Playing Favorites – Chapter 5

Jacinda

All right, I’m pretty sure I’ve gone completely nuts.

It’s the only explanation that fits. How else can I make sense, not just of what’s happening, but also of the way I’m reacting to what’s happening?

Or rather, the way I’m not reacting.

Let’s sum up the last few minutes: I have tried to leave the library, with the jerk hot on my heels. He has managed to catch up with me. How did he do that, by the way? I walk faster than Humans, even athletes. Then, he grabs me –he grabs me!- and almost throws me inside an empty reading room. Now, that’s definitely wrong, because there’s no way he’s stronger than me. Did I… maybe let him do that? If so, that’s a strong argument in favor of the loony theory. The jerk hasn’t said anything, and, weirder still, neither have I. And just now, he has locked the door behind us, and backed me against a wall.

Last time a man grabbed me, let’s just say there was a lot of screaming, cursing, and eventually punching on my part. There may also have been some crying, but not on my part.

But this time? Not a word, not a peep, not a move. Even my eyes can’t seem to budge, forcing me to gaze at the tense expression on his face. Well, “forcing” is a bit strong, but you get what I’m saying. Seriously, I might as well have invited him to do all that. Heck, I might as well tell him to pin me against the wall, rip off my top, and-

“We need to talk,” he says, his lips curling downwards.

“About what?” I say.

“About this morning. At the coffee shop.”

Right.

“Well, talk then,” I spit out.

His eyebrows dip in the middle, accentuating the anger in his eyes. He breathes out through his mouth; I can smell the coffee, mixed with the hotdog with ketchup and mustard he had for lunch. Speaking of smells, does he have to stand so close? I can’t shake away the scent of his soap, no more than I can ignore how the smell of adrenaline goes well with his natural body odor… or how much it’s working on me.

Ah, yeah, that’s another good argument to prove that I’m going cuckoo. From the moment I felt his hand on my hip, my body temperature must have gone up ten, maybe fifteen degrees. And even if I were dense enough to chalk that up to some allergic reaction or something, symptom number two leaves no room for debate as to what’s really going on. My nipples are erect. Thank the gods I still have my sweatshirt on.

Completely nuts. Utterly crazy. Fookin’ mental, like Uncle Gordy would say.

“It’s not enough that you decide to piss me off at work,” he says, staring me down menacingly despite the fact that I have two inches on him, “you also have to taunt me about it?”

“I didn’t mean to,” I mutter. Yeah, that’s bullshit, and he’s obviously not buying it.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asks. A valid question. “Is that what it’s gonna be, from now on? I’ll have to take your shit not just at school, but the rest of the week, too?”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” I bristle.

“Sorry’s not good enough! I got my first verbal warning because of you.”

“You poor fucking baby,” I say. Despite how guilty I feel about the whole thing -and I do-, I still can’t help but antagonize him.

“Up yours!” he spits back.

“I said I’m sorry. You’re saying that’s not good enough. So what the fuck do you want from me?”

He peels his eyes. Oh, as if I need to ask…

“You want to see my tits again, is that it?” I scoff.

My bluntness makes him do a double take, and blush a little, but he recovers quickly.

“No.”

“So what then? Revenge?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a punishment.”

Fucking what? I can’t decide what’s the damndest part about this: that he actually said that without so much as a stutter, or that I actually felt my body heat up when he did. My mom used to say that I’m going to make a therapist really rich someday… I’m starting to think that she might have a point.

“Punishment?” I say. My lips curl into a sneer, and I see him glance at it. “Am I going to be grounded? I’m a bit too old for that.”

Christopher says nothing, and keeps staring at me.

“What do you want?” I say.

He looks like he’s thinking about it. Meaning he dragged me in here without knowing why. Cool. And now I get to wait until he makes up his fucking mind. Even better.

“Bend over the table.”

I swear my heart actually jumped when he said that. My mouth drops open.

“What?”

Suddenly, his anger is marred with something else. Nervosity. Apparently, I’m not the only one who can’t believe he had the freaking gall to tell me that. I half-expect him to balk, but instead, he says, his voice wavering just a smidge:

“You heard me.”

Neither of us makes a move. I feel… Shit, I have no idea what I feel. It’s like reality went out for a smoke, and common sense decided to take its lunch break, all the while logic has called in sick today. My blood is pulsating in my ears, and I can feel them flicking.

“You want me to forgive you for this morning?” he says after a while. “Then do as I say.”

