Venisin felt the twitch of Kira’s sleeping form through the vines she’d draped over the pet bed. She’d taken some time after Kira’s confession last night to think about things, and her little leaf had been right. There was more control that she wanted, more control she could take. She’d associated that control with some of the more difficult moments of their time together so far, but if there was one thing that both her experiences with Kira and her further research on human psychology had taught her, it was that context was absolutely everything to humans. And last night Kira had once again made clear that, outside of things related to the mistress-Venisin-wasn’t-supposed-to-know-about, Kira did thrive under Kvėnzrkrom’s form of communication.

Which was good, because the thought of speaking Kvėnzrkrom more clearly made Venisin’s leaves flutter.

Venisin felt a change in Kira’s breathing through her vines, and knew that she was awake. There was this adorable thing her pet did where she flexed her body part by part from her toes to her head, like a sort of progressive scan, and then completely relaxed once she realized she was fully constricted. Yesterday Venisin would have settled for that, today… She turned up the dial on Kira’s chastity belt, and enjoyed the gasp that came from beneath her. 

Kira woke up to find that she couldn’t move. A few days ago it would have scared her, made the fear and anxiety about the secrets of her mistress spike. But today it felt like comfort. 

 At this point handing vulnerability to someone she knew could hold it was almost a compulsion. And it was entirely possible that her Mistress had, at some point, made it a compulsion. The decision to confess her ability to handle more to Venisin last night definitely hadn’t come from her conscious mind.

So now she’d given vulnerability to someone worthy of holding it. Which also meant someone who would ruthlessly use it against her. And–

The sudden activation of the belt scrambled Kira’s thoughts.

She wasn’t ordinarily a very sexual creature. Opportunities to do things like serve Venisin dinner, as she had last night, ranked much higher on her scale of life satisfaction.

But the helplessness of the situation, her own inability to move away from the gentle, teasing stimulation, gave the belt a straight access to her erotic core. And after her confession last night, Venisin was unlikely to give her relief.

Nevertheless Kira was experienced in handling these sorts of emotions, so when Venisin got her up to do their morning routine, the only thing that betrayed her inner turmoil was a slight twitch when a particularly strong burst of sensation coursed through her.

Venisin particularly enjoyed today’s bathing and teeth brushing routine. There was this extra way that Kira clung to her, brushed her body against the vines, sought more of Venisin’s touch. It was subtle–her little leaf was always so in control of herself–but it was there, and Venisin was coming to appreciate the subtlety.

They were also increasingly falling into more periods of silence. Her little Kira seemed to need a kind of extra switch to begin talking, and Venisin had spent years communicating only through giving and receiving physical pain. Gestures weren’t quite the same thing, though Venisin had definitely let more of her Kvėnzrkrom accent show through. Sliced in this way or that, or poked with a sting, Kira would give this little twitch and then immediately relax and accept the stimulus. It wasn’t quite automatic.

But it was definitely too fast to be in any way new.

Kira had spent a lot of time in the last few days browsing the overnet, just trying to learn more about the compact and this new society she found herself in. She’d obviously figured out the basics with her last few foster-owners–she still got a laugh out of calling them that–but during those days she’d been pretty busy being either fighting or drugged. A society based on some kind of Master/pet concept actually sounded kind of cool, although it was quickly clear she entered it in just about the worst possible way. An alternate universe where she’d met someone like Venisin on the street and gotten to know her over a cup of tea…

The pleasantness was followed by a sharp stab of guilt, and then a feeling of loss. Wishing away the past, wishing away the pain, would be erasing her most precious memories. It felt disloyal, and it was not a thought process Kira was particularly keen to indulge.

One thing that had started bothering Kira in her research was the clear divide between useful documents, which seemed to be mostly in Affini, and the material dedicated to florets. The web browser had an auto translate feature, but unfortunately it seemed to only translate things into English/Floret, stripping out everything interesting in the process. This probably would have happened sooner or later, since Kira couldn’t imagine being useful in the way she was accustomed to without speaking the dominant language, but now it was more urgent: she would have to learn Affini.

Kira turned her body in what humans would approximate as “attention towards someone”, and Venisin caught the gesture with her vines. They were starting to communicate nonverbally, and it filled Kira with little flutters of happiness.

“Master, I’d like to learn Affini. Do you have any good resources you’d recommend?”

Venisin tapped a vine against what seemed to function as a coffee table.

