| Status | inprogress |
| Tags | abuse, f/f, incest, nc, trans |
| Warnings | abuse, incest, nc, transphobia |
Well, you're back in your childhood bedroom again.
When you first moved out for university, you sort of hoped that you'd never live here again. You'd visit, probably, assuming Mom and Dad got cooler about certain aspects of your life, but when you hopped that first Greyhound out of here you really thought you were closing the book on that part of your life. Unfortunately, you fucked all that up, and now you're back here again, age twenty-two, moving back into an eighteen year old boy's room.
At least your mom seems to have made the room up in anticipation of your unwanted homecoming. The bed's neatly made, with those pressed hospital corners she still insists on, and there isn't a layer of unwashed clothing scattered across the floor - yet, that is; knowing you, it'll probably be a pit within a few days. You're so goddamn lazy, especially when it comes to doing those simple little things like putting clothes in the laundry basket that you know would make you feel better if you just actually did them.
You set your two suitcases down by the door. Of course Dad didn't offer to carry them up for you; he has no idea nearly two years of estrogen have had your body shedding muscle and packing on fat in all kinds of places, and unless things go really wrong, he's not going to have any idea any time in the near future. You shrug your well-worn backpack off, putting it down gently by the side of your old bed, and flop onto your back without further ado. The ceiling lights are almost painfully bright, but you can't be bothered to get up to dim them, so you lay a hand across your eyes.
Unbelievable. Three fucking years, getting through classes despite everything, usually by the skin of your teeth but getting through them just the same, only to fail out during the second-to-last semester. Well, you remind yourself - not fail out, exactly. You were "advised to take a leave of absence for a year", while you "got your health issues sorted out". Unfortunately, your "health issues" (the thought of how your mom would say that, the sneering tone, the almost-audible air quotes comes unbidden to mind) aren't actually fixable, and you aren't eligible for any more student loans at this point.
So, yeah. You almost did it, only to fuck it up right at the end. Pretty classic. Now the winter semester's wrapped up, and you're home, only you no longer have a dorm room to go back to, which means you're going to be staying here for the foreseeable. That promises to be a fun conversation with Mom and Dad. Part of you desperately longs to put it off; you could just not tell them anything's wrong until you're supposed to go back anyway, which isn't until January. Maybe you'll come up with something by then. Or maybe not. University always seemed a bit too good to be true anyway.
You head to the bathroom, lock the door, try to at least brush the worst of the tangles out of your hair. You've never really been great at taking care of yourself, but the last couple of weeks have been exceptionally bad. You can smell yourself. It's revolting, so you turn the shower on as hot as it'll go, strip your hoodie and ripped-up cargo pants and the old Thinkgeek t-shirt with the hole in it, and toss them into a pile by the door. You force yourself to look in the mirror. You hate seeing yourself, normally, but you deserve it. You make yourself take in your weird little breasts, your still-too-narrow hips, your total lack of an hourglass. You stare, for a few seconds, at your dick as though glaring at it angrily enough will make it vanish.
It doesn't.
Into the shower you go. It's too hot; the water stings, and splotches of red spread across your skin. You leave it too hot, squeeze some body wash out of a bottle, and start scrubbing. It feels like there's a thin sticky film all over you, and you can only get it off with your nails. After you've cleaned every part of yourself, you soak your hair, then - miracle of miracles - actually use some shampoo on it, too. Hallelujah, as Mom would say.
You step out of the shower feeling a little more human. First, your panties go back on - ratty old ones, plain whites that you've worn so much that they're nearly grey, and a bra you picked up at a thrift store as a freshman. Even when you dress male, which is something you guess you're gonna have to get used to now, you always try to wear underwear that's at least a little feminine. Your first (and so far only, and likely only ever) girlfriend got you into that habit.
You hope she's doing okay, wherever she is.
As you're finishing dressing, your mom calls you for dinner. You head downstairs, corralling your hair roughly behind your back; you don't want to actually tie it back, because it'll be too feminine, so you settle for leaving it messy.
When you first got home, Mom put on a good performance of being excited to see you, but the masquerade's wearing pretty thin at this point. You're pretty sure she never wanted kids at all - and after Ezra, you're almost certain she didn't want you - and the first time you truly saw her happy was the day you moved out for university. She sets a plate down for you at one of the empty spots at the dinner table; Dad's already seated, chewing away.
There's only one possible topic of conversation, which you've been dreading all day. The moment the mystery of how the bus ride went has been resolved ("fine", you say), Dad asks you how your semester went. You hate lying to them, but you really don't want to tell the truth, so you deflect: "fine," in a tone of voice that you hope indicates that you'd rather talk about, say, the inevitability of death.
It doesn't work. Mom has a better memory than you'd have expected for what classes you were in during the semester, and over the span of the meal you're forced to build an increasingly elaborate false version of how the last four months of schooling went. You somehow neglect to mention, during all of this, that your attendance got so bad that you had been forcibly dropped from three of your five classes before the halfway mark, and that your final exam grades in the remaining two would've caused you to fail both classes without the Dean's intervention. Of course, that intervention took the form of sending you away for an involuntary gap year, which you also manage to avoid mentioning.
It's fucking awful. You should just tell them now, get it over with; they'll be mad, but it's not like you can keep this lie up forever anyway, and it'll just be worse if they find out later. Unluckily for you, you're too much of a coward to just bite the bullet and say it, so you lie, and lie, and lie more, until eventually you manage to flee back to your room. You don't bother brushing your teeth; you just dump a trio of estradiol tablets under your tongue, turn the lights out, and curl up in your bed to wait for the day to end.
As it turns out, you can keep the lie up for about four days. It all falls apart just before lunchtime on a grim, rain-soaked Saturday morning. Your dad, returning from getting groceries, comes in holding a letter. You're at the kitchen table, most of the way through a bowl of cereal, staring mindlessly at your phone and contemplating wasting another day of your youth.
He tears the letter open, unfolds it, scans it. Looks up at you. In that instant, that little motion, you see it - the university letterhead on the paper, the logo on the outside of the envelope.
Oh, fuck.
"Hey, son," he says. "We got this letter, but it's uh... well, here."
He hands it to you. You take it, hands trembling.
Of fucking course your university uses your chosen name when communicating with you. Of fucking course they use it even on written correspondence. It's so inclusive! You loved it! And of fucking course they send it to your listed home address if you no longer have a dorm address, which you don't, because you fucking failed out, which is why your dad just read a letter, addressed to your chosen name, from your university, about how much of a screw-up you are.
"Uh," your dad says, face reddening slightly beneath his scruffy beard. "Says something about an involuntary leave of absence?"
You're caught. You briefly think about doubling down on your lie, maybe trying to pass it off like the letter's meant to be for someone else - it doesn't have your deadname on it, after all - but it's not worth even making the attempt.
"Y-yeah," you say. You can feel tears welling in your eyes. Don't cry, goddamn it. Boys don't cry.
Your dad just gives you this look, like he's not even mad - or like he is mad, but it's with himself, for expecting something else from you. He goes and fetches your mom, and the two of them sit you down at the kitchen table. You come clean with them, about failing classes at least. They ask questions about what happened; your dad just seems sad, but your mom gets angry, like usual.
"Why didn't you tell us?", she says, voice rising. "You just - you lied about all that? To our faces?"
You nod, miserable. You did, and you knew it was wrong while you were doing it.
Your dad picks up the letter, rereads it again. You can actually see the exact second it clicks for him, the way his eyes flicker right up to the top of the paper and fixate for a few seconds.
"Why's it addressed to a girl name?", he says, only it's not a question - it's an accusation. He shows the letter to your mom, who takes it from him, fingers so tight on the paper it starts to crumple. Now she looks like she's about to cry.
Your dad's expression hardens. "You a tranny too?", he says, almost spitting the slur at you. You can't say anything to that, can't think of any way to respond, so you just sit there, stupid and mute. Your mom breaks into full-on tears, and you can feel your own starting to roll down your cheeks too.
Your dad puts an arm around your mom's shoulders. "Get the fuck out," he says, voice low. "Get the fuck out! Goddamn lying little faggot!"
You run. Up to your bedroom, grab your backpack, stuff whatever clothes you can into it. Meds from the bathroom. That's all you have time for; they can keep all the rest of your shit, or burn it if they want. Whatever. You aren't staying here for one more second.
You slam the front door behind you on your way out, and you manage to make it to the end of the block before you start sobbing.
There's only one person that you know will have your back right now, and it's your older sister, Ezra. You call her, right from the corner of the quiet suburban street you called home until a few minutes ago, hands shaking so damn bad it takes you four tries to pick her out of the contact list.
She picks up after a couple of rings. From the sounds of it, she's at work.
"Hello?"
It takes you a few seconds to get your mouth to work. "H-hey. It's me."
You hear Ezra excusing herself from something, then the background noise around her fades. "I was in a meeting. Is it urgent?"
Well, it wouldn't be, except you have no fucking clue what else to do or where to go, and according to a quick inventory of your pockets you have a total of 73 dollars to live on. You feel a spike of guilt for interrupting Ezra's workday, but you just don't have any other ideas.
"I got kicked out," you say, softly.
"Oh, shit," Ezra says. "Uh. Where are you?"
You rattle off the name of the intersection from memory. You lived here basically your whole life and you could probably walk from one end of town to the other without a map. There's a brief pause, and then Ezra says:
"I can get you a bus ticket here. You can crash with me for a bit, in my spare room. You want me to do that?"
The sense of relief is so powerful it almost knocks you off your feet. "Yeah," you say, quietly, voice fogged with tears.
There's another pause, then Ezra says: "Alright, done. Leaves at... three thirty-two. I'll email you the ticket."
You exhale for what feels like the first time in an hour. "Thanks."
"Hey, no problem," she says. "See you tonight, I guess. I gotta go back to my meeting, but if anything comes up, just IM me."
The bus ride is boring; you spend virtually all of it either scrolling, chatting, or making futile attempts to draw, which you always find difficult even when you're not in a moving vehicle. You do manage to avoid crying the entire time, which is nice. The old woman sitting next to you smells powerfully of french fries and keeps giving you weird looks; you can't tell if she's clocked you or if she's just strange, but either way it's uncomfortable and you're really glad when they finally call your stop and you get to disembark.
By now it's past nine, pitch dark out, and rain's hammering the city pavement outside the bus station. You're just trying to figure out how you're going to get to Ezra's place without getting mugged (or just having everything you own soaked through) when a car honks from the pickup area. You look up, and what do you know - it's your older sister. She waves you over, and you slide into the passenger seat of her car, pathetically grateful for the extra unexpected ride.
"Glad you made it," she says, already pulling out of the parking area. "It's like ten minutes home from here. Oh, did you eat yet?"
You shake your head. You haven't eaten anything since the first half of a bowl of cereal this morning, but you aren't sure you could stomach food, anyway. "I'm good," you say.
"Alright. Well, let's get you home and settled. And, uh, welcome to the city I guess."
"Morning," Ezra says cheerfully, as she pulls the curtains of the guest room open, letting in a flood tide of morning sunlight. You blink, startled awake, and sit to gradually start rubbing sleep from your eyes. When you grab your phone from the bedside table, where you'd put it aside not all that many hours ago, the clock display reads 08:00.
"Wuh?", you say, still fuzzy-headed.
"If I know you," your sister says, "you'll stay up until all hours of the night and then wake up past noon, and I really don't think that's good for you, so - come on, up you get. If it makes you feel any better about it, I made coffee."
That does actually make you feel a little better. Just as you're about to get out of bed, it abruptly occurs to you that you're sitting up, and since you sleep naked, you're full-on flashing your older sister. She's politely pretending not to have noticed, but you immediately grab for the sheets and pull them over your chest, blushing furiously.
She may not have noticed your semi-nudity, but she certainly notices your abrupt movement. "Oh, come on," she says. "Nothing I haven't seen before." She turns and leaves, but as though making a little point about your prudishness, she leaves the door to the guest room wide open. You get out of bed, awkwardly holding the bedsheet around yourself like a college girl caught in her boyfriend's dorm room, and nudge the door closed so you can get dressed.
Once you're back in clothes that hide your body shape, you feel a bit more comfortable. You do have a case of bedhead that could probably represent your country at the Olympics, but it is what it is. You wish you'd gotten more than five hours of rest. You glance back at the bed, briefly considering just crawling back into it, but in your heart you know it won't work. Ezra's always been determined, much more of a fighter than you ever had the heart to be, and if you try to go back to sleep it won't even be ten minutes before she's back in here to drag you upright.
You sigh, hunt through your backpack for a pair of socks, and sit down on the bed to pull them on. It turns out that you have a total of three socks, not counting the ones you wore yesterday. You put two of them on and sit staring dumbly at the third one for a moment, while the reality of the fact that you left basically all your worldly possessions back at your parents' home starts to sink in.
You are now the proud owner of: one elderly but functional laptop, one Nintendo 3DS, one cell phone with a screen scratched to hell, two and a half changes of clothes, and about... three days worth of estradiol and spironolactone tablets. Fuck, you'd forgotten about that, too - you were going to somehow sort out a refill, but kept putting it off over and over and now you're almost out. Maybe Ezra will be able to lend you some of hers.
Just then, you hear Ezra call your name from outside, so you pad out into the living area of her apartment. It's way too bright, and everything's off-puttingly neat; it feels a bit too self-controlled, like some interior designer laid it out once and then Ezra just left it that way. Given how Ezra is, that could well be the case. It's crazy how clean everything is, too - even when you just had one half of a tiny shoebox of a dorm room, you couldn't keep it tidy, but Ezra's entire apartment, as far as you can see, is spotless.
Ezra herself is sitting at her kitchen table, dark hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, in sweatpants and a big t-shirt. Presumably those are her pyjamas. When she sees you emerge, she gestures at a ceramic mug sitting on her otherwise-spotless kitchen counter. You grab it - it smells divine - and take a seat opposite her at the table, cradling the mug in both hands, trying to get your brain going.
"So, uh," Ezra says, after a few moments of silence. "I wanna hear what happened, and about what you want to do next."
You tense. You two avoided talking about any of this last night, which you were profoundly grateful for, since you arrived basically feeling like every drop of emotion had been wrung out of you. Ezra seemed to just understand that without you saying anything, because she didn't pry at all, just got you situated in the guest room and said good night. Still, there was no way to avoid having this conversation forever.
Plus, she's your sister. Unlike your parents, she's not going to have any problem with you for being trans, certainly. When you two were kids she was always the one that was there for you, even though you're a full six years younger.
You decide to tell her what happened, and as soon as you start talking, you can't stop. It all spills out of you, ugly and raw; you're crying by the time you're finished. You tell her everything. School. Your body. Your total lack of any real friends. Your continuous problems with eating not enough, or eating too much, or eating the wrong things. Your body, again, but more. Your whole fucked-up life.
Ezra listens, and makes the right noises of sympathy at the right times. By the time you're done, she's on her second cup of coffee, and yours is empty in your hands. There's a small pile of used tissues on the table next to you. You feel pathetic, especially for laying all of this out in front of Ezra, who's also trans and also grew up with kinda messed-up parents but who turned out to have whatever it takes to carve a life out for herself anyway, which you obviously lack. The contrast between the two of you feels so damn stark right now; at your age Ezra had already finished university a semester early, a star student, an athlete, and was starting out on her actual career, while you're... well, you brush your teeth most days, let's put it that way.
After you're done crying it out, she asks the question you've been dreading:
"So what do you want to do about all that?"
You shrug. She might as well be gesturing at an egg you just dropped on the floor and asking how you want to get it back in the shell. You've pretty much ruined things.
"Alright," she says, after you don't say anything for a good ten seconds. "Well, here's the deal. You can stay with me, if you want, but - it's my house, so my rules. I want to see you on a decent sleep schedule, no messes left around, that sort of stuff, and I want you to either go back and finish school or find a job. Okay? You gotta be doing something, that's the rule."
You can't argue with that. What you actually want to do is nothing, or ideally just painlessly cease existing, but it doesn't seem like that's on the table. Besides, Ezra's probably right. You can't just lie around all day scrolling and gradually decaying - or, well, you can but you shouldn't.
You give her a shaky nod. "When - um, when should I get up by?"
"Think you can do eight?"
Sure, that's only five hours earlier than you normally get up, and only three hours earlier than the best you ever achieved when you were in university and had actual class grades riding on getting your lazy ass out of bed. Piece of cake. You swallow. You really don't want to say you can't do it. "I guess."
"Great," Ezra says, with a smile. "Do you want to try to go back to school? Or get a job?"
The idea of going back to university again makes you nauseous. "Job," you say, with not the faintest clue what job you're even qualified for. Something minimum-wage, probably. Who knows. Who cares, really. You want out of this conversation, and if possible out of this entire life.
Ezra gives you a look like she's reading your thoughts. After a couple of seconds, she says: "alright."
As expected, you do fuck-all.
On Monday morning, Ezra comes to wake you at 8:03. She gives you a gentle reminder that you might want to start making a list of possible jobs today, then tells you she's heading out to work and she'll be back around five. You skip taking a shower or eating breakfast, telling yourself you're getting an early start, then sit down at the kitchen table with your laptop, fully intending to make a list of jobs, only... you don't. You can't. You get as far as making a blank Google Doc and typing "Job Ideas" at the top, before the totality of how much you've messed things up hits you, and you end up spending the morning crying on Ezra's couch. Eventually, by afternoon, you've accepted that you just aren't gonna do this today, so you close the Google Doc tab and spend the afternoon aimlessly internetting, anxiety growing all the while.
That evening, she doesn't ask you how it went, doesn't ask to see your list - she just knows you didn't do shit, apparently, without you even saying anything. You can feel her disappointment while you two share a quiet dinner, which is also the first actual meal you've eaten today.
On Tuesday morning, Ezra wakes you at 8:01.
"C'mon hon," she says. "Just set an alarm. It's not that hard."
You show her your phone, with the alarms set for 7:45, 7:50, 7:55, 7:57, and 7:59. All five of them are snoozed right now.
"Just don't snooze them?", she says, manifestly baffled.
You can't think of a way to explain how hard getting up is that doesn't make you sound certifiably insane, so you just mutter "okay, I'll try."
You don't make any progress on your list of jobs that day, either. In fact, you only open the Google Doc once, and only for long enough for the expanse of blank pixels to overwhelm you. You close it again and spend the whole day playing some dumb web game you don't even enjoy.
That evening, Ezra offers to help. She's so painfully earnest, so clearly wants you to succeed, that it just makes you feel even worse. She's going so far out of her way to help you, giving you a second chance that a lot of people would kill for, and you're just... not doing shit, for no reason. You hate it, and you hate yourself. You shake your head.
The next three days are much the same; Ezra's gentle reminders get less gentle and more pointed. By Friday morning, when Ezra comes in to wake you, she rips the curtains open and flatly says:
"Get up."
Wincing, you do. You were up until about 3:30am last night, and you're still totally exhausted. You can already tell today's going to be another write-off, latest in a lengthening string of them.
Ezra doesn't wait around for you to dress, doesn't even tell you that she made coffee; she just storms out into the living area, and you hear her gathering her things and leaving for work. The quiet in the apartment after she's gone is horrible. Her frustration with you is palpable, although it's only a faint echo of your frustration with yourself. It's like watching yourself fail out of university again, where you know what you need to do, and it's so simple, but you just can't get yourself to actually fucking do it. It makes you feel like a crazy person.
That thought sends you into a descending emotional spiral, and you go back to bed a minute later. You stay there all afternoon and evening; Ezra gets home, and you hear her moving around the apartment, making herself dinner, and tidying up. She doesn't come to get you, and you don't go find her. You don't deserve to.
On Saturday morning, at eight am and zero seconds, Ezra comes into your room.
"Up," she says, flatly. You're used to this by now; you drag yourself upright. You were up way later than you should've been last night, obviously, and you also - oops - didn't eat anything. Damn it. Avoiding running into her in her own apartment is difficult, and it's been forcing you to skip eating dinner with her, and you've been doing a bad job of actually hitting any other meals.
Instead of leaving, Ezra glares at you, wrapped in the sheet off her guest bed. You blush under her gaze and look down at the floor. There's a moment while she seems to be considering you, the filthy clothes scattered on the guest room floor, the backpack lying against the side of the bed which you still haven't unpacked fully.
"Get dressed," she says. "We need to talk."
Oh, fuck. Here it comes. You're about to get kicked out of your second place in under a week, only now you're going to be actually straight up homeless, in an unfamiliar city, in winter. Fuck. Maybe you can find a shelter or something, although the idea of doing that makes it feel like there's a fist squeezing your heart. While you're panicking about that, your body goes through the motions of getting dressed. Ezra stands in the doorway of the room, arms folded, practically radiating irritation. Once you're decent, she leads you into her living area. There are two mugs of coffee set out on the kitchen table. You follow her in, moving like a sleepwalker.
"Look," she says, taking one of the seats and motioning you into the other. "I get that you have... problems, but I'm not interested in, you know - this." She punctuates it with a wave of her hand in your direction, which you guess is meant to indicate your sleep-groggy and thoroughly disheveled state, or possibly the larger situation of your complete failure to do anything with your life. It's hard to tell. The panic you've been trying to stave off is getting worse, and you find yourself physically cringing in your seat.
"So here's how it is. You have a week, from today. I want to see you actually up, without me having to drag you out of bed, every single day, and I want to see you eating and showering and keeping your room clean. I also want you to be applying to jobs. If it gets to next Saturday and you aren't doing that stuff, I'll buy you a bus ticket somewhere if you want but your welcome here is over. Do you understand me?"
What can you even say to that? Honestly another week to get your act together is more generous than you were expecting. You nod slowly, stomach churning with anxiety and guilt. So, basically, you have one week to somehow unfuck your sleep schedule, something that has been broken since you were about thirteen, and also get a handle on your eating, and also to somehow find and apply for jobs, which so far you've spent a week being totally unable to do.
So, really, you're pretty much guaranteed to fail at it, but at least you get another week in a comfortable bed.
Ezra gives you a long, slow, searching look. Her mouth is set in a hard line and her grip on her mug is so tight her fingers are starting to go white. "I'm serious," she says. "I... I worked really hard to get to where I am. You're my sister - hell, I mean, you're the only family I have left in the world - but I'm..." She looks down at her mug, staring into the dark liquid. "I have a bunch of the same problems that you do. In the brain, I mean. I can't like... have you around while you're just doing nothing. It's gonna mess me up too. You know?"
Yeah, you know. You had basically that exact conversation with Nat when she dumped you - she just couldn't handle being around you when you hit one of your low points. It doesn't seem like anyone can.
