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In the last days of May, Kanaya develops an itch.
It’s subtle and you hardly notice it at first. She rakes her fingers through her fluff every now and then and, on occasion, stares beseechingly at you until you scratch her shoulders or back or wherever she can’t reach. When you capitulate (and you often do, for you are weak to her discomfort), she trills soft in her throat, back arching into the touch until she’s half-curled around herself in abandon. And she trembles like a leaf if you drag your fingertips down between her folded wings, the knobby chitin and delicate scales fluttering lightly.
You aren’t quite sure that what’s happening is what you believe it to be - for a short while, at least, her constant itch leads you to believe she’s somehow contracted fleas, perhaps from one of her many encounters with Nepeta. Kanaya denies it adamantly, puffing up in small offense when you hint at the possibility of her needing a chemical bath.
"I’m not a barbarian," she sniffs, tossing her head and leaning away when you reach to put a hand on her shoulder. She absconds to some far corner of the mansion, and you see neither head nor fluffy hind of her until the next morning when the maid brings the tray for morning tea. You greet her and she nods stiffly, but when you step past her to pick up the teapot she smells musky, a familiar scent that confirms your suspicions.
You set the teapot down with a definitive clink. Behind you, Kanaya shudders, a shaky breath slipping past her lips. When you turn to face her she is staring at you, her gaze only half-focused as she steps in a little closer, trapping you in between the small coffee table and her chest. The smell is stronger now, something vaguely animal that runs straight to your core, a shiver down your spine and heat between your legs.
Kanaya’s hips bump up against yours, and you move to press a hand to her cheek, silent understanding passing between the two of you; your fingertips barely brush her face when there’s a knock at the door, another of the maids reminding you that you have a brunch with friends to attend half an hour for now.
Most of you wishes to beg off of it, feigning illness until your dearest mother gives up and holds the small gathering without you. In the past few years you and Kanaya have truly mastered the art of covert intimacies. But you know you would never live it down, seeing as Jade will be in attendance; she delights in teasing you about your slothly habits, your penchant for sleeping in to hedonistic hours of the day. Fortunately, she hasn’t yet connected that with any sort of salacious happenings. Sometimes you wonder why you put up with friends and family that thrive on recounting all of the less decent moments of your lifetime.
Kanaya leans down, resting her forehead against yours. Her breath is heavy and you feel another surge of desire, paired with pity for her discomfort.
"Tonight," you tell her, stroking gently down her neck over her collar. She shudders again, her mouth hovering over yours like she’s afraid to close the distance. Hands on your waist press into you for a moment, a little rougher than normal, nudging you forward into her, chest to hips. Her bulge feels on the verge of unsheathing as your lips touch hers, a small, wet kiss with more promise than substance. You let your hands trail downwards, through the fluff on her chest to the rigid plates on her abdomen, before gently pushing her away. "For now I’d better join the company."
You step to the side but Kanaya’s hands on you keep you tied, turning as if in a waltz. Stepping backwards does no better, the two of you making awkward progress towards your armoire. The destination is reached and Kanaya clutches you tighter for a long moment, her nose buried in your hair.
"Kanaya, unless you’re keen on my mother deciding I need a maidservant in constant attendance to prevent further tardiness, you had better let me dress," you sigh, fighting the urge to give in to the fingers shifting up your sides and across your back. She lets go, though you feel a little undignified having to stoop to vague blackmail to achieve the necessary ends - and very regretful. You’d much rather spend your waking hours shut up in the bedroom with Kanaya than down in the parlor entertaining guests, even if Jade is among their numbers.
The dress for today is hanging in the center of the enormous wooden wardrobe, an overblown monstrosity of ribbons and lace that you’re certain was designed to agitate you. You pause meaningfully with your most relaxed corset hanging loose around your waist, and after a moment Kanaya steps forward to fasten the back for you. It takes a little breath control; you’re far from chicken-breasted, and even if this is a far less rigid constraint than you are normally made to wear in public, it’s a nuisance to have to ease yourself into it. The whole process would go a mite less awkwardly if Kanaya wasn’t so loathe to see you dressed.
