Anjali's Red Scarf Ch. 08

Lily beamed down on me, her satisfied and cake-smeared expression bordering on smugness. But her clothes...

"Your dress, ma'am!" The floor and I had caught a few pieces, but some had ended up on her dress, like texta on the Mona Lisa.

"You're sweet to worry." She touched my nose with her fingertip, and left another smear of cream behind. "But my first rule of dressmaking, never wear what you're not prepared to clean. The second rule is, don't stint on fabric protector. Why don't you get off what you can?"

She sat back and spread her legs as wide as the cut would allow, so that the creases were flattened. I started at her hem, hovering over the shimmering material, hunting out the fragments of cake. The crumbs came off easily, a flick of the tongue; the cream took more work. Lily helped, in her way; she wiped the cream off my nose and cheek again, so I wouldn't get more on her, and then with one hand in my hair—gentle, this time, steering not tugging—she guided me to the spots I might have missed. I nuzzled at her belly and her bodice, and when I'd caught all that I could, she pulled me up to clean her face like some enthusiastic puppy. I licked her chin and her cheeks, and inevitably I finished in the middle, in a deep cherry-flavoured kiss.

"Oh dear," she said after we eventually broke off, "you've missed some."

"Where, ma'am?"

"Down my cleavage. I think there are a few crumbs. Do you think you can reach?"

I tried valiantly, but it was clear that my tongue was neither long enough nor prehensile enough to finish the job.

"Well, then. Let's get this in to soak, shall we?"

She rose, and after she'd helped me to her feet, I helped her out of her dress, since it was snug enough to give her some difficulty with the zipper at the back. Then we took it to the laundry and rinsed it thoroughly in the sink before putting it in the washing machine with detergent that Anjali had brought.

"Let me know if it needs dry cleaning. I'll pay for it."

"You most certainly will." Anjali, clad only in her underwear and spectacles, squeezed my arm. "It should be fine though."

I noticed that the mop wasn't quite where I usually left it. "You cleaned the floor?"

"Not the whole floor. Just that part."

"Much appreciated."

"I was very nearly a doctor, remember? Only the most sanitary floors for my plaything. Speaking of which, my dear, we're not done yet."

With the machine merrily humming away, she led me back to the dining table. She sat back on the edge next to the cake and held me close, removing my glasses and guiding my head in between her breasts to search for the crumbs there that, I highly suspected, did not exist. Eventually she sighed, reached back behind her, and slipped out of the bra, leaving me free to polish her delicious skin unhindered, eventually guiding me left and right to suckle on her.

"Mmm. That feels good. Everything that goes in your mouth should feel good, Abby, no cause for shame. Now, what have you learned today?"

"Ma'am, I'm very sorry for how I treated you. I'm sorry I spoiled so much for you."

"Mmm-hmm. That's good to hear, dear. But I need to be sure you're not just saying what I want to hear. Let's see if you really understand."

She hooked her thumbs into the elastic of her panties and stepped out of them, sitting back down on her chair and guiding me back down to my knees, looking up at her once more, her knees either side of my shoulders.

"Have a cushion, dear." She slipped out the one she'd been sitting on and passed it down to me, and I gratefully arranged it under my knees.

"Now, tell me about my thighs."

"Your thighs, ma'am?"

"You're close enough to them." She squeezed her legs together a little, pressing me between them. It was a comforting feeling, and I thought briefly of Temple Grandin's hug machine. "Tell me about them."

"They're, uh... I really like them. I really can't explain why."

"Are they the right size? Not too thin, not too thick?"

"Are they... that's not my call. I don't get to say how you should be."

"A good answer." She stroked my hair. "But you're allowed to like them. I like that you like them. What do you want to do with them?"

"I like the way you react when I touch them." I wasn't sure if I was allowed to use my hands yet, but I ran my fingers up her calves and she didn't object, so I took the liberty of venturing further up. "I want to stroke them." Which I was already doing. "I want to kiss them and lick them." I brushed my lips against her skin, and felt that electric flicker. "I adore the way you react when I do that."

"Mmm. That sounds very nice, but... not just yet." She pushed my head back, just enough to break the contact. "Do you know what the most important thing about my thighs is, Abby?"

"...no?"

"They stop my knees from falling off."

I had difficulty keeping myself from cracking up. But she continued. "Now, Abby, I'm satisfied that you've learned how to treat me with respect. But you haven't really learned the lesson until you've learned it for yourself. You've only had crumbs so far. Would you like some cake?"

I opened my mouth to say "yes", but she put a finger to my lips. "Wait. Don't answer right away. Think about it."

I thought about it. About the tantalising morsels I'd had already—a single cherry, a lick or two of cream from her fingers and the floor, crumbs and spots almost too small to taste—and about the state of my own stomach. Yes, I was hungry. Yes, I'd liked what I'd had.

"Yes, ma'am. I would like some cake."

