I take a hot shower as soon as I can. No matter how much I rub and wash them, I can still feel the words on my skin. On my breasts. Tits. They’re called tits. I can feel the letters so clearly, almost like raw skin too sensitive to touch. I could trace them perfectly with my fingers if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. Why would I want to? I don’t want to be a slut or a goddess. I want to be me.
I look down at my chest and see the word “slut” written in soap over my right breast, but it’s upside down now, facing me. I panic and let the water rinse it off, running down my legs and thighs. My thighs that are still sticky. Washing my pussy gets distracting when I keep turning myself on every time the water runs over my lips.

But of course, that must be it. I’m too turned on. I can’t repress this or pretend I’m not horny. Carl got me all riled up last night, and I need a release. Obviously, the last and most powerful sexual encounter I had was watching June in the bathroom. That’s where my mind went. It’s a dream. Just a dream.

I need to masturbate. I need to calm myself down and settle my nerves. I feel my hand glide over my thick hips to my pussy. It’s not shaved, but I keep it trimmed. The long hairs get caught or tugged on and drive me nuts. Two fingers spread my lips and expose the clit. I start to stroke gently, slowly, just how I like it.

I think about Carl on top of me last night. How I wanted him to pierce my nipples. Wouldn’t it be great if he went with me to get them pierced? But he doesn’t want that. Maybe he’ll get clamps. Yes! I imagine him putting clamps on my nipples and kissing around them while I beg for release. I can feel him hard on my lap. I take off his shirt. He’s big, strong, hairy, soft. I take his nipple in my mouth and nibble. He lets out a moan. God, I love when he moans. I love how he starts to grind on my lap, giving me a little lap dance like a slut. Carl would be such a great slut. He loves being of use. I could think of some uses. He gets louder and my nibbles turn to bites. Moans turns to screams but I don’t let go. He’s mine. He’s all mine.

I hold onto the wall of the shower and almost double over as I cum, my knees getting weak and giving out on me. My skin shivers and sends flashes of heat like waves down my arms and legs. I feel everything relax and stretch, loving the hot water and soap. Everything is loose and feels good. That’s exactly what I needed.

When I get out and towel myself off, Carl is already gone. I’m not surprised. I get dressed and start to get ready for work. Technically, I don’t need to do either: I work from home. But I tend to be more professional and procrastinate less if I’m not in pajamas with a bowl of cereal at my desk.

Breakfast is interrupted with a text from Maria:

Maria: You awake?
Me: Yeah.
Maria: You okay?
Me: Yeah. Why?
Maria: You freaked out last night. I’m sorry. I think it was a little too much.

I’d completely forgotten about it. The last time we talked, Reyna was eating her out. Reyna was commanding her to talk to me and doing it for me. She knew I liked it.

Me: Yeah, sorry about that.
Maria: It was my bad.
Me: Forgive and forget?
Maria: Forget what? : P

I smile. It’s something we’ve always done whenever one of us is acting like a bitch. Forgive and forget. Move on. The relationship isn’t worth it holding onto baggage.

I can move on from last night, but yesterday afternoon is a whole other thing. I still need to talk to Jace today. I still need to help Maria. Even if she is feeling amazing by being her truest slut, she doesn’t belong to Reyna.

Me: Cute
Maria: I had a question
Me: Ask away
Maria: What are you doing tonight?
Me: I think Carl is watching some game with some team tonight
Maria: Yay sports!
Me: Yay sports! Why? Do you have plans?
Maria: I have a little favor to ask you
Me: Yes …

Maria’s favors were never little or simple.

Maria: Would you and Carl like to come over for dinner tonight?
Me: Come over to your place?
Maria: Reyna’s

I stare at my phone. Would I like to go to Reyna’s? Absolutely not. Even if it was that room with black sheets and walls so red they looked orange. I don’t want to go there, and I definitely don’t want to bring my slut there. But a voice inside me, the voice that I know is the better version of myself, knows this means a lot to Maria. If I keep rejecting Reyna, I may lose my best friend in the process. Will I enjoy dinner? Certainly not. Will it help heal the divide between me and Maria? Yes.

My phone vibrates again:

Maria: I know you’re nervous. That’s why we want to host you two.
Me: ??
Maria: Reyna feels bad for the text last night and the way she left early yesterday.

Maria: I don’t think you got to know her at all.. I want you two to get along.
Me: I want to get along with her too.
Maria: I’m sensing a but.
Me: But I’m scared of her.
Maria: She has that effect on people, but she’s not like that when you get to know her. She can be gentle and kind and supportive when you serve her.
Maria: know* her

Me: That wasn’t a typo, Maria. I know what you meant.

And I don’t want to know her like that. Not at all. I want to destroy her. But I can’t destroy her if I destroy my friendship with Maria in the process. I’ll be careful, for now.