Once the last fastening is snug and your petticoats are in place, you take the horrible frock from its hanger and carefully slide it up over your hips. You’d very much like to toss it into the fireplace and wear something more suiting, perhaps your last Christmas gift from the Egberts. Modest enough, though you doubt your mother would be very pleased to see you wearing it today. It’s likely that she would have one designed that is twice as huge and oozing lace from every seam.
Again you wait for Kanaya to fasten the hooks for you, but this time her hands are half as steady as before, fumbling with each catch. When your dress is on in full she presses up against you once more, her chest to your back as she brushes her lips over the back of your neck.
You can feel her heat, the warm weight of her draped over your shoulders, and again you feel your body echo hers, a heavy twinge in your gut. You’re more than willing to hike your dress up over your waist and find out just how quickly you can take care of Kanaya’s problem for now, but you doubt you could avoid staining the skirt of it in rather suspicious places.
"Tonight," you repeat, stepping reluctantly from her touch. Her hand shakes slightly on yours, her tongue darting to wet her lips as you watch. She leans down for another kiss, her palm swift and light on your cheek, before retreating; her pose is stiff as she watches you go, hands behind her back like she doesn’t trust herself not to reach for you again.
It must be hellish, you think, descending the stairs with quick clicks of your bootheels, to be in heat.
You feel warmer just thinking about what will happen when you return this evening.
The brunch, of course, goes so slowly as to be painful. Every forkful of cake takes an hour to swallow, your mother’s rambling endless. She tells her often pointless stories and Jade’s grandfather laughs in the appropriate places (sometimes you suspect he’s entering the more extreme stages of senility) while you and the narcolepsy princess herself poke at food neither of you wish to eat.
"It’s June now," Jade remarks suddenly. She eyes you over the rim of her teacup, taking a suspiciously dainty sip, and no amount of milk and sugar hides the tiny smile playing on her lips.
You push a small gum-paste rose around on your plate, answering with a short nod; with anyone else you would hope that the hint would be taken, the subject dropped, but you know very well that Jade has never quite mastered the art of subtlety.
Her hands cradle her cup as she starts to snicker, tilting her head. The mild twist in your stomach tightens.
"Kanaya’s getting to be about that age, isn’t she?"
You curse yourself for making friends with people like Jade. People who own trolls themselves, people who see trolls as more than mere animals. People whose eccentric guardians possess volumes upon volumes dedicated to the study of troll biology.
"Jade," you sigh, reaching for your own cup of tea. "I’d rather not engage in a conversation about this."
She laughs, hiding her teeth with her hand, and sets her cup down. Her hand settles on your forearm and you sigh again. Jade leans impolitely across the table to whisper in your ear.
"Nepeta said she could smell the pheremones even last week. How do you plan to take care of it?" Jade leans back a little, finally looking embarrassed as she fidgets in her chair. "I could have Nepeta or Equius… help her out, if you’d like."
You freeze with your fingers tight on the cup. The thought of anyone but you seeing to Kanaya’s urges sends a sick jolt through your body. Your cup meets its saucer with unnecessary force, china clinking hard against china. A little more speed and you’d have cracked it.
"Jade," you repeat, your voice cool and collected while your hands shake in your lap. "I have the matter under control."
She pulls a worried face, and you regret your sudden anger; you know how deeply Jade cares for the comfort and welfare of her troll companions, and that she merely wants Kanaya to be without pain.
Leaning in closer as she sits back in her chair, you pitch your voice low.
"It may be her first time entering… such a state, but-" But what? you think, suddenly at a loss for words.
What can you even say at this point? Jade would likely faint. She knows of your rather unorthodox egalitarian relationship with Kanaya, yet such a bold statement of the nature of said relationship would surely be cause for alarm. You’re not sure even she would condone sexual intimacy with a pet.
You compose yourself once again, settling on a succint, “I will see to it that she is well taken care of.”
Jade’s face wavers between doubt and mollification, but when she opens her mouth to speak your mother interrupts.
