The Story of L
Debra Hyde
A Ravenous Romance® Original Publication
A Ravenous Romance® Original Publication
Copyright © 2011 by Debra Hyde
Smashwords Edition
Ravenous Romance®
100 Cummings Center
Suite 123A
Beverly, MA 01915
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60777-430-3
This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Dedication
To Lori Perkins,
who told me I could do this
and then kept the faith that I would.
Don’t miss Debra Hyde’s other great books:
Chapter One: The Club
Dusk on a Saturday night brings many things to people. Dinner and a movie or cocooning at home with the television, a fine meal or snacks and sports, meeting friends for drinks, or hitting the local music scene. But to Liv Alderman, single and unattached, those things represented the satisfying solitude of couplehood or loneliness amid the throng. Her options were different. For her, dusk on a Saturday night brought her elsewhere, to Hippolyte’s.
Some would shrink at the notion of Hippolyte’s. With its notoriety for whips and chains and women only, rigid moralists would certainly stiffen at the thought of such deviance. But they were few and far between in the college towns surrounding Hippolyte’s. Minding your own New England business was custom here and it allowed everyone a quiet live-and-let-live existence.
And living here freed Liv to seek what felt innate to her—innate and necessary. With daylight waning, she grabbed a weathered leather backpack from the backseat of her car. A rubbery orange wristband fell against her hand, as if to escape the competing band of stiff leather she wore there.
Her right wrist.
I’m going to make a few people angry tonight, she thought as she locked her car.
Around her, women arrived, converging at Hippolyte’s by first laying claim to parking spaces out on the street. Liv decided she was lucky to get a spot so close to the club, especially since she’d arrived late enough to avoid the dull chitchat in those tentative hours before people got naked and got busy. Instead, she’d help shape the emerging mood that would define the night.
Hope I’m as lucky, getting a play station.
The last thing Liv wanted was to wait for a station to open up. Her hunger wouldn’t stand for it.
She called that hunger the void, an inner beast that had seized her midweek. Born of a wet dream, one in which a woman unfamiliar to Liv had pinned her down and deliciously plied her with rough kisses, fierce caresses, and absolutely torturous bites, it had come upon her like a vengeful angel. Its dream had been a vision so vicarious that she woke, coming, her orgasm so strong that its throbbing cadence almost hurt. In its wake stood the void, demanding and all consuming.
Sating the Void was no easy task, but Liv had no choice but to try. She’d do no topping tonight, not even for the best of her bottom-and-bosom buddies.
They’ll understand. Everybody knows I get this way.
But few liked it. Greedy bottoms rarely saw beyond their own rampant urges, herself included. The void saw to that.
Halfway across the parking lot, Liv heard a lilting, enthusiastic voice call her. Fiona, a sweet high femme of a woman, the click of her heels scampering toward Liv. Or as close to scampering as one could get in heels. Liv turned to face this whirlwind of joy.
“Liv! Hello!” Bubbly was an understatement when applied to Fiona.
Fiona threw her arms around Liv’s neck and gregariously planted a kiss on her, leaving Liv licking the taste of Fiona’s thick lipstick. Pulling back from her vivacious greeting, Fiona eyed the backpack on Liv’s shoulder and chirped, “Your toy bag! Wonderful! Is there something in there for me?”
Liv half expected Fiona to play like a child quizzing Santa, but one glance at Liv’s wrist, and Fiona’s glee evaporated in a deflated “oh!” of recognition. Liv shrugged. “I’m sorry,” she lamented.
Fiona responded with a lopsided smile, its meaning clear. “Sorry. Haven’t got a drop of top blood in me.” Catching sight of another possible opportunity—one far more butch than Liv could ever pretend to be—Fiona flitted away, heedless of any slight her thoughtless departure might cast. Any other night, Liv might have taken offense, but not tonight. Other prerogatives took precedence.
Inside Hippolyte’s, Liv paid her cover charge, stowed her backpack, and made for its open space. Named for an Amazonian queen, Hippolyte’s bore little resemblance to its long-ago tenure as the gay bar Roo’s. Where men once danced in wild abandon, women now played in heated passion. Loud music and brash disco lights had given way to a subdued environment—Enya instead of Abba, and soft florescence instead of glare. But where the tenor had changed, the need to meet and hook up had not. Women came to Hippolyte’s for the same reason men had once partied here: Sex. And, truth be told, all it took to get Hippolyte’s as hot and noisy as Roo’s was a whip, some bondage, and a woman willing to take whatever was dished out to her.
Running a hand through her hair, Liv surveyed the room. Play was just getting underway: a flogging at one of the upright St. Andrew’s crosses, a hardy butch working a rope dress onto a slim femme, two tops sensually caressing a lucky and apparently ticklish bottom with the sharp ends of their knives. Yet these scenes were mere preliminaries, scenes typically of people just warming up to one another. The night had yet to reach out, pluck drama from the air, and make it real. Stuck in the tentative, no one dared to let loose and scream. At least not yet.
Liv felt the void roil, already impatient. Like a racehorse ready to bolt from the gate, it chafed at the bit. It wanted its head. Whoa, Liv cautioned, whoa.
The void heeded her and calmed, but however well she reined in that impulsive beast, Liv knew it would not remain in hand for long. She needed to get things in place, be ready for its next advance, but she couldn’t do it alone. Liv scanned the room a second time but failed to see the women she needed to assist her.
They must be socializing.
Liv crossed the room, barely aware of the soft groans and heartier cries of play. She focused on one thing only: finding Quinn and Tara.
She spotted them sitting in the social area, Tara on Quinn’s lap, giggling as one of Quinn’s big butch hands squashed her close, the other hand tickling and groping. Liv chuckled. A hornier pair of lovers, she hadn’t seen. And a pair that adored each other so ardently? Rarer still. If any couple would see each other into their old age, it would be Quinn and Tara.
Liv planted herself in front of them and cleared her throat in exaggeration. Looking up from her squirming captive, an already blithe Quinn brightened even more.
“Hey!”
“Hey, yourself.”
“You still need us?”
“Absolutely.”
