Chapter 15:
“Ahn~!” A sultry moan escaped from Tamamo’s mouth, “Not so rough~! Lothar, you brute, you’re… You’re going to break me!”
I deadpanned, my hands stilling from where they were gently dragging a brush through the fur of her tail, “Stop that.”
She grinned at me, eyes glinting mischievously, as her voice became even louder, “But it feels so good~! How can you do such a devilish thing to me and expect me to be quiet?!”
I rolled my eyes, “I doubt that it is that good. This is the first time I’ve done anything like this after all.”
“Maybe you are just talented?” She laughed, finally dropping her attempt to embarrass me, “Regardless, please do be careful. They are very sensitive.”
“I can tell.” I hummed, resuming my brushing motions, feeling her shiver through my grasp, “They have been taken care of very well.”
“Well, I am proud of them, you know? A Kitsune’s tails are her life! To be seen with raggedy or poorly maintained ones is a great disgrace.” She puffed up her non-existent chest, “Men have gone mad from just a brush of them, you know?”
“I don’t know if that reflects more on you than the men.” I remarked, finishing my ministrations and giving into temptation, softly running my fingers through the fur feeling a tingling sensation within them, “Though I must admit, these are incredibly soft.”
“Ho ho, you believe you experiencing my true power?” She chuckled, hiding her face behind her fan, “You have yet to experience real softness. My special fluffy tail is potent reward indeed, one which I am loathe to hand out frivolously.”
She tilted her head, ears flopping from the motion as she nodded towards a specific tail that she had kept apart from the others, not allowing me to brush this one with the rest.
“I thought there was something special about that one.” I said, eyeing the vibrant, lustrous golden appendage, “What makes it so different from the others? Is it your first tail or one that is different in a specific way?”
Tamamo’s eyes were unimpressed, coldly staring at me from over the extended rim of her fan, “I tempt you with one of the greatest feelings this world has ever produced… yet your curiosity for it is purely technical?”
Contrary to her earlier teasing, she seemed to have taken genuine offence at this.
“Apologies. I am very tempted, but you have kept it separate from the others this whole time, I assumed it was for a reason. Respecting boundaries is important.” I attempted to explain myself.
She leaned forward, moving the tail to hover in front of my eyes, waving it back and forward, “Really? You know, Lothar, I am reminded that I have yet to see you display even the slightest bit of desire for me, despite wishing to marry me.”
“How would such a desire be observed? Do you wish I devoured you with my eyes more, Tamamo?” I asked, carefully not following the tail as she desired, instead staring into her emerald eyes.
“Even now!” She let out, exasperated, tails not waving in front of my face thrashing in agitation, “You are perfectly controlled. I can smell arousal, did you know? I have yet to taste it from you.”
“I find that hard to believe. I’m not in such control of my emotions to have never experienced that in your presence. I know I have before.” I scoffed.
“Yet, you always strangle it in its infancy. Anger, fear, lust, joy. You do not allow any of them to bloom. Have you even known passion, Lothar? Do you have no drive? Look, I am waving something that I deny you in front of your face, just out of reach.” She waved the tail harder, the fur swishing through the air, “Come on, come on, you can just reach out and grab it!”
“Why?” I questioned, wondering what she was after here, “What do you want to see from me here Tamamo?”
To tell the truth, she was starting to get annoying. I was not a beast, jumping on something that caught my interest and forcing myself on the unwilling. Was the concept of self control really that foreign to her? I don’t think it was, her training with the Earth element meaning she must possess it herself in spades. So what was she after?
She growled, “Are you even a man? Am I attempting to tease a stone?”
Her tone caused my grip to tighten on the tail still in grasp, before I forcibly relaxed it, a familiar buzzing sensation building behind my ears.
She brought the special tail closer, waving it even more ferociously, almost slapping me in the face with it. I was still confused, not quite understanding what exactly she was aiming for here.
I sighed.
Her eyes narrowed at the sound, flaring in indignation. Before I could clarify that was not a sign of rejection or calm her down, something happened.
She snarled, reaching out and grabbing my shoulders. In a flash, I was back in the alley, the motions eerily similar, watching the knife as it drew closer. A pale face, staring down in horror. Blood on the stone.
I reacted.
---ERERER---
Tamamo blinked.
She had lived a long, long time. In all those years, she had become exceedingly well versed in reading humans and their emotions. Or so she had thought, until she had met Lothar. The man was frustrating to the extreme. Cautious, but not afraid. Respectful, but not skittish. Confident, but not aggressive.
There were flare ups of emotion, but he contained it all with an iron grip. It made it incredibly frustrating for her to deal with him. As a Monster, she was used to being an object of both intense reverence, desire and terror. Lothar, by contrast, merely treated her politely, as if he didn’t care for her position.
That was not a problem, in face she rather enjoyed the casual nature with which he addressed her. It was his lack of care for her other aspects that rankled her so fiercely. He wasn’t scared of her, despite the vast power difference between them, something he put down to trust which sat uncomfortable on her brow. Yet, despite his professed desire for her hand in marriage, he didn’t seem all too keen on the idea of laying with her.
She was starting to doubt that he had any lust in him at all. Monster girls had approached him in the most bare of dresses, the mermaids frequently not even bothering to cover up their breasts, yet beyond the odd look, he merely ignored it. She even attempted to arouse him now using Dark Energy, and her own seduction techniques, to no obvious effect.
It was insulting, as Dark Energy did not create attraction from nothing, merely amplify that which was already there. Lothar having no reaction or a muted one meant that she was not even slightly desirable in his eyes, something that struck a heavy blow to her pride.