God damn it. You're starting to cry again. You wipe the tears away with the back of your hand, drink some coffee to try to distract yourself. That's a mistake; the bitter acid on an empty stomach just makes you feel worse. Maybe you deserve to feel worse, though. You drink a bit more.
Ezra eventually realizes you aren't going to say anything. "Go take a shower," she tells you. "I'll make breakfast."
You just about run into the bathroom, start the hot water, and slump in the corner by the toilet, clutching your phone. You can't handle this. There's no way you can handle this. You're fucked, completely fucked. You try to submerge yourself in scrolling Tumblr, in reading the backlogs of Discords you don't usually give a shit about, but it doesn't really help. Still, you sit there, curled up into a ball like a frightened child, trying your best not to think about anything.
Apparently you miss Ezra knocking on the bathroom door, because she pushes it open and steps inside, saying your name. She spots you in the corner, still fully dressed, and then realizes that you actually haven't showered at all.
"Oh my God," she says, letting out a frustrated sigh. "Give me that." She holds out her hand for your phone; you hand it to her, and she slips it into one of her pants pockets. "You can have this back later. Get up."
You do. Spots swim in front of your eyes. Wow, you really haven't been eating enough. You sway, reaching out to stabilize yourself against one of the walls with an arm.
She looks at you, eyes hard and contemptuous; her gaze flickers over your clusterfuck of a hairstyle, the thin layer of grime building up on your skin. She makes a face like she can smell you.
"Jesus," she mutters. "You can't even take a proper shower, can you?"
A tiny, pathetic sound leaks out of your mouth - something halfway between a protest and a whimper. You do know how to keep yourself clean, you want to say, but the words die in your throat. You stare down at your sock-clad feet, cheeks burning.
"For fuck's sake," Ezra says. She grabs you by the upper arm and half-drags you into the middle of the bathroom.
"Get undressed," she says. You look up at her, shocked; her expression shows you that she's completely serious. You stand frozen for a few seconds, while she just stares at you. Eventually, with trembling hands, you peel your t-shirt off and drop it on the floor. You can feel your sister's eyes on you, taking in how scrawny and pale you are. Compared to her, you really do look like a boy playing dress-up, especially in your boy clothes. You fucking hate it.
She folds her arms across her chest. "No clothes on the floor," she says.
You swallow, bend down to pick up your shitty old t-shirt, fold it neatly, and lay it on the bathroom counter. You glance over at her; she gives you an approving nod. She doesn't say anything else - just keeps watching you expectantly, mouth set in a grim line, forearms folded tensely across her chest.
"Uh," you stammer, hands on the waistband of your jeans. "Can - can I get some privacy?"
"No."
Your blush deepens. "O-okay," you say, voice small, and pull your jeans down. You fold them as well, and set them on the counter atop your t-shirt, earning another small approving nod. Ezra's expression is unreadable. You reach behind your own back and awkwardly fumble with the clasp of your bra, then pull your panties down with one hand while you use the other to cover your breasts.
Ezra pulls the shower door open for you. "In."
You step under the water; it's at the temperature you usually use, which is painfully hot. You stand beneath the water, covering your breasts and your crotch with your hands, trying not to look at her.
"Take an actual fucking shower," Ezra says. "Breakfast is going to get cold."
"Um," you say. "I... I can't, um... with you watching..."
Ezra rolls her eyes. "Yes you can. Come on, this is pathetic. Take the soap and put it on your body already."
You have to uncover your breasts to pick up the bar of soap, but it doesn't look like Ezra's interested in giving you any actual privacy, so you shut your eyes and just do it. With your eyes closed, your brain fills in a mental image of your older sister watching you judgmentally, taking in your protruding ribs and narrow hips and weird lanky too-slender limbs. You're used to being disgusted with yourself, but you find that the idea of Ezra being disgusted with you is even worse. It's like seeing yourself from the outside, from the perspective of someone who isn't a total fuckup all the time, and oh does it sting.
You get soap on some parts of you. Hopefully enough parts. When you turn the water off and get ready to get out, Ezra's still waiting there, watching you with the same stony expression. She's holding your folded clothes in her arms.
"Do you have anything clean left to wear?"
You blush again, freshly embarrassed. No, you don't; all your clothes are on their second or third wears since you last washed them at this point. You give a tiny shake of the head.
Ezra mutters something under her breath. "Wait here. I might have something in your size."
She leaves, taking your clothes with her. You pull a towel around yourself, shivering, avoiding looking at yourself in the mirror. After an agonizing minute of stewing in your own humiliation and shame, Ezra comes back, carrying a small pile of neatly-folded cloth.
"These were my ex's," she explains. "She was about as tall as you and pretty skinny so hopefully they'll fit." She hands them to you. It turns out to be a white blouse, a pale pink skirt, white tights, and a matching white set of bra and panties. It's... incredibly feminine, the kind of thing you've occasionally daydreamed about wearing, in some alternate universe where you could actually pass as a woman.
"Well?", Ezra says. "Get dressed."
Clearly, she doesn't intend to give you any privacy. You do your best to keep yourself covered with the towel while you dress, which doesn't work at all. At least everything fits you well, although the panties and skirt, both of which are way lighter than anything else you'd usually wear, don't hide your bulge nearly as well as you'd like. You risk a glance at yourself in the mirror, and you look - well, you look like someone who's been crying most of the morning and hasn't brushed her hair in days, but still. You do look a lot more feminine than you did an hour ago.
Ezra looks you up and down. You could swear that her gaze is lingering at your hips, taking in the mere suggestion of a curve the skirt creates there. You feel your cheeks heating, and to your horror your body starts to react slightly. The light skirt does nothing at all to conceal it, and you pray that your sister won't notice, but the way her expression twists tells you that just like usual, your prayers haven't been answered.
She turns away from you. "Come on," she says. "Breakfast, and then I'm going to fix your hair."
Come Sunday morning, you manage to get up on time. It fucking sucks, and you're on barely four hours of sleep yet again, but maybe your body's finally catching onto the fact that Ezra will just drag you out of bed if you try to sleep any longer anyway. Ezra's decided that "on time" is actually seven AM, which is a time you don't think you've ever gotten up at before in your life, but it's not like it's really any harder than eight is. Her reasoning, which you guess you can't really argue with, is that she wants to have time to make sure you're actually showering and eating before she leaves for work.
You aren't sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, it's really embarrassing to be a supposed adult and have your own sister micromanaging your life, but on the other hand, you clearly actually need it, given that you're struggling to do stuff like "brush your fucking teeth" that you were supposed to have mastered back when you were a kid. It's pathetic, but you feel weirdly grateful for Ezra helping you with that. It means she hasn't given up on you, which... well, you've given up on you, so maybe Ezra sees something you don't.
Ezra sends you off to shower and makes breakfast again. At first, you think you might get some actual privacy this time, but no - Ezra comes into the bathroom, without even knocking, and peeks into the shower stall, catching you midway through rubbing soap into your calf muscles. When you straighten up, she's watching you. You blush and immediately move to cover yourself; she just smirks at you and leaves. Your body, despite your fervent wishes to the contrary, reacts to that, which is so fucking embarrassing that you almost start crying right then and there. The fact that your sister, of all people, looking at you turns you on is another log for the fire of your self-loathing.
It would bother you a little less if you could hide it better. Unfortunately, Ezra took your boy-clothes away, and yesterday afternoon she bought you several sets of new clothes. They're a mix of skirts, blouses, and a couple of dresses, all in whites and pale pastels, along with several sets of tights and undergarments, also all in white. They're all so... girly, which you're honestly kind of fine with, except that a big part of why you even wear clothes is to hide the shape of your body, and these clothes really don't do that. The skirts Ezra got for you, especially, are short and light enough that you can't help having a visible bulge at your crotch, and the panties are too light for any kind of tucking. To make matters worse, whenever you do get turned on, it's so obvious that it's unbearable; all you can really do is sit down and cross your legs.
Once you're out of the shower, you brush your hair out and put it into a ponytail as best you can. Yesterday morning, Ezra brushed your hair out for you, firmly and not particularly gently, and that also turned you on, which was fucking humiliating. It's like after two years of no sex at all, your body's latched onto the fact that there's actually another woman anywhere near you and is trying to make up for lost time. You did your best to distract yourself, but the constant tugging on your hair, the weird mix of physical pain and someone actually caring for you, kept pulling you back into the situation and into your body. It was fucking awful, and you're going to keep your own hair as neat as you can so that Ezra doesn't feel like she needs to do that again.
After you've eaten together, Ezra lends you her spare winter coat, which you pair with your ratty sneakers, since you don't have anything else. Stylish. She takes you on a walk around the neighbourhood. At first it's nice, being out in the fresh air and weak winter sunlight, but it soon becomes clear what she's up to. There's a help-wanted sign posted in the window of a restaurant, and she drags you inside.
"My sister's here about the waitress job," she tells the hostess at the front. The woman, looking bored, hands you an application form and a pen. You fill it out, with shaking hands. Experience: None at all. Available to work any hours. No other commitments. You hand it back, and the lady scans it, then says the manager will call you in the next couple of days if they want you. Apparently that's it.
Ezra keeps going; over the next three hours she forces you to apply at a bakery, a coffee shop, and a bookstore. You hope the bookstore takes you - the manager's an old lady who seems nice, and it has a good, quiet feel to it which makes you think it might not be too stressful.
Your feet are aching by now, and even Ezra seems like she's starting to flag. She takes you to a chain restaurant and orders you a chicken Caesar salad without asking what you want. You open your mouth to object, but Ezra just shoots you a look, silencing you.
Once the waitress is gone, you say: "what the hell?"
She shrugs. "When you're paying, you can pick what you eat. Until then, you gotta eat healthy stuff."
You glare at her. She just looks amused, like you're a petulant little kid refusing to eat your vegetables. From a certain perspective, you suppose that's actually kinda true. You blush, embarrassed by the realization, and start fiddling with your cutlery instead of saying anything.
After lunch, you really want to go home and be alone. Ezra takes pity on you and walks you back towards her apartment, but on the way, she spots a convenience store that's hiring and pulls you inside. There's an older man, probably in his early fifties at a guess, behind the counter. According to his name tag he's the store manager. He smiles at you with nicotine-stained teeth.
"Hey," Ezra says, putting on her most winning smile. "My sister's looking for a job and your sign says you're hiring."
He looks you up and down; you can feel his gaze crawling up the insides of your thighs, lingering on the hint of a shape beneath your skirt that shouldn't be there. He takes his time assessing your chest, as well. You can't do anything but stand there, being studied like an insect under glass. Eventually, he grunts:
"She got any experience?"
You glance over at Ezra; her expression is calculating. "Nope," she says, "but she's a quick learner." She reaches for your coat and pulls it off your shoulders, leaving you shivering in just your blouse. You wish you'd worn a sweater or something over it. The blouse really doesn't hide much, and you're sure your bra is visible through it.
He looks you over again. From the expression on his face, he likes what he sees.
"Can start you tomorrow morning," he says. "Get here at eight for your shift."
Your stomach roils. Surely Ezra can see the way he's looking at you. She isn't going to make you...?
"Great," Ezra says. "She'll be here."
On Monday morning, you manage to get yourself up on time, and you drag yourself through showering and eating something. You were so anxious last night that you hardly slept at all, and now you're paying for it; in the bathroom mirror you can see the prominent dark circles under your eyes. Nonetheless, you do shower, because you know if you don't Ezra will make you anyway. Before you leave for work, Ezra fusses over you briefly, fixing your hair and neatening your blouse, then sends you off to work empty-handed, since you don't have a purse or any pockets to actually carry anything. You don't have keys to the apartment, either, so you're just gonna have to stay at work or find somewhere else to chill until Ezra gets back.
You arrive at the convenience store, and he's waiting for you. You can see him through the windows. You duck around a corner and swallow, trying to still your nerves. You really don't want to do this, but you don't really have a choice. You can just not show up, of course, but it's winter and you don't have anywhere else to go all day - plus you'll have to face Ezra when she gets home from work anyway. You briefly consider just running away, but all your stuff's in her place, so that's not happening either.
You force yourself to go inside. He greets you, introduces himself as Joseph, smiles at you again. It puts you in mind of a wolf trying to befriend a sheep. He starts taking your details to fill out some kind of form. When he asks your name, you give it; he grunts, then asks you for "your real name". You flush red, but you know what he means, and you say your deadname as quietly as you can. He writes that down, too. Once the form's all done and filed, he takes a blank name tag from a drawer, then prints a sticker for it. He applies the sticker, and hands it to you.
It's your deadname, then next to it, wrapped in parentheses and quotes, is your chosen name.
You don't cry. Your voice barely shakes as you say: "Um, can I get one with - with just my new name?"
He shakes his head. "Company policy," he says, but it's too smooth, there's no actual apology there. He's lying to you, you think, but what are you going to do about it? If you argue, he'll just fire you, and then you'll get to explain to Ezra how you lost your new job on your first day. You look away.
"Alright," you say.
He shows you how to work the register, how to stock the shelves properly, how to clock in and out. It's all pretty straightforward and you're already bored of thinking about it as he's explaining it to you.
"Break room's back here," he says, leading the way into a tiny, fluorescent-lit room, basically just a closet with a folding card table and a pair of chairs in it. You stand by the counter; there is nothing in the world you want less than to follow him in there. Unfortunately, he gestures for you to follow, and it turns out that there is something you want less, which is to get fired, so you go into the tiny room. In the small space, you can smell him, a mix of sweat and old spice. There's no way to stand far enough away from him to be comfortable. He leans closer to you; you step back, and find yourself in a corner.
"You know," he says, "you're pretty for a tranny."
What the fuck do you even say to that? Thanks? You say nothing, just press yourself as far into the corner as you can.
He stares at you for a couple more seconds, then blessedly backs away from you, turns to leave the break room. You exhale.
"Just do what you're told and you'll do fine," he says, over his shoulder. "Come on, you're on the register. I'll watch you for a couple hours, make sure you know what you're doing, then I gotta go check the one of the other stores."
You make it through your whole first workday. It's tolerable. You quickly come to fucking hate Joseph, who seems to think you're a huge idiot and keeps explaining obvious stuff to you over and over, although honestly you'd be able to handle that if he would keep his hands off you. He keeps moving around behind you, brushing past you, touching you in these little ways that aren't big enough to complain about but that make your skin absolutely crawl. You really, really wish you weren't wearing this little pink skirt. Maybe you'll ask Ezra if you can have some of your jeans back, at least.
When you get back to Ezra's apartment, she's already there, and you can smell something cooking. She meets you at the door and surprises you with a hug.
"Congrats on your first workday! How'd it go?"
She seems so excited for you, so proud of you, that you can't bear to actually complain to her. "It was fine," you say. "Boring."
"Yeah," she says. "I'm not surprised, it's just minimum-wage stuff. Still, I'm glad you got something so quick. Now you just have to stick with it."
You hate that idea. That night, you dream of the stink of nicotine and sweat.
You make it three days. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - you get yourself up, you shower, you eat, you go to work, you do your stupid fucking job. On Tuesday Joseph's not even there, just some guy around your age who comes to work already stoned and sneaks off every thirty minutes for a smoke break. You forget his name. At least he doesn't touch you, or indeed seem to notice you at all. On Wednesday, Joseph's there again, and he lays his fucking hand on your hip when you haven't even been at the register ten minutes. You try to pull away from him, and he comes up behind you, pressing himself against your back; you can feel his arousal. You freeze, full on deer in headlights, and he presses his face into your hair and inhales it. "You smell good, girl," he says, as he goes back to restocking the shelves.
On Thursday morning, you can't fucking do it any more. You're sitting on your bed, wearing your stupid convenience store apron over your skirt and blouse, thinking about facing Joseph again. You can't. You also can't face Ezra, so you leave the apartment like normal, but as soon as you're out of sight you strip off your apron, ball it up, and toss it into a city garbage can, along with your horrible fucking deadname name tag. Good riddance. You spend the day at the library and lie to Ezra about work that evening.
On Friday, you pretend like you're going to work again; Ezra doesn't notice that you aren't wearing your uniform apron. You spend the way anxiously walking around the city and hiding at the library again. There's a big problem, though, which is that you're supposed to be getting paid today for your first week of work, only you're not going to, since you've more or less quit by default at this point. You are also sure as hell not going back to ask Joseph about getting paid for the three days you did work. You can't really think of anything to do about it, so you come home at the normal time, as though you had worked. Ezra's made a special meal to celebrate your first week of full-time employment. The food tastes like ash in your mouth.
She tells you she's proud of you for getting things together, and that's what cracks you.
"I... um," you say, twisting your hands together in your lap. "I have to tell you something."
She sets down her fork. "Yeah?"
"I actually quit on Thursday. My boss was making me really uncomfortable."
Ezra's brow furrows. "You said you were at work yesterday and today?"
You don't say anything, just look down. You can't meet her gaze. "Sorry," you eventually whisper.
"I... I can't fucking believe you," she says, voice rising slightly. "This is fucking nuts. I'm just trying to help you, you won't do the smallest goddamn thing for yourself without me looking over your shoulder, and now you're lying to me? What the fuck?"
"I'm sorry," you whisper again. You can feel yourself starting to cry. You should've just told her on Thursday, or - really - you should've just stuck it out. You can put up with one gross old guy if it means having a place to stay. Other people have to put up with a lot worse. You're so goddamn fragile.
Ezra's voice is louder, so harsh it makes you flinch. "Fuck you!", she says. "I can't believe you lied to me. What do you want me to do now? Do you want me to just kick you out?"
The idea fills you with terror, paralyzes you. She could send you out on the street right this second, to freeze to death or whatever in the chilly winter night. You'd deserve it. You say nothing.
She pauses for a couple of seconds, as though collecting herself, then says, in a low voice, threaded with rage: "Get on your fucking knees."
You're stunned, unable to react, but luckily your body does it for you. You slip off the chair, onto the tiled floor of her kitchen. It hurts to kneel on. You deserve it.
"Over here," she says, pointing to the floor right in front of her. "Now."
You crawl over to her, eyes on the floor. You can't stand to look at her. Please, God, you think. Please don't kick me out. Please.
"Give me one good reason why I should let you stay. One!"
You're almost out of your mind with panic now. "Please," you croak out. "I don't have anywhere else to go."
"Well, you sure aren't fucking acting like it," she snaps. "Do you really want to stay here? I mean, really?"
You nod. "I'm so sorry, Ezra," you whimper. "I'll do anything. Please."
She grabs you by the hair, forces you to look up at her. She looks furious. You want to cringe away - you can't handle her looking at you like that - but she won't let you.
"You gotta earn your keep," she says, "and if you can't hold down a job, you gotta do something else for me. Unzip my jeans."
"W-what?"
She slaps you, hard, with no warning; stars explode across your vision. "You fucking loser," she says, venom dripping from the words. "Unzip. My. Jeans."
Your hands are shaking so fucking bad, your head's spinning from the slap. It takes you a couple of tries but you manage to do it. Ezra grunts, tugs her jeans off her hips slightly; her dick, already obviously hard, is visible beneath her panties. She tugs her panties to the side, and it springs free.
"You know what to fucking do," she says.
You do, but you're too paralyzed with fear to actually do it. She jerks your head roughly forward, still holding you by your hair. You part your lips, take the head into your mouth. You can taste her pre-cum already gathering there, musky and salty.
"That's it," she murmurs. "Now suck. If you aren't gonna work, then you have to be worth keeping for something else. Show me you want to stay."
You do your best. You're trying not to cry, mostly unsuccessfully. Ezra just holds you by the hair, grip punishingly strong and painful, and fucks your throat. Soon, she's groaning in pleasure, building a pace; you're doing your best to just hang on and avoid either biting her or being choked unconscious.
"Oh, fuck," she growls. "Get that tongue working, girl." She slows her pace, and you try circling your tongue around the head of her dick; she bucks her hips slightly and you feel her throb in your mouth. "That's it," she murmurs. "Just like that."
Mercifully, it doesn't take long. After a few more minutes, your sister tips her head back, moaning in pleasure as her seed floods your mouth, hot and sticky. She's still holding your hair in a vice grip, keeping you from moving your head at all.
"Swallow it," she says, looking down at you, eyes dark and hot.
You obey her.
"That's it," she says. She lets go of your hair, which makes you gasp in relief, and then her hand's on your throat, surprisingly gentle. "That's a good girl," she goes on, tension visibly ebbing from her. You aren't sure what to do, aren't sure if you're allowed to move or even say anything, can't taste or smell anything but her. You just look up at her, through a fog of tears. Apparently she can tell what you're thinking, because she says:
"You can stay for now."
You don't remember how you got from there to your bed. You spend the next several hours "sleeping", in the form of short stretches of unconsciousness followed by awakening gasping for breath in sweat-soaked sheets. Every time you shut your eyes, you feel the slap again, see that look in your sister's eyes, taste her in your mouth. The memory won't let you be; a toxic mix of shame, disgust, fear, and what you're eventually forced to recognize as arousal. You hate it, and you can't stop thinking about it.
By the morning you're nearly out of your mind. You hear Ezra getting up and starting her morning routines, and all you can do is hide beneath your sheets, praying she'll leave you be. You hear her footsteps approaching the door, and a tiny whimper slips out of you, but then she pauses and walks away again without entering. After an interminable wait, you hear her leaving, and the apartment is silent.
You know she's going to be at work for several hours, but it's still impossible to relax. You can't stop thinking about her slapping you. Your parents, for all their profound shittiness, have never actually laid a hand on you. There's also... what she made you do after, which you still can't stop fucking replaying in your head, and which your fucking body still won't stop responding to. Something must be seriously, deeply broken with you; among all the other things, you have a pretty strong piece of evidence, which is that you're actually considering whether you should leave or not.
Fuck it. For the second time in two weeks, you shove some of your stuff in your backpack and hoist it onto your back. You have no idea where Ezra put your boy clothes and you aren't going to waste any time looking for them, so you shove a couple of the girly outfits she got you in there instead. Before you have time to think about it too much, you walk out the door of her apartment and don't look back.
It's Saturday morning, chilly but not actually raining. You jog a few blocks away from the apartment building, until you start to get winded and also feel like you've gotten enough distance. You step into the lobby of an office building, which is at least a little warmer, and sit down as though you're waiting to meet someone. Okay. You need a plan now. You have the same 73 dollars you left your parents' place with. You have an ID, in your deadname. You have your laptop, your 3DS, your phone. You have some clothes. You have... oh fuck, you have no estradiol or spiro left. Well, one problem at a time.
You dig out your phone and start looking for places to sleep. You literally do a web search for "homeless shelter near me", which is a new low point, even for someone who's screwed up their life as much as you have. There are a few shelters for women and families in the city; you pick one that's about a half-hour walk away. That can be your first stop. Of course, that isn't going to help in the longer term; you're going to need a job and a real place to stay. You won't be able to get a place without a job, so the next step has to be a job. You start searching again.
