Marisa Ivan opened her eyes. She felt refreshed and alert; her afternoon nap must have just ended. Truth be told, these days she sometimes took more than one afternoon nap; whatever she had to do to forget what was going on in the outside world.

Marisa picked herself up off of the bed and walked into the kitchen. She looked over at the living room, where Cat was lounging on the couch.

Cat was an immense house cat, the size of a leopard or even bigger, a few inches longer than Marisa herself was tall. Her fur was a reddish-brown color, her eyes a piercing blue that sometimes seemed to look right through Marisa. She made a meow sound which Marisa understood to mean, [How do I look?]

Marisa did not think anything at all about Cat’s size, or why she understood so well what the creature was trying to say to her. These oddities were not so important. “Like the queen of this household,” Marisa said in response. Letting Cat know how good she was being, that was important. “Like you’re ruling the roost.”

Cat just looked at her. Marisa did not think about what might happen if such a large creature were to leap off the couch and sprint about the room, as housecats do. It was not an important detail.

Marisa looked in the refrigerator. There was some leftover Chinese food that–

(The vague memory of a voice, telling her that there was no need to remember that right now, she’d get that memory back later, good girl)

–she had ordered sometime recently. Marisa took out the container and began the process of getting it ready to be re-heated and eaten for dinner.

Cat made a forlorn sound on the couch; some part of Marisa’s mind heard a rowl, and some part heard [I want cuddles.]

“Gimme a minute,” Marisa said. “I’m getting dinner ready.”

[Dinner can wait], Cat said, this time with a more persuasive sound. [Cuddles now].

Yeah, I guess she’s right, Marisa thought. I’m just putting some stuff in the microwave. Not exactly Gordon Ramsey over here. “Okay,” she said, putting the leftovers back in the fridge. “Cuddles now.”

She went to the couch and sat. Cat laid her great head on Marisa’s shoulder, warm and furry and heavy. She smelled like Marisa’s shampoo, and there was some faraway part of Marisa that wanted to ask, wait, aren’t cats supposed to have their own shampoo?, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that warm, heavy, wonderful-smelling head.

“Nice kitty,” Marisa murmured. She thought about turning on the TV, but the remote was not in her field of vision, and anyway, what could be on that would be better than these cuddles? The news? Forget it.

Marisa reached up and stroked Cat on the back and top of her head. As she ran her hand through the thick fur, Cat made a low sound in her throat: [That’s nice. Keep doing that.]

“Hey, who’s giving the orders around here?” Marisa murmured. There was no edge in her voice; she didn’t really care who was giving the orders, if things were gonna be this nice.

Cat said nothing. Instead, she shifted positions, lifting her head off Marisa’s shoulder. Her great tail swept around Marisa’s neck, curling all the way around until Marisa was practically wearing the tail like a scarf. It was such an unusual sensation – boneless, soft, and furry, but firm with muscle underneath – that Marisa did not even ask herself how it was physically possible for the tail to reach that far.

“Oh so you’re putting a leash on me now?” Marisa grinned.

[What if I did?] Cat purred into her ear. [Would that be so bad?]

“Well, I’m not into that …” Marisa tried to think of what the official phrase was, but she was so relaxed. Her brain was sinking into quicksand. “That leash stuff.”

Which was true. Collars, leashes, bondage in general, it wasn’t Marisa’s kink. She’d talked about that recently–

(No need to remember that right now, you’ll get that memory back later, good girl)

–with somebody.

There was gentle pressure from the tail, shifting Marisa’s body a few inches to the right. Then gentle pressure on the other side of her neck, shifting her back to the left.

“’S funny,” Marisa said, as the tail began to rock her back to the right. “How you have a pet … an’ you love it so much … you have to do everything for it … like you’re the pet and it’s the master.”

The tail rocked her back and forth, swinging her a little further each time, slow and steady. Like my body’s a metronome, Marisa thought, which sent shivers up and down her spine. She loved metronomes–

(No need to remember that right now, you’ll get that memory back later, good girl)

–for some reason. She let the muscles in her neck loosen, her head swinging gently at the end of each arc.

[I am the master,] Cat purred into her ear. [Aren’t I?]

“Yesss,” Marisa whispered, not so much speaking the word as letting it escape her mouth.

[Yes who?] The tail curled just a little tighter, prompting Marisa’s response.

“Yes, master,” Marisa said, and the pleasure hit her.

Like electricity in her sex, a charge amplified by years of play, making her back arch and her breath catch in her throat. It hit her at exactly the moment where she might have felt weird to be turned on by a housecat, waking up her memory of her girlfriend Kat saying, look into my eyes.

