Vanessa's Choice

Without removing her hand from her lover's cunt, Karen gave her ear a wet kiss. Her hot breath burned Vanessa's neck. "You are mine, baby. Your body belongs to me. Only I can do this to you."

Those words and the action of Karen's fingers sent another shock through Vanessa's body. She screamed, "Yes, oh yes. Oh God." When the carnal earthquake ended, Vanessa lay still, exhausted and unaware of her surroundings.

When she regained full consciousness, she felt something warm and wet on her foot. She opened her eyes and saw Karen sitting on the bed with Vanessa's toes in her mouth, kissing them as she would the blonde's breasts or her pussy.

Feeling Vanessa move, Karen stopped and smiled at her lover. "I've told you many times you have pretty feet." She placed the dainty morsel back down on the bed and ran her hands over it. "How does that make you feel?"

A dreamy smile formed on Vanessa's full lips. "Wanted. Desired. Beautiful. Confident. I don't ever want to get up from this bed. I want to stay here with you. Come kiss me." Karen slid up the bed and gave her lover a full and lingering kiss.

Karen broke the kiss. Vanessa said, "I'm exhausted, but I want to do you."

Karen smiled. "In a few minutes. I just wanted to show you what you mean to me."

Vanessa closed her eyes, luxuriating in the afterglow. "I know. I feel the same."

Karen continued caressing the blonde's body as they lay there entwined. "But it was important to demonstrate it before I tell you about my job. I had to show you that, no matter what, you have no reason to ever be jealous, baby."

Under other circumstances, that might have alarmed Vanessa. But now she could only lie there, drained and receptive. "Point made. Now, tell me about this job of yours."

Karen sat up, moved around, and put her back against the wall. "Put your head on my lap, baby."

Karen stroked her lover's cheeks and ran her fingers through her hair. "I work for an older woman who has a special kind of business. You know, a lot of women have what you might call a 'flexible' sexuality. Very few men do. You can find many homosexual men, but almost none that also like having sex with a woman. Plenty of women are homosexual too, but many enjoy it with both men and women. And there's lots who prefer women but need to stay attached to a man because of money or kids or both.

"That last group forms Judith's clientele, mostly. Women who already have a relationship with a man but also crave women."

Vanessa lay there, silent, but still looking into Karen's eyes, showing her interest. The blonde seemed curious. Karen continued. "But these women have a tendency to feel guilty about their cravings. They have to play as if they aren't in control. If they can be made to feel as if the other woman is somehow forcing them to have the sex they already want, then they can relax and enjoy it. And they're willing to pay well for the experience."

Vanessa raised her eyebrows. "You mean Judith is some kinda whore?"

Karen paused, then nodded. "A very special kind. She's called a dominatrix. That means she dominates these women and they submit to her."

Still maintaining her gaze, Vanessa asked, "How does that work?"

"Kinda like what we just did."

Vanessa frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Well, what happened when I told you your body belonged to me? How did that make you feel?"

Vanessa nodded, as if she understood something for the first time. "I came. Hard. Harder than ever before."

Karen nodded. "Yes." She went still for a moment.

"You mean I'm submissive? That you dominated me? That's what made me come so hard?"

"Yes."

"But how did you know?"

Karen resumed stroking Vanessa's hair. "Do you ever initiate sex? Don't I always take the lead?"

Vanessa nodded. "I see. I think I do. But we're together. How does Judith know?"

Karen smirked. "Well, you don't pay for a dominatrix if you're not a submissive."

Vanessa blushed. "Sorry. That was a stupid question."

Karen framed her friend's face. "Nonsense. This is all new to you. Don't ever say anything negative about yourself in my hearing." She was slender enough to bend down and kiss her lover. Vanessa returned the kiss and put her hand on the back of Karen's head.

Karen broke the kiss and continued. "Some of the women want to be tied up in various ways. Some want to be blindfolded. Some want to be humiliated. Some want to be spanked. Some want to dress in lingerie. There's so much variety it's hard to name all the differences."

Vanessa narrowed her eyes. "If these women already have husbands, how do they get away from them? Especially with lingerie? How do they avoid getting caught from smells? I know you and I give off a lot of aroma when we're aroused."

