“Sure and you’ll be her first slave?” Robin said.
Leslie was startled by the suggestion. “I think you’re jumping to conclusions,” she answered. “I hardly know the woman?”
“Really?” Robin replied, a devilish smirk on her normally soft face.
Leslie didn’t answer. She took a deep breath instead and gave her partner a pat on the arm. “At least this time you did a better job, a lot more efficient subduing Remy,” Leslie complimented her.
“Thanks, I’m glad I redeemed myself.”
Leslie and Robin stared around the grounds of Roman Hill. The quiet that had been here so many times was pervading the place again. The house still threatening to fall into the earth, the gardens as wild as ever. It was a place they would never forget. They watched as Betsy climbed into a taxi that had just arrived. She waved to them, but was too distraught to do more. They’d see her soon; but right now, she wanted to be as far away from the place as possible. They didn’t blame her.
“You know, I feel sometimes like I fly in and out of people’s lives at crucial moments like these, and then they’re left to pick up all the messy pieces and I don’t have to be accountable for it,” Leslie said.
“I’ve never heard you talk that way,” Robin said, looking at her partner with a degree of concern. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine, I just need to shake the effects of these two days off my feet, if you know what I mean,” Leslie said.
“I know exactly what you mean,” Robin said, she was thinking that a visit to Britta that night would be a perfect remedy to the gnawing agitation that she was feeling. “So are you going to the office?” Robin asked her partner.
“No, not yet. In fact, if you don’t mind, I need to take the afternoon off, I have something I need to do.”
Robin nodded, knowing what her partner meant. “Watch yourself,” she warned. “I want something left for me.”
Leslie smiled and watched her partner climb into the Suzuki and drive off.
Chapter Fifteen
Leslie knocked on the door of the cottage.
Jane answered. “You didn’t waste much time,” she said, looking at Leslie with a wry grin.
“I need to talk.”
“Of course.” … As if it were self evident. “Why don’t you come in.” She opened the door wide and turned around, letting Leslie follow her inside. The two sat down exactly where they’d sat the day before, Jane in her leather chair, Leslie on the couch. “So, are the surprises over?” Jane asked.
“I should hope so. Remy didn’t exactly come out of the blue, we suspected her of something, but she certainly did surprise us attacking Martha. Let’s hope there aren’t anymore unexpected knife wielding conspirators. I’m not sure Robin or I could take another scene. And the next one, you’re likely not to be there to rescue us,” she conceded, with a grateful smile.
“Robin’s pretty sassy for a submissive.”
“Oh, she can be,” Leslie agreed. “You like her, don’t you? I mean as a sub?”
“Why not?” Jane shrugged.
Leslie felt slightly embarrassed, not knowing why she’d suddenly turned the conversation to her partner. She looked nervously around the cottage, which at the moment was beset with a dull grey light to match a sky now shrouded by looming storm clouds. How apropos! she thought to herself.
“So you need to talk?” Jane eventually prompted her back to the point.
“I do.” Leslie liked looking at Jane, as uncomfortable as that was, and wished she could simply stare at her in silence, drinking in her powerful essence. Jane was the kind of woman she had taken pains to avoid in her lesbian life. Jane stood for things she was unsure about, stood for sex that even in their unconventional lifestyle was unique, she stood for a feminine model so “out there” it scared her, maybe because there was a little butch in her too. Leslie liked a certain order in her life, and Jane’s very presence had seemed to do everything it could to shatter the well-crafted stability she enjoyed. Now, she wanted to be near her, just to get used to the feelings that had been taunting her for days.
“I wonder if it’s talk that you need, or something else,” Jane thought aloud.
“I don’t know,” Leslie replied, finding herself grinning sheepishly. The pauses in their conversation spoke volumes. She guessed that Jane knew as much about her true motives for being at the cottage as she knew them herself. “This case has opened my eyes to lots of things…” she spoke again, as if she had a lot to say. But she stopped, suddenly realizing that she had no idea how to verbalize feelings that were still too vague and mysterious and even frightening to sort out. For a woman not unaccustomed to being in dangerous, threatening and bizarre situations, this moment was one of the most intimidating she’d ever experienced.
“Why don’t you start where it began… that first time I rattled you,” Jane suggested.
Leslie didn’t have to think to know where her smoldering desires caught hold. “Seeing you at the club…I’ve thought about that a lot…”
“You want sex with me?” Jane jumped straight to the point.
Leslie waited to reply; it was a daring thing to admit, almost as if she’d be committing herself if she let the words pass from her lips. “I think so,” she finally managed.
“No,” Jane leapt on that immediately. “You either do or you don’t, guesses and thinking about don’t cut it with me.”
“The truth is, I had to put some things on hold until the case was resolved. That came first.”
“I can see why. I suppose you needed to solve the crime before you engaged my services. Didn’t feel comfortable cavorting with a murderer.”
“We never believed you did it,” Leslie reminded her.
“That’s what you said. But you still had to wonder. You had all your incriminating evidence; even I would have suspected me. I was surprised every morning to be sleeping in my own bed, not in some jail cell.” She smirked.
“I never had any doubt about you,” Leslie told her.
