My apologies for posting this series out of order. I'll try to get it back on track from here on.
This story is very long...over 22,00 words. It's posted here in three contiguous parts.
Enjoy!
Scrib
*****
Sunlight slanted through the trees that overhung the winding road and almost turned it into a tunnel. It was not yet fall but leaves still carpeted the ground, making it difficult to tell where the asphalt ended and the floor of the forest began. Vanessa Carrington slowed her white Audi almost to a crawl as she carefully steered the car along the winding road that led up the river valley into the hills behind Blue Water Harbor. A mistake here would prove costly – the ground sloped steeply upward to her right, almost cliff-like in places, and fell away sharply to her left, down to the tumbling creek a hundred feet below. The difficult drive only added to her unease.
She was on her way to a house known around town as the Eyrie, the home of a French woman named Monique Morgaine who ruled – and from all accounts, she did so in every sense of the word – the Pain Cult, or the Pain Seekers as they were often known. Along with the Pleasure and Power Cults, they were the driving force behind the reputation that Blue Water Harbor, its adjacent hamlet Blue Water Village and the nearby town of San Vicente had recently acquired for unusual – some would say aberrant –behavior.
Dr Vanessa Carrington had come to Blue Water back in the early summer, to investigate the rumors that had begun to filter into the San Francisco fetish community. As a Professor of Psychology who specialized in sexual abnormalities, she had thought there might be the basis of a research paper here. Indeed there was, though she was unsure whether that paper would ever be written. The odd occurrences here – public sex acts between couples and groups, rivalries for dominance between the cults and even public fights over who had the right to fuck or top who – were one thing. The rumors as to why such things occurred – rumored, hinted at, but never truly explained – were something else again. There were whispers that the Cults’ leaders were possessed by animal spirits that gave them mystical powers, and it was these powers that prompted the citizens of Blue Water to behave as they did. That was not the kind of thing that could be mentioned in any kind of scientific paper – she would be a laughing stock – but until another, more satisfactory root cause came up, she could only continue digging.
She had already interviewed the leaders of the other two cults. The first had been Aisha Pashir, who led the Power Cult, though ‘interview’ was hardly the word to describe their first meeting. After losing a fight to Brittany Beckett, wife of the local chief of police, Vanessa had been subjected to a long and degrading night at the hands of Brittany and her friends before being paraded naked through town and dragged in front of Aisha as a gift from Brittany. The day she had spent in Aisha’s hands had certainly been edifying though extremely humiliating at the same time. Vanessa had been on the brink of abandoning her plans and fleeing back to San Francisco but she had found the courage to continue and even to go back and conduct a more formal interview with Aisha.
Her meeting with the leader of the Pleasure Cult, Jane Masters, had been far more agreeable but equally unusual. Almost as soon as she had arrived, Vanessa had found herself seduced into a three-way lesbian encounter with Jane and a young woman named Annie. After that, Jane had taken Vanessa to dinner where she witnessed an acquaintance of hers, a girl named Misty Dawn who ran the local coffee shop Java Girll on Main St in Blue Water Village, participate in a group sex ritual that seemed almost religious in nature, as a prelude to a vicious catfight over some guy at whom Misty had apparently looked the wrong way. The meeting had continued back at Jane’s house where, in the company of Jane’s husband David and Vanessa’s own husband Bill whom Annie had retrieved from their summer rental in the Village, they had all pleasured one another until long after dawn broke the next morning.
In the month since then, Vanessa and Bill had become firm friends with Jane and David, not to mention frequent lovers. They had met others from the Pleasure Cult too – Morgan and Gary King who lived up the hill from the Masters, Sean and Lynda Sevrin whose house was not far from Vanessa and Bill’s own, not to mention the numerous locals who seemed to frequent the Masters’ house at all hours of the day and night.
Morgan and another young woman named Leila Deppiesse, whose family owned the general store in Blue Water Harbor, had taken on the role of personal trainers to Vanessa. After her defeat by Brittany and the price she had paid for it, Vanessa had sworn she would never again be caught unawares that way. She had worked out fanatically and taken martial arts classes but as Jane had explained to her, Morgan and Leila would teach her how to fight another woman and win. As yet, Vanessa had not had to put her newly learned skills to the test, but she was sure that time would come.
Today she was about to add another piece to the puzzle that surrounded the people behind Blue Water’s cults – the Pride as they called themselves. She was looking forward to this meeting, and dreading it at the same time. Everyone she had met and befriended here had warned her to be very careful around Monique. “She’ll make you think things, do things, want to do things...and make you want her to do things...that you’d never dream of,” her friend Lisa Ramirez, the mayor’s wife, had told her one night after several glasses of wine. The haunted look in her eyes as she said those words, had sent a chill down Vanessa’s spine.
Perhaps more frightening, but also more intriguing, were the stories that involved Monique’s long-time companion and lover, Angelina Suarez. Ruthless, depraved and sadistic were all adjectives that seemed to accompany any mention of her name. She was said to hold a pathological hatred for buxom women and Morgan King, who had suffered at her hands after being taken by the Pain Cult in Miami, could barely stand to be in the same room with her. Vanessa did not know the details and given the young woman’s obvious horror at the mere memory of her ordeal, did not wish to ask.
Once the live-in girlfriend of Aisha Pashir, Angelina had switched her allegiance to Monique at some time after the events that had made the Pleasure Cult leave Miami and move to California. When, and why, was something no-one seemed to know, but which Vanessa hoped to find out. Her research paper into the psychological anomalies of Blue Water and its citizens had inexorably evolved into a chronicle of the Pride and its cults. She smiled slightly at the thought.
Rumor and innuendo were the norm when people spoke of the Pride, but that was doubly true for Monique Morgaine and those around her. Some said Monique was the widow of a French billionaire industrialist who had died under dubious circumstances, leaving her his vast fortune. Others said her husband was alive and well, and paid her a very generous allowance to keep an ocean between them. Still others said Monique was in fact married to Angelina. These were more questions Vanessa hoped to resolve.
“You can’t miss the turn to the driveway,” Jane had told her. “The gate post is quite...unique.” She had smiled as she had said that, but in a way that held no humor. Now, as Vanessa eased the car around yet another tortuous bend in the narrow road, she understood. At the roadside, suspended on a tall wooden frame, stood a medieval gibbet – a cage of iron bands, roughly the size and shape of a human body. Vanessa knew that in times gone by, criminals were hung alive in such contraptions and left to die of thirst, their bodies allowed to rot, picked at by scavengers. It was a grisly image beloved of period film-makers.
