Kira woke up the next morning feeling a lot better. The difficult circumstances certainly played into it, but even in normal circumstances it was good for her to have a good cry once in a while. In the past, `her– no, she didn’t want to let this good mood go away so soon.

Venisin’s vines were still tightened around her limbs, but they’d relaxed, which had come to mean she was permitted to get up. There wasn’t a lot she was allowed to do on her own at the moment, but breakfast was one of the few, so she made her way to the kitchen and took one of the marinating chunks of meat out of the refrigerator. Venisin was strict and often cruel, and so deserved a good breakfast. 

Kira gave the meat a good sear, something Venisin had appreciated the last few times she did it. 

Venisin had also started torturing her a little bit during breakfast, something that Kira had appreciated the last few times they did it. Usually it was a bit of pain and setting the belt to edge her for a while, to remind Kira that she wasn’t going to get satisfaction while she was being punished. 

She’s just finished her snack and plated Venisin’s food when her master came out.

“I want to do something a little bit different today, little thorn.”

Kira had barely processed that statement when the vines that were now ever present around her arms and legs lifted her up and pushed her against the wall. Behind her she heard the subtle rustle of Venisin sitting down and beginning to eat.

Venisin didn’t exactly take bits, but Kira had grown familiar with the rhythms and pulses as Venisin’s stinger vines broke down food. And so she understood when Venisin began to hit her, once for each pulse, for each little bit of digestion. Kira began to sink, into that dark part of her mind where she almost felt like she was being digested, consumed. Taken apart by the sadistic rhythm of her torturer.

Strike.

By.

Strike.

The first few felt much like a crop, and rained down across her back and her butt–more gently where her rib cage and organs were close to the surface, shraper and stingier and harsher every time they struck her cheeks.

Kira hissed as Venisin struck a spot on her left cheek that they’d already gone over once. 

Then hissed again when they struck the spot they’d hit next. 

Venisin was making a show of doing this while they were eating, but the combination of cruelty and care that it took to hit the exact spots again gave their interest away.

There was something almost–exploratory–in the way that they went over the marks. Sometimes harder, sometimes softer.

Venisin hit a spot she’d already tenderized on Kira’s sit spot, and Kira let out a moan. Deep breaths.

There was a momentary break as Venisin brushed some vines up and down Kira’s back, along her upper arms and her thighs. It was calming–a crucial moment of connection amidst escalating violence.

Then the vines were gone, and Venisin went back to hitting Kira. 

Kira yelped and jerked in her bonds. This was thicker, thuddier.

Another hit came and she tried to breathe. The hits seemed to go straight through her.

But she needed to control herself, or she was going to panic. Breath in, breathe out, embrace the pain.

She failed to stop jerking completely, but managed to start relaxing faster after each whip. Venisin had slowed her pace too. Now she waited for Kira to recover, for Kira’s step in their little dance of horror.

Just when Kira thought she was beginning to get a handle on things, Kira got hit with something brutal, sharp, and she barely suppressed a scream.

The sensation reminded Kira of a cane. She tried to turn her head to see what it was, but one of Venisin’s vines forced her head back into the wall, then hit her with double strength for her troubles.

She screamed.

Luckily it was short. Five, quick short hits, each one driving Kira out of her rhythm of breathing and forcing her to recenter herself and recover each time.

And when she found her center again.

SNAP.

But then it was over.

Kira hung in her bonds as Venisin stroked her with her vines. Even as she did, she got up casually and put away the breakfast plate, all while Kira slowly gathered herself.

“I would like to try something new little thorn.” Venisin was suddenly in front of her. “Can you take more for me?”

Those had become the magic words, hadn’t they? “For me.” Kira didn’t have time to process it, but she nodded.

“Just, please Master, some more touch first?”

Venisin used her vines to pull her in, so Kira was tucked against her body proper. “Of course little leaf.”

