Religion with Benefits

Why would no one tell Autumn Gwyllion "no"?

The most obvious reason was her success. Her name was nearly household given the popularity of her debut romance novel, On Tender Wings of Desire, as well as its recent sequel, The Supremacy of Desire. Her reputation was plainly obvious in the interaction Florence now watched from across the bookstore:

"What's your name, dear?"

"Oh, ah..." The patron in question chuckled and glanced at the trailing line behind her. "I didn't actually bring a book for you to sign."

"Is that so?" Autumn set down her pen.

"I was hoping you could sign..." The patron's voice quieted past eavesdropping range. Autumn's glance fell down from the patron's face to her bust and back up again.

"So you didn't bring a book, then."

The patron shook her head.

"I suppose you'll buy another." She beamed and plucked a fresh book from the pile beside her.

"Oh, right. Of course, I'd love to support your..."

Autumn signed her name on the inside cover and pressed the book into the patron's hand. Dazed, the patron pivoted, adjusted her neckline higher, and wandered out of the store.

The flush on the patron's cheeks and nose alluded to another contributor: Autumn's looks. She was ethereally attractive. Her hair appeared to float around her head. The heavy wool of her skirts and petticoats danced around her legs like tulle when she walked the streets. She spoke quietly and perfectly; she pronounced the "g" in "-ing" words, never slipped into the twangy diphthongs Florence despised in her own speech. She maintained eye contact unflinchingly.

Autumn was otherworldly, which was perhaps related to the third, most important reason people rarely told her "no": she secretly led a demonic cult.

Florence hadn't known as much in the beginning. She only knew the headlines: "City Council Pledges Action to Combat Mounting Disappearances," "Werewolf Rampage Causes Property Damage in Northside Neighborhood." She had also noticed her politician husband working later, eating less, speaking little. So when he shamefully admitted that he had been asked to join a group that promised him endless power, limitless riches, an eventual takeover of the city, Florence was stunned, yes, but not necessarily surprised.

Her response to his confession: "Who asked you?"

"There were a few of them grabbing my arms, my legs, pinning me in place," he whimpered. "Some more guarding the doors."

Florence narrowed her eyes.

"And the one in the middle," he added reluctantly, "she did most of the talking. She's a writer, one of the other city councilors. Autumn Gwyllion. She was the one who asked me to decide."

"And what did you say?"

Her husband averted his eyes, shrank into himself. "I said... maybe?"

Because saying "no" outright would have meant death, thought Florence. Because saying "yes" was immoral, saying "no" was suicide, and saying "maybe" bought him some time to think.

And because nobody told Autumn Gwyllion "no."

*****

"Florence Cornelius for Autumn Gwyllion," Florence announced to Autumn's assistant. The frown in their face revealed their confusion; they didn't recognize the name. They nevertheless stepped toward Autumn and whispered the message into her ear. Autumn's head lifted; when she found Florence in the crowd, a light smile bloomed on her face.

"I appreciate everyone's patience," she announced to the crowd, "but I'll be stepping away for an intermission. Please, enjoy the bookstore and refreshments. I'll return soon to continue signing."

Autumn floated through the crowd to Florence. "What a pleasant surprise," she greeted, with a kiss on each cheek. Florence's face warmed where Autumn's lips brushed.

"Yes, yes." Florence forced herself to sound terse. "I'd like to speak privately, please."

Autumn glanced back to her assistant, eyebrows lifted. The assistant gestured to a side room in the bookstore.

The two found their way to the crowded room of plush armchairs and carved wooden tables, something between a private reading den and a furniture storage room. Heavy curtains and dim gas lamps glowed like evening sunlight. Florence perched on a velvet wingback couch. Autumn fluttered onto an ivory chaise.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Florence?"

Being the wife of a prominent city councilor and the owner of a fair share of businesses, Florence was a woman of stature. Her timid husband was dazzled by her directness and tapped her as his political advisor. On his behalf, she lobbied, she argued, she negotiated, she blackmailed. He voted.

If anyone could say "no" to Autumn Gwyllion, Florence could, she hoped.

She swallowed, inhaled, assumed a well-rehearsed posture.

"I've come to discuss my husband's invitation," she began curtly.

"Ah! Yes," Autumn replied, as if surprised. "Yes, he has left us waiting at the altar, hasn't he?"

"I'm sure you can appreciate his need to deliberate.'

