S L I C K: Read Me

Content notes: sex with a boss, oral sex, simultaneous orgasms

Indigo:
This bookstore job was a big freaking deal for so many reasons, but the biggest reason was Gigi Hamilton.

I suddenly imagined the picture of Gigi from the press releases, the one that was on the bookstore website. In it, Gigi gazed into the camera, her brown eyes wide, her brown skin glowing under the fluorescent lights, her gray-speckled black hair framing her face in an afro. Her smile was brighter and more alive than the sweeping city view in the background.

I caught myself. Get your head in the game, Indigo. This is not the time for gay fantasies. I let my heartbeat slow and then crossed the street to enter Martha’s Bookshop for the first time.

Gigi:
The first time I saw Indigo, she was standing in front of the QTPOC poets display at the front of the store, her hand on her hip and her long, golden-brown braids stretched all the way down to the curve of her butt. I thought she was beautiful, and from the way we caught eyes around the shelves, I could see that she appreciated me as well.
When we shook hands for the first time, I felt an undeniable spark. My hands lingered over hers and threatened to clasp — and from that moment, I knew I was down bad.

I was not allowed to feel a spark. For one, I was in my mid thirties, while Indigo was definitely in her early twenties, but even more importantly, I was her boss’s boss’s boss — the owner of Martha’s Bookshop. So I tried to keep my distance, but it was so hard to do when I loved seeing her every day.

My favorite moments were closing time. Every day Indigo would drop by my office to say goodnight. They started off as quick goodbyes in passing, but after a while, they started lasting a little longer. Before I knew it, the drop-bys became sit-downs. Chatting turned to banter and banter turned to deep conversations about Black books, Afrofuturism, our hopes and our dreams.

My inner demisexual could not and would not chill in Indigo’s presence — but I promised myself that nothing would ever happen. It simply couldn’t…right?

Indigo:
Gigi’s smile. Gigi’s laugh. Gigi’s office and our talks that could go on forever and ever. I had never wanted anyone more. After weeks of pining for Gigi, my Aries Moon took the front seat and decided that tonight was the night. I was finally going to tell Gigi how I felt.

When closing time came and everyone else left, I made my way to Gigi’s door following the sound of the light bossa nova coming from her office. I took a deep breath, trying to quiet my nerves, and I stepped inside.

Gigi:
Indigo stood in my office doorway wearing a striped T-shirt tucked into skinny jeans. With each shaky breath she took, the curve of her breasts moved up and down.

My body reacted to her presence, goosebumps springing up on my arms. Indigo opened her mouth and then closed it. She cleared her throat and then said nothing.

I could tell she was nervous. I saw her stepping into the inevitable, hanging herself off a cliff to see if I would catch her. I decided to catch her where she stood, and there was only one way I knew I could do that.

Indigo:
“Indigo, it’s okay,” Gigi said, standing up from her desk, showing off the chic pink pantsuit that I loved. Gigi came around her desk, and within a few graceful steps, she was standing right in front of me.

“Indigo,” she murmured, her voice sultry and low. “Tell me what you want from me…. I need — I need to hear you say it.”

I cleared my throat and kept my eyes on hers — the heat palpable between us.

“Well, I want… I want you,” I admitted, exhaling finally, my shoulders relaxing, my body loosening in the moment. I felt fully present and sharp. Ready for anything.

Gigi stepped forward then and held the base of my chin between two soft fingers. “Oh, beloved, that’s all I needed to hear.”

Gigi held my chin in her fingers and walked me back against the door, gently closing it behind us. We looked at each other for a moment more, bossa nova continuing to fill the office in slow, sultry tones, and then finally, finally, she stepped forward, and I met her halfway.

Gigi:
When our lips met, they were soft and slightly wet. I switched my hand from Indigo’s chin to her cheek and stroked its softness while I kissed her. It was tentative at first, but then we caught each other’s rhythm. I pushed Indigo harder against the door, and she returned my kiss with equal excitement. She brought her hand up to my hair gently, pulling at a clump of my curls, pulling me down to her lips.

I opened her mouth with my tongue and glided it over hers, slippery and voluptuous. Indigo took my full tongue into her mouth and sucked on it before pulling away and biting my lip. I couldn’t stop myself from moaning into her mouth.

Indigo backed away suddenly and looked up at me with mischief in her eyes. “Mmm, I’m going to need to hear that sound again.”

With her back still pressed to the door, Indigo slid down to her knees. She watched me the whole time, the fluorescence from the ceiling lights creating dew drops of white in her brown eyes.

“Do you know how sexy you are? How hard its been to wait to have you in my mouth?”

I felt my cheeks flame and I found myself stuttering, suddenly flustered and jittery. Oh, how the tables turn.

“I’m going to taste you now,” Indigo said, but she waited to pull down my pants until I gave a nod of consent, my body trembling from the heat, my nipples hard behind my blazer.

Indigo pulled down my pants and my panties together like they were one skin, and before I could say anything else, she plunged her face and tongue into my pussy.

Indigo:
Gigi’s clit was juicy and tender in my mouth as I glided my tongue over and under it. I went slow at first to see what she liked, and as I discovered her preference for tongue flicks and long, luxurious counterclockwise circles, I intensified each movement. I was rewarded with each new moan cascading from her throat.

As Gigi got closer and closer, I moved my hands to her ass and encouraged her to buck into my mouth. She took the note, tangling her hands in my braids and rubbing her slickness across my lips.

“Oh my god” she said suddenly. “Oh my god oh my — fuck. I’m so close.”

I moved my nose up to catch a breath of air, knowing I’d need it, and then I sucked her clit into my mouth while running my tongue across it again and again. Her cries intensified, and I was surprised to hear my own whimpers. My legs clenched below me, and I used the friction from my skinny jeans to get myself closer and closer.

Suddenly, Gigi crumbled over me, legs buckling, her hands still in my hair, and just as I expected, I felt myself orgasm in unison. Our moans were call and response, our bodies constellations — our quivering limbs splayed everywhere in glorious ecstasy.

Gigi:
As I floated back down to earth, I looked down and saw Indigo curled up against the door like a question mark, her eyes closed and her chest making deep rises and falls. My hand was still holding her hair and her hand was still clutching my thigh like I was her rock.

I unfurled us gently, releasing her hand before taking it into my own, sidling down on the floor beside her. I wrapped my arm around her and tipped her head onto my shoulder.

She looked up at me with those big, brown eyes. I took her in, overwhelmed with gratitude for the overwhelming pleasure in this moment. Indigo cleared her throat and took a deep breath, breaking the silence.

“To be honest… I don’t know what’s hotter…this moment or the job security.”

