Sara took my coat at the door. Wearing the sweet little silk and lace teddy I bought her, as I ‘requested’, she was the most innocent thing I had ever seen. She kept her eyes lowered demurely, a tiny smile bowing her lovely lips. Her long blonde hair was pulled into a sweet, single braid over her shoulder, the very end tickling her left nipple, which I could clearly see outlined against the thin teddy.

“Everything looks lovely.” The candles were all lit, and the wine was set in an ice bucket next to two glasses. I could see the soft glow of candles in through the bedroom door as well. I stepped close to her and placed my manicured hand on her face. I admired the loveliness of the plum of my acrylic nails against her creamy skin, before I asked, “Are you sure you want to do this tonight?” She raised her gaze to mine, and stared for a moment, soft brown eyes wide as a doe’s, before giving a small but firm nod. I nodded too, and lowered my hand. No gentleness tonight. “Very well. Pour me a glass of wine and wait for my return.”

I admired her shapely behind and her slender legs and waist as she walked away from me. She’d sheathed her lovely calves and thighs in a pair of thigh-high, pale pink stockings, and put a pair of white heels on her tiny, tiny feet. She had managed to match the stockings exactly to the teddy. They hadn’t been approved though. They shouldn’t stay.

I went into the closet and pulled down my black corset and my black leggings, as well as my black patent stiletto boots. I had once laughed at this outfit, the idea that she wanted me to lace my body into something confining so that I could, in turn, confine her. Who knew that I would wind up liking this just as much as she did?

Lacing up the corset using the corset hook on the wall, I decided to take it beyond the usual and tightlace. My figure pulled into an extreme hourglass and I took a moment to arrange my breasts properly. Sitting briefly at the vanity, I touched up my eyeliner, sharpening and thickening it to intensify the coldness in my steel gray eyes. I followed the eyeliner with a deep red lipstick and a dusting of highlighter to lift my cheekbones. I loosened my bun and let my hair hang straight down, falling naturally over one eye. Looking in the mirror, I saw not my face, but the face of a fierce and domineering stranger.

Perfect.

I was about to put on my pants and boots when I heard the crash and tinkle of breaking glass.

*****

Mistress didn’t notice me sneaking a glance at her as she left to change. I loved her like this, the woman just home from her stressful job, still in her business suit and carrying the tension of the day, but every once in awhile, I needed to love the fierce and powerful woman who would love me too, in her own hard way. I felt a rush of anticipation and the buzz, like electricity, that focused between my legs. I squeezed my thighs together, wanting to bounce in excitement.

The bottle of wine sat there, dripping condensation. I had a little chuckle about how similar I felt before reaching for the glass. I hoped Mistress would enjoy my choice.

I reached to take a glass and as I straightened I heard a car door outside at the neighbor’s house. My body startled of its own accord, and my fingers slipped off the stem and my focus sharpened as it fell.

I saw the shimmering lip of the glass, ringing with the light that bounced off it, and the slender stem which reflected spots and sparkles around it onto the floor and chairs and ceiling and floor and the perfect peaceful slide through the air before...

*****

The door slammed against the wall and I pulled around the corner, Glock in hand and leveled at chest height. All thoughts of my plans were out the window, demolished in the threat of a home intrusion. All I could see were flashes backward to a time when security meant nothing. The flashes of siren lights and the whispering of neighbors softened to the glow of candle flames and a gentle whimper from a gentle slip of a woman clad in stockings and a pink teddy, staring at me in front of scattered bright edges of glass.

My breath left me with the vehemence of an explosion and I leaned on the wall for support. Gaze cast down, I breathed deeply, like she’d taught me. I set the gun on the hall table and, knowing the safety was off, I recoiled from it. I placed my back against the wall and tried to pull air into lungs that felt the size of ping-pong balls. A rush of cold met my spine at the base of my skull and my chest opened, allowing me to suck in enough air to recede the darkness at the corners of my vision.

