Anjali's Red Scarf Ch. 10

"When I'm wearing this," she said, draping it around her neck, "I'm Lily, and I'm at her beck and call." She took a dramatic step towards us, and her foot caught in the hem of the gown and she went over with a squawk, face-first into a shag pile rug.

I rushed to her side: no damage done, except to her dignity. "You right?" I whispered.

"I won't be called a liar," she said out loud, and then whispered back, "and this counts as challenge number three."

"Fine then." Fuck it. In for a penny, in for...two hundred dollars? And although I wasn't sure this was actually on the list of challenges we'd discussed, it was definitely in the spirit of things. "Lily, if you can't stay upright in that gown, you'd better take it off."

"As you command, milady." She rose to her feet like a sunflower fighting its way out from under a large and fluffy towel. When she'd reached her full height she twirled, shrugging her arms out of the robe so it fell back down around her as she twirled a full circle.

"Dance with me." I had been about to say "for me", but then I remembered her state of sobriety and thought about hard marble and glass coffee-tables too close for safety. She clasped one hand in mine, fingers twined together, and wound the other around my waist, and we swayed together in cautious circles. I leaned down to whisper in her ear, "Are you sure? You've had a bit to drink—"

"I'm not that drunk," she replied, perhaps louder than she intended. Then, to Lucy, "By now you really should have known I'm not one for bluffing."

Lucy was still on the sofa, eyes comically wide, and I felt sorry for her. But then, she'd impugned my honesty too. So I just grinned in her direction and kissed my Lily, hungrily and deep.

We swayed together, and her hands came up behind me, stroking my back. Something in her style was bolder than I was used to, more aggressive, and I wasn't sure how much of that was the alcohol and how much her annoyance at Lucy.

I stooped a little further and shifted her scarf to expose her neck, nibbled, bit. She yelped, and shuddered in my grasp, and melted against me as I maintained the pressure. Her thighs were very warm against mine. I gave her one last nip, extracting a little squeal, and then I pivoted behind her, arms coming up around her.

"Just let us know when you've seen enough," I said to Lucy, and eased the top button of Lily's blouse open, and then the next. She arched back against me, reaching up and backwards to ruffle my hair, and I continued to spin her very slowly as I worked my way down the line of buttons.

Lucy said nothing. Her face was bright red. I didn't think it was from the alcohol.

Having reached the last of Lily's buttons, I slid my hand inside, letting Lucy watch the shape of it under the silk, sliding up to cup her breast, while I kissed her earlobe and breathed slow and warm in her ear. "I. Fucking. Want. You."

She almost purred at that, and then she twisted around in my arms and slipped down, out of my grasp, down to kneel at my feet. "Mistress, may I?" She reached for my shoes and I nodded assent, watching as she fumbled at the laces, tugged them undone, eased them off my feet. Then she pressed her cheek against my thigh, wrapped her arms around me.

I reached down, grasped her glasses at her temples, slid them off her face. "Miss Kapadia," I said—we'd never given Lily a surname of her own—"you're beautiful!" Then a mischievous thought struck me. "Lucy, would you take these, please?" I held the glasses out, and Lucy blinked, reached out, took them, set them down on the coffee table without ever looking away from the two of us.

"Thank you," I said, but my attention was already back on Lily, whose hands were wandering up over my knees, tickling their way up my thighs, converging at the buckle of my belt. I closed my eyes, feeling the tension around my waist as she pulled on the end, then the release as she popped the tongue free and eased my slacks down to my ankles, leaving me standing in my Kmart boxers.

"What is your pleasure, mistress?" she said softly, and again I wondered if we might be taking this all too far, out of proportion to what little provocation Lucy had given us.

But Lily was kneeling in front of me, looking up with big eyes. For the first time that evening I noticed her dark purple lipstick, and that sent a little jolt of desire through me.

I hitched my thumbs in the elastic of my underwear, a sheriff reaching for her six-guns. "Let me see you stripped."