"Excuse me?"
You look up; it's a dark-skinned man in a navy-blue suit, very clean-cut, shoes polished. "Do you need assistance?"
You catch sight of an ID badge hanging off his belt; oh, he's a receptionist.
"Uh, no, sorry," you say, stumbling to your feet. You really wish you'd showered this morning, or at least brushed your teeth. You swear you can still taste Ezra. You hurry out of the building, pulling your ratty jacket tight around you against the cold.
The shelter's a grand old stone building that looks like it used to be a bank or something, all columns and marble out the front. It's definitely not what you expected. You make your way inside, unsure what the heck you're doing or whether you're even allowed in. There's a reception desk just inside, with an old lady working on some paperwork. You approach, hesitant. She doesn't seem to notice you, so eventually you say:
"Hi?"
She looks up abruptly, apparently startled. "Oh! Sorry, didn't see you there. Hello, and welcome to the Riley House. What can we do for you?"
"Um," you reply. "I... need somewhere to stay."
"Ah, yeah," she says, and her expression turns sympathetic. Your heart lifts a little. She asks you a few questions about yourself, and then finally comes the one you've been dreading. She blushes slightly as she says it, voice lowered so nobody will overhear:
"Are you transgender, dear?"
You blush deeply. "Y-yes."
"Oh," she says, and her face falls. "Um. I'm really sorry about this, but the church doesn't - um. We... we can't offer you accomodation. I'm so sorry."
You feel tears prickling in the corner of your eyes. "Okay," you say, almost in a whisper. "Can you - could you point me somewhere I might be able to stay?"
"I'll have a look," she says, and turns to her computer. "Would you like something to eat while I'm checking?"
You shake your head; it feels like you already have a ball of ice in your stomach and you're sure you won't be able to keep anything down.
She spends a couple of minutes looking, then gives you a grim look. "So there are three shelters in the city that take LGBTQ" - she says the acronym like it's new to her - "adults, and I'm afraid all three of them are listed as full tonight. It's been a rough winter and space is running pretty low. I'm... I'm sorry. I really wish we could help. Um. I - I hate to say this, but there is a men's shelter not too far away that I bet will -"
"Thanks," you say, cutting her off. Your brain has already sketched out an idea of what spending the night in a men's homeless shelter would be like, and you'd prefer to simply jump off a bridge instead. You'll take your chances with the cold. You turn and run outside, to the end of the block, and make it around the corner before you slump down against the wall of the shelter to sob.
Eventually, the cold starts to hurt more than your feelings, so you haul yourself up. Your stomach clenches, reminding you of how little you've eaten, but you're still so nauseous that you don't want to eat, so you decide to walk instead. You wander the city aimlessly, more for the movement to keep your blood moving than for anything else. The mood in the air is distinctly bleak; it feels like the city itself is huddled against the cold, and people on the street hurry past you, hunched into their coats. The wind picks up, biting through your thin tights and your torn jacket, and you start shivering even though you're walking.
Your phone rings. It's Ezra. You ignore it, put your phone on silent, and jam it back in your pocket.
It gets worse when the sun goes down. The streetlights cast deep smudges of shadow into every alleyway, and your anxiety fills all manner of things into the blank spaces. You turn a corner onto a quieter street, still wandering aimlessly; there are a handful of homeless folks sleeping here, in doorways where they can get at least a little bit of shelter from the wind. That'll probably be you soon. You wish you had a proper coat, or a blanket at least.
You sit down on the curb to try to figure out what to do, but you're drawing a blank still, and after a few minutes you're so cold that your butt is starting to go numb from contact with the ground. It's clear that if you try to sleep outside overnight you're going to freeze to death, but there's nowhere else you can go. Despairing, you pick yourself up again, ignoring the building ache in your calves and the fact that you can't really feel your toes any more, and keep walking. Maybe you can just walk all night, and try to sleep in the morning when it's warmer?
By 9pm you understand how futile that plan is. You just don't have the stamina, or the energy, or even the will to live. You consider just lying down and letting the cold take you - but you aren't going to do that. There's some spark, something still burning deep inside you, that won't let you give up yet. Instead, you find the first all-night restaurant you can, which turns out to be a McDonalds, and part with a few of your precious dollars.
You're so hungry, body absolutely starving for calories, that you manage to eat an entire box of chicken nuggets. It's the most food you've eaten in one meal in... weeks, easily. You immediately feel sick to your stomach, but you sit in the booth, willing yourself to keep it down. You can't afford to waste the food by throwing up. To distract yourself, you check your phone again, although you're trying to save your battery; you have seven missed calls from Ezra, and two voicemails. You don't listen to them.
An hour passes, then another. This late at night, there's almost no customers. It's just you, two homeless people - two other homeless people, you remind yourself - sleeping in other booths, and a pair of McDonalds employees, both younger than you and looking incredibly bored. Nobody pays you any attention at all. You sit, waiting for nothing. You think about giving up again. It'd be easy. It probably wouldn't even hurt. They say it doesn't, when you get hypothermia - that you just feel a kind of confused euphoria and then you drift off into permanent sleep. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
At five AM, by your watch, the McDonalds employees are replaced by new employees, one of whom, an older guy who is shockingly officious for someone who works at a fast food restaurant, immediately tells you and the other two homeless folks to get a move on. You don't bother arguing with him; you just shoulder your pack and head outside. You start walking, more to stay warm than anything else, and it's only a few short blocks to the waterfront. You lean against the railing in the frigid pre-dawn, looking out over the expanse of black water, and think about just slipping over the railing and letting everything go. You stand there until you're so cold that you've stopped shivering, wrestling with that idea. You shrug out of your backpack, set it on the ground next to you. If you're gonna jump, there's no reason to take your laptop and stuff with you. You climb onto the railing. You look down; it's so dark that the water below you is invisible, and it's like you're standing above the void.
Fuck this.
You ran away because you were afraid. That's what it was, really. The realization hits you, and right behind it comes a second realization: living with Ezra won't kill you, but living on the street will. Heck, you like Ezra. She's your sister. If you love anyone, it might even be her. Until yesterday night you were even... well, not happy exactly, but comfortable there. Maybe you can be comfortable there again. If you can keep from making her mad, she's really pretty nice to you. You just have to be good, do what she says, and you'll be fine. That's all there is to it.
You climb back down off the railing, you shoulder your pack, and you turn to walk home.
The door to Ezra's apartment is locked, so you have to knock. It takes you a couple of minutes of pacing back and forth in the hallway to gather your nerve. You feel like such a fucking idiot for even leaving in the first place. Like, in hindsight it's incredibly obvious that living with Ezra is better than being literally homeless. You just have to keep that in mind, and again, if you do what Ezra says she's nice to you. It's really not that difficult.
You knock.
A few seconds later, Ezra pulls the door open. She looks like absolute hell; she's clearly exhausted, doesn't look like she's showered, and her hair's a complete mess. She's wearing sweats and a big t-shirt again. Despite how disheveled she is, the instant she recognizes you, her face breaks into a smile.
"Oh, my god!", she says, and rushes forward to pull you into a hug.
"Uh, hey," you reply, not sure what to do. You return the hug gingerly.
"I was so fucking worried," she says. "You left, and I - oh, you're so cold! Come on, let's get you warmed up."
You're numb, shocked. You were expecting her to be angry with you, or - or something. She mostly just seems relieved. You let her lead you back inside and take you into the bathroom. She turns the shower on, so hot the cubicle starts filling with steam, then turns to look at you again.
"Where did you go? What happened?"
You explain your last 24 hours. You leave out the whole thing with standing by the water. It feels pathetic, and you cringe thinking back on it. A single fucking night outside and you were craving death, while there are people out there with hard lives and real problems, not spoiled fucking overgrown kids who just don't want to do any real work. A wash of shame fills you. You want to go to sleep. Instead, Ezra pushes you into the shower. You stand under the hot water until the cold seeps out of your bones, and when you get out, Ezra offers you a set of actual pyjamas. They're soft, and warm, and feel great on your skin. They're pink. She watches you dress; you're too exhausted to bother even asking for privacy.
After that, Ezra forces you to eat some toast and drink some tea, then sends you to bed. You're asleep the moment your head hits the pillow.
When Ezra comes to gently shake you awake, the sun's high in the sky. According to your phone, it's just about noon, and you've been asleep for nearly six hours. You do feel a little less exhausted than you did before.
"How're you doing?", she says, all concern.
You mutter something noncommittal. You'd like to sleep more, you guess, but mostly you just feel empty. You wish life would stop for a week or so at least, just to give you some time to catch up and process everything that's happened.
"You should probably get up," Ezra says. "Don't want your sleep schedule to get too screwed up."
You don't bother pointing out that your sleep schedule is always screwed up; you just get up, still wearing the soft pink pyjamas she gave you. She takes you by the hand and leads you into the living room, where there are a pair of steaming mugs of coffee sitting on the end table. She sits on the couch, and gestures for you to sit next to her. You do; she hands you one of the mugs. You sip it, savouring the warmth and your first caffeine in a day or so.
"I want to talk," Ezra says, "about what happened. Okay?"
You aren't sure what there is to say. You got emotional, got scared, freaked out, ran away, nearly killed yourself. Latest in a long string of fuckups. Whatever. You nod.
"So I... first off," she says, "I want to say I'm sorry. I feel really bad for - for what I did. I've been really stressed, trying to work my job, do all the cooking and cleaning, and help you get on your feet, and when I found out you lied to me I just... I saw red, I guess." She looks embarrassed.
You take her hand in yours and squeeze it. "No worries," you say. "I, uh. I shouldn't have lied to you like that, and I - I get why you were mad at me. It's okay."
Ezra squeezes your hand back. "You scared the shit out of me, you know. I was so worried about you."
"Sorry," you whisper. God, you hate yourself. Ezra's trying so hard, putting in so much work to try to help you fix your shit, and you just turn around and do this, keep her up all night worrying about what her idiot little sister is doing. You can feel the tears coming again. You don't bother trying to hold them back this time.
Ezra pulls you into her arms and holds you. "It's okay," she murmurs.
"No it's not," you retort. It's really, really not. You would just like, for once in your whole life, to not fuck up a relationship with someone who cares about you. Just once.
There's a tense, painful silence, like Ezra's not sure how to react to that. Eventually, she says: "I did something stupid."
You look up at her, through your drying tears. "Oh y-yeah?"
Ezra pulls her hand away, crosses it across her chest; it seems like your big sister's curling in on herself. "I was just like... I don't know. Like I said, it's stupid. I was out looking for you last night, nearly out of my mind, and I - I walked past this pet store."
You blink at her, confused. "Okay?"
"I just... I was so scared, hon. I never want to feel that way again. So I - I got this."
She reaches into one of her pockets, pulls something out. It's a nylon dog collar, a very pale pink with a white plastic buckle and a metal ring on it. There's a little tag hanging off of it; you can see Ezra's name, phone number, and address printed there.
You stare at it. Words won't come. Ezra reaches for you, you feel the nylon lightly brushing your neck. You don't react at all. How could you react, even? How could you deny her this, after what you've done? There's a click, and Ezra takes your hands in hers.
"It'd... it'd make me feel better if you wore that," Ezra says, slowly. You pull one of your hands away, touch the edge of the nylon with a couple of fingertips. It's surprisingly soft. The sensation of having something around your neck like this is weird, but it isn't unpleasant.
You look back at Ezra; her expression is concerned and you can still see the faint signs of stress on her face. You hate that - you hate that you made your sister feel that way. You'll do whatever it takes for her to feel better. She's already doing so much for you, and if you wearing a collar with her name and address on it makes her feel better, then you'll do that.
"O-okay," you say, voice unsteady.
Ezra leans close to you, pulls you back into a hug. "Thank you," she murmurs. She lets out a long, deep sigh; you can feel her muscles uncoiling. You wish you could do the same. She lets go of you and leans back, assessing you.
"It does look cute on you," she says, giving you a small smile. You blush and look away from her; you can't deny that you've thought about it in the past, although you obviously never imagined Ezra would be involved.
"Can I just..." Ezra reaches for you, fingertips trailing along your jawline. Your skin's surprisingly sensitive there, smooth just after your post-shower shave. Her fingers find the edge of the new collar and linger on it. "Um. Can you do something a little weird for me?"
If it means getting to stay, you'll do anything Ezra wants. You nod.
"Get on the floor, on your knees."
You do. It's strange, looking up at her from this angle. You lay your hands in your lap, and Ezra reaches out to touch your new collar again.
"It really does look good on you," she murmurs. You blush more deeply, look away from her face. Your gaze lands on her lap; you can see that she's getting turned on beneath her sweat pants. You tense. She must be able to tell, because she says:
"Sorry, it's just - um. It makes me think of... yeah."
You swallow, suddenly nervous. The memory of her grip in your hair, her taste in your mouth, returns unbidden, and your stomach lurches. You suddenly feel horribly vulnerable, kneeling in front of her this way.
Her voice is soft, tentative. "I didn't mean to be that rough with you. I just... I got excited. You're so - sorry, it's all fucked up in my head. I was so turned on, and I wanted to make it good for you, but then I - well, yeah. I'm sorry."
What are you even supposed to say to that? "Okay"? "Thanks"? You can't find any words. You want to get off your knees, but Ezra told you to get down, and when you think about disobeying her, you remember the sharp, stinging pain of her slapping you. Fear of that pain stills your muscles, and you kneel there, waiting.
Ezra takes your silence, your lack of objection, as encouragement. "You want to try again, don't you?"
Your mouth's dry. You absolutely do not want to try again, but even more than that, you don't want to say no to Ezra. You're aware, more than ever before, that you won't survive without her - that you can't handle life without your big sister protecting you. If this is what it takes to earn that, then this is what it takes. You give a shaky little nod.
"I need to hear it, hon," she says, fingers finding your collar again. Your skin's alight where she's touching it.
You swallow. "I - I want to try again," you manage.
"Good girl," Ezra says, brightly. "Here. We'll go slow. Just listen to me, I'll tell you what to do, and I promise it'll be so much better for you. Okay?"
"Okay," you whisper.
Ezra pulls her sweat pants down, relaxes into the couch. She's fully aroused, cock jutting out from between her spread legs. She doesn't grab you by the hair this time, doesn't hit you - she just guides you with her voice, encouraging you and correcting you and stroking your hair gently. You try hard to listen and be good for her.
"Shut your eyes," she murmurs, voice breathy, only half-there. You obey, focusing on keeping your tongue moving just the way she told you to. She doesn't taste bad, really - salty, vaguely musky, but not unpleasant. If this is what Ezra wants from you, this petting and gentle coaching and use of your mouth, then maybe things won't be so bad for you.
She moans softly, draws most of her length back out of your mouth, and you feel her cum flood into your mouth again, hot and sticky on your tongue.
"Open up," she says, almost panting. "I want to see."
You do, although you can't imagine it's an appealing sight. After a few seconds, Ezra says, in a slightly more controlled voice: "swallow."
You do.
"Good girl," Ezra says again, hands slipping down to your new collar. "You can open your eyes. That wasn't so bad, was it?"
You shake your head. It wasn't. As life experiences go, you'd put "giving your sister a blowjob" above a lot of other things that have happened to you, and it's very much worth it to have a place to stay.
"Plus," Ezra says, picking up her phone. "Look how cute you are!"
She turns her phone to face you; it's showing a photo of you, kneeling, collared, eyes closed and mouth open, a pool of obviously fresh seed on your tongue.
Ezra lays back on the couch, shutting her eyes, clearly relaxed and happy. You swallow, and swallow again, trying to clear the sticky feeling from your mouth. You mostly don't succeed.
"That was nice," she murmurs. "Really nice. You're good at that."
You blush, lowering your head. You feel a flicker of... it has to be pride, right? You're not good at anything, never really have been. All through school you were an average student or worse, you never did any sports or anything, and you have no hobbies except making feeble attempts to draw, which you're objectively still awful at. You can't even remember the last time anyone that wasn't Ezra said anything positive about you, actually.
She pets your hair gently, pulling her sweatpants back up. "Go change into some proper clothes. I'm gonna take you out shopping. You should have some outfits that really fit you, and we should get some foods you like too."
You go to your room and strip off the pyjamas. You're about to drop them on the floor like usual, but then you remember that Ezra doesn't like when you leave messes. You don't like it either, actually; having a mess around always makes you feel worse. You've just never actually cared what you like or dislike before. The fact that Ezra cares seems to matter more, somehow. You're still chewing on that thought as you dress - white panties and bra, darker pink skirt, pale pink blouse, white knee socks. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the vanity mirror, and you're surprised by how... girly you look. You're still you, obviously, with all your normal flaws, but dressing more femininely makes you actually look more feminine. It's obvious once you think of it that way and you feel kind of stupid for not thinking of it sooner. Of course you'll feel more feminine if you dress more femininely. Even the collar, which still feels so strange on your neck that you can't stop being aware of it, seems to fit into the look.
You come back out of your room feeling a little better about your body, which is such an alien emotion that it's physically disorienting. When you looked at yourself in the mirror, even though it was only for a split second, you saw a girl. You've never actually seen a girl before. At best, at best, you've seen a boy in a skirt. It's... bizarre, and it actually lifts your heart a little, gives you a dim little sliver of hope that maybe one day you can actually pass.
Back in the living room, Ezra's also changed into outdoor clothes. When she sees you, she pulls you into another hug, and you're feeling good enough that you actually hug her back.
"You look great," she says, still holding you. You blush again. You look okay, at least, which is a lot better than usual. You still can't accept the compliment, but at least you can acknowledge that there's been some kind of improvement. You can maybe believe that Ezra thinks you look great, which is a nice thought as well. You swallow again; you can still taste her lingering in your mouth, and that summons the memory of what you were doing with her a few minutes ago back to the forefront. You flush, feeling your body responding to the memory. You didn't want to do it, although you definitely didn't say no, but it was... you don't think you've ever actually felt desirable to anyone before. That's what it is, you realize. Even when you were with Nat, she was never really interested in sex (although you were too shy to bring it up either), and apart from her, as far as you know nobody in your entire life has ever found you attractive. Ezra clearly does, and that's... yeah. You stop thinking about it, and just lean into the hug a little more firmly.
Ezra makes a small amused noise. She lets go of you with one arm, still holding you close to her, and reaches between you. Her hand flits between your legs, and before you can react it's resting on your half-hard dick. You squeak in surprise and try to pull away, but she's still holding you still. She giggles.
"Thought so."
Now you're really blushing. You wriggle out of her grip and wrap your arms around yourself. When you glance up at her, she's smirking, clearly pleased with herself.
"Relax," she says. "I was just messing with you."
You suppose she's right. You did overreact, and besides, you've already been a lot more... intimate with her than that was. She just surprised you. You smooth your skirt down, trying to will your body to stop. You've been getting turned on more and more often recently. Maybe tonight once you're in bed you can find some alone time to take care of that problem. You hate doing it, you usually feel disgusting after, but it beats getting aroused at random all the time. The idea of getting turned on in public is especially awful, if you're going to be wearing clothing this light. You'd better find some time this evening before you fall asleep.
Ezra pulls one of her coats over you; it's a bit too big, but when she pulls the belt tight around your waist you can tell it's at least going to be plenty warm. Your legs will be chilly no matter what in your thin tights, and your sneakers aren't going to be doing much for your feet either, but it's a lot better than nothing. Ezra looks you up and down and frowns.
"We're definitely getting you some proper winter stuff," she says. "Well, it'll do for now. Come on."
She leads you out of the apartment and down to the street where her car's parked. You climb into the passenger seat, fold your hands in your lap, and wait while she drives. You're empty-handed again, with literally nothing on you but the clothes you're wearing. It's a strange, vulnerable feeling; you're totally dependent on Ezra, and if she kicked you out of the car right now, you'd have nothing - no phone, no money, no ID, nothing. You shiver, despite the warmth of the car and your heavy coat. You'll do your best to make sure that never happens. As you're thinking about that, one of your hands finds the collar, still tight around your throat, with your sister's name on it. The solidity of it is reassuring, in a weird way. She wouldn't put it on you and then kick you out, would she?
Ezra takes you to a mall and drags you through a handful of clothing stores, picking things off racks, holding them up to you, and sending you off to try them on. At no point does she ask you what you think of anything - just how it fits, whether it's comfortable, whether the fabric texture feels nice. It's probably for the best that she doesn't ask since you know jack shit about clothes anyway. Gradually, you accumulate a long winter coat, some pairs of heavy wool tights, a pair of knee-high leather boots, and then an increasingly large pile of blouses, skirts, underwear, and even a few dresses. She does all the talking, and the salespeople just talk back to her, which makes you feel sort of like a dress-up doll that she's playing with. You've had worse feelings. Ezra pays for everything without batting an eye at any of the prices.
You return to Ezra's car with eight separate shopping bags, which is more clothing than you've ever purchased for yourself in your life. In fact, you think this might be more clothing than you've ever owned in your life. You arrange the bags neatly in the trunk, then Ezra drives the two of you to a big grocery store.
She has you push the cart while she leads you through the aisles, picking out foods. Again she doesn't ask your opinion on anything - just picks things out, working off a list on her phone, and places them neatly into the cart. Almost all of it is stuff you've never eaten and don't want to eat - lots of fresh vegetables, fruit, some sliced chicken breasts, oatmeal. You've always been an incredibly picky eater and annoying to cook for or otherwise feed, and you don't want to inflict that on Ezra, so you don't say anything. You'll try to eat whatever she gets you.
After she's done shopping, she tells you you can pick out any one thing you want. You aren't prepared for that.
"Um. What should I get?"
She frowns. "No, I mean - pick something that you like, something special. Eating healthy is important but having fun sometimes is important too, so pick whatever you want."
You stare blankly at her. Your diet normally consists of dry cereal, pop tarts, and canned soups. It's stupid, and feels very childish, but it's what your broken brain will let you eat.
She gives you an encouraging smile. Evidently you're taking too long to decide your favourite food, which should be a pretty simple choice for any sane person to make. "Ice cream?", she suggests.
You fucking hate ice cream. The last time you tried it the cold hurt your teeth and the texture made you so nauseous you almost threw up in the middle of the university cafeteria. Not ice cream.
"Pop tarts," you say.
"Alright," she says, smiling again. "Pop tarts."
She takes you over to the breakfast aisle and lets you pick out a box of your favourite flavour. You drop a single box of cinnamon roll flavour pop tarts into the middle of Ezra's cart full of real food that grown-ups eat. It's embarrassing. Maybe living with Ezra will help you learn to eat like a normal person.
Ezra picks the box up and looks at the nutrition facts, wrinkling her nose. "These are dessert only," she says. "Okay?"