What made this device most remarkable was the fact that it was not empty, but contained the naked body of a young woman, facing the direction from which Vanessa had come. Her bare skin was pale in the green-tinted gloom of the forest, her long jet-black hair ruffled by the slight breeze. Her eyes wide, Vanessa slowed the car practically to a halt. When the figure slowly raised an arm and pointed off to her left, toward a gap in the trees and the entrance to a driveway, Vanessa almost drove off the road and down the hillside in shock.
She followed the woman’s mute direction, guiding the car up the driveway which meandered through the trees in much the same way as the road she had just left. The path was narrow, climbed steadily and several times the undergrowth brushed both sides of the car. Had there been room to turn around, it was likely she would have done so and retreated back to town, but she continued perhaps a quarter mile, trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach, before the outline of a house – a mansion, to be more precise – became visible through the trees.
The building was of quarried stone, two storeys high with a gabled roof though the hillside sloped up around it such that Vanessa suspected the rear was actually carved out of the rock itself. Trees grew close by on both sides and even overhung the structure but there was a clear space of about twenty yards at the front. The driveway leveled out and disappeared into a dark tunnel between two curving, paved footpaths that led up to imposing, iron-bound front doors. A broad expanse of flagstones in front of what was evidently the entrance to an underground garage was large enough to hold several cars and it was here that Vanessa parked. She took a deep breath, plucked her purse from the passenger seat and got out of the car.
She had prepared herself carefully for this meeting, not just in her research but mentally too. After working for years among the San Francisco BDSM community, she knew something about how these people thought. It was important to send the right message. She couldn’t display any weakness that could be taken as an invitation to exploit, but nor could she be so assertive as to imply any kind of challenge. Dealing with Dommes was a balancing act and she had rehearsed accordingly. She tried to ignore the tiny voice in the back of her mind, which reminded her that none of her meetings with the Pride’s leaders had ever gone according to plan.
Even her appearance was part of that message, and she had paid particular attention to it. The weather was cool for this time of year and she had taken advantage of that to cover up more than usual. She had chosen black ski pants that hugged her shapely thighs and taut buttocks, and a matching long-sleeved tee with a high neck. She wore a sports bra beneath that constrained and flattened her bust, making her appear considerably smaller in that regard than she actually was. She hoped to interview Angelina today as well as Monique and given Angelina’s reputed prejudice against busty women, she wished to make her bust as inconspicuous as possible. The last thing she wanted was an angry sadist looking for a reason to take her in hand. Given what she knew of the other cult leaders and the auras of power they projected, along with the Pain Cult’s reputation, she doubted that she would walk away unscathed from such a situation.
She had topped the outfit with a short black jacket that drew attention to her butt and further covered up her chest. Her shoes, crimson patent pumps with four-inch heels, were the highest she could manage and still walk comfortably. Her nails matched her shoes and both set off her Titian red hair. All in all, it was a calculated risk but she was satisfied that her attire conveyed the impression she wished – cool, assertive and sophisticated.
None of that eased the tightness in her gut as she walked up the path toward the front door of the house. Looking up at the imposing structure, she marveled that it was less than three years old, having been built specifically to Monique Morgaine’s requirements before the Pain Cult had moved here to Blue Water. It reminded Vanessa of some mansions she had seen on trips to Provence and given Monique’s French heritage, that was perhaps to be expected.
There was a bell-push to the right of the door and Vanessa pressed it, then turned to gaze down the hill at the forest that enveloped the house. From here there was no sign of the road, though she could see the ocean gleaming blue through the tops of the trees. The views from the house’s upper floor, she imagined, would be spectacular. She tried to look for the gibbet and its human cargo but that too was hidden. She wondered how long the woman had been imprisoned in the cage – and how long she would remain there.
The door opened behind and she turned to find herself faced with a smiling young man, dark-haired with a neatly trimmed goatee. In blue jeans and a white t-shirt emblazoned with the Oakley emblem, he looked like a typical California surfer except for the black leather collar with a silver D-ring that encircled his throat. “Hi,” he greeted her. “I guess you’re Vanessa. Mistress is expecting you.” He stood back and beckoned her inside.
Vanessa stepped through the doorway and into an atrium that soared above her to a vaulted ceiling. Stone-walled like the building’s exterior, it was dominated by twin staircases that curved upward to a second-floor balcony, echoing the shape of the paths outside. A massive brass chandelier hung on a heavy chain in the center of the room but right now the light came from the broad expanse of windows above the entrance. A set of double doors faced Vanessa across the room, along with identical pairs to the left and right at the foot of each staircase.
A woman in her early twenties, blonde-haired, dressed in khaki pants and a black tee stood on the balcony above, polishing the railing. She glanced down, caught Vanessa’s eye, smiled and nodded but said nothing. The man motioned toward the doors to Vanessa’s right. “Follow me, please.”
He led the way through the double doors, closing them behind Vanessa after she followed, then through what appeared to be an outer office. The stone flagged floor gave way to crimson carpet and the walls were a rich mahogany paneling to waist level, and cream paint above that. Several large framed photographs – Vanessa recognized one as a recent Vogue cover – adorned the walls. There was a red leather couch, a wood and glass coffee table and a modern-looking desk with a phone and a laptop computer on it. They did not stop there however, but walked across the room and through another set of double doors on the far side.
The room beyond was similarly decorated but larger. Twin couches sat in one corner with an end table between them, on which a brass-and-glass lamp burned. There were more framed photographs from fashion magazines, beautifully composed and lit, on the walls. A heavy mahogany desk bound with iron bands and inset with heavy iron rings squatted between two floor-to-ceiling windows on the right-hand wall.
In a high-backed chair behind the desk sat a woman dressed in a long-sleeved black turtleneck sweater that clung to her broad shoulders and full breasts. A cascade of white-blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders and down below the level of the desk, framing a heart-shaped face with a broad forehead, high pronounced cheekbones and a narrow chin. She put down a tablet computer and looked up as Vanessa entered. Ice-blue eyes fixed the professor with an appraising stare. Vanessa felt a moment of uncertainty as she caught the woman’s gaze, and she struggled not to lower her eyes. Her host was stunningly beautiful and just as intimating as the stories about her would imply.