Comforting vines ran down her body, and Kira took deep breaths to try and regulate herself. She squeezed Venisin’s vine, and her Master understood the unspoken request. Moments later, a sugary drink graced her lips.

Kira drank it all down in one big gulp. She spent a few more precious moments enjoying her Master’s touch, then took a deep breath.

“I’m ready, Master.”

Venisin didn’t respond with words, but deposited her on a pillow and bound her hands over her head, forcing them back behind her. It strained Kira’s shoulders and forced her to push out her chest, but she could bear it.

Then her Master pulled out a rare thorny vine, and began breaking the thorns off. They were thin as surgical needles, but as long as her hand. Kira hadn’t even known Venisin had had them, and probably for good reason–if she touched them they would go right through her.

And that’s when Kira realized what was about to happen, and began taking deep breaths.

The first needle went into her upper chest at an extremely shallow angle. It went into her skin, then out, then into her skin again, then out, then into her skin, then out. Each entry and exist was another hole in her shell, another moment of pain as the needle pierced her outermost layer. Each time, a point of focus, a clarification, a little burst of “here” and “now” and discomfort.

Kira had borne a lot of things in her life worse than getting pierced by needles, but there was something methodical about it, a certain act of ritual that had always spoken to her on a deeper level. And she connected with that again, in this foreign world with this otherworldly creature.

It was a place of calm.

The second needle went in below the first, and Kira was where she belonged.

The third needle vine went into her chest on the other side, but she looked into Venisin’s eyes. She felt it then, from her place of calm. So much like the building comfort of the last couple weeks, but darker than all of those. Venisin wasn’t doing this because she wanted to control her better, wasn’t doing this because she needed to be punished, wasn’t doing this for any purpose at all except for one. Venisin wanted to see her suffer. And so for the first time since departing that distant ship months ago, she felt absolutely, totally in her place.

She struggled not to laugh. A million needles couldn’t compare to this feeling of rightness. But her sadist wanted her to suffer, so she tried to push it away.

The fourth one went under the third. Every breath hurt a little, now, as the expansion of her chest put pressure on the tiny little holes where needles went in and out of her skin.

But she was doing fine.

And Venisin noticed. “I’m going to put the next one into your underarm.”

A more vulnerable spot. Less flesh, more sensitive skin. Kira felt herself tense, then took a deep breath to try and relax again.

The needle went in. It hurt more than the other ones, but even more than that it felt more wrong. Again Venisin weaved it in and out a few times until it ran most of the length of her underarm. The vines were still holding her hands behind her head, but now the needle was enforcing the bondage too. Any attempt at lowering her arm would cause it to dig in, past just the skin and into muscle.

Kira’s breathing came a little faster, but Venison was already moving on.

“Your thigh now, little leaf.”

There was a focus about her, as she slowly violated the integrity of her floret’s body, and Kira found it absolutely captivating. The emotions were still manageable, at this point. The endorphins were helping with the pain, and the visceral discomfort of the needles was something Kira could process herself.

The needle into her upper thigh was especially long and a little thicker. Kira was entranced watching it go in and out of her skin. Another one followed. It was transcendental. She felt Venisin’s attention like a blanket, and leaned into it as she leaned further over the abyss. As long as she was in her Master’s locus of control, she could become the universe’s greatest pin cushion. She’d take it, and she’d smile while she cried.

Venisin’s insides seemed to vibrate for a second. “Tsk, we have an appointment to keep little one.”

The interruption knocked Kira out of her trance, and uncertainty caught up to her for a moment. This wasn’t an easy place to be, this exposed, this open, this vulnerable. It was Venisin’s focused attention that made it possible, would she lose it?

A vine stroked her neck, interrupting the spiral before it could start. 

“Shhhh, don’t worry, we’re not about to run out.” There was a smile behind the words.

Venisin strummed the needles, and Kira flinched.

“Would you like to bleed for me, little leaf?”

Kira closed her eyes, took a breath, then nodded.

