Thaniel didn't consider himself a particularly large dragon, hardly even 12 feet long if you didn't include his tail, but the bipedal gryphon before him had to at least be 10 feet tall. Malion, the gryphon who was interviewing him for the gardening position at his mansion, had an aura of authority around him. He wasn't muscular, but had an athletic look about him, and seemed ready to act at a moment's notice. "I wouldn't be surprised if he was a pretty powerful mage," Thaniel thought. "He certainly holds himself like one, and has the estate to prove it."

Malion set down the resume and references that Thaniel had brought, placing them on his desk before stepping around to circle the dragon, looking him over for a few moments. He gave a slight touch of a grin, the most that an avian can show in most cases, and nodded. "Yes, you'll do fine. You'll start today." It wasn't a question, but a command, and Thaniel found himself nodding. "You'll find everything you need in the maroon shed. And, if you have any questions, ask me. Better to be an idiot for a moment and ask a question than to be an idiot for the rest of your life by never knowing." Malion then pulled his chair out from under the desk, sat upon it with an audible thump, and dabbed his quill into a jar of ink. Thaniel sat there for a few moments, long enough for Malion to lift his head up. "Is there a problem?"

The dragon shook his head quickly, slightly taken aback until the avian broke through to him. "Oh, no, of course not, I'll get right to it!" Malion just nodded and looked back down to his paperwork as Thaniel stepped quickly toward the door, at which he stopped. "And thank you!" Malion waved the back of his taloned hand at Thaniel in a dismissive gesture, which Thaniel obeyed quickly, closing the door of the library behind him. As soon as he was out of the room he was shaking his head, though, almost unable to believe how impolite his new employer was. "But," he thought, "as long as I do my job and stay out of his way I'm sure I'll be fine."

Stepping down the stairs lightly he made his way to the rear of the mansion, opening a glass door and slipping out into the sunlight. He swung his head around as he tried to take in all of the area at once, and then decided that he'd be better off if he just took a tour of the entire area. There was even a hedge-maze, though he wouldn't be traversing it by foot. With a few light steps and a sharp hop, Thaniel was beating his wings and gaining altitude. He knew that he could sometimes get caught up, flying over such beautiful land on such a gorgeous day, so he forced himself to concentrate on making a mental map of the area. He almost skipped a beat of his wings as he realized just how big the hedge maze was, and was glad that he wasn't the only gardener on Malion's payroll.

Something about the maze caught his eye, though, and he circled lazily over it for a few passes. There were more than a few black objects down there, slightly raised off the ground. As he got lower, his circling taking him slowly closer to the earth, he realized they were statues. However, instead of being black statues of obsidian, as he had first thought, these seemed to be very, very shiny. Not glaringly so, but enough that he was convinced they weren't rock, unless they had some sort of special polish. So, rather than be left curious, Thaniel landed amongst a grouping of six statues, directly in the center of the maze.

The dragon looked at one statue, but instead of looking at the next he did a double take. The first noticeable thing was that the statue was an almost perfect rendition of a wolf, but the second obvious detail was that the statues all were naked and aroused versions of different creatures! There was a vixen, a male bipedal dolphin of some sort, a female feline, a quadrapedal male horse, and a gryphoness that also stood on four legs. The sixth was another male dragon, with very similar proportions to his own, except that whoever modeled for the statue apparently had a smaller cock than Thaniel, a fact which made the dragon grin. "Well, this is interesting," he said out loud. He moved over to the dragon statue and put a curious paw on its side. "This is... latex?" The shiny black material was indeed some sort of rubber, each statue standing on a pedestal of marble. He laughed out loud, realizing his new employer must be a kinky one. "But, hey, the pay is great. He can do whatever he wants!" Thaniel reached out and gave the cock of the dragon statue a playful swat, chuckled again as he watched it bounce slightly, and then took off into the air.

Thaniel spent most of the day familiarizing himself with Malion's grounds and tools, not finding any other interesting tidbits of eccentricity. As the sun set he stepped back into Malion's mansion, rolling his shoulders and the bases of his wings as well. Making his way to the front door Thaniel nodded to an otter maid as she walked by, then nearly walked directly into Malion. Stopping short and sitting back on his haunches in surprise, he looked up at the gryphon, and couldn't help but gulp. "ur... Good evening. I was just on my way out. I shall see you tomorrow?"

