Chapter 30: The Jealousy Game
The photo lived in Nat’s phone like a live wire. She carried it with her, a secret current humming beneath her skin. For two days, a brittle ceasefire held. Annika avoided her, slamming cabinet doors with unnecessary force. Bambi flitted around like a nervous ghost, her eyes huge whenever Nat entered a room. Chris watched it all with amused detachment, as if observing the aftermath of a particularly interesting storm.
He gave her space. He didn’t try to touch her. This, more than anything, confirmed her victory. His attention was no longer a given; it was a reward she had earned and could, apparently, revoke.
It was this illusion of control that made her bold.
It was Thursday night. Micha was home, buried in his laptop on the far end of the sagging couch, headphones on, oblivious to the charged atmosphere he was sitting in. A football match flickered silently on the TV. Annika was painting her toenails on the floor, her back against the couch. Bambi was curled in the armchair, scrolling, a blanket over her lap.
Chris walked in from the kitchen, a beer in hand. He wore grey sweatpants and nothing else. The soft fabric did nothing to hide the heavy, casual swing of him as he moved. He nodded at Micha, who didn’t look up, then his eyes found Nat. She was perched on the arm of the other couch, a book open but unread in her lap.
He raised his beer in a silent toast, a smirk playing on his lips.
Nat closed her book with a soft snap. The sound made Bambi jump. Annika’s brush stilled.
“Chris,” Nat said, her voice clear in the stale room. “Come here.”
Micha, tuned out, heard nothing. Annika’s head snapped up. Bambi slowly lowered her phone.
Chris didn’t move for a beat, his expression unreadable. Then he took a slow sip of his beer, set it on the cluttered coffee table, and walked toward her. He stopped a foot away, his bare chest at her eye level. She could smell the clean scent of his soap, underneath it the warmer, muskier scent that was just him.
“Yeah?”
“On your knees,” she said.
A flicker in his eyes—surprise, then a dark, eager pleasure. He sank to his knees on the scuffed hardwood without hesitation. The posture was both submissive and profoundly arrogant; he looked up at her, knowing exactly what the sight of him like this did to everyone in the room.
From the floor, Annika let out a sharp, hissed breath. Bambi’s blanket slipped from her shoulders.
Nat reached into the pocket of her hoodie. She pulled out not her phone, but a length of black leather—a spare belt from her wardrobe. She’d oiled it until it was supple.
Micha, lost in his digital world, shifted, his headphones emitting a tiny, tinny shriek of noise.
Nat looped the belt loosely around Chris’s neck, not buckling it, just letting the ends dangle against his collarbones. A symbol. A leash.
“Crawl,” she whispered.
His grin was wolfish. He got onto his hands and knees. The sweatpants stretched tight over his ass. Nat stood, holding the loose end of the belt, and took a few steps backward, leading him like an animal on a gentle lead toward the center of the room, right in front of Annika and Bambi.
“Look at him,” Nat said to them. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, but her voice was ice. “Look how pretty he is when he’s obedient.”
Chris was breathing heavily now, his cock a thick, obvious bulge against the floor, straining the grey fabric. He turned his head, nuzzling his face against Nat’s thigh through her jeans. The submissiveness of the gesture was a lie; she felt the heat of him, the latent, coiled power.
“He’s all wet for me already,” Nat announced, her gaze locked on Annika’s furious face. She let go of the belt and crouched down. She hooked her fingers in the waistband of his sweatpants and yanked them down to his mid-thighs. His cock sprang free, already fully hard, the head dark and flushed, a bead of clear precum gleaming at the slit.
A low moan escaped Bambi. Annika’s knuckles were white around her nail polish bottle.
Nat spat into her palm, not taking her eyes off the girls. She wrapped her slick hand around Chris’s shaft and gave him three slow, brutal strokes. He shuddered, a groan tearing from his throat, his hips pushing up into her fist.
“See?” Nat taunted, stroking him with a possessive rhythm. “He doesn’t need your mouth, Annika. He doesn’t need your shy little hands, Bambi. He just needs my permission.” She leaned down, her lips close to his ear. “Don’t you, puppy?”
