Despite the stifling heat and sandwich I’d eaten with Raven an hour ago, my mouth watered. Susan was a wonderful cook, but everything she made was fancy. Plus, the fine china and elaborate place settings made me too self-conscious to enjoy the meal. I was too afraid of knocking over a goblet or scraping silverware against delicate plates. The chili smelled like something my mom would make, hearty and unpretentious.
“Thank you,” said Raven after a pause. Only the brief silence betrayed her surprise. “We certainly didn’t expect dinner with our bed and breakfast. You went to a great deal of trouble.”
It was the manner she used when thanking Susan for cooking or Clara for tending to the house, but with something extra. Her eyes met Gemma’s, and they gave a brief nod of agreement.
“Our church is having its monthly potluck on Friday, and you’re welcome to join us. No pressure,” Celine added hastily. “You’ll probably want to do your own thing, too, but it’s the best way to experience Citrusville. And if you want to head into the local theme parks, there’s a list of suggested days and routes in the basket near the front door.”
I hadn’t noticed, but apparently Raven had.
“We’ll have to see how Alena behaves.”
She gave me a meaningful glance, and I felt a hot blush creep into my cheeks. I’d grown somewhat used to Clara and Susan overhearing similar remarks, but these were strangers who brought homemade food. It might as well have been my grandmother’s house.
Celine gave me a rueful grin. “Don’t worry. I hid all the spoons and rulers. Gemma made me put the bath brush back into the bathroom, but at least that’s got a spongy head.”
I blushed even more, unable to open my mouth. Even knowing Celine went through similar experiences couldn’t assuage my embarrassment. “Thanks,” I muttered when the silence stretched into agony. I wished myself back into the relative comfort and safety of Raven’s house, or, better yet, my own. My battered bedspread and twenty-year-old armchairs would seem luxurious if accompanied by privacy.
Raven and Gemma took a breath at the same time, glanced at each other, and nodded.
“Go ahead,” Gemma said, but Raven shook her head.
“Please,” she offered, holding out a hand. Palm upward, like a conductor asking her orchestra to proceed.
“Thanks.” My voice came out extra-loud, and everyone turned toward me. Celine’s eyes softened with what looked like sympathy, although I wasn’t sure why. How much did she know? “The chili and bread smell great.”
Gemma and Raven exchanged another wordless conversation, and Raven nodded. Gemma held out her hand. “The lemon tree in the backyard is in bloom,” she said, eyes on me. “And the honeybell tree might actually have fruit this year. Have you ever picked your own oranges, Alena?”
Raven carried the fudge to the counter and opened the fridge door. “Ordinarily I’d offer you wine, but how about some ginger ale?” She spoke only to Celine and not to Gemma or me.
Why did she say “ordinarily” when she never offered wine? Or at least not to me?
As if on cue, Celine moved toward Raven. “The garbage disposal’s a bit tricky,” she explained, indicating a switch next to the sink. “You have to jiggle the switch a bit if it doesn’t turn on right away.”
Was it my imagination, or did she speak only to Raven? And did she give a slight bounce to her walk? Feeling aggravated, I turned to Gemma. She beckoned from the threshold into the sunroom.
“You’re lucky.” She peered through the screen. “Looks like there’s an orange ripe and maybe a lemon, too. Let me show you.”
I half-expected Raven to tell Gemma to leave me alone, but I was on my own. “Orange and lemon trees sound exotic,” I said at last.
“My Celine thought so, too, when she first moved down here.”
Her Celine? I’d come to appreciate Raven calling me “her” girl, but it sounded odd for Gemma to be possessive of another. No, that wasn’t right. Gemma made “my Celine” sound like praise. Perhaps it was.
As Mistress Lorelei, we had chatted mostly about my desire for a mistress and how to handle one when I got her. I hadn’t learned much about Gemma, and I hadn’t expected her to be so ordinary. Unassuming, almost.
I fell in behind Gemma and followed her across the neatly trimmed lawn. Bright splashes of color dotted various flower beds, all a testament to careful maintenance. Who had the green thumb, Gemma or Celine?
