by Harper Bliss
Blushing deeply, Marlee lowered her face to the floor. She would not comment. What happened between her and Madeline was private. Taking a deep breath, she scrubbed harder, determined to have the job done as quickly as possible. Guests were coming and she would not let her employer down.
“Fine. Don’t say anything. But let me tell you something, Miss High and Mighty. Miss Fountaineaux is not the only one to wield a paddle in this house.” Josephine flounced out of the room, her tiny black skirt flaring up to show a good bit of cheek.
Marlee sighed. As she scrubbed, the reality of her situation weighed on her mind. Miss Fountaineaux was her boss. She had never before mixed business with pleasure and it was very confusing. Moving the wrong way, she slipped on the soapy water and landed on her ass. The burn was still smarting from her earlier transgression. Marlee had let a scuff mark remain on the floor in the parlor. To be honest, it had been on purpose just to see what her boss would do. Rubbing her sore backside, she moaned. That was not the first. Two days before, she had left the scrub brush in the kitchen and the cook had tripped on it, earning her an evil glare and the promise of a wooden spoon on her backside if she ventured into the kitchen any time soon.
The feeling in itself was very erotic. Spanking. Discipline. The heat that crept from one ass cheek to the other. She never in a million years would have ever thought she would let another woman take her in hand and show her who was boss. But that was just it. She wanted more. Her pussy throbbed with desire at the thought of those hands doing so much more than just paddling her.
Sighing, she looked at her watch and a burst of panic sparked inside of her. She had only one more small corner of the room to scrub, but she needed to hurry. The guests would be arriving soon. Thunder cracked and a burst of lightening brightened the darkening sky.
“Oh no! The carpets!” She raised herself off the floor, stiff from being on her hands and knees for so long. Almost stumbling, she ran for the door, desperate to get the area rugs back inside before the downpour hit. Yanking open the French doors, Marlee streaked out into the yard, snatching at the rugs. Dragging one into the house, she grinned, panting. Two more. Running outside once again, she tugged at the corner of the rug as the first drops of rain began to fall.
“No,” Marlee wheezed as she dropped the second rug and ran for the third. Rain began to fall in a steady stream, drenching her and the ornate area rug as she tugged it onto the wooden living room floor. “Oh God. I can’t leave that in here.”
“You’re right about that.” The deadpan voice of Madeline Fountaineaux echoed through the cavernous room, sending a tremor down Marlee’s spine.
Head whipping upward, Marlee snapped to attention. “Oh! Ma’am. I’m sorry. I tried to hurry.” She twisted her hands in front of her and bit her lip to keep herself from crying.
“Well. We can’t have that rug in here. It will ruin the wooden floor. Bring it to the garage and have David hang it up to dry.” Madeline’s voice was sharp with displeasure. “Take care of that and then return here, please. There is something I wish to discuss with you.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Marlee cringed. I’m a horrible housekeeper. She’s going to fire me. Biting back a sob, she quickly left the room, dragging the sodden rug down the long hallway. Quickly taking it to the garage, she did as she was bade and came back into the living room.
“Good. You were very efficient. Thank you.”
“Mistress.”
Madeline turned. “Yes. Precisely what I wanted to talk with you about.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I am your employer, am I not?”
Perplexed, Marlee nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“And as such, you have deliberately been omitting tasks in an effort to test my patience. What do you think I should do about that?” Madeline crossed the room and stood in front of Marlee. Crossing her arms under her breasts, she arched an eyebrow. “Well. What have you to say for yourself?”
Heat infusing her face. “I...”
“I thought as much. Come here.” Madeline pointed to the leather couch. “Bend over and lay your arms out in front of you.”
Kneeling down, Marlee stretched herself across the leather, aiming her backside to the air. The skirt did little to hide the thin cotton panties beneath it.
“Flip up that skirt. I want to see the heat on those cheeks.”
Marlee smoothed the skirt up, baring her thong-like panties to her Mistress’s view.
