The kitchen smells like butter and onions before you even reach the doorway. Moxie stands at the stove with her back to you, a loose shirt hanging off one shoulder, tail swaying slow and lazy behind her. Morning light cuts across the tile and catches the pale fur at the back of her thighs.

Emily's already at the table. Legs crossed, mug in both hands, watching you come in over the chipped rim. She doesn't say good morning. She doesn't say anything. She just tracks you across the room with those amber eyes, and her ear flicks once, flat, like she's already decided something about you.

You don't go to the table. You go to Moxie.

She hears your footsteps and her tail lifts a little—not startled, just aware. "Morning, Master," she says, soft, still stirring. "Almost—"

You step up behind her. Close. Close enough that her tail brushes your hip and she goes very still, spoon hovering over the pan.

You don't say anything either. You just reach down, take her tail at the base, and lift it.

"Master—" A breath. Not a warning. "I'm cooking."

The shirt rides up. The base of her tail is bare underneath, fur thinning to soft skin, and below that the seam of her, warm and already slick when your thumb drags through it. She makes a small sound and her hips shift back—just a little, not enough to be asking, exactly, but not pulling away either.

"I know," you say.

You spit on your fingers and press them between her cheeks, rub them wet against her asshole. She's tight. She always is. Her tail curls hard around your wrist like she's trying to hold you there and stop you at the same time, and her knuckles go white on the spoon handle.

"Master, the onions—"

"Stir them."

She stirs them. Her hand shakes doing it.

You line up and push in.

Not gentle. One smooth thrust, all the way, her body giving around you in a hot slow clench that pulls a low, cracked noise out of her throat. The spoon scrapes the pan. She catches the counter with her free hand and bends over it, and you feel every inch of her squeeze you, wet and gripping, her whole body doing the work of taking you.

"Oh," she says. Just that. Then, half a breath later, like she has to say it: "Master, I'm cooking."

She doesn't mean it. You can hear she doesn't mean it. Her hips are already grinding back into you, slow, greedy, the way she does when she's stopped pretending.

You take her hips in both hands and start to move.

Slow. Deep. You pull almost all the way out and slide back in, long and even, and each time your hips meet her ass the sound is wet and quiet and obscene in the morning kitchen. The pan sizzles. The onions smell sweet. Moxie's tail winds tighter around your wrist, fur soft, grip insistent, and she keeps stirring, or trying to—the spoon dragging in slow circles that have nothing to do with cooking anymore.

"You're going to burn it," you say.

"Mm." Her voice has gone thick. "Maybe."

You fuck her harder. The counter knocks against her thighs with every thrust and she stops trying to stir altogether, both hands braced flat on the edge, head down, russet hair spilling over her shoulder. A bead of sweat rolls down her temple and drips off her jaw onto the stovetop. You watch it land and hiss.

"Master—" Her tail curls tighter, then loosens, then curls again, restless. "Master, please, I—"

"You what."

"I want—" She can't finish it. She never can, not when it's like this. She just presses back into you and takes it, and the sound she makes when you hit deep is the sound of a woman who has stopped being able to form the word for what she needs.

Behind you, the mug sets down on the table. Ceramic on wood. Deliberate.

You glance back. Emily's got her chin propped on one hand now, watching the two of you like she's reading something she didn't write. Her legs are still crossed. Her tail gives one slow flick behind the chair.

"Don't stop on my account," she says. Scornful. Polite about it, which is worse.

You don't stop.

You reach around Moxie's hip and find her clit with two fingers, wet from where you're fucking her, and you rub it in time with your thrusts. She jerks like you've shocked her. The sound she makes is high and broken and she clenches hard around your cock, whole body bowing over the counter, and you feel her start to shake.

"There," she gasps. "There, there, Master, please—"

You keep the rhythm. Slow and deep and steady, fingers working her, and she comes on your cock with her face pressed against the counter edge and her tail wrapped so tight around your wrist you can feel her pulse in it. Her ass grips you through it, rhythmic, milking, and she's still making that small cracked sound when you feel your own release start to build low and heavy.

You don't slow down. You push her flat against the counter and take her hard, fast, short strokes, and she takes every one of them with a soft helpless noise each time, still coming, still clenching, and then you're there—

You come inside her.

Deep. You hold her hips flush against yours and empty into her ass, and you feel it happen in her body first: the way she goes rigid, the way her tail snaps straight and then curls again, the way she gasps like she's been holding her breath this whole time. You stay buried while it finishes, while she shudders around you, while the pan ticks on the cooling burner.

Then you pull out.

Moxie stays bent over the counter. She doesn't move. You watch your cum start to slide down the inside of her thigh, thick and slow, a pale line against the fur. She makes a small sound and her tail drops, loose, and she presses her forehead against the counter and just breathes.

"The onions are fine," she says, muffled. Quietly. Like it's the only thing she can think to say.

You step back from her. Your cock is softening, wet with her, and you don't wipe it. You cross the kitchen to the table and look down at Emily.

"Your turn."

She sets the mug down. Slow. Both hands, like she wants you to see her do it. And then she just looks at you, that flat amber glare, and doesn't move.

The moment hangs there between you—her still seated, chin up, tail flicking once behind the chair, legs still crossed like she hasn't decided whether to make you ask. Behind you, Moxie is still bent over the counter, breathing, cum sliding down her thigh.

Emily's glare sharpens. But her legs uncross.

She doesn't stand. She just uncrosses them, plants both feet flat on the tile, and leans back in the chair with her arms folded under her chest, chin still up, waiting. The chair creaks. Beyond her, the pan ticks as it cools, and somewhere behind you Moxie finally straightens, slow, one hand braced on the counter edge, and you hear her pull a breath in through her nose and let it out.

Emily's gaze drops—down your chest, down your stomach, to your cock, still wet and half-hard against your thigh. She looks at it the way she looks at everything: like it belongs to her and she's deciding what to do with it. Then she looks back up at your face.

"Well," she says. "You made a mess of my sister."

"She asked for it."

"She didn't ask for anything." Emily's mouth curls. "That's the thing about Moxie. She never asks. She just bends over and hopes."

Behind you, Moxie makes a soft, wounded noise—half a laugh, half something else—and you hear her pick up the spoon again, scrape it once against the pan, set it down. Her bare feet cross the tile. She comes up beside you, close, and her hip presses into your arm, warm through the thin shirt, and she's holding a plate. Eggs, onions, the toast she managed somewhere in all of it. She sets it on the table between you and Emily without a word, and her tail brushes your leg on the way, deliberate, and then she doesn't leave. She stays there, at your shoulder, and waits.

Emily looks at the plate. Then at Moxie. Something moves behind her eyes—fast, gone—and she reaches out and takes a piece of toast, bites it, chews, swallows, all without breaking eye contact with you. Crumbs on her lip. She doesn't wipe them.

