Tangled Passions Pt. 02 Ch. 23-25

Serving Lisa's breakfast, as the morning sun peeked around a more easterly building to filter through the thin curtains, causing a muted dappling on the wall, Jenn was made suddenly aware of her white nakedness by a single sunbeam that shot over a corner of the curtain and danced brightly across her shoulder as she moved past the drapes. "It's too bad we always have to keep the curtains closed." Jenn felt an unexplainable longing to have the morning sunlight wash her clean.

"Actually, I don’t suppose we do," Lisa replied, moving to the cord to draw them open. A flood of blinding sunlight seemed to fill the room, encompassing Jenn's nudity in a fiery brilliance, highlighting by contrast her leather collar, her cuffs and anklets. "There!" Lisa drew her thin gown about her before reaching out to draw Jenn fully before the window, into the light. Jenn closed her eyes to let the sun bathe her face. Without even looking, she could somehow feel anonymous eyes – other residents standing out in the glorious morning light, glancing down or across – probing her nakedness, pondering her accessories.

"What about the neighbours?" Jenn whispered, as Lisa grip effectively kept her from moving.

"I could care less, about the neighbours," Lisa snapped in a tone of insolence, her grip tightening almost imperceptibly on Jenn.

"Couldn't..." Jenn quietly and automatically corrected, immediately regretting opening her mouth.

"What?" Lisa regarded her suspiciously, letting her grip relax and fall from Jenn.

"Couldn't," Jenn muttered self-consciously, "You couldn't care less." She raised her eyes to look at Lisa's mildly confused, or perhaps amused face. "If you could care less," she stumbled on, "then you must have given it at least some degree of importance, which..." Lisa's look had subtly changed to one of disbelief. Jenn stopped.

"Considering your present role, my dear," Lisa placidly advised, "you would be wise to stay more in character. Remember who and what you currently are. Nobody expects or wants the school teacher in you to emerge during these times." Jenn saw the implicit warning being made even before Lisa worded it plainly. "It will never be the place of a submissive to correct her mistress – or master."

XXIV.

Jenn hadn't slept in her own bed for the better part of a month. Ever since Matt had departed, it hadn't really felt right – it hadn't really felt like her bed. Something was missing of course, and there didn't seem any way to replace it. Lisa never actually fit in there. Neither she nor Jenn ever really felt especially comfortable sharing that bed.

Jenn had hardly heard from Matt for the better part of a year. It had been easy to desert her cold empty bed for the welcoming warmth of Lisa's, despite the 'small print' conditions that accompanied it. She had kept up a pretense of sleeping at home for months, and during that time, after her rapid plunge into bisexuality, Jenn had prepared a letter for Matt, on the long chance that he should actually return home unannounced. She had written a small perfumed note card, rather melodramatically, professing her undying love. She had also made up a video tape montage to prepare him – or something – she wasn't really sure why? Both the note and the cassette were placed conspicuously on the entry hall table with a vase of silk flowers. Now, much later, she checked them and rearranged the presentation any time she stopped back home. She knew that she would not be there when he returned, yet, somehow, she had become certain, in the past few weeks, that he would return sooner or later. She always made sure the condo was left clean and tidy, although she could never quite disperse the sad air of abandonment.

The card referred to the accompanying video cassette on which, so the note said, he would learn of a phone number at which, if her cellular was not on – it rarely was nowadays – he could reach her or leave a message. She would, said the note, come to him as soon as humanly possible. When she first put the montage together, and later, the couple times that she reviewed it, she smiled at the thought of his reaction. He would read the note, then, his curiosity piqued, play the tape. Wouldn't he be surprised as the compilation of ever-raunchier clips from blue movies unfolded? Then again, maybe he wouldn't. Still, she knew his mouth would gape when he saw himself in full colour degradation, and his jaw would stay slack as he caught glimpses of her, the little woman, his middle-class wife, in wild, wild cuts of unrestrained group sex.

Matt did eventually return home. And, as she had expected, Jenn hadn't been there. When the call at last came, she had to smile to herself thinking of him watching the video, copying the number down, staring at the phone for how long before he got up the nerve to call? She was pressed sweatily amidst two guys and another girl, basking in the afterglow of yet another climax. "Is there no limit?" she pondered once again. In the middle of it all, among the contorted grimaces of orgasm, a wisp of a smile touched her lips. “I feel like the Everyready Bunny with its batteries in backwards.” The thought seemed almost random. “I just keep coming and coming and coming!”

