Are You Tiffani Caine? Ch. 02

Author's Introduction: This work in its entirety is dedicated to KF, whose life was brutally unfair and far too short. I will always remember you, always love you, and always miss you. Rest now, my brother. You've earned your peace.

This is the second chapter in what appears to be turning into an ongoing series. I expect each chapter to vary in themes, fetishes, and even category, and for that reason I intend to state at the beginning of each chapter what readers can expect to see. So, here goes:

Are You Tiffani Caine? Chapter 2 deals with non-consensual elements (blackmail, non-violent coercion), lesbian sex, drug and alcohol use, (Christian) faith being tested, mental health issues including PTSD, and relationships being tested. Also, this takes place in a beautiful, magical world without COVID; I deal with that shit every day in reality, I don't want to deal with it in my fiction too.

The reception of the first chapter was very kind, so I decided to make the second chapter my next project. I welcome feedback, positive or negative. If you want a response, either leave a comment at the end of this story or email me at the address on my profile page.

All fictional characters that I made up in my head as fiction who engage in fictional sex are over 18 fictional years of fictional age fiction fiction fiction.

Up next: That Damned Blessing, Chapter Two.

Are You Tiffani Caine? Chapter 2

By Senor Smut

Shut down the Gospel singers and turn up the old heartbreakers

-- Frightened Rabbit

April 3rd

The feelings of guilt were gone when Sara awoke on Saturday. She wondered at that as she made her breakfast. Had God given her grace when she prayed? Before now she would simply have accepted that as fact; she still did, mostly. There was a little corner of her mind, though, that wondered if she might actually be growing a callus where the guilt rubbed against the soft angles of her soul.

No. My soul is in the hands of the Lord and His will is my will. Without Him I can do nothing; through Him I can do anything. I can even pray for His forgiveness and accept it when it is given. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for all I receive, good and bad, for I know everything is just as you wish it to be. I can ask nothing else. Amen.

She called Isaac, who answered but couldn't talk because he was meeting with his father about the church. She told him she loved him and he said he loved her, and they promised to talk later.

And thus ensued a normal Saturday. She drove to the gym, went grocery shopping, dropped off clothes at the cleaners, passed an hour wandering a Christian book shop (and spending rather too much on a new exegesis of the Old Testament that people at church had raved about), and for lunch went to a little soup and salad place that she adored - Isaac didn't like it for some reason, so she only ever went there alone, and she posted an Insta of her minestra d'orzo and Caesar salad just to tease him.

She was just finishing her tea when her phone rang. Her heart gave a lurch like it always did when the phone rang now, but it wasn't an unknown number. It was someone calling from St. Paul - maybe someone in her church? She picked up the phone and said, "Hello?"

"Yeah," came a rather gruff female voice. "Are you Tiffani Caine?"

Dumbfounded at hearing those words come from a woman, Sara couldn't even feel her mouth form the whispered words, "Yes I am."

"Good," the woman replied. She gave Sara's home address and then asked, "That's where you live, right?"

Baffled, Sara said, "Yeah. Yes, that's my apartment."

"I'll be there at 7:20 tonight. Be ready or I leave you behind."

"Wait, what? Where are we -"

The woman hung up.

Sara sat for several elongated minutes wondering what fresh tribulation was to be visited upon her now. It wasn't as though she wouldn't submit to the Lord's will in giving it to her; after all, she was being punished for her wickedness, so she had no right to complain, demur, or try to avoid it.

Without knowing quite where she was headed, she stood and wandered out onto the sidewalk. She had more stops she had wanted to make, more shops to hit, more errands to run, but right then she couldn't think of what she needed to do. She desperately wanted to hear Isaac's voice, but she didn't dare call him again, with tomorrow being Easter and him being so busy. She still almost called him anyway, but she knew that he would be angry if she did. As he said, they would talk later, but what if she had to spend the rest of the day with this new woman? Who knew if she would be available before he went to bed? The woman might want anything of her and -

The thought brought Sara to a halt as though someone had pulled fiercely on her reins. What did the woman want with her? Surely...

No. No, she couldn't want that. They couldn't expect her to do that with a woman! It was impossible!

