to know that we are engaged in an illicit relationship?”

The idea made me feel a little bit dizzy. Pleasantly dizzy. “Um. Maybe.”

“‘Maybe’?”

I avoided her furious gaze. “Yes.”

“Even if that means us losing our jobs?”

I hesitated before admitting, “Yes.”

“You are also the craziest pet I’ve ever had.” She sighed. “Not the craziest sub, but still…” I shed a tear, and then another, and more still, until my face was wet. She petted my hair, then cupped my cheeks in her hands. “Drea, my Sweet… You should be sorry, but you should not be crying.”

“I betrayed you. I took advantage of your devotion and hurt you.”

“You hurt me while we were being intimate when I had not given you consent to do so. You will be punished. But I am aware that you weren’t trying to seriously harm me, and, indeed, the bruise is neither debilitating nor permanent…” Her expression softened, the anger melted away, leaving only the pain. “…and I would be a hypocrite if I were to allow myself to be too harsh, considering I bit you without your consent the very night we met.”

I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed. “Thank you, Mistress… I love you.”

“And I love you, too.” With the guilt of hurting her still fresh in my heart, I clung to her for a while. A few minutes in, I asked, with a sneaking suspicion, “May I ask what my punishment will be?”

“Turn over.” I obeyed, and I felt my anus spreading followed by the emptiness of not having a tail, then my ears came off. I turned over and pleaded with my eyes and my frown for her to give them back. “That is the first part.”

I reminded myself that I had behaved as a pet perfectly even before I had ears and a tail. But the feline accessories had instantly become not so much the cherry on top, but the vanilla in the ice cream, something that should not in theory be separable from the end result once mixed in. I wasn’t empty without them—well, my ass was—but something was definitely missing. “And… the second… part?”

“You will find out what the second part is when it is administered. Do you regret doing what you did, Drea?”

“As soon as I saw the bite mark—and then I heard your voice when you asked me what I was thinking—I could tell you were so angry, I knew that I had done something wrong, and I wished that I hadn’t done it.”

“With that in mind, you probably don’t understand why you need me to punish you, given your regret.” I shook my head. “I do it to remind you that I am in charge; and that it is not your conscience that determines wrong and right, but my will. Does that make sense to you?”

It made sense enough. Twisted, fucked up sense, which tickled my desire to submit myself entirely to her and encouraged me to consider the possibility that I really, truly belonged to her. “Yes, Mistress.”

“Good.”

I stared into her eyes as my thoughts swirled and darted about like minnows caught in a current. Once one of the thoughts matured, I said, “You know I’m madly in love with both you and Judy.”

“You have made that more than sufficiently clear.”

“So if I ever did anything truly bad to either of you, if I harmed you in a way you could never forgive, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

She tapped me on the nose. “I know. And you know well that I love you back. And that will never change. You will always be my favorite.” She kissed me on the mouth, then the cheek, then the neck, then—I felt an agonizing pain in my neck that caused me to gasp sharply, a pain that surprised and confused me until I realized that she was the source, that she was biting me.

I endured it, whispered, “Please, don’t stop,” and began playing with my clit. The afterglow, the increased sensitivity since Andrea sucked me off, the love I felt for Diane, and the pain she inflicted—all synergized. Within just a minute of her biting me, my limbs were seized and my body was pulsing with joyful warmth. “(Ahh…) Okay… okay… you can… stop.”

She let go of my neck and kissed me on the mouth. “If anything good has come out of this, it is that you have inspired me to brand my favorite pet so that others know to treat her right or face my wrath.”

I nodded and smiled lazily through the delirium brought on by the mark of her love. “Though it’s only going to last a couple of weeks. Maybe you could mark me with something permanent…”

“We will see.”

“Thank you for being a good owner.” She petted me some more. “When can I have my ears and tail back?”

“Midnight.”

“Oh, thank you, I was worried you’d be taking them away for days. What do I tell the others if they ask why I don’t have them?”

“Be honest. You misbehaved, and now you are an example to the rest.”

“Okay.” I kissed her. “I want to make out with you and Judy at the same time.”

“Jude currently has a different Andrea impaled on her cock.”

I couldn’t see from that angle, so I listened for Andrea’s voice, which was making ecstatic sex sounds between declarations generally of questionable sexiness, such as ‘your penis is way better than my husband’s, I’d suck it but I need every drop of your seminal fluid inside of me’, and ‘fill me with your seed until one of your spermatozoa fertilizes my egg’ and ‘Fred must be doing something wrong, how about we make him watch you fuck me so he’ll learn the right way to get a woman pregnant?’ and ‘I want to have your progeny, Judith!’ Hearing her constant calls for impregnation and having babies made me conscious of my own possible conception and my own love of riding Judy’s penis. I had a desire to push Andrea off of her and take my lover’s ‘seminal fluid’ for myself. Instead, I told Diane, “I’m ovulating soon—if I haven’t already.”

