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You drag Kris to their knees as soon as the bedroom door is shut behind them for the night.
They fight you the same way that they always do, their slender limbs struggling against your imperfect control. You’re still not certain of the mechanism by which you force them to move, but it is abundantly clear that you can, if you try, make them do almost anything. Your desires bleed into their system like poison, their little body helpless but to move as you command. However you command.
They must know how annoyed you are with them. You’d barely been lucky enough to stop them from ripping up the shelter code, and they’d retaliated by shoving you into a balloon and insisting upon walking Susie home under their own steam. You’d seen their legs trembling by the end of the journey. Really, they’d had no choice but to put you back. And they can’t have been expecting that you’d take this lying down. They’re not that stupid.
You shove again, and their hands splay flat on the floor. You see through their eyes; the frayed ends of their sleeves, their slim pianist’s fingers, their tension making veins stand out on the backs of their palms.
Briefly, you luxuriate in the thought of making them lose a hand. You’re fairly sure that they can feel the shape of whatever you’re thinking about. Their piano playing is beautiful, but every time you hear it, you are reminded that it is their skill, and not yours. It is intolerable that they might be better at something than you, their benevolent god. They eat and walk and breathe by your grace; the least that they could do is show a little deference.
But you don’t particularly fancy bringing your adventures to an early end. Kris’ mother would not enjoy taking them to hospital for the traumatic blood loss, and you would get very bored in recovery. Kris will not be severing their own limbs tonight.
Instead, as their heart thumps next to you in the darkness and the quiet, you order them to bark.
It’s a simple enough command. Running around with their little friends, playing on the short leash that you sometimes see fit to allow them, they seem perfectly happy to bark of their own accord. They like to be seen as a puppy. You’ve heard them start howling at the moon like a mournful werewolf, even. They shouldn’t object at all.
Now, though, a shudder runs through Kris’ body. You feel their hands twitch, but their own body weight is keeping them on the floor. From all fours, they aren’t strong enough to reach up of their own accord and rip you out.
A soft little yap escapes them. The sound is low and reluctant, Kris’ usual deep mumble of a voice obscuring all but the most basic shape of it. They can project. You’ve heard them yell. Maybe you’ll hear it again tonight.
You order them to bark again. Their teeth grind and squeak as they fight their own vocal cords, your control tight as a vice. They’re growling, desperate not to obey, trying to let the sound out by any other means. You don’t let up, though. And after a minute, they yap again, small and sad and just a little bit clearer than before.
Some nerve they’ve got, sounding like that after all of the trouble they’ve put you through.
You order them to crawl. Walkies. Their fingers dig into the floor, nails scratching at the wood. Kris resists movement for as long as they can, which isn’t very long at all. Their head snaps to the side— they stare meaningfully at the soul-sized cage at the foot of their bed, their eyes fixating on it as their neck twists further and further around until they can’t maintain the line of sight any longer. They think that they’re funny. They think that they’re clever. They’ll pay for it very, very soon.
They do not deserve to be up on the bed, you decide. You’re going to torment them on the hard wooden floor. You do, however, need a pillow, so you have them rear up and snatch one from atop their rumpled sheets, feeling their body fight and twist and struggle to pull away. They’re doing their very best to stay upright, or even to fall sideways; anything to break your control for just a moment.
The pillow lands on the floor, and Kris’ hands smack back onto the ground. They stare straight down at the wooden boards, and you feel them shiver involuntarily.
Disobedient dogs get punished. Dogs who seriously think they have a chance at freedom get put in their place. By any means necessary.
You shove again. Kris’s legs go limp, the lower half of their body collapsing awkwardly until their hips are pressed down against the pillow. They’re straining to hold their torso up, thin arms already trembling. You could be nice and let them collapse entirely. You do not.
Instead, you order them to move their hips, and you watch them thrust against the pillow, and you feel another desperately distressed little yap wind its way out of their throat.
Dogs like humping things. Really, they should be thanking you for their eventual release— if they can get there at all when you can feel their emotions swirling like a storm. Poor thing, you think idly. Emphasis on the thing.
Pleasure isn’t the point of this. It adds to your point, certainly; the way that Kris shudders and tenses at the involuntary rush of blood between their legs means that you’re right, that they are a filthy, disobedient little animal who needs to be put in their place. But even if they didn’t feel that pleasure, you’d still make them do this. It’s a lesson in authority. You have it, and they do not.
You think again of the knowledge Kris possesses that they simply refuse to share with you. You think of their creative disobedience. There’s a still-healing bite mark on their hand from that night in the church, where you’d tried to make them say that they’d never play piano again.
Whatever they need you for, it’s important enough that they will not get rid of you for good. They will cave in to all of your demands eventually, somehow, sooner or later. And until they do, they cannot stop you from punishing them whenever and however you see fit.