Tara straightened in Quinn’s lap, tugging her tight girly t-shirt back into place—making pretty, she had once called it. Liv adored Tara’s easy femininity. It was natural for her, something so easy to default to that she didn’t even have to think about it. Likewise, Liv admired Quinn’s confident butchness, a transgendered identity so strong that she never wavered in her manlike swagger. Her bulky female bio body, despite its chromosomal baseline, only seemed to reinforce her identity. By contrast, Liv fell somewhere in the nebula of androgyny. No doubt a woman in form and soul, and a lesbian in love and desire, but neither butch nor femme in either presentation or whom she found attractive. Yet she did not feel undefined; being queer was being enough, and she liked not having to fall into a strict dichotomy. It was like having your cake and eating it too.
Quinn pushed Tara from her lap and rose, one hand at Tara’s waist. “Then let’s make this happen.”
Liv smiled. She could always count on Quinn and Tara. Always. Quinn patted Tara’s rump. “Fetch Liv’s toy bag, girl.”
Tara grinned, happy to be put to service. “Still the leather backpack?” When Liv nodded, she added, “Still has the lucky cat key chain hanging from it?” A second nod sent Tara scurrying.
Together, Liv and Quinn surveyed the play space. More women had gotten busy—play had finally accelerated, leaving fewer play stations unoccupied. Liv flinched as a whip cracked nearby and a shuddering cry followed. The void stirred, provoking a throb from between her legs.
Time was running out.
Panic threatened to rise, but Liv choked it down, unwilling to let the void get an upper hand too soon. Whether she’d be able to sate it tonight worried her enough. Don’t get anxious, she told herself.
Across the room, a woman occupied one of Liv’s favorite play stations: a Saint Andrew’s cross, modified to seat its captive, legs spread. Spread low and wide, its saltire was closer to that of the Scottish flag than the extreme cross from which the saint himself had hanged. It held a captive’s arm straight out instead of upward. And its ultimate feature? A wooden box that descended over one’s head. Liv loved that box. It amplified the sound of her breath, made her every moan luscious and any scream terrible.
The last time the void had plagued her, Quinn had whipped Liv hard enough to abrade her skin. She had come away from the scene well welted and with marks hard enough to leave scabs for two weeks. She smiled, thankful for Quinn’s proficiency with a single tail.
However, a woman already occupied the frame, suffering through clamps on her breasts and labia. Disappointed, Liv turned elsewhere.
A baby butch passed by, leashed and led. Clad only in leather bike shorts and sandals, she wore a wooden contraption that encompassed her head and wrists in what amounted to a portable pillory. Of an exquisite, exotic hardwood, its finish a polished sheen, the contraption was shaped like a stringed instrument. And if the butch’s glazed eyes were any indication, its weighted, restrictive hold produced pure bottomy bliss.
Gorgeous, Liv thought as the butch walked away. Certainly head-turning. The void growled. It wanted some of that.
Quinn chuckled, amused by Liv’s ogling. “Those things costs an arm and a leg, you know.”
“Looked more like a neck and two hands to me,” Liv shot back.
Her quip brought another chuckle and with it, a compliment.
“Well, you would look hot in a violin.”
That’s what it’s called? Liv filed the information away. Arm-and-a-leg or not, she wanted one.
Liv returned her attention to the room and scanned it again for an open play station. A spanking bench stood ignored, giving Liv pause. A vicious spanking—the mounting blows of a paddle against her ass, burning, stinging until it exhausted her—had its appeal. But no. That particular bench had a knee rest and required her to keep her legs together. The void wanted her spread and vulnerable.
An overhead winch likewise stood vacant, and a scene of shibari and suspension struck Liv with possibility. She imagined herself facedown, in a spread hogtie, gagged and blindfolded, two sturdy bamboo rods anchoring the rope—and one of them acting as a delicious spreader bar for her legs as well. Her arms would be tied behind her, their rope tautly joining the rest of the rigging at the rods.
Quinn could do it. She could rig the entire thing and hoist me into the air. Anyone and everyone could have at me!
But the very instant Liv latched on to the idea, a threesome approached the wench, the top grabbing one of its heavy duty chains, nixing her idea. More people were crowding into the room, some to play, others to watch. She had to decide and fast.
“What’ll it be, Liv?”
Quinn, bordering on impatience, becoming vexed by the quickening pace around them. Again, Liv thought of being spread wide, available to all takers. Her eyes settled on the sex sling in the corner of the room. Wordlessly, she made for it, Quinn on her heels and chuckling yet again, this time at the obvious. Tara, returning with Liv’s bag in hand, beelined for the sling, following Liv’s lead.
There, Liv undressed as Tara held the bag open for Quinn. Item by item, Quinn went through the bag, hanging whips on a nearby utility rack, clothespins and clamps on an accompanying tray. But when she pulled a heavy leather hood from its depths—and found latex gloves and lube beneath it—she turned to Liv. Her expression was stern, implacable, not of a master about to punish his underling, but of a friend all too familiar with Liv’s deep need and willing to accept its challenge.
“Tara, spread the word while I warm her up,” she said, his voice flat and determined. “You know, the usual suspects.”
Hood in hand, Quinn loosened its laces and, staring at Liv, steeled herself to see things through.
Naked, hooded, her hands above her head and cuffed to the sling, her feet in its stirrups, Liv waited for the void to unleash itself. Sensations washed over her, but they were small things, nothing more than a hyperawareness of the sling—her body stretched high and wide, its weight against the sling’s leather, the slight motion of the sling itself. The hood accentuated everything, shrinking her world to an iota of place, of being. Within it, her breathing heaved loud and the very air seemed awake with sound. Into this strangely condensed here and now, she sank and gave herself over, her body quivering as tension anticipated the face of surrender. Already, endorphins coursed through her, promising the heights of pleasure if she dared reach for them.
But only prolonged play would push her in that direction, and when the lick of a whip stung her right breast, Liv gasped. A second swipe attacked her left breast so swiftly that she knew exactly what Quinn had chosen for the opening volley: two horsehair whips, one in each hand, wielded in overlapping figure eight patterns—Florentine flogging. Liv moaned; she was in expert hands.
It wasn’t a perfect Florentine flogging; it couldn’t be—the angle between her body in the swing and Quinn’s upright stance was all wrong—but it was expedient. The whips traveled down Liv’s body, from her breasts to her thighs, even to the soles of her feet, entreating her arousal. Their constant strikes gave no pause, stinging as hair met flesh in a teasing, tormenting cascade.
Sudden strikes between her legs—pain blazed—and all thought fled her. A raw, hungry throb answered the whips, her cunt, zealous and fiery. More, it cried.