"To deliberate. Of course." As she spoke, the assistant entered the room with a platter of tea and shortbread. Autumn caught a cookie as the tray passed over her shoulder. "I'm happy to answer any questions I can about the opportunity."

"Yes, well." Florence reached into the pocket of her skirt to unfold a sheet of paper.

The planned strategy was persuasive inquiry. The sheet listed questions designed to frame her husband as an unfit addition to the cult. Perhaps Autumn would turn her attention away from her husband before he had to outright decline. Florence aligned her thumb beside the first question as she prepared to ask:

"Although," Autumn interjected, "I admit our interest have shifted since his initial invitation."

Florence blinked, glanced up from the page. She hadn't rehearsed this scenario. "Oh?"

"Yes, yes," Autumn continued. Bergamot-infused steam clouded as she filled two teacups. "You see, my organization seeks an overhaul of the outdated council. We have too many members to accomplish tasks as quickly as a government should. The council lacks agility. Many of the issues of the city—our growing refugee population, religious discrimination, healthcare reforms—would not be possible under the current regime. I seek to address those issues from the top down with the help of the organization."

"The 'organization.'" Florence chewed on the euphemism. "It is religious, yes?"

"In a way. We're certainly supported by a powerful figure." Autumn lips curled slyly. "But I find the experience of other religions differs significantly from the experience I enjoy now."

Autumn apparently had an affinity for euphemisms.

"But that's beside the point." Autumn's teacup clicked against its saucer. "My point is that my organization's best interest is seeking members with power. We need prominent and pragmatic figures from commerce, from politics. At the time, it appeared the strong choice was your husband. But as I see it now, your husband defers to you."

Florence frowned into her tea. She swallowed. "I suppose he does."

"Frankly, the cult has no interest in your husband. I would even consider him a liability, given what he now knows. But I would be willing to extend any number of graces, including his amnesty, for your membership."

Florence folded the sheet of paper. Her mouth was agape, ready to offer a rebuttal her mind could not conjure. The two settled in the sound of their breaths, the ticking grandfather clock in the corner, the murmur of the book signing outside. Autumn rose, stepped around the coffee table, and sank into the couch beside Florence.

"Tell me, dear—" Autumn's hands pressed a shortbread cookie into Florence's. "—what do you want?"

Florence laughed incredulously. "A grand piano? A yacht?"

"Sure." Autumn watched Florence intently. "But I can offer you more than that. What do you want, Florence? Wealth? Power? Strength? Love?"

Her eyes dropped. The corner of the cookie flaked between her thumb and forefinger. After a pause, she responded:

"I want security."

"Security," Autumn echoed.

"Yes." She didn't intend for her voice to crack. "I hire security details, assistants, private investigators. I have a team dedicated entirely to testing my mail for poison. My husband hides in terror in our bedroom, certain some upset citizen may try to kill him. For every guard I hire, one more disappears, quits, dies." A wryness sparkled in her eyes. "My husband's position, my own success, have made us a target as long as I have lived here."

One of Autumn's hands moved to stroke Florence's back. Fingers pressed up each vertebra to Florence's neck, then back down the curve of the spine. Florence's posture settled more with each stroke. She met Autumn's eyes again and spoke with renewed fervor.

"I want to know peace. I want security."

Autumn leaned toward Florence until her hair tickled Florence's cheek. Her lips brushing Florence's lobe, she whispered:

"Then I'll give you security, Florence."

Florence's eyes closed. She was confused, relieved, anxious. But her skin prickled.

Autumn was ethereally attractive.

Fingers pressed up the line of Florence's back and settled in the nape of her neck, toying with the baby hairs loose from her chignon.

"Would you like to know why I joined the cult, Florence? What I wanted?" Florence's ear tickled with each word. She hummed a wordless response. Autumn's lips spread into a smile against her skin as she breathed the answer:

"Pleasure."

Florence's right hand, she realized with bleary surprise, was on Autumn's thigh.

"I'm a famous author," she purred. "I live comfortably. I engage civically. But I, we, are simple creatures."

The hand on the back of Florence's neck turned her head to Autumn's.

"All we want is to feel good." Florence's cheeks warmed under Autumn's palms. "Right?"

"Right," Florence mouthed, too quiet to hear herself. Autumn nodded with maternal approval.

"I'll give you security, Florence," she whispered. "But let me give you something more."