The noise in the room had died just enough, coincidentally, for her to hear the message as it was being left. "Uh, hi. I'd like to find... to get hold of – or leave a message for my – uh – for Jenny, er, Jenn Anderson. If she could call me at home – the condo – uh – I'll wait for her to call. It's her... It's Matt. Uh. Thanks."

It surprised her that, even then, that voice, that wonderfully recognizable voice, that soothing, almost pathetic voice could stir such a tingling in her core. "My husband," she gasped almost inaudibly, jumping up and disentangling herself from her partners. "I've got to go!" Suddenly she felt like a child going to see Santa.

She almost didn't shower, but decided in the middle of pulling on her clothes that she'd better as she was literally dripping with bodily fluids and lubricants – her own and others'.

"Are you all right?" Lisa asked, leaning nonchalantly against the bathroom doorframe, having disengaged herself when she saw Jenn suddenly flee. Concern edged her question, or was it a little bit of asperity?

"Couldn't be better," Jenn almost sang as she danced towards the shower, stopping for only a moment to force her tongue as far down Lisa's throat as she could. "Love you too," she chirped.

"You're not leaving, are you?" Besides the air of disbelief, there was a touch of fear in Lisa's voice – a touch of vulnerability. At one level, Jenn was sorry. Suddenly – unexpectedly, their positions had reversed. It was Jenn who seemed to wield the power, at that moment, at least; and she fully understood that Lisa might be feeling a little scared – just a little betrayed. But that was a problem Jenn couldn't possibly deal with right now. She felt so full of some undefined joy that she could almost burst, and she wasn't about to let anything sully it.

"I'll be back, silly." She couldn't think of anything else to say that wouldn't take less than three or four hours, so she just smiled, kissed her fingers before touching them to Lisa's nose, then hopped into the hot spray.

After a shower that was hardly more than a wetting, she donned a dress and shoes – that's all – and grabbed her purse. Breezing through the still writhing crowd, she gave a general bye and left quickly. Luckily her cell was still charged, so she placed a quick call home as she drove – and once again, it was 'home' –. He answered on the first ring, sounding dazed and confused. Although she wanted so much to talk with him right away, she simply said, "Don't move. I'll be right there."

She got home and found him still sitting beside the phone. In retrospect, she saw that she had told him not to move. He probably hadn't even realized how literally he took it. He was momentarily unsure of his welcome, but her hugs and kisses and coos and tears showed him where he stood. Her thinly covered breasts, still impossibly perky for a woman of her age, were comforting against his chest; her nipples boring into him were welcoming. They carried on like the lost lovers they were.

They screwed right there on the floor. He was most impressed with her attire – or lack thereof. The sex was adequate but both realized that adequate was hardly satisfactory. Despite the growing ease with which she could respond to sensual stimulation, Matt was still her husband – the man with whom she had grown to adulthood, the father of her deceased children. Something in that realization prevented Jenn from achieving her sexual apogee with him. Some residue of respectability still tethered her and kept her from reaching her upper limits – attaining the new heights – the complete abandon that highlighted her sexual response with others. Hence, it was nowhere near the standards they were, by then, expecting from sex. However, if the sex was disappointing, it was more than made up for by the contact. The marital bond renewed was wonderful – wonderfully calming, soothing. They both became, for a long time, tranquil, entranced.

In a haze of content exhaustion, they made their way to bed. And it was, however temporarily, once again, their bed. They snuggled in, their naked bodies fitting smoothly together like puzzle pieces, the tactile memory untarnished by their separation. Then they began to talk and they talked for hours and hours. Without feeling the need for detail, yet wanting to be completely open, Matt told of his short, intense affair with Dara. In generalities, he told Jenn about The Club – his initiation, his acceptance and employment. Jenn told him about how Lisa had taken her on a journey from aerobics to blossoming self-awareness. They both spoke in loose terms about the roles they played – their submissive persona, and they laughed at the general similarities of their positions. Their talking was interspersed with cuddling and kissing.