Sara was there, lace and all, pressing a small, swiftly melting piece of ice to my neck to stem the oncoming panic attack. How quickly she saw. How could she possibly have seen? But of course she knew, the past, the problems. The reason I came to see her employer in the first place, to handle the budding panic attacks… Of course she knew, after the soul-baring talks, the late nights and bottles of wine. For once, I was grateful, not bitter, that someone else knew, if not understood, but knew. The trickle of water running down my spine seemed to confirm the realization.

I reached out, and wrapped her in my arms. Startled, she laid her hands on my shoulders. I felt the silk teddy on my cheek, breathed in the gentle, sweet scent of her favorite perfume.

“Tabitha, are you okay? I’m sorry I dropped the glass.”

I nodded. “I’ll be alright. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

She shook her head gently. “You have reasons. More than most.”

The tears were coming, I could feel them like an acidic burn in the high bridge of my nose. They gathered at the edges of my eyesight, blurring details but not overflowing. I knew I would not cry, and so did she.

I felt her fingers start a hesitant but steadily more confident rub at my shoulders. “Tab, I think I might know something that could help you, but you’re going to have to trust me.”

A shiver went down my spine at the thought of trust. It was, however, not necessarily a bad shiver. “...Trust you?”

She kneeled down and suddenly I was looking into her sweet face, eyebrows twisted with worry. “I think I know something that will help you break through this cycle you’ve been stuck in. We’d need to try it now. Right. Now.”

The intensity of her statement and her gaze stunned me. I nodded, feeling much like a fawn in the face of a wolf.

She pulled me up by my hands, sharply, and spun me so I was standing ahead of her, facing down the hallway. I could see the glow of the candles, and there was another frisson of delicious tension knowing that she was steering me toward the bedroom. She shut the door behind us and pushed me down to sit on the side of the bed.

“The safe word will be ‘vanilla’. If you have any objection at all, say it.” She moved toward the dresser in which our mutual playthings were stored.

Opening the drawer, she looked back at me again. “I mean it, Tab. Even if you’re not comfortable with the idea of this right now, it won’t hurt my feelings. I will take silence for assent.”

I just blinked at her, sliding from the edges of my panic into confusion. “I… I don’t understand.”

She looked back at me, hands still in the drawer. “I’m going to reverse our roles this time. You’re going to be the sub.” My gaze slid to the ground as strange tingles started in my stomach. I’d never felt these delicate sensations before. Sara was suddenly in front of me, fingers beneath my chin to tilt my head up. My eyes met hers and I blinked. “If you’re not okay with this, I need you to tell me now.”

I shook my head, a movement she might not have caught unless she had her fingers on my chin. “I’ll try.” My voice was the smallest I had ever heard it in my life.

An expression I’d never seen came over her angelic face. Lust, blatant and intense. I’d seen passion, and orgasmic pleasure, but this was more than I’d ever imagined.

She pushed my shoulders, firmly and gently, till my spine was flat on the mattress. She pressed my arms up and soft ties circled my wrists. I knew they were connected to the carved bedposts, one at the head and the other at the foot. I felt a slow tug of arousal and it sharpened when she slid a blindfold over my face. I had never wanted to try this before but judging by the dampness I felt between my thighs, I would not deny the chance to try this again.

Gentle brushing strokes slid over my thigh. The muscle Sara caressed tightened and I took in the slightest breath. I heard her chuckle, and the sexiness of that throaty sound would have brought me to my knees had I been standing.

“Now, you wait here. But don’t worry, I’ll give you something to keep you company.” I felt her fingers pull aside my panties and tuck a cylinder along the already slippery folds of my labia. With a button press, the tiny vibrator whirred to life, with the intention of driving me out of my mind. My legs clenched tight together, without me even thinking, and I made a sound like a sob. I tried to grind my body against that source of pleasure, but the bullet wanted to slide when I did. I tried to hold still then, my whole body tight, my breath coming faster as I felt my body draw closer to orgasm.

