The Sun in Her Sky Ch. 02

Author's note:

Welcome to the second chapter in a three-part series about a "technically" consensual relationship between two young women that is getting a little darker with each episode. The story contains strong themes of domination and emotional manipulation. All characters are fictional adults. Please let me know how you like the story - comments and emails are welcome. I appreciate all the response to chapter one. And thank you for taking the time to read!

**

Orillia.

Orillia, Ontario. That's where I ended up after high school.

Toronto had been my first choice. Kitchener had been my second. But my final exams had been nothing short of a disaster, so I ended up in Orillia, ninety minutes north of Toronto. A smaller college, less prestigious, but they had an okay Human Resources program, and with my marks, it was the best I could get. At least I was able to enter the 'compressed' program; a two-year diploma in just twelve months, although it meant I had to do a bunch of night classes and attend through the end of next summer, too.

I admit, Becca leaving three days before the finals shook me. It consumed my thoughts, kept me awake at night, made it impossible to study. Even during the exams themselves, I would find my thoughts drifting back to her, trying to identify what I'd done wrong and what to do better next time, if there would even be a next time. Not with Becca, obviously, but the world was a big place and there were lots of girls, right?

Anyway, if Orillia was the best I could do, I was determined to make the most of it. I wanted to get up there right away, at the beginning of summer. Get the lay of the land, find my favourite places, meet the locals, get a summer job and a place to live, all that stuff.

Online, I managed to find an awesome 3-room basement suite for way less than what it would have cost in Toronto. So there was that going for me. The elderly couple who owned the place lived upstairs and were VERY clear that they were renting to singles only - no 'cohabiting'. They'd had a bad experience with college kids in the past.

Did my parents drive me up there and make sure their precious daughter got moved in safely? Of course they didn't. I had to ship my belongings and take the bus. Orillia was five-ish hours away from Windsor, so I doubted I'd be seeing them except on holidays. If then.

And say what you want about small towns, Orillia was gorgeous. Picturesque in places, lovely scenery, plenty of lakes and rivers, friendly locals and all the amenities of a bigger city. I landed a summer job as a camp instructor for kids with developmental challenges and I liked the work. It was diverting, anyway. Slowly, thoughts of Becca began to fade. I even had a brief summer romance with another instructor, complete with a couple of steamy nights in a pup tent in late August.

I mean, it wasn't over-the-top, crazy steamy like it had been with Becca, but it was fresh and exciting, which compensated.

Freshman Week at college was a blast. I'd turned nineteen in August (did my family come up to celebrate with me? Take a wild guess...), which meant I was one of the few students old enough to legally drink. I drank. I partied. I signed up for every intramural sport I could fit into my schedule. I joined the volleyball team. I drank and partied some more. The week ended with my tongue between the legs of a sophomore Accounting major while she ate me out as well, so no complaints there, even though her tongue wasn't quite as practiced as you-know-who's.

It wasn't my dream, not the scenario I'd envisioned during my last semester of high school, but it was good. Better than good, really. I was doing okay.

*

School was in its third week and the classes were interesting and challenging. The late-September weather was still warm enough to be pleasant, and I enjoyed the thirty-minute walk home from my last class of the week. When winter came, I'd likely be on the bus, but for now I welcomed the late afternoon sun and fresh air.

Then I saw Becca.

She was waiting for me on the doorstep of my rental, with a large, floral-print suitcase propped up next to her. She saw me at the same time I saw her, and stood up and waved, then hurried towards me. She wore a knee-length skirt with sneakers and a blue t-shirt under a zip-up fall jacket. She looked...exactly as I remembered her. Of course, it had only been three months...

I experienced more emotions in the next ten seconds than I usually did in a week. Joy, anger, resentment, confusion, elation, worry, uncertainty, curiosity, hope and, yes, lust.

She plunged into me and wrapped me up in a tight, tearful hug, gushing about how great it was to see me again, how much she'd missed me, how she'd thought of me every day. I hugged her back more out of reflex than anything else. My mind was all over the place. She was here!

"Becca...what are you doing here?" I finally asked.

Her expression became somber. "It's a long story. Can we talk?"

"Talk?" I repeated. Did I want to talk? Suddenly I wasn't so sure it was a good idea. "I don't know. I'm not sure how I feel about this. About you being here," I said.

