Camellia

by Cari Z.

  Danny quickly shook her head. "I've got no interest in hooking up at the conference."

  Well, that was certainly decisive. "When I pick you up tomorrow morning at seven, please be ready to leave. You won't be wearing shoes for the most part tomorrow, but pack a pair of comfortable dark colored heels in case you want to walk around the conference at all during your breaks or lunch. If you want me to accompany you during these times I can, but I won't require you to be by my side the entire time if you wish to explore a bit on your own. Keep your hair natural and your makeup minimal, since it will have to be adjusted for every costume you wear."

  Lucy got to her feet and motioned for Danny to follow her as she made her way to the front door of her shop. It had been dark for a while now, and the old-fashioned lamp posts outside glowed bright in the wintery gloom. "Thank you for coming tonight. It was good to speak with you again before the conference," Lucy said, her hand resting on the front door of her shop.

  Danny gave her a little smile. "Yeah. You too. Big day tomorrow."

  Lucy nodded. "Yes, it is. Oh, and one more thing, Danny."

  "Yes?"

  "While we are at the conference, please address me as 'mistress', as that is what will be expected at this convention, and in all honesty is something I prefer as well," Lucy asked of her, keeping her voice firm. It wasn't really a request, but Lucy wouldn't force the issue if Danny flatly refused to go for it either.

  Danny gave her a little shrug. "Sure thing. Bring the crop?"

  There was a lightness in her voice and a flare of a challenge in her gaze that made Lucy stop short. Danny gave her a little wave over her shoulder as she turned and walked out of the shop, leaving Lucy staring after her. Lucy wondered if Danny could have possibly meant what she hoped she was saying with her farewell.

  Danny felt her face heat as she walked briskly to her car. What had she been thinking, bringing up the crop? Why had she mentioned it at all? It wasn't her place to dictate to her employer what could and couldn't be used in a, god, a kinky leather-and-lace Japanese tea ceremony demonstration. And wow, how was this her life? Danny was suddenly really glad that she hadn't gone into a lot of detail with her dad about this particular job.

  She checked her mirrors, then pulled out into the slushy road. Danny drove carefully, trying not to think about why she was a little disappointed that she hadn't gotten to do an actual tea ceremony tonight. Dalton had sent her home with a simple tea set last week, and Danny had done at least one ceremony a day, usually after watching a new video so she could try to incorporate different things and see which ones felt right. She had been looking forward to showing Lucy how much she'd improved, that she could be counted on to take the job seriously after she almost screwed up the interview. She'd videotaped herself doing one that she thought was her best and emailed the short movie to Lucy to get her approval a few days before. She'd received a simple "Acceptable" in reply, which was less than she would have liked to get as far as praise went, but she guessed it was better than nothing.

  And maybe … maybe she had also been looking forward to the correction, just a little bit. The memory of the soft tab of leather at the end of the crop trailing over her skin, smooth and promising, and the sudden, invigorating snap of the crop across the curve of her ass …

  The car behind Danny honked insistently, snapping her out of her reverie. Danny pulled forward and resisted the urge to flip the bird at the SUV that pulled around her and roared past, still honking its horn. That fucker would be stuck in a ditch before the night was out if he kept up at that speed, and Danny felt absolutely okay with that.

  She finally pulled in at her family's townhouse, just a couple blocks from the garage where most of them worked, with a sigh of relief. Danny didn't care for driving in the snow, not when she couldn't afford snow tires. Her dad had been on her to upgrade, but she just hadn't been able to yet, and she wasn't going to let him pay for anything else for her. He had enough to deal with.

  Danny opened the front door and was immediately met with calls of, "Jesus, shut that, it's fuckin' freezing out there, are you crazy?" Danny was the second of her dad's four kids, the only girl in a house full of boys, and they were all living with him, now that Zach was back from his second tour overseas. His leave was over in a week, but with him here now, and Neil's live-in fiancée all crammed into the three-bedroom house, it was a very tight fit.

  "Hey, honey," Danny's dad called from his recliner. His cane was propped against the wall, and he had a can of Bud Light in his hand. "How was your meeting?"

