Page 77 of Border Control

But I want her as she was, vital, happy. The spark in her eyes has dulled, only flaring to life when we’re alone together, when we steal a moment from the grind of our days. Her aura reflects her exhaustion, flecked with spikes of steely blues and muted grays, shadows of the brightness I know lies within her.

All I can do is hope breaking the bond will solve all that.

Resolved, I nod and begin taking off my belt. She approaches and, despite my mounting concerns, my body responds as if conditioned to her nearness, scales yielding to her, yearning for her touch.

I get to my knees on the rough stone floor, gritty beneath me, and face her.

“Close your eyes,” Law-rah says, and they slide shut at her command. I want this. I want to get back to where we were. Because I need this, too. This… whatever we do together relieves my pressure, helps me find my way to equilibrium. If only there was a means I could help both her and Nevare. I'd endure a thousand lashes if they'd help me stabilize them both.

Law-rah drags something over my shoulder and my eyes shoot open. It has handfuls of little cloth strands with small beads of metal on the ends, sparkling in the beams of light creeping through the cracks in the shed.

“I think it’s technically a flogger, but it’s a play one,” Law-rah explains. “I’ve been practicing in between meetings.”

On another playmate? My jaw tightens to think of her doing this with someone else.

She chuckles. “Jealous, much? I mean on a pillow.”

The tails trail over the cap of my shoulder. I swallow hard, my cock already swelling to bursting from her nearness, mycrinisdesperate to break free.

She bends down to whisper in my ear. “I’m going to drag either this or my hands over your scales until you come undone. Then you’re going to open my pants and eat me out until I come. If I like your technique, I’ll do it again some more as a reward. If I don’t, I’ll do it again anyway as punishment. This is what humans call a win-win situation.”

I can hardly speak, my words breathless. “Yes, Law-rah.”

Her thoughts soften at her name, and at last gold shimmers across the bond. There, there it is, the intimacy we've been missing.

Keeping my eyes closed because of her order becomes hard. I want to see her face, see the expression there, know what it is that makes her light up like that.

“And, I’m also going to do this.” She stoops and picks up something from the floor, circling it so it digs around my upper arms and chest. My own belt cinches tighter.

“Is that acceptable?” she asks, voice softer. Her true self, something real in the play between us.

I open myself to her, baring all my secrets, opening up everything bar the chamber in my mental Euthanization Center. “Yes,” I say and affirm mentally. The added embrace of my belt is restricting, but not too much. I could flex and snap the plasfabric easily, but I don’t want to, and she knows I won’t want to.

‘Correct,’Law-rah says in my mind, her smile wry. And I can tell she likes it, the shimmer rising. She's really here with me, at last, finally!

She removes the gentle flogger, its whispers like soft feathers rather than the sharp drag of a real lash. A thin trickle of hot sweat trails down my scales. Silence surrounds me, the machine shed quiet, except for her breathing.

Her soft otherworldly touch glides over my scales. The contrast against the fabric of the flogger makes me jump, then lean into her hand. My scales ripple, heightening in sensitivity to feel her fingertips as they brush over my back.

She trails the flogger again, slower this time, letting it tease across the muscles of my chest. Each strand whispers along the edge of sensation, delicate as morning mist. I brace for impact that never comes, just this maddening softness.

Her hand.

Warm, bare, and sure, it glides over the same path. The difference is exquisite. Flesh against scale. She alternates between the two: fabric, then skin. With every switch, my breath catches in my throat, focusing in on her and only her, the world falling away.

This is what I need. She’s showing me what she can do—whatIcan feel—when I stop resisting.

“Breathe,” she murmurs, not commanding, coaxing. Her hand follows the words, stroking along my side, slow and deliberate. “Let it in.”

I do. I breathe. The air tastes like her, warmth and salt and something sharp beneath, like citrus and heat. I lose sense of time, of duty, of Nevare's distant hum. There's only this: her fingers drifting across my scales, the softness of the flogger, and the way I seem to be centering without pain.

The ripple of my scales deepens, flexing to meet her palm as if drawn by instinct. Need coils low in my belly, but it’s different from the wild, destructive urge that often threatens to swamp me. This… this is manageable. Contained. Pleasurable.

She drapes the flogger across my shoulders again and leans in close, her breath skimming the nape of my neck. “Still with me?”

“Always,” I rasp, surprised by the roughness in my voice.

Her hand slides down, firmer now. “Good. Then let’s keep going.”