We had all seen one another nude in the tub, less than an hour ago. More nude then than now, for she hadn't been wearing the scarf before. But there is a considerable difference between nude and naked. She never took her eyes off me as she slipped off the blouse, as she shed skirt and shoes and sports bra and briefs—her underwear was plainer than I was used to, and it took me a moment to remember that this time she was dressed as Anjali—and I never took my eyes off her, but I could feel the heat of Lucy's gaze on us both.

"Come on, you." I wound her hair around my hand and led her to the sofa. "And you"—that to Lucy—"budge over."

Lucy squeezed back into the corner near the fire, and I lounged back across the armrest at the other end, my feet not quite touching her. I dragged Lily backwards into my lap, facing towards Lucy, and laid my right hand over Lily's belly as my left stroked her ribs, slid up to tease at her breasts. My fingernails skittered over her soft skin, leaving ephemeral white traces, grazing over her nipples. I whispered a question in her ear, and she shivered, and whispered "Yes".

"Isn't she beautiful?" I asked Lucy.

"Yes... yes, she is." Her mouth didn't quite close when she finished speaking.

"When she's wearing this scarf, she's mine." My right hand slid down, fingers curled to trail through her curls. "Do you want to see what happens next?"

Lucy's eyes widened, and in my head I counted three before she slowly nodded. Then my hand slipped down between Lily's thighs. She sighed, and brought her knees up, welcoming my fingertip as it dawdled over her labia, stroked and teased and opened her.

"You can touch her feet if you like," I said, and Lucy reached out as if hypnotised, took one of Lily's feet between her hands. Lily stretched out her leg—pressing my fingers tighter between her legs—and laid her foot in Lucy's lap. I pinched her nipple softly, and she sighed again, purred as I rolled it between my fingertips.

My other hand was working rhythmically between Lily's legs, circling her clit and running down and sliding back into her. It was making the tiniest of wet noises, but I knew Lucy could hear it. Her eyes were darting back and forth between my face, Lily's face, and down where I was stroking Lily.

"Do you like that, darling?" I asked Lily.

"Mmm. I like it—oh, I like it a lot."

I went on pinching her nipples, tormenting them until they stood firmly, and at the same time I continued to massage her sex. She was arching to press herself against my hand, and I knew Lucy, still cradling Lily's foot, could feel second-hand the effect I was having on my paramour.

"Tell Lucy what you do for me."

"Mmm...Lucy, she spanks me. She ties me up. She taught me to please her with my mouth and my tongue and my fingers. Oh. When I'm staying over, she has me wake her up by going down on her. Sarah likes to hurt me and—ah!—to make me cry out and she knows that gets me so hot."

I paused. She whimpered. "Please?"

I slid two fingers into her, as deep as I could from my position behind her, and swirled them.

"Ugh! She, oh, she pulls my hair and leaves claw marks in my skin. And she makes me admit how much I love it. Oh, please Sarah, please...and she loves to tease me like this. Make me beg her to let me come. Please, Sarah."

"Mmm." I circled my finger over her clit, just firm enough to keep her in a state of hungry frustration. "Lucy, should I let her, do you think?"

"I...I..." Lucy seemed almost hypnotised by the sight of Lily, caught in my grasp, legs open, being driven slowly closer to climax.

"But what am I thinking? Where are my manners? It's your birthday, Lucy. Would you like to try her? Just say what you want. She is very good."

Lucy swallowed, and closed her eyes a while. Then she shook her head abruptly and looked at me, and at Lily, and back to me, with a peculiar expression that was half smile and half frown. "That is one of the most lovely birthday presents I've ever been offered, certainly the most unexpected." She leaned over, not quite touching my companion's naked body, and kissed her on the cheek. "But this is...this is an awful lot to take in, and as lovely an offer as it is, I'm not sure it's what I want right now. I'm not in the right headspace. I'm afraid I must decline, without prejudice. Sorry."

She looked downwards—good lord but she was blushing!—and then back up to me, with a sudden grin. "I think you should give the poor girl some relief, though."

