12. Domestic Discipline

Jazz music plays on the radio. My hair is covered in a pretty checkered scarf, and I am running my band new Hoover over the carpets. The windows are opened, the sun is shining. It is a perfect summer afternoon.

"Rhys, don't do that, dear."

My son is crawling across the floor at high speed, determined to put the cord of the vacuum into his mouth. I redirect him with a rusk, smiling down at him as he grins up with those ever so sharp teeth that will turn that teething snack into crumbs in an instant. Thank goodness for the Hoover, it is a real life saver.

"Honey! We're home!"

The front door swings open and my husband, Archie, walks in. He is followed by Karl and Ellis, my other two husbands. They are all wearing similar houndstooth suits and carrying similar shining brown briefcases.

A gurgle comes over the baby monitor. All three of them drop their briefcases and practically race their way to the nursery. Baby Sally has her daddies wrapped around her little finger. I pick Rhys up and follow after them, smiling at the wholesomeness of it all.

When I arrive, Karl has Sally in his arms. She looks just like him, or she will once her pale platinum hair grows longer. She has his eyes, and his smile, and his good natured personality. I hand Rhys to Ellis, who takes him with a similar pride.

"Dinner's ready," I say. "I made pot roast."

"Delicious!" Archie hasn't tasted it yet, but he always says my cooking is delicious.

I drop what is left of Rhys' rusk into the kitchen garbage can. The wrapper from the roast is still there, a numahn shirt, size thirty. I make sure to close the lid quickly before anybody sees. I'm not supposed to be going out hunting for my own meat. I'm supposed to limit myself to the grocery store two blocks away. But they only sell animal proteins, and I can't bring myself to eat animals. They're innocent. They don't deserve it. But numahns? They deserve to be consumed to the very last drop.

"Sit down, sit down!" I flap and fuss to make sure everybody is seated and ready to eat.

They all sit around the kitchen table. I've already set it, of course. All I need to do is take the pot roast out and deliver it to the round wood board in the center of the table, which I do, using the oven gloves I quilted and sewed myself while I was pregnant with Sally. I lift the top of the ceramic dish to reveal a chunk of perfectly cooked meat falling off the bone, surrounded by vegetables.

"Wife?" Archie raises a brow at me as the steam clears.

"Yes?"

"What's the meat?"

"Beef, of course."

It is not beef. And it's not an even slightly passable lie. Beef doesn't have fingers. I was going to discard them, but they make such a pretty garnish if you criss-cross them over one another - and if you put them under the grill to finish, they have a lovely crispiness that really satisfies. I pluck one out, cool it off by blowing on it for a bit, and hand it to Rhys, who stuffs it happily into his mouth.

"What kind of cow has digits, darling?" There is a little warning in my husband's tone. I see the other two giving me indulgent looks. They never mind if I hunt. It's always Archie who demands I stay home and cook what he provides. But there has to be a little give and take in any relationship, a little bit of an ability to overlook minor infractions. He might very well take me over his knee later, but for now everybody is hungry.

I hesitate a moment before answering. "The kind that lactose?"

A pun of that quality should surely get me out of trouble. A ripple of laughter runs around the table, Archie lets the subject drop, and I start serving my family their dinner, just as a good wife should.

"Can I speak with you?"

I am donning my long pink rubber gloves to do the dishes when Atlas takes me by the elbow and draws me away from the sink. I know the suit he is wearing has to be that much more uncomfortable than these gloves, and they are uncomfortable enough.

"Of course," I smile at him sweetly. "Whatever you like, dearest husband."

"I would like you to come with me."

The others go to the sink to take over the chore. They move silently, and in concert, as if the movement is orchestrated. Has he planned this with them? Is this the culmination of a lot of my little rebellions?

"Did you like dinner, dear?"

"You can drop the act," he says when he has me safely in our bedroom. "I know you've broken your programming again."

I glance around our cozy little bedroom. The carpet is mint green, and the bedspread is a cheerful pastel yellow. The wallpaper is floral, of course. Bright sunflowers lift their faces to a sun that does not exist, while their bright green stems sort of tie the color scheme together. It's all very nicely done.

"Hmm?"

"I also know you've been going out hunting of your own accord. That's murder."

"I have to consume something. May as well be an unfortunate numahn or two."

"Emrys will bring you everything you need. Your job is to raise the children. Where were they when you were out bringing your prey down?"

"They were with me, of course. I had Sally in the baby carrier and Rhys in a stroller."

"So you put them in harm's way while you hunted down a numahn for dinner?"