Jenn felt the physical contact warming to the very depths of her soul; she suspected, by his responses, that Matt felt the same. They dozed from time to time, secure within their spousal arms. Still, the few attempts at sex were mostly unsatisfactory to both. Even though, once she regained the familiar ease of being with Matt, Jenn could again climax almost at will – and did repeatedly – they were pleasantly mild orgasms, much tamer than she had come to know. The peaks lacked the intensity that she gotten used to – or at least come to expect, for could she ever get used to those soaring heights? They lacked the shock wave intensity and the keen edge of raw emotion, indeed, as much as they were climaxes, they were mostly drab and almost colourless. And after the initial one, Matt's orgasms were only gained by hard perseverance. Each time, he was usually willing to stop after Jenn had come once or twice.

Matt was interested but not all that surprised when he discovered Jenn's tattoo. He seemed to accept it as more or less inevitable. It was, to him, an undeniable truth.

He was still undecided about his future – his course of action, although a decision had really already been made through months of indecision. Still, Matt was so confused that he couldn't really even see what his choices were anymore. Jenn felt so sorry for him. As baffling as it sometimes was, her way seemed so much clearer.

Jenn knew that Matt still looked for ways to blame himself for everything. Although he ascribed the changes he had undergone – was undergoing – as a search for self and a search for meaning – even though he had said, though not in so many words, that he was driven to his current extremes by a need for self-gratification, Jenn suspected – more than suspected – intuitively knew that it was much more a form of self-inflicted punishment than a quest for the ultimate thrill. He had actually said to her once – long ago – that, perhaps, if he'd been a better father or a better person the girls would still be alive. Although Jenn thought that she might even understand where Matt was coming from, she was much more realistic – in that regard, at least. She knew that nothing, absolutely nothing she could have done, nothing she could have foreseen could have saved their daughters. No one could have anticipated their tragic fate. Jenn was determined that she would, in no way, ever shoulder that blame herself. It wasn't her fault; it wasn't anyone's fault. Where Matt saw it as a personal failing, Jenn interpreted it as just one more proof that, as the old song says, "We're here for a good time, not a long time."

When Matt had first left, exposing the vulnerable belly of her being, Jenn realized that the wound left by her children had never actually healed. She still suffered, if subtly and indirectly, from the loss of an integral part of her soul. But unlike Matt, she would not let the hole – the void – consume her. She slowly began to fill it with novel experiences and previously unknown delights. More and more, as she progressed deeper and deeper into the uncharted waters of self-gratification, she saw the tragedy as just another justification of hedonism. Enjoy living while you can because mere existence is incredibly fragile and tenuous. "Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first," she would often remind herself. And this was her dessert.

So, as Matt had become more complaisantly bisexual, Jenn had become increasingly – what? – omnisexual. She delighted in, thrived on all manner of sex. Her thirst for thrill and her lust for sensuality were becoming more difficult to merely satisfy, more complex. She was loath to let anything – especially anything as plebeian as popular morals – impede her in her quest for sexual fulfillment.

Jenn and Matt talked the whole next day; not leaving the condo, not getting dressed, they drifted among the bedroom, the kitchen and the living room. The phone rang but they, neither one, made a move to answer it or check on the message. They drank only a little wine, preferring to stay clear headed; it was much too important – the information they shared. Jenn realized that they had never been so open with each other – never exposed so much of themselves before. As darkness brought their second night together, the torrent of confession and explanation slowed. Climbing once again into their marriage bed, they welcomed the warm comfort of familiarity, and when they finally slept in each other’s arms, they curled together and lay still, in an envelope of peace and security. The mutuality of their feelings was a sort of codependence that bordered on symbiosis. They needed each other; not for sex or protection, but for the ease and comfort they provided simply with their presence. Jenn slept more soundly than she had in months. They seemed to wake together, and, still holding one another, spoke softly of the architecture of their love.

It was Matt who suggested – Jenn agreed – that they had very nearly achieved the perfect love, yet they were becoming more distant in terms of complementary sex – they were caught in a convergence/divergence paradox. Knowing that their love was as strong, indeed, stronger than ever, they knew they would remain married and occasionally share a bed. But it was painfully obvious that their conjugal sex was far too mild – almost insipid – for their acquired tastes. Their relationship had, it seemed, transcended sex; it was essential – ethereal. So what if their carnality no longer meshed? It wasn't really necessary. Occasional contact – hugs and kisses, that was all they required physically from one another.