We looked at each other then, Indigo’s eyes glinting with mischief — and then we burst out laughing.

I tried to cover my face, but she took my hands down and brought them to her lips.

“You…are very sexy,” she murmured. I watched her kiss my hands for a moment more, and then I slid them out of her grasp.

“You —” I started, moving in between her legs. “You are magnificent, and I intend to spend the rest of the night showing you how much I think so.”

Indigo bit her bottom lip and draped her braids over one shoulder before settling back against the door. Her eyes: a challenge. I smiled.

S L I C K: Thank You, Mistress

Content notes: bondage, flogging, D/s, name-calling, hand sex
You’re tied naked to my four-poster bed, spread eagle, face down. Your firm, supple ass sits in front of me. I stand with my brand new black and red leather flogger, ready to be broken in.

You wait in anticipation, not knowing when the first hit will come or how long I will beat you for. All you know is that your ass is begging for it, aching for it.

You have a low pain tolerance, but that’s okay. I can work with that. It’s not about causing the most pain or smacking as hard as I can. It’s about getting a reaction out of you and guiding you gently, but firmly, to your limit.

I want to hear your gasps, your moans, your grunts and your groans.

I want to hear you count each spank and thank me for them.

And when you’re done, I want to hear your sigh and moan as I sink my finger into your soft cunt, wet and dripping from your spanking, like a dirty girl.

You whimper under your restraints, growing impatient. “Please.”

“Can’t wait for it, can you?” I say teasingly.

I snap the flogger in the air, making you jump.

You feel the soft tails of the toy trailing up and down your ass. You arch into the feeling.

“So eager,” I say in a deeper voice.

I gently thud the flogger against your ass, not enough to hurt, just enough to start a rhythm and build up sensation.

“Do you want to get spanked, baby?” I ask.

“Mmm,” you whimper. “Yes, Mistress.”

“Good girl,” I praise.

I bring the flogger down on both your cheeks, smacking enough to surprise you. You gasp.

“Count them,” I order.

“One,” you gasp.

“Thank me for it. Properly.”

“Thank you…Mistress.”

“Good girl,” I say, pleased.

I flog you again, hard.

“Two.” You pause. “Thank you, Mistress.”

Again.

“Three. Thank you, Mistress.”

Your ass looks so beautiful taking these hits from me. Every smack makes your ass grow pinker with color. I hit you again. You moan a little.

“Four.” You compose yourself. “Thank you, Mistress.”

I love the way your perfect ass jiggles when it’s hit. The way it bounces up and down a little bit, returning to place. I bring the flogger down on your backside, and you groan.

“Five.” You swallow. “Thank you, Mistress.”

I place the flogger down.

You feel my hands massage your perky pink ass and you moan out.

“I can see your pretty wet pussy all spread out from here. Are you wet, baby? Did you like that?” I tease.

You whimper. “Yes, Mistress.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“Yes, Mistress,” you say louder.

“Better,” I say. “I think you can take some more, what do you think, baby?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Beg for it.”

“Please spank me, Mistress.”

I smack you hard with my hand.

“Oh!” you cry, surprised.

“Count.”

“Six!” you say, desperate. “Thank you, Mistress!”

Smack. “Seven… Thank you, Mistress…” I spank you hard until you’re moaning. “Eight, nine, ten…”

“Good girl,” I praise. “Ten spanks. I’m impressed.”

“Thank you, Mistress,” you say, eager.

“Why don’t we find out how wet that made you?” I tease you. You whimper. I stroke a gentle finger up your wet slit, and it makes you moan and shiver.

“God, baby, you’re so wet. Fuck.”

I’m in awe. You’re breathing harder now, arching your hips to try to get my finger to stroke your clit. “Tsk, tsk. Not yet, baby. God, you’re so desperate for it. Do you want my fingers in you, baby? Do you want me to touch your clit?”

You nod eagerly, feeling desperate. “Yes,” you pant. “Please. Fuck. Please.”

“Please, what?” I demand.

“Please, Mistress. Please fuck me, Mistress.”

You pull on your restraints, but they hold tight. I tease up and down your slit slowly, watching how your whole body trembles under my touch. I bring my finger to your sensitive bud and stroke in circles, enjoying the sounds you make. You moan and gasp. “Please.” You pause, and hurriedly add, “Mistress.”

“Do you want me to fuck you, baby?”

“Yes, Mistress. Oh God. Please, Mistress. Please fuck me.”

“Fuck you like what?”

This makes you pause and flush in embarrassment. You like this word in bed, but it takes courage for you to use it for yourself.

Shyly, you say, “Fuck me like a slut, Mistress.”

I groan. “That’s a good slut.”

I slowly slip my finger into your wet opening, relishing in the beautiful sounds you give me. You’re panting and moaning, saying, “Oh fuck” and “Oh God.”

“I’m not your God — I’m your Mistress,” I say, amused.

“Oh fuck, oh, Mistress, your finger feels so good in my pussy, oh my God, oh, Mistress.”

“You’re so fucking wet.”

“Oh, Mistress, you made me wet. You made me wet like a dirty little slut.” You’re desperate.

“My little slut. Do you hear me, girl? You’re mine,” I growl.

You moan. “Yes! I’m yours! I’m yours, Mistress. My pussy is yours. Please fuck my pussy.”

I let another finger sink into your slick, soft cunt, feeling you clench around me. You feel my fingers curl inside you, hitting that perfect spot of pleasure that you love so much, pulling loud and louder sounds from your throat.

“God, fuck. Oh. Oh, oh, oh, ohhhh.”

You pull on your restraints, moaning and panting. You’re so desperate for it, so needy and wet. Your moans grow louder and louder with every stroke of my fingers inside you. I let my thumb reach up to stroke your aching clit, and I rock my hand back and forth, fucking you and rubbing your clit.

“Oh fuck, Mistress. Oh fuck. Just like that. Yeah. Just like that. Don’t stop. Don’t stop…” you whine.

I grip your sore, red ass with my free hand and spank occasionally, drawing moans from you.

“Do you like this, you little slut? You like being tied up and fucked like a dirty little whore?”

I’ve never called you a whore in bed before. I didn’t even mean to, really. It just slipped out. I don’t know what you’re going to say, but I feel your wet pussy clench on my fingers and you let a small moan slip out.

“Fuck,” I groan. “Did you like that? Do you like being called my whore?”

A strangled moan escapes your throat, like you’re trying to muffle it. “Mistress, please…” you whine.

“Say it.”

“Uh,” you moan. “I, um, like… being called a whore,” you admit, flushing hot in embarrassment. Your pussy clenches tighter around me.

“Fuck, baby.” I feel pleasure twist inside me. “Fuck, I can feel your little pussy clenching around my fingers like a good little whore.”

