The lights of the hotel room were off, but the town’s street lights illuminated the room well enough for Sam to still make out the form of the Feline laying on the bed opposite her. She could tell the girl’s ears were slicked back against her skull, not a good sign. Cat’s being common enough through the universe, it was a well known sign that the feline still wasn’t comfortable in her presence. It was starting to get late. She wasn’t sure how late exactly, just that she’d been sitting on the bed across the room, watching Feline’s back for a good few hours at least.
Despite how late it was, she couldn’t get herself to relax enough to sleep for the night. Knowing how stressed she herself was, she could only assume how anxious Feline was at the time.
“I really can’t sleep either,” the cat girls’ ears twitched the second she heard her voice, just as Sam thought. “Can’t blame ya. No tellin’ what’s happened to ya, no tellin’ what’s left to happen to ya. I dunno ‘bout what’s gonna happen tomorrow, but tonight I’ll be takin’ care no one lays a finger on ya. You got your bed, try and enjoy a bit’a comfort before we leave this place. Next time we get ’ta have a mattress might be…” Sam would pause for a moment, prompting another twitch from Feline’s ears as she wondered what was coming next. Sam’s face crinkles in thought, that is the unburned portion which can still move so easily. “Could be a while ‘til the next town. I’m just tryin’ to say to make the best of it while you can. Even in this god awful town, at least we’ve got this little bit of comfort,” she’d say with a wry look on her face as she pats the bed next to her.
Wordlessly, Feline would sit up with ears slicked back. Then begin to crawl across the room on all fours, her eyes shining from the night lights that spilled through the window. Yet the shine was a lie, as empty as the gait of her steps. A mimicry of how one would think a feline should be, exaggerated movements of her shoulders, walking with her paws close to each other. She stares at Sam, watching to see what other requests may come. Nothing more came. Sam would watch all the same, a bit stunned by the approach of Feline. She recognised the intent, which only made her heart sink. She let her come none the less. A seductive approach to show how flexible her body can be, to press her breasts closer and highlighting the cleavage of her small breasts. Every step trained to entice the male gaze. Every step a slow, painful approach to Sam. A shiver would run through Sam, with every fiber of her body she could feel her hate boiling and a tear run down her cheek.
Finally the thin mattress on the bed would shift as Feline would crawl in, leaning her shoulder against Sam as she begins pushing her head into her belly.
“I don’t want this.” Sam would tell her, shaking her own head. She couldn’t move, not because she was frozen, but because she could feel herself her anger about to lash out. At anyone, at anything, she couldn’t be sure, but had no desire to harm someone who has been forced into so much already. “I don’t want this,” a whisper of anger from her breath. “Stop,” she’d say in no uncertain times as she takes hold of Feline by the back of her neck. Just like a housecat, the skin was loose. A perfect handle for discipline as the cat’s dna allows natural instincts to freeze Feline in place. Her head leaning against Sam’s stomach, her muzzle hovering over her lap.
After a few seconds of silence between the two, Sam could feel Feline trembling. The cat’s hands clenched into fists and her eyes shut tight. She dare not utter a word to contradict Sam, she could only brace for the punishment to come for having angered the woman who owns her.
“This ain’t gonna be how it is anymore.” Feline’s scruff was released, the tone in Sam’s voice was not one filled with rage at Feline. It was that of a mother scolding their idiot child. “No more of this, okay? Get these ideas outta your head, ‘cause you ain’t gonna stay a slave, and I don’t wanna treat ya like one.” The hand that had held her back for the crippling few seconds returned to Feline. This time, to the top of her head, placed palm open over her head before following the flow of her fur over the back of her head and down her neck. “There ain’t no need to worry yourself ‘bout this. You’re safe with me deary.”
. Feline on all fours, trying to understand what was happening while Sam simply ran her hand over the young feline’s head and neck. A soothing act, that would help her trembling subside. Slowly, the feline started to believe the woman’s words as Sam had started repeating reassurances to her. If she could truly be free. A thought she had abandoned years ago. A thought that scared her in a way. Like standing at the edge of an ocean she’s meant to cross, but not knowing how she would make it. She’d lost everything she had, with no bearing, if she set off how was she supposed to know where to go? But the thought of freedom itself melted away the room around her as she allowed the potential to wash over her. She could still feel the cheap mattress underneath her, and the hand stroking her head. They were the only things keeping her tied to the reality of where she was.