“Lovely. I can see the blush of color even still. Now... what do you think I should do to a willful girl like you? Dawdling so my expensive carpets get soaked in the rain... making the cook trip on your messy housework. Such bad behavior.” Madeline ran her fingers along the edge of Marlee’s panties, tucking one digit underneath the elastic just under her bottom where it met her thigh. She leaned down and pressed herself against Marlee. “Should I fuck you senseless like you want me to, or give you the hiding you deserve?” Her voice was velvet.
The heady scent of perfume and woman assaulted Marlee’s barely there control and she moaned. Arching against Madeline, she opened her legs wider, hoping for some relief to the agony of waiting.
Madeline’s finger edged further inside her panties, brushing against the swollen lips of her pussy.
“Oh God,” Marlee sucked in a gasp.
“Thank you, but no.” She plunged the finger inside Marlee’s wet channel. “I want you to call out my name and never forget who is making you come. Do we understand each other?” A second finger joined the first. A flick of a finger against her clit, a pinch on one breast, then another, had Marlee skyrocketing into orbit in moments. Her body clenched around Madeline’s fingers even as her hips bucked and gyrated. Electricity burst behind her eyes, a fireworks show that rivaled the lightening streaking across the sky outdoors. She sank face-first into the leather couch, Madeline’s warmth surrounding her as she pulled her into a sitting position next to her.
“You are so beautiful.” Madeline smiled, taking some stray hair and curling it over her ear.
Marlee grinned sheepishly and pulled at her skirt. Panties sodden, she struggled to find a comfortable place but at last settled in. “Where are your guests?”
“Right here.”
“Oh.”
Madeline pressed her lips to Marlee’s. “I have some great plans for the evening. Would you like to hear what they are?”
“Does it involve a spanking?”
“Oh my dear. I do hope so.” Madeline’s eyes sparkled in the light of the room. Lightning flashed as the storm raged outside.
“Does this mean I’m hired?” Marlee dared to look into her Mistress’s eyes.
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re the one who needs a spanking.” Marlee quirked a smile.
“Do you now?”
Marlee giggled and squirmed out of her embrace. “First one to the secret room gets the paddle.”
“Positively willful.” Madeline rose from the couch, taking the key out of her pocket, humming as she walked slowly down the hall.
My Name Is Bond
Cheyenne Blue
“My name is Bond. Jenny Bond.” Jenny’s lips quirked in imitation of the more famous Bond: James, 007.
It seldom failed. The patient chuckled and her grip relaxed on Eliza’s hand. A nervous huff of breath, not exactly a laugh, but an easing of the tension all the same.
Jenny slid onto the seat at the patient’s head and touched the lady’s shoulder. “Please tell me your name and date of birth.”
As the patient complied, Jenny met Eliza’s eyes over the patient’s gray head. “Thank you, Doctor. I think we’ll be fine now.”
Eliza eased her hand from the patient’s grip and slid out of the room. As the door closed, she heard Jenny’s practiced patter, letting the patient know exactly what was about to happen. Jenny was good, Eliza thought. Her little jokes and banter put people at ease, but she’d also heard her reassuring a patient as she moved the probe over the patient’s
skin, the ultrasound confirming a recurrence of breast cancer.
Eliza swallowed hard and her hand moved to her own breast. Her heart thumped in double time underneath the white coat. It’s nothing, she thought, not for the first time. Nothing. It’s a cyst. A fibroadenoma. It won’t be cancer. I’m only thirty-one. But she knew she was fooling herself. People did get cancer at thirty-one. Women with families and women who hoped to have them. Career women, homebodies, women alone, and women with partners.
She’d come to a halt in the corridor outside the ultrasound room. People parted around her like water around a rock and she was attracting a few curious glances. Stalling, she glanced down at the clipboard in her hand, pretended to read it, even though it contained patient instructions she’d read a hundred times. She pushed her feet into motion back to the waiting area.
Georgie, the receptionist, looked up from her computer. “Mrs Duval is here,” she said. “I put her in room two. Speak nicely, and I’ll bring you a cup of coffee.”
“Nicely,” said Eliza. She picked up Marina Duval’s chart from the desk. Good news for Marina. She drew a deep breath and allowed her mouth to stretch into a genuine smile.
