Lessons in Love

by Lessons in Love [Bold Strokes FF] (retail) (epub)

  “Of course.” She said like there was any doubt.

  “So any lesbian. You just wanted to meet an Earth lesbian.”

  “No. We wanted to meet a butch.”

  “Oh, that is a bit harder.”

  We were at a lift. Carmilla lifted her hand and the call button pad slid down so she could press it.

  “So have you met—”

  The lift doors opened and two women got out. The two women: the two women in the virtual reality program. Only they weren’t virtual, because here they were in front of me. Waving. I broke out in a cold sweat.

  “Joe, I think you’ve already met Neela and Sindan. Neela, Sindan, this is Joe.” Carmilla made the introductions.

  “Hi,” I said in a pitch only dogs could hear.

  “Such a high voice,” Neela commented, tall and dark and even more beautiful in the flesh.

  “Oh she doesn’t normally talk like that,” Carmilla told her. “Strange reaction. It must mean something, Maybe they talk like that to women they’ve had sexual relations with.” She considered that. “But then, she didn’t speak in that high voice to me.”

  Oh no. Not you too. I’d hoped at least that part of it really was a fantasy. I looked at them all looking at me for a while. Then Carmilla broke the freeze-frame.

  “Well, we’d better be going. You two aren’t coming?”

  “No, we’re working in the kitchens tonight,” Sindan, blond and curvy in a very tight spacesuit, said.

  Carmilla gestured to me to get in the lift. When the lift doors closed I blurted out, “I thought they were a program. I mean, I thought it was a program and they weren’t real.”

  “Oh. Did you?” Carmilla nodded as if a piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. “I see. How strange. Don’t you have sex like that, then?”

  “No, not at all. We have it…you know, for real.”

  Carmilla raised her eyebrows, looking very interested indeed. “Oh, you mean you don’t all hook up to the mainframe?”

  I shook my head. “Well…there’s the Internet, I suppose, but it’s not as….vivid.”

  “Interesting…I’d like to try that,” Carmilla muttered to herself as the lift stopped and the doors opened straight into the meeting room. Carmilla took me to a seating area and set herself beside me. I thought that might be because of her role as science officer, but I hoped it was because she liked me. Panther-Woman came over from the drinks area with a group of other women, and they settled around us.

  “Joe, I thought you might like to meet some more Sisters.” Panther-Woman told me. “This is Nelax, she’s our chief engineer.”

  I looked with interest at the woman PW pointed to. She was chief engineer. Damn! She was the most feminine woman I’d ever seen. Immaculate. She had one of their space suits on but it was tapered in to show every curve, every fold of her body. Chief engineer! She didn’t have a smudge on her. Couldn’t imagine her getting her hands dirty. I was getting my head around this concept when I heard another woman laughing. PW introduced me.

  “And this is Shira, she’s our chief advisor and telepath.”

  Right. Telepath. Should have known they’d be telepathic. They even knew what I was thinking. I suddenly felt very alone.

  “Oh, you don’t need to be scared of us,” Shira said. “We wouldn’t, couldn’t harm you.”

  She had a very compelling voice.

  “And I’m Robaki.” Another woman cut in. She had obviously got fed up waiting to be introduced. “I’m head of leisure services.”

  “Would you mind if we ask you some questions?” Carmilla asked.

  I shook my head and shrugged.

  “Are there many like you on your world?” PW asked me.

  “What d’you mean like me?”

  “Butch,” PW confirmed.

  “In the whole world?”

  They nodded. I thought about it. “Well, I can’t be sure. I mean, who knows really? I don’t think there’s millions, maybe there’s thousands—in the whole world. Do you include straight women who are butch?”

  They looked confused.

  “Yeah, I know. It confuses me too. But then not, I suppose, not if you count butch as a gender.”

  I could see I’d lost them.

  “Anyway, masculine women—into women, into feminine women I suppose, looking at you lot—I don’t know. How many are you looking for?”

  A row of raised eyebrows greeted me.

  “Thousands,” Nelax volunteered.