Venisin took the needles out slowly, maximizing the bleeding by wiggling them under Kira’s skin on the way out. There was something profane about it–humans had used needles for centuries to minimize the damage of insertion, and here they were being misused, shaken, to maximize the damage instead.

The bleeding was worst on her thigh and chest and then Venisin surprised her one last time. Instead of getting a towel or cleaning her off, her Master placed a pair of shimmering singer vines onto her limbs, and started drinking the blood. They extended little tendrils as well, going into the still bleeding holes from the needles.

Venisin was feeding off her.

Kira was spellbound. She couldn’t look away.

Venisin was feeding off of her. 

She’d gone from chef-as-an-act-of-service, to food herself. It was horrifying, and it felt so incredibly intimate and perfect, it stole her breath away.

Nevertheless, a few moments later it was over. Venisin withdrew the stinger vines and bundled Kira up to her chest. She got them ready to leave, but Kira had stopped paying attention. The chastity belt was off for the moment, and the vines wrapping her limbs, normally a reminder of control, felt like a tether and a safety net both.

She felt stripped. Guards down, emotions exposed. Open, vulnerable. But for the moment it was okay. Venison had demonstrated herself capable of holding that vulnerability, and proven herself an island of safety in a hostile universe, had shown, again and again, that she was capable of holding all that Kira was.

And now had shown that she wanted to take as well. Not just to control, but to hurt, to piece apart, to dissect, to consume.

It wasn’t something to process now, processing was for creatures with agency. Kira would be that again, but not for a while. For now she pulled on the vines, wrapped herself deeper into her Master’s embrace, bathed in the safety she felt in Venisin’s control.

Venisin almost didn’t make it out the door. For a while now she’d felt a great deal of affection for Kira. She was principled, clever, and so so incredibly strong. But she’d never felt quite as close as she had just now. Those eyes, staring up at her. So open, so vulnerable, so accepting.

It had been like a dose of euphoria straight to her core.

She wasn’t even sure why she’d decided to try the needle thorns. It was trunk instinct, a feeling of the sort that she usually trusted. And now… this.

Venisin curled the vines around her little leaf tighter, and got a gentle squirm in return. Instinctively she understood the display of gratitude, a symbolic digging in deeper when so wrapped up in vines that deep had lost its meaning.

Her floret was so damn cute. The little tenses when the needles pierced her skin. The lip bite and shaky breath as her little thorn processed the actual thorns passing through her. That uncurling she did as she processed the pain, opening back up to take more like a blooming flower. The little hints of fear, the shimmer of tears. 

This must be how other people felt around Class-J pets.

There was something right about it, something hard to define she'd missed even on Kvėnzrkrom, where sophonts spoke pain the way anglocentric Terran fiction spoke English. If only the rest of their day wasn’t so important.

But no, Venisin reflected as she wound through tree lined pathways, exactly because she cared so much she didn’t want to mess this up.

Shortly after her punishment began, Kira had expressed an interest in cooking for more Affini than just Venisin, in moving past the tea houses that made up most of Affini culinary culture and trying something new. It would be a perfect form of enrichment, and more importantly give her little thorn a place to fulfill her need of impacting her surroundings in a non-destructive way.

The hab she’d quietly requisitioned was ready now, and so was the large scale fabricator they would use for the insides. She could, of course, request it for an extra day, but that would be rude to whoever was using it next. Another one could be created pretty easily but… waste was waste whether you suffered from scarcity or not.

Kira seemed to stir a little more as they got closer to the restaurant. It was located on one of the elevated walkways, surrounding a forested park right in the center of the Arboratis’s largest habitation bubble. The view would make for an incredible dining experience, and Venisin knew some of the neighbors–they were just as passionate as she expected Kira would be. It meant that her little floret would be surrounded by projects that were open most days, rather than hobby shops or more casual endeavors that might only operate one or two days a week, and so there would be plenty of foot traffic.