“Professor Carrington, I presume.” Her English was faultless though her voice held the slightest trace of an accent. She rose, came around the desk and offered her hand. She was much taller than Vanessa, her long legs sheathed in black, and her stiletto-heeled ankle boots elevated her to well over six feet. “I’m Monique Morgaine. I’m pleased to meet you.”
Vanessa took the proffered hand. Monique’s touch was cool, her grip firm. “Vanessa,” she replied. “And I’m pleased to meet you too. Thank you for making the time.”
Monique smiled a smile that lit up the room. “My pleasure. You had no trouble finding us?”
“None at all,” replied Vanessa. “Your...gate marker...was most helpful.”
The tall blonde’s smile changed. “Well...the driveway can be easy to miss. Some people have gone all the way to the falls at the end of the road. It’s five miles out of your way.” She gave a characteristically Gallic shrug. “And besides, Hana needed to make amends.”
Vanessa wanted to ask, ‘Make amends for what?’ but she held her tongue.
Monique turned to the young man who had shown Vanessa in. “Lucas, that will be all, thank you.”
He nodded. “Of course, Mistress.” He left the room and closed the door behind him.
Monique shepherded Vanessa toward the couches in the corner. Vanessa nodded toward the pictures on the wall as she sat down. “I like your taste in photography,” she remarked as an ice-breaker.
“Thank you,” replied Monique as she seated herself on the other sofa. “I took them.” She smiled at Vanessa’s raised eyebrows. “I do fashion photography for many of the major magazines as well as...other subjects. I don’t need to work...I don’t need the money...but I like to be busy.”
“All this must have cost a fortune.” Vanessa waved an arm in a gesture meant to encompass the entire house.
Monique shrugged. “No more than some other new houses down by the harbor, or over the ridge. Besides, I have my own sources.” She leaned back on the couch, settled herself comfortably and crossed her feet at the ankles. “But...Professor Vanessa Carrington...you didn’t come here to ask me about real estate.” She smiled a smile that implied she knew precisely what Vanessa wanted to discuss, which was not surprising – but there were other, deeper layers to that smile too. Vanessa found herself wondering about that, but pushed the thought from her mind. Concentrate.
“I came here at the start of the summer to look into some rumors,” she explained with a smile of her own. “There was talk of public sex, orgies, public fights...all of which are happening.”
“All of which have happened to you,” interjected Monique. The corners of her scarlet-painted lips lifted a little.
Vanessa did her best not to blush. It was only natural that Monique would know of what had occurred over the summer. It was a small community, after all. “I wanted to find out what makes this town tick,” she went on.
“And what did you find out?”
“What makes it tick, is you. ‘You’ being the cults.”
Monique smiled. “Pleasure...power...pain. Three things that together, balance the human condition.”
Vanessa’s nodded in recognition of the truth and indeed somewhat surprised by it – and the intelligence behind the woman’s remarks. “Balanced is a good way to put it,” she conceded. “Despite what most people would regard as social aberrations, Blue Water has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation, and one of the highest personal happiness ratings. This town...works.”
“People get to indulge their desires, and to work off their stresses,” replied Monique. “They can be who they truly are. There’s no repression of feelings here.”
“Only three competing factions.”
Monique raised an eyebrow. “Yes. We compete for power. But it’s...different now.”
Vanessa was about to ask, ‘How?’ when there was a knock that came from another door, opposite the desk. It opened and the young man – Lucas – appeared again. “Excuse me Mistress,” he said apologetically, “but you asked to be informed when Phoebe and Maggie had both arrived. They’re here.”
Monique smiled. “Thank you, Lucas.” She turned back to Vanessa. “There’s some cult business I need to deal with...a matter of discipline. You might like to observe. I think you’ll find it informative.” There was a tone in her voice that suggested it was not a request.
Vanessa smiled back. “I’d like that very much.”
They both rose and proceeded through the door. Vanessa found herself at the juncture of two hallways, one stretching away in front of her, the other running off to the left, back toward the main entrance. The far walls of both were comprised of French windows, opening onto a broad enclosed courtyard, most of which was taken up by an enormous swimming pool. One side of the courtyard, at the rear of the house, was bounded by the sheer rock of the hillside, down which a stream of water cascaded into the pool. It was as beautiful as it was opulent.
Monique caught the direction of Vanessa’s eyes. “Perhaps you’ll come visit another time, and enjoy the pool.” She turned and opened a door close by in the corner and stepped through.
This room was larger and obviously at the corner of the house since there were windows on the two adjacent walls opposite the door. It was decorated in a classical style with several side tables and bureaus set at intervals around the walls, again below framed photographs showcasing Monique’s work. Two wooden-framed, ornately carved and richly upholstered couches flanked an enormous Persian rug with a similarly carved arm chair at the far end.
There were three people in the room. Two were women, one of whom looked familiar to Vanessa. With a start she remembered that the woman, a tall and well-built blonde around forty, had been a member of the group who had fucked – that was the only word that fitted – Madison, the Pain Seeker who had then fought Misty Dawn the night Vanessa had first met Jane. Vanessa blinked, though the woman looked at her without recognition. The other, a slender brunette in her twenties, was a stranger. Both were dressed in black pants and matching tees. Vanessa noticed neither wore a collar.
“Vanessa Carrington, meet Anna Sotheby,” Monique gestured toward the blonde, “and Emily Reeves. They’re associates of mine.” Vanessa wondered at the name ‘Reeves’ – the local realtor from whom she and her husband had rented their summer home was Lauren Reeves. There was a vague resemblance so perhaps they were relatives, but she didn’t ask.
The third person was a man, burly and blonde haired in blue jeans and a crimson polo shirt, whom Monique introduced as Ron Barr. Vanessa knew him. “You’re the chef at – “
“At Waves,” he finished. Waves was a seafood place overlooking the beach in Blue Water Harbor and possibly the best restaurant in town. “You and your husband visited us last week – “ He stopped suddenly and his eyes flicked momentarily toward Monique.
Vanessa knew he had been about to say ‘with David and Jane Masters’ and she replied smoothly to help cover his gaffe, “You dropped by our table to check if everything was okay. It’s nice of you to remember.”
Monique had walked across the rug and sat down in the armchair – the symbolic place of honor in the room. “Take a seat,” she directed Vanessa to the end of the couch on her right.” Vanessa obliged, crossing her legs at the knee. The other three remained standing behind her, between the couch and the windows. She did her best to keep her face impassive though her mind was racing in speculation as to what was about to occur. There was an air of expectation in the room, a palpable tension.