"Come now, dears," she calls, and even you have to admire the steadiness of her voice after several glasses of sherry. "Let’s take a walk in the gardens."
For once you are grateful for her meddling; even as you rise, smoothing your skirts, you can feel Jade’s eyes boring into your back.
The walk lasts for two hours. Two miserable hours spent sweating in the early summer sun, your dress heavy and suffocating, listening to Jade’s grandfather recount the same old tale about the same old magnificent beasts he used to battle on that same old island… You nearly fall asleep walking, and that would never have done for a young lady of your place in society, never mind the fact that you are in the company of old friends.
But finally, Jade and the esteemed Sir English depart. You feel a minute amount of guilt for being so relieved. Jade gives you an imploring look even as she climbs into her carriage, and you force what you hope is a reassuring smile onto your lips. Your mother sighs heavily as they set off down the drive. Company, even the company of her oldest friends, always seems to be a burden to her.
For once, you can sympathize.
After a long moment of standing at your mother’s side on the front steps of the house, you blink, the nagging drive of your day sliding back into your mind as a key into a lock. Your skin is slightly sticky with the sun’s heat, waist pinched between corset stays.
"I’m feeling faint," you murmur. "I will retire to my room until dinner. Send a maid if you have need of me."
She doesn’t say anything. Her hand rests at the place where her bodice parts into waves of silken skirts, and in her eyes there is a look of lifelong ennui, of an exhaustion beyond comprehension.
Even without a word, your mother is incurably dramatic.
The front foyer is mercifully empty of servants, and you take the stairs as quickly as you can, lifting your dress to immodest heights in full abandon of propriety. It doesn’t matter, nobody is around to see it, but you feel a secret thrill in the defiance anyways.
You wonder what it says about you that you can engage in an illicit interspecies affair without regret, but the mere act of lifting your skirts to run up the stairs makes you feel rebellious.
It seems plausible that you are overthinking this.
By the time you reach the second story, you are short of breath, your corset and lack of physical endurance sapping you of vigor. You are truly no Miss Harley; your feet have never graced the pedals of a velocipede, nor have you ever engaged in archery or horseback riding. Perhaps you ought to take the hobby up some time.
The string of distracted thoughts is cluttering up your mind to a point of great confusion. You discard them all, striding down the hallways towards your room with little thoughts at all anymore but of getting out of your dress as soon as possible. Eridan twitches as you hurry past, basking sleepily in the sun shining into his tank; you glance back to make sure he hasn’t seen, because if anyone is going to alert your mother of the fact that you are conducting yourself in any way unfitting to a young lady of your stature, it is Eridan. He is the ungrateful prince of bitterness and unfaltering false solicitude.
Your corset is beginning to become a true burden on your breathing. Toes aching in your boots, you slow your pace. It serves double purpose; you are passing above the study where your mother spends most of her days drinking herself into a coma reveling in the wonder that is fantasy literature.
You would cut out your own tongue before admitting that you devour each new, inelegant tome she acquires after it has been read and forgotten in a haze of liquor—much less acknowledging the small library you’ve amassed in your trunk. The one with the heaviest locks. It’s nearly full now, with books you’ve paid less well-monitored acquaintances to fetch for you from their frequent haunts, bookstores of ill repute and shrouded in secrecy that print only the most salacious of stories. And you’ve read all of them again and again, lifting your skirt in bed with the hand not holding the pages open.
Kanaya has read them too, though in past months she’s come to prefer some of the darker tales amongst your mother’s collections; your gentle teasing puts her in a right state, ruff bristling in defense. But in the hush of the nighttime, an open window in the warm weather, the secrecy of moonlight spilling through the window, she can be wont to whisper the sort of filthy things printed between the covers of your hidden collection.
You can feel your flush spreading steadily up your neck, past where the high collar of your dress is biting into your skin. Your door is within view now.
Though the corridor to your bedroom is unfortunately located above said study, the room itself is blessedly seated atop the empty space and pillars of the veranda. With the back of one hand you feel your cheek, the deep heat flooding your abdomen.
