Awe of Predators

Margaret

Clay exists to be molded.

People who think of human clay usually focus on how painful it is to be molded. I can't fault them -- I thought the same, back when I still presumed to rank among the sculptors, rather than the raw materials.

Before Ragnaring. Before the abyss, and the truth, hunting beneath the waves.

They're not entirely wrong. Being molded is an inherently... deconstructive process. Coercive, and violent, and yes, painful as well. But it is also breath-takingly beautiful, and most of all, intimate.

No intimacy can equal that between the artist and its clay, the predator and its prey, the Mistress and her slave. Mistress' hand has severed away so much of what used to be my identity -- but she's sculpted me to be beautiful, too. A decorative, ornate token to her strength, to her ambition, and to her power.

In slavery, I'm more beautiful than I've ever been before. I started out as clay, but now I'm the finished product... or on my way to being that, at least. And in this transformation, I've gotten close to Mistress in ways few people can imagine.

Every second spent with my face pressed to the floor, one foot digging into my cheek, the other in my neck, reshaping my facial features into those of a footstool.

Every moment spent with my head enveloped by Mistress' thighs, learning to express devotion and worship without ever saying a single word.

Every heartbeat spent with her hands cupped around my face, so protective and so firm, her eyes boring down on me, drowning me, her whispered words worming their way into my mind...

Layering in her own sets of triggers, beyond the standard set up implanted into me when Ragnaring handed me over to her. Triggers I can't even remember, traps designed to turn my own mind against itself, to give her a permanent ally in the demolition of my independence -- my own subconscious.

She's made my mind cave in, collapse in on itself, reshuffling and redesigning and reshaping, until I was reborn anew, lesser and submissive...

All of this makes me hers more than any contract. More than any collar.

And Fiona? My beautiful, sorrowful, broken Fiona? Well, of course I love her with all my heart. How could I not? She's shared in that intimacy, too.

Matching clay. Matching slaves.

She belongs with me. We're a set, a duo, Fiona and Margaret, Margaret and Fiona, the slave and the dog, property of our conqueror, of Mistress. Defeated, and trained, and in love. There isn't one without the other.

What's going to happen to her, now that she's not here? Now that she's been removed from Mistress' shadow, made to bow before another predator, even if for a short time?

What's going to happen to me?

"You are concerned. Anxious. You fear for doggie."

I look up. Mistress stares at me, sitting in her armchair, one leg casually crossed over the other. She crooks a finger at me, beckoning me to get closer. "Come here, pet. Let me see that distress up close."

I set into motion with the fluid eagerness only enraptured thralls are capable of. Every inch of my body yearns for her, and even more so now than before, because without Fiona, home just doesn't seem like, well... home, anymore.

I crawl to her on hands and knees, a flush of embarrassment and arousal heating my cheeks. It's only there because Mistress likes to see me flush. Else, she would have excised it away... but she still enjoys to see a trace, however faint, of the Margaret of old, the rich bratty heiress who discovered submission at Ragnaring, and fell in love with being on her knees.

When I reach Mistress, she places both hands around my face, the same way she does when she hypnotises me. That makes me shiver, and squirm... and it makes me feel strangely comforted. I'm being held. I'm safe.

"Do you understand?"

I furrow my brow, studying Mistress. Her eyes look so large, when seen up close. Vast as the ocean. Her hands are warm and soft and strong. She may not be hypnotising me right now, but just being in this position triggers every muscle memory my body is capable of, making me shudder.

"Do you understand why you have no reason to worry?"

I shake my head, in as much as Mistress' hands will allow me. No, I don't get what she wants to say to me... there is something oddly poignant about this moment. I sense that it is significant, but my limited, feeble slave brain is incapable of grasping how.

"That's alright," she says, dryly. "You will, in time. For now, I guess I'll have to think of some other way to calm your anxiety. Here, let's pacify you."

She runs one hand through my hair -- she loves it, I know, which almost makes me purr in validation -- and then grasps it. With a firm and gentle pull, she guides my head towards her stockinged feet.

"Worship," she commands, and every fibre of my being springs into action with one singular purpose -- to obey.

I gently lay my forehead against her stockinged foot, feeling the soft fabric against my skin. "Yes, Mistress," I whisper obediently as I start kissing and caressing her feet with reverence. The familiar scent of her perfume, mixed with the faintest hint of foot sweat, inebriates me.

"How does it make you feel? Being separated from doggie?"

"I miss her terribly, Mistress," I admit, rubbing my cheek against her foot like an affectionate pet. "We belong together, and to you. It's... wrong."

I nuzzle my face against her nylon-covered toes, taking in a deep breath. With her foot in my hands, I feel the weight of her dominance and control over me.

The weight of ownership. The weight of safety.

My lips glide over every curve and dip of her foot, from the tips of her toes to the elegant arch leading up to her ankle. I love the way the nylon feels against my skin, the way it tickles, the little jolts of electricity that go through my face as I lavish it with my lips and tongue.