Liv heard laughter—Quinn, beguiled by her hunger, renewed her assault. She showered the whips upon Liv, their strikes fiery and fierce. Yet she wasn’t alone in her eagerness. Other hands joined in, grabbing her nipples, pinching and pulling. Together, they threw Liv into an intensity so sudden that she didn’t know whether to squirm or buck. Tension balled tight and forced her hand. Liv bucked.
She drove her cunt against the whips, meeting their every strike in stride, taking all they had to give. Every impact threw her higher, drew her nearer. Tension’s spark flared into a fireball, burning, its cataclysm close. Finally, it burst. A lurch, a shudder, a sudden cascade—orgasm struck. Long and glorious, it swept Liv up. Free and unfettered, she soared, a bird upon the wind. But her release was a wind amid a summer’s heat, its updraft dissipating. Too soon, its triumph faded. Jubilation quieted.
Too soon, Liv returned to ground.
Others stepped up then and toyed with her. One caned her thighs, another slapped her mons, spanking it wet. Still others groped her, their touch rough and selfish. But none of it approached Quinn’s whipping and none of it sent her toward oblivion. All of it was tepid, her tops backing off just as their efforts encouraged a new crescendo.
Was her hunger bottomless, outpacing her tops and exhausting them before she could counter the void? Or were they too easily satisfied, willing to take some of her but incapable of giving anything of substance?
That Liv had the wherewithal to question her surroundings was evidence enough that she was nowhere near the depth she needed. She growled angrily and flailed against new hands that squeezed her flesh.
Enough!
Quinn stepped in and halted the free-for-all. As hands vacated her, Liv sighed, relieved, but sensing Quinn at the foot of the sling, she slipped a foot from the stirrup and sought her out. When she found Quinn, she rested it on her, her way of apologizing for too often having to rely on her, on her friendship, for intervention.
Quinn patted her foot, returned it to the stirrup, then came alongside her and leaned down to her masked face. “I know,” she said soothingly. “I’ll do what I can.”
Liv sighed a second time, thankful for a friend who always knew where she was during play. Quinn always knew what she needed and, more often than not, she knew how to give it to her as well.
“Tara, get my hogtie ring. Clips too. And cords, medium and long.”
Liv relaxed in the swing. Quinn was about to rig something up, something, she hoped, that would test her, push her. The edge—she wanted to go right to the edge.
She waited, anticipation eating at her as Quinn finagled overhead, Tara assisting like a nurse at a surgeon’s side. But Quinn was adept and the procedure short, and when Liv heard Quinn say “clamp” she knew Quinn was ready to commence play.
Quinn grabbed her nipple, squeezed and pulled it taut. A sudden sting gripped Liv—a clamp, bearing down on her. She gasped at its sudden presence, its pain, yet welcomed the same sting to its twin. Quinn drew its chain upward—Liv expected a good, hard tug, one that would make her squirm—but Quinn gave her one better. She anchored the chain overhead to something that kept it deliciously taut—the hogtie ring, Liv realized.
More stings—severe ones, a clamp to each of her labia, parallel, she realized, to her clit. These, too, held snug. Another set, paired lower on her labia, spread her wide, their tug in perfect sync with their counterparts. Exposed, a throb racked Liv from deep within and, suddenly, she ached with want.
The void, at full roar. “Oh, yes!” Quinn hissed, pleased that the clamps had tempted it into the open. Liv sank into the sling, thankful that Quinn had accepted this inducement so freely.
At the crop’s first blow, however, she became a howling ingrate, lurching madly in the swing. Quinn wasted no time in going for full-force blows, throwing herself into battle like a knight who’d lost his mount but still had his sword. She hurled epitaphs as Liv’s thighs reddened under her strikes. Liv’s skin burned and her soul resisted with fury.
Yet she refused to stop Quinn. Someone had to do battle with the void.
The crop reached her mons and suddenly gentled. It patted her labia, babying the spot. Liv wanted to hate it—she thought it patronizingly cruel—but when her cunt throbbed, she gasped and wilted into the swing.
Oh, God, yes. Make me come!
She ground her hips, gyrating against the crop. Another throb. Tension knotted, aching, climbing. She was so close, so ready—
And the crop slapped hard.
Liv screamed at its blazing pain. Only one thing felt akin to it and the memory flared forward: her, age eleven, ungainly but still too small for her bike, stopping too fast, falling forward. And landing square on the crossbar, crotch first.
Too quickly, both pain and memory faded. Only then did Liv realize another orgasm had seized her and already evaporated.
Over the next hour—or what Liv assumed might constitute an hour—Quinn dragged her back and forth between the pinnacle of pleasure’s heaven and the pits of pain’s hell, sometimes granting her an orgasm, more often denying it. How often she yanked Liv through this push and pull, Liv couldn’t tell. Often enough to make it incalculable, to leave her in a endorphin-soaked delirium of sorts, conscious, aware, but stupid beyond reasoning.
When one last orgasm racked her body, Liv thought she would pass out. Weak now, every impulse either shattered or sated, she felt limp, used up, like a wet rag finally ready for the trash bin. But this too passed. Too soon, Liv soon found a semblance of intelligence welling up in sensation’s absence.
Only then did she hear the hush in the room. Only then did she detect a scent—a perfume.
Distinct, unmistakable. Known but not quite familiar. It penetrated and mingled with the hood’s leather.
Mother, she thought. A primitive response, she knew. She was in an adult playroom, not her childhood nursery, but the perfume! Like Mother’s. Memory scanned back: a tippy-toed view of her mother’s dresser. There, a large round doily of exquisitely embroidered cutwork. Upon it, four perfume bottles, gifts associated with her father’s international travels and domestic absences.
Chanel. Demure sophistication. No, it wasn’t Chanel.
Guerlain. Scent forgotten, only its round bottle and its pyramid-like stopper remembered.
Lanvin’s My Sin. Art deco mother and child in profile, cuddling. The scent, provocative and mysterious, of white flowers and sandalwood.
But the tiniest of bottles? Round bellied, a frosted stopper accented with a wide-shouldered bow that hugged the bottle, its scent remarkable and elevating? That, Liv remembered.
And the leather hood did not keep Liv from recognizing it.
“Cabochard,” she blurted.
“What was that?” A voice, firm and confident. And Liv had startled its bearer.
“Cabochard,” Liv repeated. “Your perfume is Cabochard.”
