Chapter 32

Valerie stood naked in front of the full length mirror in Dana’s bathroom, staring at herself. Her eyes were fixed on the metal that Lucca had put through her body. She had been staring for several minutes, lost in thought; occasionally she turned, just to watch the light glint off of the new piercings.

The day before, when she and Lucca had been talking through the kink quiz, she had shyly given a ‘green’ both to the concept of body piercings, and to having them forced on her. Valerie had always admired them on other people, but never had the courage — or the money — to pursue them on her own. The idea of her domme modifying her body of their own accord, even then, made her giddy and breathless. The fact that it had become real did not dampen the eroticism of it for her. She had not imagined that Lucca would fulfill the fantasy so immediately; but the predominant emotion she felt was gratitude.

As a punishment, she felt that she had gotten off easy. Another whipping, even half as intense as the first one, would have been nearly impossible to bear. The piercings had not been as physically harrowing as an impact session, and she had been so oversaturated with sensation, at the time, that she did not even realize it was happening. She could not deny, however, their effectiveness as a reminder. As long as they stayed in her body, she would remember who had put them there and why.

Valerie knew that as soon as Dana saw them, she would no longer have a choice in whether or not — or how long — they stayed. Her decision, every moment, not to use a safe word and ask Lucca to remove them felt weighty, and significant.

“You done ogling? Dinner’s here.”

Valerie jumped; she had not noticed Lucca standing just outside the threshold to the bathroom, and she was not sure how long they had been watching her. As her attention returned to the present, she could indeed smell the Thai food, and her stomach reminded her that all she had eaten that day had been a mug of black coffee. She thought she remembered hearing the doorbell, but it had not registered as important at the time.

“I— sorry, yeah, uhm..”

Valerie tried to remember what she was supposed to have been doing. Lucca had held her, for a while, after sex… she was not sure how long, but it might have been an hour; and then her stomach had growled, and Lucca had sent her to shower while they ordered dinner.

She picked the towel up from where she had dropped it on the floor in front of the mirror, and draped it neatly over the rack.

“Are you going to get dressed?” Lucca asked, watching her hang the towel up.

“I— I’m not allowed—”

“Right. Yeah. Your protocols.”

Valerie thought she detected an implied eye roll in Lucca’s tone, and she blushed crimson, reminded suddenly of how little humanity Dana allowed her. She knew, on some level, that it should have made her angry, or at least sad. Instead, and despite how tired she was after the day’s activity, the idea was still erotic and arousing.

“Go put the pajamas back on. Or clean ones, if you have another set.”

Valerie dressed in a short crimson silk pajama set from the closet rather than fetching the flannel set from downstairs, and hurried after. She was ravenous.

Lucca set the delivery containers out on the small dining table while Valerie fetched bowls and silverware. She served herself rice, and green curry with tofu and potatoes; Lucca ate directly from a container of red curry, with dark chunks floating in it that Valerie thought might have been beef or lamb.

“How was that, for you?” Lucca asked, once Valerie had eaten a few bites.

Valerie blinked at them, slightly confused.

“How was—? The food?” She looked down at her curry.

“The food…” Lucca replied, their tone just barely not mocking. “The scene. Girl. How was the scene?”

“Oh..” Valerie blinked, flushing.

She busied herself with another bite of curry.

“It was.. uhm.. good… I..” She drew in a breath, shuddering slightly. Even hours later she was still getting little twitching aftershocks, and thinking too hard about how incredibly hot it had been would only bring more tremors.

“I’ve never orgasmed like that before,” she finished, her voice just slightly unsteady.

“It was pretty impressive,” Lucca agreed.

“What would the reward have been if I’d picked, uhm, denial?”

Lucca shrugged, smiling slightly.

“I don’t know, I knew you wouldn’t pick that. I would have come up with something.”

Valerie ate quietly for a few minutes, feeling somewhat uncomfortably seen.

“Thank you..” she said, shyly, breaking the silence.

“Hmm?” Lucca replied around a mouthful of curry.

“I just.. I know you were hesitant. About me. You could’ve just left.”

Lucca chewed their bite of food thoughtfully before replying.