She looked up at me with watery eyes, and I could read the guilt in them. And behind that, trepidation.

"I know I hurt you. I'm really sorry. I feel awful about it. I'm here to make it up to you. To...to be with you."

"How long are you here for?"

She hesitated and I could sense her anxiety - her body language was easy to read, and I was so used to reading it.

"Um...kind of...permanently."

"What? Where are you staying?"

She looked away and took a steadying breath, then turned toward me again but couldn't meet my eyes.

"I don't have a place."

I stood in silence as I tried to process that. "So, like, a hotel?"

She shook her head. "I'm sort of...broke. Well, not completely, but...yeah."

"Where are you staying tonight?"

There was another pause as she built up her courage. "With you?"

"With...me?"

"Like before. I was thinking it could be like before. With us, I mean."

"So you just came here? Out of the blue? Without even asking me? Broke?"

"I didn't have much money to begin with, and the flight from Phoenix was sort of last-minute, so not the best rates, and then the bus from Toronto, and the cab fare from the bus station..."

"How did you even know where I live?"

"I called your mom on Tuesday. She told me."

"She didn't say anything to me."

"I asked her not to. I told her I wanted to surprise you."

"What? Why?"

"I thought maybe if you knew I wanted to come, you'd say 'no'. You know, because of the way I left things..."

I stared at her, trying to digest the sheer insanity of her thought process. Did she think that because I took her in that first time when she showed up on my doorstep that I'd automatically do it again? Did she think she had a free pass to just enter and exit and re-enter my life as it pleased her? Did she think that showing up here as a basket case would obligate me to accept her back?

God, she was SO annoying!

And yet, there was an opportunity here, too. Maybe a better one than before.

"I need to hear this," I said, taking a seat on the doorstep.

*

It wasn't a pretty story. Becca had gone to Phoenix with her mom. It didn't take long for mom to start using again; since the divorce she seemed to have a knack for falling in with the wrong crowd. Becca tried to get her off the stuff, but mom wouldn't - or maybe couldn't - get clean. Then in early September mom threw a wine bottle at her half-sister and swung at Becca - ineffectually - with a knife. Cops got called, mom got arrested and confined to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation.

"I couldn't deal with it anymore. I was so unhappy. I felt lost and panicky and overwhelmed. I couldn't sleep, and it was hard to keep food down sometimes. The stress was killing me. Literally killing me."

"Why not go stay with dad?"

"He works in Saudi Arabia now. And...he's got his own problems, too."

"And so you came here?"

"I didn't have anywhere else to go."

"Oh, come on. You could have worked full-time someplace. Or taken out a student loan and gone to college or vocational school. Heck, you could have done another year of high school. So why here?"

She didn't answer for a few moments. "Because I was freaking out and losing my mind, and you know how to...to take care of me. How to look after me. Like when I was living with you." I could tell the admission embarrassed her. She was nineteen now, and she wanted someone to look after her?

I was quiet for a minute after she stopped talking, turning her words over in my mind. Getting my own thoughts together.

Becca was desperate. Alone. Broke. Emotionally needy. Maybe even scared. She'd come to Orillia looking for...a surrogate mother, I guess? Someone to take her in and care for her. Maybe 'mommy issues' had always been at the root of her personality. It kind of made sense. Was that why she'd kissed up to the captain of the volleyball team in high school - the most powerful female in her social circle? Why she'd latched on to me so tightly when I began asserting my control? Why she'd been so quick to abandon me when her actual mother offered to take her back in? And, when that mother proved unable to provide the security she needed, why Becca had returned to me?

Or maybe that was all just pop-psychology nonsense and her issues lay elsewhere. I had no idea. But Becca had been clear that she liked the way I took care of her. In a sense, she'd been using me even as I'd been trying to use her. Maybe, at some level, all relationships are nothing more than reciprocal selfishness. Maybe we're all using one another to some degree. Or is that merely my way of rationalizing the way I behaved?

"So, can I stay? Please?" she asked, and the tension in her question was palpable. She'd put all her eggs in this one basket. Not a wise gamble on her part.

I regarded her with an incredulous look. I'd let Angry Gwen handle this.

"Just like that, huh? You think I'm here for your convenience? You can just drift in and out of my life whenever you want?"

Her expression turned stricken, then anxious.