Buoyant laughter followed—clearly, Liv had charmed the woman—with a pithy observation upon its fading.
“Interesting,” the woman said, “that the first word out of your mouth names my perfume.”
The entire room remained hushed, as if this woman could make or break this gathering. Who is she? Liv wondered.
A finger touched her at the hollow of her collarbone and traipsed the length of her torso, stopping short of her clit. Liv shivered. Delicious, and she felt not a scratch of nail.
“Is she available?” the woman asked.
Quinn must have nodded.
“What does she want?”
Quinn cleared her throat uncomfortably. Quinn, rattled? Who is this woman?
“Oblivion,” Quinn answered.
“Oblivion,” the woman restated. “Seems you had her there. Until my perfume drenched her senses. My apologies.”
“None needed.”
“Can oblivion can be had twice in one night?” the woman wondered aloud. “Perhaps she’d accept rapture instead.”
“Whatever you want, Cassandra.”
Cassandra? The Cassandra?
“Show me her toy bag, please.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Yes ma’am. It had to be the Cassandra. Quinn had unequivocally yielded; he never deferred—except to those truly senior to the scene.
As murmured voices and rustling movements spelled out an examination of her toys, Liv waited. Cassandra. A grand doyen—quite possibly the grandest doyen in this corner of S/M dykedom. Cassandra was already revered when Liv had joined the scene during grad school, known as someone who had seen it all, done it all, and would continue to do it all. She was someone whom countless bottoms and submissives longed for, a celebrity in leather. But you didn’t dare approach her, it was said. At least not overtly. Better that you wait quietly. Better that you hover off at a distance, to Cassandra’s right. Better to be a vague object in the corner of her eye than a gushing sycophant begging for attention. The former, she might deign to notice. The latter, she characteristically cast aside.
But when Liv joined the scene, she was contently partnered. Grad school obligated her and a PhD awaited her future commitment. Back then, Cassandra had seemed more curious dream than a reality to Liv anyway. Rarely did she make it to the club the same night Cassandra made an appearance.
By the time Liv finally had the freedom to indulge often, when she had secured a university position and was working her way up tenure’s ladder to security, Cassandra had become something of a dowager, entitled to stature because of the decades she had spent in the S/M world, but rarely seen. Hers had been a world before Internet accessibility, a clandestine existence where finding a fellow leather dyke was a blessing and filling a room with them was a miracle.
If her mystique had captivated the women of those decades-past times, then her movement back and forth between dyke and straight circles only magnified it. Often, she would brazenly move from one world to another, as willing to pull a dyke into her arms as she was to put a man under her heel. She loved women. She used men. And never did the twain meet in anything beyond hallowed rumors.
Even now, as Liv waited, catching little more than snippets of words, the room stood largely hushed. Spectators had turned to watch. And those engaged in play continued, but their whips seemed less vigorous and their bottoms’ cries seemed less plaintive and pained. Even they kept half an eye out, curious about Cassandra’s next move.
A cluck of approval sounded. Cassandra had chosen. Whispers rose, some in awe, others less reverently. And a cool swath of lube at her slit imparted Cassandra’s choice to Liv, clearly and decisively.
Slick with invitation, Liv expected an intrusion. Instead, a finger circled her clit, toyed with its hood piercing, and provoked her to gasp. Liv was aflame. But if she thought it a teasing ploy, she learned otherwise when Cassandra asked Quinn to remove the clamps.
“They’ll get in my way.”
The clamps! They’d gripped her all through Quinn’s scene with her, long enough that she barely felt them. Long enough that their evacuation spelled one thing: more pain.
Liv braced for fire.
She lurched as the clamps left her nipples. Blood flow, the source of this new pain, rushed back, reclaiming circulation. Yet the pain was far briefer, even softer than she expected.
When the first clamp left her labia, she knew why: Cassandra, her finger, still at her clit. In the immediate wake of the clamp came a delicious throb of arousal—pleasure chasing at the heels of pain.
A kindness, she realized.
With the second clamp, another throb, but thereafter, a greater ache, one deeper, from within, begging for penetration. Cassandra, however, did not rush. She lingered between each clamp’s removal, coaxing Liv, watching her, indulging in a slow procession that all too soon primed Liv for orgasm.
At the fourth clamp, with Cassandra pressing hard, with her body unable to resist, Liv pitched forward. Climax seized her, opening her to the universe, and, gaping before it, Liv wondered if its contractions were shoving her lust out into some cosmic expanse.
But when she felt a finger embed itself inside her, this one sheathed in latex, and her cunt hugged it tightly, she knew the vision had been an illusion. Her cunt had not offered itself up to the universe like some sacred yoni.
A second finger found passage between her labia and nestled alongside its companion. Together, they slid back and forth, their inward dance urging Liv’s cunt wider. More lube and a third finger joined in. Soon, the thumb and a hint of pinky. The press of fingers between flesh, the slow careful friction of hand within cunt, the walls of Liv’s very self resisting, then yielding, all became part of a long slow dance that would unfold step by step.
Cassandra fucked her slowly, her strokes the means to an end. A rhythm developed—several strokes, then a deep press, several more strokes, the press repeated—all meant to open Liv, to turn her cunt into a swallowing hole.
Liv lay still, her breath, her heartbeat seemingly one with Cassandra’s rhythm. Like courtiers before a queen at work, the room remained hushed and deferential. Everyone likely saw her as chosen, specially selected. Why her, Liv did not know. Perhaps Quinn’s rough exercise had enticed Cassandra. Perhaps Cassandra had noticed Liv’s fearless appetite. But maybe, Liv thought, she had sensed something greater—game worth hunting. The void. Maybe Cassandra had sniffed it out like a hound after the fox.
If only.
A tall wish. No one had ever scented out her desire. No one had ever latched on to it with relish. Most had seen it as a burden, a barrier. And it had downright frightened others.
“If only I could feel you. Really feel you. God, you hug me.”
Cassandra, her words wooing appreciation. When was the last time someone had actually wooed Liv mid-scene? Years ago, Liv decided. Nearly a decade.
The last time I was in love.
Cassandra stroked knuckle-deep now, her hand vertical and not yet a fist. The breadth of Cassandra’s hand had yet to penetrate her. Now the dance would require patience in its purest form.