Lucas entered. With him were two women, neither of whom looked happy at all. Presumably it had to do with more than the fact that their arms were drawn back behind them and secured not only at the wrists but at the elbows too. Vanessa imagined their discomfort must be quite acute, and she was somewhat disconcerted to feel a sympathetic twinge of pain in her own shoulders.
The woman on Lucas’s left was young, tall and slender – skinny would have been an apt description. Dressed in calf-length black yoga pants and a tight-fitting high-necked red tee that resembled a surfer’s rash vest, she was long-legged, narrow-hipped and her bust was barely there. Even her face was narrow, with a pointed chin and a long nose. The only thing about her that didn’t cry ‘thin’ was her cloud of curly blonde hair. Nonetheless, her exposed arms and calves looked well-toned despite their thinness.
The other woman, dressed in black leggings and a thin matching sweater, was significantly older – perhaps mid-thirties – shorter than the blonde by a few inches and with dark brown hair that brushed her shoulders. She was more sturdily built but still far from stocky, slim but more curvaceous than her counterpart, which certainly wasn’t difficult. Her face too was more rounded, not quite oval. Vanessa heard Ron suck in his breath sharply and involuntarily turned her head to regard him. His eyes were fixed on the dark-haired woman.
“Maggie is Ron’s wife,” explained Monique. “The other girl is Phoebe.” She sighed. “It seems I have a problem with them.”
She beckoned and Lucas guided the two women forward with one hand on the shoulder of each, to the middle of the rug in front of her. There he pressed firmly downward and they each knelt, awkwardly because of their restrained arms. Both looked nervous – Phoebe’s agitation was evident in the spectacle of her erect nipples poking visibly through her top. Maggie’s eyes locked with Ron’s for a moment, then she turned her attention back to Monique.
“Phoebe.” Monique spoke her name in a clipped, commanding voice that was very different to her previous conversational tone. Vanessa watched with interest. She had met and interviewed many Dommes over the years but to witness something like this, in a household like this, was a new and informative experience.
“Ms, she’s lying! She – “
“Quiet!” The French woman’s voice lashed her. She stiffened as though she had been physically struck and closed her mouth abruptly.
“Phoebe,” Monique repeated more quietly, “you were instructed to care for our guests last night.” The blonde girl made as if to speak again but Monique silenced her with a look. “You didn’t do so. As a result, there were two captives in hard restraint who went without water for twelve hours. Though they’re here to be punished for resisting us, we still owe them a duty of care.” Her voice grew colder as she continued, “You failed in your duty. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Ms...I swapped places with Maggie! She was supposed to do last night, and I was going to do tonight instead.”
Monique looked at the other woman, kneeling beside Phoebe. “Maggie?”
The older woman shook her head. “That’s not true, Ms. I did agree to switch with her, the same time last week and I did. We signed our names on the roster in the kitchen like we’re meant to. But not last night.”
Phoebe glared at the brunette balefully. “She’s lying, Ms!”
“One of you certainly is,” replied Monique, “or at the very least, forgetful of your duties.” She looked at each of them. “Since neither of you admits that she’s at fault, we’ll settle this by rite of combat. The loser will be punished. The winner will be found blameless.” The two women looked at each other warily but without surprise. Vanessa imagined it was not the first time a dispute had been settled this way.
Monique looked up at Lucas. “Hood them,” she ordered.
The two women’s eyes widened and their heads snapped up to stare at Monique, though neither said a word. Lucas nodded in obedience and crossed to a bureau against the wall, from which he took two black spandex objects. Returning to the two kneeling women, he deftly slipped the hoods over their heads and secured the Velcro fastenings at the backs of their necks. Maggie’s hair was completely enclosed by her hood while Phoebe’s golden curls stood around her neck like some strange medieval ruffle.
“The first to wring an admission of guilt from the other...or to knock her out...will be judged the winner...and the truthful one.” She waited while Lucas walked away and took up a place beside the door. “You may begin.”
Phoebe was quickest off the mark and dived for where her older opponent knelt, but Maggie was almost as quick to anticipate the move. She threw herself backwards, avoiding the younger woman’s lunge. At the same time she lifted her knee which caught the charging blonde solidly in the right side of her ribs, spinning her sideways and sending her sprawling on the floor.
Maggie scrambled to her knees and threw herself at where Phoebe lay awkwardly on the rug but the blonde pre-empted her attack by rolling away. Nevertheless Maggie managed to get a hand on her adversary’s arm, forestalling her escape. Twisting her fingers into Phoebe’s t-shirt, she dragged the younger woman halfway up to her knees and drew her fist back to strike. Phoebe lashed out backwards however and her elbow slammed solidly up under Maggie’s chin, pitching the brunette onto her back, dragging Phoebe over and down on top of her.
They struggled and grappled for a few moments, each intent on freeing herself from the tangle of the other, and each impaired by their lack of vision. Vanessa glanced sideways at Monique and noticed the amused smile on the Domme’s face. Her attention was immediately drawn back to the fight by a scream of pain and anger from Maggie, when Phoebe managed to spin herself over to face her opponent, grab a fistful of Maggie’s sweater and send a fist arcing downward into the older woman’s chest.
As the blonde drew back to pound her adversary again, Maggie flung both hands up around Phoebe’s neck and snared them into the fluffy mass of her hair. With an even louder cry, Maggie whipped her head and shoulders up off the floor, jerking her enemy down toward her as she did so. There was a clearly audible crack! as the head butt connected.
Unfortunately for Maggie, her blind attack was slightly off-target and instead of her skull impacting Phoebe’s nose or mouth, it slammed squarely into the blonde’s own forehead. Both of them groaned, lost their grip on one another and fell to the floor, stunned.
Anna and Emily, the two women spectators, murmured to one another. Monique held up a hand to silence them. “Give them a moment,” she said quietly but firmly. “This isn’t over.”
It was slightly more than ten seconds – Vanessa was counting in her head – before either of them moved. Again it was Phoebe who was first. She moaned and stirred, drawing an arm in toward her body and pushing herself up onto one elbow. She lay awkwardly, half on her belly, half on her side with her right leg across Maggie’s thighs. She pulled that leg back and, with a muttered curse under her breath, drove her knee upward at the brunette’s crotch. The blow was weak and un-aimed, and it caught Maggie only a glancing blow to the top of her left thigh but it was nonetheless enough to rouse her.