On a bed, with a woman who was practically a stranger, being promised something she believed was out of her reach. She could feel the weight of what she had been through. What she had been made to do, the things she had seen. Memories she had learned to bury, which were burned into her nonetheless. If it could end. All of it, over.
She felt her body tremble once more. Fear, hate, sorrow, false hope, a blend of emotions that she had worked so hard to ignore at every instant that she encountered them. Most of all, she felt an overwhelming sense of fatigue. The burns of her sores, the weakness in her muscles. If she could let herself believe this lie for tonight. Just tonight. That this was indeed a good woman. Just for tonight, she could lay next to her, let her head rest on her lap and hope for a better tomorrow. Believe in a promise that could be as good as a lie.
“There there little one,” Feline could hear Sam say to her in a soothing voice. Rest seemed impossible though. There was too much welling up, about to break through the wall she had made to hold it all in. Yet she could make no noise as the bed and wall she was staring at began to blur from her tears. Silently she wept, letting the tears roll down her face and onto Sam’s pants legs.
“Oh no,” she’d begin when she’d realised she was going to soak the woman in her tears. Hurriedly lifting herself off of Sam and holding herself up with one arm. The other hand worriedly wiping at the tear soaked fur of her face. “Wet.. You.. I’ll,” she says with a huff of breath between each breath.
If she would look at Sam she would see that the woman wasn’t worried about such trivial things. At first she was working through her own surprise to hear the feline’s voice for the first time. A voice as clear as a bell.
“No..” Sam would say back to her as a smile slowly spread across her face, on clearly visible to Feline despite the room being lit by only the city lights spilling in from the window. “no need to worry about getting me wet. Lay your head down and cry all you want if you’d like, it’ll dry up just fine.”
The Feline would clear her eyes as best she could and stare between the woman’s face, and her lap. Evidently hesitant about taking the offer, but it would have been a lie to say that it wasn’t soothing to have rested her head there before. Seemingly having made up her mind, she holds herself up with her arms as she lowers herself back down to the bed, resting her head on Sam’s lap.
Sheepishly she’d ask Sam, “pets?”
“Of course deary,” Sam would tell her, beginning to slowly stroke her head down to her shoulder.
As she lay with her eyes fixated on the wall in front of her, Feline’s thoughts wandered while her tears rolled onto Sam’s pants. The thought of freedom didn’t erase the wounds from the past. Nor did it lessen the sting of those still on her flesh. But maybe, she could allow herself hope.
Soon, the Feline’s eyes would become heavy with her fatigue. The slow steady caress of Sam’s hand over her fur would lull her towards slumber. She was already there when Sam’s voice would wake her, making her jump a bit as she asked, “what?”
“Time to get some sleep hun,” Sam would repeat to her.
“I am sleep.”
“Uhuh, time to get to a bed”
“Bed… In bed,” she’d tell Sam. All while getting comfortable again on her lap.
“Darlin’, it’s time I sleep too. You need to get off my lap.”
She’d let out a groan and barely lift herself for Sam to get out from under her. “Then lay down.”
“Excuse me?” Sam would ask genuinely surprised.
“Lay. Sleep.” Feline would tell her, and emphasize the last word with a thud from her open paw hitting the mattress.
Sam was beginning to understand why this Feline was getting punished so much by previous owners.
“Laaaay.” the Feline would tell her again a hint of childish annoyance pushing into her tone. The tone making Sam frown at her like a disobedient child.
Though, for one night Sam could indulge her. Making herself comfortable on the bed, while making sure her guns were kept within easy reach. Her rifle next to her and her pistol un her gun belt next to it.
Unsurprisingly, Feline would push herself against Sam. Her back pushing into the scarred woman’s side, forcing contact. “Sleep,” Feline would say to her with the faintest purr.
Uncomfortable, for many reasons, but bearing it nonetheless. Sam would reply “sleep,” in agreement before closing her own eyes to drift into a light sleep.
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