“How the hell did you manage not to spill that?” Iris blurted out.
“Magic, silly girl. Some of the items in this bag aren’t even in it until I reach in there. The bag reads the owner’s mind and provides what they want if it’s capable of providing it. It’s enchanted,” she said as she poured the liquid from the pitcher into both glasses.
“Of course it’s enchanted! I kind of could figure that out on my own.” Iris might have thought not to blurt this out, too, but unlike her usual cautious self, she hadn’t felt the need to hold her tongue. What kind of strange effect did this woman have on her? Normally, she wouldn’t have even thought something like that to herself. She was barely capable of being mean on her worst days, and even then, her attempts at anger were pitiful.
“I’m sorry, was that rude of me?” A tone to Anandra’s voice said she was teasing Iris, and Iris found herself smiling again as Anandra’s mouth turned into a wide, lopsided smirk.
“No, it was rude of me, actually. I’m the one who should be sorry.” Iris averted her eyes, her shyness flowing back over her like a heavy, suffocating blanket.
“All you should be sorry for is not eating your steak. We still have a good way to go before we reach my friends, and I’d like to get there before it’s fully dark.”
“I’ll get started then,” and Iris sliced off a bite and began to eat. The steak was perfectly cooked, and the drink turned out to taste somewhat like hibiscus tea. It was very refreshing after their long walk, and Iris finished her first glass and then asked for seconds. She managed to make it through two-thirds of her steak before she told Anandra she couldn’t possibly eat another bite.
“I think you possibly could, and what’s more, you don’t have a choice. The magic won’t work unless you eat the entire thing.”
“Really? If you insist, then—”
“I do.” Anandra leveled a glare in Iris’s direction, and so Iris dug in once more, enjoying the rest of the steak less and less with each overly filling bite. She was so full she barely managed to choke down the last few morsels. No wonder her mom always cut their steaks into three pieces. Her dad Jerry always got the largest one, as he was the biggest of the three of them, but that was just because Iris and Jackie were rather petite.
She found herself missing Jackie and Jerry right then, more than she had in quite a while. She missed her professors, too, and even her roommates, even the one who always left empty pizza boxes and crusty glasses on their living room table. But most of all, of course, she missed Jane. What would she have made of this world? Would she have liked it here? Would she have liked Anandra?
Iris wasn’t even sure if she liked Anandra. She knew next to nothing about her so far, just that she was great in bed and even better with a knife. And she could do magic. That was pretty much it, though, and besides, she’d only known her less than a day. Maybe over the time they were going to spend together on their trip to the castle, she’d have the chance to get to know her better. She surely wouldn’t mind getting to know a few parts of her better…the very curvaceous parts of her, as well as the one that was very good at getting wet.
Anandra went back to her earlier quiet when they resumed their journey. She continued her silence for what seemed like forever, and Iris decided against trying to get her to talk. Her many hours spent around men in her own world had taught her that some people liked to converse even less than she did. She’d only really been comfortable talking around her parents and Jane, so her chattiness with Anandra surprised her. Maybe she liked her after all. Or maybe she just wanted to know more about this world, with its singing alligators and magic and women with starry expanses of skin.
It began to grow darker after what Iris would’ve guessed was four or five more hours of walking. They’d been passing along a wide dirt path for most of that time and hadn’t come across a single person—or being—the entire time they were on it. As night began to fall, Anandra’s stars began to glow, but not as brightly as they had the previous night.
“Do you have control over how much your stars glow?”
“Yes.” A one-word answer; apparently talky-time was far over. Then, as a small grove of fruit-bearing trees appeared in the dusky distance, Anandra spoke again. “We’re here.”
“Here” turned out to be a mid-sized wooden cabin, with a small, snow-white dog sleeping on its porch. But when they came closer, the dog leapt up, began to growl, and quickly grew to twice its original size. “It’s okay. Phen, Zeres, it’s me!” Anandra whistled three notes on a rising scale, and the dog shrank again and settled back onto the porch, starting to snore as they approached. “He’s not real, you know,” Anandra told Iris as they reached the porch’s two steps. “He’s just an early warning system, for anyone who’s approaching and may prove to be a threat.”