Karen grinned. "The ones who are attached come during the middle of the day when the kids are in school and men are at work. Some are professionals and single. Judith sees them in the evenings. She operates out of a house in the country, about ten miles from here. She keeps a variety of lingerie and shoes handy for her women to use. And she has lots of sex toys and other things. The women call her and describe what they want and Judith makes all the arrangements. She never wears perfume and uses unscented deodorant. And the women shower there when they're done."

"What about the soap and shampoo?"

"Unscented. All of it. Judith is smart and careful. She knows she has to protect her clients. Now, there's a single lawyer in Jackson that comes down and occasionally spends the weekend. Judith wears that woman's favorite perfume, but she's a special case."

Vanessa closed her eyes and absorbed it all. She opened her eyes. "And what part do you play in all this?"

"I greet the women and escort them to the room with the clothes. I do their makeup and hair, help them pick out what they want to wear, get them dressed, and then lead them to the play room. When they're done, I wash the clothes and the sex toys. Judith pays me and I leave."

Vanessa narrowed her eyes. "That can't be all. It might be considered embarrassing, maybe, but it's nothing to make me jealous. There must be more."

Karen winced. "Only sometimes. You know, any kind of sex can get boring. Some of these women want an additional partner. When they do, I fill in."

"You mean y'all have a lesbian orgy?"

Karen shrugged. "It doesn't mean anything, emotionally. It's just part of my job, and not every day. Only sometimes."

Vanessa nodded. "So that's why you made love to me like that before we had this talk. Well."

Vanessa closed her eyes again and stayed silent. Karen let the silence linger. Without opening her eyes, Vanessa asked, "How much do you make?"

"Fifty dollars per client. There's often two clients in an afternoon. That's just for my normal services. If I have to participate, Judith pays me an extra hundred."

Vanessa's eyes popped open. "You make, what, five hundred dollars a week?" [Note to reader. Five hundred dollars was a lot of money in the early 1980's.]

Karen shrugged. "Some weeks it's double that."

"But you drive a small, cheap car. You could afford a European sports car."

Karen shook her head. "Judith won't let me. She says I have to be discreet. No fancy clothes, no fancy cars. Nothing that a poor college student couldn't afford."

Vanessa nodded. "That's smart. But what do you mean she won't let you? She'll fire you? If she did that, how could she know you wouldn't spill the beans? How did she rope you into this in the first place?"

Karen reminded Vanessa, "You promised you wouldn't be jealous. Do you trust me? Trust my feelings for you?"

Vanessa inhaled deeply and sat up. She squared her shoulders and faced Karen. "She's your lover, too?"

Karen shook her head. "Not anymore. At first, yes. She saw me in the grocery store. She told me later that she could tell from the way I dressed and moved that I liked women, not men, and she needed help. She seduced me. She's a true beauty. She's close to fifty years old but she looks like she's in her early thirties. She dresses quietly and she's tall and slender. She wears her hair down to her shoulders. She's a brunette and has dark eyes that, you know, penetrate. She radiates strength and confidence. Any woman who likes women would want her."

Vanessa raised her eyebrows. "And later. After she seduced you?"

"We were lovers for a couple of months. She called it 'training.' I was infatuated with her for a while, but there's something about her that doesn't encourage tender feelings. I doubt if anybody loves her. For her, there's only dominants and those who submit. I was her submissive."

Vanessa stared into Karen's eyes. "Are you still her submissive?"

Karen stroked her lover's cheek. "Not in a sexual sense. But she's still my mistress. I obey her, partly from attachment, but mostly because it's in my best interest."

"So, except for your job, you don't make love to anybody but me?"

Karen stared at the sexy blonde. "Even including my job, I don't make love to anybody but you. My job requires me to fuck other women sometimes, but you're the only one I make love with."

Vanessa went silent again. She remembered the loneliness and frustration she'd lived with before the night Karen first offered to massage her sore feet. She examined how she felt now, the satisfaction, the companionship, the joy, not only in the bedroom but over the dinner table. Could she go back to the way things were before? Were her feelings actually wounded? Did she feel betrayed? It all came back to the single question, did she trust Karen? If she did, then she had to accept Karen's words as true; she may have sex with others, but for money. She only made an emotional connection with Vanessa.

