The Woman at the Edge of Town

by Georgette Kaplan

  “Your lesson is going to be how to take ten strokes,” Nina said.

  The leather belt keened through the air, and when it struck Sarah’s ass, the impact sizzled across both her cheeks like acid. Sarah had never felt a pleasure as intense as Nina bringing her to climax; she’d never felt a pain as bad as this either. She let out an agonized cry, not even able to think of holding it in, and Nina let her scream. Then she crisscrossed the welt her first blow had raised. Sarah’s mouth was wrenched open by the howl that came from her. She instinctively tried to scramble to her feet, to flee, but Nina was upon her, pinning her down on the bed, and Sarah had the oddest feeling of being held as Nina trapped her.

  “Let it out,” Nina said. Sarah could feel the belt dangling from Nina’s hand, flickering between them, brushing against her skin. “Is that all there is? Or is there more?”

  Sarah sucked in air to replace what she’d screamed out. She didn’t realize she was crying until she felt the tears on her cheeks. She sniffled. Then she felt Nina massaging the stiffened muscles of her neck, soothingly, possessively.

  “Do you want to keep going?” Nina asked, her voice less firm but not any softer. “This has to be what you want, Sarah. I can’t want it for you.”

  “Keep going,” Sarah said. She looked back at Nina, still crying, feeling flushed and a little shamed and strong somewhere. “I was bad. Make me a good girl, Nina. Please.”

  When Nina spoke, it was through an audibly dry mouth. “Eight more now.” It took a moment for Sarah to realize that what she was feeling wasn’t just lust but pride in arousing Nina so.

  She didn’t tense this time. Thunder cracked, and she felt it traced in fire across her ass. Twice, one after the other. Sarah gritted her teeth, limiting her response to a long groan. She was graffitied with crimson, marked with it from the swell of her buttocks to the tender skin just below her waist. The pain robbed her of control; she tensed again, bracing for the whoosh of the belt moving through the air, even the sound stinging. Instead, she felt Nina’s finger like a feather, floating down the vale between her buttocks, where the belt had barely touched her, the delicate touch somehow stronger than the pain around it. Sarah had never felt anything like what was now filling her.

  “Nina,” she whispered, not as if it was a question but as if it was an answer. The finger went between her legs. It lost itself inside her, in the dampness, in the softness. Sarah bit her lip as if she had forgotten what pain was. “Oh, stop, oh, oh!”

  She didn’t know why she said it. It felt better than the whipping, but it wasn’t the whipping, and she had been feeling the whipping so much—but just because she’d said it didn’t mean she meant it. The word ‘Fermi’ echoed through her like a physical tremble, but she didn’t let it reach her lips.

  Nina’s other hand clutched at her throat, pulled her upright. Sarah was spun around, the pain of Nina’s grip rebounding off everything she was feeling in her cunt.

  Nina looked at her for barely a second, then kissed her, and Sarah felt everything fall away. There was still a muted throb along the curve of her ass, though. As if she needed more to remind her whose she was.

  Compared to this, Nina had been treating her like a porcelain doll. Always kissing her as if she was afraid Sarah would break. She was as slow to stop as Sarah would’ve been.

  “There’ll be more of that when we’re finished,” she said, and her tongue traveled from Sarah’s chin to the tip of her nose, making Sarah think of it elsewhere. “But first, let’s see how badly you want it. Do you know how we’ll find out?”

  “How?” Sarah barely whispered.

  Nina threw Sarah back on the bed. Face down. “You’re going to tell me. Do you want it, Sarah? Do you want it badly?”

  “So much. So badly.”

  “How badly?” Nina teased, and just the sound, just the thought of the wicked smile she must’ve been wearing… Yours, yours, yours, the pain on her backside pulsed. “Bad enough for another six lashes?”

  Sarah nodded frantically.

  “Answer me!” Nina demanded.

  “Yes!”

  Sarah heard the belt, felt it, not as pain but as pressure—she was half numbed to it and half feeling it more vividly, spreading beyond the skin and into the muscle, biting down on her cunt like a fire burning hotter. She barely noticed the pleasure among the pain, just the throbbing, how insistent it was.