You nod. Normally you'd eat them for breakfast, and maybe also lunch, but that's objectively stupid given that they're about 95% sugar. Dessert only.
Ezra takes you through the check-out line with her, and has you bag the groceries. The guy working the register keeps looking over at you, and it takes a little while for you to realize that he's glancing at the collar. You rearrange your coat slightly to hide it.
Once you're back in the car, with the groceries safely away in the trunk, settled back in the passenger seat, Ezra turns to you. She reaches over and pulls your coat's lapels back open so your collar's visible.
"Don't hide it," she says, firmly.
There's a tense silence. "Okay," you say, in a small voice.
"Good," Ezra says, voice softening a bit. "I... sorry, it's just like... a symbol that you're with me, you know? And when you hide it, it makes me feel like you... don't want that, and that hurts. Sorry. I know it's kind of fucked up, it's just... yeah."
You blush. You didn't want to make her feel that way - you don't know what it even means to be "with" Ezra, don't know if you want it or not, but you definitely don't want to make her feel like you're rejecting her. "Sorry," you mumble.
"It's okay," she says, starting the car. "I just get in my head about stuff sometimes."
"Me, too."
Once you get home, Ezra puts the groceries away while you run your new clothes through the washer. Apparently that's a thing you're supposed to do when you get new clothes. Ezra puts on some soft music and starts bustling around the apartment, singing quietly to herself while she tidies. You offer to help, but she tells you to just sit on the couch and rest. You obey her. It's... nice. It feels comfortable. Safe, even. You touch the collar again, like you're checking that it's still there.
Ezra finishes tidying and starts cooking dinner; you move your new clothes into the dryer. It's quiet, but not the kind of tense, ugly quiet you're used to living with, the quiet of an unexploded landmine. This feels calm, relaxed. Ezra hums along to her folk music while something sizzles in a pan on the stove top. She asks you to come into the kitchen and start washing the cookware she's using as soon as she's done with it. You do; it's nice to feel helpful, and this at least is a task you're pretty sure you can do a good job with.
You eat together, then clean the dishes together. It's still nice. You're starting to actually relax for the first time in weeks, maybe even months. Things might be okay for you.
"Do you want to watch a movie?", Ezra asks, after the kitchen's spotless. You agree. You like this feeling, this weird homey closeness you've had with your sister all afternoon, and you want to keep it for as long as you can. Ezra settles in on the couch and pats the spot right next to her; you take it, and she pulls you close to her. She's warm, and the scent of her hair, something light and vaguely citrus, is pleasant. She pulls a blanket over both of you and puts on a romantic comedy.
You don't pay much attention to the movie. Ezra's arm around you is distracting; her fingertips are drawing idle little circles on your shoulder, raising goosebumps on your skin. She's still holding you close to her, breathing soft and steady, and her warmth is starting to seep into you, too. You're normally cold, but under this blanket with your sister, you're cozy. You feel your eyes shutting slowly as you relax into the comfort. All the while, Ezra's touching you gently, the tips of her fingers just barely brushing your skin. It's heavenly.
The movie plays on; the guy gets the girl, or breaks up with the girl, or gets into a series of zany hijinks to get the girl back, or something like that. You aren't paying attention to it anyway. Ezra's still touching you. Her hand migrates from your shoulder to your collarbone, then to the hollow of your throat. You open your eyes slightly, glance over at her; she's watching the movie, just being idly affectionate. You don't want to bother her. You lie back, enjoying the warmth and the casual touch.
When Ezra's other hand touches your thigh, you draw in a sharp breath. Through the thin tights, you can feel how soft her skin is, how hot; she rubs your leg gently. You look over at her, and she's watching your face. As you're looking, you feel her gently stroking her way towards your inner thighs, up the insides of your legs. You're hard, and when she feels it, she gives you a shy little smile, as though she's surprised but pleased. You flush a deep red. She slips her hand beneath your skirt, beneath your panties, takes your cock in her hand, and squeezes gently. Her skin feels so fucking good on yours that you can't help a little sigh of pleasure.
"There," she murmurs. "That feels good, doesn't it?"
Your flush creeps down your neck. Your own sister's touching you, and it feels so fucking good. You feel a rising wave of shame as the reality of the situation hits you - that your older sister fucking raped you a couple of days ago, although you have to admit that you never really said no, and she's been dressing you up and playing with you like a goddamn housepet, and holy fuck, you're harder than you've ever been in your life, because along with the shame comes a powerful wave of arousal. You can still taste her cum in your mouth from earlier when she made you kneel in front of her and give her head, and now you're just sitting here and letting her touch you like this. Something must be insanely wrong with you.
"M-mhm," you whimper.
"Good girl," she purrs, and now you can feel that her hand on your throat's on your collar, fingers curled around it, holding tight. She yanks your panties down your thighs with her other hand, then her hand's wrapped around your little dick again, slowly stroking up and down. Maybe it's just that you haven't gotten off in more than a week, or that you haven't been this close to another woman in years, but her slow motions send sparks shooting through your brain, pleasure crackling along your nerves like lightning. You let out a pathetic little moan, and she tugs on your collar, tightening her grip so you can really feel the pressure on your throat. Oh, fuck.
Ezra tugs you closer to her by the collar, buries your face in her chest, and speeds up her rhythm. You've been on edge all day, and she smells so good, and the touch on your dick is just right. You don't last long. You let out a final squeak of pleasure, pressing your thighs together, and come for your sister.
"Good girl!", she says, excitedly. She holds her hand up for you to see; your cum is glistening on her fingers. She presses two sticky fingertips against your lips. "Open," she says.
You obey, and she shoves her fingers, slick with your cum, into your mouth. She orders you clean them, and you do. You taste much worse than she does. It's gross, really; the taste of your own cum makes you feel sick, but it's not like you can object with Ezra's fingers in your mouth, so you just do what you're told.
Once Ezra's happy with your efforts, she kisses your forehead. "I think it's bedtime for you," she says, smiling.
It's probably just that you've spent a few hours being not acutely terrified, but you sleep better than you have in quite a while. You still don't wake up on time, of course, but at least you manage to get some solid rest, and you feel more human than you have in quite a while when Ezra gently shakes you awake. She graces you with a smile, helps you out of bed, takes you into the bathroom, and tells you to undress. You do, folding your clothes neatly, and she unbuckles your collar and sets it on the bathroom vanity. "When you're done in the shower, call for me and I'll come put it back on you," she says. "Collar goes back on before clothes, okay?"
You blink, still half-asleep, but nod your understanding. The shower beckons, and soon you're under the deliciously hot water, letting it scour you. The past twenty-four hours have been a lot to deal with, and you're still processing the feelings, which seems to mean that every minute or so your brain will choose another thing to replay. Ezra holding a long white coat up to you to see how it looked against your skin. Her humming softly to herself as she cooked in the kitchen and you scrubbed a pan next to her. Her kissing your forehead once you got home from shopping. The hurt look on her face as she told you not to hide your collar. The feeling of her hand on you as she -
You flinch away from that particular memory. It did feel good, you have to admit that, but it's your - your sister. Your feelings about her are a horrible confused knot, sitting heavy in your stomach, and you don't want to even try to untangle them. Probably best to just do what you've always done with problems in your life and ignore it until it gets worse. You turn the water off, step out of the shower, get dressed, and go to find her in the kitchen; you can already smell breakfast.
When you come into the kitchen, she turns, confused. "You're - oh," she says, and you abruptly remember that you were supposed to wait for her to put your collar back on.
"Shit, sorry," you say, anxiety spiking.
She sets down the spoon she's using on the counter and turns off the stove. "Language," she says. "And apparently you already figured out what you did wrong."
"Sorry," you say again, cringing. "I forgot."
"Come on," she says, taking you by one upper arm and leading you back to the bathroom. She's tense, mouth set in a hard line; fear churns in your stomach. You really hate making Ezra angry with you. She drags you into the bathroom, where the collar you're supposed to be wearing is still sitting on the vanity. It was right next to your pile of clothing, and you can't believe you didn't see it while dressing yourself. That's you, though - fucking up even when it doesn't seem possible.
"Strip," she says. "Quickly. I still need to make us breakfast before I have to leave for work."
You nod, mouth dry, and pull your clothes off as fast as you can, piling them atop the vanity without folding them. She glares at them, then turns her attention back to you, now naked and shivering in front of her. You can see her hands at her sides clenching into fists, and for a horrible second you think she's about to punch you, but she visibly gets control of herself and folds her arms over her chest.
"I told you," she says, "to call for me, and I'd put your collar back on, before you got dressed. Remember? The collar goes on first and comes off last, and I'm the one that does it."
You nod. "I'm sorry, Ezra, I just - it's new, I forgot, I'm sorry. I won't forget again." As you're apologizing, you try to engrave the rule in your mind so you'll remember it for the future: collar on first, collar off last, Ezra does it. It's simple enough that even you ought to be able to follow it.
Her expression softens just slightly. She picks the collar up, pulls it around your neck, and fastens the clasp with a click. "There," she says, and you can see her tension fade slightly, although she still looks definitely unhappy with you.
"I won't punish you this time," she says, "because you're right, you're new to wearing one, but no forgetting again, okay?"
The rush of relief you feel is dizzying. Ezra picks up your pile of clothes, thrusts it into your arms, then turns and stalks out of the bathroom, headed back to the kitchen. You dress quickly, follow her into the kitchen, and take your seat silently at the table. She finishes cooking oatmeal and sets a bowl down in front of you. You've never liked oatmeal, but you do your best with it and manage to get a few mouthfuls down. Ezra doesn't pay much attention to what you're eating anyway, just wolfs down her own breakfast and drinks her coffee. Once she's done eating, she gets up, goes to her fridge, and starts writing on the whiteboard attached to it. Of course Ezra's the kind of person who has a little whiteboard on her fridge. After a minute, she puts the marker back, and says, "come here."
You do. There are four things written on the whiteboard: wash your sheets. wash, dry, and fold your clothes. dust living room. fresh towels in bathroom.
"Since you're not going to be at work and I am," Ezra explains, "these are your chores for the day. I want all of them done by the time I get home. Can you handle them?"
You look over the list again. You... can do all four of those things, yeah. Or, well, you know how to do them. Whether you can actually do them is very much up in the air. If you do manage to do four separate chores, that'll be more than you've ever done in one day in your whole life. Still, Ezra's telling you to, so you'll do it. You nod.
"Good," she says. "I'll be back around five. Give me a call if you have any trouble." With that, she pulls on her coat and boots and heads out to work, leaving you by yourself. You dump the rest of the oatmeal out of your bowl, tidy the kitchen briefly, then look at the list again. First stop: wash your sheets. You pull them off, toss them into the washing machine, and eventually manage to figure out how to get it started. Task one is going well! You go to gather up your dirty clothes as well, which have been accumulating in a basket in your bedroom, and put that by the washer. Task two started! You're on a roll; time to take a break. You sit down on the couch and dig out your phone.
By the time you look up, a couple of hours have elapsed. You go to swap the laundry into the dryer, and - ew, it's gotten mildewy. You put another cup of detergent in and run it again. Gross. You go back to the couch, back to scrolling.
This time, you notice the washer going off, swap the sheets to the dryer, and start your clothes. Progress! You decide to knock the easiest task off the list, and take a couple of clean towels into the bathroom to replace the existing ones. Smiling, you go into the kitchen and actually cross it off the board. First task done! You go back to the couch and dig your phone out once more. The thought's starting to nag at you: you still need to do the dusting, and you haven't even started it yet. In fact, you aren't really sure where Ezra's duster is. You chew one of your nails while you scroll, trying not to think about the fact that you don't even really know what exactly Ezra expects you to dust. You wish you'd asked this morning when she was here. You could call her, you guess, but she's definitely going to think you're stupid if you interrupt her at work to ask how to do a basic chore you've been given. Damn it.
The dryer finishes, interrupting your increasingly anxious Tumblr use. It's obvious what you should do at this point, which is just suck it up and call Ezra to ask, but for some reason you just can't get yourself to do it. She's going to be annoyed to be interrupted - you just know it - and you're going to feel like such a fucking idiot for having to ask. Taking your sheets out of the dryer is a relief, since you feel like you're doing something worthwhile, and once you have them back on your bed, they're so warm and inviting that you lie down on them for a bit.
Suddenly, you realize what you need to do, and pull up an honest-to-God YouTube video about how to dust properly. It's some middle-aged guy with a faintly southern accent showing you how to properly clean windowsills and baseboards and stuff. You learn what a baseboard is, too. You end up spending like an hour watching other cleaning videos, which is sort of like cleaning except totally useless. Oops. Well, at least you feel like you know what to do now. You dig around in cupboards until you find a duster - it's hanging on a hook with all the other cleaning stuff, which is admittedly the first place you should've checked, but what can you say, you're stupid sometimes - and start methodically cleaning off all the surfaces in the living room. After about half an hour, it looks pretty darn good, so you put the duster away and go to flop on your bed, feeling accomplished. The sheets are still a little warm and, flushed with the glow of recent success, you decide to take a nap.
The sound of Ezra getting home awakens you. You sit up abruptly, still feeling fuzzy from sleep, and you hear her taking her boots off and walking into the living room.
"Oh, wow," she says. "Hon? The living room looks great!"
You come out and greet her; she pulls you into a warm hug. "How did the chores go?"
"Oh," you say. "I did the sheets and the towels, and I -" Your brain grinds to an abrupt halt as you suddenly recall that you'd left your clothes in the washer, where they are still sitting, wet and probably mildewy. Oh, fuck. You forgot to finish one of the chores you told Ezra you'd do. Oh, fuck.
You pull yourself out of her hug, suddenly afraid. The urge to run into your bedroom is almost overpowering but you manage to stay. You twists your hands together in front of you, trying to get some kind of grip on your anxiety. "I - I forgot to finish the clothes," you say, in a small voice.
Ezra frowns. "How'd that happen?"
"I... I got distracted and didn't notice the washer finishing."
"And you went to take a nap without checking the list of chores to make sure they were all done?", she says, voice getting a bit louder. You take a step backward away from her, fear rising.
"I - I'm sorry, I just...", you start, not sure what you're even going to say. You're so fucking bad at everything. She gave you a list of simple tasks to do, the kind of stuff you could tell a little kid to get done, and you still couldn't do it. You take another step back.
"Don't run away from me," she snaps. She steps towards you; you try to back away from her further, stumble, and she grabs you. Before you can react, she has a hand around your collar, clenched into a fist. The crack of her other hand on your cheek seems to echo around the living room. "Don't you ever run away from me," she repeats, voice low and menacing. "Ever. Any consequences you're ever gonna get from me, ever, will just be worse if you run. Understand?"
You whimper. You've never seen Ezra this angry, never heard that tone in her voice before. You cringe away from her, trying to look away despite the fact that she's still holding your collar in an iron grip. She drags you over to one corner of the living room and shoves you into the corner, so that your nose is almost touching the wall. "You do not move," Ezra growls. You nod; you can feel yourself starting to tremble in the face of your sister's rage.
Ezra stomps into the kitchen, and you hear drawers opening and closing. A few moments later she comes back. She's standing just behind you, a couple of feet away, not touching. You desperately wish you could look at her - get some scrap of reassurance that maybe you haven't totally fucked things up with her - but you're sure that turning your head right now would only make things worse. You press both your hands against the walls to try to stop their shaking; it only sort of works.
Ezra pulls your skirt down and leaves it around your ankles, then does the same with your panties. You feel horribly exposed, and your trembling gets worse. From behind you, somewhere, Ezra says:
"You already tried to run once. If you do it again, this'll hurt even more."
You squeeze your eyes shut to hold back tears. Oh, God. You're really about to get it now. You clench the muscles of your exposed legs and butt, hoping against hope that Ezra will decide to be gentle.
She's not.
She's hitting you with the wooden spoon from the kitchen. The first blow sends a stripe of blazing pain across your butt; the second one, crossing it at an angle, is even worse. By the sixth one, you're bawling, fighting with everything you have to keep from simply breaking down and fleeing. Only Ezra's threat to hurt you even worse than this keeps you in place. You'd have lost count already, but Ezra counts the strokes aloud. You manage, somehow, to make it all the way to twenty, by which point your butt and the backs of your thighs feel like they've been beaten raw and bloody. You've been sobbing, too, and your face is a mess of snot and tears.
"I hope that'll help you remember for next time," Ezra says, voice still firm. "Really, it's not even that you didn't do the chores. It's that you told me you would do them, then you didn't. Do you understand why that's wrong?"
You whimper. "Y-yes," you manage, in a small, pained voice.
"Good," she says. There are a few silent seconds, then she says: "pull your panties and skirt back up. Punishment is over. I'll make us dinner; you re-run the clothes and finish your chores."
You stagger over to the washer, moving like you're in a nightmare, dump another load of detergent in, and restart your clothes. The washer thinks for a few seconds, then shows a countdown: it'll be done in twenty-eight minutes. You stare at it, blankly, not sure what to do. Ezra told you to re-run your clothes and finish your chores. The only chore you still haven't finished is your clothes. Therefore, you can't make any progress on the thing you've been told to do. You're still standing in front of the washing machine; it feels like there's sand in the gears of your brain.
The pain in your butt and thighs has faded slightly, but they're still throbbing and the feel of even the soft fabric of your panties on your skin is nearly intolerable. When you very gently check, you can feel raised welts crisscrossing most of your backside. The pain is radiating outward through your body, and it's so intense that you're still having to actively hold back tears. You don't think you've ever been hurt so badly in your life. You're still staring at the washing machine.
"Hon?"
You stiffen, and your skin suddenly feels cold. It's Ezra, calling you from in the kitchen. Maybe you've been standing here for longer than you think. You go to her; she's standing in front of the stove, wearing an apron over short-shorts and a t-shirt. She's holding a wooden spoon - the same one she just spanked you with. You draw back involuntarily into the kitchen doorway. She frowns, sets the spoon down, and points at the floor by one of the chairs around the table. There's a pillow on the floor. You know what she means, and you're kind of glad not to have to sit on anything. You kneel there. It's... actually sort of comfortable.
She picks the spoon back up and walks closer to you. Your eyes are fixed on it. She sits down in the chair, lays the spoon across her lap. You swallow, mouth dry, and clench your fists in your lap to keep your hands from shaking. Surely she's not going to hurt you more...?
"I said punishment is over," she says. "You don't need to worry. I just - I realized something about you. I think that you need someone to help you figure out what to do and when, and I think you also need someone to... to give you consequences when you won't do it. Does that make sense?"
You blink. Does it? You certainly don't have much to show for a lifetime of trying to get yourself to do things. It seems like no matter what the task, no matter how important it is or how much pressure is on you, whether you actually do it is at best random, and even when you do succeed it's an enormous struggle. Sometimes, you can hardly do anything at all, and even basic adult shit like brushing your teeth or eating regularly is pretty much beyond you. As you look back, there have only been a couple of bright spots, rising out of the map of your life like solitary mountain peaks breaking through a layer of dark cloud. The first few months with Nat, especially, were pretty okay. What made them pretty okay was... oh God, you realize, it was that Nat kept encouraging you and reminding you to study and do your assignments, and that you knew you'd be disappointing her if you didn't. Maybe Ezra's right? Maybe this is what you need?
You slowly nod.
Ezra looks... relieved. She reaches for you and lays one hand gently under your jaw, nails just barely touching your throat. Your breath catches in your throat and you look up, away from the spoon laid across her lap. She's smiling at you.
"I feel a little bit bad," she says. "I hurt you more than I wanted to, I think. You definitely needed a punishment, but I was... well. When you started backing away from me, it just - I got angry, I guess. I'm sorry, hon."
Her fingertips trail slowly down your throat and slip beneath the collar.
"It's, um," you reply, stumbling over your words. The feeling of your sister's hand on your neck is making it difficult to form a sentence. "It's... it's okay. I shouldn't have disobeyed you."
She tugs on your collar with two fingers. "Say sorry for disobeying."
"I'm sorry," you say, and you mean it. You are sorry. Ezra's just trying to take care of you, she's letting you live in her apartment, and she was getting you to take on some of the work of keeping the house. That's all it was, and you couldn't handle it, so yeah, maybe she shouldn't have spanked you so hard, but you definitely did deserve it.
"I forgive you," she says. "While you're not doing the rest of the chore you didn't finish, stay there. I like being able to chat with you while I'm cooking."
"Okay," you say, and you settle in slightly. You can feel your fear fading away; now that Ezra's forgiven you, and you know the punishment is over, you're mostly just relieved and drained from the ebb and flow of tides of intense emotion. Ezra goes back to cooking, and you simply sit, wait, and watch her cooking, thinking about very little.
"Oh," Ezra says. "I meant to tell you right when I got home, but punishing you distracted me. The bookstore people called me back! They want to interview you tomorrow morning, see if you're a good fit."
You perk up. You remember Ezra dragging you through the bookshop on your way through the day of pointless job applications, and you remember liking it. If the interview goes well, maybe you can actually get a job like an adult and stop leeching off Ezra quite so much? You feel a little flicker of hope in your chest. Ezra seems pleased, too; she's carrying herself more lightly, and her earlier anger and disappointment seem to have been replaced with happiness. When she finishes cooking, she turns, holding a pair of bowls, and realizes you're still kneeling.
"Think you can sit down yet?"
You get up and try. It hurts a lot. You stand back up and shake your head.
"Alright, well," she says. "Come kneel on the pillow again. That should be more comfortable." Once you've done so, she offers you one of the bowls; you balance it in your lap. It's full of stir-fried veggies, cubes of tofu, and some brown rice. It smells incredible, but the mix of so many unfamiliar foods is daunting. She also hands you a pair of chopsticks, which you don't have much practice using. This is going to be a difficult meal.
"I'm sorry I hurt you so much," Ezra murmurs, between mouthfuls of food, "but I guess it'll help you remember."
You nod, focusing on picking up a chunk of tofu. It's slippery, and keeps falling out of your chopsticks. You eventually manage to pick it up, only for it to fall to the floor.
"Oh," Ezra says, looking more amused than annoyed. "Give me that." She holds out a hand for your bowl, and you give it to her. She expertly grabs one of the tofu blocks with her own chopsticks and holds it out to you.
"Here."
You glance up at her, then back down at the food; she's holding it a couple of inches from your mouth. Is she... going to just feed you?
"It'll be easier if you open your mouth," she says, and you see a trace of a smirk cross her face.
You do; she places the tofu in your mouth daintily. It's quite tasty, although you don't care for the texture. Ezra then offers you a floret of broccoli, well-coated in whatever sauce she used. You hesitate; you really don't like broccoli, and you just want another piece of tofu.