Autumn's lips were so soft that Florence wondered whether they were touching hers at all. But the tickle of Autumn's breath against her cheek was unmistakable. So was the slick of Autumn's tongue tickling her top lip and the nip of Autumn's teeth on her bottom lip. No need for Florence to decide whether to lean in; Autumn's hands pulled her close before Florence could think to protest.

She was disarmed by Autumn's expertise. The author moved as if every romance novel were a memoir. Already, Autumn's hand moved into the tangle of Florence's chignon. The combs holding Florence's updo loosened, and her curls, stiff with product, bounced to her shoulders. The hand continued up further to Florence's scalp. Fingers tangled in Florence's hair and pulled her head back to expose her neck. Autumn, satisfied with her partner's gasp, dove into the rigidity of Florence's throat to kiss and lick until she groaned.

"Autumn," she panted against the kisses, "I have a husband."

"A weak husband," Autumn whispered into Florence's jawline.

"I love him," she whined. "He loves me."

"And you love this," cooed a grinning Autumn, whose thumbs unbuttoned Florence's collar.

"I came here to..." Florence realized her hand, caught in Autumn's, now rested on the writer's breast. "I came here to discuss—"

"I know what you came here to discuss." Three more buttons escaped their loops. "I run a cult, dear. I have ears where I need them." Autumn pressed Florence's other hand to the untouched breast.

She continued: "I know your husband has no interest in my organization."

Florence felt, in the thickened skin of her palms, Autumn's nipples hardening against her clothing.

"I also know you've attempted to convince him to change his mind." Autumn, having loosened the bodice, stripped Florence of her top. A whalebone corset protected the translucent chemise guarding her breasts. Florence hoped Autumn would remove her skirt.

"I know how much you enjoy his body," hummed Autumn as she untied her partner's corset. "In fact, I know a great deal about your pleasure in the bedroom."

Two firm tugs relaxed the laces of Florence's corset enough to slip it over her head.

"I especially know," said Autumn to a nearly bare-breasted Florence, "that I could give you more."

Florence's plain chemise alluded to the puckered nipples underneath. Minutes before, she marveled, she had planned to defend her husband from this woman. Somewhere in Florence's muddled brain, she knew Autumn was responsible for a bombing. Or was it a series of murders? A kidnapping? Looking at her now, Florence struggled to believe those doll's lips could ever utter such foul words as a demon's name.

Autumn's hands were moments away from stripping Florence of her skirt, her petticoats, her chemise, her fidelity. Florence could try to stop her.

But how could Florence tell Autumn "no"?

*****

Florence's skirts were gathered in a donut-shaped mound by the coffee table. The couch cushions hugged her wadded bodice and corset. The chaise cradled her chemise.

On the velvet wingback couch, Autumn's lips enjoyed the tickle of lace at the top of her partner's white stocking. The pads of her fingers rested unmoving on Florence's mound. Occasionally, a finger would twitch or shift. A dazed Florence shivered from the shockwave.

"I should sprawl you out like this more often, dear," Autumn breathed into the goosebumps rising on Florence's thigh. "The possibilities are delectable."

She kissed higher, where the fuzz of pubic hair began. "I could massage you, outside or inside. I could reach inside and find the places within you that your husband cannot. I could find those places again and again."

A seconds-long lick up the top of Florence's thigh. "I could find those places until you wonder how anyone ever missed them."

Florence, crumpled in a sweat-dappled puddle on the couch, shuddered with anticipation.

"But what's the fun of finding those places inside you when all I have to do is twitch—" She shifted her fingers over the clit, and around her bit lip, Florence whined. "—to make you melt?"

With her fingers, Autumn drew one, two, three circles over the clitoris. Florence's hips rolled with the movement. Her fingers withdrew before the fourth circle.

"Florence," Autumn insisted. "What's the fun?"

Florence swallowed away the dryness of her mouth and blinked off the lust hypnosis. "The what?"

"What's the fun, dear? Why should I pleasure you?"

The naked woman sifted through her bleary thoughts. Autumn had asked her a question: What's the fun? What's the fun? Who cared? The question was insulting. Why couldn't she just get it over with?

With visible difficulty, Florence sputtered: "Just do it!"

Autumn clicked her tongue. Her thumb ground into Florence's clit, who sucked a gasp between clenched teeth.

"You're a lobbyist, dear," Autumn affirmed coolly. "You know that's no way to persuade a councilwoman."