  “Bad enough for another five lashes?” Nina asked smugly. She already knew the answer.

  Sarah nodded again. Speech was eluding her, like the belt was bringing her down to a wordlessly primitive level. “It almost feels…good,” she said, when she got her mouth open.

  Barely understanding where she was or what was happening to her, Sarah pushed her ass out, knowing she would feel more. The belt flew. Sarah hissed and mewled, but it was what she wanted.

  “Another four lashes?” Nina asked as if she was taking a survey.

  “I want you to fuck me,” Sarah sobbed, burying her face in the bedspread. “Please fuck me…”

  “Then let me hear you beg for it.”

  “I am begging!”

  “Not for me. For the belt.”

  Sarah hissed in a breath. “I want the belt. Give it to me. Please.”

  She convulsed as Nina did ‘it’ again, such a little thing, barely the twitch of a muscle, but there was so much of it. The whistle through the air, and then that feeling. “Three more, Sarah. Just three more.”

  It happened once, then again. Sarah didn’t know what she was feeling, how there could be so much of it inside her. The horrible liveliness of the welts raised on her ass had spread all over her body. She could feel everything, pulled tight, wickedly alive with sensation, her clit especially tingling with need.

  “Harder…” Sarah begged quaveringly, like the words were being shaken out of her vibrating body. Her cunt spasmed along with the rest of her, and she ground it into the bed. “I can take it.”

  “One more lash?” Nina asked, her voice heavier. She’s looking at me, Sarah thought. She likes looking at me…

  “Yes! Please! Please!”

  “One more lash from who?”

  “From you, from my mistress, from my queen, Nina—”

  Her breathing almost as harsh as Sarah’s, Nina swung the whip up, between Sarah’s legs.

  For just a moment, Sarah knew it was coming. She felt the air part before it, like a little pleasing breeze. Then it hit, and it was horrible and wonderful and a snake biting her and a finger penetrating her and every muscle in her body was tensed and everything hurt and everything felt good and she was coming, her fingers digging into the bedspread like claws and rending it. She didn’t hear any of it, not even her own scream, as she was consumed by the purest orgasm of her young life.

  Afterward—what felt like a long time afterward—she lay still, knowing what she was expected to say as if it was written inside her, spelled out with everything she was feeling. “Thank you, mistress. Thank you for whipping me. Thank you, thank you…”

  “You’re very welcome,” Nina answered sweetly.

  >~~~<

  Sarah couldn’t move, couldn’t speak now that she’d said what she had to say. She could only breathe and feel. Nina picked her up, one arm under her knees and the other beneath her shoulder blades, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. Sarah cooed as she went boneless. She seemed to be all sensation, every little feeling heightened and pure.

  “Wrap your arms around my neck,” Nina said, and Sarah did. Nina carried her to the pillows with gentle, stately steps that made Sarah feel safe.

  “Are you tired?” Nina asked, her voice even more sugary than before.

  “A little.” Sarah wasn’t…sleepy. It was more as if she was wrung out, permanently out of breath. Maybe sleep would help, but she also felt as if she was on a caffeine high. Like if Nina wanted her to, she could just nestle between her legs and drink forever.

  “Quite an ordeal, wasn’t it?” Nina rocked Sarah in her arms with all
the care she’d show a newborn baby. “A trial by fire. But I knew you could do it, Sarah, and you’ve impressed me very much. I think you’re ready for a great many things.”

  “I want to. I want to do everything with you.”

  “You will, my sweet. You will. I’ll take such good care of you, my Sarah. Mine. And I’ll be your Nina.”

  Sarah tried not to yawn, but she was so tired, and being carried by Nina was relaxing her so much. Nina laughed softly and lowered Sarah to the bed.

  “Don’t leave me,” Sarah pleaded. She wanted more. Not more sex or more touching—more Nina.

  “I won’t, baby. I’m going to stay right here with you.” Nina held on to Sarah’s right hand as she circled the bed. She petted its knuckles. “You’ve had a very intense experience. It’s time to sleep on it. But I know how…frenzied…events have left you. So I’m going to help you calm down. I’m going to get you nice and relaxed.”

