My stylus flew across the tablet, the piece slowly taking form as I refined the brush strokes, the character seeming to spring to life before my eyes. It was finished, one drawing down, only several hundred more to go...

It was late at night, the pale glow of my computer monitors the only thing that illuminated the room, discarded food containers and soda cans littering the desk upon which they were perched. I had been at it for hours, the sun had still been shining through my windows when I had begun, but now all that I could see through the panes was the night sky and a few solitary flakes of snow as they drifted lazily towards the ground.

My hand was starting to cramp, perhaps it was time for a break. I bade farewell to my viewers in the stream chat, then shut off the feed, rising out of my chair and stretching my arms above my head. I tried to suppress a yawn unsuccessfully, then turned and made my way to the door. I was feeling a little hungry, maybe I’d get a snack before bed.

The staircase creaked under my feet as I descended to the ground floor, rubbing my eyes as I debated making a pot of coffee and staying up for a few more hours rather than getting the rest that I so obviously needed. I had a lot of work still to do. I had taken to streaming my artwork lately, but it had ended up being more of a distraction than the boost to my productivity that I had hoped for. I spent too much time messing around, interacting with the viewers and doing silly requests, rather than working on more serious projects. It was a lot of fun, but I really should try to get some real work done.

The kitchen was dark too, lit only by the far-off glow of a street lamp that was bleeding in through the window, giving the room a yellow tint. I crouched in front of the fridge and swung the door open, rummaging inside for something to snack on. A half eaten turkey sandwich, it would do in a pinch...

Munching on my newfound midnight snack, I made my way over to the counter and turned on the coffee machine. I figured that I might as well stay up another hour or two, if only to finish off that one piece of background scenery that had been giving me trouble. The next version of the game was supposed to release soon, if I wasn’t careful I’d have to scramble to get it all done at the last minute.

As the machine whirred loudly, I noticed a strange smell wafting on the air. It was acrid, stinging my nose, and as I struggled to focus my eyes in the darkness I saw a trail of grey smoke rising from the counter a few feet away.

Curious, I inched closer, leaning in to see what it was. It was a cigarette, it looked like it had been carelessly put out on the wood, and my first instinct was to pick it up between my thumb and forefinger and drop it into the sink. I wet the sleeve of my worn sweater with my tongue, and tried to rub away the burn mark. It quickly dawned on me that someone else must be in the house with me. I certainly didn’t smoke, and I lived alone, where had the cigarette come from?

Suppressing my panic, I marched over to the near wall and hit the light switch, illuminating the kitchen. My eyes snapped shut as my vision adapted to the glare, and when they opened again, ‘she’ was standing there.

“Oh ... it’s you,” I muttered. “I should have known. Could you not put out your cigarettes on my counter top?”

Her black lips spread into a wide, toothy grin, another cigarette hanging from her mouth as she peered down at me with her cyan eyes. They reflected the light from the ceiling lamp, shining like a pair of emeralds, her reptilian pupils examining me in a way that seemed cold and calculating.

Her head very nearly touched the ceiling, she was well above six feet, probably skirting seven. I had never dared to pick up a tape measure and check. Her hairless head had somewhat of a snout, her defined cheekbones casting dark shadows down her face, her reptilian skin a shade of deep blue. She wore a form-fitting, purple jumpsuit made from no material that I couldn’t name, the tight garment doing little to conceal her generous bust and her muscular form.

Exampla might have been mistaken for a normal woman, if one had only seen her torso, her more jarring features contrasting with her humanoid figure. She had round thighs, her digitigrade legs ending in three-toed feet, each tipped with a claw. I could hear the sound of her long, powerful tail as it dragged back and forth on the tiled floor, it sounded like a wet towel. For all intents and purposes she looked very much like one would imagine a bipedal lizard, or a dinosaur that had evolved to sentience.

I wasn’t sure where Exampla had come from. She had just inserted herself into my brain, like an intrusive thought, or a catchy tune that one finds himself humming out of the blue months later and entirely out of context. She was my muse in a sense, an embodiment of my xenophilic tendencies. It was hard to say whether she was a figment of my imagination, some kind of supernatural entity that seemed able to defy the laws of physics and logic, or whether she was simply evidence of a very real psychological problem that should probably be medicated.

