Captive Hearts

by Harper Bliss

  “Do you know what that is?” she asks, her voice all sugary and sweet.

  “I th-think I have an idea,” I stammer. I haven’t lived that sheltered a life to not recognise this particular object when I see it in my own hands, but never had I thought that this was the present Joy was going to give me.

  “How do you feel about my gift?” Joy slides a bit further onto the bed, slips her legs under her bottom, and regards me as though she’s interviewing me for Newsnight.

  How do I feel about it? A little apprehensive, I guess. A tad insecure. And, come to think of it, incredibly aroused. “Why does it have these colours?” I ask.

  “No reason,” Joy says. “I just liked them best.” She slants her head to the side. “Do you want to take it out of the box? Take a closer look?” Joy’s voice is growing lower in pitch. I can almost see the excitement grow in her glance. This is turning her on greatly.

  “Sure.” I sit down next to her and fumble with the box until I hold its contents in my hands. This is a dildo, I think, and it’s not a thought I’ve ever had in my life, and it doesn’t fail to instantly connect with that pulsing beat between my legs. Inside the box, there’s a soft black pouch, and, uncontrollably impatient as she seems, Joy takes it out, opens it and shows me what’s inside.

  “It comes with this.” She holds an intricately intertwined black ribbon in her hands. “These are the straps,” she says.

  “I see,” I say. Straps for what? I want to ask, but don’t want to come across as completely ignorant.

  “It’s a strap-on harness,” Joy says, her voice almost liquid. “You put the dildo in like this.” She picks up the rainbow-coloured contraption and holds it in front of the hole in the larger, padded piece of fabric to which the ribbons are attached. “And I really, really, really would like to fuck you with it.”

  “Would you now?” I ask. My own voice seems to have dropped an octave as well. I can’t hide my arousal at seeing Joy with her hands all over this toy she has bought, and—despite my initial confusion—especially at what she just said.

  “Oh, yes,” Joy says, but must have somehow picked up on my trepidation, or my hesitation when she explained to me how it works. “It doesn’t have to be now. Whenever you feel ready.” Our eyes meet, and she may very well want to display patience with her words, but in her glance I see none.

  Do I want this? Of course, I’m staring into Joy’s lust-filled eyes, and when I do, I want everything she wants—and possibly even more. And I want to know what it feels like. Joy has clearly done this before, otherwise she wouldn’t appear so utterly excited about it.

  “I might be ready now,” I say, because oh, how my blood is beating in my veins and how my heart is racing.

  “Yeah?” She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip and inches towards me. So close, I can feel her body heat radiate onto me, I can smell my brand of soap on her. And Joy so close to me is always intoxicating.

  “Oh, yes,” I reply, and kiss her. Instantly, she pulls me to her and while, when we usually kiss, we gradually move into a more frantic, more urgent rhythm, this kiss is intense from the very beginning, like a clear declaration of intent. Maybe this is taking it to the next level then.

  “You drive me crazy, Alice,” Joy says, when we break from our lip-lock. “You know why?”

  “No,” I say, while I grab for her neck again.

  Her lips are by my ear when she speaks next. “Because you’re such a proper lady outside the bedroom, but inside, you’re up for anything. That drives me so, so wild.”

  “Only for you,” I whisper, not even sure she can hear me. But it doesn’t matter, because Joy has started to push me down onto the bed, and I willingly let her. She kisses my lips, then my neck, then lets her lips travel down the opening of my blouse until she can’t go any further.

  “Let’s get these off,” she says, and when she looks at me I see all her love for me blazing in her eyes, and it makes me slip right into the divine state of abandon—that state where one moment I’m dressed and the next, as though I myself had nothing to do with it, I’m naked, and ready for Joy to do whatever she wants with me.

  I push myself up and get my clothes off as quickly as I can, because my own patience has run out as well. We’ve had such an emotionally demanding week, with barely any time for each other, and though it’s been cathartic in a way to have Miranda back in our lives, it has also been stressful to wait for the test results. I want my mind to go empty. I crave that blank space where thoughts cease and I’m just my body. A body Joy knows how to manipulate expertly.

