Dominant Creed

When Sip woke up, it all felt much brighter.

The strong work lamps in the ceiling of the Clocktower’s main cavern had been turned on, for the morning cleaning crews to see by. Their light streamed in through the bedroom window – a cool, white, matter-of-fact light that helped him chase away last night’s dark mood. He had probably just misunderstood her. Or she might have misspoken. They’d clear it up in aftercare.

For now, though, he had a scene to continue. Cirrus had wanted to wake up and be in play right away, so he had to be prepared for that. First he’d need an erection – still lying in bed, he stuck a hoof in between his legs and began making one. It didn’t take long, thinking about Cirrus and yesterday’s session, at least the first part of it . . .

He rolled out of bed, ready to get into character. Immediately there was a sound of chains from Cirrus’s cage, and he saw her lift her head to look calmly at him. She was already awake! Had she seen him jerk off? He told himself sternly that was alright – she had shown him already, on their first night, and turnabout ought to be fair play. Still, the thought that she had seen it made him very hard and ready for what would come next.

Her cage was low enough that he could rear up and stick his penis in between the bars, resting his forebody on its polished wooden top. She didn’t need to be told what to do. He couldn’t see what she was doing down in the cage, but he could certainly feel it. And he could hear her, humming happily around his cock. It still amazed him how enthusiastic about blowing him she was. To think he had been ready to decide he needed to leave her! He must be going crazy.

It took him some time to come, though. Down in that cage, not only was she out of his sight, but he also couldn’t really feel her moving under him, could barely smell her scent. It felt disappointingly impersonal. He rose up on his forelegs to help the matter along by thrusting a bit. The cage top had an inlay of lighter wood in the shape of a weaver’s knot. Great alicorn, how far did they go to personalize these suites for each occupant?

Eventually he did go off, of course. He took a few moments to catch his breath and then climbed down from the cage and walked away, forcing himself not to look back at Cirrus while she worked on her swallowing. That was the sex slave’s life, reduced to a cocksucking appliance and left behind when her services were no longer needed. At least he hoped that was what she wanted to try. He could be caring and considerate later.

The suite had a small tea kitchen squeezed in behind the training room, on the way to the bathroom. He found a bag of oats in the cupboard and poured a portion into a feeding bowl. That would be her breakfast.

She looked up at him with a relaxed smile as he returned to the bedroom, but then remembered her station and cast her eyes down, blushing. He unlocked the door to her cage but left her hooves chained to the side bars when he placed the bowl in front of her. She began feeding without a word.

Sip didn’t usually eat breakfast, so he went to the bathroom to take a shower while Cirrus ate. The warm water helped wake him up properly while he went over the scene so far in his head. Did the plan still hold up? He noticed that even here in the bathroom there were little rings set into the floor and walls for restraining a sub. Of course she would need a shower too, and she couldn’t very well be allowed the freedom to take it herself, could she now? So there was an amendment to the plan already.

When he emerged from the shower, she had finished her oats. Sip recalled his idea from the day before, to see how far they could get before needing to speak. That might be worth a try. So he didn’t say anything while he freed her from the cage, and she silently let him lead her off to the bathroom and latch each of her hoofcuffs to the rings in the floor.

He briefly wondered if he ought to gag her, to ensure she wouldn’t inadvertently spoil the plan. But no, that wouldn’t work – he’d have to tell her to test her safety bell first, and then he’d have spoken already. Besides, a gag would have felt like cheating. Gags were for her to want to speak but not be able to. That wasn’t the kind of silence he was aiming for.

Just before he turned on the water, it occurred to him that he had better take off her collar first – no point in letting its soft padding get wet. He could do so easily; even though she usually put it on and off herself, in a submissives’ locker room somewhere, Sip’s dom mask did have a key clipped to it that would open the symbolic padlock on a society slave’s collar. Still, she looked on with a worried frown and a definite shudder as he unclasped her collar and put it down on the vanity table on the other side of the room. It struck him that Cirrus without her collar was the most naked he’d ever seen her. Was she shy about that? Some unicorn cities had a tradition for clothes, he knew. Perhaps pegasi too?