"You have to eat vegetables too," she says. You glance back up at her face; she's giving you an encouraging look. You stare at the broccoli for a few seconds, willing yourself to eat it, but... you just can't.
"Here," she says. "Try this. Close your eyes and open your mouth."
You manage that. A second later, there's the broccoli. It's - well, actually not as bad as you thought. You chew, trying not to taste it too much, and swallow.
"Just keep your eyes closed," she says. "Open your mouth when you're done chewing and I'll give you another piece."
You do. Each time you open your mouth, she feeds you something. It might be some tofu, a couple of slices of carrot, a small broccoli floret, some bell pepper, or even just a bit of brown rice. It's very strange not knowing what you're about to be tasting, but you find that it also keeps you from fretting about whether you're going to like or dislike anything. It feels weird, and it's embarrassing, but it's also oddly freeing. Ezra manages to feed you, one unseen bite at a time, a larger and more varied meal than any you've eaten in the past three months.
"That's all," she says, eventually. You almost open your eyes, but catch yourself just in time - she told you to close them earlier, and she hasn't said otherwise yet. You just tilt your head upwards, towards where you know she still is.
"Oh," she says. You feel her lips press to your forehead. "Good girl," she murmurs. "I'd forgotten I told you that. You can open your eyes now. Go swap your clothes into the dryer, then let's watch a TV show together." You feel a little glow of pride; you do so few things right in your life that every time you do it feels good, you guess, and when Ezra says you're being good, it's... special. She offers you a hand, and you get up off your knees and follow her to the couch.
Reader's Haven looks kind of like an old English pub from the outside - or, well, you assume it does, having never been to England. The front facade is all stone and a rich, dark wood, and the store's name is laid out in enormous brass letters, in a heavy gothic font. You push the front door open - the handle is yet more brass, burnished by years and years of weather and use. Inside, it's dark and warm, a welcome relief from the winter chill, and the noises of the city are muffled almost to silence. After a few seconds, your eyes adjust, and you find your way to the front counter.
A prim-looking woman with a tanned, weather-lined look and hair already well gone to grey is standing there, diligently copying a long column of numbers from one big paper notebook to another. She doesn't seem to notice you. You shuffle awkwardly, and eventually she finishes her work and seems to notice you.
"Oh!", she says. "Sorry, I did not see you. Can I help you?" Her voice is pleasant, lilting, with a very heavy French accent. You can imagine her calling people "monsieur" and holding a cigarette.
"Um," you say. Good start. "I'm here about the - the interview? My sister and I visited last week."
"Oh, oh yes! Here, come with me, ma cherie. We can talk in the back." She raises her voice slightly, calling out towards the back of the store: "Sam? Cover the front desk for a bit please?"
She leads you into a chaotic space, filled floor to ceiling with dozens (or maybe even hundreds) of boxes, along with an almost unbelievable amount of loose books strewn everywhere. She perches herself atop one box, and gestures to another nearby. You sit, perching carefully to keep pressure off your butt, and the gives you a long look, evidently sizing her up. You can feel her gaze lighting on your collar, your blouse, your skirt, your leggings, the new flats Ezra bought you - can almost see the picture of yourself assembling inside the older woman's mind.
"You are a, ah, étudiante? A student?"
You shake your head. "Not, um. Not any more."
"Ahh," she says. "Well, so it goes. I am Isabelle, or Madame Breton if you are being formal." She pauses, inviting you to introduce yourself. You do.
"Pretty name. Well, have you ever sold books before? Or anything else?"
You decide it's probably best not to mention your ill-fated convenience store experience. "No."
She smiles. "Well, ce n'est pas difficile." She looks you over again, then says: "You're a responsible girl, yes? Up early every day, working hard?"
No, you aren't. "I try to be," you say. Not really true, based on your results, but less of an outright lie.
"Alright," she says. "We give you a try. The rest of this week, I'll give you some shifts. You work with me or with Sam. If I like you, and you like it here, you stay. Fair?"
Given that you'd been expecting to be rejected out of hand, it's much more than fair. "Um," you say. "Is that - is that all?"
She gives you a searching look. "You 'ave no experience, you were a student but are not, you are dressed neatly and came early in the day to speak with me. Is there something else I should know?"
"I - I suppose not."
"Good," she says. "Here, come with me. I show you around and introduce you to Sam."
By the time you get back to Ezra's apartment, your feet are almost as sore as your butt. Isabelle's nice, but she works quickly and expects everyone else to keep up with her; once she'd shown you around the bookstore and taught you how to run the register, she immediately set you to shelving books. You must've walked from the back room to the shelves two hundred times during your shift. You make your way painfully up the stairs and thankfully find the apartment unlocked.
Ezra's home, and already cooking dinner. Your stomach clenches; she left for work early this morning and in her absence you somehow sort of maybe didn't eat breakfast, and you spent your lunch break at the bookstore on your phone - not that you actually had any money to buy lunch with anyway. You're famished, and you actually do feel like eating.
"Hey," Ezra calls. "In here!" You wander into the kitchen; the pillow is still on the floor by her chair. She glances back at you, then nods at the pillow; you get to your knees there. She's stirring something around in a saucepan on the stove top. The aroma of frying onion and garlic makes your mouth water.
"So how'd it go?"
"It was pretty good," actually, you say as you settle into a comfortable position. "The boss is this old French lady, she's pretty cool and she seems to like me. It's really tiring, but..." you trail off.
"Well, I'm glad," Ezra says. "Stick with it, work hard, and I bet you'll be okay." She opens a can of pureed tomato and pours it into the pan, stirring all the while. You tense slightly when you see that she's using the same spoon as she punished you with, but - it's okay, you remind yourself. You've been good today.
She tosses in something else from the counter. "I found out today that I need to go on a quick business trip. Very short-notice, apparently something's wrong at a client site. I'm flying out tomorrow morning and I'll be back Friday night. Are you going to be okay on your own for a bit?"
Are you? You've lived on your own before, and you survived, so you suppose so. "I'll be fine."
"Great," she says, fills a second saucepan with water, puts it on the heat, then picks up a box of pasta and starts reading the back. "Just doing a marinara," she remarks, when she notices you looking. "I'll leave you some cash as well, in case you need more groceries, although we should have enough for until I get back. You have my phone number too, so if you need me just call or text."
Once dinner's ready, she dishes heavily sauced pasta into a pair of bowls, and takes her usual seat. She looks down at you, still on your knees, and her expression turns fond. "You want to stay down there?"
You... aren't sure. You don't not want to stay here, at least. Last night Ezra fed you, which was definitely really weird, but also seemed to help with your food issues. There's also the fact that your butt's still plenty sore and you'd really rather not sit on a chair. You shrug.
She smiles. "Alright, well. I hope you like pasta."
You shut your eyes. She hasn't told you to, but it helped last time. You open your mouth, and a couple of seconds later she places a small forkful of pasta on your tongue.
The next morning, by the time you wake up, Ezra's already gone. She's left you a little note on the fridge whiteboard, in red, in her loopy handwriting: "CEREAL FOR BREAKFAST". Underneath it is the text "NOT A POP TART". You can't help a small giggle; it seems like your sister knows you pretty well. You pour yourself a bowl of cereal, grab a spoon, then...
Well, this isn't right. You're just staring into the bowl. Why are you doing that? You pick up a spoon full of cereal and put it in your mouth. The texture's horrible, but you do your best to chew and swallow it. You manage to make it through a second, then a third, but that's all you can take. You push the bowl away from yourself and get up from the table, fighting down a rising wave of nausea. What the hell is wrong with you? It's literally just plain cereal. A kid can eat this stuff.
Well, at least you're up, showered, and dressed. You head to work. The workday's a slog, and you end up skipping lunch again, but you survive. When you get home, you're so worn out that the idea of trying to cook yourself a proper meal is unapproachable. You do, at least, pick up the box of pasta and look at the directions for making it, but trying to make it will mean using the stove, and you don't really know how to do that, so you put it back and end up eating a pair of pop tarts instead. The bowl of cereal is still sitting on the kitchen table, as though mocking you.
Wednesday and Thursday crawl by as well. You stop doing... everything. You're just barely managing to get yourself up and to work on time, and that feels like it's taking every scrap of energy you have. You try making the pasta on Wednesday night, after almost an entire day of gathering your courage, only you can't figure out how to turn the fucking gas stove on, so you give up. You eat more pop tarts.
By Friday morning, you're basically a wreck. Your last shower was Tuesday morning, your last change of clothes was Wednesday morning, and you've stopped even throwing away the wrappers from your pop tarts. Actually, you're eating the last of them now, so you'll have to do something about that on your way home, assuming you can. You're also increasingly aware that Ezra's flight back gets in at 8pm tonight, but that's okay. Once you get home from work today, you'll definitely have a burst of energy (which has so far completely eluded you), take a shower, do laundry, and tidy up the mess you've been making. Definitely.
On the upside, as you're leaving on Friday, Isabelle pulls you aside and hands you a printed paper check, made out to cash, for a bit more than five hundred dollars. You stare at it. It's a lot, and you aren't really sure what to do with it. You fold it up and put it into the little purse Ezra gave you, so you can give it to her when she gets home. Hopefully she'll be proud of you. You feel a little bit proud of you, actually - it's the first money you've ever actually earned for yourself. Maybe there is a path to not being a total fuckup after all.
When you get back to the apartment, you're already thinking forward to all the stuff you need to fix. You'll run some laundry, tidy the kitchen, grab a shower, do your hair...
You let yourself in, and you freeze. Something doesn't feel quite right - and then you hear Ezra call your name, and your stomach sinks. She's in your room. You swallow and walk in on legs of lead. She's sitting on your unmade bed, surrounded by a mess of dirty clothing lying strewn across the floor. There's pop tart crumbs, and a discarded wrapper, on your bed. She picks up the wrapper between her thumb and one finger and holds it up, looking at it.
"Explain yourself," she says, voice flat and hard.
Oh, shit. She's angry. You cringe, bringing your hands up toward your face. She slips the wrapper into a pocket of her jeans, gets up, takes a step toward you, reaches for you. She grabs your collar and jerks you towards her, pulling your face to within a couple of inches of hers.
"Explain. Yourself."
You can't. "I, um - I. Sorry. I -"
"For fuck's sake," she grits out. She simply drags you out of your room by the collar, forcing you to stumble along behind her. She shoves you up against a wall in the hallway, face roughly pressed into the drywall.
"Strip," she orders you. You do, hands shaking so badly you can barely manage the buttons. You think about folding your clothes, but Ezra just yanks them out of your hands the moment they're off your body and tosses them away. Oh, fuck, you think. As soon as you're naked, you feel her hand on the back of your neck, shoving you against the wall again. "Do not move," she says. You can hear the barely-controlled rage in her voice.
You don't; you place your hands against the wall and stand there, trembling, waiting for the spoon again. Oh God. Hopefully she won't hurt you too badly. You can't believe how much you've fucked up this time.
Instead, she comes close behind you, grabs one of your arms, and wrenches it painfully behind your back, then the other. There are a pair of clicks, and you feel the painful bite of handcuffs on your wrists. She spins you around, presses your back against the wall, and grabs you by the throat.
"I can't fucking believe you," she says. "I leave you by yourself for three days, just three days, and I get home and what do I find? A mess in the kitchen, a mess in your bedroom, a whole bunch of wrappers everywhere, and a miserable fucking loser sister who smells like she hasn't even taken a goddamn shower since I left! What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you not realize how fragile all this is? The job and the apartment and everything? Do you not understand?"
She's nearly screaming by now, and your insides are almost liquid with terror. She snarls at you, grabs you by the upper arm, and drags you down the hallway and into the bathroom. The pressure on your wrists is sending pain shooting up your arms past your elbows. She turns the shower on, undresses, takes your collar off, then pulls you into the shower with her. The water's colder than you like, but there's nothing you can do about that. She holds you under the water until your hair's soaked through and you're starting to shiver, then roughly scrubs you from head to toe with soap. The whole time, her movements are abrupt, jerky, and her jaw is firmly set; she's just barely holding back her anger.
"That's one problem fixed," she says, when she yanks you back out of the shower. You tremble, shifting your shoulders to take as much pressure of your wrists as you can. She pulls your collar tight around your neck again, then clips it shut. "Goddamn you," she says. "I told you you'd fuck me up. I fucking knew it. I've been trying to be nice to you this whole time, and all I needed you to do was be a fucking adult, just basic shit, but no!"
She wraps a clenched fist around your collar and jerks you forward again, drags you back into your own bedroom. Here it comes, you think; she's about to hurt you. She shoves you onto your bed, facedown into your own messy sheets, and you clench the muscles of your butt, preparing for the first blow.
It doesn't come. Instead, she leaves you there, and stalks out of the room.
You're finding it really difficult to breathe. That's new.
A few moments later, you hear her come back. She leans over you, then you hear a soft clinking, and there's something pressed against your lips.
"Open."
Even you aren't stupid enough to disobey Ezra right now. You open your mouth, and she roughly jerks a ball between your jaws, pulls it tight, and buckles it behind your head. Oh, you realize. She's gagging you. She's gagging you because she doesn't want you to make too much noise.
She's about to really hurt you.
She moves back away from you, leaving you pressed facedown into your own pillow, then you hear the sound of her unbuckling her belt. You just barely have time to realize what's happening when you hear it snapping through the air, then feel the strip of agony across the tops of your thighs. The pain's so intense it chases away every other thought, and you scream into the gag. You thrash around, trying to get away, but she simply buries a hand in your hair, taking it in a punishing grip, while she slashes you with the belt again and again and again. The pain's overwhelming, radiating outward through your body; all you want, in the entire world, is for it to stop. You start crying, then sobbing, then simply wailing as your sister ruins your backside.
Eventually, somehow, blessedly, it ends.
She sits down on the bed next to you. You're barely conscious now; your entire butt and the backs of your thighs feel like they're on fire. You'd almost rather die than hurt this much.
Then, you feel something slick against your ass. That pulls you out of your agonized haze, and you try to ask what she's doing, but the gag completely muffles you. You try to squirm away again, but she grabs you by the hair again and forces your face into your pillow. You're struggling to get air, trying desperately to get your nose free - but you're cuffed, weak from the pain, and she's too strong for you to fight anyway -
And then you feel a sudden, sickening pressure, and something slips inside you. You cry out into the gag, and then Ezra's lips are right by your ear.
"Yeah, that's right," she growls. "This is all you're fucking good for, I guess." She gives a vicious thrust, and you feel a sharp spike of pain, even through the residual agony left over from the belt. "Goddamn, you're fucking tight. Oh fuck." She just keeps pushing forward, keeps filling you more and more deeply, and you already feel so sickeningly full that you can't possibly imagine how your body could take any more, but she still somehow keeps going - until finally, you feel her hips pressing against your flaming butt, and she's buried all the way inside you. You're sobbing into your pillow, trying to get a plea or a prayer out, but the gag keeps you from saying anything, and even if you could you doubt Ezra would listen to you.
"Feels fucking good," she hisses. "You're such a fuckup but at least you can take cock right. Bet you've been wanting this this whole time. Just trying to fucking make me mad so I'd give you what you wanted, huh? Is that it?"
You can't object, can't protest, can't even shake your head with her fist buried in your hair. You scream into the gag. It hurts so fucking bad, being full like this is making you so nauseous, and you can't do a single thing about any of it. A sickening feeling of complete powerlessness washes over you, bringing a fresh wave of tears. Ezra roughly jerks her cock almost all the way out of you before burying it deeply again. You're beyond screaming, now, and all you can do is whimper and inaudibly beg and hope for it to be over soon.
By the time Ezra finishes with you, you're not really there any more. She uncuffs you, pulls the gag from your mouth, and you don't have it in you to say or do anything. She gives you one final, disgusted look, then turns and leaves, abandoning you in a pool of your own blood and drool.
You gradually become aware that someone's gently shaking you. You groan, eyes screwed shut against whatever's going on. Someone's talking, quite possibly to you; you roll over and bury your face in your pillow.
"Hon?"
You recognize Ezra's voice and flinch, body abruptly flooding with adrenaline. You scramble upright, suddenly wide awake, press yourself back against the wall of your bedroom, and look up into the face of your big sister. She offers you a hand, the way one might reach out to a frightened animal.
"Breakfast?"
You... oh, right, you didn't end up eating last night. Actually, you don't really remember much of anything from last night. As you finish waking up, pain starts come flooding back, from your butt and the backs of your thighs, and from - from inside you. The memories come back in a single, confused rush, hot on the heels of the pain, and you stare at Ezra's hand, terrified. "P-please," you whimper; you can feel your body starting to tremble.
Ezra frowns at you, and sits down on the edge of your bed, giving you space. "You're scared because of last night?"
You give a jerky nod in reply.
"Okay." Her voice is calm, steady, measured. "How about I make you some breakfast, and we talk about it?" She glances down at your hands, curled up against your chest, pressed into tight little fists, and adds more softly: "I won't hurt you, hon. I just want to make sure you're fed."
Your stomach enters the conversation to remind you that, again, you didn't eat last night, which means in the past twenty-four hours you have eaten one pop tart. You shudder, but Ezra's right - you have to eat. With an effort of will, you uncurl yourself, at which point you realize you're naked except for the collar. Being naked with Ezra feels horribly vulnerable, which sends your fear spiking upwards again.
"Here," she says, picking up a small bundle of clothes off the floor. It's the pyjamas she let you wear a few days ago. She hands them to you, then says: "I'll meet you in the kitchen."
You dress. Your whole body hurts. It feels like your entire backside is one giant bruise, and when you move your hips a certain way there's a sharp, almost tearing pain that makes your eyes water. She hurt you really badly last night, and you - you let her, you realize. Sure, she handcuffed you, but you let her do that, knowing she was already angry with you, and you know Ezra can't really control her temper, so it's definitely at least partly your fault. Fucking stupid, really. You should've just kept the place clean and fed yourself properly like a goddamn adult, and then she wouldn't have hurt you like she did.
When you come into the kitchen, the pillow's there, by Ezra's usual chair. You glance at the other chair, but your butt lets you know in no uncertain terms that sitting on a hard wood surface would be incredibly uncomfortable, so you kneel on the pillow. Ezra's searching through the cabinets.
"I've noticed that you don't seem to like most foods," she says, which, yeah, you don't. There's a list of like six foods you can handle eating, and you're ashamed of all six of them. You do have to admit that you haven't tried many other foods, and those you have tried, you were essentially forced to eat by your mom, which isn't the best situation to enjoy something new.
You shrug.
"Do you have a favorite breakfast food? And don't say pop tarts."
"Um," you say, trying to remember other breakfast foods you've eaten. You had a breakfast burrito once, although that didn't go well. You have cereal sometimes, although never too much of it. Toast is alright. None of them are really favorites, though.
"I can't think of one," you eventually admit. You find yourself reflexively cringing, lowering your head against the blow you've come to expect.
"Oh, hon," Ezra says, voice sympathetic. "I'm really not going to hurt you, I promise. Yesterday was a punishment, but it's over now, and I forgive you. Okay?"
You understand the words, but it seems like the lizard part of your brain doesn't believe them, because you can't seem to unclench your fists. You nod, though, letting out a shaky breath.
"Do you like pancakes?"
Pancakes... you can't remember the last time you had them. It must've been years ago. You can't really call the taste or texture to mind.
"I don't know," you say, voice small.
"Okay, well," Ezra says. "I really want you to be properly fed. You're so skinny, and I worry a lot about you, plus I think if you eat more regularly you'll have more energy. Here's what I'll do: I'm going to start giving you different foods to try, and anything you like, I'll do more often, and anything you don't like, you don't have to eat. Okay?"
You lift your head just enough to look up at her, expecting to see mockery on her face, but it looks like she's completely sincere. It's hard to trust her, but on the other hand, you have no choice at all. If she wants to make you eat something, she can.
"Okay," you whimper. "Please don't hit me."
"I'm not -", she begins, then shuts her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Hon, I only hurt you to punish you. If I told you to eat something, and you didn't, that would be disobeying and I'd punish you. I'm going to be offering you things to eat, though, and you don't have to eat them if you don't like them. I won't be mad either way. Does that make sense?"
"I... I guess," you say. You really hope she's telling the truth. Now that you reflect more on it, Ezra's never given you any reason to distrust her. She's strict with you, maybe even harsh, but she's been completely honest about what she wants from you. Alright, you think to yourself - you'll try whatever she wants you to try. After all, it's not like you could do anything about it if you didn't want to. You settle onto the pillow a little more comfortably to watch while Ezra starts cooking.
As she's mixing ingredients together in a big bowl, she says: "I shouldn't have left you on your own. You're still... learning how to take care of yourself, and three whole days without me was too much for you. I missed you a lot, too, so I'm going to aim to just stay at home in the future. They'll send someone else out on trips if they need to."
Oh. That's - a relief? She's certainly right that you can't cope on your own. You can't even operate a stove unsupervised, never mind run an entire adult life. It's a legitimate miracle that you managed to get yourself up and to work four mornings running. Having Ezra taking care of you and making sure that you're doing the right things at the right time is definitely better for you.
"But," she says, as she turns on the stove with a loud series of clicks. "I also think that you need more, um, discipline, and you need me to stop... reminding you to do things as much. It's like, a balance between having to do things on your own, and having me tell you to do them. So I'll write down what you need to do, or tell you, and you'll be the one responsible for actually getting yourself to do it. If you're having trouble, you can come ask me for help, but if you don't do what I tell you, and you haven't asked for help, then -" her voice hardens slightly "- I will punish you. Understand?"
"Yes, Ezra," you say. She's only punished you twice and both times have left you in pain for days afterwards. You'll do what she says. What you really need to do is get better at actually asking Ezra for help when you need it, instead of just stewing in your anxiety or guilt. You make an inner resolution to try to do better with that, although you don't really believe you can do it.
Ezra pours some batter onto the stove, and there's a loud sizzle. "Okay. After we're done eating, I'll write down what the rules are for you - and again, if you ever need help with something, or you don't understand, ask me."
"Okay," you murmur. You'll try.
Once Ezra's made a small stack of pancakes, she slides a plate piled with them onto the table by you. When she notices that you're still kneeling, she says: "Do you - um, want me to feed you again? Does it help?"
You feel a hot flush of shame, hang your head, and nod. If you have to actually feed yourself, look at the food and think about it and actually pick up the pieces, you just know it'll be so much harder. Besides, it's... kind of nice, being fed. Not having to worry about anything but the actual mechanics of chewing and swallowing, not having to worry about how much you should eat (which you never seem to get right). Maybe it is better, actually.
"Alright," she says. She dishes a couple more pancakes onto plates, turns the stove off, then sits. You shut your eyes and open your mouth for the first bite, and then you feel her hand on your hair, soft and gentle.