"Sit down," she says. "Eat. You earned it, apparently."

You don't sit.

You step around the table instead, and Emily's head turns to track you, slow, and her folded arms tighten. You stop beside her chair, at her shoulder, and reach down and take the hem of her shirt in both hands. She's wearing a thin grey thing, slept in, soft, and it comes up easy when you pull—over her stomach, over her ribs, and she lifts her arms at the last second, not to help you, just to let you, and the shirt goes over her head and onto the floor and she sits there in a plain black bra with her arms back down at her sides, breathing through her nose.

"You could ask," she says.

"I could."

You reach behind her and unhook the bra. One clasp. It falls forward off her shoulders and she doesn't catch it, just lets it slide down her arms into her lap, and then you're looking at her—small, firm breasts, pale ginger fur thinning to smooth skin at the front, nipples already stiff from the cold of the room or from something else, hard little points on each. She keeps her chin up. Her ears are flat back. Her tail is wrapped once around the chair leg, tight, the way she does when she's holding still on purpose.

You put one hand flat on her sternum, palm over her heartbeat, and feel it going fast under your hand. Faster than her face says. You drag your thumb sideways across one nipple, slow, and she doesn't flinch, but her jaw sets and the muscle in her neck jumps.

"Cold hands," she says.

"You're warm enough."

You take the nipple between thumb and forefinger and pinch. Hard. Not a tease—a twist, enough to hurt, and Emily's whole body jerks in the chair and a hiss comes out between her teeth and her hand snaps up to grab your wrist, nails digging in, and she holds it there, doesn't pull you off, just holds, eyes locked on yours, breathing hard through her nose.

"There it is," she says, low. "There's the Master I know."

You pinch the other one. She hisses again and her tail lashes once around the chair leg and her thighs press together under the table and she still doesn't look away. Her wrist grip tightens—you'll have marks—and she lets you do it, lets you roll both nipples between your fingers until they're swollen and dark and she's gone quiet and glassy-eyed, mouth slightly open, one small breath at a time.

Moxie hasn't moved from your shoulder. You can feel her watching. When you glance over, she's got both hands folded in front of her, tail low and slow, and her eyes are on Emily's face with something in them that isn't quite hunger and isn't quite worry—the older sister's look, the one that says she's seen this before and knows how it ends.

You let go of Emily's nipples and step back. She exhales through her teeth, sharp, and slumps an inch in the chair before she catches herself and straightens again.

"Get up," you say. "Sit on the floor."

"Make me."

You take the back of her chair and tip it. Not far—an inch, two—just enough that her feet come off the tile and her hands fly out to grab the table edge, and she looks up at you with real fury in her face now, ears flat, teeth bared, and you hold it there and look down at her.

"Floor," you say.

She holds your stare for three full seconds. Then she lets go of the table and slides off the chair and drops onto the tile on her knees, arms crossed, glaring up at you, tail flicking hard behind her. The chair scrapes back upright. You sit down in it—her chair, still warm from her—and pull the plate over and pick up the fork.

Moxie comes around and sits across from you, quiet, and folds her hands on the table and watches you eat. The eggs are good. The onions are soft and sweet and there's butter on the toast and you eat slowly, deliberately, while Emily kneels on the cold tile beside your chair with her arms crossed and her nipples still swollen and dark and the whole kitchen quiet except for the fork and the pan ticking and the sound of the house settling somewhere above you.

"You're going to eat all of it," Emily says, "and not give me any."

"You had toast."

"One piece."

You cut a corner of egg and hold the fork down over the floor beside her. She looks at it. Looks at you. Then she leans forward and takes it off the fork with her teeth, quick, and chews, and the whole time she's chewing she's glaring up at you like she'd like to bite something else.

Moxie hides a smile behind her hand. Her tail has curled up over the back of her chair, loose and content, and her ears have come forward again, and she's watching the two of you the way she watches a fire—patient, fond, in no hurry for it to be over.

You set the fork down and reach for her. Emily's kneeling right there at your knee, close enough that you don't have to move much—just lean, slide your hand down her stomach, find the waistband of her shorts. Thin grey cotton, slept in like the shirt. She goes still when your fingers hook it.

"What are you doing," she says. Flat. Not a question.

You don't answer. You tug the shorts down over her hips and she lifts up on her knees to let them go, and then you see them—small black panties, plain, the kind she'd never admit to owning, stretched tight over her ass and the soft rise of her cunt underneath. There's a dark spot at the front already. Not big. Enough.

"You've been sitting in these all morning," you say.

"I've been sitting in a chair being nice to you." Her voice is still flat but her tail has gone stiff behind her, tip twitching. "There's a difference."

You pull the panties aside. Just the crotch—thumb hooked in the fabric, dragging it sideways across her hip, and there she is, fur thinning to smooth wet skin, the seam of her pussy flushed and slick and open a little around nothing. She's wet. She's been wet. She exhales through her nose and her thighs shift apart on the tile, a half-inch, involuntary, and she catches herself doing it and glares harder.

"Don't," she says.

You reach past her and pick up your fork, and she watches you do it, confused—then you lean down and set the fork on the floor beside her knee and stand up, and her head tilts back to follow you, ears going back flat.

"Where are you going."

"Drawer," you say, and walk.

The kitchen drawer on the left of the sink. Moxie's still at the table, watching, hands folded, and she doesn't say anything when you pull it open and rummage past the takeout menus and the twist ties and find it—small, matte black, curved, the size of your thumb. You've used it on both of them before. Emily hates that she likes it. You close the drawer and come back.

She's still kneeling where you left her, panties still pulled aside, and she hasn't fixed them. She watches the thing in your hand the whole way across the tile. Her jaw works once.

"I said don't."

"I heard you."

You crouch beside her. Not in front—beside, at her hip, so you can see her face and her cunt both. You press the tip of the vibe against her pussy, wet it, drag it up and down the seam once, twice, and her breath catches in her throat and her hand comes up fast and grabs your forearm.

She doesn't push you away. She just holds. Nails in your skin, watching your face, breathing hard through her nose, and when you push the vibe in it slides easy—she's wet enough that it just goes, all the way to the base, and her whole body flinches around it like she got hit.

"There," you say.

"I'll kill you."

"Probably."

You turn it on.

The buzz is loud in the quiet kitchen. Emily's hips jerk like she's been shocked, one sharp snap up off her heels, and she bites down on her lip hard enough to whiten it and her tail lashes once across the tile behind her. Her grip on your forearm tightens until it hurts. Her eyes are wide and furious and wet at the corners and she's staring at you like she wants to tear your throat out and she hasn't let go of you and she isn't reaching down to pull it out.