Just like it had been impossible that she be expected to do that with a strange Man-Bun in public, right? The possibility was so enormous, so monstrous, that it took Sara a couple of minutes to remember that she was standing in the middle of a busy sidewalk. She forced her feet to move again but she walked like she was numb. She barely noticed her surroundings enough to avoid colliding with people as she stumbled on.

No. She would not do that, not with a woman, not ever. She would rather go to prison than do that. In prison that might be done to her, but it would not be by her volition. She would never, ever take that terrible sin upon herself. If she was faced with that, she would accept the punishment she had earned in this life, knowing that her soul was washed clean in the sight of the Lord and that her place above was secure. The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?

Or woman.

When she came back to herself she was somehow back in her car, sitting motionless in the lot. With an effort of will she started her car and guided it to the road. She didn't want to go home and just wait for evening, but she was too edgy and unfocused to do anything else. She wound up just wandering aimlessly, lost in thoughts that could never quite resolve into anything more than chaotic foreboding, driving up and down random streets without noticing where she was. It was something of a surprise when she realized, three hours later, that she was on her own street a block away from her apartment. Well, that was a sign from the Lord. With a defeated sigh, she parked the car in the resident lot and went inside with three hours to kill.

She took a quick shower that turned into an hour under the hot spray. She would have stayed even longer but the phone rang. She jumped so fiercely that she almost left her skin in the shower as she vaulted out, heart hammering savagely -

And saw Emma's name displayed on her phone. She took a moment for a deep breath and then picked up the phone. "Hi, Em."

"Hi Sars." Pause, then, "Are you OK?"

"Yeah...I mean no. Not at all."

"Aw shit. What's going on?"

"Hold on, I'm dripping all over my bathroom," Sara said. Quickly she wrapped her hair in a towel and pulled a second one around her body, then picked up the phone. "Sorry, I was in the shower when you called."

"So what's up?"

"It's been...a tough couple of weeks."

"I know. Is that what's bothering you now? Are you still thinking about what you did?"

"Always," Sara admitted as she walked into her living room and eased herself onto her sofa, starting to brush her hair with the hand that wasn't holding the phone. "But that's not the main problem now. I got another call today."

"Oh fuck...sorry, dang it. You have to meet him again?"

"No. At least I don't think it's going to be the same guy." She paused, swallowed, then said softly, "It was...it was a woman this time."

"What did she say?"

"She's picking me up in...what, about an hour and a half."

"And then what?"

"I don't know. That's all she said."

"OK...I mean...OK. That's not automatically...what we're both thinking, right?"

"What else would it be?"

"I dunno, it could be anything. I mean, think about it. All you know is that the one behind this has something on you and that last time it was sexual. Right?"

"Yeah."

"So that doesn't mean it will be sexual this time, does it? What you did last time doesn't automatically mean you'd have to do the same thing tonight."

"What else could it mean?"

"I don't know. Maybe she's taking you, like, someplace where they want you to be seen. Maybe she's taking you to meet somebody. Maybe you're going out to dinner to have a face-to-face talk about something."

"Maybe," Sara admitted. "I guess it's possible. I just..." She sighed. "I have a really bad feeling about this. About what it is. And if it is that, then I won't do it. I won't. I can't. I'd rather go to prison."

"You know, it's not that bad. It's not worse than doing it with a man, just different. You survived it with the first guy -"

"This is a sin," Sara said sternly and perhaps a bit more loudly than she had intended. "The Bible makes that clear. I know you don't agree, but it is morally wrong."

"I'm not even going to argue about that now. Let's grant it's a sin, whatever that means. But Sars, is it a worse sin than what you did with the last guy?"

Sara frowned. "I...I don't know. I think it is."

"Why? Is it better to give head to a stranger who isn't your husband, in public, than it is to do it to a woman?"

"This feels worse."

"It's the same thing though. Isn't it?"

"No. One thing is a sin, the other is two sins."

"No, they're both two sins," Emma said firmly. "Let's assume that engagement puts you in the same moral place as a married woman. In that case, both times are adultery and sodomy."

"It makes me sick to hear you say it like that."

"I get that. But sodomy means anything but penis-in-vagina and adultery a married person screwing anyone but their spouse. Both Man-Bun and then sex with this woman, if it happens, fit that description."