“God, Mistress, please…”

Your cheeks and ears burn red.

I give your clit extra attention and lean closer to your ear, lowering my voice.

“Do you want to cum for me like a whore?” I ask huskily.

“Ohhh,” you moan. “Mistress. Please.” I feel you grind yourself into my fingers, and I sit back in awe as you fuck yourself on my hand.

“You’re such a slut.”

“Yes, Mistress. Your slut. Your whore. Ugh. Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me…” you start repeating yourself, over and over.

I growl and fuck you harder, stroking your clit with my thumb and bringing you right to that delicious edge, keeping you there.

“Do you like this? Do you like being a needy little whore for me?”

“Yes, Mistress!” you cry.

“Cum for me, then. Cum for me like a greedy little whore, so needy and desperate.”

You gasp, screaming as the orgasm overtakes you and your whole body tenses and shudders from the pleasure. I fuck you through it all. Finally, when I feel your orgasm stop pulsing through your cunt, I pull my fingers from you.

“Fuck…” you pant.

“Did you like that?”

You sigh. “Yes, Mistress.”

“That’s a good girl,” I say. “Do you want me to untie you?”

“Yes, please, Mistress,” you say, a smile on your lips.

S L I C K: Sharing the Moon

Content notes: heightened senses, outdoor sex, cunnilingus
They’ve been here before, though not in this very woods. This is the game they play when the moon is full and when Christina’s instincts, usually dormant, awaken. The urge to hunt, to possess, becomes too strong to ignore. In a past life, Heather might have bucked at the change — the color of Christina’s eyes turning gold, her inhuman strength, speed and sense — but the fear was all gone now. All that remained was the chase.

Heather paused, panting against a tall pine. She had been running since dusk, and the night had soon fallen, swift and unyielding. She tried to quiet her breath to listen for any signs of approach — leaves underfoot, clothes rustling, a howl, but she heard nothing but the gentle sounds of the forest, the babble of a far-off brook. The moon was an imposing, full presence in an otherwise peaceable sea of stars.

She inhaled deeply and made to run again, but she was stopped by hands around her waist, pulling her in. Heather held in a surprised scream — it was impossible to get away from the grip, but she found she didn’t want to, especially when warm breath fanned across her neck and lips.

“I’ve caught you, little bird,” said a voice Heather would know anywhere, in any situation, in any woods. It was deeper now, a little rumbly at the edges, but still. She felt the nip of Christina’s teeth, the intention to mark.

“Chris,” Heather said, her voice caught between a whine and a moan. “Chris.”

Christina smiled that sharp, almost too sharp, smile. She pulled Heather into the cradle of her hips. “You ran so well, little bird. I nearly lost you.” She nosed her way into the soft place where Heather’s neck and shoulder met and inhaled. “Too bad you wanted to be caught, huh?”

Heather rocked back into Christina’s touch — she knew this push-and-pull. “You’re the one who chased me. I think you’re the desperate one.”

Instead of the rebuttal Heather was expecting, Christina laughed. “I think you’re right,” she said, and —

Suddenly, there were hands, one sliding up her stomach to the sparse patch of hair there, and one moving down, down, stopping at the wet spot right above her clit. Heather felt that deeply familiar pulse of arousal and felt herself grow wetter. “Chris,” she said again. She couldn’t help herself. “Chris, please.” She knew that Christina — this version of her, anyway — could smell her desire, that she didn’t need to say anything, but Heather couldn’t help it. Perhaps she, too, was changed on these nights. A little freer, a little wilder.

“Shh, baby,” Christina said, moving the hand on Heather’s stomach up to her chest. “I’ve got you,” she said while slipping her hand underneath Heather’s sports bra to squeeze a full breast gently.

Heather felt more than heard Christina’s moan — it was deep in her chest, like a rumble, like a growl. “Fuck, I love your tits,” she said. Heather wanted to cry out, to beg for more, but she couldn’t form the words. Christina finally, finally, slipped her fingers down to the source of Heather’s wet pulsing arousal.

Christina gathered some up, brought it to her lips and tasted. “Fuck,” she groaned again. There was no holding herself back any longer. Christina needed Heather’s pleasure — she craved it more than anything she’d ever had before. She knew she was being a little too rough, but she heard no complaints, and so Christina only tempered herself enough to avoid leaving bruises.

Heather quickly found herself with her back against the tree. Christina fell to her knees in front of her and tugged Heather’s pants down, only enough so that Heather could spread her legs and whine.

Christina leaned forward and buried her face in those dark, soaking curls. Using her thumb and forefinger, she spread Heather open. Heather squirmed but said nothing about being embarrassed, not like she would have all those years ago when Christina would have to hold her hips down with an arm to even look. She’d say, baby, you’re so beautiful, just let me see.

Not now, no, now Heather rocked her hips forward, seeking friction, seeking anything that would resolve the hot, deep-seated feeling in her gut. Christina could never deny Heather anything, and she kissed the rounds of her hips before she began her worship with long, curling motions of her tongue. Christina couldn’t help but dip inside that slit, gather honey on her tongue, taste her love in her most natural form.

Heather needed more, though, and Christina would give it to her. She had to give it to her. It was the only way to resolve this feeling of being too big for her skin, too large to contain. With one last fuck of her tongue inside, she moved to suck gently at Heather’s pink clit. Christina’s other hand gathered wetness on two fingers and slid inside, searching for that spot that made Heather clutch at her hair and say, “Oh, oh, oh, fuck. Fuck.”

Christina rumbled again, that thing not quite like a growl, but not totally human, either.

She flicked her tongue and moved her fingers faster, adding a third when she felt Heather’s hole, so warm and soft, give to more. They picked up a familiar rhythm. Heather, having nothing to hold her down, started to ride Christina’s fingers with more urgency. She had no words left inside her except Chris and fuck and baby, make me come, please make me come.

Christina’s fingers started to coax, her mouth working harder, her tongue lapping up all the delicious taste of Heather’s cunt. Heather moaned continuously, tried to hold eye contact with Christina, with those beautiful golden eyes, but she couldn’t. She was so close. Her pleasure came over her in a wave, her knees shaking, but Christina didn’t let up; she never did. Not until a second wave, somehow more profound and gushing, came over Heather and her knees gave out, shaking. Christina licked and licked, shoving her tongue as deep inside Heather as it would go, and it still wasn’t enough to sate her.

Heather floated. She could feel the now overstimulating rough drags of tongue as Christina let not one drop of her release go to waste. She heard, “Sleep now, little bird. I have you.” And let the darkness and exhaustion wash over her.