  Nina started by undressing. Her slender fingers undid each of the buttons on her vest in turn, and Sarah felt a pulse of excitement, seeing them in action. She remembered them inside her, between her lips, the taste they’d carried…

  Nina teased her vest open and spoke softly, as if she was reading a bedtime story. “You’ll never get to sleep in the state you’re in. And you need sleep, Sarah. So you must relax. Breathe deeply and relax. Breathe…and relax…”

  Sarah felt herself comply hypnotically. Her whole body was in tune with Nina. Her racing heart slowed, and her hot blood cooled… Her flesh itself was obedient to Nina. She lay on her side, staring up at Nina as the woman handed her vest off. Nina gave her a loving look as she bent over her to brush some hair from Sarah’s eyes and toy with it.

  “Would you like it if I held you until you fall asleep?”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  “You don’t have to call me mistress when you’re not being punished. We’re friends, after all. And I like the way you say my name.”

  “Nina…”

  She finished undressing and got into the center of the bed, with Sarah on her right. She ran her fingers over Sarah, and warmth drenched her body, like her nerves were spigots slowly being closed off, her body going gently numb.

  She could’ve spent days like that—Nina felt warmer and softer the longer she touched Sarah—but it must’ve been only minutes before a crash of thunder seemed to shake the house. Sarah reflexively jolted, and Nina petted her hair with a soothing nonchalance.

  “It’s just a little—” she began, then said, “Oh no” as a stampede of scrambling clicks and paddings traveled the house.

  Barnaby threw himself through the ajar bedroom door just as another lightning bolt blushed the room a jagged blue. He whined and spun in a circle, scratching at the carpet as if he was trying to dig it up.

  Nina sat up to point a chilling finger at him. “Barnaby, no. Sarah, I am so sorry…”

  The thunder came again, and Barnaby barked animatedly, forcing out great belches of woofs at the loud noise before heaving himself onto the bed like a beached whale. Two massive forepaws and the great bulk of his doggy head shifted the stance of the mattress like a bowling ball had been set down on the bedsprings. With a wary little whine, Barnaby propelled himself the rest of the way onto the bed, knocking the mattress several inches out of alignment with the bedframe before he was successfully standing on top of the sheets in all his ursine splendor.

  By now, sheets of rain had started coming down, painting the light through the windows with their teary streaks. It gurgled down the gutters, and Barnaby huffed impatiently, somewhere in his doggy brain associating the peaceable but intent sound with the lightning and thunder of his phobia. Nina sat up further, the sheet spilling down to bare a dark-tipped breast lowering to her belly as she reached out to ruffle Barnaby’s head.

  “You big chicken,” she said with the elaborate weariness of someone who could not be truly angry with their pet, no matter what the offense. “You couldn’t let me be a sultry temptress for five minutes…”

  Sarah snuggled against Nina as she settled back against the pillows, patting her warm thigh, part of her still unbelieving even now that she could touch Nina so intimately and it just was. She felt as if she was being allowed to pet a tiger. “Hey, lay off him. I’m very tempted just to lie in bed forever cuddling with you and your enormous coward dog…”

  Appearing to notice Sarah then, Barnaby settled his weight onto a protesting Nina and brought his huge head around to sniff at her. He took particular interest in Sarah’s hair, wheezing at it like a lazy bloodhound, then he licked her from chin to temple with one swipe of a tongue about the size of a shower loofah.

  “Barnaby, get down!” Nina ordered firmly, hauling on his collar. Complaining with heaving-sigh insolence, Barnaby let himself be dragged to the confines of one side of the bed. “That’s my job. You don’t even brush your teeth.”

  “Really? I never would’ve noticed,” Sarah said, wiping her face off with her hand and her hand off with the bedspread. Nina stared at this process. “He’s your dog.”

  With a little grumble, Barnaby set his steam-shovel head down on Nina’s thigh. Sarah reached down and flicked his ear as she cuddled up with Nina from the other side.

  There was a bolt of lightning, a gong of thunder, and Barnaby whined under his breath. Sarah reached down further, now resting her head on Nina’s sternum so she could pet the nape of Barnaby’s neck. He lolled out a happy tongue.