Malion hmphed quietly in his throat, looking down on the dragon. "You aren't leaving yet. Come with me, we need to talk." Malion turned and walked briskly, assuming that the dragon would follow him without any other prompting. He was right, of course, considering that Thaniel wasn't about to tell him no. Thaniel expected them to stop at the library, but they passed that door and continued on, stepping through a heavy oak door into a large room with arcane symbols and such scratched into the walls. The dragon realized that Malion scrawled those symbols into the room with his talons, and felt a bit intimidated to be entering a mage's room of magick without any warning. But, Malion had turned around and sat in a large wooden chair and was apparently waiting for his new employee to step fully into the room. As he did the door swung closed of its own accord.

"You didn't do any work today. Why?" Thaniel was still wincing in surprise at the sound of the door closing, and he took a few seconds to form a response of any sort.

"Why, I, I was just getting myself acclimated to these new grounds, you know. I've never been here, nor anywhere near this district, really. I-"

"I see. Noted. Now, I must ask, why did you take it upon yourself to break the rules that were so blatantly posted?" Thaniel was a touch frightened by that point.

"Rules? Break... I didn't break any rules. Did I?"

Malion snorted. "Plain as day, bright as the sun, there was a sign at the front of the hedge-maze which says that no one is to touch any statues found within the maze. You are not blind, otherwise you wouldn't have been hired. So I must ask. Why?"

Thaniel shook his head quickly and tried to add a compliment or two into his response, trying to lighten things up. "No, you see, I flew there. I was flying around, so as to take in the expanses of your estate more quickly, and when I saw those statues down there I didn't know what they were. And since that impressive hedge-maze falls under my work as the head gardener, I thought I should-"

"The maze is a creation of magick. It maintains itself, and when that fails, I myself make repairs. I told you to ask me about such things." As Thaniel opened his mouth to argue to the contrary Malion's eyes thinned tightly in a glare. Thaniel's snout shut back closed with a snap.

"I just hired you, and already you've earned yourself punishment. Now, I'm not cruel enough to send you away without a job, so we'll simply give you a new position. Come, stand there." Malion gestured toward a series of concentric circles on the floor, each composed of intermingled symbols and such, the circles never broken at any point despite their complexity. Thaniel froze. He wasn't completely ignorant of magick, nor was he afraid of it in more than a cautious way, but this wasn't a good situation in the slightest. He didn't think that Malion would kill him outright, but... magick could do much more than kill, when properly applied.

Malion snapped his fingers, standing sharply. "Now! No more chances. Stand in the circles, or you are dismissed. That means you go back to looking for a job. And trust me, none of the nobility around here is hiring." Thaniel swallowed and nodded, slowly stepping into the middle of the rings. "Better. Now, don't move. I'm simply going to ensure that you no longer break any of the rules of my household. If you are moving in even a small manner when the spell takes I am not responsible for the consequences."

That's all the warning that Thaniel got before the imposing gryphon began to chant and wave his hands in the air, swiftly drawing shapes that left a slight blue hue in the air behind them. As each shape finished the blue hue disappeared, but the ambient glow of the room increased slightly. Thaniel realized then that the room didn't have any natural lighting, and instead was probably kept lit by some sort of illusion. "Your mind always picks up on the most stupid things when you're fearing for your livelihood, doesn't it?" Thaniel thought in a kind of morbid fascination. Malion's voice began to increase in pitch, as well as in the speed of recitation, his hands a blur. The room was blindly bright for a few minutes, then one powerful syllable expelled from the gryphon's beak made the room turn quite chill and totally dark for a single moment, all the pent up magick being focused on Thaniel. The dragon blacked out.

As Thaniel came back to consciousness he realized he was still standing, except he was in the hedge-maze, looking at that latex dragon he had manhandled earlier. As he reached out to touch the nose of the statue, to see if it was real or if he was just having some sort of crazy dream, he found his paw didn't want to move. Trying to drop his head down and see if he was bound in some way, Thaniel found he couldn't do that either. And as the statue in front of him moved, and changed in angle, Thaniel saw that it was actually a mirror! Malion sat down in front of his newest statue and tilted his head slightly to one side, grinning that avian grin again. They were still in that room of symbols and rings, the room warm and lit again. "I see you've awakened. I can tell, you know. After all, you've got a little bit of me in you. All of my statues do." With a mixture of self-pride in his creation and a touch of twisted affection for his new toy, Malion stroked the tips of his talons under Thaniel's chin. He couldn't draw away from the touch, and he was shocked at the intensity of the sensation. "Well, as I said, you have a new job now. And you won't be breaking any more of my rules now, will you? No, no you won't." Thaniel was suddenly very frightened for his existence, his automatic reaction being that he wanted to scream out that he didn't want to be a statue. Unfortunately, his snout didn't answer to his whims, as it no longer was his to move.