Like Ravel’s La Valse, Liv thought. Cousin to his widely famous Bolero, it moved from quiet and slow to brash and frenzied, but where Bolero swirled in Spanish abandon, La Valse flowed far more French. Where Bolero spoke of peasant exhibitionism, La Valse sang of pairs coupled close. Where Bolero collapsed in exhaustion, La Valse coursed forward in restrained decadence.
“Ah, you are splendid.”
Another wooing compliment. Liv felt something fall away from within, a barrier of some kind. Suddenly, she ached to reach out, to touch Cassandra. An image flashed—Liv at Cassandra’s feet, her head bowed forward, touching the toes of Cassandra’s shoes.
Liv’s masochism collapsed. Demolished, it was rubble. And submission stood in its wake, a new desire, at once pure and fresh. Liv moaned in disbelief before this sudden and new emergence.
“She needs to come again. Reese, help me, please.”
A hand grabbed at the meat of her mound, its fingertips lingering at the juncture of Cassandra’s hand and Liv’s cunt, a touch so exquisite that Liv shivered. It quickly retreated to a finger upon her hard nub, joining Cassandra’s continued rhythmic push. Liv expected a perfect complement, one that would send her headlong into orgasm, but it was too much. Sensation assaulted her, irritating and grating, and every inch of her tensed against it.
A dissonance, it was a gale, wild and buffeting. Yet within this emerging storm, a small eye of pleasure formed and made itself known. Little more than a pinhead of pleasure and buried amid the hands that worked her, it found its footing, coalesced, then spiraled outward. It startled Liv—How could it rise into existence? How could it evolve amid this chaos?—but she knew her body was capable of many things, surprise most of all. Large enough now to encompass her clit, it beckoned to Liv and, now both helpless and yearning, she bent to it.
The dissonance fell away, becoming little more than flotsam to this mounting maelstrom. Like a ship caught in its vortex, Liv found herself in a Zen-like focus, her concentration riveted to the swirling path before her. Finally, a violent lunge struck—the point of no return—throwing Liv over the edge. In the space of a gasp, orgasm struck, its full force pounding and pushing and pummeling.
Sudden wetness cascaded, Liv’s own storm surge, and a cheer went up—Cassandra, rewarded.
“More lube!” she cried and, once the lube was administered, her hand slipped home.
Liv gasped as her cunt yielded, as the breadth of Cassandra’s hand slid past that last rim of resistance, as fingers folded against palm. A more beautiful fullness, Liv could not remember.
Cassandra had given more of herself—her time, her energy, her focus—than all of the evening’s passersby combined. She had given Liv what she needed, turning her from a mere bauble into a coveted jewel. She was breathtaking.
Cassandra flexed her hand and pressed against Liv’s G-spot. A mere iota of movement, yet its power was explosive and Liv shuddered from head to toe. Cassandra chuckled, fully aware of her command and more than ready to exercise it.
Liv knew there’d be no rushing this scene to its conclusion. Fisting was heavy play, not a trifle. It was not showy like a Florentine whipping or casual like a tie-and-tease bondage scene. Nor did it lend itself to the uninitiated or the flirtatious. Fisting required depth, patience, and finesse. And+ tonight, Liv was its sole beneficiary.
Cassandra flexed her hand again, but it took three presses before Liv responded. This time, the shudder left Liv quivering, weakness overtaking her. She remembered a fisting scene she had long ago witnessed. It had lasted hours and at its end, the recipient’s thighs and cunt were left shaking like a gelatin mold. Liv had found it morbidly fascinating—fearsome and to be feared—and she never believed herself capable of that kind of endurance, not then and not now. Not even at the void’s behest.
The void!
Suddenly, Liv remembered it.
And found it absent. Gone. Lost in the drama that Cassandra had orchestrated.
Yet something new flowered in its wake, something she did not recognize. Whatever it was, it had washed her clean. Every emotional battering that life had ever handed Liv had vanished. Dyke dramas, lovers’ departures, unrequited loves and lust, every disappointment of the heart, gone. Sheer radiance beamed from her and when Cassandra flexed her fist yet again, Liv exploded in an orgasm so strong, she saw stars. Magicked and among them, she cascaded downward like heavenly dust shimmering to earth, elated, euphoric, and, incongruously, grounded.
Was this rebirth? Had Liv risen from her own ashes? Had her heart shed its history of pain and disillusionment? Unanswered questions all—and Liv would sacrifice them all if only she could stay in this purified state.
The base of Cassandra’s fist began to pull back, slowly, gently.
She’s taken me as far as I can go.
Cassandra rocked her fist, gently fucking Liv. Little by little, she worked toward evacuating her, first by the breadth of her hand, then, fingers unfurling, by her knuckles. Finally, Cassandra slipped free.
Emptied, Liv groaned. But she did not feel barren or abandoned. She felt complete.
Later, her hood gone, lying in Cassandra’s arms, Liv gazed upward. There, she found Cassandra’s soft smile. She felt a silky kiss upon her forehead and received purrs of approval.
“You are exquisite, exceptional.”
Entranced, Liv treasured the words.
Chapter Two: Home
The new morning saw a new woman, one hampered by the heaviness of sleep inertia but glad for it. Liv cuddled into her pillow and imagined Cassandra’s mouth hungrily seeking hers, a continuation of a dream she had drifted into somewhere between sleep and consciousness. In that misty place, Cassandra wanted her, pursued her, but when she caught Liv, she didn’t embark on domination or rough play or anything comparable to the previous evening. She merely devoured Liv through kissing. She wanted Liv on the most basic level, that of undeniable attraction. Somehow, Liv’s dream state always translated sudden infatuation into a makeout session. Why it defaulted to something so adolescent, Liv didn’t know, but she loved the rush of attention and worthiness she always experienced in such dreams.
Sighing, she decided it was her soul’s way of declaring it was still capable of love.
“Well, at least you’re not snoring now.”
Tara, in bed, beside her, paper rustling. The Sunday paper. Tara always read it in bed.
Liv clutched her pillow tighter, not yet wanting to open her eyes. She groused, but gently so Tara would know she appreciated her company. It took one hell of a special friend to see you home and into the next day after a night’s battle with the void, and Liv had two of them, the other of which was in the kitchen if aroma meant anything. To say she was doubly grateful was a clichéd understatement.
“You were moaning too, you know.”
That got Liv’s attention. Her eyes popped open and she rolled over to face Tara.
“What?”
“You were moaning,” Tara teased. “A wet dream?”