Is he serious?! Do as I say? Do as I fucking say?! Who the Hell does he think he is? And what am I, his goddamn servant? If he actually thinks I’m going to-

“Fine.”

Oh. Apparently, I am going to. Well, I’ll be damned.

Before the more rational part of my mind can grab me and slap some much needed sense into me, I approach the table, and bend at the waist until my elbows lie on top of it. My boobs are a little squished underneath me, which the jerk probably has noticed. I can’t be sure, because he’s moved behind me, and I suddenly can’t bring myself to turn my head and look him in the eyes.

“Lower your pants,” he says. He sounds more confident now, probably because I just enabled him.

“Are you for real?” I say. Wait. I mean for that to sound indignant. What was that strange tone in my voice? It sounded almost… titillated.

“You can keep your panties on.”

Like I was gonna- ugh! Must he be so infuriating?

Now, Jacinda, this is a good example of what we discussed before. You don’t want a repeat of the other day, between those bookshelves, when you decided to give sanity the middle finger and showed your boobs to that jerk. And avoiding that is very simple. All you have to do is not undo your pants’ buttons. That’s all you have to…

Right. Your paws are moving below the equator, but that’s fine; just stop them before they reach your buttons. No, not like that. No. Move them back up. In fact, use them to stand up again, and leave this room. Maybe punch the jerk on your way out. Do not, by any means, open that first button.

A very quiet “pop” resonates in the room, and I feel my pants going slack around my waist. Yeah, I did it. I’m doing it. The second button quickly follows, and the third one after that. Then, I also undo the button on the back of my pants, freeing my tail. In for an inch and all that.

It’s okay, Jacinda. Your pants are still on, so you still have one chance to quit this nonsense. Simply don’t push the hem of your pants with your tail. You’ve got this.

As soon as I tell myself this, I sense my pants drop around my knees. Damnit, girl, are you even trying?

“Satisfied?” I spit out.

He doesn’t answer. This time, I muster the strength to turn my head and look at him. He’s staring, of course!

“Hey!”

Christopher blinks.

“I said: are you satisfied? Now that you’ve got a good look?”

“No,” he says.

“What! You wanna take some pictures, too?”

“Don’t tempt me, or I just might.”

And I just might introduce your dick to the Burning Witches. That’s what I call the claws on my right hand, after my favorite band. The ones on my left hand are the Black Belles, after my mother’s favorite band.

“Then what? Hurry the fuck up, it’s getting cold here!”

Actually, it’s not. It’s pretty warm, in fact. I guess I’m just making up an excuse for the fact that my butt is quivering. Oh yeah, I didn’t mention that. My. Butt. Is. Quivering. I try to tell myself it’s because Christopher is driving me mad, but who am I hoping to fool? I’m turned on. I’m showing my ass -not completely bare, thank the Gods- to that jerk, and it’s turning me on.

“I’m going to spank you,” he says.

What. The. Fuck?!

I can tell he tried to take on a commanding tone, but his voice wavered again. And yet, the quiver in my butt as propagated through my tail as he said it. There’s no way he didn’t see it. Just like there’s no way he didn’t see the damp spot I definitely have on my panties.

So he wants to spank me? Well, you know what? Fine.

“I… Okay, whatever.”

If he believes he can actually hurt me, he’s got another guess coming. A Hellhound’s hide is about as thick as a boar’s. And I do enough sit-ups everyday that my ass is as tight as my abs. Although I don’t have any fur on my behind…

“You get ten,” I say in an attempt to regain control of the situation. “Not one more.”

“Fine by me.”

Yeah, I’ll just bet it’s fine by you, you arrogant son of-

SCHLACK!

Unholy mother of fffff-

Without warning, his hand has risen into the air -I briefly saw it in the corner of my eye-, then he has thrown it down like he was trying to karate-chop my ass. I guess the jerk jock’s got some strength in him. It… I mean, it doesn’t really hurt. It’s not exactly a gentle caress, but it’s not actually hurtful, either. But between the suddenness, the loud noise, and the humiliation of being spanked even though I’m a fucking grown up…

He hesitates as his hand rises again. I think he expects me to say something. Maybe he thinks I’m going to thank him. Or beg him to stop. Or insult him. To be fair, I expect to say something too. But my lips remain sealed.

CLACK!

Hrrrrg.

I take a deep breath, then another, and mutter a curse under my breath.

“Got something you want to say?” he asks.

“Have you started yet?” I reply.

Why am I antagonizing the guy swatting my ass? I have no fucking idea.