It didn’t help that in response to her rising agitation, Lothar had remained completely implacable. Like a boulder sitting in the middle of a stream, her anger flowed around him, leaving him completely unmoved. Even baring her fangs had not made him so much as flinch. She had never been challenged by a human like this before. Angels came close, but their disrespect was tinged with arrogance, not apathy.
So when Lothar finally broke, it surprised her. The way in which the reaction came was so shocking, that even though he moved incredibly slowly to her senses, her shock was enough that his movements were complete before she was able to muster a reaction.
She blinked up at him, somewhat incredulous as to his choice of response.
Grasped firmly in one of his hands, her wrists were pinned to the tavern bed above her head. She almost instinctively broke the grip, his strength insufficient to hold her, but her eyes met his own. She was used to the looks of desire and fury on the faces of humans, in her earlier years, she even found the desperate, pleading faces to be somewhat cute.
There was nothing cute about the look in Lothar’s eyes.
He stared coldly down on her, the weight of his gaze resembling a predator sizing up its next meal, rather than anything resembling an adorable search for pleasure or a desperate attempt of defiance.
“Is this what you wanted?” His voice rumbled, his larger form absolutely dwarfing hers as he hovered over her, bringing up his other hand to trace her side, a trail of fire left in its wake, “For me to not be reasonable, to merely lust after you, to take what I desire from you with no regard to subtlety?”
She could feel herself blushing, such a thing never once having happened to her in all her years of life, “I…”
Her trailing confusion allowed him to continue, “Or did you wish to do that to me, only to be disappointed when you realised I would take no enjoyment from the action, that I did not seek it out like the many others before me?”
Her breath caught as his hand swept over her hip, reaching towards the fluffy appendage that she had been using to tease him just moments prior. She stilled, waiting with anticipation to see what he would do, a strange sensation that she had no reference for welling up in her chest.
Just before his fingers would have grabbed the base, he snatched them back, the vicious beast she had seen in his eyes locked away once again.
“I am not your toy, Tamamo. I do not exist to entertain you. If we are to have a relationship, it is to be built atop something real, not just transient whims.” He released her, rising and stepping off the bed as she reeled from the sudden change that had occurred, “I am going to rent my own room for the night. Sleep well.”
He swept out of the room, leaving her panting, confused and more aroused than she could ever remember being.
---ERERER---
She took in several deep breaths, mind whirling from what just occurred. She had not expected it at all, but then again, why should she? A Human attacking in that situation, especially someone that they knew was far beyond them? It was madness.
It had been several moments since Lothar had left, yet she had still not completely recovered. Her fur had been ruffled by him pressing her into the bed, giving her the excuse needed to groom them herself while her mind worked.
He used Dark Energy to reinforce himself, did that give him the expectation of overpowering her?
No, he was not that stupid. He knew as well as she that had she wished to, she could have easily reversed their positions, not even having to use her tails to do so.
And yet, she had not.
His confident gaze, those dangerous eyes resurfaced in her memory. He was sure in his actions, deliberate and with a certainty that she would allow them. Which brought her to question, why had she? There was something she was missing here. Her surprise played a large factor here, but that could not be the whole story. Mere surprise would not be enough to allow a human to manhandle her like he had.
She played the entire interaction back in her mind, the rhythmic brushing serving to allow her to meditate on the encounter. Looking back on it, she could admit to herself that she had been far too relaxed from the tail brushing he had pampered her with, allowing her instincts to influence her far more strongly than was acceptable. It appeared he excelled at awakening all sorts of things within her.
More than that however, the moment she grabbed his shoulders stood out. It had been lost in the moment, but now she reflected upon it, she caught it. The largest break in his composure that she had seen yet. The way his eyes locked onto her advancing hands, nothing but panic and fear within them.
Not fear of her, however. She could recognise past trauma when she saw it. It appears that her actions had brought up a bad memory.
She sighed, brush swishing and rasping through her fur as she stewed,
Lothar was a difficult man, she affirmed. Utterly unlike all her previous relationships, this one was confusing to her. The closest was long ago, where a Hero King had grown infatuated with her, seeking to challenge her martially and earn her favour. She had crushed him, of course, but then the relationship that followed was normal between a Kitsune and her husband, his spirit sufficiently cowed.
Some had tried to join her in True Marriage, of course, but none were successful or that out of the ordinary. She understood humans very well.
She did not understand Lothar at all.
Scholar of history, Warrior, even somewhat of a philosopher. Prideful, but in a way that seemed more suited to a fellow Monster of high standing than a Human. Thinking of it in that way made more of the pieces fit, but only slightly. He had no seeming interest in carnal pursuits, he did not desire wealth more than was necessary, even his drive to prove himself against strong foes seemed absent.
She closed her eyes, seriously giving thought to the idea of spending life with him, if he did the impossible and completed her tasks. If he did so, he would have proven that he could please her, but could she do the same? What would he even want out of such a relationship?
A memory came to her, unbidden. Lothar smiling, enjoyment in his eyes as he looked over a cup of tea at her. She remembered it, she had been regaling him with the story of the very tea they had been drinking, how Yamatai had cultivated and systematically bred it over generations to fit her taste as their Fox God.
It had been an impossible task, as by the time they managed to perfect the blend her taste had changed, starting the cycle all over again. Still, to this day it was not yet complete, however the tea remained the best in the world.
Another memory, one of the only times she had managed to make him blush, with nothing more than an honest compliment.
Could… Could it really be that simple?
Was what Lothar was after not a carnal relationship, but romance? Companionship? Someone not to take as a trophy or a bed partner, but as a trusted confidant?
That was exceedingly juvenile and naive. It was almost incredibly idealistic, to even imagine such a thing was possible with a monster, much less with her.
Yet, for some strange reason, she found to her surprise that her cheeks had reddened at the idea.