Liv blushed. “Not quite,” she admitted, painfully aware that the only thing worse than starting off the day with a near miss of a wet dream was acknowledging it to a best friend, made accidental voyeur.
“I guess last night left a spark.”
“I guess.”
Tara laughed, enjoying Liv’s embarrassment. But she also cast a sympathetic sideways glance her way. “Good sex does that, huh? I can’t tell you the number of times Quinn did me one night and I needed more the next day.”
Liv chuckled. “You lucky bastard, getting it whenever you want.”
Tara set the circular she was perusing in her lap and turned to Liv. “You assume too much. Just because I need it doesn’t mean I get it. Quinn can be one hell of a stingy master.”
The bedroom door shouldered open: Quinn, with a breakfast tray.
“Speak of the devil.”
Quinn frowned, disapproving, and warned Tara to watch herself. Liv knew it as the half-serious interplay of their couplehood, Tara playing the brat, Quinn responding as the strict disciplinarian. It was a construct, a bantering they both enjoyed. Behind it all stood a wall of love as great as the wall that meandered through China. Liv cherished how they adored each other.
But seeing a plate loaded with eggs and bacon, a glass of juice, and a mug of caffeine, Liv felt her stomach rumble. She propped her pillows and sat up.
“I’m not seeing any stinginess here,” she teased Tara as Quinn came around to her side of the bed and set the breakfast tray over her lap.
“That’s not the kind of hunger she starves,” Tara countered.
“Enough, girl.” Another word from Tara, and Quinn would begin to glower.
“Yes, Quinn.” Tara smiled sincerely at her partner and gently backed off. Liv admired Tara’s ability to defer to Quinn, something that did not come easily to Liv. Sometimes she wondered if that was why her life had taken such a solitary route.
“Dig in,” Quinn invited. Liv RSVP’d immediately with a fork to her eggs.
“Thanks, you two,” she said as she shoveled food and gulped orange juice. “You always take good care of me.”
Quinn slumped into a corner occasional chair and put her feet up, leaving Tara to accept the compliment.
“Hey, we love you, Liv.”
“Yeah, but your aftercare—you guys go beyond the measure.” Usually friends with play privileges kept their aftercare to the minimum of corner cuddling until a bottom bounced back from her endorphin high.
“Yeah, well, you were in no condition to drive home last night,” Quinn relayed. “Exhaustion and elation aren’t a good combination behind the wheel.”
“Plus, we were worried about whether you’d sub-drop.”
Liv shrugged, the cup of caffeine at her lips. She sipped, then savored the taste of tea as she swallowed it. She craved the feel of caffeine hitting her bloodstream. “Didn’t happen,” she reported.
“Not yet,” Tara countered.
Liv looked at Quinn, never one to never hide her wariness. Sure enough, her posture stiffened and she glowered, lips pursed, eyebrows furrowed. Quinn was way too serious too often, Liv decided. She had seen that same reaction when Cassandra finally relinquished her and made her grand exit.
This is about more than sub-drop, Liv thought. She grimaced and, sounding like a put-upon teenager, implored, “What?”
“Don’t get besotted, Liv. Not with Cassandra.” Quinn eased back into the chair, her body relaxing now that she’d broached the subject.
Quinn’s warning didn’t surprise Liv. Towering and remote, haughty and demanding, Cassandra was a polarizing figure. Women either revered or loathed her, and her tenure in the scene only aggravated the matter. Liv recalled the whispers she’d heard last night, how no one could ignore Cassandra’s presence. She remembered how, after Cassandra had left, play simply died for the night. Cassandra had changed the course of an evening, so much so that she drained the very life of it in her wake.
But Liv also knew how Cassandra had left her. Thoroughly sated, something few had ever accomplished. And how Cassandra had tendered post-scene care remained strong with Liv. The woman had held her for at least as long as she had fisted her, as unhurried in this second embrace as she had been in the first. She had enjoyed ministering to Liv, had relished it, and when she had clasped Liv’s face in both her hands and kissed her tenderly, Liv felt utterly cherished. If Cassandra was faking it, then the woman was the best liar in the world.
Liv knew that Quinn wasn’t jealous of Cassandra’s play prowess. Hell, she’d gladly give Liv over to anyone who would join her in beating down the void. No, Quinn wasn’t speaking out of butch machismo. But she did have her blind spots, and one of them in particular bordered on outright prejudice.
Of an older generation, Cassandra made no effort to hide the fact that she moved between two worlds. She was as likely to stroll into a heterosexual gathering as a dyke party and she made no apologizes for it. That was how it was for women of her age, she’d been heard to scold. If you wanted to play, you went where the action was, and she had found the straight S/M underground before dykes coalesced around leather.
Which led to a certain prejudice: Cassandra had been with men. She’d had dick. Or so everyone thought. Those who detested that assumption disdained Cassandra. That Cassandra ignored them completely and did what she wanted only inflamed them further.
Quinn skirted that camp, wary of bisexual women, of women who smacked of old-school female dominance, women who enjoyed grinding men into the ground for the stereotypical worms they believed themselves to be. But Liv remembered the heady aroma of latex and lube and perfume come together. She remembered the sweet, invigorating taste of Cassandra’s final kiss. Liv tore into a piece of toast and hoped that by devouring her breakfast, she could mask from Quinn just how smitten Cassandra had left her.
Aftercare came to its logical conclusion once Liv had a second cup of caffeine in her and started complaining about her hair. If she was alert enough to agitate for a shower, then she was restored enough to be left to her own devices. Quinn and Tara left, Tara with a hug and a kiss, Quinn with stoic oversight, still skeptical of Liv’s contentment. Liv headed for her bathroom and a shower.
With the heavy spray of hot water hammering her back and coils of steam for company, Liv tilted her head back into the stream and began to wash her hair. Lathering it, she knew she was washing away essences of the previous night. Sweat, the smell of leather, even the unseen DNA of Cassandra’s touch, all of it clung to her shampoo and washed away. Yet Liv was too cheerful to feel any sweet sorrow of parting.
The night had been exotic, like the strains of music from a faraway land, its lyricism at once foreign and resonant. She had danced to that song, a handmaiden to something grand and irresistible, her finger bells the downbeat of a desert waltz. Yet the true marvel of the night lay not in the scene Cassandra had orchestrated but in its aftermath—in Cassandra’s arms, in warmth and safety, in the magic of this newly woven cocoon shared between two people who, if not for the luck of this one moment in time, were otherwise strangers to each other.