  “Really,” I said. “Thousands, huh?”

  “Do you think you could help us?” Robaki asked.

  “Hmm…” I thought about this. Did I really want any other butches in on this?

  “Tut tut.” Shira mock-frowned at me.

  “Can I ask you something?” They nodded. “Where do you come from?” I was thinking this could all be an elaborate hoax and they’d say, “San Francisco.”

  “Femedom.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I spluttered.

  “Femedom,” Carmilla repeated.

  I decided it wasn’t polite, and definitely not in the interests of galactic relations to tell them what the name of their planet meant in English.

  “It means some kind of female contraception,” Shira explained.

  Damn! I’d forgotten about her.

  “How…quaint.” PW dismissed it as an absurdity.

  “It took me a while to work out the image in her head.” Shira was saying. I stared at her in horror. “All I could see was cunt and this funny, rubbery-plastic thing wrapped sort of up and inside.” I still stared at her in horror. They all looked at me, completely lost for words.

  “We’ve got a lot to learn,” Shira said.

  “So how come you don’t have any butches with you?” I changed the subject.

  “Honey, if we had butches we wouldn’t be here,” Robaki informed me.

  “Really.” It was my turn to look at them. “You mean you don’t have any,” I emphasized the word, “any butches at home. Not even one.”

  They all laughed. And laughed.

  “Can you imagine it?” Shira was crying with laughter. “One poor butch.”

  “On that whole big planet,” Nelax shrieked. “All the Sisters.” Laugh, laugh, laugh. “And one butch. What a thought!”

  I sort of laughed with them. But I didn’t really get the joke. Sounded like heaven to me.

  “Darling…” Shira smiled at me and patted my hand. She might as well have patted my head. She looked at the others. “It’s just how they said it would be. They completely overestimate themselves.”

  Who were the they who said this? I thought they had a damn cheek.

  “The Crones, darling butch,” Shira told me.

  “Joe.” Carmilla reminded her I had a name.

  “Darling Joe.” Shira corrected herself. “The Crones sent us, they said we’d find butches here.”

  “And we need you to help us,” Carmilla explained.

  “Well, I’ll do what I can.” I was thinking there was a limit to what I could do. I could round up a few, I suppose. I started going through all the butches I knew. What about the ones who didn’t identify as butch but obviously were? Did they count? I looked a little doubtful. Well, I could advertise on the Internet, I supposed.

  “And maybe some of you will come back with us,” Robaki suggested.

  “To Femedom?” I managed to say without smirking. But the image got into my head anyway. “Sounds like home to me, baby!” came out of my mouth before I could stop it.

  There was a polite silence. I carried on regardless. “I suppose you need some butches”—I was going with the thought—“to sort things out.”

  They looked at me. I couldn’t imagine a planet completely of femmes. Their houses must be falling down, man. Crying out for DIY. And cars, boats, planes, all waiting for some butch mechanic. I pictured femmes in huge traffic jams waiting for someone to open the car door for them.

  I felt a wall of annoyance building up around me, and came
out of my reverie. The femmes were stony faced.

  “Ladies, I didn’t mean any offense. It’s just on my world these are usually butch things.” I turned to Nelax. “Of course, not always. There are plenty of femmes who do these things, after all we had a huge women’s movement once, and that kind of changed things.” I could see I was losing them again, but they seemed more relaxed. Carmilla was smiling at me anyway. “After all, what did you think butches do? You didn’t just think we were good at sex, did you?”

  From their embarrassed smiles I realized they did.

  “Tell me, aren’t there femmes on your world who like each other, you know, femme on femme? It’s quite popular here.” I thought about that. “Well, at least it is in the personal ads.”

  “She means Sisters doing it to ourselves,” Shira explained, her telepathy obviously giving her the edge on intergalactic translation.

  “Of course!” they chorused.

  “It’s the norm on our world.” Shira revealed.

  “Really?” I said, a little disappointed.