In comparison, your doorknob is cool to the touch.
The tip of your tongue traces your lower lip when you ease the door open, quiet as you can. Your teeth follow tongue, biting down. Your bed’s drapes are closed, but ever so softly you can hear Kanaya. Acoustic courtship, it’s called, those vibrations just on the cusp of your auditory range, and she’s certainly stifling most of it.
Poor thing, you think, hushing the click of your lock. Left alone in your chambers all day long, hot as it is with her condition aside, and you out gallivanting with company.
You stoop to undo the laces of your boots, breathing carefully under the resistant press of your stays. The pattern of Kanaya’s call doesn’t falter, and you slide your reddened feet free; somehow even the stuffy air of your room is a relief. There’s no way to get your dress off now besides hacking it apart, but despite the appeal of the fantasy, you know there’s a chance your mother might press for answers. However slim that possibility is, you have put a great deal of effort into maintaining this relationship, and you will not have it undone by a dress this hideous.
The delicate fabric of the drapes meets your hands with equal care, and you seize a fold in each hand before you open them in a single, dramatic movement.
Kanaya gasps, knees flying together in shame; she meets your gaze with a hazy sort of guilt, but beneath it you can discern an imploring tinge.
“Rose,” she sighs, and there is a definite pleading to it, a whine that pulls you forward as if by a leash. Her legs part smoothly to let you in, and she is unsheathed, lying open and wanton for your hand, the near-casual way you manage to reach for her bulge, trailing your fingertips down the length of it. From head to toe she shakes, her hands reaching for your arms to pull you in closer; but you resist yet, leaning down on your forearms to press an open, teasing kiss to the tip of her member. “Rose,” she repeats, urgent, and her hands are unrelenting, grasping you close and rolling you underneath her.
You don’t protest; you have been aching for this near as long as she, and her weight on your chest has your knees weak. She pushes at your skirts, hauling them up until you can scarcely see below her waist for all the petticoats. Your knickers are gone before you can even reach to help, and you don’t flinch at the sound of fabric ripping, only drag your nails through the furr at her neck.
She leans in and as if by instinct your eyelids drop, lips parting, but her mouth goes to your neck, a wet pant in your ear as she grips your knees and spreads your legs. Your stomach is a knot yet your heart’s pounding comes from something other than fear; her ruff is soft against your chest and you cling fast.
Kanaya thrusts against you, misses, length of her bulge glancing briefly between your legs. Her fingers tighten on your hips, she presses, misses again, a scant few inches away from lining up properly. She’s in rare form today, she is, not that you can blame her. Her normal litany of sweetnesses is gone today, no tender words or careful movements.
You haven’t the faintest clue how the natural mating methods for lepidopterous trolls works, and every other time Kanaya has been in the proper mindset to be either tender or careful, but today it is your turn to take care. You push her away.
"Wait," you murmur; it comes out as a gasp. "Wait."
Her quiet chitter of disappointment falls on your deaf ears, her claspers trailing across the insides of your thighs while you gather your skirts in your arms and turn around. You feel a surge of gratefulness for your steady headboard as you reach to brace yourself against it, fingers grasping the solid mahogany.
Kanaya is there in an instant, pressed tight against you where your skirts are draped over the small of your back and hang down in front.
Her breath flutters down your neck and you close your eyes, resting your forehead between your hands. If you hang your head far enough you can imagine seeing her behind you, her bulge straight and stiff and green-wet at the tip, her nook barely visible between her shaking thighs. You know that if you touched her there your fingers would come away coated with her essence, and though the thought is tempting, now is not the time for that. Perhaps later, if you can convince her to sit still long enough.
Her fingertips fit well around the spot between hip and thigh, and your backbone sparks all the way down when the thick head of her bulge meets your quim. The claspers, normally useless, slide against you as her weight drives forward in a steady thrust that fills you up.