"Of course not. He never saw what hit him. They were never in any danger at all. I wouldn't do that. I'm not stupid."

"This house, this simulation?" He gestures generally about the place. "Its exists on a planet in which multiple species live, but that does not mean there is no law. You cannot simply pick people off. You are going to lead the authorities to you, and if I need say it again, you are still wanted by the numahns. I have tried to keep you programmed, but the programming won't stick with you. I don't know whether to blame Emrys' bond with you, or your own fractious nature. But what I will not tolerate, on any level, is you getting yourself arrested while in possession of our babies. You are lucky I am confronting you about this on my own."

"I didn't put either of them in danger, I promise you. I dropped the numahn from behind by severing his spine. The children enjoyed some fresh marrow on the way home. It was a very wholesome family outing. No different than taking them to a grocery store, or perhaps a petting zoo."

"You will not hunt again with the babies," he insists.

"Fine."

"Which means you will not hunt at all. Your job is to mother, not provide."

"Fine."

He cocks his head to the side and looks at me with some annoyance. "Are you saying fine because you agree, or because you want me to shut up and go away?"

"Does it matter?"

"It does if you want to avoid pain," he says. "I am going to punish you tonight. You are going to be spanked for hunting today."

I give him a little shrug.

"Fine."

His brows lower in displeasure. He has already removed his jacket, but now he starts to roll his sleeves up over his forearms, revealing what looks to be muscular human arms rippling with his movements. I know better. What's really roiling beneath that skin is alien indignation and determination.

"I think you have forgotten what I am capable of, young lady. I think all the blood rituals and the hunting and the babies have led you to misremember how things are with me."

I didn't forget. I've never forgotten the first time Atlas tried to put me in a little contained world and treated me like a cherished human who just needed to be looked after. He was the only one of my alien mates who did not try to fuck or breed me immediately. He addressed my needs and my behavior. He cared, and I will never forget that.

"Gloves on, or off?" I hold my hands up.

"Off," he says.

I peel my gloves off and remove my kitten heels. He didn't say to take those off, but I don't think I'll be needing them. I lose half an inch in height by doing that, which puts me at a further disadvantage to my tall, pretending-to-be-human husband.

He sits on the bed and pats his thigh. "Come here," he says. He is being very stern, but very mild.

I do as I am told, trying not to giggle. After all I have been through, this feels so very domestic, and so very innocent. It's nice to experience a little sweetness from time to time amid the revenge and the bloodlust - and that's just Sally teething. My murderousness is a whole other level of things.

He takes me by the wrist and tips me over his knees. I go from feeling like an absolute monster to being nothing more than a naughty wife being taken over her stern husband's lap. I settle in across his legs, my head and feet on the coverlet, supported by the bed. I am actually rather comfortable.

"I love you," he says. "And I love our family. I love Sally and Rhys. I am looking forward to taking her to become princess of Kronos' tribe one day. And I am looking forward to whatever travesties Rhys commits when he is grown. But none of that will happen if you get yourself and them killed in this vendetta against all things numahn."

"I would never let them be hurt. Ever."

"You will not see it coming. One day there will be a trap. They are noticing, my bride. They know there is something hunting their kind. You have to stop, or we will have to move. The entire point of creating a small simulation for you was to give you somewhere you would be safe."

I thought he was going to spank me, and I wish he would, because this lecturing is the worst. I don't know why the biggest, meanest, spikiest of my alien husbands with the most capacity for destruction and death is the one taking me in hand and gently explaining I really must stop the murdering.

"I don't think you can keep me safe," I say.

That does it.

He starts to spank me, the flat of his palm meeting my ass through the fabric of my dress. It is only a thin chiffon and it does very little to protect me. He could make it hurt more, but he is content to make it sting.

"This will help the programming stick," he says. "We are going to do this every night until you start behaving the way I expect you to."

Am I supposed to complain? Beg for mercy? Hardly. This is a little patty cake treatment.

His palm lands firmly again, slapping both my cheeks in a sharp blow that makes them sting. "I hope you understand," he says, as the spanking starts in proper earnest. "Because I have no intention of letting you get out of hand."

I don't reply to that statement, because from there on out my ass is being peppered with stinging slaps that take my breath away each and every time they land. Atlas spanks me hard and fast, throwing up my skirt and covering every bit of skin. He is firm and he is relentless, and he is letting the sensation build in a way that means although no single slap is too much to bear, their combined effect makes me writhe over his thighs.