Thursday was recall day at the Breast Clinic. Repeat mammograms, ultrasounds, needle biopsies. Women waited their turn in nervous silence flicking through outdated magazines. Many left the clinic outlined in a shimmer of relief. Negative. A benign lump or clear ultrasound. Some bit back tears or sat numbly, worst fears confirmed.
It was a long day. Georgie had already left when Eliza ushered out her final patient. The elderly lady was stoic, resigned to her diagnosis. Eliza had run through treatment options with her but the lady had nodded and pushed away the information sheets. “I’ll let you know,” she’d said, and walked out, head held high. Eliza closed her eyes briefly. She knew that patient wouldn’t return. Sometimes it went like that. There was so much they could do for her: quality of life, pain relief, help, comfort, support. She didn’t have to be alone.
The clinic was in shadows, and Eliza went to check if the fire door was locked. The doors were ajar to most of the rooms. A red light blinked on the curved arm of the mammography machine but otherwise everything was silent, powered down for the night.
A light shone under the crack of the door to the ultrasound room. She opened the door to switch off the light, but the room wasn’t empty. Jenny stood at the desk in the corner. She glanced up as Eliza entered.
“Did I give you a fright? I was just updating the log. I’m done now, if you need to lock up.”
“No worries.” Eliza entered the room and sat on the patient bed swinging her legs. “I’ll wait while you finish.”
“We’re so busy that after hours is my only chance to catch up. It’s hard enough for patients waiting weeks for an appointment, without making them wait here as well.”
Eliza’s fingers twitched, the need to press her own breast overwhelming. It’s nothing, she thought again, as she had every day in the five weeks since she’d first found the lump in her breast. Nothing.
To distract herself, she watched Jenny’s fingers fly over the control panel. Long, slim fingers. Jenny was tall, broad-hipped and muscular in a way that suggested power rather than stamina, but her fingers were those of an artist: delicate and tapered.
They’d worked together for nearly two years, and while they’d always gotten along, Eliza didn’t know too much about her. She knew Jenny lived alone since she’d broken up with a girlfriend, but she didn’t know how she spent her life outside of the clinic. Jenny was a master at deflecting questions, throwing out a flippant reply, or giving an outrageous answer with a smile that said she wasn’t serious.
She never gossiped, never rattled off a snarky remark about a patient. She was always just Jenny Bond: calm, caring, funny, and warm.
“Doing anything interesting tonight?” The question was a casual one, but Eliza found she was suddenly interested in the answer. The thought of Jenny with someone else, another woman learning the secret Jenny underneath the flippant exterior, carved a hollow space in her chest.
“Not much.” Jenny pushed the red-framed specs she wore up her nose, and peered at the panel again. “Maybe a glass of wine, then an early night with a book. You?”
“Drinking to forget.” Eliza sucked in a breath. Where had that come from? She should have made an offhand remark about a microwave dinner for one, and staring at the TV until her eyeballs bled, a throwaway line that would have allowed the conversation to move on, skittering away from the personal.
There was a moment’s silence. Eliza’s fingers twitched, ready to push herself off the patient bed, make a casual remark about the traffic on Adelaide Terrace, the lights at Elizabeth Street always being stuck on red, and extract herself from the room. Jenny had a key and could lock up.
“We all have days like that. Anything in particular you want to forget?” Jenny’s eyes locked with Eliza’s.
She wore the usual Jenny Bond expression. She exuded reassurance, but it was the detached comfort of someone who knows they will soon be home, patient worries forgotten for the day. Eliza swallowed. She didn’t want that. Not from a colleague, certainly not from Jenny.
She forced a smile that made her cheeks ache and tried to form a flippant reply. But the words stuck in her throat, unshaped, unsaid. She could only stare at Jenny in silence.
The hum of machinery seemed to swell to fill the space between them. Jenny stepped away from the panel, and hitched a hip onto the bed, close to Eliza. She reached for Eliza’s hand, cradled it between her own as if it were delicate, fragile, something to cherish. Her thumb stroked Eliza’s in a steady rhythm.
“Talk to me.”
Eliza searched her face, trying to read if this was good old Jenny Bond, who made patients laugh to relax them, or if there was something more, something meaningful.