I grinned as I caught up with my host. “Does ginger grow here, too?” Mistress Lorelei’s love of it was legendary.
She shot me a wry grin. “Not yet, although I keep meaning to try a crop.” She paused long enough for me to wonder whether the double entendre was intentional. “Of ginger,” she clarified.
“Do you like crops, too?” I’d never quizzed Raven on her preferences, and she mainly used wood.
“Oh, sure.” Gemma led us to a pair of trees in one corner. “Crops, quirts, everything.” She inspected first a small lemon and then searched the leafy branches of the other tree. “Looks like we’re out of luck this time, but cross your fingers. Maybe this one will be ready before you go.”
I gave a noncommittal murmur, and she jumped right to the next topic.
“If my Celine behaved as badly as you have, she wouldn’t be treated to a vacation.”
I gulped, opening and closing my mouth. I wanted to shout at Gemma for plunging in without hearing my side, but the incongruity of her bringing food gifts and harvesting lemons had thrown me off-kilter. Before I could express my indignation, she pointed to a lawn swing and motioned for me to sit down. After I obeyed, she joined me.
“You want all of the fun of having a mistress with none of the responsibilities, is that right?”
Hot tears stung my eyes. How could she be so unfair? She was my friend, not Raven’s. “I didn’t say that!”
She rocked the swing back and forth for a few minutes before responding. Such a small woman in person, with such a big personality online. I thought back to our earlier conversations when she’d tried to scold me for not taking Raven more seriously. What had I gotten myself into? Why had I been so sure Gemma, another domme, would take my side?
Raven had expressed surprise that I was friends with a domme, as if it were unusual. Maybe this was why.
“Did Raven ask you to say that?” I drew my arms inward, fighting against the soothing effect of the swing.
“No. She gave me permission to take you into the living room and spank some sense into you.”
I’d have laughed, but Gemma’s tone was deadly serious. Her dark eyes met mine, and for the first time I noticed the furrowed brow and tightened lips.
“You’re joking.”
“Am I?”
“I won’t let you.”
“Won’t you?”
I jumped off the swing and put my hands to my hips. “I never agreed to this!”
She continued to swing, watching me. “You agreed to submission without a safeword, my friend.”
How could Raven betray me like this? I wanted to storm to her and demand an explanation, but she chattered with Celine without a care for me. I stared at Gemma, unpretentious chili-bearing Gemma who waited as if we had all the time in the world.
“You set me up,” I accused.
“You set yourself up,” she answered. Without missing a beat, she held her hand out to me again. “I’m telling you the facts plainly to save time. Would you like to talk in a reasonable tone so our conversation stays private, or would you like to continue raising your voice until the whole neighborhood knows you’re going to get spanked tonight?”
You’re going to get spanked. None of Raven’s threats or arguments had brought such sick dread. With Raven, I always had the hope of dissuading or at least postponing. Gemma brought gifts, talked of fruit harvests, and announced the unthinkable. I swallowed hard to choke back hot, angry tears. “You ambushed me.”
Gemma laughed. “Alena, listen to yourself! How can you expect to be taken seriously when you argue li
ke a child? How many times have I said you were lucky to live halfway across the country instead of next to me?”
More often than I wanted to admit. “But Raven,” I whined.
“She’s running out of patience, and I don’t blame her. From what I hear, she’s given you every chance and you’ve chosen to sulk and be contrary. She’s given you everything, and what have you given her?”
I couldn’t listen to the accusations, not when she wouldn’t let me defend myself. “So, she’s going to sic you on me?”
Even as I said it, I knew I’d gone too far. It was one thing to push Raven, who spanked me every week. I knew, at the back of my mind, that I could talk Raven around if I complained enough. I should have known better than to push Mistress Lorelei, but she had never pushed this hard. Always she had respected the friendship zone, the no-contact safety of friends without expectations.