"You are going to leave the numahns alone," he says. "Or you will answer to me. You are going to perform your duties as wife and mother safely in the confines of this home. You are grounded until further notice. I am not pleased with you, because I know you know better. This reckless, vengeful behavior might be in your blood now, but I will not allow it."

"It's not because of Emrys!" I yelp the words.

"What is it because of?"

He pauses, sensing I have something to say. He is not wrong. I have not merely been hunting for pleasure, or to relieve boredom. I have been hunting for revenge.

"I want to kill them all," I admit, a small sob of rage escaping me. "I want to kill every one of them, every one that reminds me of him. You got to kill him. I didn't. But every time I kill one of them, it feels like, for just a moment, I'm getting my own back."

Atlas rubs my heated skin, silent for a moment.

"There are some things for which there can be no vengeance," he says. "Even if you had been the one to take Sheriff's life, it would not have undone what he did to you. What he took was too fundamental, too primal. It left scars. Scars made fade over time, but they never go away."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"No. It's supposed to help you understand that what you feel is natural. But what you do… that is something else. You are becoming the monster you loathe when you kill these numahns. You are taking something that is not yours to take, and you are passing on pain that will ripple forever."

"What would you know about being a monster?" I sniff, resentfully.

There's a pause, and then mirth breaks out between the two of us, a chortle from him, and an embarrassed giggle from me. What does Atlas know about being a monster? He's the most monstrous of us all.

"Indeed, what would I know?" He says the words dryly.

"I'm sorry. Sometimes, when you wear the suit, and you act so human, I forget what… you really are."

"Then perhaps it is time I took the suit off for a little while. Maybe what you need is less human company, and more monstrous companionship."

He shifts me off his lap and onto the bed, stands up, and peels off all semblance of humanity. I watch, thrilled, as his scythkin form is revealed, broad, gleaming, hard, dangerous. His mandibular face, his deep set eyes, his utter alien strangeness. Pieces of him click and hiss as blades extend and retract. There should be nothing relatable about him at all, but in this company of this creature, I feel kinship.

The scythkin monster picks me up carefully in hands that could easily snap me in two, and pulls me close. He then proceeds to remove every stitch of clothing from me.

"We should both be bare," he says. "Nakedness is truth."

He is ever the philosopher, even when in this terrifyingly powerful state. This is how he was when he ended Sheriff. This is how and who I need him to be. I do not need a clean cut, wholesome husband. I need a monster who can match me. I need him.

I run my fingers over his body, feeling how hard he his, but also feeling the musculature beneath the protective panelling that both keeps his blades stored away when they are not in use, but stops anything getting to the softer parts of him.

"I need you," I murmur softly.

He pulls me up against him, and I feel that terrible scythkin cock rising against me. His appendage is not made for me. It is made for a matriarch of his species. A scythkin matriarch is the most fearsome creature in the universe. She is ruthless and she is massive and she is strong. She will die for her brood. She is the ultimate mother, and she makes the ultimate sacrifice.

Compared to such a creature, I am a weak, fleshy, small thing. My hunger, my fury, my capacity for terrible deeds is nothing. That is why I am safe in his arms. That is why I belong to him. I face my scythkin lover, clinging to his shoulders as his appendage finds its way up inside me, slowly but inexorably, using the lubrication of shame and punishment to spread my inner walls open.

I feel myself stretching. I feel the struggle it is to take him. No matter how careful, or how loving he is, I am a more delicate thing, and there is always the risk of damage.

His big, clawed hand grips my hair and tilts my head back. I pant with the effort of adjusting to him. He is not making this easy. He cannot make it easy. When he and I mate, it is intense. I am wet. I am sorry. I am sore. I am squirming on an alien cock several sizes too big for me, and I am getting what I deserve deep inside me.

"You're mine," he reminds me as he clamps me in place and thrusts inside me. "You are my possession. I share you, but I see you in every way that you are. There is nothing you can hide from me, little human. Do you understand?"

"Yes…" I whimper the word as I feel him expanding inside me.

"I don't think you do. I think you spent so much time hiding who you were, thinking that you were an unknowable enigma, that you think nobody can know you. Emrys is blood of your blood, and you think you have secrets from him. I am your scythkin owner. I know the maps of your mind. I am intimate with your very neurons, and yet you insist on trying to defy and deceive me."

He works me up and down on his cock, lecturing me as he fucks me, not letting this opportunity to make his point go to waste. I have to listen. I am entirely focused on him. At this moment, he is everything. He is the entire universe, inside me.

"I love you," he says. "I love you no matter who you are, or what you do. I love every bit of you completely."

His cock draws almost all the way out of my aching pussy, then thrusts back in, a harsh act of consummation and claiming. I let out one of those little animal whimpers again.