Either way, she appeared from time to time, doling out harsh criticism of my work and tormenting me with her odd humor. Whatever her motivations were, she seemed intent on having me finish my project, at times she even seemed more invested in it than I was...

She raised a pair of clawed fingers to her mouth, retrieving the cigarette and blowing a cloud of acrid smoke in my direction. She chuckled at me as I coughed and sputtered, waving my arm to clear the air, my eyes watering as she loomed over me.

“It’s late,” she said in her husky contralto, flicking her cigarette and depositing ash on my floor. “You should get some sleep, or you’ll be useless tomorrow. You ‘have’ been working on the project tonight, right?”

“Uh ... yeah, the project,” I replied sheepishly. I had been procrastinating all day, fooling around in the stream. “I didn’t get as much done as I’d like, I was thinking of maybe ... staying up a couple more hours?”

I was unsure as to why I had phrased that statement as a question. It was my choice, not hers, and yet going against Exampla’s wishes never ended well for me.

She shot me an icy glare, turning her nose up at me as she took another draw from her cigarette. I watched as she exhaled through her nose, the smoke leaving her nostrils to make her look like an angry dragon.

“Show me,” she said, and my heart sank. It was a lie of course, and I was about to be found out. Who could say what she might do to me when she discovered that I had tried to mislead her. I led her back up the staircase and into my bedroom, the giant woman ducking through my door frame and coming to stand behind me as I sat down at my desk. I rolled closer on my wheeled office chair, intending to quickly tab out of the window that I had left open with the stream, but I felt the weight of her clawed hand as she leaned over my shoulder to stay my mouse.

“What is ‘that’?” she asked disdainfully, her breath carrying the smell of her cigarettes.

“I was doing a stream,” I replied, my voice wavering.

She moved my hand, her grip like iron, mousing over to the scroll bar on the stream chat. She rolled the mouse wheel, her cyan eyes scanning back and forth as she read through the exchanges between me and my viewers.

“Chatanon,” she read, her black lips curling into a sneer. “Please draw some Exampla nudes.”

“He was just requesting them,” I stammered, trying to bullshit my way out of the hole that I had dug. “I know how you feel about those, I didn’t actually draw any.”

Exampla continued to read, her eyes narrowing. She had already seen through my deception, now she was just rubbing salt in the wound, enjoying watching me squirm as I tried desperately to justify myself.

“Paperface said: holy shit, I love her big blue lizard cans.”

“He’s just ... I don’t know why he’d say that. It wasn’t related to anything that I was doing at the time.”

“And the next person seems to be replying to him. Proventus says that you should be careful, or you’ll ‘piss off your imaginary waifu’. Well this one has more sense than you do, at least. ‘Xenopill’ seems to agree with him...”

She planted a hand on my head, large enough to encompass my skull entirely, her pointed claws hanging dangerously close to my face. She stroked my scalp like one would pet a beloved cat, the act outwardly affectionate, but I knew that it was designed to intimidate me. She could flay my flesh from my bones with her wicked claws, or crush my head like a ripe grape, and she wanted me to know it.

“You know how it makes me feel when you let people deny that I exist,” she said with an exaggerated pout. Her lips were so black and shiny, somehow making her pearly teeth look even more menacing when she forced an exaggerated smile. “Because I’m not imaginary, am I?”

I shook my head, but she gripped me more tightly and held it still.

“Say it,” she hissed.

“Y-You’re not imaginary.”

“There’s a good boy. Because an imaginary creature couldn’t hurt you, could she? She couldn’t for example, burn you with her lit cigarette?”

I tensed as she plucked her cigarette from her black lips and held it between her fingers, lowering it down towards my neck. It hovered there, an inch from my exposed skin, I could feel the heat that radiated from it.

“Now tell me the truth,” she chimed sweetly. “Have you been doing your work today, or have you been drawing unflattering pictures of me for your friends and admirers?”

