Camellia

by Cari Z.

  Lucy stared at the Pup as he backed up and dropped his head. He even added some whining noises as he came back to his Trainer's side. "A dog?" she hissed at Lucy, who held up a hand to forestall her questions.

  The Trainer looked a bit embarrassed, his face going red as he looked between them. "Sorry. It's our first time out at something like this. I'm George." He offered Lucy his hand, which she took, giving him a quick shake before moving back. "And this is Bruno. He's a good boy, just energetic. He didn't mean to scare you. You can pet him if you want. He likes a bit of a chin rub." He gently scratched Bruno along the line of his jaw.

  Lucy nodded. "Thank you, George. I'm Lucy, and this Danielle. I appreciate the apology. Danielle, do you wish to pet him, now that you know he's friendly?"

  Danny stared at her, clearly unsure of what she was supposed to do.

  "What kind is he?" Lucy asked as she moved forward. Danny went with her, staying close to her back. Lucy wasn't surprised at her hesitation; it wasn't every day that she was met with someone dressed in all leather and wearing a dog mask.

  George gave them both big smiles, looking proud, but still a bit uncertain. "A Siberian Husky. He's three. A little crazy still sometimes, but he's getting better with obedience."

  Lucy gave him a slight smile, just the barest lifting of the corners of her lips. "They're all crazy at that age." Danny stared at her as she offered Bruno her palm and he sniffed it, pressing his mask against her skin. More hip swaying, and his tail wagged. Lucy moved her hand to pet his face, and he leaned into it. "Danielle, if you wish to pet him, you can. He seems friendly enough."

  Danny offered Bruno her hand as well. He sniffed it as he had done with Lucy, and she rubbed his chin, just as George had said he liked. She pulled her hand back when Lucy did, though. "Are you here with a group?" Lucy asked him.

  George nodded eagerly and pulled a card out of his pocket. "Pups and Trainers. It's a local club just formed last year. We get together with other Trainers and let our Pups out to play with each other."

  "I'm the owner of Camellia, a specialty tea shop downtown," Lucy said, handing him her own business card, which George took. "Danielle will be demonstrating a traditional Japanese tea ceremony later today after we have some lunch, and I hope you'll be able to stop by. Have someone from your group contact me if you're interested in having a little get-together at my shop. I have a back room that I host tea classes and parties in. I haven't hosted a Trainer party before, but the room has plenty of space for your Pups to play, and there's an entrance in the back for privacy if you'd care to utilize it."

  Before they could go, George said, "Thank you for this. I'm sure my group would be interested. Also, I was hoping to talk to you a bit about your tea and ask you a few questions."

  Lucy straightened up and put on her business face: calm and friendly. "Of course, George, what would you like to know?"

  "I actually saw your first performance, and I wanted to know what kind of tea you used for it," George began.

  Well, at least he'd started with an easy question. Lucy got this a lot—most Westerners weren't used to tea that didn't come in little prepackaged bags. "It was matcha, a traditional Japanese tea that comes in powdered form. It has a bit of an earthy taste, but it's gentle enough that it can be drunk with a variety of lighter meals. Mild fish, for instance, creates a beautiful pairing. As are shortbread cookies, if you're in the mood for something sweeter."

  The Pup whined a bit and pulled on his leash, clearly anxious to get going and explore. Lucy ignored him. She wasn't his Trainer and so she was not responsible for him or his enjoyment of the convention.

  "And where did you get the whip?" George continued.

  This question also wasn't a surprise, and Lucy always took every opportunity to promote Natasha's shop that she could. The tools she stocked were the highest quality, and a beautiful submissive shouldn't be trained with an inferior instrument. "The owner of the booth to the left of the stage is a woman named Natasha, who will be eager to help you should you wish to acquire a crop for yourself. Her shop is where this one came from."

  George looked relieved, possibly that it could be so easy to get a crop like hers, possibly because she didn't laugh at him for his lack of knowledge on the difference between a riding crop, such as the one in her hand, or a whip. Lucy knew better than to judge someone by what they didn't know. There were literally dozens of different types of floggers and whips and crops, and it had taken her a long time to settle on the crop as her favorite.