Me: Let me talk to Carl, but I’m good for dinner tonight.
Maria: Yay!
Me: Should I bring anything?
Maria: Just Carl. Reyna and I both think you’ll feel more comfortable if Carl is there.

That’s probably true.

Me: What time?
Maria: 7. I’ll send the address later.
Me: Thanks. I’ll see you then.
Maria: Yay! Bye!

I call Carl and tell him about the change in plans; I don’t ask him about it. He whines about the game with the teams, but I tell him this is important, and he gets it. I’ll make it up to him later.

After a morning of answering emails and reading through some of my clients’ new manuscripts, I head off to meet Jace for lunch. I’m nervous, but I’m also excited. Finally, there will be someone who gets what I’m going through. There needs to be someone else who understands that what’s going on with Maria is not normal. The change is too sudden.

The restaurant he picked is much nicer than the one I went to yesterday. Here they serve only local produce and meats. The menu is seasonal. All the servers are fashionable, but there are no uniforms. It’s very hip and probably way out of my price range.
The hostess asks me how many, and I tell them I’m meeting someone. They ask a name, and when I tell them, they point me to a table in the back where a person is sitting, facing away from me.

I approach nervously. The person at the table, even though it’s from behind, looks nothing like Jace. The hair is styled. The clothes are too fashionable. Jace was a total jock, like Carl, but more fit and aggressive. The man I’m walking towards looks almost ... cute.
“Jace?” I ask.

He turns around and my heart almost stops. It is Jace, but it isn’t. He has the same green eyes. The same condescending grin and mischievous eyebrows, but his face is thinner and smooth; his beard is gone. He looks less like a jackass and more like a nice guy.

“Sarah!” He says with a big grin. He stands and gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. How … European of him. I slip into the seat across from him and stare.

“I know right? Big change, huh?”

“Yeah. You could say that again.”

“Big change, huh?” he repeats. He smiles at the bad joke. This is insanity. Who the hell is this?

“What happened to you?”

“A lot.”

“Is this because of Reyna?”

“What?” he asks, genuinely confused. “Reyna? No. Not at all.”

“Then what? Is this about Maria?”

He nods slowly, his eyes cast down. “Let me tell you, Sarah. When someone you loved, someone you thought you knew, someone you were going to marry and spend the rest of your life with breaks up with you out of the blue and comes out of the closet, there are two reactions.”

“What?”

“The first is ‘whew,’” he makes an overdramatic display of wiping his forehead. “Talk about dodging a bullet! Can you imagine if we got married and then she came out? I mean, the paperwork alone would be a nightmare.”

“You’re happy she broke up with you?”

“Not at all,” he says with a smile still on his face. “I’m happy that she broke up with me when she did, long before we progressed too far. We were about to cross the point of no return, and she stopped us.”

“I guess that makes sense,” I say slowly.

“Trust me. It’s good news.”

“”You believe she’s a lesbian?”

“Of course, she is. Have you seen her with Reyna? The two are all over each other.”

“But she showed no sign of being a lesbian before.”

“That’s culture and how she was raised, honey,” he says, waving his hand dismissively (and rather effeminately). "She had no room to explore that or confirm it.”

“You don’t think it was too sudden?”

“It was sudden for me; I doubt it was sudden for her. I truly believe that Maria is now being her best and truest self. She’s happy, and I’m happy for her.”

I stare at him for a while. The waiter comes to our table, a man with long hair and a t-shirt that’s intentionally lengthy, almost going to his knees. It’s a good look on him, but I shoo him away with my hand. I don’t think I’ll be staying long. I don’t think Jace is the ally I was hoping he would be. Jace peruses the menu and frequently reminds me that he’s a vegan now. It normally limits his options, but here, he feels overwhelmed with choices.

“What’s the second thing?” I ask, breaking up his delight in discovering their selection of vegan cheeses.

“Huh?” he asks.

“The second thing you feel when you find out your fiancée is a lesbian.”

“Oh, right.” He closes his menu and leans in towards me. “The second thing is, what the hell is it about me that attracted a lesbian?”

“I thought she was conditioned?”

“Well, sure, she was conditioned. But we had sex, and I’m not going to brag, but I’m pretty sure she liked it.”

She did like it. Sometimes we would pretend we were sports commentators, but instead of sports it was sex, and Maria would give me the play-by-play of their sex life in detail in a hilarious voice. She loved sex with a man. Before Reyna came.

“So, I think,” continues Jace, “that there was a level of attraction there. But was it my masculinity that attracted her? I don’t think so. I’ve spent my whole life pretending to be macho. I go to the gym everyday and watch sports I don’t care about and drink disgusting beers with friends. I do all of this so I can feel like a man. But that’s all a lie. That’s all a charade to make me feel better about myself. And it took Maria breaking up with me for me to realize. Maria wasn’t attracted to the masculine in me. She was attracted to the feminine in me.”

