Fox Yokai's Teasing Torment

The mist never left the low hollows of the realm. It clung to the ferns and turned the late light the color of old pewter, and in that gray hush Joanna knelt with both palms pressed to the damp earth, trying once more to coax a simple illusion out of nothing. She was twenty-eight, a human mage with a journeyman’s license and almost none of the talent that license implied, and the spark she needed kept dying between her fingers. A moth of pale light flickered above the moss, trembled, and went out. She swore under her breath and tried again. The air answered with a thin pop and the smell of wet stone.

“Again,” said a voice like warm honey poured over a knife. “You look so serious when you fail. It does something terrible to me.”

Joanna’s shoulders jumped. She did not have to turn to know who had come. Esther never announced herself with footsteps. The fox yokai simply arrived, three centuries of idle cruelty and idle affection packed into a woman’s body that smelled of cedar smoke and crushed leaves. When Joanna looked up, Esther was already leaning against a birch, arms folded, nine pale tails drifting behind her as if the mist itself had learned how to flirt. She wore a human shape today—sharp fox ears, yes, and those impossible tails—but the rest of her was unmistakably a woman: long dark hair, a mouth made for laughing at people, bare feet on the moss, a thin rust-colored robe open at the throat. Three hundred years old, and she still looked at Joanna the way a cat looks at a bird that has forgotten how to fly.

“I didn’t invite you,” Joanna said. Her voice came out thinner than she wanted.

“You never do.” Esther pushed off the tree and circled her, slow, the hem of the robe brushing Joanna’s arm. “And yet here you are, on your knees in the dirt, making the saddest little lights I have ever seen. Tell me, little mage. Do you practice failing, or does it come naturally?”

Heat climbed Joanna’s neck. She hated how fast it happened. She hated more that some traitorous part of her had started listening for that voice the moment she stepped under the trees. “I’m working.”

“You’re flailing.” Esther crouched in front of her, close enough that Joanna could see the gold in her eyes, close enough that the next breath she took was mostly Esther. One claw-tipped finger—human hand, fox’s carelessness—tipped Joanna’s chin up. “Look at you. Twenty-eight years old and you still can’t hold a candle’s worth of glamour. Pathetic.” The word landed soft, almost fond. Esther’s thumb stroked the corner of Joanna’s mouth. “And so pretty when you blush about it. I could watch you ruin a spell all afternoon.”

Joanna’s pulse kicked hard against her ribs. She tried to pull her face free and only succeeded in leaning into the touch. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Esther’s smile showed the edge of a fang. “Don’t tell you the truth? Your magic is a wet match, Joanna. A child with a handful of glitter could outshine you. And still—” she leaned in until her lips nearly brushed Joanna’s ear, voice dropping into something private and vicious and sweet—“you keep trying. I adore that. I adore how useless you are and how you won’t stop. It makes me want to keep you.”

The moth-light Joanna had been chasing died for good. Her hands had gone slack on the moss. Between her thighs, under the practical wool of her traveling pants, a low ache had already started, the same ache Esther always left her with: humiliation braided so tightly with want that she could not pull them apart. She swallowed. “You like making my life miserable.”

“I like making you honest.” Esther stood, and the tails fanned, silk-soft and heavy with magic. “Try the spell again. I want to see you fail while I’m watching.”

Joanna’s fingers shook when she lifted them. She shaped the simple sigil she had been drilling for months—a hovering lantern, nothing more—and pushed what little power she had into it. For a heartbeat the air brightened. Then the light buckled, spat sparks, and collapsed into a sad gray smear that smelled of burnt hair.

Esther laughed, low and delighted. “Oh, sweetheart. That was embarrassing.”

“Stop.”

“Make me.”

Joanna couldn’t. She never could. Esther’s magic moved like weather. The nine tails lengthened, thinned, and went sleek as poured silk, and before Joanna could scramble upright they were around her—wrists drawn behind her back, ankles crossed, a soft band settling across her chest and pinning her shoulder blades to the trunk of the birch Esther had been leaning on a moment ago. The restraints didn’t bite. They held. Warm, living, impossible to shrug off. Joanna tugged once, hard, and the silk only tightened with a lover’s patience.

“There,” Esther murmured, stepping in until her robe brushed Joanna’s knees. “Much better. You were going to fall over anyway.” She traced the line of Joanna’s throat with two fingers, unhurried. “Look at this. A grown woman, a licensed mage, trussed up by a few pretty tails because she can’t cast a night-light. If the guild could see you now.”