“Really?” Jane rose from her chair. “Sit tight a minute while I get us a beer.”
“Not for me, please, I don’t drink in the morning,” Leslie called to her
“Oh, but you will today,” Jane said. Leslie heard the refrigerator open and close behind her.
Maybe the beer would taste good. She needed to relax. Albeit her night with Robin had done a great deal to relax her increasing anxiety, it had also created more new questions. And so much had happened since. The case had been an all consuming drain on her, the nasty twists taking even experienced veterans off guard, by the very nature of the highly charged emotions involved.
In many ways this case had been no different than others she and Robin had solved. They’d generated their own clues, stumbled on pieces of information, only because they put themselves in the right place at the right time. Solving a case was often a string of well-timed accidents, created, noticed, filed away and later brought together for the conclusion. This investigation had been no different. And the surprises? Leslie had grown to expect sudden revelations, new clues coming out the most unexpected places. Anymore, she knew that things would wrap up in due time, sometimes, as in this case, with lightning speed. Yet, with its overt sexual aspects, this particular investigation required more than just the usual closure, more than just filing paperwork away in a drawer. It demanded a visit with this woman, and letting go desires that the detective had been holding onto from the start.
Leslie looked up as the woman returned with the two beers in her hand.
“Drink,” Jane ordered gently, as she popped the lid off the can and handed it to Leslie. “So, you didn’t answer my question, why were you so convinced I didn’t murder Felicia, when all the evidence pointed otherwise?”
“It was mostly Robin who figured it that way. She’s more experienced in your S&M lore.”
“Tell me what you figured.”
Looking at her sent new chills through Leslie’s excited body. Jane had
an intensity in her gaze that was sometimes chilling, as if she had already read the next line of the script, knew exactly where it was going and was just toying with Leslie to make her say things that were so difficult to put into words. Leslie gulped her beer, then spoke: “When I saw you at Sapphos, you were much different than I expected.”
“Oh?” Jane said.
“You’re not as tough as you think you are.”
“Oh, I’m every bit as tough as I appear,” Jane countered, eyes flashing.
“It was more than that. It was the affection, the tenderness, not the pain you gave Dagne that impressed me.”
“I give my submissives what they need, that’s all,” Jane retorted as if her gift were nothing at all special.
“I can see that. But it was that other side, that softer side that I found so very appealing.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Leslie, for every ounce of tenderness, there’s a pound of pain, real hard biting nasty pain. I’m not a gentle woman and I’m not a gentle Domme.”
“But I know you are. That’s why I know you didn’t kill Felicia. You couldn’t love her, even the way I saw you love Dagne that night, and then turn around and stab her. Besides, the crime was committed by someone who had unexpressed desires to be fulfilled, not by someone who regularly got what they wanted sexually.”
Jane took another drink of her beer. “I commend your insight. And so, you come to me for what? Tenderness, love, pain?”
“Maybe all. I’m not really sure. Maybe I just need to understand what’s been happening inside me, nothing more.” The woman in the leather chair eyed her so carefully it was hard not to feel exposed, as if she was already naked before her.
“Understanding I can give you. But you want much more than that, Leslie Patrick. You can have understanding from Robin, or dozens of other women. But you came to me.” Jane transmitted her quiet lust in a way that seemed to roar through Leslie’s mind and body. “You’re very transparent. What’s even better, you’ve given me lots of time to consider what I’d do with you, waiting as long as you have. Sometimes I have to make things up on the spur of the moment. But you’ve given me the opportunity to consider how I’ll have you, what kind of torture I’ll put you through. It’s been a rather amusing week watching you work.”
“When did you know I’d end up here… with you?” Leslie asked curiously.
“The first time I met you.”
“The first?”
“It shouldn’t be so odd, you’ve been climbing the walls of your psyche with curiosity about your Robin’s desires for a long time. It’s been years, hasn’t it? Now I hit you in the face with it. Felicia, Betsy, Martha, this whole damned case hit you squarely between your eyes. You’re ripe, you’ve been ripe for a long time. You need me so you can have Robin again. You couldn’t figure out how to have her on your terms, and you want me to teach you, which is something that I can do very well. I’m an excellent teacher.
“But, there’s only one way to get what you want, and you know what that is. You learn by being. You submit to me, there are no shortcuts in the game. It’s got to be carefully learned. You have the desire now, but that’s all. You have to learn to be cold and calculating, to mix your passion for dominance with the innate kindness in your heart and the love you have for Robin. She’ll be licking your feet and loving it.”
Leslie didn’t disagree with anything she said, she knew Jane was right. “We’ve already played around together,” Leslie offered. “We had sex together two days ago.”
“Dabbling, or real stuff?”
Leslie considered the question thoughtfully. “Dabbling, I suppose.”
Leslie felt hot all around her, like it was August still, or better yet July in the desert, and a hot white heat filled her, making her upper lip sweat and her palms wet and her legs burn right where she sat. The intensity was so strong that she felt as if a heat lamp or the sun was shining brightly on her back. She knew it was just her fears creeping in around her. She wasn’t sure what to do with the feeling. The beer seemed to go through her the instant she swallowed it and she needed to pee. Now she was afraid to ask permission to find the bathroom.