  “Oh yes.” Nelax was obviously amused at my reaction. “We, the ones who want to meet a butch, are thought to be quite peculiar by some of the Sisters. A little queer, in fact.”

  Well that was a turn-up for the books. “Have you never had any butches?” I couldn’t imagine a world without us.

  “The Crones’ legends tell of a group of butches who existed long, long ago, but they disappeared.” Robaki told me. “Some legends say they disappeared up the Great Femme Vulva.”

  “That’s a possibility,” I admitted.

  “The other theory is they came to Earth,” Carmilla said.

  “Really?” I said.

  “Yes. There’s another planet near us, CloneZone, and they have a similar legend about their Drag Queens. They say a group of them disappeared to Earth about the same time,” Carmilla explained.

  My mind boggled. Butches and Drag Queens were really aliens. Well, that put a different slant on the gay gene theory.

  “Joe, you look a little worn out. Perhaps you want to go back down to Earth?” PW suggested.

  Earth. My life. What time was it, anyway? Was I late for work?

  I got up and Camilla rode with me to the entrance doors.

  “I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit,” she said playfully as we passed along the corridors.

  “I would have liked more time with you,” I told her, shyly.

  She smiled. A lot. “We’ll be in touch,” she promised.

  In the big foyer, I kissed her, hoping I’d get the chance to do it again. Then I felt a pull to be gone. The doors opened, cool air rushed in and I was spinning through misty light until the ground rushed toward me.

  I shook my head, blinking like I’d just woken up. As my head cleared I heard birdsong. The sky was streaked with pink; dawn was coming up. London was before me: sleepy, vibrant, alive. A few hours ago I’d been just an ordinary Joe standing on a hillside. Now I was a butch with a mission. I turned and strode purposefully back to my car.

  Toy with Me

  VK Powell

  Night air swept under my silk skirt and cooled the hot center at the apex of my thighs. The swirling fabric tormented flesh too sensitive for a thong. As I walked toward the bar, the fall breeze licked my body, leaving chill bumps that I prayed would chase away the heat.

  Another case solved in another lonely town where I didn’t know a soul. Sometimes being the top private investigator in the state was more of a burden than a blessing. Thank God for the Gay and Lesbian Hotline, my lifeline to civilization, sanity, and physical sustenance.

  “Looking for anything special?” the blond attendant asked, shifting her eyes over my erect nipples and returning the change from a five-dollar admission.

  “Just came to dance,” I replied, meeting her inquisitive gaze. But the words tasted bitter in my mouth. I could probably come from dancing at this point. It seemed like years since another human being had touched my body with the sole purpose of providing mind-numbing sex.

  “That’s too bad.”

  I decided not to launch into just how bad. She probably couldn’t care less that my life was a series of domestic assignments in which observations of people having sex far outweighed any opportunities to actually have it. Tonight, my body took offense and insisted on more active participation.

  Alternating dark and brilliantly white light temporarily blinded me as I stood by the entrance and allowed my vision to adjust. Music bellowed from huge speakers mounted above the doorway and pulsed my insides with rhythm. I enjoyed the animalistic urges created by the deep, insistent pounding. My breasts grazed against someone’s arm at the crowded bar and I purposely lingered before squeezing into a spot.

  “Help you, honey?” the redheaded bartender yelled as she placed a cocktail napkin in front of me.

  “Vodka tonic with a twist, please.”

  I watched couples on the small dance floor cling and gyrate against each other in increasingly provocative stages of vertical lovemaking. Their breasts lightly grazed each other, then blended together. Their hips swung from side to side and ground against one another in time with the feverish music. My pulse quickened and I took a gulp of the cocktail, hoping the alcohol would calm my quivering insides. Instead it gathered at that burning place between my legs.

  My job required a certain amount of voyeurism and it never affected me—that was work. But tonight, seeing women’s bodies in such intimate contact filled me with yearning. I wondered how many of them were with their partners and how many were here for the same reason I was—a hard fuck from an equally hard-up stranger.