You stand up and leave it in her.

Back to the chair. You sit down in it—her chair, still warm—and pull the plate over and pick up the fork and start eating again, slowly, the way you were. Eggs. Onions. Toast. The pan has stopped ticking. Somewhere above you the house creaks and settles and a floorboard answers it, and Emily kneels on the cold tile at your knee with a small black thing buzzing inside her and her panties pulled aside and her hands now flat on her thighs, white-knuckled, chin up, breathing through her teeth.

You eat.

The first minute she holds it. She holds it well—jaw set, eyes on the wall past your shoulder, refusing to give you anything. Her ears are flat and her tail's wrapped tight around her own knee and she's breathing in through her nose and out through her teeth, slow, controlled, and the only tell is the muscle jumping in her thigh under the fur.

The second minute the control starts to go.

Her hips move. Just a little, a roll, like she's trying to shift away from the buzz and can't—and then a second roll, the other way, pressing down onto it instead, and she catches herself doing that one and makes a small furious sound low in her throat and goes still again. Sweat beads on her upper lip. She licks it off.

Moxie's still across the table. She's given up pretending to watch you eat. Her chin's in her hand and her hazel eyes are on her sister, soft, and every time Emily's hips jerk she flinches a little in sympathy, tail curling slow over the chair back. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to.

"How's the toast," Emily says. Tight. Biting off each word.

"Good."

"Great." She shifts her weight on her knees, and the shift turns into another roll of her hips before she can stop it, and she closes her eyes for a second and opens them again. "You're going to eat that whole plate while I—"

"While you what."

"Nothing."

You cut another piece of egg. Chew. Swallow. Emily watches you do it and her ears go back further and her tail snaps once against the tile, hard, and she's rocking now—small constant motion, forward and back, like she's riding it without meaning to, and there's a shine on her inner thighs where she's getting wetter around the base of the thing and she knows you can see it and she can't do anything about it.

You take your time with the last of the plate. Moxie gets up once and refills her water and sits back down, quiet, and the two of you watch her together—Emily kneeling, shaking, biting her lip, and Moxie watching her sister come apart on the kitchen floor with that patient older-sister look, fond and unhurried, like she's seen this before and knows exactly how it ends.

"Emily," Moxie says, soft.

"Shut up."

"You're doing so well."

"I said shut—" Her voice cracks in the middle of the word. She clenches her jaw and grinds down onto the vibe and her whole body shudders and she makes a sound through her teeth that isn't a word at all, and then she's got one hand flat on the floor and the other fisted in her own tail and she's rocking in earnest now, fast, shallow, chasing it, and she's stopped pretending she isn't.

You finish the plate. Set the fork down. Cross your arms and lean back in the chair and watch her.

She's close. You can see it—the way her thighs are shaking, the way her breath has gone high and thin, the way her eyes have gone glassy and unfocused and stopped tracking anything in the room. Her ears are flat and her tail is lashing the floor and she's muttering something under her breath, a steady stream of it, and it takes you a second to realize it's your name and not the word Master, over and over, low and furious and desperate.

"Don't stop," she says. "Don't you dare stop."

"It's inside you," you say. "I'm not touching it."

"I know you're not touching it, you—" and then she can't finish it, because it hits.

She comes hard.

Her back arches and her head goes back and her mouth opens wide and nothing comes out for a second, and then it does—a high cracked cry that fills the whole kitchen and bounces off the tile, and her hips buck up off her heels and her pussy clenches hard around the vibe, and then she squirts. A gush of it, clear and hot, spraying out around the base of the thing and down her thighs and onto the tile in a spreading shine, and she keeps coming through it, shaking, one hand scrabbling at the floor for purchase and finding none, the other still fisted in her tail, and she's crying out with every wave of it, wordless, and the wet sound of her on the tile is loud in the quiet room.

Moxie's hand has come up to her mouth. Her eyes are wide and bright. She's breathing fast through her nose and she hasn't looked away once.

The vibe keeps buzzing. Emily keeps coming. It goes on long enough that it stops being one orgasm and becomes a long shuddering series of them, each one rolling into the next, and she's sobbing now, real tears cutting tracks down through the fur at her temples, and she's saying something that might be please and might be stop and might be neither, and she doesn't reach down to pull the thing out.

You stand up.

You cross the tile and crouch in front of her and reach down and turn the vibe off. She sags instantly—whole body going loose, forehead dropping forward onto your shoulder, breathing ragged and wet against your neck, and you feel her shaking all over, thighs slick, tail limp on the floor behind her, her puddle spreading cold under her knees.

You give her three breaths. Four.

Then you take her by the hair and pull her head up off your shoulder and stand, and she comes up with you, on her knees, chin tipped back, still gasping, eyes wet and unfocused—and you unzip your fly and take your cock out and put it against her open mouth.

"Open," you say.

She opens.

You don't ease in. You shove—straight down her throat, both hands fisted in her short ginger hair, and Emily gags hard around you, whole body convulsing, hands coming up to brace on your thighs and push, and you don't let her push. You hold her there, buried to the root, her nose pressed into the fur at your base, and feel her throat work and spasm around your cock while she thrashes, nails digging into your thighs through your shorts, tears squeezing out of the corners of her closed eyes and running down her cheeks.

She gags again. You pull back an inch and shove back in.

This is the thing she hates. This is the thing she can't do—the strong gag reflex she can't control, the way her whole body fights it, the way she can't breathe and can't stop and can't get free. She's thrashing on your cock like a fish on a line, hands slapping at your thighs, and her eyes are streaming and her throat is making those wet choked sounds, and she's still got one hand tangled in her own tail and she isn't biting down and she isn't pulling off.

You fuck her face.

Hard. Fast. Short strokes at first, letting her get a breath every third or fourth, and then longer—all the way in, all the way out, spit running down her chin and her neck and her chest, her tits bouncing with every thrust, her throat working around you every time you bottom out. She's stopped fighting. Her hands have gone slack on your thighs. Her eyes are open now, looking up at you, wet and glassy and strange, and she's letting you use her mouth, letting you fuck it like it belongs to you, and the sound she makes around your cock is low and broken and—you'd swear—content.

Moxie's still at the table. She hasn't moved. She's got both hands folded in front of her mouth and her ears are forward and her tail is wrapped tight around the chair leg and she's watching her little sister get her face fucked on the kitchen floor with an expression that's half worry and half something much hotter.

"Master," she says, soft. Just that. Not a warning. Just the word.

You don't slow down. You grip Emily's hair tighter and pull her down onto you and hold her there, cock buried in her throat, and she gags and thrashes and her hands come up and grip your thighs and she doesn't fight it—she just takes it, throat working, spit drooling down her chin, tears running, and you feel it start to build low and heavy and you let it come.