But she didn’t volunteer an explanation, and he didn’t ask. That would have lost the game. It was probably nothing.

Her mood seemed to improve when he started lathering her up. She leaned a bit into him, and eventually began humming quietly while he massaged shampoo into her fur. He rewarded her good behavior with a few extra loving squeezes. When he finally put her collar back on, after drying her and bushing her mane and tail as best he could, she was beaming.

His plan for the morning had been more position training, but as he led her into the training room, it dawned upon him that that would mean talking too, at least for him. Most of the positions had hoof signals to go with them, but he had not bothered to memorize them, much less taught them to her. The sight of the training room also reminded him of how she had been standing in the middle of it while she called the Quiet bullies and stomped her hooves angrily. Yes, they’d clear that up later – but it didn’t really feel like a happy room to spend the morning in.

He made a quick decision to go for a walk instead while he replanned. The detour into the training room could be to kit her out a bit for the trip, so it didn’t look like he took her there merely to turn around and leave again immediately. A blindfold, perhaps? No, he had used the blind walk once already this time around. He settled for just a leash, and a rope to tie her tail up along her back to her collar. And a fresh set of wing bags.

The dungeons felt oddly tranquil this time in the morning when not many ponies were about. Sip and Cirrus could go for several minutes before they’d pass a solitary pony, or spy a couple in the distance on the way home from a night that had perhaps gone on for longer than they had intended. In between, their own hoofsteps was the only sound echoing through the normally busy corridors. Sip found himself looking around the empty dungeons in wonder instead of planning his next steps. Fortunately Cirrus seemed to be just as enthralled by the atmosphere.

Two Fountains Plaza was almost deserted too. The information desk was closed and shuttered, with signs stating it would open again in the late afternoon. Next to it, a storefront had been converted into a pop-up bordello, open for business round the clock – but the young zebra on display in a suspended cage out in front had curled up on its floor and lay snoring quietly through the air holes in a pink ball gag. Sip remembered helping auction her off to the madam several days earlier. He wondered how she was liking her vacation.

On impulse, he led Cirrus up the side stairs to the stage where the auction had taken place. He paraded her back and forth in front of the absent crowd a few times, and stopped in the front center where a set of stocks were permanently mounted into the stage floor. She needed only a vague hoof gesture from Sip before she got the point and stepped into them, facing the plaza. The last ponies to use the stocks had left them in a position where she would be forced to stand with her legs somewhat farther apart than her natural stance, but that suited Sip fine. When he locked the outer planks shut around her fetlocks, a shiver ran through her, but she then looked briefly back at him with a small expectant grin. Good. He awarded her a short peck on the cheek and left her locked in while he went backstage to pick out some tools and take a few moments to think about how this would go.

The first task would be to make sure she couldn’t see what he was about to do to her. Blindfolding her still felt like it would be a wrong move – he wanted her to see whichever passers-by would witness her ordeal. He thought about using ear clamps again, to tie her head down towards the stage edge so she couldn’t turn it. But the small toy wall behind the stage was not as well stocked as a standard training room, just enough for making an improvised scene interesting. There were no ear clamps. It looked like he’d have to rely on making her not look back. That might be a challenge to do without needing to speak. Well, he could make an attempt.

He returned to the stage with a crop and used it to gently guide her head into the pose he wanted, like he had often done in position training. She complied easily enough, looking straight ahead at a couple of mares in maid uniforms who were pushing cleaning trolleys across the plaza. A light push on her cheek with the crop made it clear to her that she was not to turn her head to follow them. But when the maids had disappeared into the aftercare block behind one of the fountains, she tried to turn her head back towards him, and he had to quickly slap her on the shoulder with the crop and guide her back to looking the right way. He stepped back and waited for a minute to see if she would try again. She didn’t, until he reached out a hoof to tickle her side – and then it only took another slap with the crop for her to think better of it and go back to staring straight ahead.