"Stop!" Sara begged, tears starting in her eyes. "I feel terrible enough!"

"I'm sorry, Sara. I know I push too hard sometimes."

"I just...I just need a second. This is really hard for me to talk about."

"Anybody would feel awful in your position. You know I love you, girl."

"I know. I love you too. And I'm grateful you're here for me. If you weren't, I think I'd have lost it by now."

"You're stronger than you think you are, you know. Tougher too."

"It doesn't feel that way."

"You've got this, Sara. You do. Whatever way you decide to handle it, you can handle it. I believe in you." That was where a Christian would have said, "And God believes in you too," but Emma wouldn't say that anymore.

"Thank you. I wish I had your faith in me."

"I've got enough for both of us. You feeling a bit steadier?

"Yeah," Sara lied. "I need to talk this out. Keep going."

"OK. Do you believe what you did with that guy is going to send you to Hell? Is what you did so bad that God can't and won't forgive you for it?"

"No! God can forgive that and..." She gulped so loudly that it must have been audible on the other end of the line. "And worse. God does forgive. I will ask the Lord's forgiveness and I will receive it because He is a kind and loving God."

At any other time Emma would have risen to that by challenging the evidentiary foundations for that statement, but not tonight. "If God can and will forgive one kind of adultery and sodomy, then He can and will forgive another kind of adultery and sodomy. Right?"

Emma's logic was impeccable, as so often when Sara disagreed with her. But..."I won't do that with a woman. I can't. I have to...I have to have lines. If I don't have lines then...then I don't know where this whole thing will carry me off to. I don't know what it will do to me. It might..."

There was a long enough pause that Emma finally asked, "Might what?"

"It might take me so far away that I can't even see the light of God anymore," Sara whispered. "It's better I die in this world than in the next. You have to understand that."

"I believed the same thing long enough for me to get where you're coming from. And I still get what you're saying - you're not going to let these people make you a murderer, right?"

"No!"

"So what I'm saying is, keep your perspective. I don't know what kind of trouble put you in this position. I'm always willing to listen if you want to tell me, but I won't ever ask. But you begged God for forgiveness from whatever it was and He gave it to you. If whatever you did before was enough to send you to prison then it was way worse than licking pussy, and if God can forgive the big then He can forgive the small. You do need to have lines, but you should also be careful that you put the lines in the right place. Think with your head, not your pride. Prison is a big deal, girl."

Pride. Again and always pride. It was the father of all sins and the father of most stupidity. But... "I still won't do that."

"If that's your line then that's your line. You know I've got your back no matter what."

"I know. And...and like you said, maybe it won't be that at all. It could be anything."

"That's right," Emma said, and Sara could imagine the firm way she nodded as she spoke.

"You're as good a friend as anyone could ask for," Sara said, her voice choking a little. "I'd be crazy right now if I didn't have anyone to talk to about this whole thing."

"The Four Muskatrixes never let each other down," Emma said. "I know you'd have my back the same way if the situation was reversed."

"Yeah I would," Sara admitted. Her advice to Emma would be very different than Emma's advice to her, but she would still go to the wall for Emma, or for Kait or Amy.

"So buck up, bitch," Emma said with slightly forced cheer. "Tomorrow is Easter. It's the big day. All you have to do is get through whatever's in front of you tonight and you'll be celebrating tomorrow."

Sara couldn't help but grin; her smile was small but genuine. "Yeah. Just one night, I can handle whatever comes my way."

"I'd ask you what you're going to wear for this thing tonight," Emma said brightly, "but I think I know. Long dress, long coat, and flats, right?"

"Huh, that's so amazing! How did you know?" Sara said, and she couldn't help but laugh. Her wardrobe consisted of basically nothing else.

"I'm a p-sychic," Emma said, deliberately mispronouncing the word the way she always did. "If only you had a huge 1940s hat to complete the look."

They talked for another half an hour. Sara had moments of extreme anxiety, but Emma could always feel Sara's stress rising and defused things with a joke or a story about the good times they'd shared or the joy Sara found in church. It was exactly what Sara needed to get through the afternoon without falling apart. Finally Emma signed off, but not before extracting a promise from her friend to text or call when whatever was going to happen was finished.