“The feminine in you?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes! I have a well of femininity in me that I repress and reject so that I can fit in. Once Reyna explained it to me, it made perfect sense.”

I freeze. I know what he said, I probably knew he was going to say it before he did, but it can’t be true. “Reyna?” I ask, my voice cracking a bit.

“Yeah. She came to me after Maria moved in with her. She wanted me to understand. It wasn’t my fault Maria was leaving. In fact, there was so much good in me, so much femininity in me that Maria was attracted to. I needed to celebrate that and bring it out more. Plenty of women would want that from me. There are goddesses everywhere.”

I get up from the table and knock over his glass of water. He gets up too, the cold water covering his crotch. He says something. I’m sure he says something. He says something, and the beautiful waiter says something. The slutty hostess comes over with a towel. They all say something. I’m sure they do. But I can’t hear them. Everything is fuzzy. Everything is static. My vision blurs, and I start to stumble out of the restaurant. They try to help me, to hold me, but I shake them off. My vision starts to go with my hearing, but my skin is freezing. And nowhere does it freeze more than on my tits. The letters. I can feel the words frozen onto me. Slut. Goddess. Goddess.

My vision returns, and I’m at my car. The keys are in my hands, but my hands are shaking too much to use them. I use both hands, one to steady the other and one to turn the key, and unlock my car. Once inside, I scream. I scream as loud as I can. My screams turn to sobs and hot tears run down my face. I run out of breath, catch it, take a deep one, and scream more. I scream until I feel something break in my throat, something tear. My voice goes hoarse. I scream until it’s gone completely.

Once I can’t scream, I cry. I cry because I’m all alone. Maria is gone. My best friend, the one person who got me in all the world, is gone. I don’t know how long I stay there. I see people walking past my car. Some look at me and notice, most don’t. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. Maria is gone. I can see shadows of her in our conversations, but more and more it feels like she’s pretending to be her former self. Reyna is making her into something different. She did so much to Jace in so little time; I can’t imagine what she’s been able to do with Maria with weeks of intimacy. I haven’t lost my Maria’s time or her company; I’ve lost Maria herself. She is being hollowed out and remade one command at a time. I can’t convince her to leave Reyna. I can’t reason with her. I have to take her. I have to take her by force if necessary. I need to pry her away from Reyna and bring her back with me so she’ll be safe. She doesn’t deserve Reyna. Reyna has June. She probably has Jace and dozens more. She doesn’t need Maria. Maria belongs to me; Maria deserves me.

I feel my fists clench and tighten on the steering wheel. She’s been taken and I’m going to get her back. I have a plan. It’s not a perfect plan, it’s not even a good plan, but it’s a start. I feel my resolve building. Reyna tried to make this about me. She wants me to decide if I’m a slut or a goddess. Well, fuck her. I’m not a slut or a goddess, I’m a pain in the ass.

Reyna can have Jace. She can have June. She could have whoever she wants. But she can’t have Maria. Maria is mine.
I’m going to that dinner tonight. I’ll go into the belly of the bitch, if for no other reason than to show her I’m not scared of her. She isn’t a goddess. She isn’t’ my goddess. She’s nothing.

******

“Wow,” says Carl, looking up at the beautiful house, or rather, mansion. We’re standing at the end of the long driveway that cuts through the plush and vibrant estate that belongs to Reyna. Must be nice to be rich.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice is barely more than a whisper.

“Wonder what she does for a living.”

“You should ask her,” I say bitterly. It comes out more as a scratch, and I’d be surprised if Carl understands it at all. There’s no way this house is paid for by the little relationship counseling she does. She probably takes money from her sluts. How many sluts does she have? Does she take payment, she probably calls it a tribute or some shit like that. Does she take from Maria? Fuck her.

“You shouldn’t talk,” says Carl. “You need to rest your voice.”

I give him a thumbs up and get out of the car. Carl follows. We go up to the large red doors, and I bang on it, loudly, imagining it as Reyna’s flawless face. Carl places a hand on me to stop me.

“I think they hear us,” says Carl. “Calm down.”

I puff a strand of hair out of my face. The door opens revealing June in a traditional French maid’s uniform. I’m surprised that it’s tasteful, as opposed to a costume for a roleplay or slutty Halloween costume. This is a uniform, and its primary function is to be practical. Regardless, the neckline is low and I can’t help but notice the swell of her breasts. It looks like Carl can’t help but notice either. June curtseys for us, and waves her hand, ushering us inside.

“Welcome, come in. Come in.” 

“She has a maid?” asks Carl. I nod, not surprised.

“Damn,” says Carl. I go inside, brushing past June, and Carl follows.

“May I take you coat?” offers June. We let her take them.

“How are you doing,...