The fact that Karen was a self-confessed whore didn't really bother Vanessa because the amount of money in question would be too tempting for Vanessa herself to refuse, especially if she had a good relationship in her normal life.

Vanessa hugged Karen. She gave the slender girl's ear a wet kiss and whispered, "I believe you. I trust you. Take off your clothes. It's time for me to show how I feel about you."

***

Vanessa grew silent. I looked up from my pad. "That's an intriguing story. I'm anxious to hear more at our next session. How do you feel?"

She smiled. "Pretty good, actually. I've never told any of this to another person. I'm glad that I found you. I'm not afraid to tell you anything. It feels better to let it out. When I'm with you, I don't feel ashamed. That means a lot to me."

I returned her smile. "That's what I like to hear. You've made excellent progress. How is your anxiety? Your moods?"

Vanessa shrugged. "I still feel anxious a lot, but I don't cry much anymore."

"That's good, another sign that we're making progress. If you want, I can prescribe some medication to help with your anxiety. Do you want to try?"

Vanessa frowned. "What are the side effects?"

"Some have been reported. The main ones are listlessness and lowered libido."

"You mean lower sex drive?"

"Yes, in some patients."

Vanessa shook her head. "No, I don't want to risk that. I can't have Aaron thinking I've lost interest in sex. Not at all." She shook her head again. "No. It's not worth it."

I nodded. "I understand. But in that case, I need to warn you. Be very careful with your alcohol consumption. Drinking is a wide-spread method for dealing with anxiety. Too much alcohol could undermine everything we've accomplished."

She nodded. "I'll be careful. What would you consider to be a safe limit?"

I had to beware. I'd detected no alcohol abuse in her yet but if I gave her a number too high, she might view that as a recommendation to drink that much and it could lead to problems. I retreated into the clinical guidelines. "For people without a demonstrated reliance on alcohol, no more than two drinks a day is considered safe. However, that's two ounces of hard liquor, two four ounce glasses of wine, or two twelve ounce bottles of beer. But, and it's a big but, zero alcohol consumption is optimal. Exercise is always better. It releases good chemicals into your bloodstream and, so long as you don't overdo it and injure yourself, you can't go wrong. Any doctor or healthcare professional will tell you the same thing. So if you feel anxious, stop what you're doing and go for a walk. Strolling along the seawall in Beauchamp and Port City is lovely this time of year and won't get you all sweaty."

She stood. "I'll take your advice, Sue."

Session 05

"That was a strange place to end the session. I mean, she just said her first real lover was a lesbian prostitute and you say, 'Uh, oh well, if you feel stressed, take a walk along the beach.'"

I glared at Bill. "You know, I've always felt your sense of humor to be overly developed and crude, more in line with a truck driver than a doctor."

Bill stared at me for a moment then broke out in a deep belly laugh. Over-developed and juvenile sense of humor indeed.

When he got control of himself, he said, "Come on, Sue, weren't you dying of curiosity?"

I frowned. "Actually, I was more shocked than curious. I needed time to digest it all before proceeding."

Bill returned my frown. "I know you. You think something was going on under the surface. But surely you don't think her love affair with Karen was the first step in a planned recruitment, do you?"

I arched my left eyebrow. "In a world ruled largely by random chance, coincidences are to be expected, but only a fool trusts any one of them. I have to be very careful exploring this one, I think."

Bill glanced at the clock. "Good luck with your investigation into this one, Detective Sue."

***

Vanessa looked as pretty as ever. I don't think she could look unattractive if she tried. We exchanged greetings and she lay down on the couch. I took a seat facing her and began.

"Last time, you told me that Karen revealed that she was a lesbian prostitute and worked for a dominatrix named Judith."

She nodded. "Karen called her 'Mistress' or 'Mistress Judith.'"

"Let's pick up from there, shall we? What happened next?"

Vanessa frowned. "That night? I already told you. We made love again."

"So, Karen's revelation didn't bother you?"

Vanessa shook her head. "Not really. I mean, for that kind of money, it would be hard to turn down. And I could tell from the way Karen acted that her job had nothing to do with me."

"You continued having sex as you had been?"

Vanessa smiled, dreamy and sleepy. "Oh yes, every day, as usual. It got even better."

"How so?"

"Karen showed me new positions and began bringing home some of her boss's toys for us to use. Are the details important?"

