Did You Ever Get Stung? Ch. 03

"Nobody's going to hold Lynsey against you."

"I was an idiot."

"Jen, she's almost a rite of passage. The odd lesbians out round here are the ones who haven't slept with her."

"Have you?"

"You're forgetting what an old lady I am. I haven't been single since she was about thirteen. Back in my student days, when the world and the Arches were both young, I notched a couple of equally notorious bedposts. It happens - Hi there, just go on through."

Jenna lay back and closed her eyes, taking advantage of the latest interruption to hide away. A lawnmower buzzed into life a couple of gardens over. Everything seemed so normal and domestic, like a memory of the safe simplicities of childhood all those years ago when her parents still talked to her. How had she managed to fuck her life up so badly since? There were times she almost wondered if there might even be some truth in the hateful things her father had said before showing her the door. She was such a magnet for strange destructive girls.

"What the fuck is wrong with people in this town anyway."

It wasn't a question. She had made a terrible mistake in moving here, one that could not be easily undone. The cramped knot of fear over the reception she might get the next morning was making her sick. Sorry, Ms Saunderson, but you're not really fitting in here, are you? Perhaps we both made a mistake. They wouldn't fire her for the video, not in so many words, it would be too easy for her to twist into an Equality Act claim. It wouldn't be hard to find another excuse. Or perhaps it would just be giggly office gossip behind her back for the rest of her life. There was bound to be at least one guy with a thing for girl on girl who got seriously creepy over the whole fucking shambles. Liz was talking to her.

"You're being a bit hard on us, sweetheart."

"You think?"

"Look, I'm not judging your morals for one second; even if I wanted to, I've got no room to criticise. You've done nothing wrong, but you could have been a little wiser. Would it really have been any different down south if you'd walked into a new environment like that with a sign round your neck saying 'available'?"

"Thanks a lot for the sympathy."

"I thought we liked the fact that we tell each other the truth. Or does that have to change now we're not doing it over email?"

"I guess not. Oh Liz, I've screwed everything up so badly in the last ten days. I don't know what's got into me ..."

Which wasn't strictly true, but she was too shy to mention Lucy. Taking that surreal encounter seriously would make her sound somewhere between a superstitious fool and completely certifiable, so she kept it to herself. The underlying fact remained, all her wishes and fantasies were biting her painfully in the bum.

"... I just wanted to feel the things I was missing out on, and they're twisting round into something ugly or hurtful."

Open eyes and look up at the clouds, play that old childhood game of picking out the ones that look like countries. Why does one always remind her of Australia? Which option would enable her to escape with at least some trace of dignity: letting the thing die away without acknowledging it, or suing Frankie to hell and gone? It was like Molls hitting her all over again, too embarrassed at being victimised to make a fuss over it.

"First principles, Clareece ..."

Liz was sitting up, arms wrapped round her knees and sunglasses on the end of her nose like a disapproving librarian. She seemed as distractedly insular as Jenna, speaking almost to herself.

"Come again?"

"I don't sit down and think 'today I'm going to write something with strap-ons and bondage and a shower scene'. I start with why X is into Y, and that decides what they do together. What is the fundamental purpose behind it all, what gives it any meaning? Seriously, did you want to be buggered by a girl with stubbly hair because you wanted to be buggered by a girl with stubbly hair?"

"No ..."

No, you're right. It's some sort of symbol. I want to give myself totally to someone, someone I can trust so utterly and implicitly that I can let her tie me up and put something in my backside. Someone who won't betray that trust the way Frankie did.

She watched Liz reach up to run her finger absent-mindedly inside the fine silver chain of her amber necklace and decided she must have been right in her assumption that it was a gift from Martine.

Boisterous sounds from the barbecue were drifting through the open doors of the house, making her wonder if they should have said yes after all. Dan was something sporty - rugby she thought, but she hadn't exactly been paying attention - he was 'normal': mid-twenties, girlfriend, mates with girlfriends. She wanted to socialise, to just let go of the angst and chat to people about mundane everyday stuff. She wanted to socialise in an environment that didn't include all the awkwardness of rugby boys chatting her up as soon as they got a little tipsy. She wanted to be herself without predatory psycho bitches doing the same thing. Why was it so fucking impossible to put sex aside long enough to fall in love with someone first?