When she finally hung up the phone Sara sat in silence for a few minutes, phone still in hand, staring at nothing as she rolled around in her head the conversation she had just had and the concept of lines. She kept reminding herself that there was no certainty that tonight would end with the expectation of sex between her and the new woman, but it was a cold comfort. Sara knew in her bones that it would, and that she would have to say no, and that tomorrow a warrant would be issued for her arrest. There was no other possibility. A small part of her brain reminded her that she would have said the same about fellating Man-Bun had she been asked before being confronted with the reality of it, and look how that had turned out.

She shook her head in irritation and got up to get ready. She knew she should eat something before she left, but there was no way she could swallow food or keep it down during what was likely to be her last hours of freedom. Instead she arranged her hair neatly and applied lip balm - the only thing she used that could be termed makeup, and she only used that to keep her lips from getting chapped and dry. When that was done she dressed for the night in an ankle-length dark blue dress so revealing that it vaguely suggested she might have breasts and a pair of one-inch heels that looked dowdy (Emma hadn't seen the heels coming). Regardless of what might be asked of her tonight, she was and would remain a good Christian lady.

It was 7:05 and the last 15 minutes moved as slowly as any quarter-hour of her entire life. Even so, it managed to be a terrifying shock when her phone rang at the stroke of 7:20. "Hello?"

"Are you Tiffani Caine?" came the voice of the woman again.

"Yes. I'm her."

"I'm outside your apartment building smoking a cigarette. You have until I'm done to get your ass out here or I'm leaving."

Unsure how much time that gave her, Sara vaulted to her feet and grabbed her coat, pulling it on as she raced down the stairs. When she flew out her front door minutes later she spotted a black sedan pulled up to the curb across the street. Against it was leaning a tall, leggy woman wearing a short brown leather jacket over a red sweater and skinnies with calf-high brown leather boots of the "sexy" variety. She was leaning up against her car, one arm crossed over her chest while the other held a cigarette to her lips. She had long, dark, curly hair and dispassionate blue eyes that watched Sara as she crossed the street.

Sara stopped still as she came within a few feet, standing in the middle of the street and waiting for...something. Somehow the woman wasn't quite what she was expecting. She was pretty enough, with olive skin and regular features, but there was something deliberately unkempt about her appearance that Sara couldn't quite put her finger on. She looked neat enough, and her hair and makeup were done well, but somehow she managed to look as though she had gotten herself together in a hurry.

The woman looked her up and down once with no apparent interest, then flicked her eyes away and took another long drag of her smoke.

The first time she had met Man-Bun she had been frightened and intimidated, but this was just awkward. She cleared her throat and, when that failed to elicit a response, she ventured a tiny, timid, "Hello?"

It took the woman a couple of seconds to bring her eyes back to Sara, and then it was only to say, "I'm finishing my cigarette" before she looked away again.

Sara couldn't keep a confused frown off her face. She stood awkwardly, shifting her weight from side to side for thirty seconds before spotting a car coming her way and stepping next to the woman's sedan.

Almost a minute of painful silence later, the woman flicked her cigarette butt across the street. It arced through the gathering dusk and burst in a little explosion of orange sparks against the window of a pickup truck parked there. Blowing twin streams of smoke from her nostrils, she rounded on Sara and asked, "Are you Tiffani Caine?"

"Yes," Sara squeaked.

"Huh," the woman said. "You're different than I expected. Shorter. Less blonde. Door's open." With that she climbed into the driver's seat and, after a few seconds of awkward pause, Sara went around and got into the passenger side.

As she buckled herself in, Sara stole a look at the woman out of the corner of her eye. She looked a few years older than Sara but it was hard to tell just how much - she might have been the same age as Sara or even younger but with hard living behind her, or she may have been in her late 30s. Surprisingly given her behavior, she didn't look angry or upset so much as a little amused.

The woman pulled out onto the street and stepped on the accelerator as though she was driving a sports car in an action movie; the car responded like a sensible sedan in the real world. Sara wanted to say something, anything, to relieve the awkward silence but she had no idea what was expected of her so she stayed silent. Finally the woman asked, "So what's your story? You like a mob guy's mistress or something?"