Sip pulled up a low stool and sat down behind her rear end, to begin working her over in earnest. At first it was just massaging her teats and buttocks with his forehooves, but once he felt her relax a bit, he started alternating with some tools to make different sensations – a soft-bristled brush for her marehood, a slightly stiffer one for the sensitive spots he had learned she had on the inside of her gaskins, a lubed-up butt plug that he teased her with several times but never stuck all the way in. Each time he switched to a new toy, he had the crop ready to correct her if she broke posture and tried to look back, but she had understood his unspoken instructions beautifully.

Eventually he could hear her breathing grow deeper and more erratic, and he gradually laid off the toys in favor of his own mouth and muzzle, nibbling her hocks, licking her thighs, nuzzling at her flanks. She made little starts and jitters, as if she was trying hard to hold back from fighting the stocks. But she wasn’t controlling her marehood, muscles working as eagerly from within as he did from without, pulsing and swelling with sweet-smelling fluid. Now was the time. He pushed her butt plug all the way in and kicked the stool noisily backwards as he reared up to push into her himself.

He caught a glimpse of a pair of ponies who had stopped a few dozen steps in front of the stage and were looking up at them. The stallion inclined his head towards the mare and whispered something to her. She nodded slowly, almost completely wrapped in a hooded afterrobe. Sip didn’t know how much he really liked being a public spectacle, but he had set it up himself so fair was fair, and he had a mare of his own to care for anyway. He concentrated on rutting Cirrus, pulling her mane in synchrony with his thrusts, wrapping his forelegs around her wing roots for purchase, feeling her body tense up when at last she gave in and started thrashing against the stocks.

After what felt like an eternity of bliss he came, and then collapsed down to hang from her back like an oversized saddlebag. The coarse covers he had put on her wings felt scratchy against his belly, but he didn’t care. He lay there peacefully, feeling her ribcage expand and contract as she breathed. When he eventually looked up, the pair of spectators were long gone.

Finally he did speak. “Good morning, George.”

* * *

“Ahhh!” Cirrus flopped herself down on the couch in the aftercare room. When Sip turned back after dropping the used toys into the laundry hopper, she sat there, staring blankly ahead.

“Are you all right?”

She gave a small start and a smile that looked a bit forced. “I’m fine. Just a bit . . . fried? That was a very long round.”

He sat down beside her and reached a hoof around her barrel in a suggestion of a hug. “Too much?”

“Oh no. No, it was good. I’m glad we did it. Just, you know, it’s good it’s not that much each time. I mean, you look a bit drained too.”

“Mmhm.” He wasn’t sure if he ought to be disappointed she wasn’t more enthusiastic, after all that work and planning. He did his best to hide it; it wouldn’t do if she started thinking she had to fake enthusiasm for his sake.

“Sip, do you think there’s a bottle of preen oil out in the shower? I don’t think I ought to go home looking like this.” She stuck a wing out between them and wiggled it back and forth. It looked quite a bit more frazzled than Sip thought he remembered it being when he had dried her off after her bath.

“Let’s go and have a look,” he managed. Now that she mentioned it, he did remember that the Earth Pony’s Field Guide said pegasi used a special oil to care for their feathers. He had forgotten that when he suddenly decided to bathe her. It couldn’t have been that bad to miss it for a few hours, she’d have safeworded to tell him if it were. Wouldn’t she?

There was indeed some preen oil in the toiletry cabinet. It was a good thing he had Cirrus with him; it came in a shaker that he wouldn’t have looked at twice if he’d had to fetch ‘oil’ by himself. It would melt when it came into contact with body heat, Cirrus explained while she lay down on the bed and shook out a puff of fine powder across her left wing.

Suddenly the whole room smelled like her wings. So that’s what it was. He had wondered where that certain scent came from. He took a deep sniff to –

“Sip? I said, would you like to help?” She was looking at him quizzically, but also with a hint of amused smile.

He collected himself. Preening, yes. He had only vague ideas how that worked. “Tell me how,” he said.

It turned out it wasn’t all that difficult when he got the hang of it. Her feathers seemed to know the right patterns to arrange themselves in – he just had to nudge them in roughly the right direction with his muzzle. He quickly learned not to lick his lips while working, though. The raw oil had a distinctly bitter taste.

