D: L&L - Part 39 | Lion: Stop Catting Around

I opened my eyes and stared at the window watching the rain pelt the glass. I didn’t bother to reach behind me, I knew she would be gone. 

She never stuck around long after one of our nights, afraid she’d get caught being diddled by a lion. But one day, one day she would walk proudly down the emerald streets with me. “Oh, stop kidding yourself,” I said out loud. I was her tool. I knew this, but the nicer side of the story was more pleasant to think about, you know, the story where we’d live together forever. 

The night before was certainly more fun to think about. I knew I was going to catch hell for being in her room, dripping sweat on her floor from the rush over. She’d demanded we leave her palace to go to our hideaway, a little place outside of town that I’d bought. A place we could use for our “meetings”. She must have been in a good mood because my punishment had been swift and mild. She hadn’t even drawn any blood -- at that point anyway. Then she turned as if to walk out on me, glancing over her shoulder with that smirk on her face. If there was one thing I knew, it was when a bitch was wanting me to give it to her. It only took one leap to bring her down, one claw to tear through the material of her white dress. 

I loved the feel of her golden hair in my paw, and she loved the feel of me in her. 

The floor in the hallway had only been the start of the evening. At one point I threw her on the bed, face down, shackling her hands above her, and started to run my tongue down her back, her ass, her legs, teasing her, feeling her move beneath me, trying to rise up to my tongue is it ran between her cheeks and rested just momentarily on her tight, delicate button. 

I reached to slip a ruby red shoe from her foot, because them ankles, man. Every woman loved her ankles licked. The bitch kicked and bucked and screamed. “Don’t ever touch my shoes, beast.” I wiped a trickle of blood from my lip, growled at her, then grabbed her right ankle and put it in the manacle mounted at the end corner of the bed. She glared at me over her shoulder -- Baby’s got a mean mug when she taps her inner bitch. It turned me on, and I felt the blood coursing, the rise. I grinned and grabbed her other leg and shackled it and sat back, admiring my bounty.

Such luscious skin she had. The marks from days ago already gone. The claw mark from earlier, deep down her back almost faded now. How she did it didn’t matter to me. Her tolerance for pain and my willingness to inflict it was all that mattered. If she magicked the torn skin and blood away, the bite marks on her shoulders and breasts, the bruising of her lips -- all the better and all the reason to punish her again. And again.

I ran my paw over her shoe, feeling a tingle, the thrum of power under the tips of my fingers. I could see the anger light in her eyes, and I grinned. With the slippers on, she could fling the manacles off with a word. She could put me in them with a phrase. She could just as easily peel the hide from my bones. But without the slippers. Utterly powerless. Helpless. A kitten. A delicate, frail, wisp of a woman bound and ready to be ravaged by the King of Emerald City Records. 

I didn’t pretend to be her equal. I didn’t assume anything. But I understood the moment. Just once, the Empress of Oz, my own personal goddess, the most dangerous creature on the face of the land was mine, helpless and just a little afraid. Because for one small, savage moment, she wasn’t a goddess. She was prey. And I was starving.

I swallowed, hoping I’d judged her mood right, and slowly slipped the first slipper off her foot, placing it on the bed next to her left ear. “You’ll pay for that,” she stated, but the growl was fading. I set the second shoe next to her right ear, nary a word falling from her trembling lips. Just the gooseflesh crawling across her back as I ran my claw up the inside of her thigh. I hesitated then, watching her push her ass up for me, showing me her moist center, my own personal altar. I took a deep breath, inhaling her desire, basking in her sweet perfume, and then I laughed and crawled up the bed to the center of my hot, moist universe. I knew she wouldn’t remain angry with me once I began, and when I slammed home, her moans told me I was right.

Sighing, I slid out of the bed, made my way to the bathroom, showered and dressed. We both kept some basic things at the hideaway. It was our place, the hidden house of debauchery that pleased us both. But it was time to get back to reality. I had a business to run, and she had a kingdom to rule.

I stepped out of the cabbie coach, ignoring the pleasantries of the tiktok driver, and looked up at the city for a moment, watching the building above me begin to shift. A bell rang out somewhere in the distance, marking the time, and I turned a circle there in front of Oz Empire Records, watching the city come alive. Not with people, mind you. They were plentiful enough, and most of them waltzed by without a second glance at what was happening. How they were immune I could never fathom. Cowed more likely. They never looked at me. Heads down, one foot in front of the other. One moment the people of Oz looked up, terrified by the skywriting from an insufferable witch bitch; the next, Glinda on the throne, tiktoks crawling the city in force, and they never looked up again.

But I could never stop gawking when The Turn happened. At least that’s what most people called it. It was actually called The Harmonium, but that was too much of a mouthful, and an eyeful, for most.

I stood and let it wash over me as the Emerald Spire tolled nine sharp notes—like the city was breathing, stretching, looking for its true self. Weren’t we all. 

Pavement seams shivered. Facades unlatched and turned—green-glassed panels sliding aside to reveal new storefronts, gilded balconies rotating inward like petals folding at dusk. Statues pivoted on hidden tracks, their arms reposed in fresh gestures, their faces watching new corners. A carousel of architecture. Trees in the square leaned left as if whispering, the sun refracting off their chrome-lined leaves. And above it all, the humming drone of magic and machinery intertwined—timed, tuned, inevitable.

At 9am, the city rearranged itself. At noon, it would do so again. No one questioned it. In Glinda’s city, time moved, and so did everything else. In her chosen rhythm. And if you didn’t move with it, you died where you stood.

I took the private elevator to my office, careful to wait until The Turn had ended. I didn’t feel like being bothered by anyone or trying to explain where Cu’ was just yet. I didn’t even know what I’d say, that he’d taken a sudden vacation? That I just didn’t know where he was? The last I saw he was taking off with that Bunny. I buzzed my secretary to let her know I was in and to hold my calls for a while. I needed some time to think about how I was going to handle the situation. I puzzled over the fact that Cu’ was meeting with that Bunny in the alleyway. She had obviously been using him, what would a hot little rabbit like that see in a beastly dawg? How long had he been seeing her? 

The Bunnies, it was rumored, were a problem. They didn’t agree with the latest views on Animals. Hell, I didn’t agree with the latest views on Animals, but as long as Daddy was being fed, why should I give a damn? There were rumors, and rumors usually mean a visit by tiktoks, but Bunnies were small and hard to track. Even if they were making trouble, was there any proof that they were gathering to go against her hotness. Did she need any to slaughter a burrow? Yet still, something unsettling was brewing. 

It was evident in the people of Emerald City that something was happening, and it wasn’t Bunny-related. The news report we’d heard at the hideaway mentioned something about a house having landed in Oz. I hoped it was an empty house, but it all felt like déjà vu’ all over again

Maybe this time, it wasn’t a girl. Maybe this time, we’d be spared. But I’d heard the song before—and I knew how it ended.