Maggie rolled toward Phoebe and reached for the blonde with her right hand, finding and seizing the front of Phoebe’s shirt. With her enemy thus located, Maggie thrust her other hand under the hem of the other woman’s tee, clawing at Phoebe’s belly. Phoebe let out an anguished shriek and kicked out wildly. Her knee struck Maggie on the hip but did more to shove Phoebe herself away from her opponent than to inflict any pain or damage.
As Phoebe kicked at her again, Maggie’s arm whipped out and her hand wrapped itself behind the younger woman’s knee. She followed up with the other hand, grabbing her opponent’s thigh and, rolling further to her right, flipped the blonde onto her side and then her stomach. Maggie’s own leg lashed out and her knee rammed hard into Phoebe’s side over her left kidney. A loud “UNGGGHHH!!!” sounded from beneath the blonde’s hood.
With a dexterity that surprised Vanessa given that the brunette was fighting blind, Maggie rolled up onto her knees astride Phoebe’s back. With both hands still firmly holding the other girl’s leg she leaned back hard, bending the blonde’s leg up behind her painfully. Phoebe shrieked again. “Go ahead and scream, you lying skank!” yelled Maggie. “You’ll scream a whole lot louder before I’m done with you!”
Phoebe thrashed wildly trying to buck her enemy off her but with only one leg she lacked the leverage. As Maggie leaned back and stretched her captive leg again however, she shoved her head and chest upward with one arm and threw her head backwards, bending her own spine almost into a ‘C’ in a startling display of flexibility. Vanessa could not suppress a soft “wow” of surprise.
Monique turned to her and smiled again. “Phoebe is a dancer,” she explained softly, “or at least she claims to be. She apparently graduated with a rather expensive degree in dance from an east coast college, though nobody’s ever seen her perform in a real production.”
Phoebe’s free hand snaked up over her own shoulder. Her fingers brushed the back of Maggie’s head and, as she realized her enemy’s precise position, she arched her back even further. Her fingers curled around under Maggie’s ear and beneath the brunette’s chin. Phoebe screamed her fury and her pain as she wrenched savagely at her enemy’s head. Her scream grew even more anguished as Maggie maintained her hold on the young blonde’s leg, torturing it even more savagely for a moment before she toppled backwards and crashed to the floor, half on top of her opponent.
Her hand still holding Maggie by the chin, Phoebe reared up again, lifting her adversary a foot or so, then slammed herself down on her chest, driving the back of Maggie’s head into the floor. The thick rug cushioned the blow a little but the older woman still groaned and offered no resistance as Phoebe twisted her body violently and bucked the brunette off her.
“Why do you make them fight hooded?” asked Vanessa quietly to Monique.
“Several reasons. First, because it amuses me.” Her smile grew broader for a moment before dropping back to its previous dimensions. Eyes still fixed on the fight, she added, “Also, because it prevents them from defending. Since they can’t see an attack coming, they can only endure it and counterattack. It teaches them to accept and master pain.”
Phoebe rolled over to face the other woman and slid her arm beneath Maggie’s neck once more, getting her enemy into a chokehold and hauling her head back against the blonde’s shoulder. “Tell them, bitch!” she snarled. “Tell them you lied about switching shifts with me!” She rammed her other hand, fist clenched, into Maggie’s ribs. “Say it!”
“Lying...cxnt!” croaked Maggie.
“SAY IT!” Phoebe’s fist slammed into the beleaguered brunette’s kidney again. Maggie arched her back and wailed in torment.
“NO!!!”
Phoebe pressed her body closer against Maggie’s back, reached around her adversary’s body and seized Maggie’s right breast. She said something to the older woman that was too quiet for Vanessa to hear, especially when it was drowned out by Maggie’s pain-filled shriek as the blonde twisted viciously on her soft flesh.
Vanessa glanced anxiously at Ron. He was watching with narrowed eyes, his entire body held rigid. His desire to help his wife was almost palpable but he did not move. Anna and Emily were also watching with equal intensity, their eyes bright. Their desire to be part of the fight was evident – Vanessa wondered whether they wanted to be in Phoebe’s position, or Maggie’s.
Phoebe let out a sudden, piercing shriek of shock and pain. Despite her agony, Maggie had managed to work a hand behind her, between their bodies and between her enemy’s legs. With a growl that carried clearly across the room, she dug her fingers into Phoebe’s crotch and twisted just as hard as the blonde had twisted her breast a moment before.
The younger woman frantically shoved with her legs, trying to propel herself away from Maggie and out of her tormentor’s reach. Her preoccupation with her own pain gave Maggie the chance to get her other hand up to grab Phoebe’s fingers and bend them backwards. The blonde screamed again, her grip faltered and Maggie whipped her body forward, tearing herself out of Phoebe’s grasp.
Maggie shoved hard with her leg to flip herself over, facing Phoebe, and grabbed for the front of the girl’s shirt once again. Yanking the younger woman toward her, again locating her enemy by feel, she sent a savage slap to Phoebe’s temple that snapped her opponent’s head sideways against the floor. She followed up with another blow, this time with her closed fist, which flung the blonde over on her back.
The brunette gave her enemy no respite and, her other fist still curled in Phoebe’s tee, she lunged forward with another stinging slap. Phoebe, firmly on the defensive, shoved frantically at her opponent trying to keep her at bay but her hands went wide and slid ineffectively over Maggie’s shoulders. In desperation the blonde wrapped her arms around Maggie’s neck and hugged the other woman to her. With a loud “GUH!” Maggie’s face slammed hard into Phoebe’s chest and the blonde held her there with one arm while she reached down beneath the lower edge of Maggie’s sweater and viciously raked her hooked nails up the brunette’s back. Maggie’s muffled cry of anger and frustration quickly turned into a roar of pain.
“Suffer, bitch!” yelled Phoebe and repeated the move but as she reached down for a third attempt, she once more squealed in agony. In an instant she went from clasping Maggie to her, to thrusting in panic at her enemy’s shoulders in a frantic attempt to push her away. As she shoved Maggie’s head upward away from her, Vanessa saw that the older woman had sunk her teeth into Phoebe’s chest through the thin cloth of her shirt. While Phoebe didn’t have much in the way of a bust to bite, Maggie had no doubt seized a hard nipple in her teeth. From the blonde’s anguished screams, her older but equally vicious antagonist was working the bite for all she was worth.