"Revenge is a waste of time. An impossibility. You cannot undo what has been done. But you can create something so beautiful and passionate from the ashes of what was, that it surpasses the life you would have had. Do not think about what has been taken from you. Think of what abides, and what will yet be. I will love you. I will protect you. I will give you this, and any other world you want. You are going to know love, and family, and connection and belonging for the rest of your life."

Those beautiful words would make me cry from emotion, if I was not moaning in pleasure. Atlas fucks me passionately, taking the weight of me and my past easily as he shows me precisely where I belong - held in his heart, wrapped in his arms, and filled with his thick alien cock.

I am not yet healed. I may never be healed. But I will be loved so fiercely I won't feel the wounds as much. Atlas makes that abundantly clear as he shifts me yet again, face down on the bed this time, my ass up high, his big scythkin hands on my hips, cock sluicing in and out of my tight, wet cunt. He knows how to make me feel like a sweet little human, he knows how to make me feel like a cherished wife, and he knows how to make me feel like a wanton owned alien slave, being used for the sweetness of her hot little holes.

"Come for he," he demands. "Show me your submission in your filthy wet orgasm."

A harsh swat lands across my ass. He has picked up a wooden hairbrush and is now using the back of it on my butt as he fucks me toward a climax we both know I don't deserve after my misbehavior today.

The brush lands again and again, hot bright impacts letting me know I am being punished even as I am driven toward the peak of pleasure.

"You won't disobey me again, will you?"

"No!" I cry out, not knowing if that is true or not, only knowing that in this moment I will do anything to please my scythkin mate. His dominance comes from a place of such intense love and desire that to respond to it with anything besides submission feels cosmically wrong.

Atlas continues to punish me with harsh strokes that send flushes of rich heat through my body. At this point, with my pussy wrapped around his cock, all sensation is a different kind of pleasure. I am slave to it, and to him.

"I'll obey you! I'll be a good girl!" I am crying out promises of obedience as orgasm starts to sweep through me. My mind is going blank, my fingers are clutching at the coverlet, and every piece of me is demanding release, creating an internal chemistry that can only have one outcome.

"Obey me and come," he growls, his voice so intense and deep there is no option but to obey.

I shudder and clench as all the tightness and heat and pain and pleasure in my flesh is bound up for a brief moment, and then released in what feels like one big intense flow. It comes from my core and it finds every bit of my body, overwhelms my mind, stops my breathing for a brief moment. I am paralytic with climactic energy, and then I am squirming and crying out and moaning and aching, feeling my stretched pussy, and my spanked ass, feeling Atlas' love and his forgiveness, and his relentless discipline.

Then there is his embrace. His softer words. His caresses as he holds me close. He makes it all better - not just what he did to me now, but everything that ever happened to me.

"Very well done. You are such a good girl," he purrs against my ear.

I snuggle up against him, breathing in the scent of our mating, feeling safe and loved.

"Are you going to put me back under again? The programming, I mean?"

"How long did it last this time?"

"I don't know, sometime between Sally being born and us having numahn for dinner?"

Atlas sighs. "It's never going to work properly on you, but we can try again, if you like."

"I thought I needed it. To be safe, for Rhys and Sally. But I have kept them safe. Maybe… maybe I can be a good mother to them without having my brain wiped of every single memory?"

"Maybe," Atlas allows, gently brushing the tips of his fingers over my arm in a loving way. "But you will have to practice conscious obedience, and submit to much more discipline."

"I can do that," I grin.

"Of course you say that now," he chuckles.

We have tried to erase my past and my pain. It hasn't worked. I think we might now be ready for a more radical approach to life: living with me just as I am.

A light tap at the door heralds the arrival of my other two husbands.

"Come," Atlas calls out.

"Have you two come to terms?" Kronos asks gently.

"Has the little beast been tamed?" Emrys' question is affectionate in tone, though also notable in the way it seems to hope that I have not been tamed. He wouldn't like that. It would bore him to tears.

"Is there dessert?" Kronos adds a third question - a very good one.

I laugh with amusement and no small amount of joy because I am feeling an incredible sense of belonging. I grew up displaced. I was a strange thing, a loathed thing. I lived in a world where nobody truly liked me - even the numahn who acted as my mother could only truly love me by sending me away. I started to think the universe was a place that I had been injected into as an unwanted parasite destined to be eradicated. But in the arms of my husbands, I am discovering new possibilities.

I am healing.

I am growing.

I am happy.

And there is dessert.

Anote from Loki…