“Please…” she said nervously, “tell me you’ve been using condoms.”

“I don’t like them.”

“If you are to be having anonymous sex, even non-casual sex, you need to be using contraceptives. You have no excuse.”

I shrugged. “I don’t like condoms. They feel unnatural. I want people to cum inside me. I crave it. Judy and I made the conscious decision to get as much of her semen inside me as she’s capable of producing.”

“I don’t understand why you would—are the two of you trying to make a baby? Or are you complete morons?”

“The latter.”

She was completely stumped. “Why?”

“We’re into breeding.”

“Oh… Oh, for fuck’s sake… Both of you are into that brand of lunacy?”

“Yes. It’s just… so… exciting to think about her semen turning my egg into the beginnings of a human being.”

“Breeding has to be the most irresponsible kink. Plenty of kinks carry a risk of unwanted death. Breeding is the only one to carry the risk of unwanted life.”

“Yes, but it isn’t exactly… unwanted, though.”

“You… wish to be pregnant?”

I nodded meekly. “I don’t think she wants it, but… I do.”

“Because you get off on being pregnant?”

“Yes. And also because… I… just… (want a baby.)”

Her cheeks puffed up as she exhaled to make room in her chest for patience. “Andrea. Look around you. I do not mean to insult your dwelling or how much you earn to pay for it… but is a studio apartment the size of a postage stamp the kind of home you want to raise a child in? Will your job pay enough to feed and clothe them and send them to daycare? Are you emotionally prepared to do all the work of motherhood? Are you ready to sacrifice any and all of your you-time to ensure that your child gets enough you-and-them-time? Are you willing to fundamentally change every facet of your life and dedicate every ounce of your being to ensure that your child thrives?”

Her arguments were mostly effective in wearing me down, and yet, “I want a baby. As I was getting ready to take the morning after pill, having a daughter was the only future I could imagine. I know I’m only considering the good parts, but…” I hugged her. “Would you help me… if…” ((This is a helluva lot to ask of the person who didn’t get me pregnant.))

She took my hand and squeezed tightly and sighed at length. “Yes. Yes, Drea, my love, of course I will help you—I would do anything for you, and I will treat your child as my own, even if Jude is the other mother. The apartment… will not be your problem to solve; I will find you a two bedroom so that they will have their own room once they are old enough. And I know that Jude has a respectable income, so between the two of us, we will easily defray the costs of another human being. The one thing we cannot help you with is the free time you will no longer have for yourself.”

“Only at first. Once she can drive and cook for herself—themself, I’ll have more time to do my own things.”

“I suspect you underestimate how much of your day your child will require at any age. Until they have a living income, you are still raising them.”

“This is a lot to ask, but… if we shared the responsibilities…”

“Yes. That is true, and—as I have already told you—the child may as well be mine. If the three of us take turns, each will have a little time to herself. But childrearing is very hard work. All of the problems you dealt with as a child will revisit you, only this time you will not be the one handling them—that responsibility will belong to your precious, naïve progeny. All you will be able to do for this person with far less experience than you is give them advice, which they may or may not follow, and watch them stumble through life trying to figure things out for themself. Parenthood is the most difficult job in the world.”

“It may be hard, but I think I would be a happy mother.”

She grumbled, as politely as one can grumble, in frustration, and took a while to answer. “You might be. You might be, because you are eager to love unconditionally, and to wait on the ones you love, hand and foot. Hmm. That being the case, maybe the most difficult parts of being a parent for you will be avoiding spoiling your child and finding the will to fulfill your own needs.” She sighed. “I do not wish to encourage you by admitting this, but… you deserve my honest opinion on one aspect of this venture: I think you would make an excellent mother. Of course, Jude and I would hardly get to spend any time with you, alone or at Asmodeus or on dates, once there is someone in your life whom you feel compelled to give your constant and uninterrupted attention to—but if spending all your time with your child and no longer partying with your girlfriends is what you have decided is right for you…”

Her words gave me pause. A big pause, which was very hard to swallow and caused me to panic when it got stuck in my throat, rendering me unable to speak.

“Drea, are you okay?”