“I ... I didn’t do my work,” I admitted. I gritted my teeth, bracing for the sting of pain, but it never came. Exampla kept the cigarette close, seeming to enjoy how nervous she was making me.

“And... ? What have you been drawing instead?”

“P-Pictures of you.”

She leaned down and pursed her lips, planting a kiss in the nape of my neck. It was soft and tender, contrasting with her cruel demeanor. I flinched all the same, not knowing whether I should expect leniency or retribution. I never knew what was going through her head, she was unpredictable, downright crazy at times. She moved her lips to my ear, and I could feel her warm breath as she whispered quietly.

“You’re such a good boy for telling me the truth.”

The moment that she felt me relax a little, she pressed the glowing cigarette into my skin. I let out a yelp and flinched away from her, covering my neck with my hand as I danced out of my chair and scurried across the room.

“Fuck! What was that for?”

“That’s your reward for telling the truth,” she explained as she stood there with her hands on her wide hips, the cigarette now returned to her mouth.

“How is being burned a reward?”

“The reward is that I didn’t do worse to you,” she added. “Now go get your coffee, and let me read through some more of this chat log.”

My face went pale, and her eyes narrowed.

“Read through more?” I asked. “You already found me out, so what say I just get some coffee in me, and you let me get on with my work?”

“Unless you want to take that coffee as an enema, you’d better do as I tell you,” she snapped. She pointed to the door, and I bowed my head, knowing better than to antagonize her further. As I hurried down the stairs, I considered opening the door and bolting into the snow. Sleeping on a bus stop bench might be preferable to facing Exampla when she got done reading those chat logs. Not only had I been making Exampla a mascot for my stream, but my viewers and I had been brainstorming a short story in which she did some ... unsavory things. If she didn’t like being a mascot for my streams, and she liked me drawing porn of her even less, then what would she think of a dirty story that was being written about her?

My hands shaking, I poured a cup of coffee, watching the steam rise to the ceiling in a lazy plume. I took a moment to run a dish cloth under the cold faucet, then held it against the burn mark on my neck, wincing as it stung me. This wasn’t unusual behavior for her, sometimes I forgot to fear her and she felt that a harsh reminder was in order.

Once my burn had been appropriately soothed, I made for the stairs, hesitating at the first step as I took a sip from my cup. Perhaps I should finish it all before I returned to the bedroom, it didn’t make sense to give her even more potential weapons to use against me.

Fuck it, she would no doubt have read everything by now, I might as well just take whatever punishment she had in mind and get it over with. Who knew, maybe she would like the idea of being featured in a story? Stranger things had happened.

I mounted the steps slowly and emerged into my room, eyeing Example warily as she leaned over my desk, squinting at the monitor as it bathed her blue face in its pale light. She heard my shoes scuff the carpet, turning her head slowly to stare at me, ice water running through my veins as I averted my eyes and walked over to the edge of my bed. I sat, taking another drink from the coffee cup, cradling it in my hands as I watched her tail wave back and forth in irritation. She was like a cat in that sense, she always seemed to express her emotions with the long, tapered appendage.

“Would you care to explain what ‘this’ is?” she asked, and I leaned to look past her. As I had expected, she had the text file open, the beginnings of her story visible on the monitor. She had the stream chat open too, and I could make out two users discussing some of the less savory passages. I swallowed conspicuously, then steeled myself.

“It’s ... a story.”

“A story about me?” she prompted.

“Yes,” I replied, unable to conceal my hesitation. “Now, before you blow a gasket, let me explain.”

“Oh, I would just ‘love’ to hear you try to explain your way out of this,” she said as she turned to face me. She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring down at me. She somehow seemed even larger from my sitting position, I had to crane my neck to look up at her.

“My fans really like you, and I’ve been reading a lot of these stories lately. I thought that maybe they’d like it if-”

“You know how I feel about you making me into a clown for your audience,” she snapped, cutting me off as her cyan eyes flashed with anger. “What makes you think that I would enjoy being made the object of some ... depraved sexual fantasy? Just look at this stuff,” she said as she turned to gesture at the monitor. “Is this what you’re into now? You like ‘femdom’? Or have I just punished you so many times that you’re starting to enjoy it, like some kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome?”

