Story of L

by Debra Hyde

  In the hush that followed, L saddened at the lost opportunity Sunderland represented: the chance to engage in something many submissives dreamed about, the total immersion into a slave existence. Where rules meant struggling against one's own ingrained behaviors. Where failure meant punishment and success might be greeted with indifference. Where one had to thrive on the knowledge of a job well done and find the motivation to continue from within. Then, to embrace that internal discovery and make it an operational default so one need not rely on the praise or notice of a mistress. Because the mistress's happiness relied on suiting her whim and your proficiency, not on your need for reward and attention.

  But the quest had ended abruptly, sullied by human foibles. By greed and power. The apex of fantasy, so universally longed for, dashed against the rocks of stormy human conflict.

  And I barely tasted it, L thought.

  She wondered if another chance would arise. Would the ideal of submissive slavery remain Cassandra's objective or had Sunderland torn that apart too?

  A half hour into the drive home, Cassandra softened, as if she let drain away some of the stiff stoicism that had propped her up to this point. Yet her silence continued and she looked at the window into the dark hours of the night, clearly bereft and alone. Perhaps some of her anger had faded, but what remained seemed like thin ice, dangerous in its fragility.

  L wanted to test that ice, but Reese's voice sounded in her head, a memory of value and caution. “Watch your step.” She considered the advice, but courage and willfulness won out.

  She reached out and took Cassandra's hand.

  No grateful squeeze returned to her, no turn of the head, and certainly no smile, but L did not need acknowledgement. It was enough to simply hold her mistress's hand.

  For a moment, Cassandra stiffened, then that too drained away, and she accepted the gesture.

  More time passed, an eternity it seemed to L, before Cassandra released L's hand, turned on an interior light, and turned to her. Her expression flat, she reached into a pocket, then extended her hand. L looked down and saw the Tenerife lace. In the aftermath of conflict, amid the quiet, stiff pain that followed, L had forgotten all about it.

  “What is this?” Cassandra asked placidly and without demand.

  “It's called Tenerife lace. I made it,” L explained. She gulped, ready to dare the admission. “To remind me of you. To keep you close to me.”

  She wondered how much she should divulge.

  “At night,” she added. She gulped again, this time, forcing back how all weeks of waiting had affected her. How sated Cassandra had left her; smitten too. The joyous delight of discovering Cassandra's mutual attraction. How easy some hoops had been, how difficult others had proven. She ached to reveal how worried she had been that she wouldn't sustain her lust for Cassandra in the ongoing absence. How fulfilling that one evening at Cassandra's had been, how it had carried her forward, stronger and surer for the experience.

  How she had grown from twitter-painted, greedy bottom to a willing, giving submissive.

  All this, L choked back. It felt to attention-getting and self-serving. Reserve, she decided, was the better part of valor.

  “It's ingenious,” Cassandra said with tempered admiration. “But how does it keep me close to you?”

  “Put it to your nose,” Reese volunteered.

  Cassandra did and sniffed. Baffled, she sniffed a second time. “I don't get it.”

  “The scent may have faded,” L explained. “Every morning I dabbed it with Cabochard. Every night, I slept with it next to me. Or under my pillow.”

  Crimson heat burned across her cheeks. Admitting to this solitary, intimate ritual before Cassandra exposed L like nothing else had. Not like her spread legs from weeks ago. Not like the bare-bodied crawling and the creeping kisses. Not like the high femme of this weekend, her breasts displayed for all to see. Yet she felt a nakedness unlike any she'd ever felt.

  She felt transparent. And if she had the courage to reveal this rare detail, then she would never be able to withhold anything from Cassandra.

  Cassandra sniffed the lace again. “How ingenious,” she repeated. “How sad that I can't detect the scent.” She shrugged. “I guess I'm too acclimated to it.”

  Cassandra paused, deliberating. “Reese. You knew about this?”

  “I did,” Reese answer, dauntless in his admission and unruffled.

  “When?”

  “Friday night, when I took L into her cell.”

  “I see.” Cassandra sounded mildly vexed. Perhaps Reese had second-guessed her wrong.

  “I thought it a touching conceit, worthy enough to let pass,” he explained. “I'm sorry if I erred.”

