Salt & Vinegar Ch. 07

As with the previous chapters, this is a stand-alone story. However, I recommend reading at least the previous chapter for context. You may also wish to read earlier ones to get up to speed with the story so far.

Enjoy.

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JUSTINE

The hall clock chimed twice as we opened the front door.

2am.

"For whom the bell tolls", I muttered. Lena sniggered.

We'd stayed later than I'd thought clubbing in Detroit and so here we were sneaking back into my parent's house in the early hours of Monday morning. I was an adult, but I still had that feeling of having broken curfew. Lena must have read my mind.

"Feeling guilty, babe?"

"Shh, not so loud!", I hissed.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'".

"Follow me up the stairs and walk where I do. Some of the treads creak."

"Sounds like someone's done this before."

"I plead the Fifth Amendment", I said, sanctimoniously.

I started up the stairs and then jumped about six feet when Lena grabbed my ass.

"I said 'follow' not 'fondle', bitch!"

"Shh, not so loud", she said with a grin a mile wide.

I gave her a withering look.

"Temper, temper ..."

We walked quietly the rest of the way and reached the guest room. No sound from the rest of the house.

"Too tired for a shower, just gonna crash into bed", said Lena. "You joining me?"

My room was further up the passage.

"Hmm, yes. You're too tired for a shower, so we're just going to cuddle?" I arched an eyebrow at her.

"Fuck, no."

I rolled my eyes.

"Just going to clean my teeth and grab some pyjamas from my room. Back in a bit."

I returned to find Lena sprawled on the bed like Delvaux's Venus. The moon shone through the elm beside the window limning her curves in a soft, dappled glow. Fuck, she was gorgeous. And she wasn't even trying; she'd literally just stripped and thrown herself on the bed. Long legs, full breasts, lithe figure, perfect features and sexy as all hell. Her raven hair ink black in the semi-dark; face half in light half in shadow. A glint of reflected moonlight from one eye and a lambent gleam in the other. An invitation and a promise.

Judging by that look I was going to be in for a hell of a ride tonight.

"You gonna just stand there perving or are you coming to bed?"

I was glad my parent's room was beyond our bedrooms and the bathroom. I figured we were going to need that bit of distance as a buffer. I peeled off my clothes and crawled onto the bed to snuggle up to her. I nuzzled into her neck and kissed it softly. I could feel her pulse. I inhaled the smell of Lena and breathed a contented sigh.

"Hey there", I said and kissed her again.

"Hey ... Rabbit." I could hear the smile. "Where did that come from, by the way?"

"When I was little I had a stuffed rabbit - the same one you saw on my bed, actually. I carried it everywhere with me. It was my best friend. We were inseparable. Inevitably, Mom and Dad started calling me 'Rabbit' and it stuck."

"I like your family, Jus."

"I'm glad. Wasn't sure how this weekend was going to go, to be honest."

"Yeah, they're good people. Your Mom's lovely and your Dad, well ... he's more fucking fair-minded than I'd thought he'd be."

"They like you, you know. You're family now as well." I gave her a squeeze.

"Jackson's alright too. He's got a pretty hot body. Mmm, those shoulders. And that smile! I bet campus is littered with broken hearts."

"Hey! I didn't bring you here so you could drool over my kid brother!"

"Look at you getting all fired up. Kitten shows her claws, huh?"

I knew she was teasing. It meant she was in a good mood. But underneath I could sense the tension. This weekend had been very stressful for her. She'd agreed to come home with me and meet my family, unsure of her reception. Way out of her comfort zone, she'd put a lot of emotional energy into keeping up her façade and I knew it had taken a toll. What she needed was a release.

If I was any judge - and I was a pretty good one by now - tonight's sex was going to be rough. Not that I'd mind. Her eyes had been all over me at the club; and her hands too. She couldn't keep them off me in the cab ride back either and had felt me up so much that the driver had trouble keeping his eyes on the road ahead instead of the rear-view mirror. By the time we'd got back to my parent's place, she was as horny as hell. I just needed to give her permission now to let go and enjoy herself.

So, I bit her on the shoulder. Not hard, just enough to leave a mark.

"Ow, bitch! What was that for!?"

"Kittens have claws, but rabbits have teeth. Bad form, bitch, to metaphorically undress my brother when his sexy, older sister is lying naked next to you", I pouted.

"You're going to pay for that, Jus."

"Counting on it", I smirked.

She rolled me onto my back and pounced on top of me. Her hair fell around us as she lowered her face inches from mine. It curtained off the moonlight, but there was just enough for me to see the raw hunger in the black depths of her pupils.