She got to the entrance, and began to slowly unwind the package she was carrying. To some extent she felt like she was holding Kira together emotionally by holding her physically, and she didn’t want to take too much of the support away too quickly.

Her little flower opened her eyes and turned towards her sun, and Venisin finally got to see the relaxed, glazed face of her pet. She gave a gentle ruffle.

“Hello little leaf.”

“Hi Master.”

Venisin had never liked a smile more than the newly timid little curve looking up at her.

“How are you feeling, Kira?”

Her charge took a deep breath, closed her eyes and focused inwards for a moment, then looked back at Venisin.

“Fragile, master. I feel very close to you. I’m happy. But I’m very raw and exposed. Little things will feel like a lot. I’ll probably be clingy for a while. You’re a safe place for my vulnerability to find shelter.”

Venisin stroked her cheek.

“Then hopefully this won’t overwhelm you. You’re opening a restaurant.”

Kira’s entire body tensed a little, and her neck did this little motion like she wanted to retract her head into her chest, but then she pushed her chin out instead. Her first breath was slow, labored, tightly controlled. Hands squeezed her vines. The next breath came a little easier. By the third one she relaxed, and her head gently relaxed into Venisin’s vine.

“I… I think I’m a little overwhelmed, Master.”

Venisin was almost too busy taking in the reaction to catch the unspoken request. But she managed to stop gazing and place a vine protectively over Kira’s eyes.

She spoke, but in Affini. “Shhh, it’s alright. This is about you, for you, and it’s not going to be more than you can handle. I’ll be with you the whole way.”

Kira responded in the same, but without the underlying melody of approval and assurance that Venisin had used. “Thank you, Affini.”

They made their way slowly into the space, Venisin still holding Kira in a pouch of vines on her stomach, Kira poking her head out frequently like a baby horse. It was a standard retail space hab unit, but that didn’t detract from its beauty. The large scale fabricator sat in the middle of the space. A thoughtful clerk had taped a balloon to it, congratulating them on their new project.

Venisin spoke in a quiet thrum.

“This is the main space, where you’ll have tables and lounging. We can go for a more restaurant atmosphere, or do something more like a lounge. I saw some diagrams of common Terran restaurant layouts, and I noticed they’re all very designed for turnover, which you fortunately don’t need to think about anymore.”

Venisin carried them into the back room. It already had all the outlets and connection points that would be required, especially for Kira’s preference towards gas stoves and temperature based refrigerators.

“This is the kitchen. You’ll have space for a wall of refrigerators either on this side or the back wall, and there’s another even bigger refrigeration room further back. There’s plenty of stove space–I wasn’t sure quite how much you would need or if you’d want to let others help you, so there’s enough connections for a couple.”

Kira rubbed her face against Venisin in a gesture that was both affection and stress relief. affectionate gesture. 

“This is very thoughtful of you, Master.” Her tone was still a little quieter than usual, a little more subdued. “I like it a lot.”

They went back onto the patio, and cuddled for a bit while Kira browsed chair designs for the fabricator and returned slowly back to earth.

At some point Venisin decided that the belt had been off for long enough, flicked a switch, and enjoyed the little whimper from Kira that immediately followed. Her charge didn’t look up from the tablet, but did rub herself deeper into Venisin’s tangle.

They eventually worked their way from the inside out. Chairs, tables, benches, some couches and low tables for a lounge area, and then a big pile of blankets for sophonts that preferred to cuddle.  All the while Venisin found herself feeling more and more… touchy was the wrong word.

It manifested in little sharp zaps that made Kira flinch, in dialing the belt up over and over again until Kira had to stop working and just breathe, until the frustration built up so much that she lost herself completely and tried to claw the belt off in an uncoordinated frenzy.

And it manifested in the cuddling that came afterwards, the calming her back down, the putting her back together so they could resume laying out her restaurant/cafe crossover. On Kvėnzrkrom this kind of directionless suffering would be the equivalent of telling a tall tale, something discouraged on a world wracked by danger and toxicity. But here, it made her feel closer to Kira than she’d even thought possible.