The swing stopped, and the air between us grew still. I’d heard of Gemma’s freezing anger, but I’d dismissed it. She was sweet to me. Kind, gentle, and unassuming. I’d never seen the spark in her eyes or heard the snap to her words as she sat up ramrod straight.
“I intended to let you tell your side of the story and help you communicate better.” She paused, and I looked away. I hadn’t realized how much I valued Gemma’s respect until I lost it. “I thought you were young and confused as an inexperienced sub. Instead, I find an entitled, ungrateful brat.”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. She ignored me. “Honestly.” Why couldn’t I keep my tongue in check? Either I couldn’t speak up when I wanted to, or I let the worst thoughts out. “Is that why we’re here? Because I’m so awful she doesn’t want to deal with me herself?”
Unexpectedly, Gemma reached out to me. She stood, taking my hands in hers. “Because she’s so besotted with you that she can’t bring herself to discipline you the way you need, and you’ve both let this dominance and submission dynamic run wild. You’re supposed to submit, Alena. Not regress to infantile behavior. You love her, don’t you?”
The sudden change in tactics threw me, and I answered without thinking. “Of course.”
I hadn’t meant to admit that, but Gemma nodded. “And you’re upset at yourself for acting so badly, but you’re taking it out on her.”
I would have said no, but Gemma didn’t look for an answer. She squeezed my hand, loving and harsh at the same time.
“We’re going to go to the living room now, and I’m going to give you the promised spanking. For Raven’s sake, yes, but for mine as well. It’s going to hurt a great deal and I promise you won’t like it, but you’ll feel better afterward. Both you and Raven will. You’ve needed this release for a long time, haven’t you?”
I wanted to disagree, but I couldn’t. “I won’t let you,” I said it as a parting shot, needing to assert even a pretense of dignity.
“You don’t need to,” answered Gemma, taking my hand and leading me back to the house. “It’s not your decision. That’s what submission means, sweetheart.”
I hung back and spluttered useless protests, all soundly ignored.
“And what’s more, young lady,” Gemma continued, “I’ll be visiting you each day while you’re here. Consider it a belated congratulations on getting a mistress gift, courtesy of both Celine and me.”
I yelped and tugged to get away, but not as hard as I could have. As we re-entered Celine’s old home, at long last something settled inside of my chest.
It wasn’t my choice.
I didn’t get to decide.
And in that moment when I lost control, I found something better.
Freedom.
As Gemma coached me on how to grip the seat of the chair and stick my bottom out for the next blows, the pain made me cry out. The whirlwind of cacophonous competing voices settled into crystalline clarity.
I, Alena, was Raven’s Girl.
Now and forever.
Chapter Seventeen
“Shh.” As I held onto the chair for dear life, a familiar voice came next to me.
The barrage of merciless spanks had ceased long ago, but I couldn’t move. A cool hand lifted my chin. I made eye contact with Raven for a mere second before flinching and turning away. How could I face her? How could I face anyone? The calm that Gemma had given me disappeared when I had to face the woman who had decreed my fate.
If I looked Raven in the eye, I would see her disappointment. Disgust. Perhaps even her regret for taking me on. Every time Gemma lifted the bath brush and lowered it in a resounding stamp of disapproval, I’d wanted to hide. If it was bad enough with Gemma, the Mistress Lorelei who’d been my friend for over a year, how much worse Raven’s reaction must be!
“I didn’t want to spank you,” Gemma had said, waiting for me to stop thrashing around and resume holding the chair. “I wanted a nice heart-to-heart so you could tell me how things have gone wrong. I wanted to help you, but you had to be stubborn. How long will you push Raven away before you accept her authority over you?”
“Sweetheart.” Raven tried to make me look at her, but I pulled away with a low cry. “It’s me. Just me.”
That made me raise my head for the first time. “Gemma?” I couldn’t think of Celine, listening and perhaps marveling that someone like me could have behaved so badly.
“She and Celine left half an hour ago. I’ve been trying to get you to listen to me. Alena, my love, your crying breaks my heart. Are you angry at me for asking Gemma to spank you?”
