Contractual Obligations Pt. 02

~*~ Contractual Obligations Pt. 2: Performance Review ~*~

Arsa laces her fingers around Marie's neck, pulling the brunette bodily into her lap. She rolls her hips against the slight woman's, exulting in the feeling of their collapse against each other and way their paired movement draws a creak out of the cheap futon beneath them. Their bodies mold into one another as if they were meant for it, with only the thin barrier of Marie's panties separating flesh from flesh. Arsa's fangs skim against Marie's shoulder, olive skin tasting of dry sweat against her lips. The peaking arousal smells to Arsa's preternatural nose like lemons, freshly cut. What do lemons taste like? Arsa thinks. Marie's cautious sigh of need rebounds off the white walls of the tight room, her heartbeat already thundering against Arsa's chest.

Arsa's foot curls around Marie's leg. She groans against the frustration building in her gut as her rutting shaft vainly seeks entrance. Her hand clambers for one of Marie's breasts, sinking nails into fulsome flesh hard enough to tear a gasp out of her.

Wickedness seizes the Skint's bones. Arsa's hips spike and stab at that cotton-clad bottom, her tapered tail thumps anxiously against the back of the futon, unable to maneuver in the tight space, but hungry to share in the licentious movement of their bodies. "I'm going to ruin you," she says, throaty with lust and power. Almost overflowing, Arsa sinks her fangs deep into Marie's arched shoulder; Marie screams.

The intercom's buzz shrieks through the small room, the fluorescent lights kick on to full brightness, and Grace voices her disapproval over the crackling ceiling speaker like a director after a bad cut. "No, no, no! Stop!"

Arsa's passion flits away, replaced by the all-consuming embarrassment of her third failure of the morning. Her body suddenly heavy, she can only stare down at the speckling blood. A potent sting fills her guts, the blush rises in her cheeks. Fuck. Again with the biting?

"Holy crap." Despite her wincing, Marie gives a congenial laugh. "You really got me that time."

Marie's good at putting on a strong show, but Arsa's potent instincts can still sense her human companion's elevated heartbeat, the adrenaline of her fear response, and every individual drop of sweat trembling atop her pores. "I'm real sorry, Marie." Arsa drags her short, violet hair behind her ears and fingers idly at the fetter around her upper arm, a silver bangle in the shape of an ouroboros, the snake's eye inset with an iolite gemstone that not only converts and stores the passion she's meant to collect into usable energy, but also restrains Arsa's more dangerous abilities-though, as Marie has painfully learned, it does nothing to stop her fangs. "Once I start getting really into it..."

"I know, kiddo." Marie extracts herself from Arsa's limp embrace, pressing fingers against the new marks on the curve of her shoulder, thoughtlessly swabbing the pinpricks of blood against her sweat-shined skin. "At least this time you got me somewhere I won't have to explain to my mom at dinner."

Grace's voice fills the room. "Don't fucking humor her, Marie. It's been a goddamn week, it's not cute anymore."

Arsa folds her hands in her lap, partially from the disappointment of her failure, partially from the embarrassment of her cock, which takes always forever to settle, even after the passion of the moment flits away.

Marie aims a pointed glare at the ceiling speaker. "Can you take the lights back down so we can give it another go, Grace?"

"Forget it. I've got a meeting in half an hour," Grace says. "Marie, go ahead and take lunch. Arsa, I want you in my office."

The brunette mouths the word 'bitch' towards Arsa as she removes the terrycloth bathrobe from its hook on the wall. "You gonna be okay?" She asks.

"Yeah. It's just a little... embarrassing."

"Hey, don't sweat it. These things take time." Marie pulls her modest body into the sumptuous robe one lingering arm at a time, and Arsa can't help but watch every subtle flux of Marie's breasts until the cinching of the belt removes them from her view. Ever the professional, Marie doesn't seem to mind Arsa's hungry gaze, she doesn't even make note of it. "You haven't come out with the group yet," she says. "It's Friday, wanna grab drinks?"

Arsa perks up for an instant, tail rapt in attention, but slowly her posture slouches back against the futon. She indicates her stubby horns with an overanxious sigh. "Can't. Grace says I don't get a glamour until I figure all this..." She indicates her fetter, its purple eye gem slowly dimming, unfulfilled, as the manufactured passion fades from the room. "...out."

"Well, offer's on the table." Marie gives Arsa's slumped shoulders a conciliatory squeeze as she uses the Skint's body for balance while she steps into her slippers. This genuine proximity significantly more intimate than their mock seduction sessions, Arsa finds herself swept up in her own heart rate, which only seems to be increasing even as Marie's cools. "The Duck's not exactly a three star place, but..."

