by Heidi Lowe
Clara was in her life now, but what did any of that matter? She didn't have the history we did. She couldn't be to her what I was. I had to remind myself of that.
"I'm not in the mood tonight. I want to get home."
"Call a taxi. I'm not done here," he said, waving me away dismissively, and returning his tongue to the mouth of some piece of ass he'd just met.
"Whatever, asshole," I said, and took off, politely declining the advances of the human men and women as I left. No rendezvous with Oliver was ever complete without him bugging me and me calling him an asshole, then leaving.
The absence of French conversation when I got home half an hour later signaled that Clara had already left. Good. I was sick of her voice and that stupid language, however irrational that made me. And although Jean immediately stopped using it when I was around, I still suspected they used it deliberately to make me feel left out.
The lights were off downstairs, so I crept upstairs, headed for our bedroom. I heard a noise coming from Jean's office.
She was at her laptop when I knocked and entered.
"I just wanted to say that I'm back," I said, hovering at the door like a child at the principal's office.
"Okay," she said without looking up.
Uh-oh, she was really pissed. I prayed I hadn't pushed her too far the other way. There was always that possibility.
"You said you wanted to speak to me."
"It can wait. I'm busy now."
That was her inadvertent way of telling me to get the hell out of her office and leave her alone. Yeah, I'd definitely pushed it too far. What was it about Oliver besides, well, everything, that riled her up so much?
"Well, I'll be in bed if you wanna talk." I hovered a little while longer, hoping her countenance would thaw, but it didn't, she simply continued tapping away at her computer.
For the next half an hour, while I waited for her in bed, panic set in. The temptation to run back into the office and grovel came over me more than once. But then I told myself that I had nothing to be sorry for. If anything, she should have been the one apologizing.
The expression she wore when she eventually did walk in made me shiver. She said nothing to me while she climbed out of her clothes, and I watched her without turning away, not knowing what her next move would be. Her eyes were trained on me as she stripped down to her underwear, still wearing that same, hostile expression.
"Answer me one thing, Lissa. Were you trying to anger me?"
I crossed my arms defiantly. "By going out with Oliver? Maybe."
She nodded. "That's what I thought." Slowly, like a tiger stalking its prey, she prowled toward the bed, and yanked back the covers. "You thought it was a good idea to leave in the middle of the night with that boy instead of spending time with your girlfriend?"
"Well–" I started, but never got to finish my sentence, because she pulled me down by my legs so I landed flat on my back. The shock of the action made me gasp. "W–what are you doing?"
It was a stupid question, seeing as it was pretty obvious. Roughly, though with a calm face, she yanked my pajama pants down along with my panties, then worked my top off, taking no care. When there was nothing left to take, she settled herself on top of me, peering down at my anxious face with delight.
"You were in the wrong. I want you to admit that," she breathed, her eyes dancing with relish, her hot breath on my face.
My voice came out quiet, wary. "I went out with a friend. There's nothing wrong with that."
Judging by the look on her face, she wasn't of the same belief. She pressed down her full weight on me, moved a little so the fabric of her panties grazed my sex. Her eyes glistened as she watched the effect it had on me.
"You just can't help defying me, can you? You always have to be right."
I gulped. This was a side of her I'd never seen, and it made me uncertain. What was she going to do with me?
Our eyes were locked on each other's; hers filled with delight, mine with trepidation. In that moment I realized that she owned me, that my body belonged to her to do with as she pleased, and I had no say in the matter. I knew I was about to get a much needed lesson in authority.
Unblinkingly, I watched as she brought two fingers to her mouth, sucked them painfully slowly, eyes on me the whole time.
Those fingers didn't remain in her mouth for long. I gulped as they disappeared from view, and reached their final destination.
Her entry wasn't as rough as I expected, but the piercing still made me cry out. It was always painful the first time, and since turning, there had been many first times. Every entry was new, unbroken. But once she got going, the pain became a thing of the past, making way for pleasure. And oh was there a lot of that.
"Why are you so stubborn, Lissa?" she whispered against my lips, as she stabbed away at my sex. My body rocked and jerked beneath her. "Hmm?"
My mouth was open, but the only sounds that escaped were my strangled whimpers and moans.
She asked the question several times, and I couldn't answer once. Not unless you could call whining and moaning an answer.
Her fingers worked their magic deep inside me, prodding that rough, hard spot over and over, never once missing it. She knew my body inside and out, like no one ever had before her. No punishment had ever been so sweet.
"What was that, honey, I can't hear you?" she said, joy in her voice as my cries grew louder. "This is how I like you – submissive. You're very submissive when my fingers are inside you."
Everything about this was new and wonderful. You think you know what someone's capable of, then they turn around and surprise you with wild, turbulent sex that makes your whole body tingle.
She knew that by doing it this way she could prolong my punishment for as long as she wanted; she was in control of my orgasm. She gave and took, putting me through agony and not allowing me to climax whenever I came close.
"Look at me, Lissa," she said. I did as I was told, even though my eyes kept fluttering shut as the shocks tore through me. "Are you going to defy me again?"