"A no would also have been a fine answer. You don't have to have anything you don't want. But I'm glad you do, because this is one of my favourites, and there's way too much for me to eat on my own."

She took another good-sized slice of cake from the table and offered it to me, held in her cupped hands, between her thighs. "Go on, then."

Close up, it looked delicious and smelled heavenly. "Thank you, Miss Lily." I leaned forwards, my hands against her knees to balance myself, and went in face first.

It was every bit as tasty as it had smelled, the cherries flavoursome and fat, and just enough bitterness in the chocolate to stop the sweetness from cloying. Eating hands-free would have been messy enough on its own, but she was 'helping', nudging the cake towards my face, not always directly into my mouth. Before I was half done, my face was liberally smeared with Black Forest from the nose down, and I needed to pull back for a moment to wipe a stray blob of cream from my eyelid.

"Sorry, ma'am, I'm a bit of a mess," I said, with black-juicy chunks of cherry still sloshing in my mouth.

"You are, aren't you? Look up at me." She had her finger under my chin, directing my gaze upwards to meet hers. "Are you my little guzzling piggy?"

"Yes, I—no." I caught the trick question just in time. "No, Miss Lily, I'm not. I am a woman who is eating a scrumptious cake because I want to."

"That's right. Well done, Abby. Now if you want to be a little piggy later on, well, maybe we can work something out. But eating cake doesn't make you one. It just makes you a more satisfied woman with a full stomach."

I nodded and mumbled agreement, and then returned to my dessert. For the last of it I had to work my tongue hard, to get at the last pieces of sponge down between her fingertips.

"Look up at me," she said, and as I did I heard a shutter click: her phone. "You can delete this right away, but I wanted you to see what you look like."

I looked like the world's sloppiest clown, my face a blur of pink and white and brown. I grinned at her, and then rested my head against her thighs a moment.

"Oops," I said, "I got it on you again. Guess I'd better clean that up..."

* * * * *

Later, after we'd showered and packed half a Black Forest cake into my fridge and climbed into bed together, she said, "Well? How did I do?"

"That was... really not at all what I was expecting. Where did that all come from?"

"Abby's real. I was so angry about it. For years. Long after high school. I used to think about ways to get back at her. Getting rich and famous and then showing them all, you know?"

I nodded.

"And one of the ways was just, well, stuffing her full of cake. Make her eat until she was sick, and then keep on feeding her for months so she'd get fat. And then, I don't know. Maybe she'd be sorry, or maybe just everybody would laugh at her."

"I hadn't picked you for the vengeful type," I said. But I think most of us autistic folk have a streak of that in us. We're slow to forgive injustices and insults, and prone to brood on them, for an injustice means the world isn't working correctly, and who can let that kind of knowledge go?

"Well, I didn't do it. I didn't even trash her schoolbag when I had the chance. But I thought about it. The version you got was much gentler than the version I used to have running through my head. But still, I didn't feel comfortable doing it. I thought about it as soon as you suggested us switching, but I didn't feel like I could treat you like that."

"What changed your mind?"

"I was thinking about another fantasy. You were ludicrously rich, the kind of rich person who gets to make their own rules. You were visiting my campus some day, and you spotted me, and just decided to take me. Bang, kidnapped, private island, never mind all my plans, your slave for until you got bored with me. As a fantasy... that was really hot, but I was also uncomfortable about liking it. I wanted to sort of... balance things out? To have a go of the other side, to show myself that I could? Because if I can dominate you, even just once, then I know it's fantasy and not real, and that's okay... does that make sense? It sounded better in my head."

"I sort of get it. I think. So what did you think?"

"I'm glad I tried it. I don't think I'd do it again though, unless you really wanted to. It was a lot of work. I spent hours working out scripts for that, thank you for not going outside my scripts by the way, and I had to drag up some unpleasant memories." She sighed. "I doubt it'd actually work out like that. I Facebook-stalked Abby a couple of years back and I'm pretty sure she's still a cow. She wouldn't get it at all. But thanks for being the pretend-Abby I wanted. You?"

"Similar, I think? I'm glad we tried it, and I had fun, but it doesn't feel like something I'd do often. Have to be just the right situation with just the right person. And I'd need to really trust them."

"Uh huh." She snuggled back into my arms. "So... cake for breakfast?"

"For breakfast? Is that even allowed?"

"I allow myself. You can allow yourself too, if you want. You're an adult, Sarah."

"Theoretically."

"Theoretically, yes. Good night."

* * * * *

Turns out it's hard to write in a pandemic. As I write it's winter here, and we're under curfew, and there's a sort of low buzz of worry that makes everything slow and difficult. But I'm still here, and I hope all of you are too.

This one's for the city I call home, and hoping for better times.

Thanks as usual to AwkwardMD, LaRascasse, and my partner for editing and beta reading, and thanks to all of you for your patience.

Next time: a friendship develops, and Anjali learns how to trash-talk.