Florence swallowed, wet her lips, unclenched her fists. Autumn's fingers were back at the clit, tracing a ghost of a circle on her hood. Her breath tickled Florence's labia.

"I would..." offered Florence weakly, "...be arousing to watch?"

"I have an idea," the author asserted. "Your husband, he's a councilman, yes?"

Of course he was, thought Florence. Autumn knew he was. She saw him at every meeting. She mentioned his position earlier this conversation. Even a cloudy-minded Florence sensed the falseness of this introduction.

"But really," continued the woman now tracing Florence's opening with her other index finger, "you're the power. You're his lobbyist. His role is largely symbolic."

Florence tremored, caught between exasperation and burning arousal.

"Would you not agree," Autumn coaxed as her fingertip pressed inside, "that the efficient choice is to remove the middleman?"

Remove the middleman? Florence struggled to interpret the euphemism with the distraction of Autumn's thin fingers. Remove what middleman? From where? How? She huffed at the mental strain.

"Florence," guided Autumn, whose nose was nearly touching her clit. "If you agreed to join the cult and replace your husband on the council, I can promise any number of benefits."

Florence's insides warped. Her visceral disgust at the proposal—replace your husband on the council—was immediate.

Somewhere in her mind, she could picture the conversation even now. She would make some weak argument, maybe that it was best for both of them, but that wouldn't keep his face from melting with grief. Deteriorating under the gentleness of his heart, his lip would tremble until he gathered the strength to voice an inevitable surrender: Yes, my love, you may take my council seat. Anything for you. The image sickened her.

But it didn't sicken her hips, which still bucked into Autumn's hand.

This, this, was why no one could tell Autumn Gwyllion "no." No matter how much the degradation burned in her throat, her body screamed with an arousal as powerful as pain. She reeled with thirst she knew her husband could not quench. Autumn could have asked Florence to kill him, and pitiful Florence would agree.

"What will it be, dear?" Autumn nudged, still a breath away from her partner's labia.

In a whine choked with humiliation, she conceded: "Fine. I'll do it."

Autumn's flattened tongue pressed against Florence's clit, whose head fell back, jaw agape, in a wretched moan.

"Good girl."

The writer lapped her approval into Florence's apex. Fingers curled against the walls of her canal until Autumn discovered that dangerous spot, the one that made her subject writhe, and then again, again, her fingertip ground into that spot. Between Florence's thighs, she felt the sweat-and-slick emulsion smeared on the surface of Autumn's flushed cheeks. Her thighs locked on the head between; she crossed her ankles behind Autumn's back to press her closer.

Momentarily, Florence's head shifted to watch the vulgar scene between her legs. Autumn switched from a broad licking cadence to a flicking with the tip of her tongue. Even now, the author was the image of poise. The few sections of hair fallen from her updo complemented her heart-shaped face. The only garments missing from her body, her gloves, waited in a folded square beside the shortbread crumbs and lukewarm tea. Her skirts settled in puffy cumulus clouds around her legs. Even the moisture gathered on her face had yet to dishevel her makeup. Should some impatient patron knock at the door, she could dab her cheeks with a kerchief and step out, flawless as always.

Compared to Autumn's perfection, Florence felt shabbily human. The white stretch marks lining her thighs hugged the unblemished glisten of Autumn's cheeks. Tangled hair stuck to her shoulders with sweat and pomade. Her body was a frenzy, legs trembling on Autumn's shoulders, arms alternating frantically between squeezing her breasts and muffling her screams, eyes widening and squeezing shut with each new sensation.

Her moans arced higher, thighs squeezed tighter. Autumn, noticing Florence's eyes on hers, cocked an eyebrow. She leaned away from the mound, fingers thrusting uninterrupted into her partner. With the pad of her free hand's thumb, Autumn cleaned her lips of Florence's arousal. She raised her thumb to tap at the opening of Florence's mouth.

And as Florence sucked herself from Autumn's thumb, salty and sour, Autumn sucked at Florence's clit once,

twice,

thrice,

until Florence wailed.

Most orgasms, Florence found, were a satisfying tick of a box. Muscles clenched and relaxed, breaths froze and released. They came and went, as dignified as sex could be, enjoyably grounded.

But this orgasm possessed her. Her abdomen clenched to cramping. Her fingernails squeezed red scratches into her breasts. Her head flew backwards into the cushions of the couch. Her teeth gritted to contain the cries in her throat: Autumn, Autumn, Autumn.