"Well, then."

Lucy sat back, watching, and I accelerated, jerking at Lily's nubbin with the edge of my hand, tweaking her nipples to make her help, nuzzling at the bare skin behind her ear. She responded fast and hard, rutting her hips against me, hands down behind her gripping my thighs, arching and gasping until she came with a shriek, soaking my hand and my boxers. I drew it out, slowed, stopped, but she wasn't done yet. She let go of my thigh, pushed my hand aside, and frantically rubbed herself to another climax before subsiding in my arms.

Time stretched out, and with the rush of lust now over I was suddenly very aware of how weird this whole moment was and how many lines I'd crossed that evening. I didn't know what to say—it's not the kind of moment I have a script for—and so I was profoundly grateful when Lucy coughed and broke the silence.

"I suppose the lesson for me in all this is to take the two of you at your word."

"Huh," I said eloquently, and Anjali added, "Yeah."

"As a substitute present, though, perhaps you could tell me the story about the rented dick?"

"You sure? It's not that great a story."

"Rented dick," Anjali mumbled. She was all floppy in my arms. I supposed the alcohol was catching up with her.

"I'm not going to get any peace until I tell you, am I?"

"Nope," said Lucy firmly.

"Fine. Okay. You asked." I threw my hands up. "So, this was back when I was with Ed. You"—Anjali—"would have been, uh, about seventeen. Ed and I had an agreement that we could play with other people, if the opportunity came up. Mostly it was Ed, but one time...there was this lady, and there was a certain amount of chemistry, and one weekend while Edgar was off at a swim meet in Adelaide she made her interest clear to me in words of one syllable."

"Mmm-hmm," said Lucy.

"So. Extremely hot baby-butch lass, there in my bedroom, making me an offer I couldn't refuse. She had some specific interests. But back then I didn't own a strap-on of my own, it wasn't a regular part of my, um, repertoire."

"Uh huh."

"So this was not long after Ed started transition. He had, uh, you know what hard and soft packers are?" Lucy nodded, but Anjali looked unsure, so I went on. "Wearable dick, basically a strap-on. The soft ones are just for wearing around, for having a bulge and the feeling of having a dick. The hard ones are for, well, when you want to use them on somebody."

"Like we—" Anjali began.

"Yes, like that," I replied before she could go any further. "So, not long before Ed started on T, he got himself one of each. But I'm told it's poor form to show up at the poolside sporting a boner, so he left the hard one at home, and, um."

"You borrowed it," said Lucy.

"I borrowed it. Not something we'd talked about, but we used to borrow shirts and stuff from one another all the time, so I assumed it'd be okay."

"You borrowed his dick for sex," said Anjali, "without asking."

"Yeah. That's not the worst part."

"What's the worst part?" she asked, and Lucy said "Do go on."

"We, uh. She was pretty enthusiastic and, uh, we sort of broke it."

"You broke Ed's dick?" asked Anjali.

"Yeah. Not my best moment."

"So that's why the two of you split up!" She was joking, but she wasn't too drunk to notice my reaction. "I'm sorry, I didn't—"

"Well, it wasn't a big part—"

"Rephrase!" chirped Anjali without a moment's hesitation.

I glared at her. "AS I WAS SAYING, it wasn't the end of the world, but we had a pretty big fight about it. I didn't understand why he was so pissed about it. I thought I'd just buy him a new one, same make, same size, and that would fix it. I didn't realise..."

"Dicks aren't fungible?" said Lucy.

"Fungible?" I vaguely remembered hearing the term, but the only thing I could recall was that it wasn't about fungus.

"It's like 'equivalent'," said Anjali. "If you lend me a twenty-dollar bill, I don't have to give you back the same bill. I can give you a different twenty, or a ten and two fives, and legally that's just the same as if I gave you back the original, because currency is fungible. But if you lend me your dog, I have to give you back the exact same dog, because dogs aren't fungible."

I looked at Lucy, who nodded affirmation.