"You're so cute like that," she says, and you let out another stuttering breath. She's... she's petting you, gently stroking your head. It feels affectionate, even a little intimate. It's nicer than it has any right to be.
"And here you go," she says. The piece of pancake she feeds you is soft, warm and fluffy, buttery and sweet. You chew, savoring it, then swallow. It's - wow, it's really good.
"Mm," you say, and open your mouth for more.
You end up eating a solid breakfast, for probably the first time in a month. Maybe it's just how hungry you were to start, but the pancakes were delicious, probably one of the best things you've ever tasted. It's funny how much a stomach full of hot food lifts your spirits. After both of you have had your fill, Ezra grabs a notepad, lays it on the table, and starts writing. You kneel next to her, waiting patiently.
After a little while, she shows you what she's written:
"Do you think you can do all this?"
You read the list over again. You really aren't sure. Maybe you can? It seems like you should be able to, at least. You glance up at her; she has a thoughtful expression, watching you consider the list. You really don't want to say anything other than yes - but you don't want to promise you can do it, fail, and then get another punishment, either.
"Um," you say, voice unsteady. "I... I can try."
"Is there a specific one that's worrying you?"
You swallow. "The - the first one."
"Aw," she says, reaching down to pet you. "Well, I'll think about how to help you do that, but I'm not going to keep waking you up every morning. I want you to figure out how to do it, then do it, okay? I'll be expecting to see you up every morning by seven, so you can say hi to me before I go to work. If you aren't up on time, there'll be consequences. Understand?"
You shiver. You definitely understand Ezra's kind of consequences. "Yes, Ezra."
"Good," she says. "I'll see if I can think of anything to make it easier for you, too. Are you feeling okay about all the other ones?"
You read them over once more. "I guess so," you say.
She frowns down at you. "Not what I want to hear, hon. I want you to say 'I'll follow all the rules, Ezra'."
"I'll follow all the rules, Ezra," you repeat back obediently.
"Good! Here, take this -" she carefully tears the page off her pad "- and stick it on the inside of your bedroom door so you'll see them every day. That'll help remind you, okay?"
You get up to do that; once the rules are stuck to your door, you read over them one more time, praying that you'll actually be able to follow through on them. Well, your bed's a mess from... from last night, so you'd better fix that first. You pull the comforter off, revealing that there's a few small red stains on the sheet, probably from - well, from you. You flinch away from the memory, and instead rip the sheets off the bed quickly, avoiding looking at them. Once you have them all in a bundle, you take them to the washing machine, toss them in, and start it.
Back in your bedroom, now sitting on your bare mattress, you pick up your phone, almost desperate for an escape. There's - wait, you have a voicemail? You're tempted to just ignore it, but you can't actually remember the last time anyone even tried to call you, let alone wanted to talk to you enough to actually leave a voicemail. Curiosity overpowers your instinctual avoidance, and you hold your phone to your ear and press play.
"Hi," a surprisingly chipper voice says. "I'm calling from the office of Doctor Luzzi, following up on your consult with us. So I know you were originally booked for, um, about twenty-four months from now, but we've actually had a patient drop out of our queue and we have a spot opening up in... um, well, about five weeks. I know it's extremely short notice, but I figured I'd give you a call and see if you wanted that spot. We'll hold it for you for until tomorrow morning, so um, give us a call back today I guess. Thanks!"
You lower your phone to your lap, clutch it in both hands, staring at it. Five... five weeks? It was nearly two years ago, towards the tail end of your relationship with Nat, that you actually finished lining up all the paperwork and stuff to get yourself into the queue for bottom surgery. When they told you how long the wait was going to be, you - well, you figured you'd probably be dead by then, if you're being honest with yourself, so you just forgot about the whole thing, although apparently they didn't forget about it.
Oh, wow, your hands are really shaking now.
Five weeks. There's no way. Five weeks?
Can you... wait, no. You're going to owe them all the money then, nearly twenty thousand dollars, and you don't have even a tiny fraction of that. Never mind. It's actually kind of a relief, in a way, to realize that it's actually not going to work out for you. Bottom surgery was always a ridiculous dream anyway. You - you don't even have to call them back, actually, you can just ignore it and it'll all go away. You exhale, grip loosening on your phone, but you can't get yourself to stand up. You're just staring at the voicemail icon.
Ezra lets herself into your room. "Hey," she says. "Are you - I heard crying?"
Oh. You guess you are crying. That's where the droplets on your phone screen are coming from. That makes sense.
"What's wrong?"
You just hand her your phone. You nearly drop it in the process. She looks down at it; your voicemail box is open. She gives you a searching look, then presses replay on it and lifts your phone to her ear.
"Did you call them back?"
Your silence answers for you.
"Well, do you - do you still want it?"
How does she expect you to answer that? You barely even dare to imagine it. You wanted it so badly back when you went through all the therapy and the paperwork and so on, which seems like it must have been some kind of bizarre dream because of how unlike you it is, and then you realized it wouldn't happen for you after all, so you did what you always do and put it in a little box and buried it as deeply inside yourself as possible. It's like what they do with nuclear waste, you think. That's such a dispiriting thought that you must space out a little, because Ezra shakes you to bring you back to reality.
"Hon? Do you want to get the surgery?"
You shrug. "I guess," is what you can muster. You wish you felt it more strongly. Aren't you supposed to? What's wrong with you?
She lays a hand on your thigh. "Hey," she says. "I'm serious. If you want this, and you already did a bunch of the work, then we'll figure out how to make it happen. Do you want to do it?"
You look down at her hand on your thigh, thinking, digging for that buried little box with the feeling inside. Ezra just waits, watching you curiously, giving you space.
"I think I do."
"Okay," she says, firmly. "Call them back. Tell them you want the slot."
You wince. "It's going to be a lot of money," you whisper. "I can't afford it." Just thinking about it makes you tear up again.
Ezra moves to sit on the bed next to you and pulls you into a hug. You give into the impulse to cry, and she tucks your head against her chest, squeezing you protectively. Your sister holds you until your tears eventually dry, then says:
"I can probably afford to pay for it."
You look up at her, still sniffling. "What?"
"I can probably afford it," she says, again.
"Ezra," you say. "You've already done so much - you really don't need to -"
She stops you with a finger to your lips. "It's my money to spend, so if I want to spend it on you, I will. Besides," she says, fingertips trailing down your chin to find the collar still around your neck. "I like taking care of you."
You blush as she slips a couple of fingers beneath the collar. It shouldn't feel good, especially given your recent experiences with Ezra... touching you, but it does anyway. She hands you your phone, one hand still on the collar.
"You're mine, hon, and I want you to have this. Call them."
As you press the button to return the call, the words echo in your mind: You're mine.
The rest of the day feels... surreal. It's like you have a brand-new countdown clock in your brain, which currently reads 39 days. You have 39 days to get everything else lined up for surgery. For 28 of those days, you have to be off your HRT, too, which isn't going to be much fun. After that, it'll be a few days in hospital, then some weeks of recovery, during which you won't be able to work, and you'll need to dilate a few times a day. You're going to need Ezra to take care of you even more than she already does - a lot more, in fact.
You feel deeply guilty about that, about imposing on her in yet another way. When you tell her how you're feeling (itself a small victory, for you, since you'd have prefered to just avoid mentioning it), she just hugs you and says she's happy to do it. She's been confusing you so much lately, and you aren't even sure how to bring it up with her. She seems like she really cares about you, and she does so much for you, but then she's... she hurts you, and you hate it. All you can think is that you just need to be as good as you can, and she'll see you're trying hard, and be gentle with you.
You tidy the apartment with her, asking her for a new task to do whenever you finish one. It's surprisingly nice. You don't have to worry about figuring out what to do, or motivating yourself to get started, or even staying on track, because Ezra's there with you the whole time. Between the two of you, you soon have the place spotless. Ezra makes lunch, which for you is just toast with peanut butter on it. You do your best to eat it, and when it's too difficult for you, Ezra has you kneel by her so she can feed you pieces of it. It works, and you end up eating all of it.
In the afternoon, Ezra takes you out for a walk. She shows you her neighborhood and a couple of the city landmarks. You take her back to Reader's Haven and introduce her to Sam and Isabelle; she charms both of them, but the entire time she has her hand resting possessively on your shoulder. It doesn't bother you as much as you might have expected. Isabelle definitely notices - you can see her gaze flicker from your face, to Ezra's, to the hand on your shoulder, to the collar, then back to your face - but she doesn't say anything. You blush, but don't say anything either.
You come home, eat (well, Ezra feeds you), then settle in to watch a movie on the couch together, Ezra's arm draped around you. It's nice. It's actually - it's actually really nice. You burrow closer to her, pressing yourself into her embrace, and she squeezes you.
"Thank you," you murmur. You mean it. You can't even imagine where you'd be right now without her taking you in.
You feel her press a kiss to your temple. "Of course," she says. "You're mine."
There are those two words again. "What do you mean?"
She pulls you closer, until you're sitting in her lap. "I feel like you're a pet, or something," she says, stroking your hair. "You're really cute, and I like taking care of you, but you're also like... I don't know how else to say it. You're mine." She brushes her fingertips across the collar to underscore her point.
"Oh."
She kisses your forehead. "It's okay. All you have to do is listen to me, and I'll take care of you. You clearly need someone to look after you, and I like having you around, so it seems like a pretty good fit to me."
The ache in your butt from sitting across her thighs is starting to remind you unpleasantly of last night. "I, um," you say, hesitantly. "You... hurt me last night."
She must be able to tell that you don't mean the spanking with the belt, from the look on your face. "I'm sorry, hon," she says, then takes your collar loosely in one hand. "But - you're mine, and part of the deal is that I get to use you like that, or any other way I want. You don't get to say no to that, not if you want to stay here with me. If you're good, then next time I'll be more gentle with you, but I like fucking you, and I'm going to want you again, once you're healed up."
She says it so matter-of-factly, with so much certainty, that it takes a couple of seconds for what she's saying to actually sink in.
"I'm your - your... sex slave?"
She kisses your forehead again, still holding your collar firmly. "I prefer 'pet'."
"But I -"
She shakes her head, and your objection dies on your lips. "No," she says, "you don't. You belong to me, which means I get to decide things like that, not you."
You blink at her, stunned. It seems ridiculous, but as you start looking back over the past few weeks, it actually isn't at all. She's been gradually taking away your choices, making her depend on you more and more - need her more and more, and you have just been... letting her, which sounds absurd, but it's not. She forced you to suck her cock, and you stayed. She spanked you with the spoon, and you stayed. She - she r-raped you last night, and here you are, curled up in her lap, like a - well, like a pet.
Oh God, you realize. Ezra's always been smarter than you, seen things more clearly than you, and this is no exception. You are a pet. Even with everything that she's done to you, you can't leave her. Some part of you, the part of you that hates yourself, doesn't even want to leave her. That part of you maybe even believes you deserve all of it. That realization hits you with physical force. You can't handle this. You can't, you can't, you can't -
"Hey," Ezra says, tugging gently on your collar, pulling you out of your spiral. "It's okay. It's simple, right? You give me what I want from you, I take care of you."
That stops you short. When she puts it like that, it... makes a kind of sense, and really, when you think about it more rationally, everything Ezra's done to you isn't that bad. As long as you don't make her angry, she's been pretty gentle with you, and it's not like she's unattractive. You can imagine a lot of worse lives for yourself than being Ezra's pet. In fact, if you told her you wanted to leave, or just got up and walked out right now, you'd probably be leading one of those worse lives. When you think about it that way, maybe Ezra's right. You obey her, you give her what she wants, and she takes care of you. That's all it is.
"O-okay," you whimper.
"Good girl," she says, kissing your forehead again. "You'll be happier this way. Trust me."
It takes a few days for things to sink in for you. While that's happening, you just do your best to follow the rules Ezra's set out for you, get yourself to work, and try not to worry too much about anything else. As it happens, the schedule Ezra holds you to doesn't actually leave that much time for worrying, anyway. You don't even stay up late most evenings any more, because your sister takes you into your room to put you to bed, and when she does she takes away your phone and laptop, so your only choices are to try to fall asleep or lie there awake, in the dark, alone, with your thoughts. It's so boring and unpleasant to just exist without any distractions that you've found yourself trying harder to sleep just to avoid it, so you suppose that it's working. You don't actually sleep any better than you normally do, but at least you're sleeping for longer.
You also have managed not to fuck up your job yet, which is impressive in a kind of pathetic way. For whatever reason, Isabelle seems to actually like you, and your other coworker Sam is at least tolerating you, and more importantly, so far nobody has either aggressively misgendered you or tried to creepily touch you. You also really like working among the shelves, sorting books and taking them back to their places and helping people find them. You worried at first that your abysmal social skills would be a problem, but you failed to account for the fact that most people who are in bookstores also have bad social skills, so while you're often awkward it usually seems like your customers are more anxious talking to you than you are.
During your lunch breaks, you actually eat lunch, too. Ezra sends you to work with something every day - usually a very plain sandwich and some vegetable sticks. It's the kind of meal a kid would eat, but you do your best to get it down anyway, because Ezra told you to. The first day she sent you to work with lunch, you couldn't finish the carrot or celery sticks she sent with you. You were desperately tempted to throw the rest of them away and not mention it, but you ended up bringing the rest of them home in your lunchbox, and you're glad you did. When Ezra found the leftovers, instead of being mad at you for not eating, she called you good, and told you she'd make you some different veggies the next day. The way Ezra says the word "good" to you seems to curl around you like a blanket. It's a lot to think about.
On Friday afternoon, Isabelle gives you your second paycheck. You fold it up, put it in your purse, and bring it home without the faintest idea what to do with it. You end up giving it to Ezra, who hugs you and tells you how proud of you she is. That isn't supposed to make you start crying, but it does, and soon you're in a heap on the living room floor, sobbing while she cradles you.
That evening, after you've done some chores at her direction and she's cooked and fed you dinner, you curl up on the couch for another movie night. Ezra doesn't make popcorn - you can't handle eating it, you found out, and she doesn't much care for the smell anyway - but she lets you have one of your pop tarts, as an extra reward for a successful week of work. It tastes much sweeter than you remember, and you put it down after only a few bites. Ezra just looks at it, then at you, then pulls you close into a hug. You relax, and find yourself just fading into the easy, gentle intimacy that you share with your older sister.
After the movie's over, neither of you much feel like getting up, apparently, and you stay cuddled together, Ezra's fingertips just idly brushing your collar. It feels like most of your awareness is concentrated on the tiny patch of skin her nails keep grazing over. God, you find yourself thinking - she smells good.
"I want to have sex with you again," she says, interrupting your admiration with the suddenness of a thrown bucket of cold water. You tense immediately and start to draw away from her as fear floods your nerves, but she grabs your collar, preventing you from escaping. At least you aren't stupid enough to actually object aloud, which would probably earn you a slap, and she seems more amused by your attempt to squirm away from her than annoyed.
"Hey," she says, other hand finding your jaw. She frowns. "You're scared?"
You nod, and a tiny whimper spills from you. She leans closer to you and kisses your forehead.
"I'll be gentle this time," she says. "It'll hurt a lot less, I promise. All you have to do is listen to what I tell you."
You whimper again. What you want more than anything is to try to run from her; last time hurt you so badly that it took days for the pain to fully fade, and you aren't sure you can handle it again without it breaking you completely. Even just the edge of the memory makes your heart start hammering in your chest. On the other hand, the calmer part of your brain understands that it's going to happen to you anyway. Ezra told you as much a few days ago when she announced that you were her pet now, and you don't think you have the strength to stop her anyway. Your real choice is whether to try to, in which case... well, you know what'll happen. She'll overpower you, hurt you a lot, handcuff you, gag you, and take what she wants from you anyway, and ultimately you'll have made her angry and gotten hurt a lot for no reason. Your other option is to accept that it's going to happen and do what Ezra says. When you think of it that way, it's obvious what to do.
"O-okay," you say, voice tiny.
"I want to hear you say it," Ezra tells you, still holding your collar. "Tell me you want me to fuck you."
You flush a deep red. "I, um," you begin, fighting down a rising wash of shame. "I w-want you to f-fuck me, Ezra."
"Oh, yeah?", she asks you, voice turning a touch playful. "And where does my pet want to be fucked?"
Her... her pet. She's been calling you that, and you suppose it's true. Your flush deepens somehow. "My... my butt."
"You want my cock in your ass, pet? Is that it?"
It's impossible for your face to get any redder. "Y-yes, Ezra."
She rewards you with a smile. "Well, pet, I think that can be arranged. Come with me." With that, she stands from the couch, still holding your collar, and drags you down the hallway - not to your bedroom, but to hers.
She pushes you gently down so that you're sitting on the edge of her bed. "Stay," she tells you, like you're a dog, but you do, hands folded neatly in your lap, trying to control your fear. It's going to happen, you remind yourself; you just have to be good so that it won't hurt as much. You just have to be good. You just have to be good.
Ezra opens one of the drawers in her dresser, and pulls out a couple of neat coils of black rope. She sets them down on the bed next to you; you look down at them, eyes widening.
"I'm going to tie you up," she explains. "I promise I won't hurt you any more than necessary, though. The rope is just for... because I like it, really. Put your wrists behind your back."
You swallow and give a jerky, nervous nod. If you let her tie you up, you'll be helpless - but who are you kidding, really? You're helpless already. You might not be physically restrained, but you wouldn't be any less able to stop her from doing what she wants if you were. You'll just cooperate.
You clasp your hands together behind your back, and Ezra picks up one of the neat coils of rope and goes to work. The rope is soft and even kind of pleasant on your skin, and your sister clearly knows what she's doing. Within a couple of minutes your wrists are bound together, firmly but comfortably, just as securely as the steel handcuffs she used on you but far less painfully.
Ezra checks over her handiwork, then moves to stroke your cheek softly. "Nicer than the cuffs, isn't it? Good girls get the rope and bad girls get the steel. I hope you'll remember that next time."
You shiver and test the bonds by trying to pull your arms apart, but they're immovable. Ezra watches you try and her smile gains an edge. She lays a hand on one of your upper arms, just below the sleeve of your blouse, and trails it down towards your bound wrists, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
"How does it feel, pet? Being tied up?"
"It's okay," you say, uncertain. It doesn't hurt, at least. In a way it's a good thing, because having your hands tied like this means you won't get scared and try to fight her, which would just make things worse for you. When you think about it that way, it feels kind of her to have done this - she's making it easier for you to obey.
"Mm," your sister purrs, undoing the top button of your blouse with one hand, then brushing the ring of your collar with her thumb. "Call me Mistress. I want to see how it feels."
You blush. "Yes, um, Mistress."
You can see Ezra's cheeks color slightly to match yours. "O-oh," she says, voice breathy. "Okay. Yes. Call me that from now on, pet."
"Okay, M-Mistress."
She leans in to kiss your forehead. "Good girl," she murmurs. She undoes another couple of buttons of your blouse, exposing the top of the pale pink bra you're wearing. She slips a hand beneath your bra, cupping one of your breasts; her skin's so hot it feels like it's almost burning you. She squeezes just lightly, making you whimper and press your thighs together. You're keenly aware that she's going to fuck you - your fear can't let you forget that - but you can't deny that being tied up and then treated like this feels... good. The fact that Ezra's deciding what happens, that you don't have to worry about fucking things up, and that she so obviously finds you attractive goes a long way towards quieting your stupid brain, too.
"Alright, pet," Ezra says. She stands up, undresses calmly, and puts her clothes into her laundry hamper. You do your best not to stare. Your sister's nicely curved, now that you've started to look at her that way, and has a kind of feminine grace and solidity that you find yourself envying. She's also very clearly turned on, which fills you with a mix of dread and curiosity and a kind of hot shameful excitement. Last time she fucked you it hurt a lot, but - but people do have sex that way, so it must not always hurt, right?
Ezra sits back down on the edge of the bed, then orders you to your knees in front of her. You already know what you're supposed to do for her. She coos soft praise and pets your hair as you pleasure her, and one of her hands is never far from your collar.
After a few minutes, she gently pulls you away from her cock, now glistening with your saliva. "Good work, pet, but I don't just want your mouth tonight. Come up on the bed."
"Yes, Mistress," you murmur. Your can taste her in your mouth, a salty-sweet flavor that's uniquely her. She guides you with her hands and her voice, putting you face-down on her bed with a pillow beneath your hips. It's a frighteningly vulnerable position, and when Ezra places one hand gently on your bound wrists, it only gets more so. She could be as rough with you as she wants, and you wouldn't be able to do a thing about it. You'll just have to trust that she won't make it hurt too badly. You've been good, you remind yourself. You've been good.
She makes you wait for a few seconds, during which you do your best to fight down your rising fear, and then you feel a gentle but insistent pressure against your ass. Surprisingly, she slips in much easier than last time - in fact it doesn't really hurt at all, although it definitely feels strange.
"Just one finger at first, pet," she murmurs. "Getting you warmed up so it's easier to take me."
She gradually works her gloved finger, covered in a cool, slick lubricant, deeper inside you until you can feel her knuckles pressing into your skin, then draws it almost all the way back out. When she adds a second finger, she pushes it into you even more slowly, stopping a couple of times for you to get used to being filled. It hurts a little bit, but it's the dull pain of muscles unused to being stretched like this, rather than the sharp spike of pain you remember from your first time. Gradually, even that pain starts to fade, leaving you with just the feeling of being full, of her fingers gently moving inside you. The slow friction, the ebb and flow of her touch, kindles a low, glowing heat in your belly, and soon you find yourself squirming with pleasure as your sister prepares you, grinding your dick into the pillow.
You hear her chuckle softly. "Looks like my pet's good and ready," she says, then draws her fingers out of you, making you whimper softly. You're not as afraid as you were before, certainly, although you can't help tensing at the memory of how much last time hurt. You hear Ezra shifting behind you, and she takes her hand off your bound wrists. A moment later you feel what can only be the head of her cock pressing against your ass.
"Just relax, pet," she tells you. You have no idea how to do that, and especially no idea how to relax your butt specifically. It turns out not to matter, because Ezra just gradually increases her pressure until you feel the head of her cock slide inside you. Again you just feel that dull stretching pain, and relief floods you when you realize that your sister actually meant what she said about not hurting you as much this time. Maybe this actually won't be so bad. If you try, if you focus on the parts that feel good, maybe you can even enjoy it a bit yourself.