Joanna’s breath came short. The bark was cool through her shirt. The silk at her wrists pulsed faintly, as if Esther’s heartbeat lived in it. “Esther—”

“Hush. I’m not finished admiring you.” Esther sank to a crouch again, eye level with the flushed, furious, helpless face in front of her. One hand slid down Joanna’s side, over her ribs, and stopped just above the waistband of her pants. She didn’t go further. She didn’t have to. “You’re already wet, aren’t you. I can smell it. All that humiliation, and your body just opens for it like a door someone forgot to lock.” Her voice went honey-thick. “Pathetic little human. Sweet, trying, hopeless thing. I could praise you for an hour and it wouldn’t change what you are.”

Joanna shut her eyes. Shame flooded her, hot and bright, and under it the ache sharpened until she had to press her thighs together around nothing. She had known this would happen. She had walked into the hollow anyway, the way she always did when the week had been long and her spells had died and she needed someone who would not pretend she was better than she was. Esther never pretended. Esther told her she was useless and then touched her like she was treasure, and Joanna had stopped trying to decide which part she craved more.

“I want it,” she said. The words came out small. She made herself say them again, louder, because Esther liked her honest and because it was true. “I want you to keep doing this. I came out here hoping you would.”

Esther’s ears flicked. For a moment the mockery gentled into something almost startled, almost tender. Then the smile returned, sharper. “Say it properly.”

Joanna opened her eyes. Gold watched her, patient and hungry. The silk at her wrists held her still, and she was glad of it; if her hands had been free she might have hidden her face. “I crave it. The way you talk to me. The way you won’t let me pretend. Please—” her voice cracked, and she didn’t care—“please keep degrading me. Use me. I want you to. I’m asking.”

“There she is.” Esther kissed her, finally, a slow claiming kiss that tasted of smoke and crushed mint. Joanna made a broken sound into it and tried to chase her mouth when Esther pulled back. “Good girl. My clumsy, aching, begging girl. You ask so sweetly for someone who can’t light a lantern.”

The tails shifted. One slid down Joanna’s front, teasing the buttons of her shirt open with deft little flicks of magic until cool mist touched her breasts. Another worked at the laces of her pants, patient, thorough. Joanna shivered and didn’t fight it. She lifted her hips as much as the restraints allowed, helping, and Esther rewarded her with a soft laugh against her throat.

“Eager,” Esther said. “Disgraceful. I love it.”

She got Joanna’s pants and panties down to mid-thigh before the angle fought her, and then the tails simply lifted, rearranged, and set Joanna more securely against the birch with her legs parted as far as the remaining clothes would allow. Moss crushed under Joanna’s boots. The air on her bare skin was cold. Esther’s hand was not. Two fingers slid through the slick already waiting there, unhurried, spreading it, circling Joanna’s clit once with infuriating lightness before pushing in to the knuckle.

Joanna’s head hit the bark. “Oh—god—”

“No god out here. Just me.” Esther fucked her with those two fingers in short, rough strokes, the heel of her hand grinding down whenever Joanna tried to rock into it. “Listen to yourself. Soaked through, pinned to a tree, and all I had to do was tell you how bad you are at the one thing you’re supposed to be good at.” She curled her fingers and Joanna cried out, thighs shaking. “Say it. I want to hear what you are while I do this.”

Joanna’s mouth opened. Pride tried to catch the words and failed; want shoved them out. “I’m your useless little human slut.”

“Again.”

“I’m your useless little human slut.” Her voice broke on the last word as Esther added a third finger, stretching her, filling her, the pace turning mean and perfect. “I can’t cast, I can’t—Esther, please, harder—I’m just your pathetic little thing and I need you to—”

“To what?” Esther’s free hand cupped Joanna’s breast, thumb rolling her nipple until it peaked tight in the cold. Praise slipped in under the filth, warm as the fingers working her open. “You’re taking me so well. Look at that. Three fingers and you’re clenching like you were made for it. My sweet disaster. My favorite failure.” She kissed Joanna’s jaw, her cheek, the corner of her gasping mouth. “Say it again and I’ll let you come. Or I won’t. I haven’t decided. Beg prettier.”

“I’m your useless little human slut,” Joanna sobbed, and it didn’t feel like losing anymore. It felt like handing Esther exactly what both of them wanted. “Please. Please don’t stop. Ruin me. I want you to. I’ve wanted you to all week.”

Esther’s eyes went dark and bright at once. “Then be useful for once.”

