He didn’t come upstairs all day. I heard him only once. There was the sound of footsteps in the hall and then the front door opened and he was gone. I waited for a few minutes but he did not come back. In the end, I gave up listening out for him. He’d either come back or not. There wasn’t much I could do about it.

I realised, as I sank into the armchair by my bed, how much I had changed. He had told me he was making the decisions for the week and I had accepted that so deeply, I did not try to reason why he might have left. That was up to him.

I felt surprisingly calm, even managing to read for a spell as I awaited his return. But my worries about him grew as the day went on. I was most worried that he might not come back, though I kept telling myself that wasn’t up to me.

What if he did something stupid? Went out and got drunk? Got in a bar fight or worse?

I could tell there was something he desperately wanted to tell me, something he was keeping to himself. I couldn’t work out what it was but it must have been serious. One moment, he was giving me the greatest pleasure imaginable, the next he was alone and looking so sad I wanted to wrap him in my arms and tell him it would be all right, whatever was hurting him, I would help with.

He wanted to break me. That’s what he had said. Was that what he did with the others? Something told me there was more to it than that. If that was how he enjoyed himself, he wouldn’t have looked so tortured in his study. There was more to it but without him being willing to talk, I doubted I’d be able to find out what it was.

By the time the sun set, he still hadn’t come back. I climbed into bed, unable to stop thinking about him. Tomorrow was one day closer to needing to leave. I’d been able to stay at least to see out the week. He hadn’t thrown me out like he’d threatened. But by the time I woke up, there would only be two days left. Was that long enough to find out the truth? To try and make him accept my help?

I really did want to help. It was no longer about the money. It was about him. The only one round here who was broken was him. I had thought when I first met him that his life was one long pleasure ride without anything to trouble him. It turned out I was wrong. Money wasn’t the great panacea that I had thought it was. Not much of a revelation but at least I knew the truth. Anyone could be damaged. All I could do was try and help him.

I had no one to turn to. I couldn’t talk things through with anyone else. He had my phone with my clothes, locked away somewhere in the house. I could only think things out for myself. It felt odd giving up control and no longer making decisions with someone I wanted to help so badly. It was a bit like being in love. I couldn’t explain why I felt that way, only that I did.

It took a long time to get to sleep. My dreams were vividly dark, consisting of him looming over my bound body, his hand on my throat, his cock inside me, growling that I was his plaything, that I’d broken him and now he was going to break me.

I woke up coated in sweat, surprised to find him standing over me. He had something in his hand that I couldn’t place. I blinked away the fuzziness of sleep and sat up. “Is that a tail?” I asked, blinking again.

“Assume the position,” he said in a voice that suggested yesterday never happened.

I did as he asked, slipping out of my dress and onto my knees, leaning down until my face was pressed into the blankets. Excitement rose in me as I felt him dripping something cold onto my ass. He ran his hand between my cheeks and I realised it was lube. I tensed up automatically as his finger ran over my ass. Was he going to go in there? Why else the lube?

His hand ran down to my pussy, stroking my clit reverently and with infinite patience, making me groan into the blanket under my mouth as the minutes passed. “This is your new tail,” he said, running the faux fur down my back. “If you’re going to refuse to leave, that’s because you’re loyal, like a pet. Pets have tails.”

The tip of something cold and hard pressed against my ass, the hole easy to access as I held my cheeks wide apart for him. It was a metal thing, like the butt plugs I’d seen in the drawer. But this one had a tail dangling down from it.

The end of the plug nudged deeper, forcing its way into my ass. The pain was bad but it was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. It sounds odd but it was a discomfort that was pleasant, a duller version of being spanked, taking place deeper inside me. The plug slid back and forth as he rocked his hand before he started to steadily push, widening me, stretching me, making me realise just how good pain could feel.

Every nerve in my ass was alive and on fire and just when I was sure he was done, another inch went into me. “Good girl,” he said, standing up as I tried to control my breathing. “Now crawl to your owner.”

I looked up to see him sat in the armchair over by the window. I let go of my buttocks, feeling them grip the plug, the feel of the tail strange only because of how natural it felt. I climbed off the bed slowly, every motion making the plug grind inside me as I sank to all fours and crawled across to him.

He smiled at me, patting the top of my head when I reached him. “Good girl,” he said. “Now let’s take you out for a walk.”