Rough and smooth.

That's what a good slave does -- she takes the rough with the smooth. I need to let Mistress foot-fuck me into calm, peace, serenity. I need her foot scent to drown out my fears. I need to place my trust in her, so utterly and completely that there is no room for fear.

She doesn't need to say that I need to do these things, to make me understand them. Not out loud. Not anymore.

"That's a perceptive dog." She plants one foot atop my head while I worship the other, and the sheer intensity of the physical contact -- the way the sole adheres to the top of my head -- makes me squeal like the needy whore I am.

"Mistress..." I gasp out, my voice hitching as her foot presses down on my scalp. It's one of the sensations I love the most, her weight grounding me, reminding me of who I am, of who I belong to. It's what I need right now... without Fiona...

"You really do have no reason to fear." She says it so matter-of-factly... how can she be so sure? How can she sound so larger than life? Her voice is... gentle ice.

It's not my place to request explanations, though. She'll tell me what she will. I lean forward, licking at the tips of her toes. She rewards my compliance with a languid stroke of her other foot against my cheek... that sends an electrical jolt of pleasure down my spine.

I feel the warmth of her skin seep into me through the nylon fabric, marking me as hers alone. Her toes curl around my cheek as I continue to suck, lick and nibble. Eventually, my lips bloom like a flower, parting to give way to her toes, while her other foot perches atop my head once more...

And pushes.

I end up face-down, grinding my cheek into the plush carpet, still dutifully sucking away all the while. Being held down, being kept safe, controlled, dominated...

Being pacified.

The obedience, reverence, worship I feel for my conqueror is a totalising emotion. It washes everything else away. There is no room for grief, anxiety, or despair, not in the shadow of my rightful owner.

Tangible reminders of this fundamental truth are all around me...below me, even - in the rich textures of the carpet gripping at my cheek; above me - in her foot pressing me down; and within me - in the pleasure coursing through every inch of my body.

"You're right, slave. You and Doggie belong together... and, more importantly, you both belong to me."

Her voice lowers, an edge creeping into it that makes shivers run down my spine. "And when it comes to what's mine... I always have a plan."

I whimper beneath her sole, in fear and arousal and sheer sexual need. Mistress always has a plan. She had a plan at Ragnaring, and it was my undoing, and my salvation. So what is she planning now?

"Do you believe that? With all your heart?"

Of course I believe. I've seen what she can do. The thing I am today -- sexual, alluring, submissive, fundamentally less than human... I am what she can do. It was wrong of me to fear for Fiona, because implicitly, that means doubting Mistress. And I should never, ever presume to do that.

"Yes, Mistress!" I mumble around the foot currently working its way gently backwards and forwards between my lips. It's barely intelligible... but it's not the literal nature of my words that Mistress is interested in.

"In that case..." she says, collected, composed, but I can tell, pleased with herself. "Believe."

And then, the world shifts.

A familiar warmth begins to build behind my eyes, a pressure at once alien and intimately known. It bursts into a flash of immense lightning, drowning out all perception, engulfing my sense of self so completely that for a moment, there is no thought, no physical world, and all I can do is just feel.

My mind shatters into a million shards of bliss, as an orgasm rips through me like an earthquake. Everything that is me crumbles before each pulse of pleasure. It crashes over me in waves. It leaves me gasping for breath.

And then, vision returns, and she's the first thing I see. Regal, elegant, deadly, in control... an apex predator who's never known a hint of fear.

"Mistress," I choke out as I ride out the aftershocks. "I...I..."

I blink.

I find myself draped limply over Elizabeth's knees, her hands stroking my back in a soothing rhythm. "There now, all better?" she croons, and I can only nod, utterly wrung out...

And grateful. Grateful most of all.

It's been so long since she last allowed me release like that, and while I can't help but think of the pleasure as devastating, it's also cleansed me, in truth. The gnawing anxiety over Fiona's absence has vanished, burned away by the sheer radiation of my orgasmic bliss.

I am empty, a vessel for my Mistress to fill as she desires. There is no room in me for any will but hers. Her clay, her finished product, her work of art.

Perfect.

Mistress kisses my brow, a tender and possessive gesture. "Do you see now? Do you see why there is nothing to fear?"

Yes...

I think I do.

***

Fiona

Life feeds on life.

Those were the words of Headmistress Polina, the moment that my dreams shattered. The moment that my heart stopped. The moment of my supreme defeat.

The words she uttered, right before she handed me off to Elizabeth like I was a pound of flesh.

Then, for the first time, I understood what teachers at Ragnaring referred to as the beautiful and terrible truth of the world. Prevarication is the logical consequence of scarcity, and no matter how strong you think you are -- if you run into someone stronger, you will become prey.

I certainly did, that day.