I saw a glint in her eye that scared me, a sinister smile curling her black lips.

“Would you like a taste of the real thing?” she hissed.

I never knew whether she was joking or not, her sense of humor was so twisted and alien. I recognized that expression however. Her eyes were wide and predatory, staring at me with an intensity that made me want to cower and hide. Her shiny lips were pulled back to expose her sharp, carnivore teeth in a smile that was as cold as a corpse, designed only to intimidate. She was being serious, and I felt my gut begin to swim with a blend of fear and arousal. Was she right? Had I started to enjoy the ways that she hurt me?

“Now hold on a second,” I said as I raised my hands, setting the coffee down on the floor and sliding off the bed. I began to back away slowly, but she had that crazy look in her eyes, her ample bosom rising and falling conspicuously beneath her purple jumpsuit as her breathing grew heavier. Her black tongue snaked out of her mouth to wet her lips, like she was salivating over a delicious meal that she was about to eat.

“So what is it that you like?” Exampla hissed, her toothy grin stopping my heart in my chest. “Whips? Chains? Do you imagine me dressed from head to toe in black leather, studs on my boots and a paddle in my hand?”

“N-No!” I stammered, “it’s nothing like that!”

I felt my butt hit the windowsill, and I realized that she had backed me up against the wall. She was still coming, her unblinking gaze fixed on me, her head skirting the ceiling as she loomed over me like a monster. She kicked over the coffee cup with one of her three-toed feet, the contents spilling over the carpet, and she didn’t even seem to notice.

“Do you fantasize about me overpowering you and doing terrible things to you? Blurring the lines between pleasure and pain? And here I thought that we had a more professional relationship than that...”

“Listen,” I pleaded, moving to my right as she closed in and hopping over my bed to put a barrier between us. She kept her eyes fixed on me, beginning to circle around the obstruction in order to reach me. “It was just a thought! The viewers really like you, why is that such a bad thing? Why do you hate that so much?”

“Because I’m here for you, my little sugar dumpling,” she cooed. It was saccharine, insincere, the nickname intended to mock rather than to endear. “I’m your muse, and nobody else’s. I don’t want to be shared, I only want to be adored by one person, feared by one person...”

“I understand! I won’t draw you in the streams anymore, I won’t let people write stories about you ever again!”

“I don’t think you do,” she said, “I think you need to be reminded why you should fear me. Perhaps I’ve been too lenient, maybe the soft touch isn’t working out.”

She cornered me, and I sank to the floor, covering my head with hands as she boxed me in and leaned down close to me. I could feel her breath on my skin, her tall body casting me in a dark shadow. “I’m going to have to hurt you now, sugar pie. Believe me when I say that this hurts me more than it hurts you, but this is what you drive me to with your chronic misbehavior.”

She explained it as if it should be self-evident, her tone condescending, like she was talking to a child. I felt her fingers close around my wrists, pulling them away, and then she reached down and took a handful of my hair. I liked to grow it long, and it reached the small of my back, giving Exampla more than he enough to get a tight hold on me. She wrapped it around her hand like a rope, pulling me to my feet, and I grimaced as it stung my scalp.

She released her hold on me, and I tried to rush past her. She let me get a few feet, allowing me a glimmer of hope, but only so that she could dash it moments later. I felt her arm hook around my neck, her bicep bulging against my cheek as she locked me in a choke hold. I gagged and sputtered, her tight grip closing off my windpipe, my cheeks turning red as she lifted me so that only the tips of my toes could reach the floor.

Exampla leaned in, those black lips an inch away from my ear as she whispered to me. Her voice was low and menacing, but there was a hint of what almost sounded like affection, and that scared me even more...

“You think you can get away from me? I’m always here, I’m in your head, I’m a part of you.”