Your mouth falls open, though you swallow the shout that cloys in your throat. Your mother is still downstairs, locked door or no. Yet Kanaya’s trembling has subsided, its place taken by a determined pace, the slide of her chitin plates against your backside familiar friction. The anticipation, the hours spent waiting and bundled so that the heat in your loins seemed to spread to each tingling inch of your flesh, burns through you, intense in a way you’ve seldom felt before.
Kanaya’s claws; you swear you’d filed them just the other day, but they dig into the swell of your inner thighs now, drag you back to meet her in sharp thrusts, each one hitting sweet inside you until you feel light-headed. One of her hands slides low, rubs right up against your most tender spot, and you see stars, gasp for breath as a climax shudders through you and out your mouth in a noise you can scarcely believe.
And she doesn’t hesitate, her poise falling apart as she clings to you and yet still keeping time in a primal sense. Her fingers have their own rhythm that keeps the aftermath of your little death at a maddening thrum.
The headboard is keeping you afloat in the haze, and you hold fast, press your face to the cool wood while it steadily heats beneath your skin. You can feel another wave of bliss coming, rising from your quim to heat the back of your neck and send your fingers to clenching white.
You reach a hand behind you, grasp desperately and by some small miracle find the fur of Kanaya’s ruff. Your hand clenches fast around the nape of her neck, and you pull her down by it until her teeth scrape your collarbone. She lets go of your hips to brace herself instead on either side of your hands.
Pinned between her and the headboard, the angle is shifted tighter and higher and all of her weight sinks against you.
“Rose,” she thrums, the air in her respiratory cavities vibrating on a frequency that resonates through your throat. Her breath is ragged, and though Kanaya is, by experience, an eloquent lover, nothing else follows but her head on your shoulder, the sharp rhythm that is steadily degrading now, more shallow now and haphazard.
The heat in your skin is matched by the heat in her chitinous abdomen, almost unbearable when it meets your backside, and one of her hands threads into your hair, holds you almost painfully still for a moment, a familiar moment though unfamiliar in its inelegance—and deep inside you Kanaya spends herself, hot and thick. Relief spreads through her in a great shuddering; she releases her hold on you, on the headboard, and gently extricates her member.
The sense of absence is immediately and remarkably shocking. You breathe deeply, sink back onto your heels in a weak heap. Kanaya moves forward to support you, her hands trembling on your face and neck. You can hear her lungs stuttering as she calms down, easing from full force to gentle, steady inhalations.
“Oh, no,” she says suddenly, her voice heavy with concern. “Rose, my dear—your corset.”
Hurriedly she moves to undo the fastenings on your dress and strip it away so that she may reach the corset and free you from your bone and cloth prison. The moment the stays sag away feels like another climax in and of itself, your first breath sweet.
“Thank you,” you manage, placing a hand on hers in gratitude. Your chest feels sore, patterned as it is by the frame of your corset. Kanaya helps you to stand and let the dress, and its subsequent petticoats, fall in a shapeless heap at your feet. She takes the corset away, leaves you wavering in your chemise.
“Are you feeling quite alright?”
Kanaya sits you back down on the bed, fussing over you in her normal fashion though you are truthfully no more debased than normally, only a mite more out of breath. She leans in for a proper kiss, gentle as her usual disposition, but her condition is belied by the heat of her body and the way her sharp teeth nick your tongue.
“Are you?” Your retort is fond, only slightly chiding, but she shrinks under your steady gaze.
Her wings flutter noisily, though after a moment she does attempt to meet your eyes. “I fear I shall be… indisposed…. for a while longer. But at the moment, I feel as though I am more in control of myself than before.”
Fondness and pity mix in your breast and you ease her down onto the bed alongside you, a comfortable pose that puts her ruff and antennae in reach. The tension in her carriage fades away when you stroke through the silky fluff that decorates her shoulders and hips.
You purse your lips, scratch at the spots she can’t reach between her nested wings, and listen for the soothed hum of her heartbeat.
“Well…” You search for the words, take your time in picking them out and placing them in the order they’re meant to go in. “We shall just have to take things as they come to us, won’t we?”