  “Let me see if I still know how to do this,” Joy says, and scoots off the bed. She grabs the toy and the harness, inserts one into the other, until an almost obscene image of her emerges, although the silly rainbow colours do take away from that a bit. She steps into the contraption and starts fastening the straps around her hips and behind. She does it so confidently, without any display of nerves whatsoever—the way she always is in bed with me, coaxing me through the highest high as though it’s her only expertise in life—that, by the time she’s fully strapped-on my blood is beating so hotly in my veins, I need her back in bed with me pronto.

  But she stands there for an instant, a defiant glint in her eyes, as if she wants to say, ‘Look how far I got you, Alice. Look how incredibly aroused I have made you. You’d better be ready for this because I’m going to give you the time of your life.’ It’s such a typical Joy stance. It’s basically how she seduced me. That youthful, unbridled confidence she has won me right over with.

  “Come here,” I whisper, because I have a voice too, and I’ve learned how to express my needs with it.

  She sits on the bed almost reverently, as if this is a big moment for us. Maybe it is. It will certainly be a new experience for me. The dildo protrudes from between her legs and, because of the colours, it could be a comical display. It’s anything but.

  “I love you,” Joy says, and bows down to kiss me, and I consider these three simple words. How they have changed my life. How they can have so much meaning although, according to what Joy has told me, in the US they’ve become more of a catchphrase than an expression of deep feelings. One of the reasons she had to get out of there, she claimed. And it’s all these little facts she fills my day-to-day life with that have changed everything for me on such a grand scale. Like a ripple effect, her coming into my life, with this huge giant bang of orgasm after orgasm in Portugal, followed by all the introspection we had to subject ourselves to because of who we are and the relationships we have, and all the tidbits she has shared. How she brought me outside myself, and broke the shell I was living my comfortable but, truth be told, emotionless life in. It’s all the little things and the big things that have made us who we are today, here in my bedroom, a late afternoon autumn sun slanting through the window. But what’s about to happen now, I would definitely catalogue under the big things.

  “I love you, too,” I say. A simple truth. A life-changing statement. A sentiment that’s about to come to its full, most glorious expression.

  Joy manoeuvres herself on top of me, and I feel the dildo press against my thigh, and to have this other thing, this object not part of our bodies, but strangely part of hers anyway, in bed with us is exhilarating, because of what it promises. Another new sensation. I’ve had so many the past few months. And I’m really proud of myself for taking everything in my stride so quickly—not easily, but with consideration and courage.

  She fondles my breast with her right hand, while she kisses me again and I can feel her love for me every time our lips touch. Because Joy has changed, too. At first, I couldn’t possibly fathom what a girl like Joy would want with middle-aged, repressed me. But she has shown me what and who I am to her. And she has gradually revealed the real me to myself. This is she, I think. This is me. A woman about to be fucked by her lesbian lover with a strap-on dildo. When I think back to the woman who boarded that plane to Portugal at the beginning of August, she and I could not be furth
er removed from each other, in spirit as well as everything else.

  Joy’s hand meanders down, and I know what she will find, and I also know what’s she’s going to say, because she’s the kind of person who likes to say things out loud—a fact that never fails to turn me on even more.

  “God, you’re so wet, Alice.” I smile, because there’s arousal in familiarity, too. Oh God, there is. I want Joy over and over again, until she’s taken all of me and, even then, if she were to ask me, I would still spread my legs for her. Because when we’re like this, in this bubble of supreme intimacy, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her—for us.

  Before I know it, Joy’s finger has slipped inside me, and she keeps kissing me, and the dildo keeps pressing against my thigh, and I can’t wait for her to enter me with it. A desire I didn’t even know I possessed grabs hold of me, and makes me react swifter to the thrusting motion of her fingers—two now—and makes me groan into her mouth as her tongue swirls inside mine.