Heather awoke in clean clothes, back at the campsite. Christina was stroking her hair softly and humming an unfamiliar tune. Heather opened her eyes and smiled. Christina looked down at her and ran her thumb across Heather’s lower lip.

She grinned, a little crooked, a little silly. “Again?” she asked. Again.

S L I C K: Dream a Little Dream

Content notes: fantasy, masturbation, sex toys
She couldn’t see her lover’s face, but she could feel them. Hands teasingly ghosting over her hair, her arms and her breasts until — finally — fingers sank into her plush hips. She rolled her neck to the side to receive kisses from their soft lips.

As hard as she tried to look up at her lover, there was something about the soft light in her dark room that obscured their face. But she was being touched so sweetly — she couldn’t really find it in her to care. Maybe she was dreaming, she thought to herself with a smile. This lover knew how to make her feel good in all the right ways.

Each kiss felt like a promise of what was to come, passionate at first, but then their teeth raked across the delicate skin on her neck, and she couldn’t help but gasp.

She bucked her hips, hoping to meet her lover’s and find friction, but their hands kept her in place, gripping possessively. She whined at the lack of contact in the one place she wanted.

In response, they placed their palm against her, allowing her to grind slowly. Their other hand traveled across the wide expanse of her stomach before coming to one of her breasts and pinching her nipple.

Normally, she would be self-conscious with so much focus on her. Their silence was deafening, causing her to pay attention to all of the noises she was making with each thrust against them. With someone else, she might have tried to reach out and touch them to make this experience less one-sided. But something told her that her lover was getting as much out of this as she was. This was exactly what they wanted.

She felt her own wetness against their hand, allowing her to move faster with more soft moans tumbling out of her mouth along with the mounting pleasure. Then their hand pulled away, and a squeeze on her thigh stilled her.

“Good girl,” they whispered into her ear, sending shivers down her spine.

And then, finally, finally…finally, they relented, slowly pushing a finger inside. She felt her tight walls stretch around them. As they pulled out, they curled up to hit her g-spot. There was no teasing this time as they continued to push in and out of her, faster and faster.

She went silent, trying to keep up with how good she felt, but their pace was overwhelming and was soon going to bring her over the edge. All she wanted to do was to come for them. Just a little closer and…

-Beep Beep Beep-

Gia woke up with a start in the darkness of her apartment. With a groan, she flipped over and checked her phone.

6:30 a.m.

She still had time before she had to get ready for work, and she was feeling unfulfilled after her dream was cut short. She couldn’t figure out whether she was more disappointed that her lover only existed in her mind or that she didn’t get to come.

Without thinking, her hand trailed down — she was still slick. Her fingers slowly circled her clit, and she shuddered from the stimulation. Gia screwed her eyes shut, trying to bring back the lover from her dream.

If they were here, how would they want to take her now?

Gia reached over to her bedside table, pulling open a drawer and grabbing her favorite suction vibe.

She imagined her dream lover slowly lowering themself down between her legs. Parting her folds, she nestled the toy up against her clit. With one press of a button, it began to suck. Gia tensed at the sensation. Her mouth fell open, wordless and gasping for air. In her mind, she saw her dream lover between her thighs. She dug her short fingernails into the soft skin there, just like they would.

Gia couldn’t help but moan softly as the toy provided constant pressure. She experimented with circling her hips, and in the right spot, she felt like their tongue was there, closed tightly around her clit. Gia kept a hand firm on the toy in the same way she would hold their head. She inhaled sharply as she pinched her nipples with her other hand.

Arching her back, Gia felt too much and not enough all at once. Missing that friction, she flipped herself over onto her stomach so she could grind against the toy. Her hips rocked forward. Gia cried out as she pictured herself sitting on their face. She was on top, but they were still in charge of her pleasure.

She could feel herself letting go as she chased release. Her thrusts into the bed grew more erratic. In her mind, she was riding them shamelessly, breathing heavily.

Then all of a sudden, that familiar tight feeling right before climax started to build from her core. It felt inevitable, and this time she wouldn’t be interrupted. As that feeling bloomed out, she stifled her cries into her pillow, and let her hair fall to cover her face.

“Please,” she whispered, begging for it even though her dream lover wasn’t there to hear her.

And that’s all it took for her to fall over the edge. Gia shook as she came, with her back arched and her thighs tight around the toy. She continued to grind down as the aftershock of her orgasm passed through her. If her lover were there with her now, they would be sucking every last drop out of her.

After a few blissful moments, it began to be too much. Now overstimulated, she reached down to grab the toy, now dripping with her own arousal. Setting it to the side, she stretched her arms up above her head, letting her hands graze across her breasts one last time. She shivered and smiled, letting the image of her dream lover float out of her mind for now.

Satisfied and pleased with herself, she was ready to start her day. Most of all, she couldn’t wait to go back to sleep that night.

S L I C K: Cass Auto Repairs

Content notes: finger fucking, nipple play, butch/femme

Noa exited her Uber and paused in front of Cass Auto Repairs, eyes focused on the neon sign with the place’s name above. It was 6:50pm, ten minutes before closing time. Half the shop was shut closed, except for the side entrance. Noa pulled on the hem of the ridiculously short sundress she had slipped on despite the cold night winds. Her jean jacket did very little to keep her warm, but she had chosen the dress because it made her feel sexy, and if she was going to ask out her mechanic, the hottest woman she had ever met, she had to look her best.

She walked with wobbly legs (the platform shoes might have been overkill) through the entrance to the garage. She was greeted with the sight of Cass in her gray coveralls standing over her 1990 Mazda Miata’s popped hood, hands on her narrow hips, her muscular arms straining against the sleeves. The mechanic turned and gave Noa a warm smile. Noa immediately felt a familiar throbbing between her legs, the one she got whenever she laid eyes on Cass.

“Hey,” Cass greeted her customer.

“Hey.”

“I told you I’d be done in time for your sister’s wedding,” Cass said smugly, smirking at her.

Noa had to make a conscious effort not to sigh dreamily when they made eye contact. The throbbing increased, and despite her exposed legs, she started feeling hot. Three weeks and six meetings later, Noa hadn’t gotten used to Cass’ light brown eyes, her high cheekbones and her curly undercut with the single strand that always hung over her forehead.

“I never doubted you,” Noa replied earnestly. She got another smile on return. She could feel herself getting wetter by the second.

“So, to recap, I fixed the transmission, replaced the busted headlights….”

Noa zoned out as Cass explained all the changes and upgrades to the car. It’s not like she would understand much of what Cass said. Noa had always had someone else deal with her car troubles — usually a friend, a girlfriend or her father when he was in town. But after a car wreck that ended with a bottle of red wine bursting all over her backseat, Noa needed a professional, and a professional she found. Cass had treated her as nothing more than a customer, albeit attentively. Meanwhile, Noa would leave the garage flustered and with her panties drenched each time.

