"Get on your knees." My coworker, Miho, says to me the second the stockroom door closes behind her. Well, she's the one to close it, her fingers twisting the lock into place with a click.
"Excuse me?" I pull out my earbuds, thinking maybe I've misheard what she's said. I know that's not true though. I always play my music quietly enough to hear if someone were to call for me from the shop. There's no way I mistook what she said for anything else.
"You heard what I said." She has this wicked smile and I hear a jingling as she fiddles with something hanging beside the door. "Get on your knees."
She pulls the leash from the hook from beside the lanyards of store keys and turns to face me.
"Isn't that Boxer's?" I gulp, eyeing the strip of black leather and chain hanging from her hands. I've seen this near exact image in my mind before, but usually only when I'm lying in bed or taking a hot bath.
"No," Miho replies, weighing it in her hands. At this point she's just showing it off. "This is far too nice for any animal. Even Boxer."
Boxer is our coworker Melody's sweetheart of a seeing eye dog. He hangs around the store when she's working, the group of us taking turns to walk him whenever Melody has a particularly busy shift. He's also good for business, as everyone comes in wanting to pet the happy golden retriever.
The lights flick off and in a few seconds, Miho is close to me, having crossed the short stretch of the stockroom in a few steps. She's short, but her strides are long. She hooks the o-ring on my choker in her fingers, tugging on it, drawing my ear to her lips. The backroom normally smells of coffee and cardboard, but right now all I can smell is Miho's perfume.
"This leash is mine," she whispers. I shiver, not just because of her breath on my neck. She pulls herself away and lets go of my choker. The space between us suddenly feels vast.
"If you get on your knees," she accentuates her words with a shove, "it could be yours."
Her shove isn't really hard enough to make me fall, but I collapse to my knees anyway. I know that kind of shove. It's the same one my ex used when I begged her to put me over her knee. It's the one to tell you who's really in charge here. And I've dreamed of Miho being in charge, ever since I started working at Coffee Cup.
"Good morning!" I smile at the group of girls in front of me. "My name is Amberly Pike, but you can call me Amber."
They smile back and introduce themselves as Juliet, the Coffee House's owner, hands out the monthly schedule. There's several college girls who work at Coffee Cup. It makes sense, after all, as Juliet had told me in my interview, Coffee Cup is proud to be women owned and run. The only name I remember at first is that of the petite girl with black hair named Miho. I'm so entranced by how the light moves through her hair I almost miss it when Juliet addresses me.
"Amberly?"
"Amberly," Miho is circling me now, running the leather of the strap across my shoulders. I shudder at the feel of the leather through my shirt. She continues as she walks. I feel a bit like I'm being circled by a carrion.
"I've seen how you look at me... I've seen those chokers you wear."
She stops her pacing to crouch in front of me, forcing me towards her by the ring of my choker.
"Just begging to be owned." She says it so close to my ear it's unmistakable. I almost lose it under the sound from how fast my heart is beating. She stays there for a minute and my heart slows enough to hear her breath.
"Is this okay?" She asks, her breath warm in my ear.
"Yes," I shiver and Miho clips the leash to my choker. Perhaps a better word for it now is collar. I don't exactly dwell on it as she yanks me towards her and kisses me.
Miho is shorter than me, but kneeling and leashed like I am, she's so much taller. Perhaps it's the way she carries herself in this moment. And the way she kisses me, like she's trying to bite my lips open and steal the air from my lungs. I gladly let her take it.
Her lips are sweet. I know she takes sugar in her coffee, but this is something different.
She suddenly pulls away and stands, her leash - my leash - still in hand. I move to follow, climbing to my feet but she turns and shoves me back down before I'm halfway off my knees.
"Who said you could stand?" She looks at me and I'm pinned to the floor by her gaze. I gulp down my nervousness.
"No one." I smile. In the dim light, I faintly see her lips curl up in return.
"Follow me." She says and tugs me after her. My cheeks burn in the dark as she pulls me behind the racks of coffee and creamer, over to the table in the back that holds nothing but the guts of a broken espresso machine.
"What's this?" I point to the back table of the stockroom. Atop the plastic counter stands an espresso machine that has seen better days. A paper sign sporting the words "keep off" and a smattering of hearts is taped to it.
"Oh, it's Amanda's pet project." Miho shrugs and thumps her box of free-trade coffee grounds down next to one of the empty shelves. I place mine gently beside hers.
"Dunno what her goal is, but she ends up tinkering with it each break. Putting her engineering degree to use I guess."
"Touch that table and you're dead Miho!" A woman with pink hair - presumably Amanda - whizzes past us and out the back door. "I'll know if you do!"
Miho smiles.
She moves to seat herself on the table, dropping my leash in the process. I want to catch the leather before it scrapes and ruins itself against the concrete floor, but it catches on her jeans before it hits.
"It-" I stop my words the second she raises an eyebrow and gives me a look.
Who said you could talk? She says to me silently, smirking. I pretend to zip my lips shut and throw away the key.
"Glad you get it," she chuckles, "but you're missing something. I didn't say you could use your hands either."
I place my hands onto my knees. She runs a finger idly over my chin.
"Looks like I dropped your leash." She pouts, making a show of looking down at the leash that's fallen across her knee. "Why don't you give it back to me?"
I go to reach for it, then stop.
No hands.
Miho must see my hesitation because quickly she reaches down to cup my face in her hand.
"Hey, if this is too much, you can just tell me to stop." She says. Her face is quickly drooping from confident to concerned. "I don't mind..."
Oh Miho, I think, you have no idea.
I silence her by darting forward to grasp the leash between my teeth. It smells strongly of leather, the sign of it being unused. Vaguely, as I bring it to her hand, the thought passes my mind that it might be new. I can't help but wonder if she'd bought it just for me. I drop it into her waiting palm. Her confidence quickly returns as she grabs it from me.
"Good girl Amberly." She whispers and gathers the material in her hand, shortening the leash with every tug. I feel my heart humming at that.
Nothing better.
Neither of us say anything for a second as Miho pulls the leash smaller and smaller, entwining the leather between her fingers. It pulls the strip taught between us. Reaching out, she threads her free hand into my hair. I want her to pull it, to force me towards her, but I refrain from saying so.