"I am going to devour you, little Rabbit", she breathed huskily, then grabbed my arms and pinned my wrists above my head.

Her kiss was savage. It was sudden and hard and hungry. Our teeth clashed and I tasted blood. And then her tongue forced its way into my mouth. Strong and urgent, it snaked searchingly into me and ruthlessly overpowered my own. I had to push her away to draw a ragged breath. I managed a quick gasp before she fastened her mouth to mine again. 'Devour you' she'd said, and it felt like it. She opened her mouth and drew my tongue into hers and then bit it. I tasted blood again. She sucked it.

"Mmmm".

She broke contact and sat back on my hips, still holding my wrists. She gave me a look which pinned me to the bed as effectively as if she hadn't had her full weight on me.

"Stay", she commanded.

I expected her to move downwards and eat me with the same savagery. I was more than ready. She was hungry but, truth told, so was I.

She surprised me by springing off the bed with feline grace and ripping the top sheet off the bed. She wound it into a loose rope then hauled me up to the bedhead - her strength! - and tied my wrists to one of the bed posts. If I'd thought it would be easy to free myself, I was mistaken. My wrists were quite securely bound and, with Lena's weight on my hips again, I was very effectively constrained.

She licked my cheek, dragging her tongue slowly and languorously along the contours of my jawline. Then back down my neck. Opened her mouth wide and I felt her teeth in a mock bite around my throat. Then she grabbed my chin and held it firm while she bit my lip again and sucked.

"You taste so, so good, little Rabbit", she growled.

A nibble to one ear lobe. Licks again to my face, my neck, my collar bone. A surprisingly soft kiss to the hollow of my throat.

"Take me, babe, please Le ..."

She slapped me hard and my head rung.

"Shut the fuck up, you'll take what I give you."

My cheek stung, but I was more stunned than pained. Then I saw her eyes and, for the first time, a frisson of fear crawled up my spine. We'd played rough before - even rougher than this - but I'd never seen that look before. It was primal. Predatorial. And I was her prey.

She clamped a hand firmly over my mouth. She studied me with the eyes of a hunter.

"And now", she breathed, "I really am going to eat you".

----------

LENA

Fuck, I'm hungry.

I'm going to feed on this little bitch.

I'm going to make her scream my name.

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JUSTINE

She bit me. Hard. The soft flesh above my breast just below my collar bone. My yelp of surprise was muffled by her hand.

That was the first. I lost count of the rest. My chest, my stomach, the top of my thighs. Her teeth tearing me, bruising me, bleeding me. My body searing with bright, red agony and simultaneously blazing with desire.

She knew what she was doing. Every bite, every suck exciting my nerve endings into overdrive. There was no line between pleasure and pain, there was just continuous waves of both. I was awash in a storm-tossed sea of fire, an ocean of bliss.

She forced my legs apart. I waited on a precipice for the touch on my sex. I needed it, craved it. I wanted it more than anything I'd ever wanted in my life. Wanted her to release the rising surge of heat within me. To vent the flame burning me from the inside out. It never came.

I moaned. I tried to grind my hips, but they were held by her weight on my legs.

"On no, little Rabbit, not yet".

Her tongue traced slow whorls over my chest, stopping to lick where some of her more savage attention had drawn blood. Circling inwards towards my breasts, then out towards one nipple. Hard. Harder than I think it had ever been. Contact. The hard suck connecting a line direct to my groin. Drawing me into her mouth, my world her tongue, and then ...

I screamed as she chewed on my nipple and simultaneously thrust her hand deep inside me. There was no warning. I was so wet I accepted her easily but the sudden shock! Nerves already overwrought responded with a combined flux of torment and ecstasy and I was completely overwhelmed.

In and out, in and out. Time was defined by the rhythm of her hand within me. Space ... there was no space. I existed only in the storm of sensation. An uncontainable surge of molten desire. I had to release, I had to, I must ...

She bit my other nipple as I came.

I screamed into the palm of her vice-like hand.

The world imploded.

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LENA

Little Rabbit.

So easy to read.

Screams, shudders, surges of fluid.

So easy to tame.

And so very, very delicious ...

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JUSTINE

Blackness yields to moonlight as my eyes crack open.

My body both hurts and hums with latent tremors of the most intense experience of my life.

I smell blood, vaginal fluids, piss ...

Lena is lapping my juices from her hand like a cat.

"You are a witch, woman. I feel ..."

Her hand over my mouth again.

"Shh, little Rabbit."

She takes it away and continues licking, watching me. Still the predator.

"If you want me to do you, you'll have to untie ..."