Hair rinsed, Liv grabbed her soap and began lathering her body. Odd, she thought, that she did not regret washing away the night’s evidence. Another time, seemingly in another life, it had not been so. When she lost her hymen—not her virginity; she had been sexually active long before that physical breach—she had resisted washing for days afterward. She had marveled at its puncturing, an act she had begged of her grad school lover. She had lain in awe as her dormant hole lunged to life, suddenly a wondrous cavern, a devourer. She had marveled over the amount of blood that coated Karen’s strap-on, at the flow that kept coming, enough to warrant a sanitary napkin.
Liv was not superstitious, but some primitive part of her had ached with the worry that when she washed, the astonishing beauty of that experience would be lost to her. Of course, it hadn’t been. And now years older, Liv knew better. If anything, washing—cleanliness—meant she was ready and receptive to more.
Her face scrubbed, body rinsed, Liv turned off the shower, pulled open its curtain, and grabbed a towel. Drying off, she realized she was wandering the interior corridors of her mind, places where pockets of memories and emotions hunkered down in small hollows, ready to jump out and flood her awareness. Like funhouse animatrons, their surprise could either leave her laughing or flooded with adrenaline. Maybe Cassandra’s fist had put her to wandering there, but it had also given her an undeniably profound gift: it had expelled both the rot of unfulfilled desire from her body and the hard, dried-out clump of skepticism from her heart, leaving a serene euphoria.
As Liv dressed, she questioned whether orgasm had been the true apex of that scene. Maybe the real achievement of last night’s scene was this emotional realignment that now coursed through her.
But another tangibility awaited Liv: student writing prompts that needed grading. Liv smiled. The only thing better than seeing the groggy faces of some twenty freshmen on a Monday morning was seeing those faces grimace when she announced the return of those exercises—and the groan of some of the class when they beheld their grades. If she had to give up a Sunday afternoon to work, then she’d have some pleasure, however perverse its practice, on a bright and early Monday morning.
Liv had no idea if or when she’d see Cassandra again. Given the history of Cassandra’s nature, the chances weren’t good. Liv might well have to accept that she was the one-off of a woman who flitted in and out of the scene. Already, she tried not to dwell on Cassandra’s post-scene care. She tried to focus on the fisting, not Cassandra’s benevolent, caring smile. She tried to remember how purged and sated she’d felt, how cleansed the scene had left her, and not Cassandra’s mesmerizing caress. A week passed, and Liv began to resign herself to the likelihood that she was nothing more than one night’s passing fancy.
Until Quinn phoned her. Immediately, Liv heard the same halted resistance in Quinn’s voice that she’d heard the morning after Cassandra, and wasted no time in getting to the crux of Quinn’s derision.
“What gives?” she asked.
A long sigh answered her before Quinn revealed the reason for her call. Whatever it was, she clearly had mixed feelings about conveying it.
“I got a call from Reese,” he said. “Cassandra’s boy.”
The latter sounded like a punctuating definition, as if Quinn felt Liv needed a reminder of who Reese was. She didn’t, but she was surprised that Quinn and Reese seemed to know each other well enough to share phone numbers.
“So you’re in his Rolodex?”
Like anyone still uses those, she chided herself. But a more contemporary comparison eluded her.
“Yeah. We go way back.”
Way back. As in when they were baby butches. Back when people actually did use Rolodexes. Obviously, their paths had diverged at some point, but their respect for each other hadn’t. Not if they maintained phone contact.
“Reese wants to meet you for coffee, lunch, whatever. On Cassandra’s behalf.”
Again, that punctuation. This time, more pointed in its dissatisfaction.
“I’m surprised you’re relaying this to me,” Liv observed. “I thought you didn’t like Cassandra.”
Quinn huffed. “I’m not among her fans. But I know Reese. And I know he’s found some kind of lasting satisfaction with her.”
Intriguing, Liv thought. So Quinn affords Cassandra an inch because of her past with Reese. Quinn did not easily give an inch to anyone who made her bristle with disfavor.
Quinn continued. “He assured me that he’ll keep Cassandra on the straight and narrow with you.”
Liv suddenly bristled with sudden wariness. She didn’t want to step into any kind of crazy, especially if it was a mutual manipulation fest between an established couple. “That sounds rather top-ish from the bottom.”
“Sorry. Poor choice of words,” Quinn backpedaled. “Reese’s about as conscientious and honorable as they come. I trust him. Always have. One of his duties to Cassandra is to remind her where hers lay. He’s one hell of a personal assistant—right down to reality checks and reining in egos. Or ego, since it’s only Cassandra he has to assist.”
“Huh. So if not for Reese, you would’ve rebuffed the offer?”
From the sound Quinn made, Liv knew she had stiffened, stretched, and ran her hand through her stubbly hair, a nervous reaction when Quinn had to admit to something that really wasn’t hers to control.
“Yeah, probably. Sorry.”
Liv shrugged. Quinn was Quinn. Nobody was perfect, but having a damn good friend at your back was worth Quinn’s bulked-up weight in gold.
“S’okay.”
“So I’ll give him your cell number?”
“Absolutely.”
“Liv?”
Here it came, Liv knew. Quinn’s final concern.
“Yeah?”
“Promise me you’ll keep me in the loop?”
Wow. She’s still uncomfortable with this; her suspicion of Cassandra runs deep, Liv thought. Almost as deep as her regard for Reese. But it wouldn’t hurt to have a second opinion.
“Sure. We’ll do a postmortem, okay?”
“Okay,” Quinn agreed. “Later, Liv.”
“Yeah, later!”
They ended the conversation with their usual chirpy goodbyes, a typical ending to an atypical conversation. Quinn’s tension did not fade from Liv’s awareness at its end, but it did compete with a throng of other emotions—the thrill, excitement, and joy analogous to a schoolgirl who’d finally caught the eye of the object of her infatuation.
Cassandra! She’s interested—in me!
Liv, at least, was old enough to restrain herself.
If Liv had one regret about wearing a leather hood the night she met Cassandra, it was discovering new details about Reese after the fact. Sitting across from him in a busy diner, she found that she remembered him in flawed generalities. She did not remember his eyes, a stunning blue fading to gray, a gaze capable and curious. She did not remember his retro haircut, long on top, cropped short from midear to his nape, its tresses falling to either side in total pomade failure. He looked like a fly boy from a bygone era.