Phoebe forced Maggie’s face far enough away to send a fist slamming sideways into the brunette’s jaw and her scream reached a peak as the impact tore Maggie’s teeth away from her bosom. Maggie fell back, shaking her head and swearing, while Phoebe clutched at her injured breast, hissing curses of her own. “You FUCKING BITCH!” She flung herself in Maggie’s direction.
More by luck than by design, Phoebe landed with one knee rammed brutally into the brunette’s belly, and Maggie’s agonized “AWWWGGGHHH!!!” echoed around the room. The younger woman straddled her enemy, found her head with one hand and rained slaps down on her with the other in rapid succession. Still lost in pain from the blonde’s blow to her belly, Maggie did nothing to defend herself and her head whipped back and forth under the torrent of Phoebe’s assault, accompanied by the sharp sounds of the blonde’s slaps and Maggie’s own pain-filled grunts as each one landed. Vanessa winced at the merciless beating.
Suddenly Maggie seemed to snap back to awareness and her arms at last came up to block some of Phoebe’s blows. The battered brunette slammed both her hands forward and her open palms struck Phoebe in the chest, knocking the blonde off balance so her next blows whistled past Maggie’s face without connecting. Maggie grabbed and twisted the nipple she had bitten before and as the blonde howled, she grabbed Phoebe once more by the front of her shirt and jerked her forward, throwing her own body to the left as she did so. Phoebe’s cry was abruptly cut off as her face impacted the floor with an audible thud.
Maggie squirmed her way out from under the stunned blonde. Her movements were slow, labored, revealing the hurt she had suffered. She reached out for Phoebe, her hand slapping down on the other woman’s back, then further up, on the back of her neck. Phoebe groaned weakly but still didn’t move as Maggie clambered painfully to all fours. When Maggie’s knee pressed down hard in the middle of her back, she groaned louder and began to squirm but by that time, the brunette had her pinned. She drew her arms in and tried to arch herself up from the floor as she had done before, but she lacked the strength to overcome Maggie’s weight now the older woman was better positioned, higher up her back.
With a back-fist that cracked Phoebe’s face back into the rug, Maggie snarled, “Stay where you are, cxnt!” She groped for her enemy’s head again, slid her hand under Phoebe’s chin and jerked her head upwards, bending her neck brutally until the blonde screamed. Keeping the pressure on, Maggie felt her way down Phoebe’s lower back until she found the blonde’s taut buttocks. There she delivered a slap that drew a yelp from the young blonde.
Phoebe began to kick and thrash about, trying to get her legs under her, but Maggie wrenched her head back brutally and repeated, “Stay still, BITCH!” She reinforced the message with a hammer blow that caught Phoebe solidly between her splayed thighs. She howled and stopped struggling.
“Now cut out your damn lies and tell the TRUTH!” Maggie pounded the blonde’s pussy again.
Phoebe screamed out an anguished, “NO!!!”
“Tell the TRUTH!” Maggie grabbed the younger woman between the legs as she had done earlier and twisted viciously. Phoebe howled.
The brunette got a better grip preparing to torture her victim once again but Phoebe shrieked in terror. “ALL RIGHT! STOP!” Her voice cracked in a plaintive sob. “Stop...please! It’s true. I lied!” Maggie growled and squeezed her crotch. Phoebe screamed again. “I LIED! I totally forgot I was meant to be here, and I said the first thing that came into my head so I wouldn’t be punished!”
“You – “ Fury made Maggie’s voice tremble.
“That’s enough.” Monique’s voice was not overly loud but her tone brooked no argument. “Maggie, you may get off her now.” Again, it was not a request.
With only the slightest hesitation, Maggie shoved herself backwards, removing her knee from the blonde’s back and slid to the rug where she hung on all fours. Vanessa could see her arms shaking with the effort of holding herself up. The fight had pushed her to the limits of exhaustion. She had been operating on pure adrenalin at the end.
“Lucas, remove their hoods.”
Lucas stepped forward onto the rug. He bent and slipped his hands under Maggie’s arms, gently lifting her to her knees before removing her hood. She knelt there panting, staring down at the still-prone Phoebe. Her cheeks were flushed red and there was a small cut over her right eyebrow that left a faint smear of blood across her forehead. A trickle of sweat dripped off her chin onto the defeated blonde’s back. Lucas let her get her breath back for a moment before he helped her to her feet and to the far end of the couch opposite where Vanessa sat.
He was less deferential to Phoebe. She whimpered when he hauled her to her knees by her hair, unfastened the hood and pulled it off her. Her shoulders drooped and her head hung low, enveloped by the curtain of her hair. She shuddered with each breath she took.
Monique lifted her own head and looked down her nose at the blonde. “Look at me, Phoebe.” The girl slowly raised her head. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. Pain and defeat were etched on her face. “You failed...again,” Monique said coldly. “You will be punished accordingly.
“You will spend the next twenty four hours in hard restraint, like those you neglected...in strappado.”
The girl gasped. Her eyes widened in terror. “No Ms! Please...I’ll – “
“You’ll do as you’re told, girl,” Monique cut her off. “You’ll go without food of course, as is usual, but furthermore, for the first twelve hours, you’ll go without water too...again, like those who suffered more than their due because of your negligence.” Phoebe seemed to sag, her eyes turned downward once more, and a sob of despair came from her trembling lips.
Monique turned her head to look over at the brunette. “Maggie, you will take charge of Phoebe’s punishment. Did you hear what I just told her?”
Maggie looked up and nodded. “Yes Ms.” She gazed at Phoebe with narrowed eyes.
“Good. She will available for use but on pain orders only. She is not to be pleasured. Anyone can use her but only her mouth. Her cxnt is not to be touched, and we all know how the little slut enjoys taking it in the ass.” The other two women, standing by the window, chuckled. Monique swiveled her head to regard them. “You two...make yourselves useful.” She waved at Phoebe. “Get her out of my sight and carry out my instructions.”
As they half-dragged, half-carried the still sobbing Phoebe from the room, Monique turned to Lucas again. “Lucas, bring some coffee for the Professor and me, if you please.”
“Of course, Mistress,” he replied in his usual way.
“Take it into the private conference room,” she instructed him. “We’ll be there in just a moment.”
He smiled. “Yes Mistress.”
Monique rose from her chair and smiled back at Vanessa. “No doubt you’re a little shocked.”