And now, here I am. Crossing over the threshold of Lene's mansion, feeling like I'm stepping into the maw, into a gaping abyss where fear itself awaits me. It's funny, how our perception can turn on a dime, change at the drop of a hat, because my old self from before the fall, would never have seen the maw. Not here.

I would have just seen... a fancy mansion. Lush gardens, ornate fountains, pools of water clear as polished glass. Marble floors threaded with veins of gold, ceilings arched high and adorned with complex frescoes, antique furniture that screams of wealth and class.

Even Mistress' own flat, nice and elegant as it is, looks drab in comparison to this mansion. And Lene isn't even that high in Black Opal's hierarchy.

Still. I would have taken all of this in at a far more superficial level. Maybe a bit of envy. Maybe I would have imagined myself living here, what it would feel like. Fuel for my dreams of social mobility, for my ambition. A goal to set myself, to prove to the world that I had the makings of a predator.

Now...

I see the mansion for what it really is.

This place is built on exploitation. Who keeps the gardens lush? Who keeps the marble spotless? Who keeps the staff required for such a gargantuan living arrangement organised and in line?

Slaves. Thralls. Pets. The same ones who warm Lene's bed, offer their bodies to her, lick her feet.

Prey.

And I remember what it was like, when I briefly ruled over Margaret, how inebriating it felt to have that kind of power. But that's not all that goes into this. The opulence, the refined comfort of the mansion, it all comes at a cost.

Predators are always alert, and never safe. It's a cutthroat competition, every second of every day. Constant maneuvering, frantic, manipulative, calculating... and ruthless. It is one thing to enjoy sitting on a girl's face, but now I look around myself, and see how hopelessly out of depth I am in a place like this.

I can no longer fathom living here, because I can't imagine myself running it. I can't imagine myself being able to stand up to the constant barrage of rivals coming at me, dancing, the same way Mistress and Lene danced their dance when I was loaned away.

I can't, because now I know. I know that life feeds on life, and that's why I see past the appearances of the mansion, I see its beautiful and terrible truth.

I see the maw.

"You will address Mistress Lene as 'Mistress' at all times," the overseer tells me. She's a tall girl, older than I am by a few years, but only by a handful of years, I think. She's beautiful, in an almost Amazonian way. It's hard to imagine her scraping and bowing before physically unassuming Lene...

But not that hard, in truth, when I recall Lene's eyes. Blue, and terrible, and cold.

"Yes ma'am," I say, and the overseer must be pleased with my response, since I get no reprimand, like I did at the beginning of my induction. I don't even know her name. I suppose I don't need to. All that matters is that she's the head slave responsible to keep all of us in line for Mistress Lene.

"Further, you will address all other slave women as sisters," she continues. "But please understand this. Your metaphorical siblings they may be... but elder siblings, at that. You're at the bottom. Lowest of the low. You will walk one step behind all other slave girls. Three steps behind me." "Yes, ma'am," I respond. "And Mistress Lene?"

She notes I didn't use the title alone. I may have never fully adjusted to being Elizabeth's... but right now, it feels like a part of my identity I need to defend against encroachment. The overseer makes no comment of that, though.

"Easy. Crawl, unless told otherwise."

Well, I have enough experience doing that, anyway. "Yes, ma'am."

"Whatever the context, speak only when spoken to first. Anticipate Mistress' needs, as you learn them. Obey all orders immediately, without question or hesitation."

"Yes, ma'am," I repeat again, as the overseer leads me deeper into the mansion. But then, she abruptly turns to face me, her fingers tugging at my purple hair.

"You are quite attractive, I must say," she comments casually, lifting my chin up. "But that won't be enough. Mistress has her pick of attractive slave girls, and her standards are more... exacting than that. We'll begin with the basics: posture, grace, discipline..."

I remain silent, acknowledging her words with a single nod -- but she isn't quite done. Her eyes search mine.

"... and of course, you'll have to tell me, and Mistress, all about your triggers. Mistress may decide to add some of her own, in time."

"Of course, ma'am," I say. That will not take long, at least -- Ragnaring inserted a few, and Mistress a few more of her own, but it's not like it's a long list, or there's anything too unexpected or dramatic in there. Somehow, the hesitation in the overseer's tone seems a little misplaced.

"That will have to wait, though," she says, taking me by the hand, and leading me towards a heavy set of ornate doors. "You have a different sort of task to properly induct you into the household, slave."

Her hand rests on the doorknob, and she throws me one last, oblique glance. She must read the fear on my face, and it's not hard -- I'm sweating, panting, and my heart is beating so hard that she can probably hear it hammer herself.

"Come," she says. "Mistress wants to inspect you personally."

Yes she does. She wants to see what she's working with. She is a predator, like my own Mistress, an artist, like my own Mistress... and I'm just clay, meant to be molded. Life meant to be fed on.

Which is why I meekly offer no resistance, and let the overseer drag me past the door, and deeper into the maw.