She’d looked into Kat’s eyes, but Kat had not quite returned the favor, staring vaguely through Marisa, as though looking directly into her mind. The vague distance in Kat’s eyes made them like windows, like tunnels, Marisa falling past the blue irises and deep into the black of her pupils, becoming one with the emptiness which was no longer Kat’s emptiness but her own, her mind going blank and waiting for that wonderful magical word which would send her so deeply to SLEEP–

“It feels wonderful, doesn’t it?” the voice said, and it was no longer purring like a cat but instead purring like Kat, her voice getting husky with her own pleasure, and Marisa knew Kat was fingering herself, knew without looking because Marisa’s eyelids were too impossibly heavy.

“Yes, Master,” Marisa said, and gasped as the pleasure hit her again. She didn’t do pet play and she didn’t do bondage, but somehow Kat had found a way to mix them both, using the fantasy of being bound by a giant dominant pet to lull her into trance. And that was what was sending the charge all through Marisa’s body right now, the knowledge that she was in trance, powerless to open her eyes or raise her voice, trusting so deeply in Kat that she could submit in ways that she had never done for anyone, could never do for anyone, as her passion for Katherine Alexander obliterated all logic and replaced it with the words–

“Yes, Master,” Marisa said again, unprompted, the words now coming out less like a whisper and more like a moan of pleasure. She grabbed Kat’s left hand, still unable to open her eyes but knowing on instinct where it would be because Kat always fingered herself right-handed, and thrust it under the waistband of her sweatpants.

“Do you–” Kat’s breath caught in her throat, as her own pleasure began to peak, Marisa knowing this without needing to look. “Do you want me to finish for you?”

“Yes, Master,” Marisa moaned.

“But you’ll only come when I tell you,” Kat said. “Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Master.” Marisa’s shoulders swayed as shivers ran up and down her spine, from her pussy all the way up to the nape of her neck.

Kat’s touch was always light; too light for Marisa’s tastes, sometimes. But that was only an issue when Marisa was fully conscious and able to think about it. In trance, or even half-in and half-out as Marisa seemed to feel now, each strumming motion of Kat’s finger sent electric waves of pleasure all through Marisa’s body. She writhed in place, wracked with passion. She might have needed to be careful not to cry out – there was a nosy neighbor who had called the cops once, in the Before Times – but Kat had long ago given her a powerful suggestion that her only screams need be internal, like flashes of light on the inside of her eyelids as she ascended towards climax.

Kat did not keep Marisa on the edge for very long. She was too close herself. Even so, Marisa was unsure how much longer she could continue when she heard Kat’s voice tell her, “Orgasm now!”

The submission, the pleasure, the cat’s purring voice and her own murmured yes, masters combined together in a flash of lights and colors that Marisa only ever saw behind her closed eyelids, a supernova of passion that left her mind floating in a distant galaxy.

Later.

The leftover Chinese food did eventually find its way out of the fridge. Kat and Marisa ate it with water; at times during the pandemic, Kat had gone with fantasies so intense that Marisa had been dehydrated afterwards.

“So,” Kat said.

Marisa looked up from her rice. “So what?”

Kat grinned.

“Okay, you were right,” Marisa conceded. “That cat thing was hot.”

Kat asked, “What kind of cat was I?”

“How would I know?” Marisa sipped her water. “I don’t know cat breeds. You had fur the color of your hair, that’s all I can tell you.”

“Huh.” Kat swallowed a forkful. “I’ve never seen a cat that color.”

They ate in silence a little longer, when Marisa said, “Babe?”

“Yeah?”

“How much longer can we do this?”

“Well, it’s not like trance is a perishable resource.”

“No,” Marisa said, with more emphasis. She gestured at the window. “This. All of this.”

Kat pushed aside her bowl. She took Marisa’s hand. She ran the pad of her thumb lightly over Marisa’s knuckles. “Ris?”

“Mmmmm?” Marisa’s smiled dreamily. The knuckle thing, what they called a handjob-in-public (back when they did it in public) was already starting to work.

“Think about the cat’s tail,” Kat said. “Soft and furry and warm, wrapped around your shoulders and neck. You can feel it, can’t you?”

Marisa’s eyes slid closed. “Yeah,” she murmured.

“It makes you feel warm and safe, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“And you just love to float deeper and deeper into that warm safe feeling, don’t you?”

Marisa’s head began to sink forward. “Yeah.”

“Marisa,” Kat said, and paused to found the right words. “Think of all you do to stay safe right now. Every time you wash your hands. every time you put on a mask. These things can make you feel so warm and safe.”

“Mmmmmm,” Marisa sighed.

“Whenever you need that warm safe feeling, you can just close your eyes and think of that cat’s tail wrapped around you. It can make you feel so warm and safe. Do you understand?”

Marisa’s head bobbed slightly.

Kat took her hand away from Marisa’s. “One, eyes feeling lighter and lighter. Two, deep breath in. And three, eyes open and awake.”

Marisa’s eyes fluttered open. “Thanks,” she said, smiling. “I needed that even more than the orgasm.”

Kat grinned. “But you needed the orgasm too, right?”

Marisa feigned forgetfulness. “I dunno,” she said. “Remind me how that feels again?”

THE END