“Do you mind if I change real quick before we look over the final bill?” Cass asked, wiping her grease-stained hands on her muscular thighs. Noa shook her head, afraid of how her voice might sound when she was this turned on. 

Cass left her alone with her car, and Noa finally gave the Miata a good look. Everything on the outside was done better than she could have imagined. The paint job was immaculate. All the bumps and indentations were gone. She opened one of the rear doors and gave the new upholstery a long look. It didn’t seem like the car she had crashed on the way to her sister’s engagement party. She ducked her head inside and relished the new car smell coming from her 30-year-old vehicle.

Someone cleared their throat behind her. Noa froze.

“Everything look good?” 

Noa started backing out of the car as she replied, very aware that her ass was in full display. Her hands reached back to pull on her dress, afraid that it had ridden up and caused her to moon Cass. She wanted to seduce her crush, not flash her.

“Y-yeah. It looks amazing. I don’t know how you pulled it off, b-“ Noa stood upright and turned to face the mechanic, only to find herself inches away from her beautiful face. She took a step back and stumbled on her excessively high platforms. Cass grabbed her waist and pulled her forward, a bit too hard, hard enough that Noa istumbled into Cass’ arms, holding onto her shoulders, their faces inches away. 

Noa’s eyes darted in all directions, looking for a safe spot to focus her sight on, but there was nowhere else to look, not when the world’s hottest mechanic was embracing her. Without the coveralls and with most of the grease scrubbed off her body, Cass smelled like oranges. The throbbing that had faded between Noa’s legs came back in full force at the feel of Cass’s hands on her waist and her sinewy arms around her.

“Noa?”

“Mh-hm?” Noa replied, eyes fixed on Cass’s left temple, pretending like she couldn’t feel Cass’ warm breath on her face.

“I apologize if I’ve been reading things very wrong, but can I kiss you?”

Something snapped in Noa’s mind. Her vagina, which clenched almost painfully at the question, must have taken over because she found herself grabbing Cass’s angular face and pressing her lips against hers. Cass returned the kiss immediately, pulling Noa closer. Noa had no idea how long it had been before they pulled away, out of breath. They shared a coy smile before bringing their lips together again and again. Cass bit on Noa’s lower lip, and Noa sighed contently, opening her mouth to deepen the kiss. 

Cass pushed Noa against the car, shoving her jean-clad knee under her skirt and between her legs. Noa started rocking herself against her, moaning into her mouth at the friction on her slit. Her hands slid from Cass’s wide cheekbones towards her small breasts. She squeezed them softly. No bra. Cass hummed encouragingly, prompting her to grab them harder, feeling the hardened nipples under her palms. She rubbed her thumbs over them, and Cass responded by grabbing Noa’s ass and pulling her higher up her thigh. 

Cass then moved away from Noa’s lips and started kissing her way to Noa’s earlobe, giving it a soft bite. Noa whimpered. Cass pulled her knee away and ran her hand up Noa’s inner thigh, pausing to await permission. Noa granted it by grabbing Cass’ hand and placing it over her sex firmly. Cass chuckled and brought her other hand under the skirt, hooking her fingers on one side of her customer’s thong to move it away while she ran two fingers over the dripping slit between Noa’s legs. Noa threw her head back and gasped.

“So sensitive,” Cass whispered, running her fingers up and down Noa’s labia until they were drenched. She teased her opening and Noa whined, opening her legs further. Cass pushed deep inside her, relishing in the sounds that came from both pairs of Noa’s lips. The hand that remained unoccupied grabbed Noa’s inner thigh, pulling her open.

As Cass’ fingers entered her over and over, Noa’s moans became progressively louder as she reached her peak in a personal record. Cass felt her tightening and sped up, watching Noa shudder and whimper as she neared her climax. Cass pressed her thumb against her clit and rubbed a few circles. That was all it took for Noa to come around her fingers, gasping.

Noa placed her hand over Cass’ wrist, and Cass removed her fingers, bringing them up to her lips and licking them clean. 

Noa grabbed Cass’ face again, sliding her tongue into her mouth, tasting herself. She turned them around, gently pushing Cass inside the open car. Cass had to lie across the backseat with her legs hanging out the side of the vehicle. Noa crawled on top of her. She kissed Cass deeply, raising Cass’s plain t-shirt to her chin, exposing her breasts. Noa grabbed Cass’ left breast firmly and wrapped her lips around the right one’s pebbled nipple. Cass sighed as Noa licked and sucked on it, pinching and pulling the opposite nipple at the same rhythm. 

Noa then switched sides, playing with the right breast. Cass moaned her name, burying her hand in Noa’s hair. Noa heard Cass undo her button and pull down her zipper. Noa slid her hand from the breast she was caressing down Cass’ navel and into Cass’ underwear. She buried her fingers in the dark locks of her mound and softly ran her finger up and down her clit, teasing. Cass pulled her hair gently, guiding Noa’s mouth from her breast to her mouth for a kiss. 

Noa pressed down harder on Cass’ clit, this time with two fingers. Noa rubbed circles over the swollen bud, and Cass’ deep moan egged her on. She massaged Cass’ tongue with hers, swallowing her moans. Noa slid her fingers further down, opening her lips and stuffing a finger into Cass’ wet hole. She stroked her walls slowly until she found Cass’ G-spot and added another finger. Cass started pushing her hips down to meet Noa’s fingers, bringing her deeper inside her. Noa sped up as Cass whimpered “yes” in her ear repeatedly. She felt Cass tighten around her fingers and added a third, pulling in and out in short and quick strokes. Cass came hard, squeezing her fingers until she couldn’t move them.

When Cass finally relaxed around her fingers, Noa pulled them out, bringing them to her mouth as Cass had done before. Cass laughed and pulled Noa in for a sloppy kiss.

“Was it worth the wait?” Cass asked her.

“Huh?”

“Don’t play dumb. You’ve wanted me since the first time we met.”

Noa felt her face warm up. She chuckled awkwardly.

“That obvious, huh?”

“Kinda.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You were my customer; I wasn’t gonna make the first move. I did try to let you know I was interested, though.”

“You did?”

Cass belly-laughed, wrapping her arm around Noa’s waist.

“You actually thought I needed you to come down here every time I had a question?”

S L I C K: May the Best Girlfriend Win

Content notes: remote control vibrators, exhibitionism, public orgasms, bathroom sex
It began with a somewhat ridiculous suggestion from Alex.

“I have the perfect way to spice up our three-year anniversary,” she had proclaimed with the same cocky little grin she’d flashed when they first met.