You come down her throat.

She swallows—or tries to. You feel her throat work around you, feel her swallow against the head of your cock, and then she gags on it and it comes back up her throat and out around your shaft, thick and white, running down her chin and onto her tits and her lap where she's still kneeling in her own puddle. You hold her there through all of it, through the last pulse, until she's stopped trying to swallow and is just breathing around you, ragged and wet.

Then you don't pull out.

You stay in her mouth. Both hands still in her hair. She looks up at you, eyes wet and wide, and she knows—you can see her know—because it's happened before, because she hates it, because it's the one thing she can't take and you know it and she knows you know it.

"Don't," she says. Around your cock. Muffled, thick, barely a word.

You piss in her mouth.

Hot and steady, straight down her throat, and Emily's whole body jolts like she's been electrocuted—she gags hard, hands flying up to your hips, trying to pull off, and you hold her head still and don't let her, and she has to take it, has to swallow it or wear it, and she can't swallow it all, so it comes out around your cock and down her chin, mixing with the cum and the spit, running down her neck and her tits and dripping off her nipples onto her thighs. She's making a sound—a high furious humiliated sound, vibrating around your cock—and her hands are scrabbling at your hips and she's crying, real crying now, open and helpless, and she's still not biting down and she's still not pulling off and she's swallowing what she can because you're standing over her and holding her head and she's your slave and she knows it.

The stream thins. Stops.

You pull out. Slowly. Her mouth comes with you for an inch before it lets go, and then she's kneeling there with her mouth open and her chin dripping and her tits wet and her thighs wet and the tile under her a wreck, and she's looking up at you with her eyes streaming and her ears flat and her chest heaving, and she doesn't wipe her face. She doesn't move at all.

Moxie gets up from the table. Her chair scrapes back. She crosses the kitchen, quiet, bare feet on the tile, and stops beside her sister and looks down at her—at the mess of her, the spit and the cum and the piss and the puddle—and then she crouches down and takes Emily's face in both hands, gentle, and turns it up toward her.

"There," Moxie says, soft. "There you are."

Emily's chin trembles. She doesn't say anything. She just lets her sister hold her face and wipe her cheeks with her thumbs, and out on the tile between her knees the puddle is going cold, and somewhere above you the house creaks again—a floorboard, a door, the sound of someone else in the house waking up and moving around, and none of you look at it.

You take Emily by the hair and pull her up off the tile. She comes with a wet sound, knees peeling off the floor, and her legs won't hold her—she sways, and you have to keep your fist in her hair to keep her upright, and she lets you, which is its own admission. Moxie stands too, quiet, and watches you steer her sister out of the kitchen and down the hall with the mess still drying on Emily's chin.

The bathroom is small and tiled and cold. You shove her in ahead of you and she stumbles against the tub and catches herself on the edge, and turns, and looks at you—and for the first time this morning there's something in her face that isn't fury. Her ears are down. Her tail is low and still. She knows this room.

"Master—" she starts.

You reach past her and twist the tap all the way to cold. The pipes knock, and then the water comes out hard and grey-white and freezing, and you take the shower head off the hook and turn it on her.

She screams.

It's a real scream, high and cracked, and she folds up like a hand closing—arms over her head, curling away, and the water finds her anyway, down her back, over her shoulders, and she's dancing on the tile trying to get out from under it and there's nowhere to go because you're between her and the door. Her nipples, already swollen and red from the pinching, go tight and hard under the spray and she claws at the wall and hisses through her teeth.

"Cold, cold, cold—" she chatters, and her whole body is shaking, fur standing up along her spine, and she looks up at you with her teeth bared and her eyes streaming and there's a cold-water shine all over her, and you stand there and watch her shiver and feel something warm open up in your chest.

You keep the water on her until she stops trying to dodge it and just stands there, hunched, shaking, letting it run. Her lips have gone pale. Her fingers are stiff. She looks up at you through the wet hair plastered to her face, and she says, small, "Master, please," and it isn't the scornful word this time. It's just the word.

You turn the water off.

She stands there dripping, shaking, and you take the towel off the hook and don't give it to her. You dry yourself—hands, forearms, the front of your shorts where she spat on you—and then you drop the towel on the floor and walk out, and she follows you because she has to, dripping a trail down the hall.

The bedroom is still rumpled from the morning. You pull the covers back off the bed, strip them to the foot, and point at the mattress.

"Up. On your back. Hands above your head."

She hesitates. One second. Then she climbs up, wet and shivering, and lies back and puts her arms up over her head, wrists together, and she watches you go to the drawer and take out the cuffs. Leather, four of them, and the rope. She watches you the whole time and her chest is going up and down fast and her thighs are pressed together and there's a shine on her upper lip that isn't water.

You cuff her right wrist first, to the headboard post, and pull it snug. Then the left. Then you take her right ankle and haul it out wide, all the way to the corner of the frame, and cuff it there, and she makes a small sound and pulls at the first wrist, testing, and finds no give. Her left ankle goes to the other corner. You stand back and look at her.

Spread. Wrists up, ankles wide, cunt open and still slick from the kitchen, tits flat back against her ribs with the nipples standing up dark and sore. Her tail is trapped under her hip and she can't move it and she's already pulling at the cuffs, slow, rhythmic, testing each one. The bed creaks.

"This is—" She stops. Swallows. "This is a lot of rope for one girl, Master."

"I know."

You climb onto the bed beside her and put your hand flat on her stomach, and she flinches at how warm it is against her cold skin, and you feel the muscles there jumping under your palm. You drag your hand up slow, over her ribs, over the underside of one small breast, and take the nipple between thumb and forefinger.

It's already sore. You can feel how swollen it is from before. You pinch it anyway—hard, rolling it, and Emily's whole body arcs up off the mattress and she yelps and pulls at both wrist cuffs at once, and the bed knocks against the wall.

"Ah—ah, fuck, Master—"

You twist. She thrashes under you, hips bucking, trying to get her chest away from your hand and there's nowhere for it to go, and she's got her head thrown back and her teeth gritted and she's making a thin steady sound through them that isn't quite a word. You keep the pinch until her eyes water, then let go and watch the blood come back into it, dark and angry, and then you take the other one and do it slower.

By the time you're done both nipples are red and glossy and visibly swollen, and Emily is breathing in short pulls and her thighs are slick and she's stopped pulling at the cuffs, mostly, except when she forgets.

"They hurt," she says. Sulky. Small.

"Good."

You reach over to the nightstand. Moxie is in the doorway—you didn't hear her come in—leaning against the frame with the towel from the floor folded over one arm, watching. Her tail is low and slow behind her. She doesn't say anything. You hold up two fingers at her and point at the drawer, and she comes in and opens it without a word and looks at the contents and then at you, and you nod at the second shelf.