She avoided going too far–Kira’s statement that she’d spend the rest of the day being clingy certainly held true, and she could see how much that increased when even pushed a little bit. But some clinginess was nice, and so they never went long without a shock, or a grab, or a reminder of just how out of control Kira really was.

It all came to a head when they finished the main furniture later that evening. They’d have to go back another day to decorate, but they could return the large fabricator. Without really thinking about it, Venisin indulged a little.

She gave Kira the kneel gesture in the middle of her new restaurant, and began running vines up and down her florets body. Kira was breathing a little heavier, but went deeper into that trance that she seemed to be circling all day, and her body language telegraphed openness and calm.

Her little leaf looked so natural like this. She’d seen it before, of course, but somehow it felt different today. Deeper. As if the needles from this morning had changed something, clicked Kira more into place.

Venisin stripped off Kira’s floret dress, and began running stinger vines up and down her body. She kept the charge low, a gentle sting instead of real hurt.

Gradually she shifted the pain up.

Progressively more flinching. Her floret making those cute little jerks that meant she hadn’t quite gotten a grip on the pain yet. She’d seen it a few times, in their morning sessions. Eventually Kira would manage to take a deep breath, and then Venisin would need to massively step up the pain or aim for a weak spot to get a reaction.

She decided to try something new, and used one of her thorns to leave a narrow cut a bit below her pet’s collarbone. Kira barely flinched, and Venisin briefly wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Kira seemed to sense her hesitation. “Please, more. Please, I need this.” She didn’t look up, but her body telegraphed the same openness as it had in the morning. 

Almost immediately Venisin’s core felt like it was burning. Like at any second she would explode. She gave Kira another cut. The flinch of pain, the gradual weakening of Kira’s body, it was ambrosia. So she gave her another cut. And another. And another.

One down the arm.

A little shape on the swell of her pet’s breast.

One across the cheek, and another on her forehead. 

Blood welled out, slowly spreading over skin.

Venisin broke off a few more needle-thorns and created a pattern up the side of Kira’s breasts. Her floret didn’t move.

The fight seemed to have left Kira. She knelt, bent over her knees, chest moving ever so slightly as she wept. Arms at her side, boneless.

Her floret was covered in blood. It ran down her cheeks, intermingling with tears, it ran down her chest, her arms, some had dripped from her chin onto her knees. The reality of what she was doing suddenly caught up with Venisin. She felt frozen for a moment, an uncharacteristic shock paralyzing her to her core. She was an Affini, her purpose was to care, to improve, to better. She’d found ways to do it unconventionally, in ways that felt better to her, but this– this was just the joy of breaking something apart.

“Sorry.” Venisin began pulling her vines back. “Sorry, this was too mu–“

“NO! Please. If–“ Kira struggled for a moment to shape her mouth into words, her eyes wide and scared and staring up at Venisin. “If you withdraw now, I’ll collapse. I need–I need you to be in control right now.”

Venisin took a moment to gather herself. Then she tightened her vines again.

“I see. Very well, little thorn.” To demonstrate her resolve, she made another small cut on Kira’s shoulder. Nowhere it would hurt too much or distress her, but a reminder that she was not being abandoned.

Her floret immediately relaxed, head going from tense and scared to hanging boneless over her knees. Venisin let her vines gradually envelop the figure, before pulling her floret close.

They stayed like that for a while, silent.

Eventually Kira stirred.

“You need this too, don’t you?” Kira asked quietly. 

Venisin wasn’t sure what Kira meant, so she just stared back silently.

“I can feel it coming from you, you know?” Kira looked up at her as she spoke, wide eyed, open, vulnerability and acceptance and submission dripping from every pore. “At first I wondered if I was misreading it because you’re a plant, and then I was busy worrying about how it was pulling me in.”

