Kat

Kat, Chapter Three

"Right then," Cobb said. "Back to the basics."

They were outside in the cool evening air. The sky was starting to turn gold and orange with the sunset, and there was a gentle breeze rolling over them. Cobb stood to her left, and Mistress Alexa sat on a bench beside the wall of the house to her right, reading a book and smoking a cigarette. Kat stood between them, back straight, shoulders back, just as she'd been instructed. By Cobb. For the past hour and a half.

Her body was starting to get stiff.

"Alright, five steps, go," Cobb said. Mistress Alexa looked up from her book briefly, but went back to it, taking a drag off her cigarette and sighing. Kat, still in her uniform, but wearing a pair of black flats, took five careful steps forward, and five careful steps backward.

"Now seven," Cobb said.

Kat wanted to curse at him and flee, but kept the urge to herself. As much as she wanted to grimace, her Mistress would have her head if she did that. Quite possibly, literally. Just her presence put butterflies in Kat's stomach. Her Mistress was quiet so far, and that was how Kat preferred it. So, she pushed down the anxiety and took seven steps forward, and seven steps backward.

This was humiliating, she thought. She'd had a blush in her cheeks for the first fifteen minutes of her punishment, before the air had cooled. Learning how to walk. She was learning how to walk. This is what she'd sunk to. For an hour and a half. Still, Cobb seemed to be getting more and more satisfied with her performance, so maybe it was almost over.

"Good," Cobb said, clapping his hands and walking over to inspect her. "Perhaps now you will walk without tripping over yourself."

She flashed him a glare, but it was brief, before anxiety choked her and she turned away. Cobb either didn't notice, or didn't care.

"Tomorrow, we will work on knocking," he said. She could hear the grin in his voice as he said it. "For now, I am through with you. Madam?"

Mistress Alexa closed her book and looked up, taking one last puff of her cigarette before putting it out on the stone below her feet. Just having her eyes on Kat made her palms grow sticky. It was times like these where uncertainty ran rampant through her mind like a loose child, drawing cartoonish images of the horrors that could be.

A breeze passed over them as Mistress Alexa stood quietly. She eyed Kat up and down, standing at least a head taller than her.

"Thank you Cobb. You are dismissed for the day."

Cobb nodded and, with a little bow, said, "Thank you Madam. Tomorrow, same time?"

Mistress Alexa laughed. Kat thought it sounded like little bells. "Same time tomorrow."

"Very good then." And with that, Cobb strode off, passing through the french doors into the kitchen and out of sight, leaving them alone in the garden. The daylight was getting thinner now, and things took on a purple hue with dark blue undertones, and the first stars of the night were starting to shine through. Somewhere, a cricket chirped.

Mistress Alexa snapped her fingers and pointed at her feet, and Kat walked over and knelt down before it. It felt good to kneel - her legs were burning from all the walking and her feet were tired. For a moment, they were silent, nothing passing between them but the air and the breeze.

But then, brushing her hand through her loose hair, Mistress Alexa asked, "That scar on your back. Where did you get it?"

Kat paled. Of course the question would come, but she hadn't expected it so soon. Licking her lips and swallowing dryly, she said, "My last Master, Mistress."