“Yes,” Chris rasped, his voice raw. “Fuck, yes, Nat. Please.”
“Please what?” she demanded, stopping her hand, squeezing the base hard.
“Please let me… let me taste you. Let me fuck you. Anything.”
She stood up, wiping her hand on her jeans. She looked at Annika. “You want to play? Here.” She pointed to the floor in front of Chris. “Put your feet on him.”
Annika stared, hatred and arousal warring in her eyes. For a second, Nat thought she’d refuse. Then, with a jerky movement, Annika shoved her nail polish aside. She was barefoot. She stretched her long, pale legs out, placing her soles flat against Chris’s heaving side.
“Lick them,” Nat commanded Chris.
He didn’t hesitate. He turned his head and dragged his tongue, broad and wet, along the arch of Annika’s foot. Annika jolted as if shocked, a gasp catching in her throat. He licked again, slow and thorough, then took her toes into his mouth, sucking each one.
“Jesus Christ,” Bambi whispered, her hand creeping under the blanket.
“Your turn, Bambi,” Nat said. “Feet on his back. Now.”
Bambi scrambled out of the chair, her socks off. She knelt and placed her small, tattooed feet on the taut muscles of Chris’s lower back. He flinched at the new contact, but continued his slow, degrading worship of Annika’s feet.
Nat watched, a strange, cold fire in her veins. This was power. Not the messy grappling in the kitchen, but this calculated, cruel theater. She unbuttoned her own jeans, shoved them and her panties down to her knees. She wasn’t wet; she was arid with a furious, focused need. She reached between her own legs, rubbing her clit with rough, quick circles until the slickness came, until her fingers slid easily.
She let them see. Let them watch her touch herself while their feet were on her property.
Chris was panting, his cock leaking onto the floor, his tongue working over Annika’s instep.
“You see how good he is?” Nat said, her voice tight with her own mounting pleasure. “He’d lick the dirt off your shoes if I told him to. He’s mine.”
She took her fingers out, glistening. She crouched again and smeared her wetness over Chris’s mouth, across his lips and chin. “Taste that. That’s what you’re begging for.”
He sucked her fingers into his mouth, his eyes rolling back in his head.
“Now,” Nat said, standing. “Beg properly. Beg to fuck me.”
Chris pulled his face away from Annika’s foot. He looked utterly wrecked, spit and her slick coating his face. “Nat, please. Please let me fuck you. I need to be inside you. I need to feel your cunt stretch around my cock. Please, I’m begging you, let me fuck you raw.”
The explicit filth of his words hung in the air, a palpable cloud. Annika whimpered. Bambi was openly grinding against the seam of her jeans.
Nat let the plea echo. She let it soak into the walls, into Micha’s oblivious silence, into the jealous rage of the girls watching.
She smiled. It felt sharp on her face.
“No.”
The word was a guillotine.
Chris froze. His expression crumbled from desperate hope into shocked agony.
“You don’t get my cunt tonight,” Nat said, pulling her jeans up. “You’ve been a good showpiece, but that’s all you are right now.” She picked up the end of the leather belt from where it lay on the floor. She gave it a gentle tug. “Go to your room. Touch yourself if you want. But you don’t come. And you don’t leave until I say so.”
For one terrifying second, she thought he might refuse. She saw a flash of something hard and male in his eyes, a primal rebellion. She held her breath.
Then it vanished. He lowered his head, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “Okay.”
He clumsily pulled his sweatpants up over his aching hardness, wincing as the fabric made contact. He got to his feet, not looking at anyone, and walked out of the living room, the belt still hanging loose around his neck. The door to his bedroom clicked shut.
The silence he left behind was deafening.
Annika snatched her feet back, curling them under her as if burned. She looked at Nat with pure, undiluted loathing. Bambi just stared at the closed door, her expression one of bewildered, aching hunger.
Nat adjusted her glasses. She could feel Micha’s presence just feet away, still ignorant. She had never felt more alone, or more powerful, in her life.
She picked up her book. “Anybody want popcorn?” she asked, her voice casual, as if nothing of consequence had happened at all.