As the gryphon got up and moved around the latexed dragon, Malion put the large mirror back in front of Thaniel, so he could see himself. He was completely black, from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail, said tail raised up behind him to leave him exposed. He had the largest erection he'd ever had in his life, and as if to point that out Malion wrapped his hand around Thaniel's base, a strong, warm grip which made the dragon's mind tremble. "You already know you're completely immobile. You've probably also realized that you're much more sensitive like this. A simple matter of increasing the concentration of... oh, but you don't care about that." As Malion's hand stroked slowly up the length of Thaniel's black cock, then back down to the base, the dragon's brain naturally sent messages to his body to make an attempt at thrusting his hips. This, of course, led to nothing but a feeling of frustration in the helpless dragon. But, since Malion's hand continued to idly move up and down, Thaniel found himself forgetting about that and just absorbing the incredible sensations.

"I'm not a sadist, though, so you can't feel pain, just amazing amounts of pleasure. See, like this." Malion's hand squeezed down quite hard on the dragon's cock, but instead of feeling excruciatingly painful it actually made Thaniel go crazy in lust. "You won't be uncomfortable out there in the elements, and actually the movement of rain over your little toy here will probably feel quite nice. And then, there are my world famous parties. They are invitation only, of course, only the best of the best. The kinkiest best of the best, that is. And as my newest statue you'll be my grand exhibit for my next party. It's only in two days, and the last dragon was my most popular interactive exhibit ever. You're sure to please." Malion's hand had returned to moving up and down, but was moving a bit faster, while holding in a firmer grip. Thaniel wasn't even paying enough attention to hear about him becoming an exhibit, not even feeling fear anymore, the incredible pleasure blanking his mind out into a building sea of fulfillment.

Malion, who had set up an empathic link between Thaniel and himself, suddenly stopped his hand's movement and sat back to feel the turmoil in Thaniel's mind as he desperately tried to struggle and hump at the air. If Thaniel had only been bound, as he had originally thought, he would have been squirming around desperately and filling the air with the sounds of whimpers and perhaps even pleading. "Oh, don't worry about it. You can't climax, anyway. It isn't possible. You'll just feel more and more pleasured, and then hit a plateau. After about fifteen to thirty minutes of this plateau you'll begin to have this need to continue past it. Within, oh, three more hours, I'd call it a burning need."

Malion started to jerk Thaniel off swiftly, his hand tight and moving in a blur that rivaled the speed at which he had been incanting his spell previously. Despite continuing at this pace for ten straight minutes, assaulting Thaniel's newly sensitive nerves, he didn't bring Thaniel to an orgasm. The dragon didn't realize this at first, instead taken up completely into the world of pleasure, but as Malion stopped he took but a moment to realize he had indeed reached a level where he couldn't go any higher. He had been right on the edge of a huge orgasm without getting any closer to it. He'd have started to beg for freedom right then and there if he had vocal cords anymore.

The sorcerous gryphon was behind Malion again, slowly stroking and squeezing at the base of Thaniel's tail. "I bet you're wondering how you'd be getting to this level of torture on such a long-term basis. Well, you mustn't forget, you have a nice gland in you called a prostate." Thaniel's tight but yielding tailhole was forced open harshly, causing only a streak of pleasure to shoot up his back and through his cock and brain. Some sort of sphere was being pushed into him, and then Malion stopped and had the latex inside of the dragon's anus form two thin layers inside of him, holding that ball in place. It instantly erupted into intense vibration, seeming to nestle and rub itself up against Thaniel's prostate with a will of its own. As it proceeded to grow dozens of tiny tendrils the dragon wondered for a second if it really did have a life of its own. Vibrating and stroking that incredibly powerful erogenous zone, the little magickal device did its job well, making Thaniel's mind cleared out again except for the pleasure. His subconscious did pick up on what Malion said next, and made him mentally shudder.

"I wouldn't worry, though, when you're in a state of sensory deprivation that is broken only by constant, never deadening, never desensitizing sexual torture, forever doesn't last very long." The gryphon altered Thaniel's new body, making his eyes blind and his ears unable to hear anything, indeed leaving the dragon in sensory deprivation. Malion then snapped his fingers and a maid came to wheel Thaniel's marble pedestal out into the garden.