The intercom buzzes on, ensuring the two of them hear the full measure of Grace's impatient grunt. "I'm not going to say it again, Arsa."

Arsa certainly doesn't rush her trek down the hall to Grace's office-thankfully empty, with everyone out to lunch. Rick, Grace's secretary, quickly sits up straight behind his desk and adjusts his tie when he hears Arsa padding down the hall, only to slump with relief when the Skint rounds the corner. "Oh, hey Arsa." Rick runs his fingers through his short, blond hair and tabs back to his game of solitaire. "Give her a sec, she's on the phone."

"She's mad," Arsa says.

Rick spares her a fraternal smile. "That's how I know you're still new here, 'mad' is her default state."

Arsa shrugs, wasting a few moments glancing at the non-specific art hung on the mauve walls outside of Grace's office. She doesn't think she gets most of them; then again, she's not really sure there's anything to get. Tilting her head, she takes in a canvas of splotchy blue and red colors, mimicking the scurrilous art thief in the movie she'd watched last night on the TV in her dorm: Sheridan Enchanté and the Treasure of the Humble Pirate. Even though she found Sheridan's insouciant mannerisms grating, Arsa finished the whole movie anyway, finding herself inexplicably drawn to the female lead: Sabine, a buxom, mature woman with a penchant for slinky dresses and grappling hooks.

The next painting is a lemon-colored sunburst. Arsa nose flares, recalling the aura of Marie's desire, fabricated, yet still potent. Marie would look good with a grappling hook, Arsa thinks, though she's probably quite a bit younger than the actress who played Sabine-Arsa is finding it difficult to tell with humans.

When Sheridan eventually got the girl, Arsa stayed up half the night practicing his absurd accent in the mirror, leading her to sleepily stumble out of the elevator thirty minutes late for the morning session, directly into the path of Grace's unceasing ire. Marie offered her coffee, but the bitter scent was too much for her sensitive nose. 'Suit yourself,' Marie had said. Unsure what "suits" had to do with anything, Arsa was too self-conscious to ask the origin of the idiom.

A groan from Rick snags her back to the real world. Shaking thoughts of Marie from her head, Arsa urges down the crinkling arousal of her nipples with a sharp pinch before she turns and asks, "Did you lose?"

Rick often loses.

"Yeah, game's rigged." He rests his chin on his hand and clicks aimlessly around his computer screen. "You got that W4 for me yet?"

The memory of fresh lemons, acidic and sour, still tingles through Arsa's nose. She applies a bite to the inside of her cheek. Get it together. "W-which one is the W4?"

"The one that gets you paid." Rick cocks an eyebrow. "You want to get paid, right? That's how you buy stuff, with money."

Arsa affects a naïve look, patting her hands at her hips and waist, where pockets might be if she had ever worn clothes. She spreads her lips in a canny smile, showing Rick the briefest hint of her small fangs. "But where would I keep it?"

"Maybe so, but it's my ass on the line if I don't get it from you." Rick laughs, hitting the reset button on his computer game. "I'll print a new copy. You can sign it after you're done in there-provided you survive, of course."

Grace's phone conversation appears to be reaching its climax. Arsa's ears perk, catching bits of words here and there.

"I'm not ... waste ... her talents ..."

Arsa takes a step towards the office, glancing back at Rick, already absorbed in the new round of cards. Adjusting her tail for balance, Arsa presses her ear against the door.

The lawyer's baritone rumbles against the thick barrier. Grace's inward growl sends tremors Arsa's skin even across the distance. "No ... I am listening ... Yes, I understand."

The cool touch of the wood graces against her nipples as Arsa leans further into the door on tiptoes, straining to catch every syllable she can.

"What ... saying ... she's not ... goddamn wage demon ... not going ... like one!"

There's a sharp rattle from the office, the phone slammed against the receiver. A moment later Rick's intercom buzzes to life with Grace's shouting. "Tell her to get in here already!"

Standing in front of Grace's desk while she puts the finishing touches on what Arsa has learned is an "email," Arsa attempts to subdue her visible apprehension by drawing her tail in front of her and stroking both hands down its slender length. Grace's brow furrows and relaxes. Her shoulders arching in her charcoal blazer, she practically stabs out each word, the persistent clatter of the keyboard rattling off the bookshelves. With no abstract art to distract her, Arsa's curiosity soon gets the better of her. "What were you talking about?" She asks. "On the phone, I mean."

"Stop fidgeting," Grace says, glancing from her monitor to Arsa's feet.