"... Why are real people such pricks, Liz? God, sometimes I so wish I could just be Ellie's pet."

Liz shook her head self-consciously. It must be weird, thought Jenna. Trying to write something of her own had been bizarre enough, but she couldn't help wondering if part of her reluctance was the sick fear that she might one day get round to publishing it. Right now, she was quite certain, somewhere or other in the world there was at least one man watching her on her knees in front of Frankie as he tugged on his wotsit. That idea disgusted her enough to wish she could hide in the shower for the rest of her life, but she knew it was entirely impersonal. For all that he probably imagined spunking all over her face when Frankie pulled her head back and she said that thing about a cock in her arse, she was still just a vacant puppet dancing to Frankie's command. How must it feel to create something from your own desires and experience, someone who was both a reflection of yourself and a character you liked, and then get emails from complete strangers telling you how much they wanted to fuck her?

Liz had once told her that she wrote, in part, as a way to satisfy the creative void of childlessness. In what other situation is it acceptable to tell someone you enjoy wanking over their daughter? She had done it herself, of course, in the beginning: Dear Ms Malone, I'm just writing to say how hot I thought ... She still did, every time Liz let her read a work in progress, that was part of their relationship. It didn't seem so appropriate sitting next to each other on the grass like this. She was making her friend blush.

Liz grinned, simultaneously sad and reassuring, and leant across to give Jenna's ankle a friendly squeeze.

"So do I, that's why I started writing her in the first place. You know I was never tempted to cheat in life. I won't pretend I didn't sometimes need a fantasy where things worked out the way they should have. This barbecue business has got me thinking how miserable eating alone gets, do you fancy coming round sometime for a meal and cheer us both up?"

Jenna liked the sound of that. She liked the safeness of Liz, the way that they could both relax because they knew the boundaries. Whatever happened when she went to work in the morning, she wasn't going to drop dead. Life, as Liz had said more than once, went on even when you wished it wouldn't. She could hide in bed from her own stupidity for as long as she wanted, that wouldn't make it go away.

"Why not? What about next weekend?"

"Tricky, I'm popping over to York Castle to hang around Kirkgate and try getting a feel for the everyday details. Doing anything this Wednesday evening?"

"Haven't got any plans."

Which, in its way, was perhaps the most truthful thing she had ever said to anyone.

*****

There was a candle on the kitchen table, a plain thick white half-burnt candle sitting in a glass dish. Liz muttered an apology that Jenna didn't catch and moved it out of the way. Jenna almost said that she liked candles anyway, then realised that they might perhaps raise inappropriate memories. She could have kicked herself, she had somehow managed to be almost half an hour early and had caught Liz still tidying up. If the last fortnight had taught her anything at all, it should have been not to blunder unannounced into her friends' homes. She made polite conversation and tried not to get in the way as Liz cooked.

"How's writing?"

"Bloody awful, this is about the worst period of sustained block I've had since ... since I started writing again. I got so frustrated last night that I tried to knock out a bit of kink, just for light relief and get my brain working."

Liz' style had been changing over the last year. Jenna didn't like to ask if the shift from fetish scenarios towards more conventional sex was something to do with the grieving process, or if she was just bored with bondage. It must be difficult enough to keep thinking up new variations on the formula. She liked the explicit romance stuff, but when she was honest they were times she missed the really dirty.

"Going to let me read it?"

"When it's finished ..."

Liz tipped a shy nod towards the abandoned candle.

"... Been so long, couldn't remember what hot wax even feels like."

Jenna grinned self-consciously. That was their relationship in a nutshell: outrageous sexual chitchat without flirtation, always on the verge of far too much information, somehow just managing to keep it appropriate. Shared smiles and guilty laughs.

"I see."

"Oh no you don't, that's what they call research."

"Course it is. What's it like?"

Liz smiled. That was a line, just as much as Jenna's need to hide her small stash of toys and restraints in the back of the wardrobe before Liz came round to help with the unpacking. She shook her head.

"Wait and read."