  "Good," Danny replied. "All set for tomorrow."

  "Great, that's great."

  "You're blocking the TV," Danny's youngest brother Clint said irritably. "If I wanted to see your ass, I'd go look you up online."

  "Gross," Zach said.

  "Jesus, Clint, the hell is wrong with you?" Neil added. "You don't look up your own sister's porn, that's disgusting."

  "I don't do porn," Danny said for the thousandth time. "And, oh, is my ass in your way? Sorry, how about now?" She backed up toward Clint. "Can you see the screen now? How about now?"

  "Get that out of my face!" Clint shrieked.

  "Kids!" her dad snapped. "Knock it off. Jesus. You need dinner, honey?"

  "She doesn't need dinner, look at the size of her ass," Clint muttered. Neil threw an empty beer can at his head. "Ouch!"

  "I already ate," Danny said. "Thanks, though." She went over to her dad and kissed his whiskery cheek, then glared over at her brothers. "Neil, tell me your pregnant fiancée isn't doing dishes in the kitchen by herself right now. Tell me you guys aren't an enormous bag of dicks, letting the one woman in the house do all your goddamn dishes by herself."

  "Language; don't call your brothers dicks," her dad warned.

  "She offered," Neil said weakly.

  "Jackasses," Danny snapped, and headed for the kitchen. Sure enough, there was Lauren, up to her elbows in suds, her T-shirt wet where her round belly was pressed against the edge of the sink. She looked over at Danny and smiled.

  "I did offer," Lauren said mildly.

  "Yeah, well, they should have offered to let you sit down and put your feet up instead of making you stand here like this," Danny said, slipping off her leather jacket and pushing up her sleeves. She started rinsing the dishes that had been scrubbed and laying them in the rack to dry. "I'll take care of this. Go sit down."

  "I really don't mind. Besides, Neil and I are moving into our own apartment this weekend, so after this I'll have a lot less to do."

  Danny blinked with surprise. "You guys found a place?"

  "Just today," Lauren said happily. "It's not far from here, still close to the garage, but it'll be a good place for us to spread out a little when the baby comes."

  "Congratulations," Danny said, really meaning it. Neil and Lauren had been living with them for almost six months, ever since Neil lost his job. Dad had been able to give him work, but it hadn't paid enough for them to afford an apartment on their own until the bad-weather rush brought the garage more business than they could handle.

  "Thanks, Danny."

  "Now seriously, go sit down. I've got this."

  "If you're sure …"

  "Totally sure. Go make those jackasses scoot over for you on the couch."

  "You're a jackass!" Clint called out.

  "Language, you two!" her dad yelled.

  Lauren rolled her eyes and headed into the living room, where Zach gave up his spot for her so she could settle in against Neil. Danny turned back to the dishes and started scrubbing with a vengeance. She must have done this hundreds of times over the past few years after their dishwasher had given out and Dad had never bothered to get it fixed. Someday Danny would be successful enough to move the hell out of here, and that would be a beautiful day.

  The dishes didn't take long, although she had to let the lasagna pan soak for a while. Danny dried the plates and put them away methodically, feeling a little pang in her heart when she realized that
there was only one of her mother's pretty blue china plates left in the cabinet. There used to be a dozen, part of the set that Grandma had bought Mom and Dad for their wedding, but after almost thirty years of abuse and breakage, they were down to the last one. The teacups and saucers had been the first things to go. Danny had squirreled a set away once she'd seen Zach take out three of them at once with a badly aimed football back when she was fifteen. The last little hints of her mother's delicate, feminine touches in this house full of testosterone were almost gone.

  "You going out tonight?"

  Danny started and looked up, seeing Zach standing in the door. She and Zach were the closest in age, with Danny just eleven months older than he was. They'd been inseparable as kids, and Zach was the only one in her family who hadn't given her a ton of shit when Danny came out. They'd just gone girl-watching together. It was hard having him stationed so far away.

  "Nah, not in this weather," Danny said, although she was still buzzing with energy from her meeting with Lucy earlier. "Think I'll just go downstairs. I've got a few things left to do to get ready for tomorrow."