The hand again.

"Oh no."

She uncurls herself to stand above me. Then lowers her groin to the level of my face. I know what she needs. I can smell her desire. Her savage musk. I open my mouth.

With the same roughness as her first kiss she pushes her sex against my face. My head slams back against the bed post. My nose and mouth engulfed, smothered by her warm wetness. I extend a tentative tongue, which is dragged as she grinds herself hard against me. This is not me giving, this is her taking.

She rides my face with sinuous gyrations of her hips. I battle for breath, gasping in the brief moments when I am not being suffocated by her. Her hands entwine with my bound ones and she lifts herself to push against me harder. The scrape of her pubic hair on my forehead. My nose catches on her swollen clitoris. My mouth surrounded in a parody of a kiss by her engorged labia.

Harder, faster. My nose, mouth, face punished by her sex.

Harder, faster. Ragged breaths; hers and mine.

Harder, faster. I am a tool for her pleasure.

Harder, faster.

A bestial grunt.

Hot fluids sluice down my face. My eyes, nose, mouth fill with her juices. I am drowning in Lena.

I am marked. I am owned.

Blackness.

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LENA

Sated momentarily, but not satisfied.

I need more, but Rabbit looks broken.

So pale and still and limp. Such a pitiful little thing.

Broken?

Wait.

...

I snap back to myself in horror.

Shit, what have I done!

Jus is a mess, her eyes closed. Breathing, yes, but shallow. Strands of wet hair plastered to her temples and across her brow. Her face wet with sweat. No, not sweat. Oh, fuck. Lena, you animal! My conscience chitters at me like a mad thing. Not an animal. Worse; a monster.

"Jus?", I pat her cheek softly.

No response.

"Jus!?"

Harder. Her cheek is red. I vaguely recall slapping her earlier. I wince as I slap the other one, trying not to hurt her more than I obviously have already.

Her eyelids flutter.

"Jus, honey? You OK?"

I thumb her cheek and draw open her eyelids. Dilated pupils, eyes unfocused.

Fuck, this could be bad.

"C'mon, baby. Come back to me."

I stroke her face.

"Mmmm, nice", she murmurs drowsily.

"Jus, wake up. Need you to focus for a moment."

"M'wake. Was it good for you?"

"Jus, your folks keep any booze in the house? Spirits?"

"Umm, yeah?"

"Where?"

"Cabinet. Den."

"OK, I'm going to get some. I want you to stay awake until I get back. Can you do that?"

"Mmh." I take that as a 'yes'.

I untie her and prop her up with some pillows, trying to make her comfortable. I pull on her pyjamas, buttoning the shirt as best as I can then pad downstairs. I found the drinks cabinet in the study and palmed a bottle of scotch. Sorry, Alex, needs must. Fuck the glasses.

Jus hadn't moved when I returned. Her eyes were shut again, but they blinked open as I closed the door. She squinted when I turned on a bedside lamp.

"Here, take a swig of this. Only one mouthful though, OK?"

She took the bottle and took a swallow, coughing as it went down. She went to take another and I took it off her.

"No, just let that one work."

I watched the clarity return to her eyes as the alcohol took effect.

"How do you feel?"

"Like my ovaries are now on the outside", she said with a goofy grin. "And I could use a shower. I think ... I think I may have pissed myself. Sorry."

She blushed with embarrassment, rose red in the lamplight. Like it was her fault. Fuck, Lena.

"Don't worry about it", I said, "Shit happens. Well, actually, no. Thankfully, it didn't."

She grinned weakly.

"Seriously, now. I want you to look at me and tell me what you're feeling."

I watched the play of emotions over her face.

I was pretty sure I knew. I hoped I was wrong.

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JUSTINE

What am I feeling?

I peered over at the alarm clock under the lamp. 3 am. One hour in which the whole world had been unmade and reborn.

I'm completely drained, I'm exhausted, I'm a fucking mess. I've just had the most mind-blowing orgasm in the history of humanity. What do you want me to say? 'It was good'?

But I didn't say any of that. My emotions roiled like a boat in a storm. What I felt was everything and nothing. What I craved was some sense of stability. I needed an anchor, but my boat was adrift in a surging sea of emotion. My anchor was gone. No, there it was in the boat with me. I could see it; it just had no chain. Wait, there's the chain. Oh, it's around my neck.

"What's with the interrogation? I'm tired and I just want to go to sleep. You really worked me over."

"I know, babe, I know. But this is important. We need to talk about this. I need to know you're OK."

"Now? Can't this wait until tomorrow? Or at least until after a shower?"