The cabin’s front door creaked open, and a mid-sized man with long, frizzy, umber hair stood in the opening. His wide smile showed that he had over-developed canines, lending him a vampire-like quality. Iris had always thought vampires were cool, although she’d never really wanted to meet one. Did this guy expect blood in trade for them spending the night under his roof?
“Is he a vampire?” Iris whispered to Anandra.
“I don’t know what this ‘vampire’ thing is you speak of,” the man said, proving that he at least had a vampire’s hearing. “Zeres and I are both from a smaller group related to Anandra’s. A much smaller one.” He looked sad as he said this, and Iris wanted him to smile again.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” she said as warmly as she could.
“And you as well,” he answered, clasping her hand between his very warm palms. “Welcome, Anandra’s friend. I hope we will have enough food for both of you. Forgive me, but we weren’t expecting Anandra to bring company. She always travels alone.” He squeezed her hand once, then let go. “My name is Phen, and you will get the pleasure of meeting my partner Zeres as soon as you come in. So, please, come in!” He opened the door wide, and Iris entered first, Anandra close behind.
The cool night air was instantly replaced with a lovely, gentle warmth that seemed to come from a snapping and crackling blue fire in a round brick fire pit in the room’s center. Around the pit were comfortable-looking tan-cushioned chairs, and a large chicken, or something that looked quite like one, was roasting on a spit over the flames. It smelled divine, and Iris said just that.
“That’s all Zeres’s doing,” Phen told Iris, and then she took in the man standing by the pit, slowly rotating the bird. He looked similar to Phen, the same type of teeth showing when he grinned at her and Anandra, but his hair was much shorter and tamer, and was a slightly paler shade of brown.
Dinner consisted of the bird, called a postrade (of course, Iris couldn’t help asking), a large salad, and some very good alcohol, quite similar to red wine but slightly smoother. Iris tried not to drink too much of it, because if she and Anandra were going to have some fun that night, she wanted to be completely present.
She was happy to learn that they’d be staying in a small, two-windowed room far off in back of the cabin. Once inside, Iris set her bag down by the door, and then Anandra spoke in a voice that told Iris exactly what she had in mind for the next part of the night. “You can make as much noise as you want in here,” Anandra told her, dropping her bag in a chair next to the door and turning her intense eyes to Iris. “They won’t hear a thing.”
It sounded almost like a threat the way she said it, but it clearly was only the threat of some very hot sex. Iris found herself wishing then that they could try out something kinkier than last time. She knew enough about the implements for BDSM that she found herself easily picturing a paddle, and she gasped in shock as one suddenly hit the room’s big, comforter-covered bed. Her mouth fell open slightly from the sight. “How the…what…”
“Ah, I see we’ve discovered the power the meat gave you! Apparently it worked.”
“The ability to bring sex toys out of thin air?” Iris asked. “How useful can that be?”
>
“Oh, I think it’s already proving to be very useful,” Anandra said to her, in a voice that told Iris exactly how useful she thought it was. She picked up the paddle and gave the bed a hard whack with it. The bed shook for a moment, and Iris began to grow a little wet…no, she thought, more than a little.
“What do you call this implement?” Anandra asked her. “Is it for spanking, perhaps?”
“Yes, it is.” Iris’s answer came out breathily. Expectantly.
“Take off your clothes, then. I will be more than happy to use it that way.”
Iris quickly stripped off the clothes Anandra had loaned her and waited for the next instructions. She only had to be patient briefly, because after skimming her body with an assessing and then pleased look, Anandra said, “Now get on the bed. Chest and knees down. Ass in the air.”