  “Fuck me, Joy,” I say for the first time ever. “Fuck me with the dildo.” It’s a word I’d never thought I’d say, and it intensifies the heat in my blood, the throbbing between my legs, the way my wet, wet sex wraps itself around her fingers.

  She smiles down at me. The best thing about Joy, who is someone who likes to talk about every little thing, is that she does also know when to shut up. Now is one of these moments. Because no words are needed now. This might be a new experience, but it’s one so inherently natural, so of all times and of all people, that we can just go with the flow we’ve created.

  Joy pushes herself away from me for an instant and repositions herself between my legs. She looks at me down there and flicks her tongue over her lips. She’s like a predator, like she’s the cougar about to devour her prey. She scuttles closer, presses my legs farther apart, until I feel the dildo make contact. It’s a shocking sensation, but not as shocking as when she starts rubbing the head along my lips, her fingers trailing behind it. She avoids my clitoris, wisely, just drags the tip of the toy along my lips, up and down, until she rests it at my entrance. She rubs her palm along its length, spreading my juices over it, and the sight of that makes me gasp for air again—and I was already so out of breath.

  Then, she shifts her hips, and starts to slide in, ever so slowly. It’s an entirely new feeling to have this foreign object slipped into me. It’s wide, and filling, and long. Inside me, it feels so much bigger than when I looked at it. I feel stretched, inhabited, taken, and it’s the best feeling in the world. Joy has moved her upper body so it’s supported by her arms, which are planted just above my shoulders. She looks into my eyes as she, gradually, increases the speed of her motion.

  She’s fucking me, I think. She’s actually doing this. I’m actually doing this. And isn’t that the strangest thing of all? Me, lying here, on my very own bed, the one I’ve slept in for decades, with another woman on top of me who is fucking me like this?

  But I don’t have any inclination to think further than that, because I’ve reached that particular headspace again, the one where it’s just the most exquisite white noise occupying my brain, where all thoughts cease, where nothing is more important than what is happening to my body right now. And a lot is happening as Joy’s thrusts arouse me more and more. I get carried away by the intensity of the moans coming from my own throat, and Joy’s narrowed eyes on me, and the slight grunting sound she makes every time she pushes into me, and how the girth of the dildo stretches me wider than I’ve ever felt, and how it touches a spot inside me.

  “Argh,” I moan, still slightly unaccustomed to the sound of my own voice when it goes high-pitched and loose like that.

  “Ooh,” Joy groans in response, and it’s as though we’re working in tandem to give me the utmost pleasure, although she’s really doing all the work. She increases the motion of her hips, makes it faster still, and I wrap my legs around her behind, tether her to me, as though I never want to let go again. I don’t.

  Then, the delicious crash is inevitable. She has taken me to a new high, a plane so out of this world, I see everything in a new, golden light. I feel my blood beat, I feel my skin zing with excitement, I feel the drop of sweat sliding down my temple, I feel the thrust of the dildo inside every cell of my body. I’m purely a physical being, freed of all emotion that may possibly harm me or depress me or stress me. I’m just me in my purest form, until I start plummeting down from that high, and Joy catches me. She always does.

  “Oh my God,” I holler. “Oh. Oh. Ooh.” The orgasm that takes me is so strong, so obliterating, my eyes fill with tears.

  Joy slows her strokes and looks at me with a sweet smile on her face, as though she can’t quite believe it herself. It happened, I want to say, but the lump in the back of my throat is so big, no words can get past.

  Instead of speaking, I pull her to me and shower her in kisses, while she slowly lets the dildo slip from me. You’re everything, I want to say, everything I’ve ever wanted and so much more. But I don’t even have to say it, because she knows. After what she has just done to me, she surely knows.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Screw the job,” Joy says, when I ask her if she’s sure she can take the time off. “I want to be there for Mum when she gets the news.” We’re at the Jones & McAllister office, where she has come to pick up Miranda to take her to her doctor’s appointment, the one where she’ll get the results. “And let’s be honest here, Alice. If they decide to fire me, I could easily be a kept woman.” She lets her gaze sweep over my office. “You’ve basically worked enough hours in your life to cover my career.” She pins her gaze on me again.