“A little,” admitted Vanessa, though in truth she was more dismayed by Phoebe’s terror at the prospect of her punishment than by the fight itself, which was no more savage than others she had witnessed over the summer. She had heard of the strappado – a modern twist on a medieval torture technique – but had never seen it implemented.
“Discipline must be preserved, and offenders punished,” said Monique, raising her voice a little, her words evidently intended for the rest of the room and not just Vanessa. “Otherwise, order quickly turns into chaos.”
She paused and raised an eyebrow questioningly. Feeling an answer was expected of her, Vanessa nodded.
“Let’s continue our discussion in more private surroundings, over coffee.” Monique turned on her heel and strode away. Vanessa followed her through the door.
They emerged into the hallway again but instead of returning to the adjacent office where they had first met, Monique led Vanessa down the corridor that led toward the rear of the house. Vanessa noticed what looked like an elevator – an elevator in a private home? – and an alcove with a stairway leading upward. “This wing of the house holds the studio and offices,” explained Monique. “The other side of the pool,” she waved a scarlet-nailed hand, “is where we live.” They passed two closed doors on the right and another hallway stretching off to the left and seemingly passing beneath the waterfall that fed the pool, before continuing down the corridor that apparently burrowed into the hillside itself. Monique pushed open a third door and held it for Vanessa to precede her.
The room beyond was similar in size to the office they had just left. Eight leather armchairs were arranged around a large coffee table with a mahogany base and a glass top supported on stout brass posts. Lucas had just finished setting out coffee cups in front of two chairs at the near end of the table. What particularly caught Vanessa’s attention however was not the aroma of coffee from the steaming cups nor Lucas’ trim butt in his tight jeans, nor even the photographs on the walls of the windowless room in which the models were now devoid of clothing. Instead her eyes fixed on the naked woman who lay spread-eagled in the narrow space between the base and top of the coffee table. The glass pressed down on her chest, flattening her breasts. Her head projected from the closer end. The position of the posts supporting the top kept her limbs bent awkwardly beneath the glass. Tears glistened in her eyes and dampened her golden hair that streamed down to pool on the carpet below.
Vanessa carefully kept a straight face as she looked at Monique. “Someone else who needed to make amends?” she asked archly.
“Not at all,” replied Monique. “Veronica volunteered for this...along with several others. They drew lots for the honor.”
“So why is she crying?”
Monique smiled. She regarded the woman who, judging by the faint lines around her eyes, was closer to forty than thirty. “Why are you crying, Vero?”
“Because...because it hurts, Ms.” Her voice was no more than a whisper. When she inhaled before speaking, it forced her chest even more firmly against the glass. It was evident that she couldn’t draw a full breath.
“Do you want to be released?” asked Monique gently.
“No! No Ms!” She shook her head vehemently. “Please, not until my time is up.”
“And why not?”
“Be...because...I don’t want to disappoint you, Ms.”
Monique looked at Vanessa. “You see? This is not a punishment but a privilege for her.” She stepped around the corner of the table and seated herself.
That left the other chair – the one placed right next to the captive’s head – for Vanessa. The challenge was implicit but no less obvious for that. Vanessa slipped into the seat. She deliberately set her feet on Veronica’s hair and gazed down at the woman’s face. The tear-filled emerald green eyes were slightly glazed. Vanessa recognized that look. She had seen it before in the clubs of San Francisco. Sub space, they called it – the endorphin high that came from prolonged pain. “She doesn’t wear a collar.”
“I haven’t collared her...yet,” replied Monique. She lifted her coffee cup and took a sip. “First she must prove herself. This,” she waved at the table, “is part of that.”
Vanessa glanced again at Veronica. That explained much, including the way Veronica had addressed Monique as ‘Ms’ instead of ‘Mistress’ as Lucas had done. It also told Vanessa a lot about how this Dominatrix ran her household. Veronica was staring at Monique with undisguised longing.
It was time she steered the conversation, and the meeting, back in her own direction. “So,” she said, sipping at her own coffee, “you said before that things are different now. You mean the rivalry between the cults?”
Monique nodded. “Yes.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Back then, it really was a matter of life and death.”
Vanessa paused, wondering whether to make the comment, then decided to dare. “Life and death, yes. I’ve heard that you tried to kill Jane Masters and her husband.” She didn’t say that it was Jane who had told her that.
Monique looked at her in silence. Vanessa was afraid she was about to end the interview, but then the blonde inclined her head slightly. “That’s true.” She drew a deep breath. Vanessa’s eyes were drawn to the swell of her bosom against her sweater and she resisted the impulse with difficulty. Monique was a commanding presence in every sense of the term. Monique let the breath out in a long sigh and continued, “They were involved in...but not responsible for...my sister’s death. At the time I blamed them and wanted revenge on the Pride for killing Mariette. So I made a plan, not just to kill David and Jane, but to destroy all of them.”
“It didn’t work.”
“No...though I almost succeeded. You see...it wasn’t enough to kill them. I wanted to destroy them from within, to turn their own powers against them, to defeat them at their own game. That would have been the ultimate revenge.”
Again, here was this talk of powers. “And?” Now that Monique had started, Vanessa wanted to keep her talking.
“I acquired powers of my own and used them against Jane...but she was too strong. I couldn’t break her...couldn’t kill her. Of course, she wasn’t able to kill me either, though she came close...very close.” She smiled at the look on Vanessa’s face. “Oh, I don’t suppose she told you that part. It was life and death, for both of us.”
“What did she do to you?”
“She almost broke my mind. Then she left me to the mercy of some people who...” Her eyes took on a faraway look. “It’s enough to say they didn’t have very much mercy. It’s ironic, when I think about it. They were the pawns in my plan but it was I, the Queen, who became their pawn instead. Those months were...very difficult.” Then she smiled again. “But I survived. My powers enabled me to prevail, eventually. I had my revenge on them.” She sighed again and there was a faraway look in her eyes. “That, at least, was justified.
“It also gave me money of my own. Their leader had a number of business interests. I took control of them and used my talents to extend them. Over the course of several years, I made enough to pay for all this.” She waved a hand, indicating the house around them.
“Do you still hate them? Jane and David? The Pleasure Cult?”
“Oh yes. I still hate them. Even though they didn’t kill my sister, they put me through hell. I still hate them, just like they hate me. But now,” she shrugged again, “we have an...understanding. The word in French is détente.
In spite of Vanessa’s best efforts not to let her friendships interfere with her work, she could not help but remark, “I think Morgan King might have a different opinion about that.”