"Right," I said, "so like stackable versus non-stackable items. Yes, it turns out dicks aren't fungible. I thought they were, as long as you're using a condom, but they're very definitely not. I didn't really grasp that at the time—"

"Rephrase!" chirped Anjali again, but I ignored her.

"— I didn't understand why Ed was so upset with me. We sort of smoothed it over, but there was a certain amount of ongoing friction."

"Which is not something you want with a dick," Lucy offered unhelpfully. "Hey, is that your phone?"

I cocked my head and listened. "Yeah. Never mind, they can leave a message. But yeah, to me it was just a plastic thing and to him...it was his dick. Sentimental value." My phone stopped ringing. Good. "I didn't understand what it meant for him at the time, and I got defensive and it took me ages to realise I was being shitty to him about it. I said sorry eventually, but...by then, damage done. I still feel bad about that."

"Well, I can't say this is quite how I was expecting my birthday to turn out, but it definitely hasn't been dull." Then Lucy's phone rang. "Hang on a mo, that'll be Aunty Vic and Uncle Jeremy, I expect."

But after talking for a moment, she frowned and held the phone out to me. "It's Mohammed. From work. He wants to talk to you."

I took it. "Hello?" Mohammed was one of our grads. He'd been working for me on the Schiphol warehousing system, translating my prototype code into something dependable enough to run a billion-dollar cargo operation.

"Ms Weber?"

"Speaking. What's up, Mohammed?" He wasn't supposed to be working Saturday nights.

"Sorry to bug you out of hours, but we had a call from Schiphol...there's a problem with the solver module."

"Big problem, or small problem?" But I already knew the answer. Mohammed wasn't the kind to ring me on the weekend just for the fun of it, and the solver module—my baby—was a critical piece of infrastructure. It was the decision-maker running a large container facility by the airport, choreographing an intricate ballet of trains and cranes and haulers and shipping containers. Without it, traffic would be building up, deadlines missed, penalties accumulating. In my mind's eye I could see a counter whirring upwards at high speed, with a dollar sign in front of it.

"It's not working. It keeps returning an 'infeasible' error. Jaden's here with me, we're running through it and trying to find where it goes wrong, but we don't know the solver very well—"

I mouthed a very heartfelt fuck. "No, you did right to call me." Mohammed was a bright lad, but constraint programming wasn't his field, and it's not the sort of thing you can talk someone through over the phone. "You're in the office?"

"Yes."

"Okay, I'll be there as soon as I can. Does Lincoln know?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay, I'll call him on my way in. Can you please pull the logs for me? I'm on my way but I'll be a little while."

"Okay. Thanks, Ms. Weber."

"Bye now." I turned to Lucy and Anjali. "Something very expensive just fell over." I was already booking the taxi on my phone. "I have to go in. Anjali, I'll get the taxi to drop you on the way." Her place was well out of my way, and time in this case was a lot of money. But there was no way I was leaving her to taxi home alone, still half-drunk.

"I should stay, help Lucy clean up..."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," Lucy said. "I'd drive you myself, but I'm in no fit state. I'm fine to clean up. You might want to have a shower first, though."

"Oh shit, yes," I said.

Anjali and I shared a hurried shower, and we had just finished putting our clothes back on when the taxi honked outside. Lucy saw us to the door.

"Good luck," she said to me. "Give me a call if you need. Not too early though."

"Thanks." I hugged her good-night. I wasn't sure how weird things were going to be between us, but apparently we were still on friendly terms. "Happy birthday, and...thank you for having us," I said. My mother had taught me that formula when I was five years old, and I'd never lost the habit of saying it at the end of a party.

"Thanks for your company," Lucy replied. "And Anjali... thank you for coming."

She closed the door in our faces before I could reply.

* * * * *

Dear readers: yes, it really is possible to be that oblivious. Take my word for it.

I hope you're all doing well in these trying times. I've just finished the first draft of Chapter 11, and I expect Chapter 12 will wrap up this story. Thanks to all of you for your continued patience with this story!