  "And," here George licked his lips and swayed on his feet as his Pup pulled on his leash, "could you do a bit of something to correct my Pup's behavior with your crop there? He's got this terrible habit of jumping on people, as you saw. It's embarrassing having the least trained Pup of the group."

  Oh, dear. There was a fine line between inexperience and stupidity, and George had just crossed it. Lucy's desire to give him the benefit of the doubt plummeted, but she kept her voice even instead of yelling at him like she was suddenly tempted to do. "I suggest you seek the counsel of a more experienced Trainer, as people in a position of dominance often must. You don't know me, and what you've asked for is inappropriate. Were I less scrupulous, I could do serious damage to your Pup, and I doubt you want that."

  George was quick to shake his head as his face reddened.

  Lucy gave him a slow nod as she considered her words carefully. "Good. Your submissive isn't someone to idly pass off to people you've just met, as much as being a dominant isn't something to play at when you're bored. Don't you agree?"

  He mumbled out a quick apology and left quickly, unfortunately dragging his Pup along with him as George hadn't signaled to him that it was time to go. Lucy tightened her grip on the hand of her crop and resisted the impulse to go after George and continue the lecture.

  "What was that all about?" Danny whispered.

  Lucy took a calming breath, squared her shoulders, and looked over at her. Danny was so beautiful, and so incredibly naive about all of this. If someone like that idiot ever got the chance to damage her with their carelessness...

  No. Lucy wouldn't let herself dwell on the bad things that could happen to subs that ended up with unworthy dommes. It would only dredge up bad memories, and she didn't need that right now, not with Danny here.

  "Some people don't have the compassion or presence of mind to be dominant over another person," Lucy said as she forced herself to relax her grip on the crop and began to steer them out of the ballroom. "Would you care for a bit of lunch?"

  "Love it," Danny said immediately, and Lucy was already in the elevator and halfway back to the room before she realized that Danny's quick agreement didn't just come from her sense of hunger. She'd just taken care of Lucy in her own way by agreeing to something that got them away from the crowd and an uncomfortable situation seemingly out of pure instinct. Lucy's personal assessment of Danny climbed another notch, which was a little unnerving, considering how much she enjoyed her company already.

  Lucy shook her head minutely and led them back into their room. She needed to keep her head in all of this. Lucy resolved to maintain her distance, to keep her own emotions in reserve as best she could. It was business first, pleasure later, and they still had another ceremony to get through today.

  It was a resolution that made her heart ache, but better an ache than a break.

  Lunch wasn't what Danny had expected.

  First off, it was tiny. Danny took the lid off the tray that the busboy had brought up, then lifted her eyebrows as she glanced over. Lucy sat in the chair beside the bed with her legs crossed, leaning one elbow against the table as she picked at her own plate. "Fruit and cheese? Really?"

  "What would you have preferred?" Lucy asked as she plucked up a grape. Her lips closed over the ripe bite of fruit, distracting Danny from the thread of their conversation.

  "Oh, I don't know, a cheeseburger?" It was the first thing that came to mind, and while Danny didn't eat them often, they were a gui
lty pleasure for her.

  "Do you think you could eat something heavy like that and then feel confident in your ability to perform this afternoon?" Lucy asked. It was the sort of question Danny hated, semi-rhetorical with an almost zero percent chance of saying the right thing, but she knew that Lucy wasn't asking to be cruel.

  "Maybe," Danny answered, just to be difficult. Lucy looked directly at her, quiet but firm, and Danny sighed. "Okay, maybe not. But I had nothing for breakfast, and I'm so hungry right now."

  "A heavy meal would just leave you feeling bloated and lethargic," Lucy said. "You'd want to sleep it off, which under normal circumstances isn't a problem, but given your schedule for the day, it would be. This sort of food is light enough that you should be able to enjoy it without the corresponding languor."