"No! No, that's not it. But the stuff with my mom-"

"When you left me, three days before exams, it really hurt," I said. "I couldn't concentrate. Couldn't study. Could barely sleep."

"I feel awful about that. I'm so, SO sorry."

"I bombed my exams. Toronto rescinded their admission. I looked like an idiot in front of my parents."

Her anxiety was slowly blooming into near-panic level. Here eyes were desperate.

"I had planned a long, beautiful future with you, and suddenly it was gone. It was a terrible feeling."

"I wanted that, too. But I had to go."

"You CHOSE to go. So all I could do was move on. And I did! I met other girls, had some fun. And I don't plan to stop. I'm enjoying the dating scene now."

"Wait! Gwen, can we just talk about this? I love you! I need you. Please just-"

"Yeah, you loved me so much you tossed me aside at the most important time of my life."

Emotion was making her eyes watery. She knew any hopes for a reconciliation were slipping away from her, and maybe realized only at that moment what a vulnerable position she was in.

"I'll make it up to you, I promise. I swear somehow I'll-"

"How? What can you offer me now?"

She hesitated, clearly trying to come up with an answer that didn't sound ridiculous.

"Give me time and I swear I'll make it up to you. One more chance. Please!"

I scoffed, then pretended to think it over. My leverage had never been so strong. I gave a sidelong glance at the driveway. No car. My elderly landlords were out somewhere. No one would see if I took Becca in.

"Fine. You get one day. One day to convince me you're worth keeping," I said.

As tenuous as the offer was, Becca couldn't leap on it fast enough. "Thank you. I swear I'll do whatever it takes."

I shook my head, then stepped past her and opened the side door. My basement suite had it's own secure entrance with a deadbolt.

Inside the door there was a stairway down to the basement. The layout of the place was pretty simple. The main room was a bedroom expansive enough to hold a double bed and an office desk with a room left over for yoga or floor exercises. There was a short hallway, then a full bathroom on the right and a mini-kitchen on the left - it had a sink, stove and fridge but not much else. There was a tall counter in place of a kitchen table - perfect for one person. A little further down the hall was an unfinished room with a washer and dryer. Not a lot of natural light - there were four ground-level windows masked by Venetian blinds, but only one of them would have been big enough to climb through. Still, pretty damn good for four-fifty a month!

Becca hauled her luggage down the stairs and I gestured to an out-of-the-way corner at the bottom of the stairs.

"Put your stuff there. Don't unpack, I doubt you'll be here long."

"Uh, thanks," she said.

"And take off your shoes. I like it clean here."

I kicked off my shoes and dumped my school bag on my desk, then spun to face Becca.

"No noise. I'm not allowed to have guests, so if the old couple upstairs hears you, you're out. And the place isn't soundproof."

She nodded and looked around at her new surroundings.

"This is nice," she said in a hushed voice.

I ignored her and went to the kitchenette to defrost a square of grocery-store lasagna I'd been keeping in the freezer. She followed.

"What are you paying here?" she asked.

"Why do you care?" I snapped. I put the frozen dinner the microwave - I'd heat it up after some exercise - then brushed past her and went to the bedroom.

The stress was rolling off her in waves, almost a tangible thing in the apartment. When Angry Gwen was present, Becca became fretful, apologetic, fawning, and very, very anxious. She followed me to the bedroom and stood near the doorway, fidgeting with the zipper on her jacket.

I planned to go out for a jog, but instead of changing in a hurry, I stripped down to my black sports bra and panties and spent some time in front of my full-length mirror 'fixing' my hair and flaunting my skin in front of the other girl.

"Wow - you're staying in shape," she said, sounding forced despite her obvious attempt to be sincere.

I didn't acknowledge her, then dressed in shorts and a college T-shirt, slipped my phone in an armband and popped buds into my ears so I could listen to music during my run. She followed me back to the hall and hovered nervously as I put on my runners.

"I'm going out. Don't touch anything," I said.

"Want company?"

"No."

I glanced back to find her with a sickly, dreadful look on her face. Then I cranked up the music and left, closing the door behind me.

*

"Smells good," she said, forcing a bright smile that came off as a grimace. She was so obviously, terribly uncomfortable I almost felt sorry for her.

I'd showered, then dressed in track pants and t-shirt after my run. My feet were bare on the cold floor, but after a hard run the cold felt good. The exercise had built up my appetite, and even the too-salty, too-processed store lasagna tasted good.

