Chapter 16

“I have an apartment here in the city,” Dana explained. She had pulled the rented car out of the street space she had squeezed it into earlier, and into the morning traffic. “It’s more convenient after shows, and events, and .. " she paused, glancing aside at Valerie, who was staring out the window at the Friday bustle.

Valerie felt strange, watching everyone jostle their cars through the gridlock. She felt distant from the experience already, and wondered if she’d ever have to worry about a commute again.

“And hosting… people,” Dana continued, somewhat awkwardly. “I don’t like strangers in my home.”

Valerie turned her attention back toward Dana, and felt her cheeks flush. The memory of the kiss they had shared burned inside her, and the amount of longing she felt to have Dana’s hands on her again was powerful, and distracting. Nervousness still lurked at the edges, too, a skeptical itch in her mind whispering that this was too good to be true. She thought about how little she knew about the woman.

“Do you have a girlfriend? A boyfriend? Lucca?”

“Lucca and I are.. friends, or… but they’re… we’re not like that.”

Valerie could tell there was more to the story, but she didn’t press. Dana was thoughtful and silent— even pensive, Valerie thought— for a moment before she continued.

“I don’t have anyone like that. I’m.. not very good with people. Like that. Relationships.”

“That seems hard to believe.” You’re beautiful, smart, wealthy, kind… she thought, without giving voice to the specifics.

Dana shrugged, focusing for a moment as she merged into the heavy, slowly-moving highway traffic.

“I have unique tastes. Even for the kink community… It’s mostly men, you know- not my flavor- and so many of the rest are.. playing. Just playing. I’ll play sometimes too, but it’s not real. Not… what I want.”

The contract definitely isn’t playful, Valerie thought, nodding in agreement. They were only on the highway a short time before Dana steered them back onto surface streets, toward the downtown high-rises.

“And anyway,” Dana concluded, “whether or not you believe it, I’m not very good at people. Nuance is hard for me, sometimes. It’s part of why…” She gestured towards Valerie.

“I thought it’d be easier if I didn’t have to.. ask. Negotiate. If it didn’t matter what the other person thought or felt.”

“I see,” Valerie responded, softly. Her eyes were fixed on Dana while she imagined what it might be like to be so totally under her power. She wanted to find out.

“I.. guess I’m not good at not caring.”

The drive through the city had taken almost forty-five minutes, thanks to Friday morning traffic. Dana’s apartment was on an upper floor of the kind of building they don’t let you look at unless your net worth exceeds eight figures. They left the car with the building’s valet, who would return it to the rental agency on their behalf, and ascended in a spotless and gleaming double-sided elevator. Dana’s unit occupied the northern half of one floor; the elevator opened directly into a private lounge that was larger than the entire footprint of Valerie’s apartment. Valerie felt shabby, and out of place.

As soon as the elevator closed behind them, Dana turned and slipped her hand around the back of Valerie’s neck. Dana tightened her grip there and stepped forward into the girl’s personal space, pushing her body against Valerie’s. Valerie was too surprised to even gasp prettily; the overnight bag she held slipped from her hand.

“You haven’t signed the contract yet,” Dana whispered into her ear. “So for now,” she lifted the other hand to the side of the girl’s face, and ran the edge of her nail along the jawline. “You can say ’no,’” Dana kissed her, with more tenderness than Valerie expected; while backing her slowly against the wall. “If you want.”

Valerie couldn’t imagine saying no to Dana.

Dana ran a line of small kisses up the girl’s jaw, randomly punctuated with small nips from her teeth. Valerie felt the woman’s breath hot against her ear and time seemed to stand still. Dana stepped back with a half-sigh/half-moan of anticipatory hunger, and smiled. Her smile had an edge to it that set Valerie’s heart racing faster even than the kiss already had. Her lips were still gently parted while her brain rebooted.

“Strip.” Dana’s voice was dusky and feminine and inevitable.

Valerie obeyed, and pulled her knitted sweater up over her head, revealing the black bra beneath that cradled her small breasts. Her skin prickled with goosebumps in the air, despite its climate-controlled warmth. She dropped the sweater to the side, and slipped out of her suede boots, and the mismatched patterned socks she wore beneath.

Dana stood back, crossing her arms while she watched. It was not a striptease, but it was obedience, and she found that more engaging than any coquettish little dance could ever be.

Valerie worked the jeans off her legs; they weren’t skintight, but there was still no sexy way to get out of jeans. Her high-cut bikini-style underwear didn’t match the black bra; they were jewel-tone blue with a print of frolicking cats. She was visibly hard through the thin material, her yearning and submissiveness on display. She added her jeans to the growing pile and then faced Dana, feeling slightly awkward.

Valerie didn’t think much of her body; she thought her breasts were too small for her frame, her waist carried a little more weight from stress eating over the past few months then she wanted, and her hips were too narrow to balance it all out. She was never very athletic and her arms and legs were all soft curves, not the toned muscle of Dana’s crossed arms. As she stood there partially clothed, she looked scared and a little nervous; she felt intensely and imperfectly human, in the presence of a divine creature.

Dana cleared her throat. “I didn’t tell you to stop. Keep going.” She gestured brusquely at the girl’s bra and panties.

Valerie swallowed, nervousness ratcheting up a notch, but she reached behind her back to unclasp her bra, and let it slide off her arms; and then pushed her underwear down past her hips and stepped out of it. She looked back up at Dana, a silent plea in her eyes, begging Dana to find her worthy.