Love or lust – both need to be acute to be worthwhile. They were acutely in love; they would continue to satisfy their respective lustings elsewhere. After a second full day together Jenn felt that she understood Matt better than she ever had. Without the pressures of physical need obscuring things, she could see him, and possibly herself, clearer than ever. They resolved to return to their respective groups, their respective lives. Satisfied that their relationship, though decidedly unconventional, had just managed, despite the uncertainty of their situations, to grow stronger, and given the new assurances of mutual respect and freedom – they could throw themselves back into their orgies and debauches with renewed vigor.

Still, a faintly echoing sadness filled Jenn's heart as she watched Matt walk out the door again. He had promised to keep in touch this time, though, and she knew he would. He said he would drop by the condo now and then, and leave messages for her. They could keep the odd date, she suggested, and he agreed, though nothing definite was set up. Then he was gone. While she was confident she would see him again, Jenn still sat and stared out the window as the aching emptiness dissipated.

Then she lifted the phone to call Lisa. It had been less than forty hours, yet Jenn felt a little apprehensive, just a little strange. "Hi!" she said, with more alacrity than she felt. Lisa's voice was filled with icy suspicion, but Jenn soldiered on. "Matt's gone again. Can you come over? I'd like to tell you about it – about us, Matt and me." She was straight up – no submission, no role-playing, just a friend in need of a friend.

There was welcome relief in Lisa's reply. "Sure. Now?"

A warm melancholy swirled through Jenn. Time enough to put the costumes back on; time enough to get back into character – dominance and submission, mistress and slave. "Yeah," she smiled, "see you soon."

XXV.

How they heard about it, through what channels such news traveled, Jenn didn't know, but several of their acquaintances found out about a 'private club' being born in the West End, looking for charter members. Some of them, those who could afford it, had already quietly joined up. They told Lisa who took Jenn for a visit to check it out having first made an appointment by phone.

It had previously been an obscure little club, situated inconspicuously beneath another successful nightclub on Davie Street, just off Burrard. It had stood empty for several years, being used only occasionally as an overflow room for the club above. The owners of the upstairs nightclub, which was of a definite gay bent, owned the building, and if they knew anything of what was planned, indeed, what had already begun to go on in their tenants' premises beneath, they said nothing.

As Jenn and Lisa slipped between buildings to find the discreet door on the alley, Lisa took Jenn’s arm and held her close. “Listen,” she whispered, “serious evaluation is needed here, eh? So we’ll just set our chosen roles aside for the moment, know what I mean?”

Jenn nodded mutely.

“I’m serious, Jenn.” Jenn thought it strange, but Lisa seemed to be almost pleading. “I want your real opinion about this place. Not, for Christ’s sake, just what you think I want to hear. Okay?”

“Okay,” Jenn whispered. She wasn’t actually sure of just how much cloak she wished to throw off – how much of herself she wished to bare. But she’d take note of everything, that was a given. When they were greeted at the door Jenn stood back demurely and deferred to Lisa anyway. Their comprehensive tour was a rather close inspection of the entire facility.

The plain black door, which gave no indication of the activity within, opened into a long dark hallway that ran to a central foyer. As much as it was a basement suite, it seemed reasonably expansive with several rooms out the back and a large lounge area in the front. The lounge was finished in dark stained oak paneling halfway up the walls, with an old-style patterned fabric wallpaper – a subtle geometry on a dark dusty-rose background. The sidewalk level windows were painted black, and covered on the inside with thick muffling curtains. The room was furnished with solid coffee tables of the same dark oak as the paneling, and chairs and couches upholstered in either burgundy leather or velvet of the same hue. Several sensual nude paintings hung on the walls, and old fashioned freestanding boudoir mirrors stood in the corners – waiting. A couple large chests sat near chairs, more or less in place of tables. “Judicious storage for various toys, restraints and other paraphernalia,” their host explained. There was a good-sized, well-stocked bar at one end of the lounge. Amongst the bottles, behind the bar, hung a rack of leather tack – collars and cuffs, straps and buckles, tawses and paddles. Jenn and Lisa immediately loved it; notwithstanding its recent inception, it oozed a sort of old, well used comfort with its low ceilings and dim elegance. And despite the forbidden quality of its atmosphere, the air of quiet danger and adventure, it felt somehow safe – insulated against the outside world – the real world.