“You need someone on your side, girl.”

“Dana—”

Lucca shook their head, cutting her off; though she was not entirely sure how she was going to finish the sentence.

“Dana cares about you, and she’s, you know, more or less a good person. But all this—” They gestured broadly around the house, and then toward Valerie herself. “This is for her, not for you.”

Valerie poked at her food for a while, trying to figure out how to ask the questions that were swirling in her head. She wanted someone on her side; desperately. There was a short time, years ago, that she thought that was Heather. She might have laughed at how comically wrong she was, if it did not still hurt so much. If some part of her did not, against all reason, still miss the woman, even after all the different ways Heather had hurt her. In some of her darkest moment, she had wondered whether she still missed Heather because her ex-partner had hurt her so much.

Lucca was impressive… intimidating, even. They were competent, powerful, uniquely beautiful. The fantasy of someone like them at her side was undeniably alluring; but Valerie did not know anything about them, really; and the first face they had shown her was dangerous, almost cruel. From her perspective, Lucca and Dana shared that in common.

“What…” she started asking a question and then immediately regretted it, but Lucca was looking at her expectantly.

She took a nervous sip of her water, chewed on her lower lip, and then tried again. She could not look at Lucca as she spoke.

“What was going on, with you? When you got here?”

Her eyes flickered up quickly enough to catch Lucca’s expression darkening as they processed the question. They did not immediately answer.

“You were so angry, as soon as you got here, and— and Dana—”

“I signed a contract too, a long time ago.”

Valerie’s gaze snapped fully up, wide-eyed in surprise.

“What?”

“Not the same as yours. But not… Not so very different.”

“Different how?”

Lucca frowned, shook their head. They waved a hand, dismissing the question.

“I know what it means to give your life away to someone else. It’s stupid.”

Lucca sighed in frustration, pushing their food away from them and standing up from the table.

“You were stupid,” they continued, and Valerie flushed at their words. “But you’re lucky. Luckier than I was. Stupid and lucky.”

“I don’t know about lucky…” Valerie murmured, her voice small.

Lucca seemed angry again, their ire rekindled by her questioning. Valerie wanted to slink away and hide. Stupid, she felt, certainly. She didn’t think the path that had brought her to that point counted as lucky.

Lucca didn’t seem to hear — or didn’t heed — Valerie’s protest.

“I couldn’t believe Dana would something like this, to someone. Like what he’d— what happened to me.”

“I don’t— Lucca, I don’t know what happened to you. But Dana saved me. There’s not—”

Valerie was surprised to find herself crying; it felt like confronting the bleakness of her situation before Dana. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and continued.

“There’s not a world where I’m okay without—” she gestured broadly around Dana’s home. “Or without this.” She tugged on the collar around her throat.

Lucca clenched and unclenched their jaw, staring at Valerie while they thought about how to respond. After a brief pause, Valerie continued.

“I’m not like you. I don’t— I don’t have some compound out in the desert. I don’t have other choices.”

She stabbed her fork into a piece of tofu, but her stomach was twisted in knots and she couldn’t bring herself to eat it.

“And… I don’t know. Maybe you can be angry at Dana, but without all of this, I’m just… I’m nobody.”

“You’re not nobody,” Lucca replied reflexively, but Valerie thought she detected an edge of desperation in their voice. Valerie thought Lucca wished it was true, but they both knew it wasn’t.

She shrugged.

“Well, whatever. You weren’t going to help me, were you?”

Lucca pressed their lips together, mildly annoyed by the question.

“I didn’t know you.”

“That’s my point. You’re mad at Dana for doing what she did, but there’s not an option where she doesn’t do that and I’m okay. The world doesn’t work that way. So either you have to be mad at me and mad at Dana because because I didn’t lose my job, lose my home, and… I don’t know. Or you give it up.”

Lucca did indeed look mad, but they also couldn’t come up with a rebuttal. They dropped heavily back into the chair they had vacated.

“Fuck you,” they replied, eventually, with an air of begrudging acceptance.

Valerie leaned back in her chair, satisfied, even if she had not entirely shaken off the weight of the conversation.

“Any time,” she shot back, with a small smile.