Charles Richards - A Kingdom Of Love

Joan was nearly to her feet now arid the snarling massive cats were locked together in the center ring. But, should any of the titanic blows that were being thrown in the fight connect and should that blow be pointed in the girl's direction, the fight would suddenly center around her too rapidly to describe. It was the essence of power that was being so rawly exposed. Nothing else alive could match that demonstration in its ferocity. Myrna could hear from a far distance through her mind the shouts of other hearing the battle, but their tiny voices were far, far away.

The girl was on her feet now and moving toward the door. "Thank God," breathed Myrna and then held her breath.

She found it impossible to distinguish which lion was which in the furious fight. Swift as whips, cat paws clawed in and out of the wheeling golden ball and snapped audibly through the air on furred skin. The force of the blows seemed volcanic. The mad power erupting from the whirling ball of lion fury was like a cyclone happening in the space of a moment and just about to catch up everyone and everything around.

Joan reached the door and was through it just as the complexion of the fight changed. One of the beasts came wheeling out of the ball like a floating paper sack and there was a horrid scream.

Myrna saw that it was Mae as the big cat landed crouched on his feet just at the very instant that the charging Andy arrived in his face.

The younger lion reared and cuffed the other's head with a series of blows: any one of which would have torn a human head completely from the shoulder. But somehow Mae took them and fell backwards on his curled spine, attempting to claw Andy's gut open with his rear paws. In the space of a second Andy leaped high above Mae and came down with stiffened legs and vicious claws extended and a horrible scream. But Mae, too, was just that quick.

He was out from under the attack and striking back with stiff powerful jabs. The lions grappled almost like wrestlers, and in that hold, Myrna saw with sorrowful terror that Mae was getting tired. She knew Andy would win unless Mae struck some lucky blow.

Half a moment passed and there was no longer even a chance of that; for Andy spun Mae with a tremendous blow and before the older lion could recover snapped his back with an effortless jab of his paw.

There was a loud pop and Mae just stopped moving in mid-air. He was dead before he hit the floor. And then both Joan and Myrna saw Andy place one huge forepaw on the dead lion's ragdoll form and roar his might. It was a moment of savagery so terrible and yet so strangely beautiful at the same time.

Suddenly both women wept. The loss of a creature's life; the conquering rightness of strength; the fear of what might have happened to Joan: all these thoughts crowded into the women, wracking their bodies with painful sob. Myrna had lost years of patient training and her two most spectacular cats. Joan was not as conscious of what she had lost-the terror of what she had caused was already dissipating the forbidden bliss of her erotic encounter with Andy Had it been a fantasy or as real as the horrible fight she had just witnessed?

The tension in both women still held them riveted to the ground before the cage door, so that they were not aware of the human commotion now surrounding them.

Without needing to be told what to do, someone grabbed a hose and turned it on full blast, sending the jet of water at the screaming cat.

Reluctantly the beast backed off his prize, swatting the spout of water and roaring his rage. With the high pressure hose as a prod Andy was herded back into his cage. But the damage was done; Andy was a killer now and would have to be shot.

"How could you be so enormously stupid?" Myrna screamed furiously at Joan.

They were in Myrna's trailer and the woman had just told the weeping girl what the consequences of her act were. The lion was a killer now and would have to be destroyed. There might have even been a possibility of hope had not the fight ended in Mae's death. Then both cats would have been put in zoos. But once a tame cat became a killer there was nothing else to be done but destroy him. And it was all Joan's fault. She had overstepped her authority and the results were disastrous.

Myrna's act was ruined. The two lions that she had trained to allow her to stick her head into their mouths were gone. Where could she find such animals again? And the time to train them? She was ruined because of an impulsive, unthinking child.

There was nothing Joan could say. So she wept.

"Here I am with your collar round my neck!" Myrna continued to fume.

"My cats are gone and a spiritless bitch sits sobbing in front of me.

It's too goddamn bad that it would kill you or I'd cut you up like Mae, you dumb little bitch! And I've got your collar on!" Myrna shook her fists at the heavens as if her rage were inspired by the gods of fate.

"Please, Myrna, please," Joan burbled. "What can I do? What can I do?"

"I don't know yet," Myrna's eyes glowed with contempt and rage. "But you can be sure you will pay. For a start, you can put this around your neck." Myrna's hands fairly tore the mink collar from around her throat and threw it at Joan.

It was the same kind of collar that Amanda wore, and Joan knew that if she placed herself into submission to Myrna, she would become like Amanda. Myrna would have won again.

Even though Myrna had allowed the collar to be fitted around her neck she had struggled continually. Now the roles were reversed.

As if the guilt Joan felt were not enough, Myrna was now insisting the path to forgiveness for the havoc lay in enslavement.

Darkly, a secret thrill rushed to Joan's womb. She had never played that role before!

She imagined what the collar would feel like as it surrounded her throat. Suddenly she wanted to know and at the same time she felt the heat in her crotch spread like a flower through her hips. She wanted to submit! A whimper escaped her lips.

"Pick it up and put it on." Myrna's voice was like thunder in the small room.

"As you wish." Joan felt the words pass her lips and was surprised at how easily they came out. That is what Amanda always says, she thought and felt as if she were gently relieved of a great burden.

She got down on all fours from the chair in which she had been slumped and crawled to the collar. Her tears had become whimpers and she seemed to cower like a dog.

"Please, please." The tiny sound was surrounded by Myrna's heaving breaths.

"Put it on," Myrna commanded. "From this moment on you are mine to do with as I choose. Do you understand that?"

"Please," said Joan whimpering as she put the collar around her slender throat.

The leather was hot and pliant as her fingers struggled to fit the tongue of the belt through the buckle. But the mink fur was sensual and soft.

"And cinch it tight. I want you to feel it."

Joan's fingers trembled as her mind whirled in a jumble of conflict.

She was submitting to Myrna's will and the feeling thrilled her. She wanted to grovel at the other woman's feet.

"Punish me, please," Joan whispered. She felt her heartbeat quicken and her cunt grow hot with the thought of what Myrna might do.

"Here. Let me do that." Myrna strode to her side and seized the buckle from the girl's fumbling fingers. Joan felt the band tighten until she choked. But the only sound she uttered was a submissive whimper. Myrna tightened it farther, and despite herself, Joan choked for air.

"Don't want to kill you," snarled Myrna cruelly through her teeth as she ran her fingers between the leather band and the girl's tight throat.

"There, that should do it," Myrna said as she hooked the buckle. Joan felt the blood in her neck swell around the leather band. But she had enough room to breath, barely. Her eye watered and her head throbbed from the sudden surge of blood.