I managed to shake my head, albeit slightly. "No, never." It sounded just as tortured as my vagina felt!
"Good. Would you like to come now?" She didn't wait for my reply, because she knew there wouldn't be one. I was too far gone. Her plowing sped up, got rougher, until my body expired. The cry that escaped me sounded bestial.
The come down took forever. I was totaled, destroyed both physically and emotionally. Submission never felt good once the sex was over, especially faced with a now laughing partner, who reveled in her victory.
I turned my head away when she tried to kiss me, and that only made her laugh again. She was still inside me, but exited shortly after.
"You don't like me now?" she cooed, kissing my face. "You're not talking to me?"
"That was mean," I said, but I turned my head to face her. My anger was feigned. Yes, I felt defeated, but she'd just given me one of the best orgasms I'd ever had. How could I stay mad at that?
"I know, I'm sorry, my darling. I couldn't resist," she said, kissing me over and over. This was the woman I knew, though I wouldn't have objected to seeing the other side again.
"God, that was so hot! You were all, 'Lissa, why are you so stubborn?' I can't believe you just did that to me."
"I didn't hurt you, did I?" She must have felt guilty, because she overloaded me with kisses, everywhere she could.
"No, are you kidding? Where have you been hiding that side of you? I should get you mad more often."
Her laugh was smoky, tired, as though she was the one who'd just had the life screwed out of her. "I figured you were trying to make me mad on purpose. I saw it in your eyes before you left with him."
She was wise to my tricks. That brought a smile to my face. She'd known what I was up to in leaving with Oliver; she'd seen how badly I wanted her.
"You made me think you were furious with me when I got back. I really thought I'd gone too far."
"Oh, I'm sorry,
baby."
I didn't bother trying to search for my panties to put them back on, I simply lay in her arms, naked, loving the feel of her flesh against mine. I was always the little spoon, a position I fit snugly into, and felt safe in. Although the sex was divine, this was what I lived for. Being held, being loved, being one.
"Does it bother you when I drink from the source?" I asked after a while. She'd never said as much, but I'd suspected it.
She didn't answer right away, which caused me to turn around and look at her. Then she said, "I don't like thinking about you with other women, especially doing something as intimate as that."
I'd never thought of feeding as intimate when I did it, because it was never about the intimacy for me. The women didn't matter. I had no attraction to them; they were simply a meal. But for them, it was completely different. To them it was sexual.
"Then I won't do it again," I said adamantly.
"Just like that?" She looked surprised.
"Just like that."
We spooned again and she thanked me. I would have done anything for her. It meant nothing to give it up, and everything to make her happy.
"By the way, what was the thing you wanted to discuss with me?"
"How do you feel about Clara moving in with us?"
I should have known my good mood wouldn't last forever.
TWENTY-NINE
How I felt and what I said were two completely different things. I resented the fact that she dumped such a bombshell on me after our beautiful moment. It made me think that had been her plan all along: to butter me up in order to deliver the final blow.
"Isn't she going back to Europe soon?" I'd asked, trying to gauge just how long this arrangement would last. "What about her children?"
"Her visa is for three months, there are still eight weeks left on it. After that, she'll go back."
Eight weeks?! Eight more weeks of clandestine conversations coded in French, of me playing tag-along in their mother-daughter bonding sessions? Eight more weeks of sharing my girlfriend with this woman who, without even trying, had turned our lives upside down? I wasn't sure I had the strength to endure such torture. It was fine when I knew that the night would end and she would crawl back to that grubby motel, but now that she would be here with us, down the hall...
"You know this is your house too, Lissa," Jean had said after a long silence passed without my answer. "If you're not okay with it, just say so."
How could I say no? She would dislike me for it, for standing in the way of her time with her daughter. And, despite her claim that this was my house, I still didn't feel as if I had enough authority to refuse.
In love, one had to make sacrifices. If that meant opening my home to Clara in order to make Jean happy, she would get no argument from me.
"I don't have a problem with it," was my reply, the only choice I had.
My problem with Clara had nothing to do with her personality, or anything she had control over. She couldn't have, for instance, gone back in time and grown in somebody else's womb! It wasn't her fault that her mother had a neurotically jealous and selfish life partner who had never been taught to share. It wasn't her fault that I'd lost almost everyone that had ever mattered to me, and feared Jean might be next. Those were my demons to get over. She deserved a chance. Jean deserved my cooperation. After all, it was only eight weeks out of a lifetime. How bad could it really be?
Aside from a few words we'd exchanged in Jean's presence, Clara and I hadn't spoken properly. So on the evening of the day she moved in, when Jean had been called away to the casino, I decided to break the ice, do my stepmother duty and welcome her to our home.
She was hanging her clothes in the closet when I entered her room. She had already emptied one suitcase and was onto the second.
"Hello," she said, smiling a welcome to me. Her smile reminded me so much of Jean's, that it immediately made me warm to her. If she was even a little like the woman I loved above everything, I would soon find a place for her in my heart, too, I mused. In time.