Jenny lifted an eyebrow, gave a faint half smile. Something twisted deep inside Eliza. The overhead lights were unforgiving, the unrelenting glare highlighting imperfections, but somehow Jenny still looked beautiful.
Eliza turned her hand so that it lay palm up on her thigh. Jenny clasped it, entwining her fingers through Eliza’s. Something warm lodged in Eliza’s belly, crept lower.
Jenny squeezed her fingers, and one hand cupped Eliza’s chin. “Tell me.”
There was no decision to be made in the face of Jenny’s soft command.
“I have a lump in my left breast,” Eliza said. “Small, hard, somewhat mobile. Upper outer quadrant. I haven’t been to my GP. It’s probably nothing. It’s doubtless a benign fibroadenoma—nothing to worry about.” She fixed her eyes on the far wall, at the x-ray warning sign, and added, “I’m only thirty-one.”
Jenny sat in silence, but her hand pressed Eliza’s into her thigh.
“I know.” Eliza exhaled in a shuddering sigh that vibrated the air between them. “We have younger patients with breast cancer. And we have older patients whose lumps are benign. I guess I’m scared because I know better than anyone what the outcome could be. And I’m scared because if it’s bad—if it is cancer—then I have no one to go home to, no one to tell, no one to hold my hand and tell me I’ll be okay.”
“I’m holding your hand.” Jenny lifted their conjoined hands. Her darker hand, Eliza’s fair freckled one, alternating finger bands of light and dark. “And if you want, I’ll keep holding your hand.”
Her quiet words were solid, reassuring. They turned the over-bright, sterile room into a snug haven for the two of them. The words wrapped around Eliza’s heart, cocooning her in their promise.
“You can’t mean that.”
“Why not?” Her lips quirked. “I’m Jenny Bond. I can do whatever I want. License to thrill. And I want to, Eliza. If you’ll let me.”
“But—”
“Do I have to spell it out?” She disentangled their hands and moved to the whiteboard on the wall.
Picking up a red marker she wrote: ‘Jenny Bond loves Eliza Suarez’. She doodled the
Os into little hearts, added a string of balloons, a bouquet of daisies, and a smiling animal that looked like a wombat but was probably supposed to be a kitten. “Do you get it now?”
Eliza got it. The hard knot in her chest unwound and there was a lightness in her blood, a singing, a racing that pushed aside the grayness that had enveloped her since she’d found the breast lump. She was not alone. Jenny was there for her.
“I get it.” The smile spread slowly, overflowed into a wide jaw-stretching grin. “Oh, do I get it.”
Jenny moved across the room, and somehow they were standing, pressed against each other. Jenny felt solid and reassuring, and oh-so-right in her arms, her full breasts pressed against Eliza’s own, her hair, smelling faintly of antiseptic, tickling Eliza’s nose.
With tiny movements their positions changed; a tilt of the head here, a lean of the body there, and then their mouths were so closely aligned that when Eliza shifted her head to the right, Jenny twisted hers to the left and their lips met, off centre, a kiss to the corner of the mouth, a bump of nose to cheek. Eliza didn’t know who initiated the real kiss, the one they flowed into with every expectation of it being returned. But it didn’t matter, because they were kissing, really kissing, and Eliza’s hands clasped Jenny’s hair, pulling her closer, and Jenny’s hands gripped Eliza’s white-coated hips, and their bodies pressed together, meeting and melding.
When they parted for breath to smile foolishly at each other, their hands dropped away.
“Come home with me,” Eliza said. “I have wine. We can get Thai takeaway. And we can do this again.”
“Of course,” Jenny replied, and she cupped Eliza’s cheek with her palm. It was a tender gesture, one of calm and caring, yet the slight tremor spoke of lust and longing. “But there’s something we must do first.”
She stepped away, back to the ultrasound machine in the corner. “Lights, camera, action!”
The machine’s hum swelled. Lights flashed on the panel. Jenny dimmed the room lights and the world turned hazy and gray.
“I won’t make you don a paper gown,” Jenny said, “but please remove your shirt and bra, and lie down. Left hand behind your head.” Her eyes met Eliza’s. “Let’s take a look at this lump, shall we?”