A Separate Life

"Erotica?"

"The term is porn, and it would turn you blue."

"Oh, I don't know ... "

"Believe me, girl, it would turn you ice blue -- an' you blue-veined enough. It's not E-mman-u-elle anymore. I'll get us glasses."

When she returned from the kitchen, I poured the wine and asked, "How good're you at backgammon?"

"Unbeatable," she said.

"This won't be miniature golf, Cyd."

"Oh, you're settin' yourself up, girl."

"I think I deserve a chance to get even."

She sipped the wine and appraised my look.

"I do like that t-shirt," she said.

A shiver ran through me.

We set up under a dimmed recessed light.

"Are we playing like a game of strip poker?" I asked. My nervousness must have showed.

"I don't think I've ever played that. Have you?"

"Once, maybe, a very long time ago."

"Play it with boys?"

"A girl cousin."

"Interesting. How old were you?"

"Old enough."

"Really? Teenaged? Older?"

I tried dismissing the game as a non-story, a trivial incident, not worth telling.

"Girlfriend, just tell it."

Her hint of impatience caught me off guard and the story spilled out.

"I was visiting my aunt and uncle's country place ... and late in the afternoon my cousin took me to a tack room in their old barn. Then she found a pack of cards and wanted to play. I thought it was a joke, but she insisted that we bet our clothes. Big surprise, she took hand after hand. When it was over, she took my clothes and offered to play double or nothing."

"How'd that work if you were already naked?"

"We played for spanks."

"Really? She spanked you?"

"I'm placing sacred trust in you," I said. "I've never told this story to anyone before."

"You're blushing." Cyd sipped from her glass. "You blush too easily for a lawyer."

We let the awkward moment sit. As Cyd set down her glass, she asked, "Did you enjoy it?"

I had to weigh my answer. "I didn't really like my cousin."

"So, that ruined your experience?"

"Yes. But it wasn't really an experience like you're suggesting."

"I'm not suggesting anything. It's your story."

She handed me a die and we each threw to see who'd go first. Cyd won with a five, then threw doubles to open.

As she placed her markers, she asked me casually, "Do you want to spank me if I lose?"

"I don't think so, Cyd."

"Want me to spank you?"

"We're not kids," I said.

She threw the perfect sum to send my lead marker back to start. I rolled mediocre dice, throw after throw, and became irritated with my luck. She pressed her advantages. A cold panic crept in when I realized she would handily beat me.

With the winning marker home, Cyd smiled with smoky, recessed eyes.

"Take it off," she said.

"My t-shirt?"

"Hmmhmm."

"I'd rather buy you a better one."

"That one. Take it off."

"C'mon, Cyd."

She leaned forward, hooked a finger in the neckline and tugged gently.

"It's just a game," she said. "Take it off."

"I'm self-conscious about my chest."

"Honey, sooner or later we all are."

I braced myself, crossed my hands to grab the t-shirt, then pulled it over my head and tossed it aside. I shrugged in a "ta da!" sort of way. Cyd studied me with that heavy-lidded smile.

"You have prominent nipples, I see."

I crossed my arms and covered myself.

"No, no," she said, brushing at my hands. "Put them down. Put them down." As I lowered my hands, she said, "Sit on them. Sit still." And like a schoolgirl I slid my hands under my thighs while Cyd hovered close.

"Are they sen-si-tive?"

As she spoke she flicked one of my nipples back and forth with her fingernail, setting off electrical sparks until I recoiled with a yip, a sound so out of character it made her laugh.

"Oh, I like that," she said. "And I like that you kept your hands in place. Let's keep them there."

She teased again, grazed the electric tip.

"Ohhhhh, it's gotten even stiffer," she said. "Look at that, the aureole's just a tight little ring at the base."

She watched me quiver, then took both of my nipples gingerly between her fingertips.

"Oh, lucky me," she said.

The blood pounded in my ears. It's happening, I thought, nothing I can do. The marriage about to crash, the clear-cut case suddenly falling to pieces, all security and control lost in an instant to a chaos of sensation.