  Cassandra sighed. “You're tightrope walking, Reese,” she cautioned.

  “Understood, ma'am. I'll pull back.”

  L saw a language there, an attractive, long-established pattern of openness and transparency. Reese had a certain amount of latitude in decision making and stood forthright bringing the truth to Cassandra. And Cassandra had her ways of telling him when he had extended his reach too far. L admired his confidence and competence—and his ability to heed his mistress's warning and step back as needed. Likewise, she admired Cassandra's pragmatic directness. Neither punitive nor invented, it was simply a realistic means to an end: better service, better servitude, and intrinsic reward for all.

  I'm lucky, so lucky, to be part of this.

  Yet Cassandra remained troubled, her tension unmistakable. “We knew the girls would soon reveal their hand. Something was going to happen. All it needed was a catalyst.”

  Cassandra turned to L and took her hand. This time, L sensed no tension, no stiff reluctance. “I'm sorry you got caught in the middle, L.”

  “I'm not, ma'am. Every woe is worth it as long as I can be yours.”

  Finally, a tear trickled from Cassandra. But it was hardly a thing of sorrow or remorse. Gratitude glimmered in her eyes and, drawing L into her arms, she poured her thanks into that embrace.

  Reese took L to Cassandra's bed, leaving her naked and under the covers. Sleep wanted to claim her immediately and completely, but L fought it, determined to wait for Cassandra. She leads; I follow. Despite her pledge, L hoped Cassandra would allow her to sleep. She had fought off exhaustion as best she could during the drive home but had finally succumbed to drowsy napping in the last hour, shaping it into, she hoped, a respectably acceptable submissive act: she curled up next to Cassandra. Now, given the wee hour and the emotional force of their last hours at Sunderland, L felt drained of all submissive strength.

  She need not have worried.

  Cassandra came to bed dressed in a sheer gauze nightgown. She slipped under the covers and pulled L close. She shaped herself around L, the intimacy unmistakable. L snuggled against Cassandra and welcomed the precious, warm spooning of her body. Cassandra nuzzled the back of L's neck, cupped her breast, and whispered to her.

  “Sleep.”

  A sweeter command, L could not imagine.

  L slept long enough that when she woke, she felt none of the ill effects deprivation usually provided. No stomachache, no wooziness. But sleep's drift still called to her and she reached for it.

  Only to stop.

  The bed was void, empty. But a sound, nearby. And then clarity. L shook off sleep's pull and spied its source.

  Cassandra, in an upholstered occasional chair. Crying. Sobbing.

  But it was a nearly silent torrent, a whispered anguish. As if Cassandra was capable only of a muted, voiceless lament.

  Light filtered through the window behind Cassandra, meager and tentative. Dawn's light, L realized. In it, Cassandra's suffering looked darkly beatific, the stuff of saints and martyrs alike. But L knew no selfless ascetic sat before her, no purveyor of miracles, no exemplar. Cassandra was a woman, purely and merely human, her pain born of the wrenching disappointment of heartbreak.

  Intuition told L what to do. She slipped from the bed and quietly slipped into a c
rouch. She approached her mistress, careful not to intrude, and gently curled up at her feet. There, she hoped submission's soft magic would soothe Cassandra and ease her heartache.

  Sunlight streamed through the window, its brilliance the autumn crispness of shortening days. It drew L from languid dreams, brought her to wakefulness, and made her aware that a blanket covered her. The night's sorrows returned to her, but her optimism felt renewed in the light of day. If fog comes on little cat feet, she thought as she stretched under the blanket, then sunlight likes to brush its tail affectionately against one's leg.

  Legs—they're gone! L shot upright, the blanket falling from her shoulders. Cassandra was gone from the room.

  But L was not alone. Near the door, Reese sat in an old Windsor chair, staring at her, but her first thought wasn't focused on Reese.

  “Is she okay?”

  Reese shrugged. “She's up and moving.”

  “She was crying last night.”

  He nodded. “Cur was an old friend, one of only a few she counted on anymore. He broke her heart last night.”