I patted her forearm in a silent plea, the muscle beneath her blue skin as hard as stone, and I started to panic as my empty lungs sucked at nothing. She watched me intently as my lips began to turn the same shade of blue as her hide, my eyes watering as the corners of my vision darkened. When I was on the cusp of unconsciousness, she finally relented, releasing me to fall to my knees.

I clutched at my throat, coughing as I nursed the red welt that she had left, and then I flinched as I felt her fingers close around the back of my neck. Like scruffing an unruly kitten, she pulled me to my feet again, her sharp claws pressing into my skin just deep enough to leave a mark without making me bleed. They brushed my jugular, a spark of primal fear coursing through me. She could have taken my head off with those things, all it would have taken is one flinch and I’d be spilling arterial blood all over the carpet.

Her grip was like iron, and she caught one of my wrists in her other hand, wrenching it back and pushing me forward so that my torso was parallel to the ground. My long hair fell over my face, and I winced as she forced my arm into an unnatural angle. It was some kind of martial arts move, like she was putting me in a stress position, threatening to wrench my limb out of its socket as she applied more pressure. It didn’t hurt enough to make me cry out in pain, but it was extremely uncomfortable and she had complete control over me.

“You can’t run,” she cooed, “there’s nowhere you can go that I can’t find you.”

She was frighteningly strong. Her toned muscles weren’t just for show, they were functional, and I got the impression that she was only leveraging a fraction of her strength to hold me completely helpless.

“What say you and me spend a little quality time together? We can talk about these issues that you’ve been having, a little heart to heart...”

She was so strong, impossible to fight off, and she led me over to the bed like she was holding me by a leash. When I got close enough to the edge of the mattress, she curled her tail around my feet, letting go of me and tripping me in an almost comical fashion so that I fell forward onto the bed.

I landed on my face, bouncing on the mattress as I heard her chuckle from somewhere behind me. When I managed to right myself, rubbing my sore arm, I turned to see her holding a bundle of chains. They were long, made from heavy, black metal links that clanked together as they spilled from her hands. They had appeared from nowhere, as if by magic.

“Where the hell did those come from?” I sputtered, unable to conceal my surprise.

“The same place I got this stogie,” she said, removing a long cigar from her mouth and blowing a smoke ring in my direction. “This is what you wanted, right?” Her lips were still curled into that wild grin, and she was breathing heavily through her nose like an angry bull that was preparing to charge. “This is what you fantasized about it, isn’t it? This is what you imagined me doing to you in the depths of night, when you thought that you were alone and your thoughts were private? Is this what those degenerates that you call your ‘fans’ wanted to see?”

“I said that I was sorry,” I pleaded, “I promised never to do it again. What more do you want from me? Just tell me, and I’ll do it.”

“I want you to learn,” she said, the chains scraping along the floor as she inched towards me.

She climbed onto the bed and pinned me beneath her immense weight, the chains seeming to move under their own power, almost like metal snakes. They wrapped around my wrists, digging into my flesh uncomfortably, rendering my arms immobile as she straddled me.

Her thighs were as hard as the steel that comprised those chains, squeezing my hips in a vice grip, firm muscle bulging from beneath the subtle layer of fat that gave her such a comely figure. She could probably have crushed a bowling ball to dust between them.

Her musculature was suddenly so visible beneath the glow of the naked light bulb that lay just above her head, as if I was noticing it for the first time. Her purple jumpsuit was at tight as latex, like it had been painted onto her skin, the contours of her body easily visible beneath the unidentifiable fabric. The light cast dark shadows that accentuated her abs, twin rows of bunched muscle that protruded from her otherwise flat belly to such an extent that they cast their own shadows. They were so defined, as if they had been chiseled from marble by a sculptor, flexing and shifting gently as her body moved. I could make out the bones of her wide hips, the indent of her navel, the subtle mound between her legs...

“See something you like?” Exampla asked, peering down at me with those cyan eyes, glittering like emeralds as she exhaled a puff from her cigar. I blushed, unable to formulate a reply, and she shot me a toothy grin.