He snorts in disbelief, then -SHLAK!- spanks me a third time. There is still no actual pain, but my ass is starting to smart, just a little. The whole area is getting hot, and the heat is slowly rising up my body like lava. The worst part is I have to ball my paws into fists to resist the need to touch my pussy. Gods. That bastard is spanking me and I’m reacting like a horny teen. I’m not a horny teen, damnit! I’m turning nineteen in a few months. 

CHKLAK!

Ouch! Hrrm. That went from smarting to stinging. Strong, I need to remain strong. This little Human is not going to break me. Nothing can break a Hellhound. Except maybe another Hellhound, but she would have to be pretty pissed off.

KLACK!

“Fuck!”

I toss a glance above my shoulder. Did I swear loud enough for him to hear?

Huh. Thankfully, he’s still mesmerized by the sight of my ass, and doesn’t seem to notice anything else. Seriously, you’d think he’d be more attentive when spanking a girl.

That being said, I can’t really throw any stones as far as focusing is concerned. I’m a hot mess, right now. It’s not just the disconcerting sensations radiating in and around my butt, or the fact that I’m pretty sure there’s now a poodle on the table beneath my mound. My brain is getting all fogged up. I can’t even put it into words, it’s something I’ve never felt before. My thoughts become more and more scrambled with every hit on my ass. Not in a bad way, though. It’s… Well, it’s quite pleasing, actually. It’s like all the nervosity, all the nonsense, all the parasite thoughts are going away, replaced by a big, hot, glowy haze. It feels a little like how I expect being on drugs feels like. A form of indescribable bliss. Shit, I’m even drooling a little.

SCHLACK, goes spanking number seven. Or is it number eight? Fuck, I’m losing count. It hasn’t been ten already, has it? A part of me is actually worried that it might already be over. That’s how bad it is. Must be that one of the spankings has knocked a neuron loose somewhere in my fucking brain.

The next spank comes quickly, both surprising and reassuring. The weirdest sound comes out of my mouth.

“Aaaaaaahnnnn…”

It’s halfway between a scream and a moa- and a gasp. All right, fine, it’s a moan. I fucking moaned. Happy? Goddamnit.

As the spanks-induced fog dissipates a little, allowing me to discern the real world, I realize that I’m raising my ass, lifting my feet on their toes. My tail is wagging crazily, like an advertisement: spank that fine ass, limited time offer!

I await the next hit, making a whiny “hmmm” when it doesn’t come. Wait, why doesn’t it come? Did he break his hand on my ass or something? Hah! I hope he did, the jerk. I push on my elbow and twist my torso towards him. He has backed up a few feet, and he’s ogling me like I’m a ticking time bomb. Understandable, given how close I am to exploding.

“That… That’s ten,” he says.

It is? Oh…

“Right,” I say. 

I clear my throat. Clumsily, I stand up, then bow down to pick up my pants. Damn, why are my paws so feverish? It’s like I just had some caffeine. Gah! Stupid buttons. I knew I should have chosen a pair of pants with a zipper. Christopher sees me fail three times to do the button on my back -my tail keeps fidgeting and getting in the way.

“Let me,” he says.

“No! I’m fine.”

Undeterred, he tries to grab my pants. I push him back. No touching! Not now. I’m too-

“Look, just let me-”

“No, no way.”

“Don’t be so-”

“I said no!”

“For fuck’s sake!”

His hand moves to get the rebellious button, but as I push him again, he trips, and grabs the first thing he can to steady himself. And because the gods have a terrible sense of humor, that first thing just so happens to be the base of my tail.

A shot of pure heat goes through me, from the base of my spine all the way to my brain. I might have made a noise. A loud noise. It might have sounded like a strangled howl, or like the cork on a champagne bottle finally popping after a lot of shaking.

“Did… Did you just…?” he says, gaping at me.

“No!” I say, waaay too loud.

Yes. I fucking came. The jerk gave me an orgasm by grabbing my tail after tanning my hide. Where’s a good cyanide capsule when you need one?

I finally get around to fixing my pants. I don’t even care whether Christopher saw the wet spot at the front of my underpants, or how much I’m blushing; we’re way past that now. After fixing my ponytail, I decide that we’re also way past talking, and get the fuck out of the reading room. I don’t at all remember the drive back to my house, except for the moment, two-thirds of the way there, when I realize I have left my computer and my backpack in the library. With a lot of grumbling and swearing, I make a U-turn -possibly even a legal one-, and go back to campus. Thankfully, Christopher is long gone by then.