She takes out the clamps. Small, black, rubber-tipped, on a chain. She brings them to the bed and stands there holding them, and looks down at her sister spread out and shaking, and something crosses her face—fond and worried and hungry all at once.

"Master," Moxie says, soft. "She's cold."

"She'll warm up."

You take the clamps and open the first one and set it on Emily's right nipple. The rubber bites down and Emily's whole body jerks and she screams, short and sharp, and yanks at the cuffs hard enough to rattle the headboard. You set the second clamp on the left and she screams again and her heels dig into the mattress and her tail whips out from under her hip and lashes once across the sheet.

"Take them off—" she gasps. "Take them off, take them off, Master, they're—"

You tug the chain. Just a little. And Emily's voice goes up an octave and dies in her throat and her whole body curls toward the pull like a fish on a hook, and she's crying now, real tears, and her thighs are pressed together and she's grinding them and she can't help it.

"Moxie," you say. "The wand."

Moxie gets it. She's quick and quiet about it, and she comes back to the bed and you point at the foot of it, and she climbs up and kneels between Emily's spread legs, and Emily looks down her own body at her sister kneeling there with the wand in her hand and her ears go flat and she says, "No. No, Moxie, don't—"

"I'm sorry," Moxie says, gently, and turns it on and presses it to Emily's clit.

Emily shrieks. Her whole body bows off the mattress and she pulls at all four cuffs at once, hard, and the bed slams the wall, and the clamps swing on her tits and she screams again at the weight of the chain. Moxie holds the wand steady, slow circles, and the buzz fills the room, and Emily is thrashing on the bed with nowhere to go—wrists up, ankles wide, her sister between her legs working the wand on her, and she's already close, you can see it, she's been close since the kitchen and she never got to finish.

"Please," she gasps. "Please, please, I'll be good, I'll—"

You put your hand on her throat.

Not hard. Just there. Palm over her windpipe, thumb and fingers on either side of her neck, and Emily goes absolutely still. Her eyes fly open wide and find yours and her whole body locks and her mouth opens and nothing comes out. The wand keeps buzzing. Moxie keeps working it, slower now, watching your hand. Emily's pulse is hammering under your palm, fast and thick, and she isn't breathing, and she's staring up at you with her pupils blown wide and black and her ears flat and her tail frozen straight under her hip and she is terrified—you can feel it, the way her whole body has gone rigid under your hand—and she doesn't look away.

You squeeze.

Just a little. Just enough that her eyes go wider and her mouth works and a thin sound comes out of her throat under your palm, and her hips buck up off the mattress and the wand grinds into her clit and she comes—comes with your hand on her throat and her eyes on yours and her whole body shaking against the cuffs, and it's a long one, a rolling one, and you hold the squeeze through all of it and watch her face.

Then you let go.

Emily sucks air in through her mouth in a raw gasp and her whole body sags into the mattress and she's crying and laughing at the same time, sort of, and the tears run down into her ears. Moxie has stopped the wand. She's looking at you with her ears forward and her lips parted.

"Again," you say.

Emily's head comes up off the mattress. "No—"

You put your hand back on her throat. She goes still again, instantly, like a switch, and this time you squeeze harder and hold it longer, and Emily's hands clench and unclench above her head and her heels scrabble at the sheet and her body starts to fight in earnest—real fight, twisting, pulling at the cuffs with everything she has, and the bed rattles and the chain on her tits swings and she can't get free and she can't get air and she's making a high thin sound that isn't a word and she's grinding her hips up into the wand Moxie's holding steady against her, and she comes again with your hand crushing down on her windpipe, comes fighting it, comes with her whole body thrashing and her eyes rolling back.

You let go and she gulps air and sobs and comes down slowly, shaking, and there's a wet patch spreading under her now and the sheet under her ass is soaked through.

"Master," Moxie says, quiet. She's still kneeling between Emily's legs with the wand in her hand. "Her feet."

You look down Emily's body. Her footpaws are cuffed wide to the corners of the frame, toes splayed, the soft pads pink and bare and the fur between them pale ginger. You hadn't thought about them. Emily follows your gaze and her eyes go wide and she starts to pull at her ankle cuffs, fast, hard.

"No. No, not that, not—"

You lean over and drag one fingernail, slow, up the sole of her right footpaw.

Emily screams. Not a sex scream. A real one, high and helpless, and her whole leg jerks against the cuff and she tries to pull it up and can't, and she's already laughing, already crying, already twisting on the bed. You do it again, one long scratch from heel to toes, and she shrieks and yanks at the cuffs with both hands and both feet and the bed slams the wall and the clamps swing on her tits and she screams at that too.

"Stop—stop, Master, please, please stop, I can't—"

You don't stop. You take her toes and bend them back and run your thumbnail down the arch, and Emily's whole body convulses on the bed and she's laughing and sobbing and begging all at once, words running together, and her hips are still grinding down into the wet spot on the sheet even while she's fighting the tickling, and she doesn't seem to know she's doing it.

You look up at Moxie. "Your turn."

Moxie sets the wand down and crawls up the bed on her knees and takes Emily's left footpaw in both hands, and she does it gently, almost tenderly, and she finds the spot at the base of the toes and presses and drags and Emily screams again and thrashes so hard one of the cuffs creaks.

"Moxie—Moxie, you traitor, you—" and then she can't talk anymore because Moxie is working both thumbs up the sole in slow circles and Emily is laughing so hard she can't breathe, tears streaming sideways into her hair, and past all of it she's still rolling her hips into the wet sheet.

You reach over and take the chain of the clamps and pull.

Emily's laugh cuts off into a shriek and her back arches and her tits stretch up off her ribs, nipples crushed in the rubber, and Moxie keeps working her footpaw and you keep pulling the chain and Emily is making a sound now that isn't laughing and isn't crying and isn't any word at all, and she comes again—come on, just from this, from the pull and the tickle and the cuffs and the wet sheet—and you watch it move through her while you hold the chain taut.

You let the chain go. The clamps swing back down onto her chest and she sobs.

You sit back on your heels and look at her. Spread-eagle, soaked, cunt open and dripping onto the ruined sheet, tits red and clamped and shining, footpaws twitching where Moxie's hands have left off, tears all over her face and her ears flat and her chest heaving. She looks back at you with her eyes wet and her mouth open and she says, hoarse, "I hate you," and it comes out like something else entirely.

Moxie strokes her sister's footpaw, once, soft.

"Master," she says. "May I use the other one?"

She's looking at the nightstand. The drawer is still open. Emily turns her head to follow her sister's gaze and sees what's in there and her eyes go wide all over again, and she pulls at the cuffs, and you reach down and take her chin in your hand and turn her face back up to yours.