  Anymore. Cassandra's ramble returned to L. The business of growing old in the scene, of aging out and losing one's visibility, the turning of the tides that cast the old adrift and let the young take over—they had all been intangible to L. She had heard Cassandra's words and understood them in the abstract. But last night changed all that. Now, the matter was concrete, real, and she had witnessed its suffering firsthand.

  “How can I help?”

  Reese responded to her query with bright laughter, leaving her at once perplexed and suspicious of impending mockery. “What?” she half-demanded, irked.

  “You don't get it, do you?” Reese countered. “You already did help. Brilliantly. In fact, when she told me about last night and that you were still here, I had to come see it for myself.”

  L stared at him, clueless. He pointed at the floor before her.

  “That,” he explained, “the curling up.”

  L's irritability sloughed away. “Oh. That worked for her, then. I did okay.”

  “Big-time. She looked at me and said, ‘She listened to my heart.’ It's been a long time since I've seen her that touched by another person's gesture.”

  L should have reveled in her success, but thoughtfulness overcame her instead. She had not arrived at last night's decision based on active listening. She had relied on something more primitive and undefined—her intuition, and it had not failed her. When had she grown that attuned to Cassandra? Had they achieved a simpatico they weren't even aware of? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was simple guesswork that panned out.

  Regardless, L realized that she had made her choice and acted on it as a submissive. She had chosen to be a salve to Cassandra's wound and had served her mistress's needs without hesitation. Without thinking of herself first.

  L looked at Reese. “So that's why you enjoy serving her. It's its own reward.”

  Reese nodded. “And- for you, it's a relationship that has only just begun. You are wonderfully adept, L. You're perfect for Cassandra.”

  He patted the bed. “But enough of that. Come here. I have an examination to perform.”

  Intrigued, L rose and came to him, her eyebrows raised quizzically.

  “Lay down, on your back.”

  On the bed, she stared at the ceiling, flinching when Reese touched her thigh.

  “Sorry,” she offered. “I didn't know I was that tense.”

  “No problem.”

  She heard packaging tear—a sound she'd heard before but couldn't place. When she felt his touch at her clit, she flinched again, this time gasping. Reese was wiping her with an alcohol wipe. Another temporary piercing? Couldn't be. Not there!

  “What?” she pleaded.

  Reese moved his hand to her belly and gently rested it there. “How long did you have the clit piercing?”

  His change in tactic reminded her of a doctor trying a different approach with the nervous patient. He doesn't want me scared, she decided. Which meant needles weren't likely getting stuck in sensitive places. Relieved, she did the math.

  “Five years.”

  “And it was twelve gauge, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I'm going to test it to see if it has closed, starting with a fourteen-gauge taper. And sterile lube.”

  His hand returned to clit, searching for her piercing.

  “Ah! There it is,” he reported. “I'm going to slide the taper through. Tell me if there's any pain.”

  L closed her eyes and concentrated on keeping her breath calm and relaxed. Her breath caught when she felt cool metal against her flesh, then exhaled as the taper slid into her. A moment of resistance stymied the taper, then gave way to the sensation of metal passing through the tunnel. Again L gasped, but this time for an entirely different reason: the taper had passed over her clit. And as suddenly as it entered, it evacuated, leaving a distinct, hard throb in its wake.

  L moaned, smiling.

  “No pain?” Reese asked. From the clinical tone of his question, L assumed he hadn't noticed her reaction.

  “None,” L answered, still relishing the moment.

  “Mind if I step up a gauge?”

  “Do you have to?” She sounded like a dreamy teenager.

  Finally, he noticed. “What's with you?”

  “It felt good. Really good.” L smiled like a daughter about to wrap her father around her finger.

  “Uh-huh,” Reese responded. Clearly, he understood what she implied. And clearly he wasn't going to indulge it.

  “Please?” she pleaded teasingly. “Maybe work it back and forth a little?”

  Reese slapped her thigh, prompting a quick, surprised “Ouch!” from L.

  “Back to business,” he directed.

  The difference in width between the tapers was mere millimeters, yet this one felt vastly thicker as it pushed through her piercing. L felt suspended in the sensation, able to feel its very progress through her flesh, millimeter by millimeter. Its bulk rested heavy as it pressed against her clit, too heavy for another flash of arousal. But it did make her cunt heavy with want.