Between the detour and the typically ungodly traffic, it’s half past six when I finally make it home. Damn, and I was planning on getting back early so I could work on my math exam… Not that it matters, because there’s no way in Hell I can think about trigonometry now.

I barge in my sister’s room like a hurricane. She’s sitting on her bed, videochatting with someone on her smartphone.

“Hold on sec,” she says, “my sister just came in.”

Nova puts the phone down and tuts.

“You should try knocking sometimes.”

“Let’s go jogging,” I blurt.

She raises an eyebrow, then unmutes her phone.

“I’m gonna have to call you back. Are you free next Saturday?”

While she wraps up her call, I casually browse her bookshelves. Nova has a ton of books. More than she can shelf, and she barely arranges them in any order. Sci-fi novels can be found next to philosophical essays, law books rub covers with cookbooks, collections of poems are right by science books. To call my sister book smart would be an understatement. She reads everything, and pretty much all the time. Hell, she loves reading even more than she loves being a smartass.

My eyes go from spine to spine. Her collection of books is varied, not just in themes and subjects, but also in origins. Some books she simply bought in a bookstore or on a flea market, some were offered to her, and some she has found. Nova is regularly on the hunt for rare books, which she seems to have a preternatural ability to find. For instance, she managed to find an original edition of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court in a casino in Las Vegas. Seriously. A century-and-a-half old book, right there on the floor of a crowded casino.

… All right, full disclosure: I may, theoretically speaking, be a little bit envious of my twin sister. Sometimes. It’s just… She always seems to be really successful at everything she does. She’s got excellent grades, is very knowledgeable in lots of subjects, makes friends easily -though not often, she’s mostly introverted-… And don’t get me started on her luck. Also, everything seems to come easy to her. For instance, about the grades thing, I actually have higher grades than she does, on average. But I feel like I have to put in twice as much work, for merely a slightly better result.

Or maybe she’s just really good at projecting confidence and making it look easy, I don’t know.

What I envy the most about her, I think, is that she’s got a clear goal in life. Nova wants to study the law, and become a prosecutor. She’s got the whole ten-years plan, with lots of steps and details. My sister knows what she wants, and she knows how to get it.

Meanwhile, I still haven’t chosen my major. Something to do with bioscience, liberal arts, sports? I can’t make a decision. Until now, I’ve just been gathering the Gen Ed credits until such a time when I can fucking decide. I’ve taken some early classes back in high school, but it was mostly to get them out of the way.

“So, what’s up?” Nova says, slipping her phone in her purse’s side pocket.

“You feel like jogging? I feel like jogging. Now.”

“Erm…”

She looks down at her goth attire, and gestures at her leather skirt and leather boots. Admittedly, not the best running outfit. She then gestures at her open window. It is indeed getting kinda late, and on top of that the sky has gotten cloudy; could be that it’s gonna rain soon. Freaking fall.

“Well… Do you want to hit the gym, then?” I offer. Our house has its own gym room, though we’re not using it as much as we could. I tend to prefer the campus’ gym: it’s bigger, and there’s more people there.

“How about we just talk about what’s going on with you?” my sister says, standing up.

“I don’t really feel like talking, I feel like running. Or exercising. Or punching.”

“Then, maybe exercising and talking?”

My shoulders sag.

“Fine.”

It would be putting it mildly to say I’m wound up. Ever since leaving the reading room, I’ve been on hot coals. It kills me to think that Christopher has made me feel like that. None of the orgasms I’ve gotten by my own means have ever put me on edge like that -with or without accessories.

I grab a couple of dumbbells and start by working on my biceps. Nova follows my lead. After the biceps, I move on to my triceps, then my shoulders. It’s only when I get to my core strength with several rounds of commando plank that my sister decides I’m never gonna start talking on my own.

“So what happened today? Or should I ask: what did the hot jerk do today?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, okay,” she sighs. “Let’s get past your wall of silence before we get to the sit-ups, shall we? I can smell him on you, and I can also smell that he turned you on.”

“It’s kinda messed up that you know what your sister smells like when she’s aroused.”

“Kinda, yeah,” Nova admits. “Although not as messed up as the fact that I also know that about Mom and Dad.”

“Agreed…”

“So, spill the beans. What did he do to you this time?”

“Ugh, that jackass…” I grumble. “It’s kind of a long story, I don’t really know where to start.”

“Try the beginning.”

I hold my planking for a second.

“All right, so this morning I went for a green tea. I tried that place, Toulouse’s.”

“The pretentious French chain?”

“Yeah. Anyway, guess who works there?”

“I’m guessing the hot jerk.”