Heather had not liked to see her naked, at the end of their relationship. She had never said anything, but Valerie noticed the way her eyes always slid past when she was bare. Even on those rare days where she felt good about her body, Heather had always found a way to take the wind out of her sails, often with nothing more than a hint of an eyeroll.

Dana was the first person to see her naked since then.

Dana looked… hungry; and gleeful. Her eyes sparkled. Her gaze devoured Valerie, and she seemed to relish every inch. She stepped forward again; put a hand against the soft curve of Valerie’s waist, and raised her other to brush her thumb past Valerie’s nipple. The girl gasped; she had never thought her nipples especially sensitive, but Dana’s touch was electric.

“I’ve seen you naked before,” Dana murmured in Valerie’s ear. “On camera. This is so much better. You’re beautiful.”

“You’ve-” Valerie started, but Dana put a finger to the girl’s lips; then thought better of it, and kissed her silent, instead, sliding her hand around to cup the side of Valerie’s face.

“Come with me,” Dana commanded her, and then turned and walked toward one of the bedrooms. Valerie looked after her with tears prickling her eyes. At least for a moment, she saw herself reflected in Dana’s gaze; and in that moment, she liked the reflection she saw. She hurried after the woman.

Black hemp rope secured Valerie’s arms in a box tie, and similar lengths bound her legs together at thigh and calf with two-column ties. Her legs were bent at the knee and pulled up by a line running from the calf rope to a single column wrapped around her doubled forearms. A strand of rope braided into her messily plaited hair pulled her head back, giving her a range of motion measured in inches. It wasn’t quite a hogtie, but it pulled her body up into a subtle curve nonetheless. The only thing she wore aside from rope was a leather collar, so deeply crimson it was nearly black, which was locked around her throat with a small, shiny padlock.

She couldn’t move from that position, but she was too distracted to care— her head was nestled between Dana’s bare thighs, and she licked worshipfully at Dana’s sex, doing her best to coax the woman over the edge to orgasm. Dana’s hand twisted through Valerie’s hair and rope at the back of her head, holding her in place, and one slender calf draped over Valerie’s back.

Valerie could feel herself hard against the bed, turned on and desperate after Dana’s teasing, the meticulous bondage, and the minutes she’d spent buried between the woman’s legs. Dana’s taste coated her lips and tongue. She found an angle on the woman’s clit that elicited a gasp, and she felt Dana tense, her legs starting to tremble.

Dana’s moans took on a guttural tone and she arched her back, and clutched the girl’s hair tight enough to make her whimper, and pulled her closer, harder. Dana twitched, letting out one final, loud moan, and then relaxed back, letting go of Valerie’s head. They were both breathing heavily; Dana sprawled in front of the girl, who could only relax into her bonds. Valerie whimpered her need and desperation as she ground her hips, gently and fruitlessly, into the mattress. She couldn’t so much as form words to ask for what she wanted.

Dana rested for a moment, sighing in pure contentedness, letting the tremors and aftershocks shudder through her. She leaned forward, putting her lips near Valerie’s ear.

“You did so good,” she whispered. “You worked so hard, baby, and I’m so proud of you, my little toy.”

Dana rolled Valerie on to her side, and untied the ropes running from her hair to her arms, and those from her arms to her calves. She left the girl’s arms box-tied, and her legs bound together, and turned her again onto her back. She spent a few minutes licking, nibbling, and sucking on the girl’s nipples, enjoying the sounds of her increasing need and frustration.

Valerie’s face was desperate with an unspoken plea for release as she watched Dana roll off the bed into a standing position. The woman moaned softly with pleasure as she stretched out her muscles.

Valerie whimpered with a growing fear that Dana would just leave her like that, bound and tortured and so close. The knowledge that she was under Dana’s control, and the woman could simply leave her there heightened her arousal even more. A part of her longed for the submissive bliss of being so-used and simply left there for her arousal to cool, as much as it would.

Dana stroked gently up along the bottom of Valerie’s dick, just a little more teasing— estrogen had made the skin there sensitive, and delicate, and she didn’t want to cause any damage. She fished a vibrator out of the side table and started teasing it up and down the girl’s length; Valerie instantly started moaning, and as aroused as she already was, it took little extra effort to push her over the edge and elicit a trickle of thin clear liquid. The girl’s moans and twitching were the much more obvious signs of her enjoyment; and her eyes gazed upward at Dana with a look of relaxed bliss.

Dana caught the few drips of cum Valerie had produced on her fingertips, brought those fingers to the girl’s lips, and smiled devilishly as Valerie obediently licked them clean of her own fluids.

They laid together alongside each other for a few moments, simply feeling their bodies pressed together. Dana ran her hands along the softness of the still-bound girl’s body, who in turn nuzzled the woman, as much as she could, and made softly contented sounds in return.

Dana untied Valerie’s arms before the two drifted off, but she re-secured her wrists in leather cuffs, matched to the collar; and with matching padlocks. She secured the wrist cuffs together, and to the attachment ring at the front of the collar. Valerie had enough range of motion to find a comfortable position, despite being secured.

They fell asleep that way; Dana’s body wrapped around Valerie’s from behind, blissfully breathing in the smell of her skin and hair. Valerie slept unevenly, in the unfamiliar restraints. She awoke numerous times, gasping softly or whimpering from fragmentary nightmares. Each time, Dana’s embrace and even breathing soothed her back to sleep. As uneven as her sleep was, in those waking moments in between, she would not have traded for the best night’s rest if it would mean losing the safety of feeling Dana’s arms holding her close.