Now aware of how her toes arch and relax ceaselessly against the hardwood floor, Arsa clenches firmly down. "S-sorry..."

The Enter key resonates with a 'clack!' Without a wasted second, Grace picks up the travel mirror beside her and levels a sharp gaze at Arsa. "You should be out in the world by now, that fucking bangle should be brimming with energy for us to harvest, but you're still limp dicking your way around the training course. How many times do I have to tell you? Seduce them, don't terrify them."

"It's not like I'm doing it on purpose!" Arsa heaves her shoulders into a sigh. "Look, I'm just nervous, okay?"

Grace examines herself in the mirror as she listens, pursing her lips and dabbing them with a new gloss of lipstick, its peach color contrasting well with her dark skin. "You're a Skint," she says. "Nervous isn't part of your vocabulary."

Arsa stifles half a growl in her throat. "Well you try doing it with a human, it's hard! Especially when you put all these... these rules on it: can't scare them, can't bite them. It's not fair!"

"Fair?" Grace rolls her lips together, evening out the coat of her lipstick. "I'm sorry, I thought I was speaking to 'Arsa, Seven Hundred and Sixth of Her Line,' not some freshman with an anxiety disorder." Shutting the mirror with a clap, Grace levels her smoky eyes at Arsa in full. "Stop being difficult. I don't have time to waste on washouts."

"I'm not being difficult." Arsa's tail begins to writhe, thrashing free of her hands to whip in angry strikes behind her. "It's just hard to concentrate when I'm so damn hungry all the time, Grace."

"Ms. Gallant."

A fresh wash of chill air fills the room as the air conditioner clicks on. Arsa blinks. "I mean..."

Grace leans forward, resting her elbow against the desk. "When we're talking business, you call me Ms. Gallant."

Arsa's tail immediately slacks, curling around the scarce meat of her thigh. "You haven't let me feed on anything since that first night... Ms. Gallant."

"That's because I expected a hundred-year-old Skint would be able to feed herself."

Arsa flexes her fists beside her, swallowing. "I'm just saying..."

Grace places her palms against her sturdy, mahogany desk, scooting her rolling chair backwards so she can stand. "You're saying that if I give you a bit of incentive, you'll perform better?"

Ruefully, Arsa nods.

Grace glances at her heavy watch-gold, men's. "Meeting's in twenty minutes. If you want to be fed, we're going to have to combine it with your punishment." She pats one of her slim cut pant legs. "Come here."

Arsa's body stands to full attention. She almost skips across the floor, hurrying to adhere her small body against Grace's limber, powerful form. She's already standing on her toes, pursing her lips for a kiss, when Grace places a firm palm against her forehead and plants her heels back against the ground. "Were you not paying attention?" Grace utters a surprised laugh. "I just did my makeup right in front of you."

Arsa's lips, denied their target, clench against empty air as Grace turns her to face the desk.

"Hands on top," Grace says.

Spine flexing, her core nearly bouncing from the promise of fresh emotion to feed on, Arsa places her palms down against the blotter atop the desk, scraping her nails curiously against the black leather. A squeal of excitement builds inside her as Grace adjusts and positions her hips, splaying her bottom outward. In this proximity, Arsa convinces herself she can feel the heat washing off of Grace's nearby fingers and over her needy organ, slowly stiffening, but not quite hard. Grace's hand digs into the front of Arsa's hip, yanking a timid sound from the Skint. She waits.

A crack of skin against skin fills the room as Grace brings her hand down upon the slope of Arsa's ass. The demon yelps as the impact causes her body to surge forward, cracking her skinny hips against the front of the desk. Snapping her head back, she slits her eyes at her aggressor. "Ow, Grace!"

"Ms. Gallant," Grace says.

A wrathful snarl builds in Arsa's throat. As Grace's hand wraps over her shoulder, the Skint's body tenses like a cat preparing to strike, the instant rage of receiving the smack tempered only by the confusion of the sting of it on her backside. And why is she blushing?

Another snap resounds through the room; Grace's open hand strikes Arsa cleanly across both cheeks. The Skint yowls against the heat rising in her cheeks. "Stop that!"

Grace ratchets Arsa by the neck, forcing the demon to look back, and up, at her. "You want to be fed, don't you?"

Sensing the uncertainty of its position, Arsa's stomach is the first to break, sending out a quiet gurgle that spills upwards through the demon in a long whimper. Fearing what she might lose if she delayed her answer, Arsa nods anxiously against the hand in her hair, wordlessly granting her permission.