  "Yeah?" Zach sat down at the kitchen table. "This job is a pretty big deal, then?"

  Oh, you don't even know. "Yeah," Danny said. "Pretty big. I want it to go well."

  "I get that." He looked at her for a long moment. "You okay?" he asked finally, his voice low enough that it couldn't be heard over the television. "You've been a little jumpy all week."

  "I know," Danny admitted. "Sorry if it's been annoying."

  "I'm not annoyed, I'm just wondering if I've gotta go beat someone up for you."

  The thought of her brother going and confronting Lucy, prim and proper and gorgeous Lucy with her accent and those heels and the crop in her hand … it made Danny smile. "Nah, it's nothing bad. I'm just—actually, I'm kind of excited. I feel like I've got …" a chance at something I didn't even know I wanted, "… a real opportunity here, and I don't want to blow it."

  "You won't blow it," Zach said confidently. "You're great at this stuff. All the guys in my unit bought your car calendar, and trust me, they agree."

  "Oh my god, what?"

  "Hey, I didn't buy one for me!" Zach defended himself. "They figured out who you were all on their own! I just showed them your Facebook page."

  Danny stared at her brother for a second, then started laughing. "Thanks for the publicity," she managed between chuckles. "Watch, this is gonna lead to my big break. I'll be the face of one of those guys' companies someday."

  "I hope you are." Zach stood up and went over to the fridge. "You want a beer?"

  "No, thanks," Danny said. She could still conjure up the taste of Lucy's Earl Grey on her tongue, and the thought of eradicating the memory with cheap beer just didn't appeal at all. "I think I'll have some tea instead."

  "You on some kind of health kick? That's all you've drunk all week."

  "Maybe it's a weight loss plan?" Clint added loudly.

  "Maybe I'd rather lose weight kicking your sorry ass up and down these stairs ten times, what do you think?" Danny yelled back. She stood up and kissed Zach on the cheek. "I'm going downstairs."

  "Don't study too hard."

  Danny gave him a little wave as she made her way downstairs to the basement that had been transformed into her room. Well, it'd been hers since she was a teenager, actually, but now it was quite a bit more grown up than it had been when she'd first claimed the large, wood-paneled space as her own. She had her own mini fridge, a microwave, a brand new electric kettle, and a bathroom that was all hers—a real blessing once she realized how messy her brothers were sharing one bathroom upstairs. She'd practically begged to be moved into the basement as soon as the bathroom had been remodeled, allowing a standing shower to be added where before there had only been a large, mostly useless, closet.

  She shucked off her jacket, then her boots, before flopping down on her belly over her bed. Her comforter, a gift from one of her brothers last year, had a sleek black and white pinstripe motif, something Clint had derided as "white collar prison style" but which Danny loved. It was a far cry from the set she'd had as a teen featuring a pop icon who she'd secretly had a crush on. Artwork she used as inspiration for her tattoos hung around her room, mostly Asian with koi, Fu Dogs, and some eastern dragons, but with a few other pieces mixed in as well. Danny had always loved the permanency of her body art, and seeing her tattoos felt like going to a gallery and exploring each time she looked in the mirror. Danny didn't have random crap tattooed on her arms. No meaningless roses or half-hearted angel wings for her, though her first tattoo artist had tried to convince her that all girls got things like that. Instead she'd had him add a quote from Star Wars to her ribs: Do or do not, there is no try. He'd been impressed enough to give her a discount, and she in turn gave him a good tip and a promise to return. That had been six years ago, and Danny had been going back with new ideas ever since.

  Danny filled the kettle with water and turned it on. She'd thought about using her microwave to heat the water when she practiced the tea ceremony, but the memory of Lucy's pained expression had been enough to convince Danny to splurge on the kettle. Danny pulled out a bag of chamomile mint herbal tea, resisting her hand's natural twitch toward the matcha, and poured the swiftly heated water into her fragile china teacup. She idly ran her fingertip over the cup's scalloped edge as she waited for the tea to steep, tracing the fading golden edges. This cup had been run through the dishwasher too many times, back when they'd had an actual dishwasher. The gold trim was mostly a memory at this point, but Danny still loved the elegance of it. That same scalloped gold edging decorated the nape of her neck, an abstract reminder of her mother and grandmother.