"Look at me," you say.

She looks.

You hold her chin a moment longer, then let go and lean down over her. Slow. Close enough that she can feel your breath on her mouth, and her eyes flick down to your lips and back up, wary, like she's braced for a bite.

You put your hand on her cheek. Palm flat, thumb along her jaw, cupping her face the way you'd hold something you didn't want to drop. Her skin is cold from the shower and her fur is still damp at the temple and her eyes go wide and confused, flicking between yours, looking for the trick.

"Emily," you say. Quiet.

"What." It comes out cracked.

"I love you."

Her whole face stops working. The glare, the bared teeth, the flat ears—all of it goes slack at once, like somebody cut the strings, and for a second she's just a small ginger girl looking up at you with her mouth open and no idea what to do with her face. Her tail, trapped under her hip, gives a single twitch.

"You—" She swallows. "You're saying that now."

"I'm saying it now."

Her eyes are wet already, from the crying, and they get wetter, and she hates it, you can see her hate it—her jaw works and her ears try to flatten and her mouth tries to curl and none of it sticks. She blinks hard, twice, and a tear rolls sideways into her hair.

"That's not fair," she says.

You stroke your thumb along her jaw, once, and she turns her face into your palm. Just a little. Just enough that her cheek presses into your hand and her eyes half-close, and her breath comes out of her nose in a long unsteady sigh, and she looks—for one unguarded second—like something soft and small and yours.

Then you slide your hand down her throat and close it.

Her eyes snap open. Wide, black-pupiled, and her breath cuts off in her chest with a little hitched sound. Your palm covers her windpipe and your fingers wrap the sides of her neck and you squeeze—not hard yet, just enough that she feels it, feels how easy it would be—and her whole body goes rigid under you and her hands jerk against the cuffs above her head, one-two, a reflex, and then stop.

She holds your eyes. She doesn't look away. Her pulse is thudding under your palm, thick and fast, and you can count it, and she's already starting to fight for air—her chest working, ribs pulling, little shallow pulls that don't get her anything, and her mouth opens and closes and opens.

You lean closer. Study her.

Up close you can see everything the kitchen didn't give you. The way her eyebrows pull together at the inner corners—not anger, something more naked, almost pleading, and she'd die before she'd name it. The way her nostrils flare on each useless pull. The way her lower lip has gone soft and loose and trembling at the edge, and the way her tongue presses up against the roof of her mouth like she's trying to swallow around nothing. The tear tracks from before have gone tacky on her cheeks and new ones are starting, bright and slow, and her eyes are so wide the amber's almost swallowed by black.

You hold the squeeze until her hands curl into fists above her head and her heels start to scrabble at the sheet, and then you let go.

She gasps. It's a raw, ugly, wonderful sound—air dragging down her throat in a rush—and her whole body sags into the mattress and her chest heaves and she coughs once, sharp, and then she's pulling air in and letting it go in long shuddering pulls, and she's looking at you the whole time, eyes streaming, mouth open, and there's something in her face now that wasn't there in the kitchen. Something quieter. Something that's stopped fighting to get away and started just—watching you back.

"There she is," you say.

"Fuck you," she whispers. Hoarse. No heat in it at all.

You reach down and take the chain between the clamps and lift it, slow, and her tits come up off her ribs with it, nipples stretched tight in the rubber, and Emily's breath catches and her back bows and she makes a thin high sound through her teeth. You hold the chain up and look at her chest—the pale ginger fur, the smooth skin of the front, both nipples crushed dark and swollen and shining where the rubber bites—and you turn your hand, slow, letting the chain twist, and the clamps rotate with it and Emily's whole body shudders and her heels dig in and she whimpers.

"They're so red," you say. "Look at them."

"I can feel them."

"I know." You lower the chain back down and the clamps settle onto her chest with a soft weight and she breathes out, shaky. "You're beautiful like this. Do you know that? Not the pretty kind. The other kind."

Her eyes flick to yours, quick, and away. Her ears twitch. She doesn't have a comeback, and she knows she doesn't, and the not-having-one sits on her face like a held breath.

You take the right nipple between thumb and forefinger—over the clamp, pinching the whole thing, rubber and flesh and the swollen tip inside it—and you squeeze. Emily's back comes off the mattress and she screams. Short and sharp and cut off by her own clenched teeth, and her hands yank at the cuffs and the headboard rattles, and you keep the squeeze and watch her face screw up and her eyes squeeze shut and her mouth pull wide.

"Open your eyes," you say.

She does. Wet, furious, unfocused.

"Good girl."

You roll the nipple between your fingers, slow, and her jaw drops and her breath comes out in short broken pieces and her hips start to move on the sheet—small rolls, involuntary, grinding down into the soaked patch under her—and she's watching you watch her and she can't stop any of it. You let go and the blood rushes back and she gasps like you'd burned her, and you take the left one and do it again, slower, and this time she doesn't scream, she just opens her mouth wide and no sound comes out at all, and her eyes roll up toward the ceiling and come back down to you.

"You love this," you say. "Say it."

"No."

You pinch harder. Her whole body twists and she yanks both wrists and the cuffs creak and she's crying openly now, tears running down into her ears, and she's still grinding her hips down into the sheet.

"Say it," you say.

"I—" Her voice breaks. "I love it."

You let go and put your hand back on her throat.

She sees it coming this time. She doesn't fight it—she goes still under your hand like she's been waiting for it, and her eyes come up to yours and stay there, and there's something in them now that's almost calm. Almost grateful. You squeeze, and her breath stops, and her mouth opens, and she just watches you. That's the thing you didn't expect. She stops fighting for the air and starts just—looking at you. Holding your gaze while her chest works and her pulse hammers under your palm and her eyes start to go glassy at the edges, and she doesn't blink, and she doesn't look away, and she doesn't want to.

You hold it longer than before. Long enough that her hands uncurl above her head and her heels slide flat on the sheet and her whole body goes loose and heavy under you, long enough that her eyes start to drift and her lids come down halfway and her mouth goes slack, and you watch her go somewhere soft and far away and take her time getting there.

Then you let go.

She comes back slow. Air in, air out, and her eyes find yours again and there's no glare in them at all now, just that glassy watchful look, and her lips move and nothing comes out, and then she manages, "Master," in a voice you've never heard her use before. Small. Not scornful. Not anything but the word.

You lean down and kiss her.

Not hard. Soft. Your mouth on her open mouth, her breath still ragged in your mouth, and she kisses back—clumsy, uncoordinated, still half-gone—and her tongue comes up to meet yours and her body arches up off the sheet to get closer to you and she can't, the cuffs hold her, and she makes a small frustrated sound into your mouth and pulls at them.