“But after today–“ A wiggle that was probably meant to be a hand gesture. “The way you react to my distress, to my emotional discomfort with what you’re doing to me.”

Venisin didn’t say anything, for now.

“It calls to you, doesn’t it? Hurting me? You don’t just want to control me. You don’t want physical pain. Or just physical pain. You want to insert yourself into the emotional landscape and you want to tear me apart.”

She shuddered and took a deep breath.

“And that scares you.” There was a breathless chuckle. “It’s okay, it scares me too, a little bit.”

“It’s– it seems like for other Affini it’s about control. Reconstruction. The shaping of the bonsai tree. It’s dressed up in nurture and care. And there’s some of that for you, but– there’s a drive to ‘misuse’ it, isn’t there?” The words were coming faster now, stronger. “To break me open and use my vulnerability and watch me bleed out on the floor, not just literally, but emotionally.”

One hand slipped out of the cocoon and grabbed onto Venisin’s outer vine layer, and it wasn’t immediately clear to Venisin who it was supposed to stabilize.

“You said when we first met that you enjoyed the control through pain. I– I don’t think that’s all of it. You’re not a physical sadist, you’re an emotional one.” Kira’s words started coming faster. “It’s not the pain you’re drawn to, it’s my suffering. To have someone worship you and offer themselves as a sacrifice to their god and be destroyed for it completely then put back together by that mercy so in a new shape so then you can do it again.”

Kira took a few deep breaths and seemed to calm herself down. Venisin was, as she had been this whole confession, perfectly still. She could feel it resonate, deep to her core, but she could also feel that this wasn’t done. It momentarily occurred to her that at this moment, she could probably get any secret she wanted out of Kira, and probably break her enough that the gross violation of trust would be something she later perceived as helpful or for her own good.

“I– I– I can’t give you all of that–not properly–though I think maybe you don’t quite know what that means yet. It’s part of the whole past thing–I just can’t. But I also can’t stop you from taking it. And I can’t promise you that I’ll be ok if you take it, in fact I probably won’t be. But–“ She paused to take a deep breath–Venisin recognized it by now, Kira’s way of finding acceptance. “But I’m not fragile. You saw that today physically, but it’s true emotionally too. Especially if you hold me afterwards and put me back together. It also– I try not to be punished–I want to be good for you, more and more each day–so knowing if you’re happy with me–that’s probably something that might cause long term damage if it goes away.”

Kira took another deep breath, and Venisin could see the weight leaving her shoulders. 

“So yeah, I– I know it sounds weird. But I wanted to say that I understand. And that I’ll be alright. And that I would give this to you, if I could.”

Kira laughed.

“Sorry, I bet you don’t really know what I’m talking about.”

Venisin would need to do some research, because after today it was clear that breaking Kira physically was one of the most spiritual experiences of her eight blooms, and the thought of doing it emotionally? Or spiritually? It made her leaves shiver. But it was clear there was more depth to it, especially now that she’d learned more about the subtleties of human communication and Kira’s sometimes complicated past. 

She stroked her pet. Kira wasn’t giving her permission. That was fine, Venisin didn’t need it. But she was giving her instructions how to hurt without doing irreparable damage. Kira knew that information would let Venisin let go and indulge herself. And once she’d done her research, that was Venisin’s real constraint.

Kira was definitely bright enough to understand that if she hadn’t wanted this to happen, to really happen, she could have just not spoken up. Now, or earlier, when she told Venisin that she needed more.

Venisin looked at Kira, and ran a thorn lovingly down her back. She understood.

And so did Kira. Her next words were a whisper.

“It means the world to me, you know? That you’d give me the gift of consent. “

She closed her eyes, and leaned back into the cocoon. A relaxed smile flashed across her face.

“So let me give it back to you. You have my consent, as much as I can give it. Do what you didn't even know you needed to. Break me. Make me fit into this mold in your life.”

She opened her eyes again, a plea on her face.

“Just please–“

Venisin silence her with a vine.

“I know.”