  Flashing light from the dance floor played an appearing/disappearing act on a dark-haired butch draped over the opposite end of the bar. Her full lips parted slightly and eyes sparkled as she surveyed each new arrival. We locked stares, and a sharp intake of breath caught in my throat. My mouth dried as all moisture rushed to my engorged privates. I recited opposites in time to the pulsing black light—night and day, black and white, good and bad, you and me. Retrieving my drink, I shuffled weak-kneed to the nearest stool.

  I reviewed all the times anonymous sex had proven dangerous, superficial, and ultimately unsatisfying. But in spite of any good or pure intentions, my offending eyes wandered back to the butch. Raw passion twisted its way through my body as I looked at what I wanted but knew I would never be bold enough to ask for.

  Her dark, close-cropped hair spiked about an inch on top. Her stocky frame appeared to be solid muscle under black jeans and a starched cotton shirt. I detected the bulges and curves of a real woman’s body—full and vibrant. She carried herself with an air of total control and reckless abandon as she strolled across the floor. There was something taboo in her gait, almost haunting in its challenge. With each step she took, my clit jerked painfully as if her legs were rubbing against it.

  As I returned to awareness, the stranger walked across the floor toward my table. When she strolled past, relief mingled with a sharp stab of disappointment. Momentarily, relief faded and panic seized my body as two hands rested lightly on my shoulders from behind.

  “Don’t look up.” A firm command. Hot breath touched my ear and shot waves of current down my spine. “Just listen.”

  How could she possibly know that more than anything, I wanted to be relieved of all responsibility? How could she know that the mere thought of relinquishing control melted my insides faster than physical touch? She couldn’t know any of that, yet here she was.

  Her fingers kneaded the tense flesh of my shoulders. I would’ve done anything she said.

  “Imagine my hands all over your body, stroking your breasts, teasing your nipples into erection. I’m going to slide my fingers up the inside of your thighs into the wetness I can smell there already. Nod if you want me to continue.”

  The only part of my body that moved was my head. I nodded eagerly. Common sense screamed for me to run, but my legs refused.

  A soft chuckle sounded from the woman
behind me as she pressed her body against my back. Her pelvis found my spine and came to rest in a position of maximum contact.

  “I knew you wanted it the second our eyes met.” She whispered, “I’m going to make you beg for things you never knew you wanted.”

  This was not my first stranger sex, but it was the first time I’d given myself over completely, without question. I’d often masturbated to such a scenario without a prayer that it would ever come true. My body responded to this woman in a way that could only be described as immediate and frightening. The power she wielded magnified the forbidden side of my fantasies and held me paralyzed in their clutches. She knew this from one look. My nipples hardened and pushed against the fabric of my blouse as cold chills consumed me.

  She cupped my elbows in her hands and guided me from the stool toward the front door. Nerve endings long dormant flared to life as the abduction played out. She walked a step behind and directed me to a van parked at the darkest end of the lot. The back door of the vehicle swung open as we approached and she pointed.

  “Sit here, facing the front of the van.” A small mattress on the floor was the only thing visible in the darkness. A heavy material covered the inside walls of the van, creating a barrier against prying eyes. I touched it as I climbed inside—neoprene, soft and slick.

  “It helps muffle the screams,” she offered.

  She positioned herself at my back with her legs around mine. “Tonight you’re mine. Do nothing except what you’re told.”

  The authority in her voice left no room for question. Not that I would’ve—I wanted to give in, to be taken by someone with no expectations or standing to judge. I responded as she commanded.

  My crotch throbbed and dripped from wanting her, more from anticipation than anything she’d done. I wanted her mouth all over me and her fingers inside me, and I wanted it now!

  Sensing my eagerness, she undressed me with slow deliberation. The tight blouse seemed fiery against my overly sensitive skin. It bound and restricted circulation in a body that screamed to be free. When she released the bondage, my nipples stood erect and ready for her.

  She lightly blew her hot breath on my breasts, refusing to allow the instant gratification of touch. I writhed against the fabric of my skirt to ease the pressure building in my middle. My hand automatically reached for the fiery mound of flesh.