Yes! No, not exactly. Maybe? I don’t know. I lifted a hand to scratch my forehead, and a soft, pastel pink afghan fell from my shoulders. Raven re-adjusted the wrap and laid the back of her hand on my cheek and forehead. She nodded.
“Have some water.” She held out a half-full glass, and I swallowed obediently.
“You’re new,” Gemma had said, making me grit my teeth as the brush nipped and bit. “You’re confused, you don’t understand, and you don’t know how to handle things. That’s fine. But you talk with Raven like an adult. You don’t act like a two-year-old who can’t have her favorite toy.”
“But Raven won’t listen!” I’d protested, and Gemma spanked without pausing.
“She can’t listen to what you don’t say.”
Before I could retort—not that I could speak while yelping and writhing—she’d told me to shush.
“You can always walk away, Alena. You’re an adult. But if you continue this behavior, Raven might leave first. Is that what you want?”
“I’ll…I’ll go pack, then.” I set down the glass and hugged the afghan more tightly. Something in Raven’s eyes flashed anguish, but they shuttered closed so fast I wasn’t sure.
“If you wish.”
So, that’s it. She’s kicking me out. “Okay.” I stumbled to my feet, but I sank down before taking my step. In the effort to put distance between us, I crawled a few paces. Never wanted to be a stupid sub, anyway.
“Alena,” she said, and her voice caught. “Are you leaving because I asked Gemma to spank you? I thought she was your friend.”
Stunned at the unfairness, I turned around to glare at her. “She was! She’s my friend . You had no right to humiliate me in front of my friend. Celine, too! How’m I supposed to face them again?”
It felt good, getting angry. As long as I shouted, I could drown out the confusion inside.
“You needed the spanking,” Raven returned, and I wanted to smack her at the unfairness.
“From you!” I shouted, shaking with each syllable. “Not her. Or were you planning to farm me out to anyone willing to do the job? Put up an ad on Kinklife? Rotten sub. I can’t stand to deal with her, so I need someone to spank her while I sip cocktails?”
I wanted her to contradict me, but her face grew ashen. “Is that what you think of me?”
“Of me!” I was the one with the blazing backside. I was the one who bent over while Gemma walloped me until I blubbered like a baby. “Me ! I’m talking about me!”
Raven shrunk inside of herself,
lips set in a narrow line. “Yes, Alena. We always talk about you.”
The words slapped the way the bath brush couldn’t, and I sat back on my haunches. I’ll never learn . I kept trying to say the right thing, but I yelled instead. Fighting for self-control, I forced myself to say the words she wanted to hear. “What about you?”
“I?” Raven tilted her head in the oddly precise manner she used for most actions. “I went too far with you once. Your friend corrected my mistake. I thought, in bringing you to her, that she could correct my mistake again.”
Mistake. Not just once, but twice. Did Raven make mistakes? “You? But she said I’m the ungrateful brat.”
“I’m the incompetent domme who can’t get through to you and needs to ask someone else for help.”
Incompetent. Breathless, I sat down all the way before wincing at the impact. “You’re not incompetent. You’re the most competent person I know.”
Raven picked at an imaginary thread in her immaculate black pants. “Gemma was the only reason you gave me another chance. What if I hurt you again?”
“But…” Raven? Cool, collected Raven? “You gave up.”
“Gave up?” Raven’s eyebrow quirked in a semblance of her usual sternness. “On what?”
Me. But we’ve talked about me too much, she said. “Nothing.”
“Answer.”
There was enough steel in her voice that my mouth popped open. “Me.”
She frowned. “By not spanking you, I gave up on you?”
I didn’t want to answer, but the words kept tumbling out. “The last time you got mad, you spanked me. A lot. Then everything was great.”
Raven frowned even more. “I spank you every week.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks. “Not in an ordinary way. When you got mad.” She looked puzzled, so I clarified. How could she not remember that night? Didn’t it replay in her mind, over and over? “When I kept getting up after you sent me to bed.”
Raven's Diary: Book Two Page 6