"I think I got you," Cyd whispered.

I nearly orgasmed as she reeled me toward her. My mouth parted, anticipating a kiss, but her expression changed. She gave my nipples a squeeze and then pushed me back in my chair. I sat in a slump, feeling queasy now, too sick to move. Cyd gathered her pieces.

"Come on, set up again," she said. "If you win, you get your t-shirt back."

She set her own pieces, then began to place mine for me.

"You sit up now and get your mind on the game."

But my mind was numb. Dice tumbled from the cup. She talked trash again -- or, no, it wasn't trash, but direct and ruthless inquiry.

"It makes you hot when your titties are teased; I see that, nothing wrong with that. Do you find my feet attractive?"

With a dry mouth I managed to say, "Yes."

"Are you wet?"

"Yes."

She rested a painted fingernail on the cup. "Then play," she said.

"I can't."

Her tone softened. "You're so hungry for it, Beth, look, you're shaking." She leaned across the board and stroked my face. "I can give you holistic pain, healing pain. We'll start easy, with something familiar. Tell me about you and your cousin. Tell me in detail."

Cyd rattled the dice in the cup. The game resumed. It was impossible to concentrate and tell the story.

"We were in an old tack room."

"You were naked, she wasn't. Double or nothing. For spanks."

"There were reins and things, and this saddle on a barrel with legs. She ... scared me by talking about how she wanted to tie me up and leave me to be found naked ... so I climbed on the saddle. She had me put my bare feet in the stirrups. She ... bound my feet to the them, then ... bound my hands to the saddle horn. She ... she ... used a folded rein and a crop to ... spank me."

Cyd looked up from the board.

"Which parts of your body did she strike?"

"My behind, my ... ass."

"Only your behind?"

"Yes."

"Did all this excite you?"

"It was more the idea of what was happening that excited me."

"I see. Did you come?"

"No."

"After she untied you, did you service her?"

"Did I service her?"

"Did she make you eat her?"

"Oh, no ..."

"What did you do?"

"I was ashamed. I cried. My cousin made fun of me."

"Did you masturbate?"

"No, not then."

"Have you ever eaten pussy?"

"Nooo, Cyd ..."

"You never -- Never? Obviously you fantasize about it. Do you beat off to your fantasies?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you beat off once a week?"

"No."

"Once a day?"

"Yes."

"And sometimes more?"

"Yes."

"No wonder you have to work on vacations. Do you prefer masturbation to sex with your husband?"

"Recently, yes."

"Have you been whipped or caned since that time with your cousin?"

"Whipped? I didn't say I'd been -- "

"You were restrained and struck across your bare ass, at will, with a leather strap and a crop. I call that whipping."

Cyd picked up the cup and rattled the dice in it.

She threw doubles.

"I really don't want to carry this too far," I said, trying to suppress my shakes.

"Yes, you do," she said and slid toward me under the table. "You want to lose." With a start, I felt her toes poke my bare tummy. "'Cause we're playin' for spanks," she said.

The moment Cyd won, the ambient drumming seemed louder, or maybe I had only started to hear it again. The quickened rhythm matched the beating of my heart. Cyd stood up and walked away from the game board. I sat, turning inside out with apprehension.

"Stand up," Cyd told me. "Get naked. And clear the coffee table."

I stood up and stripped off my shorts and panties. Cyd took my hand and turned me around, complimenting the muscle tone of my arms and thighs, interested in the redness of my hair and the freckled paleness of my skin.

She patted my bottom and gave it a squeeze as I cleared the books and candles from the glass top of the coffee table. I laughed in my nervousness.

"This is kind of silly," I said.

"I'm quite serious, Beth. Surely you know that."

With the last items cleared, she lifted my chin and brushed her lips over mine. My mouth parted, wanting more, but she turned me toward the low table and urged me onto it.

She had me position myself on all fours and circled me with one hand gliding over my back as if over some sculpture. My hair had fallen around my face. All I could see was my tummy and pointy little tits mirrored in the glass below.