But she recalled some of his traits correctly. His slender height, tall for the woman he had once been, average for the man he was now. He eschewed the usual transman penchant for facial hair, preferring a clean-shaven look. And she had glimpsed a fastidious economy of movement, but did not remember it until she watched him arrange his silverware to his liking.
Reese’s confidence, though, was unflagging. He decided they’d “order first, then talk” and promptly he buried himself in the menu. Until, that is, he noticed Liv, leaning forward, anticipation rife in her body language, her menu untouched. “You’re not eating?” he asked, peering from around his menu. His tone suggested that an affirmative would not sit well with him.
“I eat here often,” Liv countered. “I know what I want.”
“Ah.” He returned to perusing. When the server arrived to take their drink orders, he request an iced tea, unsweetened, but did not so much as glance the server’s way. Liv felt like she was making up for his behavior when she made eye contact with the server and more amiably asked for pomegranate iced tea. Was this another of Reese’s fastidious gestures or was he an aloof sort?
The server returned with their beverages—she ordered a BLT, whole wheat bread, light mayo, chips instead of fries. Reese ordered a veggie burger, multigrain bun, and steamed vegetables.
“A side salad too, please,” he told the server, “one with real greens, no iceberg lettuce. Can you do that?”
That tone again, same as he used on her. And he avoided meat, which made Liv abandon her plan to joke, when her sandwich arrived, about how bacon could solve many of the world’s problems if only more people ate it for lunch. Visualizing it, she shrank inside, mortified by the embarrassment that misstep would’ve provided.
Don’t do that, she told herself. No negative thinking, Liv.
Handing in their menus, Reese got right down to business and Liv discovered, at least during this visit, that he was all business.
“You know Mistress Cassandra instructed me to seek you out,” he began.
Liv nodded, sipping from the straw in her tea.
“She would like to pursue the possibility of having you join us.”
The possibility? Liv looked up from her drink, rapt at the idea. Reese smiled benevolently at her as if remembering his own reaction to a similar invitation.
Liv drew up straight in her seat, stunned and unable to form an answer. Reese, however, had anticipated this.
“Congratulations,” he tendered.
“Thank you,” she managed. Simple, appropriate words, but she felt like a frog, croaking.
“I’m going to tell you how things will progress from here,” Reese continued. “You’re free to ask any question of any nature. I am not here to judge, only convey.”
“I see. Okay.” Now she felt as small as a frog too.
“How much do you know about Cassandra?”
How much, indeed. Liv did not have a ready answer, but then again she had garnered only snippets from her peers—and Quinn’s reluctant assessment.
“Not much, I’m afraid. Just that she’s been around a long time. She’s like an elder citizen.”
Liv stiffened, immediately regretting the “elder” label. She meant for it to convey weight and wisdom, not old age. But Reese nodded and she relaxed, relieved.
“Have you ever heard about Cassandra’s ‘darlings’?”
Liv shook her head.
Reese nodded. “Understandable. It’s from long ago. I doubt many women younger than Cassandra would remember it.”
He paused, sipped his own tea, but did not resume talking until he sweetened it to his liking. His fastidiousness seemed less rigid now, as though getting his spiel underway had relaxed him.
“Long time ago—decades—when Cassandra was a much younger dominant, she loved having women attached to her. She adored them, hence the darlings. As a professional woman, playing in the heterosexual scene was pretty much a necessity back then. It had paying customers—men—and far more “scene worshippers” than the small and insular lesbian scene.”
“Scene worshippers?” Liv queried.
“People who like to latch on to prominent individuals in the scene. Sort of like star fuckers, only kinky.”
“Okay.”
“Cassandra loved the adulation, the money, but her heart has always belonged to women.”
“So Quinn told me,” Liv said.
The hint of a smirk appeared on Reese’s face, but he kept it in check and admitted to Liv, “I know how she feels about Cassandra. It’s okay. And I know that’s her, not you. Anyway…
“It used to be easy for Cassandra to have a bevy of women to play with and sleep among. So much so that I sometimes wonder if she dreamed of her own Utopia where queer women of all kinds could gather under her benign rule. Wouldn’t matter whether they were dyke or bi, butch or femme, or any variety of transgendered. As long as they loved her, they’d have a place.
“But I’m speculating.”
Their food arrived, and Reese paused to slice his burger in half and pepper his salad and veggies. Liv settled on a mouthful of BLT, then a couple of chips, and tried to munch as quietly as possible. Loud eating probably would not appeal to Reese.
“At first Cassandra considered her darlings little more than playthings. Granted, she was young and times were heady; it was easy to be casual and carefree. But her sexual salon didn’t last long—the group dynamics got away from her. But that was a sign of the times too.”
He bit into his sandwich and, apparently finding it savory, lingered over it. Liv assumed that it was as much a test of her patience as it was epicurean delight, so she paced herself, eating slowly so she would not finish too ahead of his tale.
When Reese continued, it was by way of a brief history lesson.
“It was the ’70s and the great divide between lesbian and bisexual women invaded Cassandra’s salon. It wrecked her little paradise. By the time the ’80s hit, her fantasy island was pretty much a desolate ruin.”
“So, does she want to reconstitute the idea?” Liv ventured.
Reese chortled. “No way! She gave up on that idea while we were in elementary school.” Liv did a quick calculation. Cassandra was—what?—roughly 55? Twenty years older than me. The estimate intrigued her.
“But,” Reese continued, “she never gave up on the idea of a darling. However, it took on new meaning through the years. Cassandra no longer yearns for a plaything—heck, they’re a dime a dozen, what with the leather scene being about as secretive as the Freemasons. Casual play is easy to come by these days.”
“What do you mean?” Liv asked, unsure whether Reese was about to rant about “the scene today” that some people with any amount of longevity were prone to.
“Cassandra tells me that back in the day—”
Reese’s eyes glinted conspiratorially, as if they both knew they were talking along the lines of walking two miles to school in the snow, uphill, both ways.
“It was radical enough to simply be sexually active and uninhibited. It didn’t take much to be defiant in those days. But…”
“There’s a but?”
“Believe it or not, the whole world wasn’t out swinging at Plato’s Retreat or whipping it up in leather bars. Most people preferred conventional lives. There weren’t as many play partners to go around back then, especially if you were queer and not living in a large metropolitan area.”