Jane was moving on her, blanketing her with words, each designed to draw her in closer to her habitat where her rules were law, and she ordered every second. Leslie had seen her work at the club and with Zelda. In fact, in any situation it seemed that Jane was constantly seducing the women around her, forcing them to face their desire to submit. Coming to the cottage only upped the intensity of Jane’s seduction and now something was happening to Leslie on a very primal level.
“What did you do to her?” Jane queried.
“She tied me to her bed,” Leslie answered.
“She tied you?” Jane shot back.
“Yes.”
“Why was that?”
“I wanted her to.”
“That’s interesting. You let a submissive tie you up?” Jane admonished, laughing. “What did she do to you?”
“She used a whip on me, on my thighs and my breasts.”
“Did she leave marks?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see them.”
Leslie shuddered, thinking at first there was no way she’d bare her marked breasts for Jane’s eyes. It was all happening much too fast. As much as she knew she had to face this woman’s remarkable hold over her, she hadn’t expected this quite so suddenly.
“Open your blouse bitch,” Jane ordered, raising her voice to a slightly more intense timbre. As if she could read Leslie’s unspoken protests in the hesitant expression on her face, she was quick to explode that hesitation. Jane expected unquestioned compliance. Her eyes demanded it. She didn’t need to say more.
Leslie began slowly, her fingers finding the top button of her blouse difficult to undo. Meanwhile, Jane stared at her impassively, waiting. With the second button easier, and then the third at last undone, Leslie pulled the two sides of her pale blue blouse apart and revealed her white breasts marked with red stripes, now faded to a barely recognizable pink.
Jane nodded, not saying a word, as Leslie started to close the blouse.
“Leave it open, I want to see you,” she stopped her. Leslie laid her hands nervously in her lap, not knowing what to do with them. “I’ll make the cuts more distinct,” Jane went on. “Then you can show them off to my friends.”
Leslie thought of the club. “Are we going to Sapphos?” she asked.
“Eventually, maybe,” Jane said. She finished her beer and set the can on the table next to her. “Did you switch?” Jane asked.
“Switch?”
“Did you dominant Robin?”
“Some.”
“But you were nervous. Didn’t know what to do.”
“Yes.”
“How did it make you feel dominating her?”
“Slapping her tits?” Leslie said, as she thought of that moment in her mind. “It turned me on.”
“A lot?”
“Yes, a lot,” Leslie admitted, feeling the fire in her belly expand.
“You understand, slut, this will take more than a day. I can’t make you who you are in one session. You’ll have to be patient. Let the feelings develop, create your own style of dominance. You’ll do that by becoming my slave. It may seem like a contradiction, but the method works.”
Leslie understood perfectly well. She already felt Jane inside her; the woman had been there for some time, since she first saw her working over Dagne that night at Sapphos. When Jane had spotted her in the doorway with Leta, the woman’s fiery eyes reached right down and drew her desire from its hiding place.
“It’s all in the little things, the attitude,” Jane continued. “Not how hard I’ll beat your ass, how much pain I’ll cause stretching your asshole, how far you bend to kiss my boots, or how many clothespins I can rip from your aching sides. It’s the little things. The way you’ll look at me, wait for me, defer to me, the way you’ll want me to speak to you, instruct you.”
L
eslie was now completely mesmerized by the woman – her mannish dress, and thick manly hands, her curt style of speaking, even the way she sat in a position of authority in her chair, her legs crossed, the ankle resting on her knee. Leslie would do everything the woman said. With every move of her body, Jane seduced her further. She’d never experienced anything like this before. Even though Leslie could never imagine being seduced by a man, it was Jane’s masculinity that excited her most, and that mysterious unknown quality she expressed so well in everything she did.
“I’m beginning to understand how I can submit to you, but I still don’t understand how I’ll ever do this with Robin. I never could before. We’re partners in a very equal sense. Friends. We’ve known each other for so long. How can I make her submit?”
“You’re in love with her?” Jane asked.
Leslie hadn’t thought much about love, not recently and not with regards to Robin. Going down that road was like walking through a minefield. But now that she was obliged to answer, the truth came out with little effort, “Yes. I’ve never stopped being in love with her.”
“Does she love you?”
“Yes,” Leslie replied, certain she was right.
“Then you’ll work it out, trust me. It is just for fun, just sex. Sex takes you places with people you’d never think of going in your regular life. You’ll adopt your games when the time’s right. Other times you won’t even think about Doms and subs, who’s on top, who’s bottoming. I’ve done this for years with women you’d be shocked to know have crawled at my feet. I can walk into a room with them now, and we’re easy friends, and in some cases sure enemies, but we’re clearly equals. We’ve never been anything but equals, except that for a few hours, maybe a few weeks, we decided we needed to play our power games. It was right at the time, but not forever. Right now, you need to forget about equality, friendship… all that, they’re not important to the issue you face with me.”
“No?” Leslie replied meekly.
“No,” Jane said gently shaking her head. “Right now, you’re going to follow my instructions to a tee. You’re going to do everything I say without question, and you’re going to love it. You understand that?”
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