Iris did as directed, climbing over the left edge of the bed and assuming the position Anandra had described. It wasn’t one she was used to, and she wasn’t used to being spanked, either. She’d read up on all kinds of BDSM facts her first spring at college, wanting to know what else sex had to offer. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy what she and Jane did—orgasms with a partner did, indeed, beat orgasms alone—but something was missing. When she’d read up on BDSM on her laptop, alone in her dorm room, she’d practically felt chills of excitement, but whenever Jane came over, she hid all hints that she’d been looking up something that hardcore. Jane wouldn’t have been interested and might have even teased her about it. But it had affected Iris, the reading she’d done, and as Anandra approached her, standing by the side of the bed she now knelt on, she realized this was why.
Yes, it had been arousal, that tension she’d felt in her spine and limbs, more immense than usual, more immense than Jane was able to bring out of her with her mouth and hands alone. She and Jane had never done anything even the slightest bit edgy, sticking to hands, mouths, fingers, and the occasional dildo. And all that time, Iris realized now, as Anandra raised the paddle…all that time, this had been what was missing.
Anandra brought the paddle down, and Iris gasped at the pain. It stung, which she should have expected, but the sting came along with a delicious heat that spread straight from the ass-cheek that had been struck to her thighs and cunt. Wetness began to move across the very highest part of her thighs, and she knew she was in for a good time.
The second time the paddle came down it hurt far worse than the first, and it seemed that Anandra wasn’t going to take it easy on her, even though Iris assumed she knew exactly how new to this she was. It was, of course, brand new, leaving her unaware of what parts of kink would do it for her and which wouldn’t. This part did do it for her, though, as she clenched all over, even tightening inside, between her legs, her hands beginning to grip the soft comforter beneath her.
Each time the paddle came down, she became more desperate for release, because her arousal grew a tiny—and then not-so-tiny—amount with each smack across her ass. “Please,” she begged, softly, as Anandra raised her arm yet again.
“‘Please’ what? Don’t tell me you’ve had enough, my pet.”
“No, no, it’s just…may I come?”
“Only if you can manage to get off while I continue to work your ass with this paddle. I want the pain of it to mingle with the delectable, lovely fall into coming that I’m assuming you’ll get to quickly. I’ll give you ten more smacks, and if you haven’t come by then, you’ll just have to go to sleep with an aching ass and an aching cunt that hasn’t had its proper seeing-to.”
“I’ll try. Just…pause between each time?”
“You think you can make another request? Oh no, I’m not going to take my time, not at all.” And with those words, she brought the paddle down twice, hard and heavy. Iris began to breathe more quickly, partially from the paddle and partially because she’d started to rub her clit with her first two fingers. From the corner of her eye, she saw Anandra switch the hand the paddle was in, and then she felt Anandra’s fingers on her wetness, and two of them slipped inside her with ease. Anandra began to fuck her with those fingers, and Iris almost wanted to thank her for the help, because she felt she had almost no hope of getting off before the other eight smacks of the paddle occurred.
There was number three…then number four…and with each strike landing squarely on her ass, Iris sped up her fingers bit by bit, until she was sure they were a blur. Anandra continued to finger-fuck her slowly, only speeding up as the paddle hit for the seventh time. Number eight came a while after, thankfully, and Iris was shocked, because she was getting close. So close, and there was number nine, and then, with a blur of speed, Anandra began to fuck her much harder, and the tenth smack came raining down, and Iris came with a loud cry. Her body was shaking, now, from the orgasm and from the final smack of the paddle, and she continued to cry out and then collapsed on the bed as the coming ceased. She smiled, rolled over, and stared up into Anandra’s eyes. “Your turn?”
Anandra ordered Iris to give her two orgasms, and Iris provided them happily, still blissed out from her spanking and how powerfully she’d gotten off. This woman really could screw, she thought, grinning as she climbed into bed beside her. Then her bedmate proved that she was quite competent at spooning, too, pressing her sexy front against Iris’s still-sensitive backside and causing Iris to say, “Ow!”
“Oh, dear, you’re sore, aren’t you? Did I do it too hard?” She sounded genuinely concerned, which Iris found touching, and she quickly reassured her that she was more than happy with the service her ass and crotch had received.