Cyd's touch changed. Her nails skittered down my spine then raked over my ass cheeks and down the backs of my legs.

"Hmmm," she purred. "What a pretty puss you have. So neat and trim and nicely rounded, no inner lips showing. So tight, so you." Her fingers slid to my inside thighs.

"Please, Cyd ... "

One hand pressed on my back. "Take a deep breath," she said. "I'm having fun. Now push your butt up -- up."

"Like this?"

She gave my presented rump a sharp whack.

"Hey!"

She dealt me another with as much jolt and sting as the first.

"Yeow!"

Her weight dropped suddenly on top of me. "Shall I use my hand or a strap?" she said.

"A strap? Oh, god, no, just your hand, please."

She patted a target and said, "A strap would be the closest thing I can get to horse reins."

Whap!

"Oh -"

One hand kept me steady while the other patted.

"I think the hand'll do," she said.

Another whap. "Oh!"

From then on she dealt a mix of slaps, pats, smacks and caresses that wakened my bottom more than punished it. She shifted position around me and paused now and then, just long enough to heighten my anticipations. I saw my flesh jump in the glass when she struck hard. A sharp and searing pain exploded when she focused on a single spot with five or six rapid smacks. A rush ran through me whenever her hand slid down my bottom and grazed my puss.

"You've done this before," I said.

She startled me by lifting one of my feet and slapping the sole.

"Last year I found a white mama of two in her forties," she said. "Still attractive. Tall, with a big white behind that I swear never, ever in her life saw the sun a day. Her first summer renting. Loved bare ass spankings on all fours while her husband played golf."

"How'd you find that out?"

Whap!

"I beat her at backgammon. Whipped her and stripped her, then whipped her again."

"You do this all the time?"

She answered with a series of hard smacks that had me contorting. She took my hair, pulling just enough to convey the message of control. "No more questions," she said. "Stand up now."

Cyd released my hair and held my hand to steady me as I climbed off the table on shaky legs. She ran her palm lightly over my scarlet bottom.

"Hmm, like a sunburn," she said. "Shall we get holistic?"

She led me to the couch and sat, indicating that I should stand between her parted knees. She then pointed to the carpet and I knelt before her like a docile subject.

She took hold of my nipples and drew me forward as before, till we nearly touched noses. My head swooned with the thought she might actually kiss me this time. I tasted her breath as she spoke.

"You know I'm about to turn you inside out," she said.

"Cyd, you don't -- oh!"

She pinched hard before I could finish. I went down on all fours. After a breath or two, with a light touch under my chin, she brought me upright on my knees again.

"Don't speak, don't wiggle, don't move," she said.

She played with the tips of my titties, using her nails to inflict a subtle, nuanced torment as I struggled to remain still. Her flicks and scrapes, pinches and slaps grew meaner by shades. She enjoyed the sounds I made.

"Got your juices flowin'?"

"Oh god, yes."

She leaned back.

I watched with lurid fascination as she extended her bare foot to my titty and took the long nipple between her toes. She slid the sole of her other foot down my belly, then brought her instep against my puss from below. Pleasure spread like a warm drug. I rocked against it. She thrust in rhythm.

"Ohhh -- "

I felt the pulsing of my cun and humped faster.

"The humiliation excites you."

"Please don't say it."

"You want to be lesbian tortured."

"No, I --"

She tugged as I humped. My eyes rolled in sweet pain. A current shot between nipple and cun. It branched and caught fire. I rose in an arc on the growing flames and craved the rush that was building.

And she taunted me as she jacked with her foot. She laughed at my helplessness and jolted me rigid, wave by wave. My body ran with sweat. Breathing stopped.

A bright light flared between the dark of my closed eyes. All at once the expanding nova encompassed everything, all of my awareness, all of my thoughts and words, all sense of shame and withholding, all ego and pride. It encompassed the triangle of fire in which I was held suspended and obliterated within the moment any distinction between Cyd and me.

I came, shuddering and creaming, riding her instep.