  "I guess." Danny picked up a piece of melon off her plate and ate it. It was cool and fresh—very tasty, actually, just not what she was used to. "I bet you eat this sort of thing all the time. I'm more of a meat and potatoes kind of girl myself." As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Danny could have smacked herself. Did she really need to highlight the differences between them any further?

  Lucy actually laughed, though, and the strict and straight line of her back relaxed as much as it could with her still encased in the corset. "My dear, I'm British. Every cliché you've heard about our traditional cuisine has more than a kernel of truth to it, and I grew up eating pies and puddings without a qualm. I delight in the occasional decadent meal, but given my chosen profession I've needed to expand my palette over the years."

  "For the teas."

  "For the teas," Lucy agreed. "Each one has a unique flavor that can be complimented in different ways, and in order to understand how to properly enhance my products, I needed to learn a great deal about cooking. The year I spent dating a chef was personally productive."

  Danny's first impulse was irritation. Chef? What chef? But it wasn't her place to be irritated, she reminded herself. She didn't have any claim on Lucy other than their current association, no matter how much she liked it. Danny opted to shelve the jealousy and take a chance to learn more about Lucy. "You dated a chef, huh?"

  "Yes. She was a sous chef at the time, actually, and now runs her own wonderful restaurant in Tangiers." Lucy smiled.

  "Is that a casino?"

  "Possibly, but I was referring to the city in Morocco."

  Holy Jesus fuck. Lucy had exes who ran exquisite fucking restaurants in fucking Morocco. Because she wasn't untouchable enough already. Danny stuffed a grape into her mouth angrily.

  "Of course, Malika was never a long term option for me," Lucy continued. "We were wonderful companions, but rather unfulfilled lovers. She was never completely happy in her submission to me, and I could never let go enough to submit to her, so in a sense, it was rather doomed from the start. We're much better friends than anything else."

  Suddenly, the grape tasted a lot better. Danny swallowed and asked, "Is that something you have to have, then? In a relationship, I mean. Um, that it has to include this kind of thing."

  "Dominance and submission?" Lucy clarified. Danny nodded. "Yes. I've tried to be satisfied with one or the other in the past, but it inevitably isn't sufficient. Meeting for scenes is fine in the short term, but it loses its satisfaction over time. And being lovers without having the ability to truly be myself, well. I refer you to the situation with Malika." Lucy sat back in her chair and looked at Danny. "Has your experience been different, then?"

  "Oh, I've never had a relationship," Danny said. And wow, didn't that sound pathetic? "I mean, not since high school, but that was with a guy." Doomed to failure.

  "You haven't dated another woman since you came out?"

  "No. I go to clubs, meet a girl, and go home with her. It's kind of hard to bring people back to my place, since I live with my dad and brothers." Danny felt her face heat, but she refused to look away. She wasn't ashamed of how she lived.

  "Surely your family knows your orientation, though."

  "Yeah." Danny hadn't been ashamed of that either, although it hadn't been easy to tell them. Zach's support had gotten her through the uncomfortable period with her family, and she was grateful for him.

  "Well." Lucy smiled a little. "That's something, then."

  "How about you?" Danny asked her, taking a bite of some funky-smelling cheese and nearly gagging on it. She set that one aside and washed her mouth out with a long gulp of water before going back for a bite of something that looked much safer, like cheddar. Orange was usually cheddar, right?

  Lucy looked up from the strawberry she'd been slicing small sections off of before popping them into her mouth. "To what are you referring?"

  Danny gave her a little shrug and grabbed another grape from the bowl of mixed fruit on her plate. "How'd your family take you coming out?"

  Something dark moved across Lucy's fine features, and Danny almost regretted asking. But she answered the question anyway. "My parents had a great deal of trouble with my orientation. I was in boarding school when the dean sent home a letter telling them that I was unnaturally attached to a female classmate. They were asked to come to the school for a conference and took a train through the countryside to confront me, only to find us lying in my bed in the dorm. That precipitated a rift that's continued to this day. We converse, occasionally, but I haven't been home in close to a decade."

  Danny stopped eating and stared at Lucy, a piece of fruit hanging a few inches from her mouth. "Holy shit."