“Hmmm, I don’t know, I haven’t been in Terran space very long.”

An off beat tap and a rare facial expression signified Venison’s moment of insight.

“Ahhhh, but we’re seeing one of my friends out here later, Sarah is someone I overlapped with for a while in Kvėnzrkrom space, and they’ve always had an interest in Floret education.”

Venisin’s vine relaxed on the table.

“To be honest most florets never learn Affini, we learn languages pretty easily and florets usually do not do things that would require knowing Affini, but if someone knows how to teach it to human brains it would be her.”

“Hmmmm, that doesn’t surprise me given the readings here. Alright, thanks Ma–“ another particularly intense burst vibrated against Kira’s clit, and she arched her back as a whimper came out of her throat.

Venisin enjoyed the sight of Kira on her leash immensely, not in the least because she could feel the turmoil underneath the graceful glide through it. She looked just as smooth as the first time they’d done this, a mere week ago when Venisin had first acquired Kira. But that time Kira hadn’t spent an entire morning being teased without having an orgasm.

This was the longest Venisin had denied Kira for, so far–what a lovely phrase–and Kira, true to her word, was handling it, but clearly with more effort and more struggling than at any point so far. And it didn’t even come across as resentment. There were these subtle moments too, when Kira would clutch a vine, or rub herself into Venisin’s skirt, or just stretch into whatever constraint was holding her at the time. Those little extra moments of neediness were like blood to Venisin’s soul.

Even now, as she was walking, there was so much in the little bits of body language that even Kira’s control couldn't suppress. Venisin tapped the tablet nestled inside her just to watch it again. Venisin could feel the moment the vibrations hit Kira. A slight shudder went through her body as she suppressed her body’s natural instinct to freeze from the overwhelming stimulus. Moments later, as the stimulus started to become overwhelming, Venisin felt the expansion of Kira’s chest, the deep breath and the full body relaxation that meant her little leaf was recentering herself, draining the extra feelings into the pit of her submission.

Kira’s mask slipped for the first time as they approached the restaurant. Venisin had dialed the setting up to the maximum that Kira would still find pleasurable, forcing her to hold back her orgasm through sheer force of will and missing the days before her Mistress had decided that an orgasm block was too inflexible for someone gone for long periods of time.

It’d been nothing but this, all day. On. Off. On. Off. All with that sadistic satisfaction radiating from Venisin–something Kira was having more and more trouble attributing to “a desire for control”. And that, that shining light of sadism that Kira found herself starting to bloom towards, that more than anything made it slip out.

“please”

Kira felt Venisin stop, and almost bumped into her. Almost subconsciously she cut off the thought loop chiding herself for the falter in leash protocol. She was close to a limit, and she knew on an instinctive level that her owner would want to see it.

“Is something wrong, little leaf?”

“N– No Master”

The left side of Venisin’s flowing cloak of leaves twitched ever so slightly. Kira recognized it as excitement.

“Is there something you’d like to ask me?”

The question was a ball tossed in the air, a step in their dance, and Kira caught it.  Spurred on by a day of constant arousal, constant climbing towards a peak that would over and over again be denied to her, by the glint in Venisin’s eyes, Kira fell to her knees.

She leant forward on her hands, and let the desperation she’d been holding down suffuse every bit of her body. She felt like she was going to explode.

“Please. PLEASE. I need to cum so badly.”

There was only silence. Kira felt a tear leak out.

Her voice became a whisper. 

“please”

The moment felt like forever.

“No.”

Kira closed her eyes as the literal denial ran through her. It was a heat, running down her spine and pooling at her core, and it was a weight, settling around her like a blanket, pushing her further into the ground and into her rightful place on her knees. It left her even more aroused, but also calm. She was never not under Venisin’s control, but the extra bit of dominance, the extra bit of force, let her lean out and hold on even as she struggled.

She let her voice grow soft, letting her current feelings of worship float into it.

 “Thank you Master.”

A single vine forked off the leash, feeling razor sharp as it brushed down her cheek. The approval in it was evident.

Venisin gave her one last satisfied smile, then turned around and resumed walking.

In one smooth, practiced motion Kira leaned back onto her heels and stood back up.

There was an almost masochistic sort of charm to the thought that Venisin had no point of reference to realize that this wasn’t an easy motion, and had taken months of practice and years of use to settle into her bones.