"I guess I'm supposed to feed you now?" I grumbled. I wasn't going to make it easy for her. If she wanted to enter my life again, it would be on her knees.

"No, it's okay. I'm...not hungry. She wrung her hands briefly, then put them behind her back, giving me an excellent view of her bra-less nipples in her blue t-shirt. She was hitting all the right notes, I had to give her credit for that. It made me wonder what she had on under her skirt.

The silence grew tense and oppressive between us and before long she tried again.

"So, Friday night! What do you usually do?"

"Sometimes I have a date," I said, casually twisting the knife. "But tonight I have reading to do."

"Oh yeah? What are you reading?"

I shoved another bite in my mouth, pointedly shutting down her small-talk attempt.

Another three minutes went by in some of the most uncomfortable silence you can imagine. I was loving it. Becca looked increasingly distressed. Angry Gwen was quickly breaking her.

"Hey...can we talk?" she asked. It was almost a whimper.

"You haven't stopped talking since you got here."

"I'm sorry about everything. You know that, right? How can I make it up to you? Just name it. Anything."

Anything. I loved that word, coming from her lips. But I didn't want anything. I wanted everything.

"Nothing comes to mind," I said.

In fact, I had lots of ideas. I'd been brainstorming the entire time I was out. Or maybe 'scheming' would be a better word for it?

"Hey, I could be your housekeeper! Dusting, laundry, cleaning - that sort of thing. For as long as you wanted. You're probably busy at school, right? You could come home to a clean apartment."

"It's clean already."

"I could cook, too. And I can get a job...you could charge me rent," she said, trying way too hard to force a little humour into her tone.

"If my landlord sees you entering or leaving - or even suspects you're living here - it's over," I reminded her. "If you want to be here, you'll have to stay inside, and quiet."

"Right. I forgot."

"You're out on your broke ass if you get caught. Better not forget that."

I got up and put my plate in the sink, then grabbed my aluminum water bottle and went to my desk to start reading. Truth be told I didn't have anything pressing due soon, but I wanted to be home to work Becca over a little more. Plus it was almost nine at night - too late to start anything major.

She made to sit on my bed but I stopped her.

"Don't sit on my bed with your outside clothes," I said in my 'impatient voice', then opened my textbook and pretended to be engrossed.

There was nowhere in the room to sit except my bed and the chair I was currently occupying. Becca sat on the cold floor with her back against my bed and her knees pulled up, though not high enough for me to determine if she was wearing panties.

Patience! No need to rush.

Fifteen minutes passed and Becca was growing increasingly restless. She didn't want to interrupt my reading, rightly guessing I'd bite her head off. But the silence was KILLING her. Her body language made it obvious. She was trapped in an apartment with Angry Gwen, and Becca would say or do anything to make her go away. Anything.

After another half hour of watching her slowly fall apart emotionally, I decide to toss her a bone. I stood and stretched, then sat on my bed next to her floor space and started massaging my right foot, wincing in mock pain.

"Sore?"

I nodded. "Over-did it a bit, I guess."

"Want a massage?"

I paused, allowing her to bathe in a ray of hope. "I guess. You used to give great foot rubs."

I scooted up onto the bed and lay on my back, propped up on my elbows, letting my feet and ankles dangle off the end of the bed. It wasn't a high mattress, which meant Becca would have to bend way over at the waist, or kneel in front of the bed. I was curious to know which she'd choose.

She knelt, sitting back on her heels. Probably not a comfortable position on a carpet-on-concrete floor, but she wasn't going to complain with Angry Gwen around, that's for sure!

I gasped and yanked my feet away at her first touch. "Your hands are like ice!" I said, my tone accusing, as though it had been intentional on her part.

"Sorry! I can go run them under some warm water."

"Use your mouth," I said, meeting her eyes boldly.

"Wh-what?"

"Instead of your hands. Your mouth."

She hesitated, wide-eyed with surprise and indecision.

"Fine, never mind. Leave me alone; I'll just stay off them for-" my dismissal died mid-sentence.

Becca had leaned forward and kissed the bottom of my big toe. She kept her eyes on mine as a delightful blush spread across her cheeks. She kissed it again, then licked it. Another lick, then she took it into her hot mouth and sucked it.