“Yeah, you’ll have to wash your muzzle afterwards,” said Cirrus when she saw him scrunch up. “There are some brands that have fruit flavoring added, for foals, but we never use those at home. Mom says the real stuff builds character.” She rolled her eyes.

It took quite some time to get both wings done. He could understand why it was usual to get somepony to help; it would have been much more difficult for her to reach some of the places herself. But he didn’t mind the work; it was a new way to be together with her. They talked over the scene while they worked, in no particular order. As so often before, she seemed to be more satisfied with it than he thought he deserved.

“Thanks for letting up when I had to staircase,” she said at one point. “In that blowing alley.”

Sip continued tidying feathers. She wasn’t really supposed to thank him for that. It was his duty anyway.

“Suddenly I felt if I had to suck one more of those stallions, I might have puked all over him.”

“Oh.” He remembered he had made her suck one more stallion: himself. “You should have said something, I wouldn’t have –”

She giggled and bapped him in the face with the unpreened end of the wing. “Would have been your own fault if you got puked on. And anyway –” she blushed a little, and the playful tone in her voice disappeared “– it’s different when it’s you.”

“Sorry for putting you through that. I thought you might like it.”

“But I did!” she insisted. “I mean, I didn’t like doing it, but . . . that’s why we’re here at all, isn’t it? When you make me do it anyway? I like that. Like when you put me into a cage to sleep instead of in the bed with you, and in a way that’s super disappointing and horrible, but on the other wing that also made it totally hot? It’s . . . I don’t explain myself very well, do I?”

He had known the cage would be a mistake, but there was nothing to do about that now. “As long as you’re happy,” he said weakly.

They went back to the shower together to wash the preen oil off their muzzles.

“By the way,” she said while he was drying himself off, “there was one small thing I didn’t like. In the bathroom this morning when you took my collar off. That was . . .” She shuddered.

“Sorry. I thought it would be a pity to let it get wet.” He held the door for her, back to the aftercare room. “I’m not supposed to?”

“I mean, I don’t think it’s forbidden, but there are some stories going around. About a mare who’s taken down to Root by a dom she doesn’t know, and then once she’s tied up he rips her collar apart and starts saying how she’s not worthy of deciding which collar she wears herself. I don’t think it actually happened, just an old mare’s tale, but it’s scary all the same. It’s a reminder of the things that could happen if someday the rules and the safewords don’t work. Not with you, of course, but still . . .” She sank down in one of the armchairs.

“Sorry,” said Sip again, choosing the couch for himself. “I didn’t know about those stories.” But now she had brought up the topic again, it was time to clear the air after yesterday, no matter how he wished he could pretend it hadn’t happened. “You also mentioned Root yesterday?” he said probingly.

Somehow that seemed to cheer her up. “Oh yes,” she said with a knowing smile. “I guess those stories have done their part in turning me off Root. But you can bet they’ve been effective. Never gonna set hoof down there ever if I can help it. Don’t you worry, I’m not going to run off with some Root-qualified super-dom while your tail is turned. Bucking noobs have to stick together, don’t we?”

Sip didn’t answer. It was as if the room was beginning to spin slowly. This wasn’t how clearing the air was supposed to go.

Presently some of the levity disappeared from Cirrus’s expression, and she leaned slightly forwards towards him. “But really, Sip, I think the best thing that could happen to me after joining was that I met you. Do you know I used to be a bit scared of doms? I mean, I can’t very well be submissive without someone to submit to, but I always worried if I hooked up with somepony, he’d eventually expect he could drag me down to Root and do unspeakable things. But with you, I know you’re just a regular pony after play’s over, and that means a lot. Thank you.”

Sip didn’t recall much of what else was said. Somehow he agreed to another date the next Tuesday, more out of inertia and habit than anything else, and somehow Cirrus decided that this date and aftercare had been a success, and it was time to go home.

He walked her to the stairwell leading from the aftercare rooms down to the plaza. It had been his plan to invite her for lunch in the visitor’s cafe up in the Mansion (absolutely no play allowed), but his heart wasn’t in it. Instead he let her plant a kiss on his cheek and start down the stairs alone.

He stood by the window, watching her cross the plaza, feeling empty inside.