The rest of the walk didn’t take long, and then they found themselves on a second story terrace nestled at the edge of a large public park in one of the Arboratis’s largest open bubbles. Venisin hadn’t actually said much about protocols for meeting other Affini, though she knew she was to address them as Sir and Ma’am and generally show respect.

She decided being respectful and deferential were likely the most appropriate.

Venisin’s friend was a dark purple mass of thin elongated leaves, with a face in a fairly androgynous shape and two shining green eyes. Unlike Venisin they chose a form that imitated human arms, and ended with delicate twig laced hands.

They greeted each other with a smattering of Affini, and Kira found herself craving the ability to understand again. There was something thrilling to being deliberately talked over, but it wasn’t quite as satisfying when it was due to her own limitations.

The new Affini turned to Kira, and leaned down as it spoke. 

“Hello Kira,” the Affini began, “my name is Sarah, and I’m a linguist studying floret languages. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Ma’am.” Kira did a slight curtsy.

The affini looked at Venisin. “Lets go get some drinks, and then we can catch up and Kira I hear you’re curious about the Affini language?”

They walked to one of the seats on the terrace, and Venisin gave Kira a slight tap on the back that told her she wanted her to sit in the chair, as opposed to the ground. Like most affini seating the furniture wasn’t the right size for her, but fortunately Kira was extremely comfortable kneeling, so she kneeled on top of the chair and that gave her enough height to reach just well enough over the edge of the table.

The view was fantastic, the forest covering the public park below them reminded Kira of a rainforest, but without the typical canopy taking all the light, and therefore a much more diverse and colorful set of plants. A floret waiter stumbled up to them. Their movements were clumsy, their eyes seeming to space out intermittently before they managed to focus back on the present.

Sarah gave the floret some pets as Venisin and Kira looked on. The floret melted under the touch, blubbering something incoherent as Sarah cooed. Kira stole a glance at Venisin and was relieved to find her just as uninterested in the display as she was.

Once Sarah finished her petting, the floret tried to take their order. Unfortunately, it was still drowning in bliss and barely keeping itself upright. It opened its mouth and completely failed any attempt at comprehensible speech. Luckily the cafe was prepared for this, so Venisin scribbled their orders onto a note and turned the floret around, at which point it became clear that the floret already had two other orders from further down the terrace taped there. 

Kira watched with a kind of dispassionate interest, and a new appreciation for her lot in life. Being subject to a multi day beating with the goal of breaking her will suddenly sounded like a comparatively good time. Pain was one thing, but competence was something far more precious.

The floret scampered off to deliver the orders, and Kira turned back towards the two alien plants she was sitting with.

“So how do you two know each other? Venisin never told me.”

Sarah flashed her a smile.

“Oh I’ve been traveling through space from species to species for three blooms now compiling linguistic information and drafting a book. We have all this information on the overnet but I find it’s not quite the same as going there and experiencing things in person. 

She steepled her hands and gave Venisin a sly look.

“Your owner here was the most fluent speaker of Kvėnzrkrom in the entire protectorate, and that was an incredibly attractive quality.”

Kira couldn’t see Venisin blush, but somehow she knew it was happening anyway. The idea of Venisin romancing another affini was… novel.

“We never got super serious. I was always going to move on to the next species, and I’m not sure if Venisin is that interested in dating equals. She seemed more comfortable speaking Kvėnzrkromthan Affini in some ways.”

Sarah laughed. It was a delightful sound.

“I was surprised when I found out she’d come here! You must be something especially interesting.”

The look she gave Kira was almost predatory, and something in Kira’s subconscious perked up. She felt a shiver run down her spine before she could answer.

“You could say that I needed someone who spoke Kvėnzrkrom myself, ma’am.”

Kira noticed the respectful shift in her own tone, and saw Sarah lift a simulated eyebrow in response. Venisin broke the tension.

“Kira here needed someone to take her firmly in hand, but even more importantly to understand where she was coming from.”

Sarah looked between them.

“Fascinating,” she whispered, almost to herself.

Kira could see the scientist in her, studying something novel. She could also see a calculating mind and a liveliness that she guess Venisin found as attractive as she did.

“So I hear you want to learn Affini…”

Kira let herself get lost in the conversation.

Venisin had been enjoying the walk home, so much so that she’d decided to extend it by taking her floret through Hypogaea’s planetary gardens. They were a bunch of smaller, connected plots, each replicating the natural foliage on a different world the Arboratis had passed in Terran space.