The tails lowered Joanna, carefully, until she was half-reclined against the mossy roots with her shoulders braced and her face tipped up. Esther shrugged the robe off her shoulders. Under it she was bare, all long lines and soft skin and the faint shimmer of yokai heat, and she stepped over Joanna’s chest, one foot planted in the moss on either side. The tails kept Joanna’s wrists gentle behind her and her thighs spread. Esther sank down with the unhurried confidence of someone who had decided the evening’s shape hours ago.

“Tongue out,” she said. “Earn the pretty words.”

Joanna obeyed. The first taste of Esther—salt, heat, a sweetness like rain on cedar—made her moan against slick flesh, and Esther answered with a low, satisfied sound and settled her weight more fully. Joanna licked as well as she could with her hands bound and her breath short, broad strokes over Esther’s cunt, then tighter circles when Esther’s fingers tangled in her hair and guided her. Above her, the fox yokai rolled her hips in slow, filthy grinds, using Joanna’s mouth the way she used everything else: thoroughly, and with evident pleasure.

“That’s it,” Esther breathed. “Right there. God, your mouth is the only competent thing about you.” A laugh, breathless. “Good girl. Messy girl. Keep going. Don’t you dare get shy now.”

Magic gathered between them, a warm pulse that wasn’t Joanna’s and never would be. It settled over Joanna’s clit like a second mouth, sucking, flickering, relentless. Joanna jerked and cried out into Esther, and the vibration made Esther’s thighs tighten around her ears.

“Feel that?” Esther’s voice had gone rough. “That’s me. You couldn’t cast it if I drew you a diagram. All you can do is lie there and take it and lick me like the desperate little slut you are.” She rocked harder, chasing her own edge, one hand braced on the birch above Joanna’s head. “You’re perfect like this. Absolutely perfect. My useless human, soaked and shaking, doing the one job I gave you. Don’t stop. Don’t you stop.”

Joanna didn’t. She couldn’t have. The magical pressure on her clit built in tight, bright waves, and every time she moaned Esther ground down and praised her and called her pathetic in the same breath, and the two things tangled until Joanna couldn’t tell shame from devotion. Her hips bucked against nothing and against everything. Esther came first—a sharp, gorgeous sound, tails flaring, cunt pulsing against Joanna’s tongue—and the magic crested with her. Joanna followed hard, vision whiting out, a broken wail muffled against Esther’s skin as her whole body clenched and shook and kept clenching, oversensitive and grateful and wrecked.

Esther lifted off her slowly, stroking her hair while Joanna gasped at the open air. “Beautiful,” she said, and meant it. Then, softer, meaner, fond: “Look at the state of you. Drooling. Shaking. You came just from being used. I should be embarrassed for you.”

“Don’t be,” Joanna managed. Her voice was hoarse. Her wrists flexed in the silk and she didn’t ask to be freed. “Please. I’m not done. I don’t want to be done.”

Esther’s smile turned wicked and warm. “Greedy.” She kissed Joanna once, tasting herself, and then the air beside her hip shimmered. Foxfire coiled, bright and brief, and settled into a harness of pale leather and a thick, flushed length—conjured, unmistakably a toy, heavy and curved and sized to make Joanna’s spent body clench in anticipation. Esther stroked it once, considering, and the tails flipped Joanna with exquisite care onto her hands and knees in the moss. Wrists freed, then caught again, gently, so she could brace. A tail slid under her belly. Another nudged her knees wider.

“Down,” Esther said. “Ass up. Let me see what I’m about to ruin.”

Joanna dropped to her elbows. The moss was cold on her forearms. She was exposed completely—pants tangled at one ankle, shirt hanging open, cunt swollen and shining—and the humiliation of it lit her up all over again. Esther ran a possessive hand over the curve of her ass, squeezed, and lined the thick head up against her.

“Color?” Esther asked, quiet, the teasing paused for one necessary beat. They had done this enough that the question was ritual, not doubt.

“Green,” Joanna said at once. “Please. I want it. I want you to fuck me until I can’t think.”

“There’s my girl.” Esther pushed in.

The stretch stole Joanna’s breath. Thick, relentless, sinking deeper with every slow inch until Esther’s hips met her ass and Joanna was full in a way that bordered on too much and landed squarely on perfect. She whimpered into the moss. Esther held there, one hand spread over the small of her back, and laughed softly when Joanna tried to rock back and take more.