There was little difference even three years later, really. Her bright green eyes still sparked with mischief, and they were almost always paired with smokey eyeshadow that shouldn’t be seen outside a nightclub. Though her naturally blonde hair was no longer dyed purple-pink, but a dark maroon, she changed it so frequently, it was a moot point. Alex still looked like the same girl who seemed to walk straight out of Lila’s teenage fantasies, especially when she smirked like this.

Just like the first time, that smile made Lila frustrated and flustered in equal measure. But Lila was much more practiced at maintaining indifference now, so she merely raised a wary brow as the meaning of the words hit her.

“What do you have in mind, exactly?”

Alex was, by far, the more adventurous of the two, in pretty much every way. Spicing things up could mean anything from skydiving to auditioning for American Idol to attending a BDSM club.

“We should have a competition to see who can make each other come more times in one day!”

Even though Lila had been prepared for something fairly ridiculous, she still spluttered at this bold statement. A flush bloomed on her cheeks, and Alex’s cocky grin only grew cockier at the sight.

Alex’s next words were delivered with all the confidence of a woman who had, in fact, made her come half a dozen times in one night. “Not that it will be much of a competition, no offense. But the loser is hardly losing much.”

Alex gave a lascivious wink and licked her lips, which would’ve typically made Lila grow redder — and she did, only it was more from indignation. So Alex thought she was going to win this stupid competition just like that, huh?

Maybe it was the two glasses of wine she’d had with dinner, but Lila was feeling quite bold herself. “Don’t count me out yet, darling. I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve that will have you screaming in defeat yet!”

Alex’s face lit up in delight at her challenge.

“This is going to be the best anniversary ever.”

---

As Lila woke up to Alex’s fingers stroking at her thighs and her mouth over hers, utterly heedless of morning breath, she had to agree. She didn’t even care that her girlfriend was being way too smug about snatching the first point of the day for their game. It was hard to be a sore loser when basking in the afterglow of an orgasm. At least she managed to return the favor and get a point too, once she recovered.

Unfortunately, Lila’s pliable state earlier that morning proved to be a mistake, especially as she found herself squirming in her seat during a sudden weekend video call with her coworkers. She appeared on the screen alongside the rest of her team with her black hair tied back, wearing a white silk blouse and a black blazer and looking normal, if slightly nervous. It was all quite an elaborate ruse though, one she was likely to give away at any moment. Because Alex held the controller to the vibrating panties that Lila beneath her skirt, and Alex was not afraid to use it.

Alex had evidently bought the vibrating panties just for today. She thought this would be the perfect start to their little game, and they could trade off controlling it today, starting with Lila first, of course — just in time for her morning meeting.

Why had she agreed to any of this again? Lila blamed the early morning muddling her brain, not to mention that first orgasm Alex had immediately drawn out of her.

This was leading up to her second.

The little vibrator rested just against her clit in the perfect spot, creating the most pleasurable kind of torture. Lila tried not to squirm too much, though it was a bit of a lost cause. She hoped she didn’t look too flushed. It was a good thing her webcam wasn’t the highest quality. The meeting was dragging on forever, but her girlfriend was clearly not going to wait for it to be over. In the corner of her eye, she could see Alex smirking at her with the remote in hand.

The moment their eyes met, Alex’s smirk widened, and all of a sudden, the vibrations jumped up in intensity, making Lila jump as well. Her climax crashed through her with all the subtlety of a freight train, and a stunned scream slipped from her mouth before she could stop it.

Everyone on screen seemed to freeze, including her.

The vibrator continued to whirr along, thankfully at a much lower intensity, but still a bit too much for her sensitive state. Lila’s pussy was still trembling from the aftershocks, and her pale skin was flushed red. She forced a smile onto her reddened face, saying quickly, “S-Sorry, everyone! I, uh, thought I saw a spider.”

If anyone questioned this, they kept it to themselves, and the meeting continued on with only a slight hitch. The spider in question didn’t even bother to hide her chuckle. Lila glared, but she couldn’t do much more without further arousing suspicion from the others.

It’s going be a long day, Lila thought as she felt the vibrations increase in intensity once more.

Thankfully for Lila’s poor nerves, the meeting ended quickly. The moment the video feed cut, she tackled Alex — it was time to for Lila to earn some more points herself.

It was rare for Lila to be so aggressive with her affections, but judging by the moans coming from her girlfriend’s mouth as she kissed along her neck and slipped her hands beneath her shirt, there were zero complaints about this switch in dynamics. Lila was still wound up from all the teasing after her second orgasm.

It didn’t help that the vibrator inside her was still buzzing along, though the remote had dropped to the floor at some point. The constant vibrations, coupled with how they were basically dry humping each other like teenagers, meant that Lila still managed to come before Alex did.

“T-That’s another point for me,” Alex broke off their kiss to say. “I’m definitely in the lead now.”

“Not for long!” Lila huffed before getting down on her knees, determined to gain a point or two herself now.

She was as good as her word, licking and sucking at her girlfriend’s shaved cunt enthusiastically. Afterward, Lila got up on slightly shaky knees, her mouth still tasting of Alex’s cunt and victory, as she was now neck in neck with three points of her own.

Though Alex tried to gain some points herself again, Lila firmly rebuffed the attempts. It was long past lunchtime, after all. Eating her girlfriend out wasn’t quite the same as actually eating out.

---

They enjoyed a late lunch at the cozy diner down the street from their apartment. It was hardly the first time they’d eaten here. But it was undoubtedly the first time they’d eaten with Alex wearing a pair of vibrating panties.

Thankfully for both their reputations, there weren’t too many other customers at this hour. Still, Lila wasn’t eager to reenact a certain infamous scene in When Harry Met Sally by winning a point here.

Mostly, she just wanted to wind Alex up so bad that it would take barely a touch to get her to come once they returned home. Lila kept the vibrations on the low setting while they waited, and she was merciful enough not to touch it at all as they were eating.

Not that it helped much, judging by the look on her girlfriend’s face that she recognized as sexual frustration. Once they were finished eating, in record time too, Alex quickly spoke up, “I think I’m ready for dessert now.”

By the bedroom eyes she was projecting, she didn’t mean the apple pie Lila had been eying, but Lila faked innocence anyway. “Hmm, how about some pie?”

“Not unless I’m eating it off your tits,” Alex grumbled. “This is not how you’re supposed to do this, you know. Why am I sexually frustrated in a game where we get each other off?”

Lila decided to stop teaching and reached for the remote hidden in her bag. Unfortunately, she accidentally flicked it a bit too hard. Just as abruptly as it had with her, the vibrations suddenly jumped up in intensity.