"That's it," she coos, and you feel her grip on your bound wrists again, holding you firmly in place. She takes you, slowly and gently but nonetheless completely inescapably. The feeling of being absolutely powerless, of having someone else just impose their will on you, of being used this way, is... you press your thighs together against a sudden rush of unexpected arousal. Your sister buries her entire cock inside you in one steady, unstoppable thrust, then stops once she's claimed you completely. She leans forward, grabs your collar from behind with one hand, and tugs on it, pressing the band of nylon against your throat. The sudden pressure there, and the realization hot on its heels that you can do nothing to stop her from just choking you right here and now, causes your dick, pressed against the pillow beneath you, to twitch, and you feel your face heat with shame. You can't believe you're actually getting off on this. Sure, Ezra made you cum before, but that was with - with her touching you, trying to get you off on purpose. This time, you're just enjoying being fucked by her, and to make matters worse, you're mostly enjoying it because you don't have any say in it.
That realization sends you into a spiral of shame and guilt, as you realize that you're so fucking turned on exactly because Ezra's raping you. She raped you before, too, but just because this time she's being gentle and trying to hurt you less, you're fucking getting off on it. What the hell is wrong with you? Your sister makes you into a fucking housepet, a little fuck toy for her, and you like it. A wave of disgust crashes over you, and worst of all, with the wave of disgust comes a strengthening storm of arousal. This is so fucking wrong, so sick, you've been forced into it and now you're trapped and can't get out, and you're more turned on than you've ever been in your whole life, and -
"Good girl," Ezra says, interrupting your thoughts. "You're taking me so well. Does that feel good?"
"Y-yes," you manage.
The next thing you feel is her hand in your hair, pulling it into a punishing grip. "Yes what?", she growls.
Oh, shit.
"Yes, M-Mistress, it feels good," you say, then add, "sorry, Mistress," in case that helps.
She holds your hair for a second longer, then relaxes her grip. "Don't forget," she says, sternly. She's still holding you down with the hand on your wrists, and now she's starting to slowly fuck you. It's like nothing you've ever felt before - her fingers were one thing, but her cock's filling you much more deeply, stretching you every time she thrusts into you, and you can hear her breathing quickening as she enjoys using you.
You whimper as your own pleasure builds. It feels like you're sinking, melting into the mattress - like your own thoughts are gradually dissolving under the pressure of Ezra's rope on your wrists and hand on your back and cock filling you. You're... this is what it means to be hers. You couldn't have stopped or changed any of this by the smallest amount, except that you could've made it worse for yourself by trying to fight her. Ezra wants to fuck you this way, so she does, and - and it feels good, and proper, and right that she gets to do that to you, that she gets to use you this way.
By now, your sister's driving herself deep into you on every thrust, taking you fast and hard. The pain's gone, faded away behind a haze of pleasure and arousal, and your whole being seems to have refocused on her, on her nearness, on the power she has over you, on how incredibly insanely good it feels having her inside you. You've never felt this, never felt anything like this even, and you might even be - God, you might even be able to cum just like this, just from her fucking you into the pillow this way, from the friction against your dick, and -
You can feel the exact moment of Ezra's orgasm. She buries herself as deeply as she can in you, one hand grabbing you abruptly by the hair and forcing your face into the pillow, and lets out a resonating, feral groan. You swear you can feel her cock pulsing inside you, and you feel yours twitch in response. You're so fucking close to cumming yourself that you keep rolling your hips, grinding yourself into the pillow, while Ezra spends herself in your ass. After a few panting moments, she releases her grip on your hair - you lift your head and draw a gasping breath - and she leans forward to kiss the back of your neck, right by your collar.
"Perfect girl," she says, voice low and husky. You're still squirming, frantically grinding against the pillow, hoping for just the little bit of stimulation you still need. Ezra draws her cock slowly out of you, then grabs you by the hips and flips you over.
"Nuh-uh, pet," she says, with a meaningful look down at your twitching dick. "Not this time."
You whimper softly. "P-please, Mistress..."
She shakes her head. "No. Maybe next time." She gives you a thoughtful look, then: "Sit up and I'm going to undo your hands. I don't trust you not to touch yourself if I send you to your room, so you're going to sleep with me tonight."
Gradually, you find yourself settling into your new life. You get up when Ezra tells you to, you go to bed when Ezra tells you to, you eat what she feeds you. Under her rules, you shower more regularly than you ever have before in your life, and the regular diet seems to be good for you - you're actually starting to fill out a bit, finally putting at least a small amount of fat on your chest and hips where you've been wanting it for years. Your sleep is... okay, especially since Ezra started having you share her bed.
Since that first time, she's taken you to bed with her every night. Sometimes she wants you to serve her with your mouth, or to use your ass; you've long since given up even thinking about whether you want it, and just accepted that your sister's going to fuck you when and how she wants to. At least she's gentle with you, and it usually feels good, even though she doesn't let you get off. Other nights, she seems to just want to hold you while she's sleeping. It helps you sleep, too, and it feels good to be held and cared about. It makes you feel like you're special to her. You haven't felt special very often in your life, and you find yourself hungering for more of it.
Surprisingly, your work has been okay as well. You still like Isabelle, who seems to treat you more like an adoptive daughter than an employee, and you and Sam are... sort of friends? He's nice, at least, and he actively comes and tries to talk to you sometimes, which is great because whenever you imagine trying to start a conversation with anyone but Ezra you start sweating. When you told Ezra about him, she giggled and said that she thinks Sam might be into you, which - well, you don't think so, but on the other hand you didn't think Nat was into you either. In any case, as Ezra made perfectly clear to you later that night, you're already taken.
All the while, the little countdown clock in your brain has been ticking down, day by day, and your anxiety has been rising as your surgery date gets closer. Tomorrow morning, you're both flying out together, then you'll be staying for a day of pre-surgical prep, and then it's The Day, so you have... a double-digit number of hours left before bottom surgery. It feels completely unreal, after years of assuming that you'd never be able to get it done, that you'd never get your chance, to now have it suddenly so close by. You're going to be unable to work for at least a few weeks after surgery, too, but Isabelle insists that she'll be happy to have you back once you're recovered, so you guess you'll have a job to come back to.
It's strange. It feels like, for the first time since you were probably about seven years old, most things in your life are actually going well. It doesn't seem like it should be possible. You'd been almost holding your breath, waiting for yourself to fuck it all up, and a week ago you almost did. Your brain did the stupid thing it always does and you had one of those days where everything just feels completely empty, where all your emotions are gone, and where all you want in life is to just lie in bed and shut out the world. However, Ezra was there, so when you woke up feeling that way, you didn't have a choice about getting up, and showering, and going to work. You couldn't face the idea of disappointing Isabelle once you were actually there, so you actually did your job despite everything, and then when you came home, hoping to just tumble into bed, your sister was there yet again, and so you ended up eating another whole meal and tidying and... and even though your brain was fighting you every step of the way, it turned out to be basically a normal day, just shitty emotionally. The real magic part is that the next day was kind of okay, and the original bad day didn't turn into the start of a long streak of bad days.
It's a lot to think about. You leave work, pull the cute winter coat Ezra bought for you tight around yourself against the cold, and start walking home. The city's pretty in the winter, actually, with a light layer of snow sparkling on everything and the air crisp and clear. You don't know what's changed since you first got here and everything seemed so dreary and bleak, but you think you're starting to really like it.
When you get home, Ezra isn't back yet. Her past few days at work have been difficult, and she's been working later than usual to ensure that accompanying you for surgery doesn't cause problems for her team. You've been trying your best to take on more of the housework and such, but you're still pretty awful at cooking and it's still a struggle for you. Hopefully it's helping at least a little bit. Ezra does so much for you.
By the time she gets home, you've made dinner - just a tofu-and-veggie stir fry, nothing too fancy, and you're fairly sure that you missed at least one step. It's keeping warm on the stove, which it turns out that even you can learn to use after being shown enough times. When you hear her coming in, you kill the burner and come out into the hallway to give her a hug.
Your sister looks utterly exhausted. She left for work before you even woke up this morning, so she's been in the office for at least eleven hours, and you can see the circles beneath her eyes. Your heart aches for her; over the past few weeks you've come to understand much more deeply just how hard Ezra works to keep herself steady, which makes you feel even worse about how much you acted out when she first took you in, but what's done is done. Your older sister seems to have a bunch of routines that support her whole life, all tied together, and whenever one of them starts to wobble, it threatens all the other ones. When that happens, she... has a hard time handling it, and that's when you really have to go out of your way to be good and take care of her as much as you can.
She pulls you into a hug, and you feel her breathing out some of her stress. "Evening, pet," she murmurs. "Do I smell dinner?"
"I hope it's okay, Mistress," you reply.
Calling her that makes her smile without fail. "I'm sure it'll be fine," she says, squeezing you. "Come on, let's eat."
You kneel by her chair while she feeds you. It tastes okay to you, and apparently better than that to Ezra, who keeps praising different elements of your cooking as she eats. Apparently you got the texture on the carrots just right, and the crisp on the tofu, and the sauce is nicely balanced? You certainly aren't good enough to do any of that on purpose, but you're glad your sister likes it. You're really glad that she feeds you this way, too - not having to choose what you're eating in any given bite, or see it, seems like it reduces your anxiety around food quite a bit. It's very... it's like a dog being hand-fed, but since you're her pet that seems fitting, and it makes you feel cared about, and above all Ezra seems to enjoy it, which is what really matters.
After Ezra's done feeding you, you offer to take care of the cleanup as well, so that she can go rest on the couch. She gives you a fond look, thanks you, changes into her pyjamas, and goes to sit and put her feet up on the coffee table. As you're cleaning, you hear the sounds of a show's opening theme.
Once the kitchen's clean, you decide on your own to make her a cup of her favorite tea, and you bring it out to her. You set it on the table by her, and she thanks you again as you sink to your knees on the floor by the couch. She's sprawled out, relaxed and comfortable, hair out of its usual workday bun and hanging loosely down her back. She's even prettier like this, when she's able to momentarily put down some of the stress she normally has on her shoulders. You like seeing her this way.
She lets out a long, shuddering breath. "Thank you, pet," she says, shutting her eyes and leaning back to rest her head on the back of the couch. "It's been a rough few days."
"I'm sorry, Mistress," you say. You really are. You know the extra stress has been largely your fault - both because Ezra has to come with you to take care of you during the process, which means time away from work, but also because she just yesterday had to wire an enormous amount of money to your surgeon's office. You hate that you're adding more burdens for her, but she didn't give you a choice about any of that.
Perhaps there's something else you can do to help her, though...
You've never actually done that before. Every time you give Ezra head, or you have sex, or she touches you, or anything else, it's always her that starts things. always her making the decision about when and how. She's never actually told you that you can't, though. You take in a breath, steel yourself, and say:
"Mistress, may I... serve you with my mouth?"
She lifts her head, looks down at you kneeling in front of her with a curious expression, as though trying to puzzle you out. "You want to, pet?"
You don't know the answer. You do know which answer would make Ezra happiest, but you also know that lying to Ezra, even if it's just to make her feel good, is very bad and that it's always best to be honest with her. When you lie, she usually figures it out, and it seems to make her angrier than anything else. You go for honesty.
"I don't know, Mistress," you admit. "But I want to make you feel better, so... maybe?"
She smiles. "Well, then, yes, you may. Take your time."
You know what to do now, know just what she likes. You slip her pyjama bottoms down off her hips, then move so that you're kneeling between her legs, and clasp your hands behind your back. It feels normal to have them there while you're serving her, even though this time you're not actually bound. You go to work, gently kissing and licking and stroking with your tongue, coaxing your sister's cock to full attention before you take her into your mouth. You know what to do to get her off quickly from here, but she did tell you to take your time, so you try your best to remember everything she's taught you and really draw out her pleasure. Gradually, you manage to build and build her pleasure, using your tongue and lips and the soft hotness of her mouth, until she's panting aloud, head thrown back, hips bucking against the couch cushions. It feels good to serve her like this, and even better to know that you can please her so well. You've always assumed that you'd be terrible in bed, but apparently there are at least some parts of sex you're okay at. You keep serving her, trying to please her but not too much all at once, until you feel her hand in your hair and hear the growled command you've been expecting. Moments later, she cums deep inside your mouth, and you swallow everything she gives you.
"Mmm," Ezra says, once her breathing's settled a bit. "That was lovely. Come up here, pet," she tells you, indicating the spot right by her on the couch. You do, and she pulls you into her lap, one arm around you, other hand stroking your hair. You relax into her embrace, enjoying the warm afterglow of having made your sister happy.
"You know," she says, as her hand finds your collar and tugs on it, "part of why I'm excited you're getting the surgery is so I can fuck your new pussy. I bet that's gonna feel good."
You whimper and squeeze your thighs together. You've thought about that. Of course you've thought about that. Of course you've thought about Ezra doing that to you, even.
"Yes, Mistress," you reply, curling yourself into her. "I'm excited too."
She puts a couple of fingers beneath your chin, lifts it to force you to look at her. "You're excited to get fucked that way?"
You nod, feeling yourself blush. "I've thought about it for, um. For a long time. What it'd be like."
Ezra kisses your forehead. "I hope you're excited for it to be me, because I'm certainly not letting anyone else use you." It's light-hearted, like she's joking around with you, but you know your sister well. You can see the sudden small signs of tension in her expression, hear the note of uncertainty creeping into her voice. It's another one of the little flashes of vulnerability that you've been picking up from her since you've become her pet, like she's still scared that you're going to leave her, even though you can't, and you wouldn't want to if you could. You don't want your sister to feel that way.
"I want it to be you, Mistress," you say, quiet but firm.
"You... you do?"
Now her voice is on the edge of breaking. Her eyes are damp, and she turns her head away from you abruptly. You twist slightly in her lap, take one of her wrists gently, and move her hand to your collar.
"I'm yours," you say, simply.
She sniffles, turns to look at you again, and takes your collar in her fist, drawing a shaky breath from you. God, it feels good when she does that. It might just be that she hasn't let you get off in more than a week, or that you've been off spiro and estrogen for nearly a month, but your body reacts nearly instantly and you can feel your blush deepen.
"You are," she replies. "Now, the surgeon said no sex until you're cleared after surgery, so my poor little pet might end up not getting off for quite a while starting in a couple of days. I think it's time we went to bed and I saw to doing something about that."
The flight, the day of prep, and your last night of restless semi-sleep before surgery in a seriously uncomfortable king-size hotel bed with Ezra all pass in a crawling, unreal blur. Time seems like it's losing meaning, and the world seems like it's just going by without you. Your only anchor to anything real is your sister, who practically leads you by the hand through everything you have to do. She's your rock, and as you drift through the countless things you have to do to prepare, she's the only voice you need to listen to. You wouldn't be able to do any of this without her.
Your main achievement on the morning of surgery is not throwing up from fear and nerves. You're overwhelmed, clutching Ezra's hand like a scared child, other hand wrapped around your collar, which should be anything but comforting but nonetheless helps ground you. She's with you all the way through the intake, then gives you a final affectionate hand squeeze and kiss on the forehead when the nurses wheel you away for surgical prep. They give you a couple of tablets, which make you sleepy enough to hold still for them to stick an IV line into your left elbow. One of them unbuckles your collar as they start putting you to sleep, and your last waking thought is that only Ezra's supposed to do that.
When you gradually regain consciousness, the first thing you're aware of is that you're feeling nothing at all except for a dull whole-body ache and a dim sense of being cold. You manage to slowly work your eyes open; you're in a hospital bed, swaddled in crisp white sheets, bathed in early afternoon sunlight streaming in through a bank of windows. Beside you there's a slowly beeping machine, hooked up to - oops, you should not have looked at your arm, where there's a bandage holding the IV line in place. Your stomach roils and you turn your head away from it, then let out a soft groan of discomfort. Your mouth's incredibly dry and your head feels like it's stuffed with cotton. You eventually find a small button by the side of your bed labeled CALL and (after arguing with yourself about whether you need to) give it a tentative press.
The nurse who appears a couple of minutes later looks startlingly like your mom, except that she seems genuinely happy to see you. She has her grey hair pulled back into a tight bun, and her pale green scrubs are spotless and neatly pressed. She fusses over you, fetching you water and a snack and offering you anything else you care for. When you've finally had enough water to speak, your first question is if you can see Ezra; the nurse, whose nametag says NANCY, says she'll go check if she's in the waiting area.
After a little while she and your sister come into the room; Ezra's wearing a blue surgical mask just like Nancy but you can tell that she's smiling beneath it.
"Hey, hon," she says, petting your hair gently. "How do you feel?"
"Bluh," you croak.
"The scary part's over," she murmurs. You see her gaze flicker down a little, to your bare neck, then she turns to look at Nancy and says: "Did someone take her collar off?"
"Oh, yes," Nancy says. "They'll have taken everything off for surgery prep. It'll be in there," she says, then gestures somewhere below your bed. Ezra ducks down, out of your line of sight, then a moment later she's fastening the collar back around your neck.
"There you go," she says, adjusting the fit slightly, then, to Nancy, adds: "She always wears it."
"I see," Nancy replies; she's giving Ezra a thoughtful look. "Well, we should probably let her get some rest. I expect she'll be wanting her sleep, and we'll take very good care of her."
Ezra frowns, and looks for a moment like she wants to argue with the nurse, but she eventually just turns to you and says: "I'll come visit you tomorrow morning, okay? You have your phone, so if you need to talk you can get ahold of me."
You give her a weak smile. "Okay."
Nancy escorts Ezra back out, and you lay your head back onto your pillow and shut your eyes. The pressure of your collar on your neck is reassuring; with some effort you manage to raise one of your hands enough to touch it, to feel the tough nylon and the plastic buckle. Even that exhausts you, and you relax back into the bed and think of nothing.
The sound of someone coming into your room draws your attention, and you turn your head slightly to look. It's the nurse again, Nancy, holding a cup of apple juice.
"How're you feeling?", she asks you. You give her a weak nod. She looks down at your collar again, then her voice softens and she steps a little closer to you.
"I was talking to one of the OR nurses, and she said that you have some, um, concerning patterns of injuries, which they noticed during surgery. They left it out of your records, but, um. I just wanted you to know that... that if you need help, there are services that can help you. We won't discharge you unless we know we're discharging you to somewhere safe, so if you - well. That's all. If you need help with your home life, or someone to talk to, you can just ask me or any of the other nurses."
You flush a deep red. A few days ago Ezra had gotten a bit rough with you while fucking you, and you'd thought the bruises had all faded, but apparently not. Anyway, it's nothing the nurse needs to worry about, so you say, haltingly:
"Oh, it's - thanks, but it's okay." You stop to take a sip of apple juice, then continue: "My... partner likes to play rough sometimes, that's all."
Nancy's frown deepens; it seems like she knows you're not telling her the whole truth, but she's too nice to call you out on it.
"Alright," she says eventually. "Well. Is there anyone - anyone - that you'd like us to prevent from visiting you? Even family? We won't tell them you've asked us to exclude them, we just won't let them in. They won't find out, I promise."
You know what she's implying, but you do want to see Ezra. It's not like you have anyone else, anyway. You have no friends, and your parents don't even know you're here. The closest other person in your life is your boss from work, for fuck's sake. You just shake your head.
Nancy looks even unhappier, but she nods and straightens up. "Okay. Well, I'm going back to my rounds, but if you need anything, just hit the call button, hon."
"Thanks," you murmur. You're asleep again before she's left the room.
The next couple of days in the hospital are mostly a delerious, semi-conscious haze of pain medication and bland food. Ezra visits you a couple of times a day, sits with you and keeps you company, which you appreciate a lot. The nurses are kind, and take very good care of you, although every interaction is tinged with a vague air of sadness and concern. Nancy asks you, the night before you're supposed to be discharged, whether you're really confident that you'll be safe at home. You swallow and tell her that you are, and you can tell she still doesn't believe you.
Ezra takes you back to the hotel room. You're supposed to stay near the hospital for the first week of your recovery in case there are any complications, and one of the nurses will apparently come by to check in on you every morning. Until then, all you have to do is stay on bed rest, and somehow navigate the profound discomfort of existing now that you're no longer being continuously given morphine. Your whole body aches, but especially your pelvis, which is... ouch. On the upside, gradually being able to feel more of your own body is letting you feel what isn't there any more, and if you had any doubt about whether this was the right choice for you, it's gone now.
The hotel room's really nice, and Ezra lets you eat basically whatever you want while you're recovering. She still feeds you by hand, too, which makes everything easier. When you're not eating or attending to your medical needs or making laborious and uncomfortable trips to the bathroom, she basically just lets you game on your 3DS and scroll on your phone while she works remotely on her laptop next to you. At first it's fun, but after a few hours it starts to make you uncomfortable - it's like your brain knows that you're "supposed" to be doing something other than resting, and despite Ezra's reassurances that she just wants you to stay in bed, you start itching to get up and do something fairly quickly.
The next several days are increasingly difficult. The nurses gave you a bottle of Percocet to take for the pain if you need it, but you're frightened of getting addicted, so you leave them untouched. Ezra insists you at least take Ibuprofen, and you obediently swallow the maximum dosage whenever she gives it to you. The nurses who visit say that you're healing well, and that you and Ezra are doing a great job of post-surgery care, which feels nice. On the final day they bring you back in for a final procedure, then formally discharge you with a long list of instructions for how to take care of your new vagina, which Ezra assures them she'll make sure you stay on top of.
She does force you to take one of the Percocet for the flight back. You don't want it, but you don't even consider arguing, especially after she reassures you that you won't be getting another unless she thinks you really need it. It's comforting to know that she's protecting you that way. Navigating the airport at a slow hobbling pace is miserable, and so is the flight and the taxi ride back home, but it's all worth it once you get to slump into Ezra's bed and, for the first time, gently touch your new pussy. You're still far too numb and swollen to actually feel anything, but the new shape of your body is... it feels right, feels like you're finally whole. The emotions that wash over you set you off crying, and soon you're sobbing while Ezra holds you, letting a lifetime of hatred for your own body soak into her clean white sheets.
Recovery is a slow, painful slog. All you're supposed to do is rest, take care of your basic bodily needs, and dilate a few times a day. Even just staying on top of that is an enormous struggle. Your days are brutally repetitive: wake, shower, eat, see Ezra off to work, dilate, rest, dilate, fail to eat lunch, rest, dilate, rest, welcome Ezra home, eat dinner, dilate, sleep. No matter what, no matter what, you can't miss any of the dilations - your surgeon was very clear about that, and if that wasn't enough, Ezra was even more clear that she expects you to put taking care of your body above everything else.
You manage to keep up with it, just barely, and over the next few weeks you gradually regain your mobility and your strength. The sensation of not having something between your legs which has been there your whole life is slowly sinking in, too, and you've stopped noticing the absence of your bulge when you're wearing skirts. You haven't stopped being anxious about whether it's showing, but hopefully that'll come too.