  "Quite," Lucy agreed.

  The food in front of them slowly disappeared as they ate in silence. Though Danny was hungry, after Lucy's revelation she didn't have all that much interest in eating. She couldn't believe someone could do that to their own child. Of course she'd heard horror stories, but Lucy was the first person she'd known that had experienced a really negative reaction to them coming out from their parents.

  "You need to eat," Lucy chided her when Danny hadn't touched the food on her plate for a good two minutes straight.

  Danny lifted her shoulder in a little shrug. "Not that hungry. Do you hate your parents? For what they did, I mean."

  Lucy appeared a bit surprised at the question. "No. Why do you ask?"

  "I think I would. I can't imagine being able to forgive them for doing that," Danny replied, her anger seeping into her voice.

  Lucy slid her empty plate away and rose from the table to take another water bottle from the mini fridge. "At first I was hurt, of course. I couldn't get over their lack of acceptance and they couldn't bring themselves to change their minds, but after a few years I lost the energy to maintain my indignation. Anger is a festering wound, and my anger hurt me far more than it affected them. After realizing that, I did the only thing I could and forgave them for their ignorance, and wished them peace. I did it for myself, not because they deserved to hear the words from me, but because I needed to let it go. And Danny?"

  "Yes?" Danny replied, wondering how this beautiful, incredibly strong woman managed to achieve something like that.

  "Finish the food on your plate."

  Lucy's words had the air of a command. "Or?" Danny countered, both dreading and anxiously excited for the answer.

  Lucy gave her a cool smile, and Danny straightened up, wondering what the expression meant for her. "Let's make a deal, if you're interested."

  Ooh, that sounded promising. She didn't know what Lucy had in mind, but really wanted to find out. "Sure. What did you have in mind?"

  "I want you to finish eating your lunch. You'll need your strength as the afternoon progresses. Fatigue is common for performers at these conventions, and I want you to be well-prepared. The deal is this: for every bite you take, I'll reward you with my crop across your bum. You may feed yourself or be fed, but either way you have to finish the food on your plate. I do hope that you agree to my terms, Danielle," Lucy said, giving her a little wink and the slightest curve of her lips.

  Heat flared in Danny's cheeks, and she swallowed
thickly as she stared at Lucy. She wouldn't really … would she? Use her crop on Danny in exchange for eating lunch? Only she probably wouldn't have said it if she didn't mean it, and the thought of those elegant fingers brushing Danny's lips as she fed her ...

  Finally, with her heart racing and her hands balled into nervous fists at her side, Danny said, "Yes. And no."

  Lucy arched an eyebrow. "Be more precise, Danielle."

  Danny squared her shoulders and tried to quiet the tremble that ran through her as Lucy's attention speared her to her seat. "Yes, I want that, but I don't want to finish eating by myself."

  Lucy hummed knowingly. "Then you wish for me to feed you?"

  Holy fuck, what had she just gotten herself into? Danny resisted the sudden urge to shovel as much food in her mouth as possible as Lucy stepped up to her and pressed the tip of her crop under her chin. She forced Danny's head up so that she had to look into Lucy's steady gaze. Danny was embarrassed of her own desires and regretted asking the question, but she wasn't about to go back on it now.

  "Yes," Danny whispered, her heart racing as warmth flared to life inside of her.

  The crop was taken out from under her chin, and Lucy nodded swiftly. "On your knees, then. Feet together, hands behind your back. Now." There was no change in Lucy's voice, which surprised Danny. She'd expected ... something more commanding, maybe. Something more like when they performed the tea ceremony earlier. Lucy had been louder then, firmer… but maybe that was just for the sake of the crowd. She didn't have to intimidate Danny into doing what she wanted, not like this.

  Danny went to the floor next to the table, trying not to let her nerves get the better of her. It felt strange to be like this, especially without the tea to act as a buffer between them, but Danny wasn't going to back out. She was curious, and this might be the only time she got to be curious with someone like Lucy, someone Danny trusted to know what she was doing.