Lena looked hard at me.

"OK, shower first. Can you stand?"

I tried and failed. My legs collapsed under me like a new-born filly.

Lena lifted me gently and supported me as we walked slowly to the bathroom. It wasn't until we got there that I realised I was still naked. If anyone had seen me like this ... I wouldn't have cared. What?

Lena turned on the water and adjusted the temperature.

"This is gonna hurt a bit but you need it hot, OK?"

She wasn't wrong. It burned. But then the heat started to seep into me and I felt myself relaxing as the water washed away the depravity of the last hour. I looked down, expecting at the least to see half my rib cage exposed, but there were only a few bite marks deepening into bruises. Only two where the skin had been broken and a little blood still oozed slowly. My nipples were tender, but not mauled. I guess Lena really had known what she was doing. I'd felt like I was being eaten alive, but the actual damage looked pretty mild.

"Wash me?" I said.

"No."

Oh, bit harsh.

I rubbed shampoo into my hair and soaped myself all over. A shudder went through me as I ran my hand between my legs. A quiver of desire igniting the banked embers from the earlier fire. I glanced at Lena, who was watching me closely.

"No."

Spoil sport.

I rinsed off and she held a towel out for me.

"Dry off and we'll go back to your room. Don't worry about mine, I'll tidy up."

She was behaving oddly. Not cold, but definitely cool. Calm and detached. It reminded me of something, but I couldn't put my finger of it.

I wrapped the towel around. She turned the light off as we quietly closed the door and went back to my room. Lena spun the chair from my study desk and straddled it. She faced me as I sat on the bed.

"Better?"

"Cleaner at any rate."

"Yeah. So, how do you feel?"

I didn't know what this was, but I was sick of it already.

"What is with this 'how do you feel' shit? You've tied me up and used me as a fucking chew toy. Fucked me five ways to Sunday - yeah, I know it's now fucking Monday morning, but I don't care - turned my vagina inside out with the most insane orgasm ever and you ask me how I fucking feel!?"

Other than angry, I still felt more than a bit unhinged. The boat continued to whirl on into the storm. I could see the anchor and the end of the chain; I just didn't know how to make them fucking work.

A sly thought surfaced. One of those ones that come from a dark place and that you hope - really hard - if you ignore will just go away. 'She'll be unhappy if you talk to her like that. You'll be punished'.

The boat spun like a compass needle answering the call of magnetic north. It shuddered to a stop.

"Jus?"

I looked at her.

The anchor dropped.

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LENA

She fired up, not unexpectedly. That was not necessarily a bad thing. Then, as I watched her, my heart sank. I saw her reflect on her words. Her face froze and her eyes sought mine with a glimmer of uncertainty; a hint of panic.

"I'm sorry, Mistress, I didn't mean ..."

And there it was.

Fuck.

You really have screwed up this time, Lena. Not content with almost killing this girl, you've now gone and done this to her. She gives you her life and her soul and this is how you repay her? Fuck, you are a self-centred cunt. She is never going to forgive you for this. But then, you don't deserve her forgiveness anyway.

Time for wallowing in self pity later, bitch. Get your shit together. Be strong for her at least you bloody fool!

"Justine, I'm only going to say this once. I don't expect you to forgive me, but I am truly sorry. I lost control. I wasn't paying enough attention to you."

"What? You were paying me plenty of attention!"

"Not what I mean. In a moment you are going to ask me to hold you and I am going to say 'no'. You may tell me to do something, but you may not ask. No matter how you ask - cry, plead or rage - I will say 'no'."

"The fuck!? Given what you just did to me you won't even hug me?"

"Can't. Won't. You're the only one who can fix this, Jus ... if you want to."

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JUSTINE

I really didn't understand what was going on.

My anger was there, and then it was gone, replaced by ... fear? Shame? Lena was right. What I really wanted was a hug. I needed to feel her strong arms around me. Needed to know she still loved me.

I had a sudden flashback to that night at the club with Beth (see Chapter 4). I recalled her look of fear and horror when she thought I might punish her. I hadn't understood it at all, even though Lena explained it to me. I now found I understood her frighteningly well. Because I felt the same.

"What ... happened, Lena? How do I fix this?"

"Like I said, this is my fault. You've formed a submissive attachment to me. Our relationship paradigm has been rewritten in your mind because of the intensity of your recent emotional experience. Think Pavlov's dogs. I restrained you and subjected you to pain, then rewarded you with pleasure. I then humiliated and degraded you in taking my pleasure. Through the lens of your love, you've interpreted this to mean that your submission is the thing that pleases me - and hence you - most."