They laid the table. As if it was an afterthought, Liz dug around in a drawer and produced a couple of conventional tall red candles that looked like Christmas leftovers, which she set in holders. They sat down and ate in the summer evening that didn't require any illumination at all. Liz said that she liked the smell, that it didn't feel she was properly entertaining without that warm hint of smoke in her nose.

"I want to thank you for this, it's really nice. I know it was all my own stupidity, but my faith in human nature has taken a bit of a beating recently."

"Don't mention it."

"You alright, Liz?"

"I'm fine."

Jenna reached for her wine. Liz wasn't fine, but she obviously didn't want to discuss it. Jenna looked down the table at her friend and wished there was something she could do to help. It was one of those times when she wanted to give the woman a good cuddle and promise her things would be alright in the end, which was absurd and insulting. The candlelight was catching on the amber necklace. Not for the first time, Jenna reminded herself that tiniest shadowed tease of cleavage was off-limits as far as her imagination was concerned. She did her best not to wonder exactly where Liz had been dripping wax for purely research purposes. When they finished the main course, Liz tidied the plates away and announced that she had vanilla cheesecake in the fridge.

"Now you're spoiling me."

"Nonsense, I owe you anyway."

"For what?"

"Nothing ... sorry."

Liz set the plate on the table in front of Jenna. She glanced away as she did, as if she had said far too much.

"What is wrong Liz?"

Jenna reached out for Liz' hand moving from her plate. Liz flinched slightly as she touched the back of it, making her pull away again. What was happening? Why did they both suddenly feel so uncomfortable in each other's company? Liz took a deep breath.

"I keep thinking about that video. I'm sorry, I know that's unforgivable of me."

"Thinking what?"

"That I'd like to see more of it."

How could she even object, when she had spent so much time so deep into Liz' mind and all its sexual secrets? It really was very late to stand upon privacy now. She couldn't help thinking that of all the people who might sit in front of their computers to watch Frankie screw her up the arse, Liz was perhaps the one who would embarrass her the least. She knew Liz wouldn't despise her for it, in a way she wished ...

"I've always imagined Ellie doing that to me."

Liz picked up Jenna's fork and cut the point from the cheesecake segment. She held it for a few seconds, then slid it slowly off the tines and lifted it between the tips of her thumb and forefinger instead. Her voice was small and faint, wafting past the candle flame like a summer breeze.

"I'm not Ellie, sweetheart."

"I know."

Jenna dipped her face to Liz' hand, taking the cheesecake from her fingers. She closed her eyes and let it melt into her mouth.

"I think you should go."

"I'm sorry, Liz, I didn't mean to -"

"I can't do it here. Not in this house."

*

Jenna got a text message, as she was standing opposite the petrol station in Alderbeck waiting for her connecting bus: Play or make love? She didn't even need to think about the answer, she valued Liz' friendship far too much. Please Miss, can we play - if I promise to be a good girl? Her thumb hovered for a second over the screen, feeling herself throb just at the thought of sending it. Liz was very wise; far too wise to give her a lift home and risk them coming off the boil together in the car for fifteen minutes. Wise enough to know that there had to be some sharp unambiguous division between what was past and what was about to happen. Liz, after all, was an expert in setting up these situations. Jenna pressed her thumb down.

She got home, hung her work jacket on the hook and put the kettle on just in case. She wondered whether she should do anything else to prepare. Liz had given her no instructions, was she supposed to be obediently passive or try to anticipate her Mistress' desires? All she had was another text: I won't tie your legs - tap feet alternately means stop, OK? She had acknowledged the message, and thought again how clever it to get that chore out of the way without speaking.

Her indecision didn't last long, she had been home barely ten minutes when the doorbell rang. Liz was on the steps, standing back from the door so that she was higher than Jenna. She was wearing an unseasonal coat that hung almost to her patent black peep-toe heels, her old leather satchel looking fuller than usual over her shoulder. Instead of her usual smoky grey sunglasses she was wearing a pair that covered her eyes in iridescent curtains like a film of oil. Her usually loose hair was twisted back and tied severely, highlighting her throat and the absence of her necklace. She didn't give either of them time for small talk.