The sound of glass smashing and water splashing onto the ground almost covered up the high-pitched cry that came from Alex’s mouth as she finally came, bent over the table in stunned shock after she accidentally flung her glass onto the floor.

All eyes in the diner were on them, and Lila felt herself flush even harder than Alex at all the attention. A waitress quickly approached to clean up the glass, and the rest of the diners turned their eyes elsewhere again — or at least, Lila thought so. She couldn’t bear to look at them either.

After cleaning up, the waitress looked understandably judgmental as she asked if they wanted the check, and Lila nodded quickly. Once the waitress left, Lila turned towards her girlfriend, who had been uncharacteristically quiet through all this. Then again, as Lila knew from experience, it wasn’t easy to pretend you didn’t just loudly come in front of a bunch of people.

“O-Okay, I deserved that,” Alex eventually said, with a slightly shaky laugh. “But, honestly, I kind of liked it.”

“Of course you did.” Lila held back a sigh as she shook her head. “But I hope you know we’re never going to be able to eat here again.”

Alex laughed. “Worth it.” This time, Lila didn’t hide the exasperated sigh. “You know,” Alex said, raising her brow suggestively, “if we’re never coming back here, we might as well go out with a bang. Literally.”

Lila frowned. “You know everyone can see us here, right? Public indecency laws are a thing.”

“Hey, there are bathrooms here,” Alex pointed out.

“…I hope you realize how dirty these restrooms are.”

“I don’t hear a no.”

Lila merely shrugged, unwilling to say it out loud. The flush on her cheeks said it all, and Alex saw it clear as day. Without another word, she stood up.

“Well, either way, I need to go to the bathroom to clean up. You can do whatever you want,” Alex said. Her wink wasn’t exactly subtle, but she clearly didn’t mean it to be.

As she watched Alex leave, Lila considered staying put out of spite. As much as it annoyed her sometimes when Alex dragged her into stuff, it annoyed her even more when her girlfriend forged ahead and just expected her to follow. But the instinctive shame instilled by her conservative upbringing clashed with the way that Lila was growing embarrassingly wet, and within a few minutes, Lila decided to head to the restroom. As Alex said, they were never coming back here anyway.

---

While the diner was fairly deserted, there were still a few patrons around, and Lila was very aware of them as she reached the door. At least there was nothing obviously strange about her entering the women’s restroom — one of the lesser-known benefits of a homosexual relationship is the comparative ease of fucking in public restrooms.

Lila was able to relax more once she slipped through the door, but she didn’t get to relax for long. As soon as she got inside, Alex practically mauled her. Clearly, her girlfriend was eager to even out the game by earning another point, as her hands snaked a distinct path beneath the waistband of her pants.

Perhaps Lila should’ve been trying to earn a point of her own, but unlike Alex, she cared far less about the game and far more about the pleasure that was steadily building up in her, especially as her girlfriend fervently rubbed circles around her clit. This wasn’t exactly the most comfortable position for either of them, and it definitely wasn’t an appropriate place, but Lila had to admit that was part of the appeal, and she found herself barreling towards her peak faster than ever before.

Of course, this was also the exact moment the distinct sound of someone knocking on the door rang out.

They froze instinctively with Alex’s fingers still deep inside Lila’s cunt and crooked towards that special sweet spot. Their eyes locked, and their expressions slowly morphed from identical shock to their exact opposite. A very familiar smirk grew on Alex’s face. Lila knew her girlfriend well enough to know where this was headed, but even so, she still let out a startled gasp when the fingers inside her started moving again.

“A-Alex!” Lila cried out. “There’s…someone o-outside!”

“Hmm… I think you like that there’s someone just outside, listening in for every little gasp you make,” Alex crooned. “I bet they can hear how wet you are, how my fingers are thrusting so easily…”

Sense and sensation warred with each other. It turned out Lila had more of an exhibitionist side to her than she’d ever expected because it was this little monologue that pushed over the edge. A high-pitched cry slipped from her mouth before it was swallowed by Alex’s lips on hers.

By the time she pulled away, Lila was still seeing stars and feeling relaxed from her orgasm.

“Now, sweetheart. We need to keep quiet, remember?” Alex remarked teasingly.

“Oh, shut up,” Lila shot back without much heat, “I should really pay you back for this, you know. But I don’t think we should be pushing our luck. We’ve been in here long enough.”

Unfortunately, it proved to be too little too late.

The door to the restroom suddenly swung wide open, revealing the very disgruntled-looking manager with a master key in hand. With both of them looking thoroughly rumpled and Alex’s hand literally still down Lila’s pants, it was pretty glaringly obvious what they had been doing.

They were rather summarily kicked out of the diner after that. Lila was seriously considering moving away to avoid crossing this street again. But Alex quite handily distracted her by pretty much dragging Lila home to have her way with her. They spent the rest of the afternoon and night of their three-year anniversary attempting to one-up each other.

By the end, they had lost count, and there was no winner at all. Or rather, they were both winners, really, and the only loss was the fact that they would need to look for a new diner for a quick meal.

S L I C K: Yuletide Fire

Content notes: hand sex, semi-public sex
It is possible that Jules was the most annoying woman on earth. She stood off to the side of the concert-venue-turned-event-space drinking what had to be an obnoxious beer straight from the bottle. Kindred Coffee Company’s holiday party was in full swing, and I felt like I was going to pass out from the heat of the crowd. I gently patted my twist out to see if it was still full and luscious or if it had started to shrink from sweat. Multi-colored lights twinkled from above, and there was a stack of presents for everyone — probably week-old coffee.

I looked up just as Jules was about to take another sip of her sludge. She was wearing all black with a leather jacket. She lifted her beer toward me in a mocking salute.

Of course she’d be here. In a leather jacket of all things. Christ.

I made a show of rolling my eyes at her before smoothing down my dress, careful to adjust the split so that no one got a show — or a free one, at least. What I needed was a drink. ASAP. Especially if I was going to have to talk to her.

I grabbed a place in line at the bar, which had to be made out of recycled wood from a barn or whatever young business owners liked these days. The top was laminated with pennies, and it looked like someone had made a valiant effort in one corner to dig out a few. I waved at the bartender, who was busy handing out beers to the cafe staffers waving their beer tokens like they were betting at a race. I risked a glance at Jules, who was tossing her head back and laughing, oblivious.

Our arguments over the last few weeks had recently come to a head. As Kindred Coffee’s full-time administrator/ sometimes graphic designer/ overall jack-of-all-trades, I wanted to believe in this company to which I dedicated so much time. I had my methods and routines in place so I could focus on bigger things, like getting more diverse art on our marketing materials. But then came Jules, the coffee roaster.