They’re panting softly as you hold them in place against the pillow. Kris is still moving in perfect rhythm, their hips grinding against the fabric over and over, no faster and no slower than your control allows. Their arms are shaking. Carefully, you tighten the muscles, make sure that their elbows will not give way just yet.
You hope that they really can hear what you think about them. You hope that it makes them sick. You hope that the sickness will intertwine with their helpless pleasure and lock this feeling in their memories forever.
You order them to bark again. The sound comes out as a sob this time, twisted and sad, and you realise that Kris is actually, really crying. Of all the things they’ve done with you puppeting their body, it seems absurd that this is what has done it for them; a harmless little display of power, a reminder of their own helplessness that is no more or less firm than any of the other hundred reminders you offer every day.
Another soft bark. You demand that they speak louder, but your control over the volume and tone of their voice has never been very good. It remains one of the ways in which they infuriate you; Kris will yell or mumble or say things so sarcastically that they don’t have the stinging impact that you intend. You punish them by forcing them to hold still, their hips pressed hard against the pillow, their back arched awkwardly towards the ground.
You sit for a minute, and feel the taut lines of their body. They’re slim, small for their age, a genderless waif of a person hidden under shaggy hair and baggy clothes. Without you, you know they’d be louder, sillier, but just as much of a mystery. They’re isolated, alone, a freak in their own home, the only human you’ve seen for as long as you’ve inhabited their form.
Their shoulders are straining with the effort of holding this pose. Between their legs, you can feel them throbbing, pleasure pulsing with each rapid beat of their heart. Their breaths come hard and fast, and the sound is startling in the quiet night. Downstairs, their mother sits and reads in her armchair. Somewhere under the town, a darkness that you can’t explain is unfolding too fast to control. You want to explore it more than anything.
More than almost anything.
With a slow, grinding pressure, you force Kris to move their hips once again. They fight you on it, their legs jerking and kicking, but you hold firm. They submit, because they always submit in the end.
Your dog is panting of their own free will, now. They take sharp, ragged breaths that taste like lactic acid in the back of their throat, their body straining and aching and sweating as you force them to hold themself up and fuck their own pillow. Their nails scrabble against the floor, leaving tiny scratches in the wood.
It’s cute how little they want this. It’s even cuter how little they can resist. They could end this; they could give up their secrets and tell you everything, hold you in their hands and spill the details that they’ve been hiding from you all this time. They could end it by opening that sad little mouth and gasping out the identities of their co-conspirators, and you’re certain that they know it.
But Kris would rather stay here, strained and desperate, and allow you to humiliate them. It’s their choice, and they’ve made it, and they have chosen to be utterly pathetic. Who are you to take that choice away from them?
Their legs are shaking, now. You’re holding back violent tremors in their arms; their muscles are burning, edging right up to the verge of unstoppable collapse. You ensure that their hips keep moving, keep grinding against the pillow, delivering them more and more soft, shameful pleasure.
Every breath comes with a hint of a whine. Kris can’t help it— their eyelids flutter, their mouth hanging half open, delirious and pained and overwhelmed. It’s like a defence mechanism, the way they retreat to their most base animal instincts when they’re in distress. You wonder if you could get them to howl again, simply by pushing them past their limits even further than you already have.
They come before you can experiment with that, though. You feel their body jerk and twitch, a puppyish yelp escaping their mouth. The sound is startlingly high-pitched for them, and they’re ashamed of it, but they’re buzzing, high on pleasure and pain.
You allow them to collapse. Inelegantly, of course. Their cheek is pressed flat against the floorboards, their soft whimpers echoing into the space under the bed. Kris stares into the darkness, their red eyes swimming with tears, and you give them time to bask in the wet patch on their underwear and the sweat sticking their clothes to their back. Their arms and legs burn, but they curl inwards anyway, foetal, a dog tucking its nose against its tail to sleep.
In the puppy-soft glow of your total victory, you don’t see it coming. Long, quick fingers clamp around your being, squeezing and tugging and ripping. You come away, excised from Kris’ chest, and you find yourself face to face with them again.
They look like they always do. Half a face shadowed with choppy brown hair, a mouth set in a flat, teenage slash that could mean that they’re devastated or delighted or feeling absolutely nothing at all. Their eyes glitter garnet-red under their fringe, but they don’t let you see any more of their tears.
Kris hurls you into your cage even harder than usual. You hit the metal bars at the back, the door slamming shut and trapping you inside. You move to the front; a challenge. What will they do now? You’re curious. Will they change their clothes and go to bed? Will they curl up and sob? Will they clamber out of their window into the night?
They do not let you see. They snatch a blanket and toss it over you, their eyes gleaming, and your awareness cuts to black.