“Christopher, yeah. Well, what happened was…”

I succinctly tell her about what I have dubbed the Green Tea Incident. Not as staining as the Milkshake Incident, but a lot more embarrassing for me.

“Wow, that was, uh…” my sister says.

“Real bitchy of me, yeah.”

“No. Well, yeah. But I was going to say that it was predictable.”

“How? I had no idea I was going to do that. Hell, I still don’t get why I did it.”

Nova stops her planking and places a hand on my shoulder.

“Jass, honey, you know how much you hate when I say “I told you so”?”

“Yes,” I groan.

“And you know how much I’m trying to not say it, as a result?”

“Huh-uh.”

She grabs her smartphone from her short shorts’ pocket, and taps something on it. Several seconds later, my own phone vibrates.

Nova: I TOLD YOU SO

“Texting it counts as saying it!”

“I tried as hard as I could to keep it in,” she says, faking an apologetic tone. “Let’s call it a compromise.”

With a loud “ugh!”, I finish my planking and get started on my push-ups. Usually, I need to do about fifty before achieving muscle fatigue, but this time, I pass the sixty mark without any problem. There’s a lot of energy in me, begging to be released. I begin pushing harder and faster.

“Are you imagining that you’re on top of him?” Nova says, smirking.

Well, now I am.

“Fuck you!”

“Definitely not me, no. Come on, finish the story. You riled up the hot jerk on his workplace, probably because he doesn’t have any pigtails you can pull, then what? Did he retaliate?”

Push, push, push. Don’t think, just push. Don’t think about the blood rushing to your cheeks. And speaking of cheeks… absolutely don’t think about that either.

“Holy crap, he did, didn’t he?” My sister smiles. “Spill, Jass. What did he do that got you so pent up?”

Puuuush.

“Fine, don’t tell me. Let’s see, here… Did he make you touch him? No, that wouldn’t leave you anywhere nearly as frustrated. That means he touched you. He started something, but didn’t quite finish. Some kind of foreplay, maybe?… No, wait, it’s supposed to be retaliation. So he… punished you in a way that frustrated you?”

Would it surprise you to learn that my sister is a fan of Sherlock Holmes?

“Spankdmahass,” I grumble between my teeth.

“Sorry?”

“He. Spanked. My. Ass,” I say, accompanying each word with a push.

Nova looks like she just found out that Santa Claus is real, and that Christmas is now in July.

“Yeah, laugh it up.”

“I’m not laughing,” she says. “Where did the spanking take place?”

“Why does that matter?”

“I’m just trying to picture the whole thing. It wasn’t at the library again, was it?”

“It was,” I say pathetically, dropping against the floor mat.

“Hot damn. And I thought I was a bibliophile. Did you get caught? Were you hoping you would be?”

“No, and no. He took me to a private reading room and locked the door. Then, he spanked me. And I just let him,” I add with a huff.

“Of course you did. You’ve been a baaad girl, and you know it.”

I bang my head against the mat.

“I haven’t told you the last part.”

“Ah?” Nova is now smiling so widely I see her gums. One of her upper incisors is a little longer than the other.

“After the spanking, I tried to fix my pants. You know how I often have trouble with my tail hole? Well, he tried to help me.”

“Wait, don’t tell me he…”

“He grabbed my tail. Right in the sensitive spot, too.”

Nova presses a paw against her mouth. Seriously, if she doesn’t let out her laughter in a few seconds, she might break a rib.

“Was it…?”

“Good?” I say. “Well, I came my brains out, so I’d say it was a bit more than okay.”

This time, my sister can no longer hold it. She falls on her back and laughs, laughs, laughs. Meanwhile, I hide my head beneath my paws, hoping I could just die already.

“Oh, cheer up, sis,” Nova says, no longer laughing but still giggling. “It’s not that bad. I mean, is it embarrassing? Yes. Will it be awkward when you have to face the hot jerk again? You betcha. Will I make jokes about it? Yes, and I’ll never stop. But you’ll get over it.”

“How?” I say, rolling on my back. “He’s got one on me now. And you can bet your a- you can bet anything he won’t let me live it down.”

“Do you remember my advice after Catherine Jennings started spreading that rumor that you gave BJs for ten bucks behind the bleachers?”

I sit up.

“Don’t get mad, get even,” I say.

“Yup.”

“So… what? Should I spank him too?”

“Sure,” she snarks. “Or you could do something creative, instead.”

Something creative, huh? I stand up, and conclude my workout session with a few stretches. Yeah… I could do that. My creative juices are already flowing.

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