  “Don’t spoil him,” Nina said, setting both hands beneath her head. “He’s not scared anymore; he’s just milking it.”

  “He is too scared,” Sarah said, scratching him behind the ears. “You’re just a total wimp, aren’t you? An absolute wuss, yes, you are! Yes, you are!”

  “Sarah.” Nina eyed Sarah’s nails flashing through Barnaby’s fur. “You are making me positively jealous.”

  >~~~<

  Eileen was in the kitchen when Sara got home that night, chopping vegetables, the noise so jarring that Sarah almost couldn’t believe she was hearing it on such a special night.

  “How was dinner at Nina’s?” Eileen asked. Her knife kept slapping against the cutting board, crisply cutting whatever was in between. “If you’re not full, I’m making enough for two.”

  Sarah sat. “I’m pretty full. But I can have that for lunch tomorrow.”

  Eileen smiled ruefully. “You’re not going to Nina’s for lunch too?”

  “Would it matter if I did?”

  Eileen paused. No, it was more as if she just stopped, the way a watch would stop when it finally wound down. And Sarah thought she could see her winding herself back up again. Starting to move once more, but slower than before. Older.

  “She likes the company, you know. Having me around. And I like spending time with her. She’s a really nice person. You’d like her too if you got to know her.”

  “I know I haven’t been the best mother,” Eileen interrupted. “But did I ever do anything to make me deserve being lied to?”

  “I’m not lying!” Sarah protested instantly, shrilly.

  “Do you think I’m an idiot? Do you think that I would think it’s normal that a thirty-year-old woman would suddenly want to be besties with some girl—”

  “She’s not thirty,” Sarah said, teeth gritted. “And I am not some girl. Not to her.”

  Eileen put her hands on her hips. The knife pointed down her leg. Dripping. “Then say it. Please. Just say it.”

  “I’m dating Nina Rose.” Sarah didn’t think she had ever said that before. She virtually vomited it out; it had the half-horrid flavor of a nauseous purge, and then there was only the relief of being empty of it. It had no more power, no more fear—she’d said it.

  Eileen walked to the sink, turned it on, rinsed off the knife before setting it on the drying rack. She left the water running. Steepled her arms on the counter and held herself over the sink and its babble of tap water.

  Sarah almost couldn’t catch her breath, staring at her mother’s r
igid back. “Don’t freak out,” she said, her voice higher and tighter than even the admission had been.

  “I’m not freaking out,” Eileen said.

  “It’s not like, you know, she seduced me. I’m twenty years old. I want to be with her.”

  “You don’t know what you want.”

  “I do now.”

  “For how long? The next five minutes?”

  Sarah scoffed, shaking her head. “What would be so wrong with that? I’d rather be happy with her for five minutes than—not. Not being happy. I wasn’t happy, Mom, did you know that? Have you even noticed that she’s made me happy—”

  “Of course I noticed!” Eileen shut the water off. The wedding ring on her finger clicked against the faucet. “I just thought it was you, not some woman…”

  “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?” Sarah ran her hands through her hair. “Isn’t that how it was for you and Dad?”

  Eileen turned around, sagging against the sink as if she was about to be washed down it. “I didn’t need your father to be happy. I was a whole person before I ever met him. You, you’re…”

  “A child?” Sarah offered.

  “Adults don’t sneak around and lie—”

  “That hasn’t been my experience,” Sarah interrupted. “And I told you, I didn’t want you to freak out—”

  “I’m not freaking out!” Eileen shouted it this time.

  Then she slowly started to laugh.

  Sarah walked back into the living room and collapsed onto the couch. She heard Eileen’s slippers slap against the tile as she came to the island and leaned against it.

  “I wish I could take this better than I am,” Eileen said.

  “And I wish I’d just told you. But I didn’t want to talk about it. It was my secret. It made me special.”

  “You’ve been special for a lot longer than that woman…” Eileen broke off, forestalling another protest from Sarah, who thought she could hear Eileen’s bones creaking as she came around the island and sat down on the back of the couch. “I want to meet her. Really meet her. No more games. God knows I didn’t tell my parents anything, but if she’s so important to you—a part of your life.”