Chapter 19: First Steps on a Journey

She lay in bed, staring into darkness — or into grayness, rather, as the ghostly light of pre-dawn leaked past the curtains. Next to her was a body as naked as hers. Its chest rose and fell with slow, deep breathing. They were the peaceful sounds of an untroubled conscience. Alicia sighed.

Six weeks had gone by since her weird stay at the tropical island. But just closing her eyes was enough to bring the images back. It was so easy to call those memories disgusting — so easy, after making sweet normal love to a healthy girlfriend. But she liked to see herself as an honest person. An honest person who had to admit that those disgusting memories caused her to cry out louder in climax than she ever had — even while making love to that same sweet normal girlfriend.

She felt like a traitor, but who was it she betrayed. Did she betray her girlfriend? Or was it Angique, or even herself? Pushing her perverse thoughts back into the graveyard of her mind didn't make them feel less troublesome. Reciting sermons of righteousness to herself didn't make her feel any better. She hated what she did during that week, but it never stopped dampening her panties. She also hated what Angique had made her do, but she was too honest to only blame the woman. She could sum up enough good reasons why she would be better off forgetting the whole dirty thing — reasons like preserving her mental health, or reasons like decency and plain old common sense. But if so, why was she still lying awake because of it, feeling her pussy gently weep?

And moreover, why did she still ache to return to that woman when she lay awake like this after yet another of their half-satisfying vanilla love sessions? Sessions that were increasingly far apart and would be even scarcer if she didn't initiate them.

It was six weeks now since Alicia came back from the island. She'd glowed with more than just a suntan, wearing the fur coat Angique had given her. She remembered raising the warm collar — a welcome shield against the brutal January winds awaiting them outside the airport.

Angique had kissed her good bye in a cloud of dancing snowflakes. She had to fly on to Europe for business. The kiss was like all their kisses had been this journey — hot, long and very passionate. It weakened her knees and emptied her brain. It also kept her warm for the entire cab ride home — and for hours after.

There was a mountain of mail spilling from her box. Amongst the debris of commercial onslaught and unwelcome bills she found Christmas cards and New Year's wishes. One of them was from Italy. "Ti amo," was written across the obligatory season's greetings. There were x's added. She stared at them, thinking how it seemed ages ago since she had been with Carmela. She sniffed at the card, wondering why it all felt so distant.

There were twenty messages on her voice-mail, mostly business. Two were from her best old school friend Paula asking her to call back so they might have lunch together. The sweet normalcy of it all touched her enough to make her cry. It just felt — real. She wondered how to handle the questions about her posh winter vacation, the envy for her tan? Would the dirtiness of it all shine through? Should she explain about Angique? Could she even wear the fur?

As the light in the darkened bedroom got brighter, she remembered her first week after returning — her too shrill and excited voice over lunch; friends asking if she was all right; her final decision to hide and plunge head-on into work.

She didn't go to the Club. She knew Angique didn't deserve the way she ignored her messages and she hated avoiding her, but she dreaded seeing her even more. In the end she decided that she'd consider herself the abused innocent — it was so much easier to live with.

Carmela phoned her on Monday of the next week, telling her she was back. She sounded loving and warm, inviting her to the house; another sweet sign of reality. Alicia loved the stylish Italian purse she got as a belated Christmas present — suppressing the sudden memories invoked by the potent scent of the leather. After dinner and hours of animated talk they made slow, intense and perfectly normal love, extracting slow, normal orgasms and ending in sweet, healthy, perfectly normal cuddling.

The knock on the door was soft and hesitant. Angique looked up from her book and said:

"Come in." When the big door opened, a smile brightened her face.

"Alicia," she said. "It's been ages. I missed you, girl."

Alicia stood naked on the doorstep. Her dress and underwear were in a bundle under her arm. She dropped them after closing the door. Then she went down on her knees.

"I missed you too," she whispered, lowering her brow to the cool marble tiles. Her spine sloped up to her gorgeous ass.

Angique rose and walked over. She was dressed in tight leather leotards and a loose-fitting gray satin blouse that allowed a pale expanse of cleavage. Getting down on her haunches, she reached out and lifted Alicia's face by putting a finger under her chin. She saw tears running from the dark brown eyes.

"Don't cry," she said, removing the moisture with her other hand. "I love you, remember?" It didn't stop the crying.

"I am an ungrateful bitch," the girl said. "I did everything to forget you. You were so nice to me and all I did was staying away..."

Angique chuckled.

"But you are here," she said. The simple truth of her statement silenced the girl. She just looked up into Angique's easy smile.