Above those washboard abs were a pair of heavy breasts, suspended by the fabric with no bra visible beneath it. The clothing was so tight that it strained to contain them, the two massive globes wobbling gently as she shifted her weight. They looked like they were one step away from bursting out of her jumpsuit, each one of them larger than my own head. Why did a reptile need breasts? The question lingered in my mind, even as I watched them sway, blood beginning to flow to somewhere that it shouldn’t.

She reached down with a curved claw and pressed it gently against my throat, the pointed tip digging in my skin. I froze, not even daring to breathe, and then she began to move down. She sliced open the collar of my worn sweater, along with the t-shirt that I was wearing underneath it, cutting the fabric like a hot knife through butter. She wasn’t even applying much pressure, which said a lot more about the sharpness of her talons than it did about the quality of my attire.

She seemed to know exactly how deep to go to avoid filleting me like a freshly caught trout, yet she wanted me to feel it, leaving a stinging trail down to my belt line as she split the garments cleanly in half. She opened the two halves like a jacket, leaving my naked torso exposed, and a throb of fear shot through me. Exampla was unpredictable on the best of days, for all I knew she was about to perform a live vivisection.

I winced as she brought both hands down to my chest, pricking me with her claws. She was breathing heavily now, and I saw something that almost resembled hunger in her pitiless stare. I felt her fingers begin to drag down my torso, not applying enough pressure to break the skin and to draw blood, but just enough that her claws left burning welts. It was like she was painting and my skin was her canvass, my reptilian assailant making shapes and patterns, leaving stinging scratches in her wake. I knew that she was enjoying my squirming, her thighs tightening around me to hold me still as I strained against my bonds, the metal links clattering together. It was futile, I could not escape, all I could do was endure the pain as she made me her plaything.

She grew tired of it before long, pulling her hands away, and when I opened my eyes I saw her slip one of her fingers into her mouth to suck away a droplet of crimson blood that was clinging to her claw. I glanced down at myself, catching my breath. It looked like I had been attacked by a group of angry cats. My pale skin was criss-crossed with sore scratches, and I shivered as I saw that she had written her name on my belly. There she had broken the skin, a hint of blood visible, but it was nothing that could have been described as an injury.

“Pain is the most efficient teacher,” she whispered, withdrawing her finger from her mouth and making slow circles with it on my stomach. Her touch was light, and it tickled, making my muscles spasm beneath it as if they were trying to recoil from her. “Sometimes telling a child that the stove is hot doesn’t get the message across, sometimes you need to let them get burned. Not only will they learn their lesson, but they’ll start listening better too. You need to learn to listen better, sugar pie. The question is, what will serve as our hot stove?”

She pulled her cigar from her mouth and tapped the end of, dropping a few particles of hot ash onto my belly. I squirmed as they burned me, glaring up at her.

“You look angry,” she whispered, reaching down to brush my red cheek with her knuckles. It was an oddly gentle gesture, contrasting strangely with her cruelty. “Be as angry as you want, fight me all you want, it won’t make a lick of difference...”

She leaned down towards my face, opening her jaws and exposing her rows of sharp, carnivore teeth. Her long tongue snaked forth, the length of tapered muscle glistening with her saliva, and she dragged it across my cheek. It was slimy, her flesh smooth and warm.

“You taste like fear,” she said, her eyelids fluttering as if sampling my flavor was akin to snorting a line of coke. I felt her steely thighs shiver as she wet her black lips, peering down at me covetously. Whether she wanted to make love to me, or eat me, I had no idea. Her expression didn’t reveal anything that I didn’t already know, mostly that she was not of sound mind.

Suddenly she reached her hands down towards my neck. She did slowly, watching me with a smile far warmer than her cold intent, wanting me to anticipate what she was going to do to me next. As they neared my throat, poised to throttle me, I desperately tried to free my arms so that I might ward her off. The metal links clanked together, and I bucked and writhed beneath her, struggling against the tight bonds. If anything my fighting only seemed to please her more. She was like a little girl pulling the legs off a spider, toying with it, almost innocent in the way that she gleaned entertainment from the act of cruelty.