The rush encircled my body and my heart pounded against the tightly ribbed cage and I wanted to be lost...

The bullet was plucked away from me. “Naughty. I never thought you’d come that quickly.” My leg, tortured already by her silk touch, was further abused by her lovely fingers, stroked by smooth knuckles, then lightly scraped by fingernails as the petting went up, then down. “Well I suppose we’ll have to punish you. But we need to move you first.” I heard her move around the bed and the ties at my wrists were loosened.

“But...” I began my protest, and felt her fingertips at my lips.

“Shh. You will not speak. You’re forgiven this once, but next time you’ll be punished. Understood?”

I nodded, knowing she would see.

Her hands pressed on my side, and I rolled over for her, marveling at my own obedience. She pulled my hips with one hand, while simultaneously pushing my shoulders down. I settled into that position with my rear end up in the air, my forehead resting on my arms.

“You are allowed to make sounds, as long as they are not words.” The words confused me until I felt a brisk slap to my left buttock. A shocked gasp, more at the sudden strong rush of arousal than at the sting, escaped me. Another sharp strike, to the right this time. Two more slaps to each side, and I felt her caress the now hyper-sensitive flesh that had just moments before been the subject of her punishment. “I think it’s time for us to do something else now.” She pulled off my blindfold, and I looked around the familiar bedroom, a force of habit. My eyes fell on the mirror on the wall before me. The scene portrayed was entirely unfamiliar: my black-clad body in the foreground and her behind me. Nude now except those unapproved stockings… and the strap-on I usually used on her. I knew that the other end of the dildo was pressed into her own body. I felt dizzy with need.

“Don’t come.” She gently pulled off my panties, dropping them beside the bed. She delicately positioned the head of the dildo between my soaked labia. Her fingers wound my thick dark hair into a rope in her tiny fist. “Don’t come… until I tell you to.” She pushed. The dildo’s head entered my body, meeting delicious resistance. It was bigger than I had previously thought, and it was all I could do to not dissolve around it.

She began to thrust, pulling my hair with each push. I could feel the orgasm sneaking up on me.

“Don’t come,” I heard her voice echo delicately around me. The arousal sharpened in the face of her demand. I couldn’t help it, I was floating on an edge of need and nothing she said could stop me...

I felt her lean down, her upper body pressed against my back. I felt her nipples press into the space just below my shoulder blades and I knew that she was torturing me on purpose. She reached around my body and her fingers slid over my clitoris, up, down, up, down, oh no.

“You can come,” She panted into my ear.

The permission severed the thread that had been ready to break for aeons and my body was fractured into a million splinters of light and heat and greedy pleasure and it seemed to go on for eternity before I could reassemble the universe around me into one woman, still moving a strap-on inside me.

She slowly pulled out and she laid down next to me. My forehead rested on the blankets, and I closed my eyes. My breathing felt labored, my throat tight, and I didn’t want to look at Sara. I was going to cry and I couldn’t stand her seeing me like this.

She caught my face in her hand and turned my gaze toward her. “No you don’t. Do you think I’m going to let you hide? Come here.” She slid her arms around me and pulled me toward her, the deceptively slender arms fixing me in a strong grip. The gentleness, the tender manner in which she cared for me proved too much.

The tears were hot and cleansing. When they finally slowed and I shuddered and hiccuped to a stop, Sara was still there, stroking my hair. The dildo was trapped between us, ridiculously, and I laughed, the sound sodden.

She shifted to take the dildo off and I closed my eyes for a moment. I felt… empty. But the kind of empty that is prepared for something else to move in and fill the space.

Sara laid down and caught my chin and lifted my gaze to hers. “Are you okay, Tab?”

I nodded. “I think maybe I needed to cry. Like… it helped me address the fear and everything else.”

Her head bobbed in affirmation. “I think that’s a great way to think about it. But I mean about what I did. Was that okay?” Concern crept into her expression.

I looked at her for a moment, and then a smile slid across my face. “I think we’ll have to do things like that a little more often.”