"I am not worthy," she then said, before crying out when Angique slapped her cheek. Her angry face pushed itself into Alicia's until their noses touched.

"Don't you ever tell me you are not worthy, cunt!" Angique hissed. "It offends me, you hear? As if I ever, ever would choose a girl not worthy of me! What do you think of me? Am I such a fumbling loser in your eyes that I could not judge your worth — your talents? Do you think I would waste my time on a failure?"

Angique rose to her full, stiletto-enhanced length, looking down on Alicia who once more pressed her brow to the floor.

"Look at me, you slut!" she said, steeling her voice and kicking the girl. "I know you have tried to forget me by fucking your big time romance writer. You had to crawl back to her, even after she treated you like shit. That is all right, but please, please, don't sugar it with lies and half-truths!"

Alicia looked up now, her mouth open in shock, her eyes wide and tearless. Angique went on:

"You love to think it is weakness that brings you here, don't you? I am a weakness in your eyes, am I not? A defeat. Be honest. Am I?"

Alicia just worked her mouth; there were no words to be found. Would this crazy woman ever give her any slack — any space to even think?

"Well, I am not!" Angique growled. "On the contrary, you hypocritical slut. It is weakness that keeps you away. You are too damn scared for your own good, girl. That's why you have to blame others — me. You blame me for being weak. Don't deny it!"

Angique was by now a dark, burning angel standing at what might be the gates of hell — or paradise. Or both? Every word of her stung like a flaming sword. Alicia knew her words held the truth, but she also knew it was a truth she could never live with. They held a truth that stripped her soul more thoroughly naked than her body had ever been. So, as always when she was confronted with a true dilemma, she broke down crying, mumbling how sorry she was.

Angique picked the girl up and held her tightly. Her lips found bare throat and chest to kiss.

"Just know this, honey cunt," she whispered into Alicia's ear. "I am the only one who knows who you truly are. And the only one who loves you because of it — not in spite of it. Now kneel and lick my boots."

Live became unbearable for Alicia. She felt as if tied to an elastic band that propelled her to Angique before tearing her away and slinging her to Carmela — only to send her back to Angique again.

Carmela had a strong, proud personality. Alicia was in awe of her, but her strength was like Gina's. She was high and mighty. She made the girl feel inferior when they went out to see her friends and business associates, but she did it out of indifferent egotism, not the active lust to humiliate her. She never bothered knowing what the girl needed or even who she really was.

Alicia loved to be shown off as a trophy, but she hated being ignored during conversations. She loved to serve Carmela and her friends drinks and cook for them, but hated to be taken for granted.

She often felt ignored and when stretches of lonely evenings or empty nights yawned, she went to the Club to bath in Angique's fury or to tremble from the many breathtaking emotions the woman stirred in her masochistic soul. And whenever Angique wasn't there, she gave her body to anonymous fucks by some of the shadier girls around — knowing she'd regret it immediately, but unable to say no.

Her times with Angique were intense and often confusing. When she scratched at her door, naked and holding her clothes, she never knew what woman she might encounter. One day Angique seemed mad at her and rude in her commands, tying the girl up and fucking her with a monstrous black strap-on dildo. The next day, or even the next hour, she might be tender and loving, kissing Alicia and making the sweetest love to her on the soft rug in front of the fireplace. They would be talking deep into the night and giggle like teenage girls, drinking wine and eating fresh fruit or slippery oysters. But like the turning of a page the woman could change back into a fury from hell. She'd bend the girl over a chair and flog her into a blubbering heap of Jell-O.

Alicia's moods changed just as often. When she was whipped or strap-on fucked her mind seemed empty of every thought — just floating on a sea of lust and pain. And when the woman talked to her lovingly Alicia seemed caught in a magical web of arousal, even forgetting there was an outside world at all.

But when she left the hypnotic circle of the woman's voice and eyes, guilt flooded her. The magic poofed, and reality showered her like a cold November rain.

One night she huddled between Angique's spread thighs, just listening to the fairytale voice. It made her sink into a state of pink, fluffy bliss, aching to hear the next word, craving the next caress as her own fingers rubbed her swollen clit.

Angique asked her if she ever thought of becoming a slave. She could train her to become one — to become hers. Alicia had giggled it off, but Angique felt the instant shudder that shook the girl's body.

"You'd be entirely mine," she said. "Wouldn't that be something?"

Alicia had rested her head back against the woman, feeling a slow climax flush her cunt. 'Pussy, ' she thought. I should think of it as my pussy.

"Many girls in here play the sub, being submissive," Alicia whispered. Her voice was thick with the echo of her orgasm. "I could be a sub for you. I'd love being that."