"I don't want to hear one pronoun out of your mouth. You call me 'Miss', nothing else. If you earn a title, I'll give you one, until then don't refer to yourself at all. Is that understood?"

"Yes Miss."

"Invite me in."

"Please come in Miss."

"Blouse off, show me the tits. Now!"

She was unrecognisable. The flat clipped monotone in place of her usual warm voice was entirely unexpected. It was irresistible, it made it possible - almost easy - to do the unimaginable. She couldn't have stripped for Liz without terrible awkwardness on both sides, and yet here she was with the front door barely closed and her bra already dropping to join her blouse on the carpet, those shimmering lenses looking her casually up and down as the voice continued.

"Proper training is a long process, one which Miss is not currently in the mood for. Miss wants to fuck, not to educate. There is no carrot here, if you are less than adequate there will be punishment, your only reward will be lack of punishment. Hesitate, refuse, question, fail to perform to Miss' satisfaction, and Miss will hurt. What is the purpose of your mouth?"

"I don't -"

Miss slapped her, open-handed across her left cheek. It smarted, more than that it shocked her. It made her flinch away and raise her hands. She wasn't used to being hit. The sound of it echoed round her living room. Could the couple upstairs hear it?

"Hands behind your back, don't move them again without permission. I told you about pronouns and I have no intention of repeating myself. The purpose of your mouth is to please Miss. You please Miss with your mouth by making sounds that Miss enjoys, by providing physical sensations that arouse Miss, and demonstrating that you are the cheap dirty little slut that Miss is in the mood to abuse. Do you understand that the first time, or does Miss need to smack you again?"

Trick question: 'I understand' has a pronoun; 'Miss doesn't need to slap me' could be taken as impertinent. She couldn't deny that Frankie had been fun - at least at the time, before the betrayal - but 'fun' was what it was. Naughty games, and letting herself have Frankie's phallic desires imposed upon her. This was entirely different, someone who knew enough of Jenna's own secrets and focussed on them from the moment she opened the door. Someone who knew Jenna well enough to simply push her to the wall and fuck her mind.

"Understand."

"Sex toys. Where are they?"

No asking if there were any, no hint in the voice that everyone had them and that was perfectly normal. Just the chill contempt that said 'I know you've been nasty and I want to see the evidence'. Little more than an hour before it had crossed her mind that she had needed to hide them from her friend Liz.

"Bedroom. Wardrobe, in a carrier bag."

It kept them together and out of the dust, that was all. Saying it aloud sounded so tacky, so shameful. She should have a nice tasteful box or decent bag to hide them in. Surely Miss didn't keep hers in an old supermarket carrier bag.

"Fetch. Don't forget, hands behind back."

Miss implied, with her choice of words and her casual reminder. Miss didn't tell her to carry the bag back between her teeth - she simply hinted that she expected it, that any other way would get her slapped again - and let her make the humiliating decision of her own accord. Jenna walked back from the bedroom, head bowed as much from shame as the weight dragging at her teeth, the bag swinging and bumping against her belly and groin. She felt entirely exposed like this, with her breasts on show and her hands behind her back. She dropped the bag between Miss' feet. Miss nodded towards the wooden chair that she had carried through from the kitchen and set uncomfortably close to the bay window in the living room.

"Sit ..."

Jenna sat down. Her back was to the window. She knew very well that you had to be squatting on the lip of the front lawn in order to see into the room at all. Nobody had any business doing that at any hour, let alone ten-thirty at night. She knew it very well, and it didn't matter in the slightest - she was naked to the waist and sitting in front of an uncurtained window. Miss reached out and slapped her right cheek, not quite as hard as before.

"... Disobedience gets hit as punishment, disappointment gets attention-slapped like that. Miss doesn't want dignified, nor pretty. Miss wants cheap, dirty slut. Try again. Sit."

Jenna stood up. Miss stepped as far back as the room allowed and folded her arms expectantly. Jenna dragged her plain black work skirt up her legs until it was gathered at her waist. She sat her bum down on the wooden seat and opened her knees. Her knickers, as chance would have it, were white today. She could feel them sticky against her as she spread her legs, imagined that Miss could probably see them stained already.