They’d been fine until they walked past a garden with muted pastel plants and tall ferns, modeled off of a Terran mining colony called Eteria. Venisin felt Kira jitter through the vines, and immediately realized it wasn’t the same as when Kira was struggling with arousal. She kept extra attention on the vine, and let its tip split, to touch more parts of Kira’s body and get a few extra data points on her internal state.

She felt Kira take a deep breath, but instead of feeling the relaxation that usually came afterwards, she felt Kira continue to jitter. They stopped next to a particularly large pastel green fern with a blueish stem.

Venisin turned to Kira, ran some vines all down her body, felt her feelings as much as she saw them, and tried to figure out what was going on.

She hated when these things happened on open roads. Less privacy, and no convenient surfaces to tap.

“What’s wrong little vine?”

Kira took another shuddery breath before responding.

“Can we…” another breath “… keep walking actually?”

She glanced around.

“Maybe find a q- quiet spot in the next garden?”

In other circumstances the vulnerability and fear in Kira’s eyes would have gone straight to her core but this, this felt different.

She tightened the leash and Kira seemed to relax just the tiniest bit.

“There’s a nook in the next garden.” Venisin tapped the ground. “Would you like me to carry you there?”

“I- I- think I’ll walk, please,” Kira managed to stutter.

They walked toward the nook at a slower pace, Kira still shaking at the end of Venisin’s vine, like a centrifuge moments away from coming apart. Venisin spent a moment considering if an orgasm would help–the denial had definitely been ratcheting up the internal tension earlier–but figured that whatever was going on had probably sucked all the arousal out of Kira and bringing it back felt dangerous. Instead she quietly tapped the belt from random to off on her tablet.

Kira seemed to lose some of her jitter when they made it out of the Eteria garden. She was still shaking, but it didn’t seem quite as explosive. Instead Venisin felt her doing her containment breathing, the same she would do to try and process her distress from arousal. A little too quickly though–Venisin needed to get them to the nook before her pet began to hyperventilate.

They passed through a jungle biome, but neither of them really took in the sites. A quick look back had confirmed that Kira was staring off into space, seemingly not fully here. And Venisin was too busy worrying about her floret and planning her next moves to appreciate a sight she’d seen plenty of times before.

They found the nook, a copse of trees where a particularly large one had spread its above ground roots outwards creating a sort of tent.

Venisin sat her floret down and wrapped herself around her, ending up face to face. She started to move her vines to begin speaking and then stopped. Kira was still off in space somewhere. Venisin thought back to her reading on Terran psychology and put it together with what little she knew of Kira’s past in the military. This was starting to look like a flashback.

Venisin needed to ground her flower somehow. On instinct she took one of her stinger vines and ran it down Kira’s back, under her dress. To the floret it would feel like a knife, cutting down in a wave near her spine. Kira’s back instinctively shied away from the pain, but she pushed her body further into Venisin, rubbing her head against the vines cradling it. It wasn’t affection, it was need and a request for support.

Venisin answered just as wordlessly, by wrapping some extra vines around Kira’s head and torso and continuing the slow, steady, grounding pain from the vine on Kira’s back.

“It was… It was…” Kira struggled to find her words, “it was one of the worst days of my life.”

A shiver.

“We were– We weren’t powerful enough yet.”

Venisin said nothing, and gave her floret the slightest squeeze of encouragement, just around her left arm.

“Eteria. Mining revolt. They called in OCNI.”

A glance to the side, and Kira seemed to radiate shame.

“We were cogs. Young. Our intentions didn’t matter.”

Kira started spacing again and Venisin ran a second stinger down Kira’s arm until her pet started to relax again.

“I managed to hide two of them in a storage closet,” Kira spoke, her voice stronger now, “when we were supposed to be cleaning up the survivors. I–I have blood on my hands from the rest.”

Kira took a deep breath. Determination.

"And we did– we did eventually become powerful. We put a stop to it the next time. But I’ve never quite gotten past it that first time.”

Kira let out a sharp laugh.

“If only we’d been Affini.” She shook her head. “It would have all been so different.”

The smile disappeared as fast as it came, and Kira stared straight into Venisin’s eyes, face full of sorrow.

“She held me back then, you know?” Kira whispered. “Very similar to how you’re holding me now.”

Venisin’s little leaf looked down and bit her lip.

“She was so strong.” A choked sob. “I miss her.”