“Impatient,” she said. “You just came and you’re already trying to fuck yourself on me. Disgraceful. I adore you.” She drew back and thrust in, harder, a deep punishing stroke that knocked a cry out of Joanna’s throat. Then another. Then a rhythm, steady and rough, the wet sound of it obscene in the quiet hollow. “Listen to that. That’s you. Soaked little human, taking a cock I made because you begged me to use you. Say it.”

“I’m your useless little human slut,” Joanna gasped, the words jolting out of her with every thrust. “I’m—ah—I’m yours, I’m pathetic, I can’t even—Esther, deeper, please—”

“You can take deeper.” Esther obliged, hips snapping, one hand fisting gently in Joanna’s hair to arch her back. The angle changed and Joanna saw white. “There. Right there. Feel how well you open for me when you stop pretending you have any dignity left.” Praise, then the knife, then praise again, braided through the pounding rhythm. “Good girl. My good, hopeless girl. You feel incredible. Tight, and desperate, and mine. The guild would faint if they saw their journeyman face-down in the moss getting fucked like this. I might tell them. I might not. You’ll still come back.”

“I’ll come back,” Joanna sobbed. It was a promise and a plea. “I’ll always come back. Don’t stop. Degrade me. Tell me I’m—tell me—”

“You’re a mess.” Esther’s voice had gone ragged, the rhythm turning deeper, grinding at the end of each stroke so the thick length pressed everywhere Joanna needed it. A tail curled around to rub her clit in time, slick and sure. “A needy, dripping, spell-failing mess, and you’re taking me so perfectly I could keep you like this until the mist burns off. Come for me again. Come while I tell you what you are.”

Joanna broke. The orgasm rolled through her harder than the first, her arms giving out, her cunt clenching around the thick length in helpless pulses while Esther fucked her through it and praised her in a low, filthy stream—good, so good, my sweet disaster, look at you coming on a cock like you were built for nothing else. Joanna heard herself saying it, over and over, I’m your useless little human slut, I’m yours, I’m yours, until the words dissolved into sound and the sound dissolved into shaking.

Esther followed with a sharp gasp, hips stuttering, pressed deep, one hand spread wide over Joanna’s back as if to hold her together. For a long moment there was only breath, and the drip of mist from the birch leaves, and the soft living warmth of the tails.

Then Esther eased out, slow, careful, murmuring something wordless when Joanna whimpered at the loss. The conjured length dissolved into a scatter of foxfire that smelled faintly of cedar. The tails loosened from Joanna’s wrists and gathered her instead, silken and strong, turning her onto her side in the moss and cradling her against Esther’s bare chest. Joanna’s legs wouldn’t quite work. She didn’t need them to. Esther’s arms were around her, one hand stroking damp hair back from her forehead, the other resting low on her belly, grounding.

“You did so well,” Esther whispered against her temple. The mockery was still there, but it had gone quiet, almost fond, the way a favorite insult becomes a pet name. “Took every bit of it. Begged so sweetly. I’m proud of you, you ridiculous thing.” A kiss to her hair. Then, softer, the old blade wrapped in velvet: “And look at you now. Shaking. Leaking. A needy mess who can’t cast a lantern and still thinks she can survive a week without me. Pathetic. Perfect. Mine.”

Joanna made a small sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. She turned her face into Esther’s throat and breathed. The hollow smelled of moss and sex and wet bark. Her body hummed, sore and satisfied and already, traitorously, starting to miss the weight of being held down.

“I’ll come back,” Esther said. “Soon. I’ll find you when you’re failing at something unimportant, and I’ll ruin you again. You’ll beg. You’ll mean it.” Her tails tightened once, a last gentle squeeze, and then the warmth of her began to thin. Foxfire licked up around them, gold and white, smelling of smoke and crushed leaves. “Rest, little mage. Try not to set the forest on fire while I’m gone. We both know you couldn’t if you tried.”

The light folded. The weight of the tails lifted. Esther was gone between one breath and the next, the way she always left, no footsteps, only a fading shimmer in the mist and the ghost of a laugh.

Joanna lay on the moss with her shirt open and her pants tangled at her ankle and the taste of Esther still on her tongue. The hollow was quiet. Mist drifted. Somewhere water moved under the ferns. Her body ached in the good way, the way that would remind her, tomorrow, whose she had asked to be. She didn’t reach for a spell. She didn’t speak. She closed her eyes and listened to nothing at all, and the nothing held her, soft as silk, until her breathing slowed and the gray light went on without her.