I shook my head. "Not unless you think so."

"No. We had fun. We fucked each other into exhaustion every night. I slept like I'd never slept before. I woke up every morning feeling rested and ready for the day. And I didn't feel so lonely and angry. My suspicions about sex had been right. It turned out to be the best part of my life and I HAD been missing something before. Karen showed me what."

She paused and I waited. When she remained silent, I ventured a question I'd held back since the beginning. "It appears you were very fond of Karen." She nodded in agreement. "But you've never said that you were in love with her. Were you?"

She looked at me for several moments, as if contemplating her answer, which was strange but signaled the question's importance. Usually, she replied quickly. "Funny you should ask that."

"Why?"

"That night, the night she told me about Judith, after I got her off, Karen told me that she loved me."

"Was that the first time?"

"Yes."

"How did you respond?"

"I didn't know what to say."

"What did you do?"

"I kissed her like there was no tomorrow and made love to her again."

I let the answer hang in the air for a few moments. "So, you deflected with a sex act?"

Vanessa said, "That sounds like psycho-babble but I guess it's apt. I didn't know what 'being in love' felt like, so I kept on doing what I had before. Karen liked it well enough. She came so hard she nearly passed out."

"Do you think you were being dishonest?"

Vanessa frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not trying to upset you. What most people call 'being in love' is really a biochemical reaction engendered by a combination of physical attraction and emotional attachment. The person 'in love' becomes desperate for the object of her affection to reciprocate. You obviously felt affection and attraction for Karen. It becomes a question of the degree of your feelings. From your reaction here, I take it that your feelings for Karen were less intense than hers for you. Is that correct?"

Vanessa averted her eyes, but not to the left, so I didn't think she was formulating a lie. She remained silent.

I pushed. "In such matters, we really can't help the way that we feel. I'm not trying to blame you. Desire cannot be negotiated. Just because a person loves you does not obligate you to return that love to the same degree." She kept her eyes averted and didn't try to speak. As a last chance, I added, "I should know."

It was a violation of the clinical procedure to show a chink in my armor. It could've undermined her confidence in me as a clinician. But I had a strong feeling that a bit of commiseration could provide a breakthrough and it turned out to be correct. My admission got her attention. She stared at me for a moment before asking, "You, too, eh? Another woman?"

I shook my head. "A man. My dearest friend."

"Were y'all lovers?"

"No. I knew better."

"I thought you liked men as well as women."

I answered, "I do."

She asked, "Well, what was the matter with him? Is he fat or ugly?"

"No. He's quite handsome and successful."

"Then why?"

I paused to reflect, making sure of my phrasing. "Because I knew I couldn't give him what he most desired. He clearly wanted more than just my body, but I was unwilling to attach myself that strongly to anyone. If we had started a physical relationship, I would have eventually lost his friendship. And his friendship is one of the true treasures of my life."

"So, if y'all hadn't been such good friends, I mean, if he had picked you up in a bar, say, or y'all met at a party, you would've fucked him?"

I shrugged. "Maybe, though I'm not given to such impulsiveness. I'm usually quite deliberate in such matters. But your situation is different."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you and Karen didn't have a close personal relationship until after you had sex. In all the ways that really count, Karen was your first, despite the two or three men you'd been with before. I only meant that I know what it's like to have somebody love me as a potential long term mate when I don't feel the same way. I say again, that kind of feeling can't be negotiated. He could never have been kind enough, good enough in bed, generous enough, or even loyal enough for me to make him the primary focus of my life. There is nothing wrong with him. I don't think I'll ever feel that way about anybody. I'm too independent."

She nodded. "I think I understand."

I continued. "So, did Karen's expression of her feelings for you make you feel guilty? Is that why you put even more effort into your sex with her?"

She paused again. "Maybe. It makes sense. I mean, I didn't want to lose her. So, I guess you could say that I did try to make up for what I didn't feel but she did."

"That's what I meant about being dishonest. You didn't tell her what you really felt, but you acted as if you reciprocated, yes?"

She shrugged. "I suppose so." She sighed. "Yes, you're right."

"Did Karen ever tell you she loved you again?"

Vanessa nodded. "But not right away."

I opened my eyes wider. "Sounds like there's a lot more to the story. Do you feel like continuing?"