While you're recovering (and spending three hours a day dilating, which is even more exhausting than you thought it'd be), Ezra goes back to handling absolutely all of the housework, cooking, and cleaning. When you offer to help, she tells you to just stay in bed, but you can tell that the workload is gradually wearing her down too. Your sister's one of the most driven people you've ever known, but even she has her limits. It seems like her work stress has only gotten worse, too, and when she comes home some nights it seems like she's just barely dragging herself through cooking and cleaning. You do your best to be comforting, to help her relax, but she won't have any of it. You even shyly offer her a blowjob once, remembering how much she liked it when you did, but she just shakes her head and tells you you shouldn't be worrying about her right now.
That makes your heart hurt, because you don't know that anyone else has ever cared about you like that before. It also scares you, surprisingly; once you manage to untangle your feelings about that, you realize that it's because you need to be useful to Ezra. Being unable to do anything for her is frightening because it'll mean she doesn't want you. You don't want to add yet another burden to your older sister's shoulders, so you keep that fear to yourself, letting it fester. Whenever it gets particularly bad, you find yourself touching your collar for comfort. If Ezra really didn't want you, she wouldn't let you keep wearing it, would she?
Your first walk outside is a major milestone, as is the first time you can actually bend down to pick something up off the floor without wincing. You're healing, and while you wish it was going more quickly, at least you are healing. You've checked yourself out in the mirror, and it looks like your new vagina's healing well too, which is good because you have no idea what you'd do if it wasn't. It's not like you could ask Ezra to take you back to the surgeon's office again. You already have a followup appointment booked in a couple of months, and that's as much of an imposition as you're going to allow yourself to be.
About six weeks in you feel well enough that the bed rest is really starting to eat at your sanity. You've been outside every day for a few days in a row now, walking slowly but steadily. You pay a visit to Reader's Haven. Isabelle seems very pleased to see you, and invites you into the back room to chat a bit. When she tentatively brings up the fact that you're walking much more slowly, you end up explaining exactly what the surgery that required you to be away for a few weeks was. She doesn't seem particularly surprised, but she does smile and give you a hug, and she tells you she'll have you back whenever you're ready. You agree with her that you'll come by the next day and try to work a couple of hours as you're able, and if things go well you'll gradually come back to your full-time schedule. It feels good, like an adult thing to do - and you worked out how to do it on your own, too.
When Ezra comes home that evening, you greet her on your knees by the door, for the first time since surgery. It hurts a little, but it's not so bad really, and the look on her face when she sees you there is worth it. You really like making Ezra happy. She leans down to give you a soft forehead kiss, brushes your collar with the backs of her knuckles, and smiles at you.
Over the next little while, you're gradually able to pick a few chores back up. The first evening that you manage to get dinner made for your sister before she gets home from work feels like another one of those major milestones, especially because she finally decides that it's okay for you to kneel next to her for feeding again, instead of being fed while both of you are sitting on the couch. You can't remember exactly when you started caring about kneeling for Ezra. There's a part of you, still, that hates it, that wants to scream or cry or fight or just plain get up and run, but that part's been getting quieter lately, weaker. The fact is that you're comfortable here, happy sometimes even, and you have food and a warm bed and a job you can do and a... partner? who loves you, and that's a lot more than you had before Ezra made you her slave, and -
- and really, you know in your heart that without her you wouldn't be able to have any of this. You aren't strong enough, aren't smart enough, and certainly aren't tough enough. You'd be homeless, probably, and even if you weren't you'd be faced with the impossible task of trying to run your own life, by yourself, which you clearly aren't ready to do. So, yeah, you're a caged bird, but your cage is comfortable, which apparently is enough for you. You mostly just try not to think about it too much, and when you do, you find a distraction or cuddle with Ezra until it goes away. It's fine. It's a lot more than you expected out of life, in fact, in that you generally don't want to die. In fact, lately you've been finding that you sometimes want to live, which is a feeling even more alien than the whole new vagina thing. Maybe belonging to someone is just what you needed all along.
You keep recovering, and before long you're back at work full time, or full-ish, and you're able to do your chores and such, and it feels like Ezra's stress is starting to melt away again, which lets you relax too. Being around your sister when she's stressed and tired isn't much fun, especially when she won't let you help her unwind. She won't let you serve her with your mouth, even when you're healed up enough to have no problem at all kneeling, and you can't really figure out why. It's like she doesn't want anything to do with you any more; she doesn't even seem like she wants to cuddle you while you're both sleeping, which stings more than you'd have expected. You avoid bringing that up with her, either, and just let your growing fear and despair sit.
Before you know it, your followup appointment arrives. Ezra manages to squeeze out a couple more days off of work, and you two take a horribly sleepless redeye flight to get there early in the morning on the day of your appointment. You're so tired that you can barely take in anything your surgeon's saying as she examines you, but your sister's taking notes, and the only part you really care about is that you're healing up nicely and you're cleared for "everything but swimming". Ezra allows you a celebratory oat milk latte afterwards, before you head back to the airport for your flight home. You nurse it carefully as the two of you sit in some anonymous little park, waiting the hour or so until you need to head back to the airport. Ezra puts her arm around you on the bench. It's nice.
It's probably the sleep deprivation that loosens your tongue.
"Mistress," you begin, haltingly. She looks over at you, eyebrows raising slightly. You've never stopped calling her that, ever since she first told you to, and it's gradually feeling more and more normal. You swallow your nerves, hands twisting together in your lap.
"Do you not... want me? Any more?"
She blinks. "What?"
You crack. "I mean, you haven't, um." You flush deeply and look down at your lap, smooth your skirt. "You haven't... wanted me to serve you, since I got surgery, and I..." You trail off, then take a breath and finish, voice shaky: "I'm scared."
Your sister leans closer to you, puts her arms around you, and pulls you close to her. Just that little gesture is enough to make you tear up. She puts a hand on the back of your head and presses your face into her chest.
"Oh, pet," she says, squeezing you. "No, it's not - no. I just..." She sighs, then draws a breath. "I'm not always good at - at restraining myself around you, and I don't want to get carried away and hurt you before you're healed up enough, so I've just been, um. Keeping my distance until you're ready."
"O-oh," you say. You should've thought of that, but of course you just assumed the worst and then spent the past three months worrying about it for no real reason. Typical you.
"I'm sorry for not saying anything," she says, quietly. "I've been trying to... ugh." She pulls away from you slightly, squeezes her eyes shut, pinches the bridge of her nose. "I'm kind of crazy, hon. I guess you know that. I get really scared sometimes, too, and I know I need to be strong for you, and I'm really trying not to hurt you, and - well, yeah."
"I don't mind," you reply.
She looks at you. "Don't mind that I'm crazy?"
"Or - or that you hurt me. Um. If that's what you need."
She frowns. "You... don't? I feel like you should."
You shrug, give her a crooked smile. "Yeah, well. My brain's never worked right either. I feel like I should... hate this, you know?" You reach up with one hand, tap the collar around your neck lightly. "But I don't. It feels like - like there's a place I'm supposed to be, I guess, and I know what to do, and when, and I... I like you, Mistress, and I like being yours, and I want to give you things in return for everything you've given me, and - and if what you want is to use me, or fuck me, or hurt me, then that's... then I'm happy to give those."
Ezra's gaze softens, and she leans a bit closer to you, takes you by the collar. You blush at her touching you so intimately in public. She lays a gentle kiss on your forehead, and when she speaks again, there's a new timbre to her voice:
"They're not yours to give, pet, but I appreciate you saying so very much."
She smiles, then leans closer and kisses you.
"Come on. Let's get to the airport. I want to get you home, sleep for an entire week, and then show you exactly how much I want you."
A few months later.
You hate running. You've been at it for months now and, while at first you were open to giving it a chance, you now feel like you've put enough effort in to really, truly say that you don't enjoy it. You do have to admit that it's good for you, or at least it seems like it is, but you definitely wouldn't be out here doing this on your own. Fortunately for you, you're not - when you got home from the bookstore earlier today, Ezra sent you out on your evening run, and whether you felt like going or not (which you definitely didn't) wasn't involved in that decision. You have your phone in a pocket, too, and you know she's going to be watching your location, so you can't even spend your exercise time just walking around outside. You know you would do that if you had the option. You've never been a very disciplined person and you were on your feet for work all day already. The only thing keeping you from doing it now is the punishment you would most certainly get when you came back home after slacking off when Ezra had sent you out to run.
You're still catching your breath as you let yourself into the apartment you two share, sports bra and shorts sticking to your sweat-slick skin. It's early summer, and even with the sun low in the sky at the end of the day, it's humid outside and easily warm enough that it's difficult for you to stay cool. When you step inside, Ezra's right in the entryway, looking pleased to see you. You stop, surprised.
She reaches past you to push the door shut, then without a word, grabs your collar at the back of your neck and pushes you face-first into the hallway wall. You press your hands into the beige wallpaper next to your head, fingers slightly spread. Sometimes Ezra's just like this. She likes touching you, likes moving you around, likes exerting her physical control over you. Part of you likes it too, especially since you're not the only one that's been exercising. Your sister's been doing weights, building muscle, and nowadays she can pick you up without too much difficulty, which always makes you think of a princess in a fairy-tale being carried off by a brave knight, or maybe a bride on her wedding night.
You stand facing the wall, nose pressed against it, all but motionless, as your sister unlaces your running shoes, has you step out of them, then pulls off your socks. She then pulls your shorts off your hips and down your increasingly tanned legs, followed by your panties. You swallow, feeling exposed, and your face heats as you remember that a few days ago Ezra fucked you in almost this exact spot, pressed up against this wall, driving into you from behind. She undoes your sports bra, then spins you around and pulls it down your arms and off, leaving you completely naked except for your collar.
Her face is... unreadable. Normally, when Ezra wants to fuck you, there's a certain look in her eye, a kind of feline expression, subtle but easy to spot if you know what the signs are. After so long as her pet, you know exactly what every one of them is. Today you don't see those signs, though - instead, it looks like your sister's... empty. There's something in her face, something grim and determined, and beneath that is something else, something hot and dark and blood-soaked, straining against fraying bonds. It looks like Ezra wants to tear your throat open using just her teeth, and like she's only barely holding herself back from doing so, second by second. Your blood chills in your veins, and you freeze, prey staring up at an unexpected predator.
"Mistr-?" is all you manage to say, because the moment you open your mouth, she spins you back around, almost slamming you into the wall, and before you can catch your breath, you feel a ball gag being pulled viciously tight in your mouth. You let out a moan of surprise and pain, but your sister simply wrenches the gag into place, then buckles it firmly behind your head. She grabs one of your wrists, then the other, bending them behind your back easily despite your feeble resistance - half-hearted anyway, since you know you aren't supposed to fight her, but you're fucking scared right now - and then you feel the cuffs locking around your wrists, the bite of the steel clamped almost painfully tight. The steel cuffs are for when you're being punished, it's bad girls that get the steel, but you've been good lately, so why -?
"You fucking stink," Ezra growls, voice low. You probably do, at that, since you just got back from a half-hour run that she sent you on. The rest of that train of thought is interrupted by her grabbing you by one of the upper arms, her grip an iron vise on your slender bicep, and dragging you down the hallway towards the bathroom. The gag already aches in your mouth from being pulled so tight. When she shoves you into the bathroom ahead of her, you can see that she's already run a bath for you. You stand obediently next to it, waiting for her to uncuff your hands, but then she abruptly picks you up, sweeping you off your feet, and half-lifts half-drops you into the water.
It's freezing cold. The shock of it, of being suddenly submerged, is so intense that you only barely avoid inhaling a lungful of the icy water. With your hands cuffed, you can't get yourself up properly, can't get your nose clear of the water to breathe, and -
Ezra hauls your head back above the water by her upper arms. You take a gasping, shuddering breath. The sheer cold of the water starts to seep into you, and you find yourself starting to shiver. What the fuck is -
Your sister forces you beneath the icy water again, holding you down. Surprise freezes you for a second, then terror rises to replace it. Is she trying to drown you? What the fuck's she doing? You thrash around, trying to slip free, but she's too strong, and you have your hands cuffed behind you anyway, and you need to take a breath so fucking bad but the surface of the roiling water is still inches away from you, and...
Just as you feel your vision starting to go grey, feel the fight starting to fade from your body, she hauls you back out of the water. You inhale desperately, fighting for a lungful of air, while Ezra smiles - not her usual gentle smile, or the smile she gives you when she's proud of you, or even the private smile that's just for you when she's reminding you who you belong to. This is something else, something new and dark, a smile with canines showing and blood still fresh on the lips.
"Wanna show you something tonight, pet," she says, as your shuddering breaths gradually slow back towards normal. With the gag filling your mouth you have to breathe through your nose, and the icy water's sapping what little strength you have quickly. You wonder if you'll get hypothermia.
"See, pet," she goes on. Her voice is... off. Flat, unaffected. Oddly emotionless. "I warned you. There's something fucking wrong with me. I don't know what it is, never known, but I'm... put together wrong. I think about - about things I shouldn't think about. Things I shouldn't do. And I'm. I'm realizing that I - that I don't have to hold back, actually. Not with you. I can do whatever the fuck I want with you, because you're mine, all of you. So."
Your whole body's shivering by now, and only some of it's the chill water. Ezra's rarely particularly harsh with you, except when you break a rule or disobey her, and that's... predictable and understandable, even if it's not fun. You feel like you know your place with her. This, whatever's happening tonight, is new, and new is dangerous where your sister's concerned. Your hands are still trapped behind you, you're still gagged, but you shake your head violently, crying out into the gag. You don't want this. You want her to let you go, to take you to her bed, to cuddle you and fuck you if she wants to and tell her that everything's okay.
When Ezra forces you beneath the frigid water for a third time, it occurs to you that you might die tonight.
You've never seen Ezra like this. When she's punishing you, she can get angry and lose control and hurt you, but this isn't anger - it's something else, something worse. This is the hidden dark thing that lives coiled at the center of your sister, the thing that her whole self is a fortress around, only she was never a fortress, she was a prison cell. Whatever that thing is, you're meeting it tonight, and you're already naked, and handcuffed, and gagged.
Terror chokes you as the reality sinks in. You thrash wildly, fighting with every ounce of strength, but you can't escape, there's nothing you can do, and just as the world starts to fade away again, she pulls you back out of the water and lets you take a desperate breath. Before you can catch your bearings, she shoves you under again, and again and again she takes you right to the brink before she lets you breathe. It's exhausting, the cold's killing you even if she doesn't actually fucking drown you, and by the time she pulls you out of the bath and dumps you onto the bathmat, you can't do anything but shiver and whimper into your gag.
"Pathetic little fucking thing," Ezra murmurs, as she rolls you onto your stomach. She pins you to the floor, one hand gripping your sopping collar at the back of your throat, and a few seconds later you feel a heavy pressure against your ass. "Know you love this shit," she growls, low and guttural, mouth an inch from your ear, as she forces one of the plugs she got you - the largest one - inside you. The pain of taking the toy, which normally takes the best part of an hour of preparation and warmup to get to, has you fighting again, struggling to get away from it, but of course you can't fight your sister. You scream your pain and terror into the gag, but she doesn't stop, doesn't slow down, doesn't give you any sign of even having heard you except for a low, menacing chuckle. When she's finally finished, when the plug's sunk all the way inside you and the base is pressed against you, she smacks it, sending another jolt of pain through your abused butt.
"Well now you're all cold," she says, and you can practically hear the smirk. You're still shivering as your skin dries in the cool air, shifting around beneath her as you try to even slightly relieve the pressure inside you. It doesn't help. She rolls you over and picks you up bodily, one arm behind your back and another under your knees; your wrists ache where they're pulled forcefully against the cuffs. You think about fighting her, about trying to get away from her at least until she's... not like this, but you know in your heart that you can't, and that trying will only make it worse.
She carries you out into the hallway, and then not into her bedroom, but yours. You haven't slept in here for months, although you do keep the bed neatly made, as you're supposed to. It's mostly where you sit to draw or if you want some alone time. She tosses you onto your bed, then grabs one of your legs and yanks you towards her until you're bent over the edge of the bed, butt towards her.
"There's a pretty sight," she says, and you feel her touch the base of the oversized plug again. She pulls on it slightly, enough to make you mewl into your gag in pain, but leaves it buried all the way inside you. "Stay, pet."
A moment later, you feel a narrow band of pure agony explode across the backs of your thighs. You can't help moving, trying desperately to shift yourself away from the hardest stroke with the cane you've ever taken, but Ezra simply grabs you by your cuffed hands, pins them to your back, and holds you firmly in place, butt presented to her.
"I said stay," she hisses. "You stay, or I'll take you back to the tub and drown you for real. No playing."
She probably wouldn't, but you don't know this Ezra, don't know what's gotten into her, and she's already hurt you so badly tonight, already almost drowned you. You don't know that she won't do it. Terror of her threat - of her - stills you, and you do your best to hold still, screaming in pain into the gag as she tears you apart with the cane, hot tears streaming down your face to soak into your blankets.
The pain is like nothing you've ever felt before. Ezra's hurt you badly in the past, especially when punishing you, but it feels like she's trying to strip the flesh off your bones using just the cane. Every stroke is delivered with all of her awful strength, and they just keep coming and coming, fast and vicious and utterly unstoppable. The pain's beyond anything you can take, beyond anything you've even imagined, and you're sickly certain you can feel rivulets of your own blood running down the backs of your legs. Every so often, Ezra will pause between strokes to smack the base of the huge plug, sending a wave of pain radiating outwards from your ass. Everything else - the too-tight gag in your mouth, the cuffs digging into your wrists - is fading into oblivion.
"Alright pet," Ezra says, leaning close to you. She's pressed into your back, crushing your cuffed hands into you. "Your only choice of the night: do you want my cock in your pussy or your ass?"
Oh, God. Anything but your ass. If she fucks you now, after you've had this plug in you and been caned like this, you might die. You can't take it. Even the idea of it almost paralyzes you with fear. You're sure she won't be gentle with you either way, but please, please, please not your ass.
"My pussy, my pussy, my pussy," you repeat into your gag. The words come out muffled; you hope she can understand them.
She laughs. "I know what my pet wants."
She climbs onto the bed, flips you onto your back, drags you onto the bed with her. You can feel your own blood sticking the sheets to you, the cloying mix of sweat and tears and mucus from crying all over your face. She pulls your legs apart roughly, then a moment later she's thrusting into you, lubricated with nothing but her own arousal. She's on top of you, grinding you into the mattress, hands and teeth everywhere, pinching and scratching and twisting and biting. Pain blossoms everywhere.
It's too much. You go beyond crying, beyond begging, beyond even whimpering, as your sister shoves you into that dark, still place in your own head where you're nothing but an exhausted and terrified animal. You lie still, enduring her using you, and pray for it to be over soon. Above you, your sister's in a frenzy, driving herself into you deep and hard, grinding you away like a desert sandstorm on exposed skin. The collected agony of your shredded skin, the plug still roughly forced inside you, the brutal use of your pussy, the teeth and nails tearing at you all blends together until there's nothing left of you any more.
You blink slowly. You're on your back, looking up at... okay, this is the ceiling of Ezra's room. You're on her bed. Okay.
The pain gradually seeps back in. It's dull, pulsing low and steady up every nerve. It feels distant, like it's happening to someone else. You turn your head cautiously, looking around, and then you realize there's something stuck to your neck. When you reach to touch it, there's a bandage there, just above your collar, stuck to your skin. Huh.
You work your jaw; the muscles ache from the gag having been bound between your teeth earlier. Just then, your sister comes back into the bedroom. She sits down on the bed next to you, gives you an affectionate smile, reaches for you. Your eyes widen and you draw away from her. The memories of what she just did to you are only fragments, disconnected images and sensations, but they're enough for you to understand how dangerous she is.
Of course, you can't actually get away from her, especially not injured like this. She grabs your collar, and you still instantly. All you can do now is try to prepare yourself. Instead, she starts petting you with her other hand. She's speaking to you, you can see her mouth forming the words, but you can't understand anything she's saying.
Slowly, achingly slowly, you start to calm down as Ezra just sits with you, holding you still by the collar and petting you. You can still feel yourself trembling, but... but it's your sister, your owner, and she loves you, even though she hurt you earlier. Eventually, what she's saying starts to make sense again - she's murmuring softly about how proud she is of you, how good you were, how happy you make her. The words are balm for your wounded spirit, and you curl up slightly until you can press yourself closer to her. You were good.
"You're perfect, pet," she tells you. "I've never met anyone else I could play that hard with, and I... I don't think I ever will. You're wonderful."
You whimper softly. You don't want to talk, and even if you could you don't want to ruin the moment with your voice. You love her. You love her, and - and you belong here, just like this. You're her pet. You sink into the blissful feeling of being exactly where you're supposed to be.
Eventually, when she's cuddled and caressed and kissed you all better, Ezra picks you up off her bed, cradling you in her arms. You can feel where at least half a dozen bandages are stuck to your skin. You must look a mess. You hope it doesn't bother her. She carries you into the corner of her room, then crouches down, and - oh.
There's a cage here. It's black, made of thin metal bars, with a blanket thrown over the top of it and what looks like a dog bed and another pile of blankets inside it. You reach for Ezra, trying to cling to her - to stay close - but she gently pries you away from her, lays you down on the dog bed, then leans inside the cage to kiss your temple lightly.
"You get to sleep in here from now on," she murmurs, and shuts the door, then latches it shut from the outside. She stays crouching just outside the door, peering through the bars at you. "I hope it's comfy," she says.
You curl up on your side on the dog bed. Most of your body aches, in one way or another, but the bed beneath you is soft. You've slept in worse places. You can see that there's a little bottle of water leaning against the wall of the cage, just inside, where you can drink from it if you need to. You give your owner a small, shy smile.
"Wow," she says. "The Percocet really does a number on you. I'll have to remember that." She gives you another fond look, then gets up, and you hear her moving around the apartment, going about her night-time routine. She comes back in a couple of minutes holding your toothbrush with a blob of toothpaste on it, opens the cage door, and motions you close. You do, hesitant, and she takes you by the collar again so you can brush your teeth, then tells you to spit into a cup she has.
"Good girl," she purrs, as she shuts the door on you again and locks you in. "Quiet time now, okay? I'm gonna turn out the lights for bed, and I'll come get you up tomorrow morning."
Without waiting for you to reply, she gets up. Through the bars of your cage, you watch her undressing, then climbing into her bed. She turns out the room lights, leaving just a small lamp to read by, and props herself up with a book. You don't have anything to do - can't do anything, really - so you just lie curled on your dog bed, watching her. The cage isn't so bad, really; being in a confined space like this is kind of cozy, and you feel... safe in here. Like you're where you're supposed to be. You touch your own collar, stroking it absently.
Eventually, your sister finishes reading, turns out the light, and whispers: "Goodnight, pet," leaving you to drift off to sleep in your new home.