“Good, because now the complaint tree is closed for the night. Time to sleep, as we still have many miles to go. Try to get enough rest, because I have a feeling you’ll want to be as alert as possible tomorrow morning.”
“Will do,” Iris answered.
But she wasn’t planning to sleep yet, and once Anandra’s breathing had evened out, she quietly got out of bed and removed her diary from her bag, along with one of her pens. It was convenient that she still had them, convenient and annoying, because she’d promised her therapist that while she was in Amsterdam, she’d do an exercise, an “assignment.” Uma had told her to write Jane a letter every night, telling her why she no longer needed her in her life.
Here goes, Iris thought, and she set pen to paper.
Dear Jane,
I miss you. I can’t help it, I do! I still want you back, and I can’t help it, but I still feel like I need you, no matter what Uma says. She may be a smart therapist, but she clearly doesn’t understand that I still love you an incredible amount.
But I should probably tell you—just like you did—I’ve met someone. She’s gorgeous and amazing in bed…better than you, I could say. She definitely doesn’t rank higher than you do in my heart, though. I barely know her, after all. But Anandra (that’s her name) is interesting so far, and she’s shown me many new things.
Including what was missing from our sex life. If I ever get back together with you again, I want to try these things with you. Kink, that’s what I’m talking about…BDSM. Topping, bottoming, pain and pleasure co-mingled. She’s pulled my hair, forced my mouth against her breast, and spanked me, and I’ve loved it all. I hope you will understand, if we ever sleep together again. I hope you will want to do these things to me, because I’ve come to know that they’re a part of my makeup, just like loving you is.
(Yes, Uma. I know I’m supposed to tell Jane why I don’t need her. But I can’t. Not yet.)
I love you, Jane. Still do, with everything I have to give. Please take me back. Please.
Love,
Iris
After signing the never-to-be-sent letter, she put her diary and the pen away and got into bed, tossing and turning for an hour or so and then drifting into a sleep full of dreams of Jane and of signs that they would never get back together, signs she wasn’t ready to recognize quite yet.
Chapter Four
Iris was happy to wake up later the second morning
than she had on the first. Anandra was sitting in the chair by the door, sharpening her knife on a long, rounded silver rod. “Ah, rise and shine, Princess. You seemed uneasy during the night, so I decided to let you get an extra bit of sleep.”
“Thank you, Anandra. I really needed it, I think. Yesterday was exhausting, but then I couldn’t get to sleep.” She yawned and rose from the bed.
Anandra reached into her bag and tossed something at Iris. It was a pair of panties, sexy lace ones with crisscrossed ribbons at the sides that connected their front and back. “My sack decided to be generous with what I’m giving you to wear under your clothes. I do not know this fabric that they are made from, but this sack is always imaginative when it comes to certain needs.”
Iris assumed she knew what those “certain needs” were and found herself pouting a little at the thought of other women fulfilling those needs. But she still wanted Jane, and she barely knew Anandra, and she would only know her for a few more days before she was able to return home. “Do I get breakfast before we leave?”
“Yes, and Zeres makes a fine egg-pocket. He fills it with cheese from their animals, and we will probably have some finely made cheefen. He’s always been a better chef than I and refuses to tell me any of his tricks, the scuene.”
“Scuene?” Iris started to put on her clothes from the previous day and get ready to leave the cabin.
“They are short, pink animals. Portly, full of fine milk and fine meat, but rather ornery. Like you are when going too long without cheefen, I would assume. Or whatever it was you called your world’s version. Come, let us eat our breakfast, and then we’ll be off.”
The egg-pocket, which was basically an omelet, was filled with vegetables and rich, creamy white cheese, and Iris couldn’t manage to compliment Zeres enough on how good it was.
“Ah, you say so, do you?” he said, smiling somewhat bashfully. As they ate breakfast, he told Iris that Anandra had brought him and Phen together, about fifteen sun-cycles after the Great War.
Out of This World Page 4