Monique looked at her thoughtfully again. “Also true. That was Angelina’s doing. She became consumed with the idea of breaking Morgan King, but I could perhaps have stopped her if I’d wanted to. Something good happened as a result, however. All of us began to realize that open warfare could only destroy us., so we came to an agreement. We began to make some rules, to ensure things did not get so...out of hand...again.”
“Was that before you came to Blue Water?” asked Vanessa. “I know you were the last to leave Miami.”
“Yes, we were. The Masters and the Kings were the first, after what we did to Morgan. Angelina and I didn’t think of following until a year later, and it was another six months before we actually put our plans into action. Then six more months to build this house and move in. By that time, there were others here...the Sevrins...even Aisha Pashir and her girlfriend Jenni. They were well established, with their friends and followers, when we arrived.”
The woman’s openness – unexpectedly so – made Vanessa bolder. “They say Angelina was with Aisha, back in Miami, and left her for you. Why?”
Monique pursed her lips. “Perhaps she saw something in me that she didn’t see in Aisha. You will have to ask her that question.”
“I’d like the opportunity.”
“She’s...otherwise engaged at present. But you’re welcome to come back another time. You can meet her then.”
Vanessa nodded. “So what about the Power Cult? You’ve told me how you feel about the Pleasure Cult, but what about Aisha and her followers?”
“They’re...irrelevant is the wrong word, but I care less about them than the Pleasure Cult. Yes, we fight over power within the Pride. They try to steal my slaves, to persuade them to renounce my collar for Aisha’s. I do the same to her. It’s part of the game...part of the striving...but it’s not the kind of personal hatred I feel for the Pleasure Cult. I imagine Aisha would tell you the same thing.”
Vanessa nodded again. Aisha had told her precisely that, in almost the same words. “You still want to destroy them.”
“The Pleasure Cult, or the Power Cult?” Monique chuckled softly. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. The answer is the same. Yes, I want to destroy them. Not by killing them like before, but by breaking them all, each and every one, and making them mine.” Her eyes grew bright and there was a sudden strident passion in her voice. Her chest swelled again and this time Vanessa did stare. She noticed Monique’s nipples jutting through the clinging fabric of her sweater.
The blonde stopped and exhaled in a long sigh. “But I know that will never happen.” Vanessa was about to ask her to elaborate when she continued, “It cannot. The game we play, the rivalry between the factions...it’s all about balance. We take a prize, they take another, balance is preserved and the Pride continues. That’s how it must be.” She looked at Vanessa over the rim of her cup. “You’re familiar with the Triskele...the BDSM emblem?” Vanessa nodded. “It’s a three-spoked wheel. Pleasure, power and pain. The eternal balance that must be preserved. No one power can be allowed to eclipse the others...not even mine.”
Vanessa looked up at Monique. This woman was definitely not what she expected. She was not quite sure what she had expected but given the stories she had heard around town, perhaps some kind of twisted sadist. Certainly not this introspective, intelligent, philosophical person. She found herself strangely warming to Monique, but then she heard a voice in the back of her mind. She’ll make you think things...
She glanced down at the imprisoned blonde whose head hung almost between her knees. As she had observed earlier, the woman wore no collar at her throat but carried gold rings in both her nipples, one in her navel and another through her left nostril. “You mark your conquests,” she said. “You being the Pain Cult, I mean.”
Monique too turned her eyes down to regard the spread-eagled woman. “We do. Whenever one of us claims someone, we pierce him or her. Some submit willingly...some resist and choose the rite of combat.” She smiled. “That’s one of the rules we all agreed to.”
“Him or her?” asked Vanessa. “The fights I’ve seen have always been between women.”
“Men rarely resort to combat. There are always enough willing partners and...well...men usually aren’t too picky about who they fuck.” She chuckled. “As you say, most fights are between women, sometimes over a man...sometimes over another woman...or an insult, real or imagined. Sometimes it’s just about ego.” She smiled and looked directly into Vanessa’s eyes. “The satisfaction of being able to say ‘I made Vanessa Carrington kneel and lick my chatte.”
A sudden chill in Vanessa’s chest matched the equally sudden flare of warmth in her loins. She’ll make you want to do things...
“The victor chooses the piercing...usually a ring, sometimes a barbell...and where to place it,” Monique continued. “The loser must leave it in place for a month, then they can choose whether to keep it or remove it.”
“And if they keep it?” asked Vanessa. “Does that mean they’re yours? A Pain Seeker?”
Monique gave another shrug. “Many times yes, but not always. There are some who choose to keep it as a sign that they were taken but not broken...that they endured their time in our hands.”
“A night and a day.”
Monique nodded. “Until the following sundown. That’s another rule we all agreed to. Unless, of course, the subject agrees to remain.” She looked meaningfully at Veronica.
Vanessa followed her gaze. “What’s her story?”
“One of our girls defeated her in Bill’s Bar on the beach, back in the spring,” replied Monique. She looked down at Veronica again. “Poke out your tongue, Vero.” The woman did so, revealing a gold stud in her tongue. “That’s the mark from that first time, though she took it out at the end of the month. She didn’t want to admit what she really was, did you darling?” She stroked Veronica’s hair gently. The woman swallowed hard. “But the second time, she kept it. The third time...the ring in her right nipple...she stayed for a week and at the end she asked...pleaded...for a ring in her other nipple too. After that she understood. She came back on her own, and begged for my collar.”
“But you haven’t granted it to her.”
“Not yet. That was three weeks ago. Like I said before, she must prove herself. I set her a task to win three fights...to claim three prizes of her own. Until now, she has only won one...and lost three. Two of those were to our own girls, and so...” She pointed to the rings in Veronica’s navel and nostril.
“You have a thing for ritual,” observed Vanessa.
“We do,” agreed her host. “But you’ve worked among the fetish community for a long time, Professor. It should come as no surprise to you.” She reached out a hand and her nails stroked the back of Vanessa’s forearm. “Your rituals define who you are...what you really are.” She placed the slightest accent on the word ‘really’.
Vanessa struggled to suppress a shiver. It was difficult not to return Monique’s touch. She’ll make you want to do things. She knew it would be presumptuous and would likely gain her a slap on the wrist – metaphorically if not physically. More importantly, she knew it would be the top of a slippery slope. How had she gotten here, without even realizing it? She had to force herself to return Monique’s meaningful gaze.
CONTINUED BELOW...