When my orgasm subsided, Cyd broke contact. I laughed and cried simultaneously, folding over onto the rug. She lifted me and wiped my tears.

"That was holistic," she said.

It felt religious.

She touched my lips. Then she leaned back, all the way back, flexing her juice-slickened foot as she lifted it toward my mouth.

Her big toe slid between my lips. At her urging, I sucked it like a cock and tasted my own puss for the first time.

I sucked and kissed every part of her wonderful foot. I kissed it clean.

Cyd hitched up her hips and removed her shorts. She wore no panties. Sliding forward to the edge of the cushion, she spread her labia to show the slick pink anemone within. Her vivid clit stood moist and swollen out of its caramel hood.

"Lick it, Beth," she said. "Eat me."

I abandoned myself to it. My mouth worked by instinct, my head overwhelmed by her textures, her tastes, her foreign aromas. I licked, flicked, nibbled and sucked. She squeezed my head between her thighs as she came. My mouth pulsed as one with her puss. I tasted her anemone spray on the back of my tongue. I drank it.

We embraced. Cyd wiped my face with the palm of her hand and kissed me quickly. A peck on the lips. My mouth still tingled with a tart aftertaste.

Afterglow did not last long. Cyd wanted me to go.

"Can we meet tomorrow?" I asked, pulling on my shorts.

"Alvie will be here."

"Does he have to know?"

She caught her lower lip in her teeth, then said, "Call me around noon."

I tried to kiss her in thanks. She turned her face to receive my kiss on her cheek. When I unthinkingly reached for the t-shirt to finish dressing, she plucked it away.

"No longer yours," she said.

"But I'm leaving."

"Yes you are."

"You're sending me home topless?"

"I could send you home nude."

She took me by the arm, turned me toward the staircase and gave me a little shove. Patting my bottom along, she said, "Get your lawyer ass outta here now. I need my sleep."

"Cyd, wait --"

"Get going."

But I was hardly ready for us to part, feeling incomplete.

"Please, just tell me, so I'll know, when did you first think - when did you first know that I was --?"

"Bi-curious, submissive?"

I went hot, sickly weak with rekindled shame. "-- attracted to you," I said. "I was going to say "attracted to you.""

She looked impatient.

"The moment I saw you drive up with your husband, it was clear you had issues. I was watching from the window and was already sure that I could have you if I wanted. There was our meeting on the beach, and then your reaction to that wannabe slave waitress. The golf game clinched it."

An image of the woman from the summer before, down on all fours with her big white bottom in the air, ready to receive her swats, jumped to mind as an epiphany. I was only the next in line. Next year, she'll describe me.

Hoping to be wrong, I said, "You planned this?"

"Why do you think I sent Alvie away?"

"But I -"

"You got your therapy, I got my kicks."

"Therapy?"

"Session's over."

Cyd pushed until I descended the stairs.

"Go. You can take your sandals, girl."

In the foyer, I had to brace myself against the wall while fumbling to put my sandals on. I fought back tears, feeling heartbroken and betrayed. Worse, I saw myself in the moment as a petty and derided thing, fatuous in my professional ambitions and pathetic in my secret fetishisms.

I looked up to see if Cyd was watching from the top of the stairs, but she had gone.

Her absence saved me.

Opening the front door to scope the way, I saw no movement and heard only the surf and the late night traffic along the coast road -- a wee hour stillness everywhere.

I stepped into the damp air and my skin went pebbly with the chill. I shut the door, cupped my breasts in my hands, with sore, thimble-hard nipples pressed to my palms, and raced like a fugitive back to the rented house where my ineffectual husband slept under an empty screen. Bedding down on the living room couch, I begged relief one more time, pulling my tits, fingering my desperate cun while thinking of Cyd controlling and punishing me. With sleep, I sank into fiery dreams of being marooned on an island where volcanoes plumed, and where I found myself at the mercy of cannibal women, a dozen or more, who tore away my clothing and pinched my flesh as they shoved me along the sand toward a cooking spit on which I was to be tied and roasted until I came.