"Hey," I said, hanging by the door. "Just wanted to see if you were settling in okay. I think that's what people do." I laughed nervously, scratched the back of my head. Being a host was actually more difficult than it seemed.
"Very well, thank you. This is a nice house. A nice atmosphere."
So far, so good.
"I think so too. You would have loved the last place. It was much bigger, brighter." My eyes scanned the room, caught sight of the framed pictures of her children on the chest of drawers. Jean's grandchildren. It still hadn't fully sunk in, and I didn't think it ever would. My girlfriend had grand-kids! Hardly something you wanted to broadcast to the world.
"Why did you move?" she asked, stopping for a minute and sitting on her bed. The room was minimally furnished, with just a double bed, a closet and chest, and a wooden chair with one leg missing in the far corner. I'd never been in here before, never had reason to.
I shrugged. "Change of scenery," I said coyly. And a bunch of other stuff I have no intention of divulging to a complete stranger, family or not.
She watched me carefully, as if she knew I wasn't being forthcoming. "Did it have anything to do with what happened to your mother?"
I froze. "What are you talking about?"
"Jean told me what happened to your parents. What she did to your mother. How hard it was for both of you to overcome..."
Were my ears deceiving me? Had Jean seriously told this person we'd only just met about our past?
"Why did she tell you all of that?" I asked, feeling betrayed. It was such a dark, horrible part of our history that I never wanted anyone new to find out about.
Her smile couldn't have been more condescending, whether she meant it that way or not. "She is my mother. We're trying to get off on the right foot by having no secrets."
My laugh was humorless. Oh, the irony. "I wish she would have found her conscience sooner," I mumbled, hoping she didn't hear me.
"I'm sorry I brought it up. If I knew it was an issue, I wouldn't have said anything."
"No, it's fine. I guess you have a right to know what happened. It affects you too."
She continued putting her clothes away. As I was about to leave, she added, "I don't know how you do it, though."
I stopped. "I'm sorry? Do what?"
"All of this. Living with the woman who took your mother from you. And am I correct in saying that they were lovers too?"
I stood stock-still, unable to speak or move. Numb.
"I couldn't do it. It would be too weird." She shook her head. "You're so forgiving. Letting me stay here even though it must be hard to see us together, knowing that your own mother is gone, and you can't ever have what we have."
It wasn't as though I hadn't thought about this myself a hundred times; but hearing this stranger break it down, talk about me as though she knew me, highlight how debauched she thought my relationship was, cut like a thousand knives.
I just stared at her, through her, seeing past her to nothing. Blackness. Wondering how someone could say something so horrible with such ease.
"Lissa, sorry, I spoke out of turn again." She offered me a little laugh and a false smile, which I saw right through.
"Forget it," I said through gritted teeth. It had never been harder to bite my tongue. A dozen or more insults sat at the tip, begging to come out. But I held back and said instead, "I just wanted to welcome you to my house. Hope you enjoy your stay," then turned and left.
Her innocent, bumbling idiot routine didn't fool me for a second. She'd deliberately tried to hurt me, and it had worked.
What the hell had I just agreed to?
I didn't tear my eyes away from my book when Jean came into our bedroom. She'd just spent the last half an hour gossiping with Clara like twin sisters sharing the same room. So I'd thrown myself into a novel – a lesbian romance I'd had in my collection for a couple of years. At least in that I could live vicariously through the characters, who always got h
appy endings in those types of stories.
Jean wasn't the kind of woman that liked to be ignored, in favor of a book or anything else. And when she wanted a kiss, she was determined to get it. With one hand she turned my head away from the book, then pressed her lips to mine.
It should have made me mad to have no say in what happened to my mouth, to be forced into a kiss without my permission. But who was I kidding? Those kisses meant everything to me, and there was nothing else in the world I would rather have been doing.
"Hello," she said with a victorious smile. She sat on the bed and regarded me lovingly. That look made my heart melt. No one else had or indeed ever could look at me that way and make me feel like the most important person in the world.
"Hi," I said, momentarily hypnotized by her gaze. Just when I thought I couldn't love her any more than I already did, she had to go and be beautiful and adoring. I became the Lissa of old, falling in love with her for the first time every time I looked at her.
"Did you go to the gallery this evening?"
"Yeah, but just for an hour or so." I hadn't planned on going there at all, but after Clara's harsh words, I needed to get out of the house.
She studied me for a while, and I had to look away. That was a mistake.
"What's wrong?" she asked, taking the book from me, sticking the bookmark in it, then putting it aside. "You seem quiet tonight."
"Nothing." It was an exercise in futility trying to pretend as though everything was fine. I should have just saved my breath.
"Did something happen at the gallery...or here?"
"Why did you tell Clara about what happened with my mother?"
"Wasn't I supposed to tell her?"
"It wasn't your story to tell. I don't want every Tom, Dick and Harry knowing about it."
She sighed. "Lissa, she isn't every Tom, Dick and Harry, she's my daughter."
I rolled my eyes. "How could I forget? You only remind me about it every five minutes!"
"What has gotten into you?" Her brow furrowed, her expression was one of concern more than anger.
