Page 47 of Servitude to Serpents

My heart lurches as she looks back up at me. She has tears in her eyes, but it's more than that. It’s the fear I see there that doesn’t sit well. “Am I in trouble?”

“No, baby, you aren’t, but I need you to breathe.”

She shakes her head, and I can tell the moment my voice stops reaching her. My jaw flexes as I try to control my breathing.

“You’re mad. Oh-oh,I’m sorry. I wasn’t supposedto—”

I’m not mad at you, Pup.

I can’t bring myself to tell her. I can’t understand for the life of me why I want to make it better, why I would trade anything at this moment to make her stop feeling this way.

Why it pisses me off that I don’t know how to fucking help her.

“Breathe for me.”

She doesn’t.

She can’t.

Okay then.

I squeeze her hands harder than I should, making her cry out, but it brings her eyes back to me, where they should be. She’s looking up at me with a frazzled version of the same face she shows me every morning while she kneels, waiting for her orders.

She needs me.

Her master. Not comfort, but control.

ThatI understand.

ThatI can give her.

I keep the pressure on her hands. “Breathe slowly, in through your nose and out from your mouth.”

She shakes her head, her chest heaving. “I can’t. I can’t handle it. I need—”

“It’s up to me what you can and cannot handle. Or have you suddenly decided you know what’s best for you better than I do? Is that it, huh,dog? You think it’s up to you whether you’re okay or not?”

She breathes in through her nose, releasing a shuddering breath as she shakes her head.

“Your hands are fine because Itoldyou they are.”

Another deep breath as she nods.

Suddenly, it makes more sense, the way she maliciously guards her hands, the annoying amount of time she spends scrubbing her nails.

“Are you a good dog or a bad dog?” I ask, finally releasing her hands to stand—notower—above her.

I watch as she slowly gathers herself, getting into her presenting position, retreating into her submissive space. A sob bursts free from her as she looks up at me. “I’m bad.”

Fuck…

I glare down at her instead of gathering her in my arms, caging her to me like I want to. The desire to do any of that is foreign and almost as uncomfortable as the knife she just wedged somewhere in my ribs. Still, I keep my face indifferent, a mask I don well. “Tsk, you’re trying my patience.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Are you a good dog or a bad dog?”

“I learned how to—" She hiccups. “I learned how to ride a bike. I’ve minded well today.”

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