"Do you know how much you cost?" Grace's hands scrawl possessively down the Skint's shoulders. Manicured nails pluck at Arsa's silver ouroboros shackle. "How much one of these trinkets costs?"

Arsa throws her head back and forth, sending a flurry of her purple hair in front of her eyes.

"Let's just say I'll be paying off those summoning materials long after my partner loan's settled." Grace's fingers rove up and down the sides of Arsa's bare torso, testing every inch of her. "I want to hear you say: 'I am very expensive.'"

Arsa shakes in her hesitation. Those fingers now casually meanderer over each bright red blotch oozing to the surface of her upturned rump. The breath strangles in Arsa's throat, her body rebelling against this tacit penalty for her reluctance. And so, voice creaking like an old cellar door, Arsa begins. "I-" Crack! "-ow, dammit!"

Arsa throws a hand back over her bruised ass on instinct. But Grace grips her by the wrist, planting her palm back atop the blotter, holding it there while her other hand traces delicate, painful touches over the strips of red spreading across the demon's alabaster skin. "I can't expense you, Arsa. Everything you have comes out of my pocket. Do you have any idea how much it costs to keep you set up in the dorms alone?"

"C-can't be that much," Denied the coverage of her hand, Arsa snakes her tail downward, winding its length protectively over her rear. "What happened to the luxury suite you promised me? My room's basically a cell."

"You get the goods when you show results." A liberal pinch finds some exposed corner of her ass beneath her guarding tail, Arsa hisses all the way to the ceiling, and Grace continues. "Do you honestly not know why I'm asking you all this?"

Shoulders tense, body wary, Arsa feels her stomach flop and turns against the mutiny of her words. "Because you're a bitch?"

Grace's limber fingers roam around the circumference of the supple, flexile base of Arsa's tail. "Lift this, please," she says. "I don't want to hurt it."

Arsa flinches from just the threat of abuse; she'd endure a dozen more slaps against her ass before she took one on her vulnerable tail. The leather blotter tears readily beneath her sharp nails, spilling its thin layer of abrasive, inorganic stuffing across the sensitive pads of her fingers.

Grace's clenching hand cinches around her wrist, deepening the subtle dominance of her touch. Arsa shivers. A bead of sweat catches in her eyebrow, hovering pendulously for a moment before spilling down into her eye. Arsa clenches her eyes shut, needing to blot out some portion of her boggling senses just to concentrate enough to make her tail obey. Now focused, she lifts it gradually, inch by inch, until it stands upright in the air like an antenna; or, perhaps, a lightning rod, a rigid length meant to direct the electric pain of Grace's strikes to their proper target.

"Good," Grace says. "Start again."

"I..." Arsa starts. "I-I am-"

Crack!

The jewel in Arsa's fetter flares the same eldritch color of her eyes, the trinket's ward struggling to hold back the potent energies storming inside the Skint. Arsa locks her jaw. "I can't exactly do it if you keep hitting me."

"If you can't do this," Grace says, "you can't do anything useful."

Grace's casual touch spreads wide Arsa's throbbing cheeks, exploring the narrow strip of skin between the hidden pucker of her ass and her retreating testicles, damp with the sweat of her effort. With a swallow, Arsa realizes her cock has worked itself to a demanding rigidity. Fangs grit against the inside of her lips, rippling the memory of Marie's ripe, healthy blood through her mind. Arsa grinds her molars against the thoughts, trying to ignore the potent, screaming stiffness of her nipples.

At the first moment of hesitation, the clap of Grace's hand against Arsa's bottom rings through the room.

"I'm sorry!" Expecting another slap, Arsa flinches away, and the inadvertent rut of her cock against the desk wrenches a juvenile moan from her. "I'm trying my best!"

Grace eases herself against down Arsa's back, the coarse fabric of her blazer tearing a convulsive shiver from the Skint as it brushes across her skin. "This is Harris, Harris, and Clay, your best isn't good enough. 'Your best' isn't going to make me a senior partner." Grace leans in close, her speech a susurrating whisper that wafts her lips against Arsa's ear, gentle as the rustle of wind-blown grass, as she divulges this final truth. "'Your best' isn't going to fuck Marie."

Arsa grits her teeth to try and stow the shaking of her legs, to limited effect. Her breasts heave under the weight of her breathing, each sob plastering her shallow stomach all the way back against her spine.

"Do you want to help me, Arsa?"

Grinding her fangs against the inside of her cheek, Arsa throws out an uncoordinated nod.

Grace releases Arsa's wrist, instead trailing her fingers across the subtle curve of Arsa's hip, so perilously close to the radiating swell of her head. "Do you want me to help you?"