  Too soon, the test ended. The taper slid free, leaving L feeling vacated. Ripe with arousal, she ached for more. Had Cassandra herself conducted the test, L would have pleaded for more like a cat in heat. But with Reese? He was all decorum and duty, despite the delightful sting he had left on her thigh.

  “Good,” he claimed, nodding his satisfaction at the test's outcome. “This will please Cassandra.” He patted her thigh congenially, smiling. “How about some breakfast?”

  By way of answer, L's stomach growled.

  During breakfast's preparation and consumption, L garnered her first real look at Cassandra's home. Decidedly Victorian with tall walls and high ceilings, but not at all Gilded Age or ostentatious, it held the creature comforts of its time in a pragmatic, straightforward way. Its kitchen was small, more of an addendum to the house than a central feature. Its dining room conveyed intimacy in its size, that of family rather than showy industrial wealth. Beyond it, the very sitting room where L first attended to Cassandra's dire need. Even there, graceful appointment was understated. What period furniture she glimpsed—upholstered chairs, a settee, stained glass table lamps and their companion tables—spoke of carefully chosen decor meant to serve uncomplicated needs.

  It surprised L to learn that, despite her commanding, polarizing persona, Cassandra preferred such simple domestic surroundings. Perhaps Reese's claim was true. Maybe Cassandra wasn't what she was long-gossiped to be. Complex, yes. Daring and bold, obviously. But this retreat, this home, defied the wildest of those old rumors.

  L also realized that she could not, try as she might, sense Cassandra's presence anywhere in the house. The downstairs surrounded her in late-morning tranquility and overhead, not so much as a hint of footfall sounded. L kept alert all through Reese's breakfast of eggs and bacon, but when she joined him in cleaning up, she asked after Cassandra.

&
nbsp; Rinsing the dishes, Reese nodded toward the window over the kitchen sink. “She's outside, weeding her flower beds.”

  Weeding? This time of year? Yet there sat Cassandra on a carpet of dormant grass, plucking away.

  “She claims she hates weeding in the late summer's heat, but I suspect she purposely neglects some of her weeding and winnowing for just such a moment. Something comes along and frustrates her, and outdoors she goes!” Reese chuckled and handed L two plates to put in the dishwasher. “But it works for her. She really does pull out her frustrations with those weeds.”

  L set the plates in their slots, then leaned close to Reese to watch Cassandra thinning a bushy coreopsis. L knew from her own little garden how aggressive that plant grew. Given a chance, it would quickly crowd out its neighbors—much like, she thought, Cur's girls. Plaintive pangs hammered at her, urging her to Cassandra's side. But would that help or hurt matters? Did Cassandra prefer absolute solitude? Would she welcome L's presence?

  Only one way to find out, L decided.

  “I'd like to help her,” she told Reese. “Be at her side. Would that be okay?”

  Reese turned off the facet and gazed out the window. “You know, I don't know.” He pondered the idea, then scanned L's naked body. “Well, however much Cassandra might enjoy having you work naked, we do have our neighbors to consider.”

  A fortuitous seconding came by way of a leaf blower starting up somewhere in the neighborhood.

  Reese dried his hands on a dish towel and motioned L to follow him. “I'm a bit bigger than you, but I'm sure we can reasonably outfit you for the backyard.”

  For the second time this morning, L followed Reese's lead.

  Reese motioned for L to wait on the back stoop while he went to a gardening shed cornered in Cassandra's backyard. She watched him retrieve a wheelbarrow, take it behind the shed, then return with it full of mulch. He fetched a bucket from the shed, tossed it into the barrow, and wheeled everything to a long flower bed that paralleled the boundary between Cassandra's home and its neighbor.

  Memory flashed: L's parents, engaged in a similar ritual, their newfound hobby after she had left for college. She remembered the scene as blithely domestic—and one of unequivocal enjoyment. Cassandra's yard implied much the same. It was the stuff of real living, not the wishful thinking of countless BDSM novels. No, no exotic settings for outrageous scenes. No estate “grounds.” Just a common backyard, the personal space of a single, real person living a real life.