“Excuse me,” I croaked. I launched myself off the bed. With trembling hands I picked up the morning-after box, dropped it, picked it up and tried to open it, fumbled and dropped it again, tried not to freak out as I asked myself if I really wanted to do this, recovered it and managed to open it, pulled out the foil pack, struggled to peel off the foil without dropping that, second-guessed my decision for the third time, picked at the edges to peel up the foil only to be foiled by said foil, figured out that I was supposed to push the pill through the fragile shiny part, made far too many attempts and took far too long to get it out…

“Would you like me to give it a try?” asked my lover. I entrusted the pill packet to her. She punctured the foil effortlessly and handed me the pill. I accepted it, dropped it, retrieved it from the floor, and finally swallowed it with nothing to wash it down.

She led me back to bed, where she told me, “I am aware that was difficult.”

((It was. Fuck, was it hard. Dropping it and not being able to get it out of the pack made it even worse. And after all that, I feel like I did the wrong thing. But I know that it was right.)) I forced a smile. “Thank you for talking me out of committing myself to a life without regular partying.”

She squeezed me. “Thank you for giving my advice your consideration.”

“You could have just ordered me not to do it.”

“I could have. But could I then be certain that you would be happy with my decision? Could I be certain that you would obey me?”

“Of course I would’ve obeyed! I’m your sub!”

“But if I hadn’t explained the consequences, would you have been happy with me ordering you to take the pill?”

“Probably… not.”

“As your devoted lover, I am (towards you) a beneficent tyrant. I will not order you to do something you would not do of your own volition unless I expect you will enjoy being told to do it, and I will only delay giving you something you desire with the aim of amplifying your gratification when you finally receive it. Think of this as your first experience of hardcore delayed gratification. Framed that way, is holding off on motherhood not sexy?”

“Hmm. I suppose it is.”

“Good. I aim to keep up my sham as Vice Captain until 55, so once I quit the force in 7 years, I will be able to go back to being a full-time dominatrix, which means more money to support you and your child—it turns out that making people cross-dress while torturing their cocks pays better money than a police captain’s salary, money which is acquired ethically to boot. I will be able to afford to send our child to college without taking out any student loans.”

“Even though… they won’t be yours.”

“Shush. Who the other parent is doesn’t matter to me—you are my partner and my submissive. Your wellbeing is my responsibility—and by extension, so is the wellbeing of your DNA and that of your other partners.” The ribbon attaching my balloon-head to my shoulders snapped, and my head floated away. “You are devoted to me as my most-of-the-time sub, and I am equally devoted to you as your most-of-the-time domme.”

((I have two women devoted to me. What noble deed did I perform to deserve this?)) I laid my arms across her shoulders and kissed her for a while, then leaned my forehead against her nose and told her, “Thank you.”

“You are welcome, Drea.”

I stroked her hair. “By the way… I’m 34.”

She immediately understood where I was going, and was appropriately alarmed. “Oh. Oh—I did not know that. Oh, my.”

“My clock is ticking loudly, so if you could shuffle your retirement schedule around…”

“Alright. Alright, I’ll retire in… (Hmm…) Oh, this is so extreme—I can’t give you a solid guarantee, but I will aim to be out of there within a year.” I kissed her again. “But that will require you to commit to doing something for me from the end of my career to the end of yours, which you may not find appealing.”

“Anything for you.” I surveyed the room to see what everyone was doing; Doll was encouraging Judy to “Cum inside me again! Come on, stay hard, sixth time’s the charm!” Judy looked exhausted. The other two were snuggled up on the couch, eyes heavy. “I’m feeling tired, Mistress, and—‍”

“‘Diane’.”

“Dee.” She giggled. “And everyone else looks like they’re crashing… except for Doll, who appears to be a sex fiend with bottomless energy, hellbent on accomplishing what I’m now trying to avoid. How about we get some sleep?”

“That sounds like a good idea. But those two, Gina and Gina, will be waking up with stiff necks if they fall asleep on that couch.” We gave each of them a gentle shake of the shoulder and encouraged them to come to bed, and they followed and snuggled up with us.

Half an hour later, Doll told Judy, “God, that was good. Six is a great place to take a break. Let’s get our drink on. No alcohol for me, of course.”

“Judy,” I called out, “are you doing okay? Are you feeling sleepy at all?”

“I’m doing fine,” she groaned. “Although… yes, I’d like to go to bed the moment she’s satisfied.”

“It’s pretty cramped between these sheets, could you and Doll sleep in your bed?”

“That might be best. Prissy, let’s get decent enough to move next door…”

She took Doll away, and all was quiet in my apartment, except for the very loud sex sounds next door that started up almost as soon as they left my apartment. I drifted off into sleep amid the gentle, soothing snores of three other women, and the occasional muffled scream of sexual release from next door.