  The tea didn't take long to steep. Danny tossed the bag, poured in a little honey, and sipped. The box said this stuff was supposed to be relaxing. Danny wasn't so sure about that. Her first inhalation of the strong mint scent made her want to sneeze, but then the urge settled. It was all right; not a substitute for coffee, but drinkable. Definitely better for her than going out drinking the night before a job. Danny sat down on the edge of her bed, set the teacup in its saucer, and reached for her purse.

  She only had to dig around a little bit to find her phone, and once she found it she opened her calendar app, checking on her next job and what she was required to do for them. Only the basic details were listed on the app; the rest of it was in her email, but at least she could get some idea of what to expect coming up. Danny expected to get a lot of posing-with-muscle-car types of jobs because she didn't mind wearing skimpy clothes, and that particular audience was into her tattoos, but there were softer things that came up as well, like posing with pets for adoption campaigns and helping out with magic shows at the local comedy house. Something like that would be nice.

  Until it came to Lucy. God, that woman made her head spin. And that crop … Danny's thighs clenched together on their own as she thought about the feeling of that little bit of leather tapping her. Or, even better, when Lucy had held it under her chin and made Danny look up at her from the end of it. She'd known then that she could easily have pulled her chin off the tip of the crop. There had been nothing to physically keep her looking up at Lucy. Danny had done it because she'd wanted to. Being on her knees like that, with Lucy above her head had felt … well, damn good if she was going to be honest, but it was more than that. Like sitting that way made her small and petite, beautiful. With Lucy she felt almost like a flower. Danny snorted. Nobody would ever compare her to a flower. The whole thing seemed kind of ridiculous.

  Yet the crop and Lucy in those damn sexy boots with the tiny heels and the shiny brass buttons rising along her calf had made Danny feel like she could maybe be just as exquisite as Lucy was. Danny had always been a sucker for a woman in heels, and no one wore them quite like Lucy did. She moved with precision, and it was freaky beautiful, like Lucy was a classical dancer.

  Danny tried picturing Lucy dancing a bit sexier than in a ballet, maybe even on a
pole with just a thong and thigh-highs, and couldn't. The idea made her laugh loud enough that Clint yelled at her through the door upstairs to shut up. Normally Danny would have yelled right back at him to shut up, but at that moment she was too turned on to do much but think about Lucy and the image of her in a pair of thigh-highs that her mind had created. The pole dancing and thong were gone, but the stockings were there to stay in Danny's mind, and oh … She struggled not to moan aloud as her thighs pressed together on her way to the shower.

  She'd hoped that the hot water would make her relax and get her mind off things, but as she stepped under the spray Danny realized that wouldn't be the case. Instead she leaned back against the wall, the cool tile pressing against her narrow shoulders, as she tilted her face up into the hot water and cupped her breasts with both hands. Danny teased her nipples, bringing them to stiff peaks as she thought about Lucy's crop brushing against the curve of her ass. That little bit of leather at the end had startled her when it had come down, but there was no real pain with it. Danny wondered what it would feel like against her naked skin and, more specifically, how Lucy would use it on her.

  Danny wished she knew more about crops so that she could flesh out the fantasy in her head a bit more, but at the moment she'd just have to use her imagination. For now she turned around and propped her forearm on the wall above her head as she leaned into it, spreading her legs just wide enough to allow her hand in as she thought about Lucy's long fingers in her hair, slowly combing through the strands. Maybe she wouldn't just stroke. Maybe she'd pull on Danny's hair until her neck arched back, then kiss her neck.

  Her fingers went from playing with her clit to sliding into her tunnel. She was slick and swollen and ready for more, but since she hadn't thought to bring any of her toys into the shower with her, Danny made do with her hand. She sped up, her fingers sliding in and out of her tight pussy as she imagined the tip of Lucy's crop coming down across her ass and Lucy's soft British accent in her ear. Gasping out Lucy's name, Danny nearly lost her balance as her orgasm shot through her, surprising her with its force.