You break the kiss and pull back an inch and look at her. Her eyes are still closed. Her mouth is still open. Her chest is rising and falling fast and the clamps are shining on her tits and the tears are drying on her cheeks and she's perfect, and you tell her so.

"You're perfect," you say. "You know that? Not good. Not sweet. Perfect. The way you fight me. The way you look at me when you can't breathe. I could watch your face all day."

Her eyes open. Wet, wary, and something else underneath—something that wants to believe you and can't quite.

"You're saying that because I'm tied up," she says.

"I'm saying it because it's true."

You stroke her cheek again, once, and she turns into it again, and this time she doesn't try to hide it at all—she just presses her face into your palm and closes her eyes and breathes, and her tail uncurls from under her hip and comes out and lies flat on the sheet, loose, the tip twitching. You watch her let go of something. You watch it happen in her face.

Then you slide your hand down and close it on her throat again, and her eyes fly open, and there it is—the fear, back in them, quick as a light switching on, and underneath the fear the thing that's been there all morning, the thing she keeps trying to spit out and can't: she wants this. She wants you to do it. She wants to be held down and watched and used and wrung out and she wants it so badly she can't stand to say it.

You squeeze.

Her mouth opens and her breath cuts off and her eyes lock on yours, and this time she doesn't fight the cuffs at all. She just lies there and takes it, watching you, her chest working under the strap of your palm, her pulse jumping under your thumb, and you watch her face do the thing you came here for—the way her eyebrows pull in and her nostrils flare and her lips part and the fear and the want run together until you can't tell which is which, and the tears come again, slow, without any sound at all.

You hold her there and count. One. Two. Three. Four. Her eyes start to drift. Five. Her body goes loose under you, trusting, and her hands stop being fists and open flat above her head. Six. Seven. She stops fighting and starts waiting, and you can feel it, feel her give you the whole weight of her—the last of the resistance going out of her like water out of a cracked cup—and you squeeze a little harder and watch her face change and her mouth work and her eyes roll back a quarter of the way and her whole body shudder under you.

You let go.

She sucks air in and it comes out of her as a sob—one hard, cracked one—and then she's crying for real, not the sharp angry tears from the kitchen but something quieter and wetter, and she turns her face into the sheet and her shoulders shake and she doesn't try to hide it at all. You put your hand back on her cheek and turn her face back up to yours, and she lets you, and she looks at you with her eyes red and streaming and her lip trembling and she says, "Master, I—" and can't finish it, and you don't make her.

You stroke her cheek with your thumb. "I know," you say.

She closes her eyes and presses her face into your hand and cries, and you hold her face like that and watch her, and somewhere behind you Moxie has gone very still on the bed, sitting back on her heels between her sister's spread legs with her hands in her lap, watching the two of you with her ears forward and her lips parted and her tail wrapped once around her own thigh, tight.

You wait until Emily's breath evens out. Then you take the chain of the clamps again and lift it, slow, and Emily's eyes open and find yours and she doesn't protest—she just watches you do it, and her mouth opens and her breath catches as her tits come up off her ribs and the rubber bites down and the pain goes through her, and she holds your gaze the whole time, and her eyes are wet and steady and full of you.

You tug the chain. She arches and whimpers and her hips roll on the sheet.

You tug it again.

You reach up and unbuckle the right wrist first. The leather's warm from her skin, and when you pull the strap free her arm drops to the mattress like it's forgotten how to hold itself up. She makes a small sound. Then the left. Then you work down her body—right ankle, left ankle—and each cuff comes off with a soft creak of leather and leaves a pink band pressed into the fur at her wrist, at her ankle, and she flexes her fingers slow, one at a time, like she's checking they still work.

"Roll over," you say.

She does. Slow, stiff, arms heavy. She lands on her side facing away from you and stays there, curled, tail draped over her own hip, and you see the marks the cuffs left—four pale rings in the ginger fur—and you run your thumb over the one at her wrist. She shivers.

You take the clamps off next. You open them one at a time, easing the rubber back, and the blood comes rushing into her nipples and she gasps and curls tighter and presses her thighs together. You set the clamps and the chain on the nightstand. She's watching you do it out of the corner of her eye, cheek on the sheet.

"They hurt," she says again. Smaller this time.

"I know."

You lie down behind her. Not on top—beside, on your side, chest against her back, and you pull her in with one arm around her waist. She's still cold from the shower and still trembling under the surface, that fine constant shiver, and you hold her until it starts to slow. Then you put your mouth on the back of her neck, at the furline, and breathe her in. She smells like cold water and sweat and underneath that the warm musky fox smell of her, and you press your nose into the fur and just breathe.

"You're smelling me," she says.

"Mm."

"That's—" She doesn't finish it. Her tail uncurls and finds your thigh and lies along it, heavy and warm.

You turn her gently onto her back. She lets you—goes where your hands put her, loose and boneless, and watches you from under half-lowered lids. You start at her collarbone. You put your mouth there, open, and lick a slow line up the side of her throat to the corner of her jaw, and she tips her head back into the pillow and lets you have it, and the sound she makes is low and rough and not a word.

Then down. You kiss your way over her chest, and when you reach the right nipple you stop. It's still swollen, dark, angry from the clamp—the tip of it shiny and red and tender-looking. You put your tongue on it. Flat, warm, and you hold it there without moving, just the heat of your mouth on the sore thing, and Emily's whole body shudders and her hand comes up and lands in your hair.

"Ah," she says. "Ah, that's—"

You lick it. Slow circles, the flat of your tongue, gentle, barely any pressure, and she arches up under your mouth and her fingers curl in your hair and she's breathing hard through her nose. You take it between your lips—no suction, just the soft wet seal of your mouth, warm, and you hold it and let your tongue work the swollen tip, and above you Emily's head goes back and her mouth opens and she makes a sound like she's been holding it in for hours.

"Master," she says. Hoarse. "Master, that's so—"

"Shh."

You move to the other one. Same thing. Tongue flat and warm, then lips, then the slow careful circles, and by the time you're done both nipples are wet and shining and still sore and she's stopped trembling from the cold and started trembling from something else. Her hand is still in your hair. She hasn't pulled it away.

You kiss down her stomach. Over the soft fur, the dip of her navel, the line where the fur thins toward her hips, and she lifts her hips a little—offering, hopeful—and you go past it. Down the inside of her thigh instead, where the fur is short and fine, and you press your mouth there and breathe her in again, deeper this time, and she smells like sex and cold water and the wet spot she's lying in, and you lick the inside of her thigh slow from knee to hip and she shivers and her legs fall open and she says, "You're teasing me."

"I'm worshipping you."

"Same thing."