  “And here I was thinking you’d be supporting me in my old age.” I lean back in my chair. It’s strange to have her here, in my office. To mix this very personal thing with business. Although, I guess, it has always been very intertwined, what with Miranda and I being friends first and business partners second.

  “You know I’m only with you for your body and your exquisite mind, Alice. Not for your money. But, come to think of it, nursing home fees are so steep these days. I think I will tell Mum I no longer agree with her early retirement plan.”

  Last night, over dinner at Miranda’s, we danced around the subject of a positive or negative outcome as best we could, but Miranda did express a renewed interest in retiring sooner rather than later—perhaps in a year or two. Not because she can’t bear to face me in the office every day, but because she wants to travel more, enjoy life more, and not have the burden of running a business and all the stress it causes. I could hardly disagree, because I, too, have felt a subtle shift.

  Work is no longer the first thing on my mind when I wake in the morning and stare into Joy’s face. The next day’s to-do list no longer occupies any space in my brain before I close my eyes, because Joy is there to erase the slightest inkling of it. Over lunch, I often venture out, even if I don’t have an appointment I need to get to, just to be outside and get swallowed into the humdrum of the city and, quite simply, forget about work for half an hour. Not only has my personal life changed, my perspective on work has shifted as well.

  “Maybe Miranda and I should both retire.” I can hardly believe the words coming from my mouth, but Joy is right. At only fifty-one, I have worked enough hours to fill the course of two full-time careers, and for what? As much as I enjoy my work, I find pleasure in many other activities now, and maybe it’s time to start enjoying those more.

  “Hold your horses, Alice.” Joy regards me with an amused look on her face. “Whatever would you do with yourself all day while I’m grafting hard targeting Facebook and Twitter ads?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps try to wrap my head around what exactly it is you do at work.” Joy has tried to explain it to me many times, but I don’t seem to have a brain willing to grasp her core business. “And cook you dinner. Do your laundry. Bring you lunch. Just be a relaxed housewife.”

  “Trust me. You’d turn into one of those women who start on t
he Cabernet at eleven in the morning for lack of something else to do. You’re a doer. A worker. You need the stimulation.”

  “Maybe we’ll take on a new partner and I’ll work part-time then.”

  A knock on the door stops our conversation, which, perhaps, isn’t finished, or perhaps it is. Maybe my work is too much a part of me to let go just like that.

  “Who’s going to work part-time?” Miranda asks. Her posture is rigid, her features tense.

  “No one just yet,” I reply. “How are you feeling?”

  “Rather stressed,” Miranda says.

  “Come on, Mum.” Joy curls an arm around Miranda’s shoulder. “We’ll make an afternoon of it after we’ve had the good news. A mani-pedi and all that.”

  “Call me as soon as you know,” I instruct them both and then, completely uncharacteristically, leap from my chair to give Miranda a hug.

  “We will,” Joy says solemnly, before they both saunter off and I’m left waiting again, not knowing what to do with myself. Within the next hours, all our lives could dramatically change. If Miranda has cancer, voluntary retirement won’t even be an option anymore. Our lives will change into what they were when Paul got sick. A perpetual circle of dashed hope, followed by picking ourselves up again, because what other choice will we have?

  “No,” I tell myself. “Stop it.” Even if Miranda’s lump turns out to be cancerous, it doesn’t mean that it will kill her. But despite the excellent breast cancer survival rates these days, it’s just harder to imagine it won’t, when you’ve seen it happen before.

  I try to focus on work, but my gaze is glued to my phone screen, while I simultaneously want it to ring and dread the moment it will.

  * * *

  Almost two hours after Miranda and Joy left the office, I’ve driven myself near-mad with reasons why it would take so long to deliver a simple result. Finally, my phone rings and it’s Miranda.