You take her right foot in both hands. It's small and light, the fur pale ginger with the soft pads showing pink at the sole, and she watches you do it, wary, remembering the tickling. But you don't tickle. You bend your head and put your mouth on the top of her foot, on the fine fur over the bones, and kiss it. Then the ankle. Then you turn her foot over and press your lips to the sole—to the smooth pink pads, one at a time, warm and soft and slightly damp—and Emily's breath goes out of her in a long slow rush and her toes curl against your mouth.

"Oh," she says. Just that.

You suck the pad of her big toe, gently, and she makes a sound that's half laugh and half something else, and her other foot comes up and presses against your chest, pushing, not hard. "That's—" She swallows. "That's weird."

"You like it."

"I didn't say—" You suck the toe again and she stops talking. Her foot flexes in your hands and her head falls back on the pillow and she lets you do it, lets you kiss and lick each pad and the soft fur between them, and you take your time, and by the time you set her right foot down and pick up the left, her thighs are slick and she's stopped pretending to be indifferent and is just watching you with her mouth open.

You do the left foot the same. Slower. And when you're done you set it down and crawl up her body and she's looking at you with those wet amber eyes, and you lean down and kiss her.

She kisses back hungry. Her hands come up and frame your face and her mouth opens under yours and her tongue comes up to meet yours—and you take it. You suck her tongue into your mouth, slow and deep, and hold it, and she makes a muffled sound against your lips and her hands tighten on your face and her hips roll up against your thigh. You suck it again, longer, and she whimpers into your mouth and her whole body arches up off the bed trying to get closer. You let her tongue go and she gasps for air and then pulls you back down and pushes her tongue into your mouth again, and you let her have it for a while, just her mouth and her tongue and her hands on your face and her breath coming fast through her nose.

When you finally pull back she's flushed and glassy-eyed and breathing hard, and she looks at you like she's about to say something she'll regret. You put a finger on her lips. She doesn't say it. She just closes her eyes and breathes.

You get up off the bed and go to the closet.

The maid set is where it always is, on the low shelf in the garment bag, and you bring it back to the bed and lay it out piece by piece. The panties first—black silk, high-cut, with a little lace at the hip. The bra to match, black silk, underwired, small cups. The stockings, sheer black with a seam up the back. The miniskirt, black, pleated, short enough to be a joke. The shirt, white, thin, buttoned, small. And the gloves—short, black, silk, wrist-length.

Emily watches you lay it all out. She doesn't say anything. Her ears have come forward, though, and her tail has started to move on the sheet.

"Sit up," you say.

She sits up. Slow, arms wrapped around her own ribs, still cold, still flushed. You pick up the panties and kneel in front of her and hold them open at her feet. She looks at them, then at you. Then she lifts one foot and puts it through, then the other, and you slide the silk up her legs—over the ankle, up the shin, over the knee, up the soft inside of her thigh. The silk is cool and smooth and it drags over the fur in a way that makes her shiver. You bring it up over her hips and settle it, and the front of the silk goes dark almost immediately where it presses against her, and she feels it happen and her ears go flat and she glares at the wall.

"Don't," she says.

"I didn't say anything."

You pick up the bra. She turns her back to you without being asked—small victory, and she knows it's one, and she doesn't look at you while she does it. You hook it at the back and then reach around and settle the cups over her breasts, careful, lifting each sore nipple into the silk with your fingers, and she hisses through her teeth at the contact and her shoulders hunch and she holds still. The silk is cool on the swollen tips and you watch her nipples come up hard under it. You adjust the strap on each shoulder. She's breathing shallow.

The stockings next. You take her right foot in your hand again—she watches you do it, wary—and you roll the stocking up over the toes and the pads and the ankle, and then you work it up her calf and over her knee, smoothing the silk flat against the fur, and up the thigh to the top. You do the left the same. She's quiet now. Her hands are in her lap and she's watching your hands move on her legs and she's got that look on her face again, the one from when you held her jaw.

The skirt. You stand her up off the bed to put it on, and she sways a little and puts a hand on your shoulder to steady herself and leaves it there. You hold the skirt open and she steps into it and you pull it up over her hips and zip it at the side. It barely covers the tops of the stockings. She looks down at herself and her mouth twitches.

"This is ridiculous," she says.

"Sit down."

She sits. You pick up the shirt. You hold it open and she puts her arms into the sleeves, one then the other, and you pull it up over her shoulders and settle it onto her—thin white cotton, small, and it pulls tight across the bra and comes down to her waist and stops. You button it from the bottom up. Slow. Each button through each hole, and the shirt tightens over her chest as you go, and the silk of the bra shows through the thin white cotton where it presses, and by the time you reach the collar she's watching your fingers and her breath has gone shallow again.

Last, the gloves. You take her right hand and hold it palm-up in yours—small hand, warm, the pads of her fingers soft—and you slide the silk glove on over it, one finger at a time, the way you'd dress a doll, and the silk goes smooth over the fur and settles at her wrist. You do the left the same. She flexes her fingers in the silk and looks at her own hands like she's never seen them.

Then you sit down on the edge of the bed and pull her into your lap.

She comes without protest—which is its own thing, and you both know it—and settles sideways across your thighs with her legs hanging over one side and her head coming down to rest against your shoulder. The skirt rides up. The silk of the shirt is cool on your chest and underneath it she's warm, the whole length of her, and you put one arm around her back and the other hand flat on her thigh where the stocking ends and the bare fur begins, and you just hold her there.

She smells like cold water and silk and underneath it the warm musky smell of her, and you press your nose into her hair at the temple and breathe. Her hair is still damp at the roots. Her ear flicks against your cheek, once, and then goes still. Her tail comes up and curls around your forearm where it lies on her thigh, the tip twitching.

You sit like that for a while. The house is quiet above you—the floorboard, the pipe, the house settling—and Moxie is still on the bed behind you, sitting back on her heels, not saying anything. Emily's breath evens out against your neck. Her hand comes up, slow, and rests on your chest, and her fingers curl into the fabric of your shirt and hold.

"You dressed me," she says. Quiet. Not a question.

"Mm."

She's still for a while. Then, so soft you almost miss it, "Nobody's ever—" and she stops, and her fingers tighten on your shirt, and she doesn't finish it, and you don't make her. You just put your hand on the back of her head and hold her there against your shoulder, and she lets you, and her tail tightens once around your forearm and then goes loose.

Behind you, the bed creaks. Moxie shifts her weight, and you hear her breath catch, and then she says, very quietly, "Master."

You turn your head. She's kneeling at the foot of the bed in the wrinkled sheet, russet hair loose over one shoulder, and she's looking at the two of you—at her little sister curled in your lap in her silk and her stockings—with her ears forward and her lips parted and something in her face that isn't quite jealousy and isn't quite pride. She reaches up and touches her own collar, slow, and her eyes don't leave you.

"My turn," she says.