She showed up with deliveries from a small, local roastery and turned everything upside down. She pointed out the lack of diversity in our ads — quite loudly, I might add — and insisted upon having me do the coffee tastings with her and overall caused chaos from the moment she stepped in and smiled that dumbass smile and waved at me with those big ass hands.

I stumbled a bit as someone bumped into me, nearly knocking me out of my heeled boots.

“Hah, sorry ‘bout that!” the kid said. It had to have either been a new hire or a plus-one because I hadn’t seen him before. He was clearly imbibing as much as he could on the free spread, and I couldn’t blame him. I looked back up to see if Jules had seen it because of course I wanted her to be looking at me at all times.

Fuck. Had she disappeared before I could apologize?

Jules had been adamant that Kindred was faking “woke,” and I didn’t want to believe her. Couldn’t believe her. That was until I heard them say a thinly veiled, racist comment to one of our coffee farmers on a work trip. I cringed remembering how I blew up at Jules when she kept pressing the issue, only to be proven wrong later. This was going to suck.

Finally, the bartender was free from pouring beer after beer. I watched as each cup slowly had more foam in it. This man was DONE.

“Can I get um, a…”

“She’s going to get a gin and soda with a lime, but a cucumber would be great if you have it.”

The scent of woodsmoke and lilies and burned coffee was behind me. I turned around and Jules was there with a huge grin and — oh, sweet christ — her black button-up was unbuttoned enough to show a sternum tattoo and the hint of tits. I forced my eyes up. I forced myself to stop thinking if it would be salty if I licked there, or kind of soapy.

“You know my drink?” I asked stupidly, trying to think of anything to say except, “Wanna show each other our nipples?”

She smiled and reached around me to grab my drink. Her plain silver rings clinked against the glass, and our fingers brushed.

“You talked about it enough,” Jules said.

“You must pay a lot of attention to me,” I found myself saying. I hadn’t even had a sip of a drink yet and I was already trying to risk it all.

“Yeah, when you’re not yelling that is.” She winked at me (winked!), and took a sip from her beer. I watched her lips purse and wondered what it would be like to have her lips purse on certain parts of me.

Jules was a wildfire, a real bat out of hell. When she wasn’t laughing she was yelling. She’d flip a long, pink braid over her shoulder and waggle her shaved eyebrows at me when I was upset. She made it seem like life was a huge joke and she was in on it. And I wanted so badly to have just a taste of what that was like. A taste of her.

“Could I actually talk to you about that?” I sipped my drink, wishing that it were stronger or that someone else could apologize for me.

“Of course,” she said. She glanced around the venue. “But not here.”

Without another word, she started walking towards a staircase that clearly had a “no entry” sign on it. I followed her as quickly as I could up to the balcony area that had a few low couches and scattered crates. She plopped down on one of them, spreading her legs and leaning over on her forearms.

“Ok. Shoot.”

I didn’t want to think — I just wanted to words to come out. To make it right somehow. I had been needlessly shitty and no one deserves that.

“Listen,” I said as I tossed back the rest of my drink with a shaky hand. “I was wrong. About everything. The owners, all of it. And I’m sorry I was dismissive of your point of view. ” I could practically feel my hair sweating out. “And I want you to know that I plan to do something about it. I’m not sure when, or what exactly, but mostly, yeah, I’m sorry, and you had a point.”

It was silent for a beat. I must have really pissed her off. She wasn’t saying anything — she was just staring.

“I think I forgive you.” She stood up, setting down her beer at her feet.

“You think?”

“Yeah, I think I can,” Jules repeated, stepping closer. The slight creak of the floors under our feet was the only sound in the world. She stepped closer and glanced down at the deep V-neck of my dress.

“You spilled something, by the way.”

We had done this dance before. The sitting too close, the glances at each other during meetings, the playful shoves, all of it. She’d even requested to follow my Instagram, commenting ridiculous emojis on my photos. She was standing so close, and it was so warm and so silent.

“Do you want me to kiss you, Ronnie?” she asked, and I felt time stop. I nodded.

“Thank fucking god,” she said before grabbing me by the back of my neck and covering my lips with hers.

Her kiss wasn’t some soft and questioning thing — it was hot and insistent. I opened my mouth so I could roll my tongue against hers, tasting beer and gin and citrus.

Jules moaned appreciatively, letting her tongue swirl against mine, gripping my waist with a firm hand, stroking me gently through my dress. I thought, this must be like what it feels to be on fire.

Jules pulled back just enough to graze my jawline with her teeth, moving torturously slow toward her earlobe. “You’re so sweet,” Jules whispered hotly before hungrily flicking her tongue inside.

I thought my legs would buckle. That or I was going to start dripping on the floor. The fabric of this dress didn’t really allow for panties. I reached up and did what I had been wanting to do since I first saw her — I thrust my hands into her hair and pulled. She hissed and nipped my lip. Somehow, her thigh had found itself between my legs. I was trying my best to not dry hump her where we stood. Jules seemed to notice my predicament. Leaning in closer still, she whispered, “I want to see how wet you are for me, babe.”

Forget “dry” humping at this point. I knew I was slick and ready and had been since the moment I followed her up the stairs.

“Come here,” she said. She led me toward the back of the balcony area, where a few empty boxes were scattered and the lights from down below didn’t quite reach this corner. She gently backed me toward the wall.

“This ok?” she asked, forehead pressed to mine.

“Mmmm,” was all I could get out. I nodded. Then I grabbed her hand and placed it high on my inner thigh; an invitation.

“Fucking hell, Ron,” she said, her voice shaky. She ran calloused fingers up until she found out just how fucking wet I was for her. She dropped her head onto my shoulder.

“I think you’re going to kill me,” she laughed. She smiled at me then and held my gaze as she started caressing my pussy, gliding through the wetness. My pussy lips were swollen and sensitive. I needed more. Way more.

“I think you can do better than that,” I said. Jules took the hint and dove two fingers in me, slowly thrusting. “You,” she said, eyes pouring into mine, “Are something else.”

I was trying to not make more sound than was necessary, but that’s hard when your crush has you against the wall, finger-fucking you into oblivion while kissing your neck.

I was about to cum. On Jules’ hand. In a hipster-ass music venue during a work holiday party.

“Still feeling good?” she asked. I knew what I needed to get me over the edge, to send me flying out of my god damned mind.

“Rub me a little softer, with the heel of your palm, please,” I said, panting. She did exactly that. One, two, three pules of gentle pressure, and I passed away on the spot. Deceased. Stars behind my eyelids. The whole shebang.

I wrapped my arms around her neck and buried my face in it, inhaling deeply.

“Did I ever tell you you smell really nice?” I said into her hair, coming back down to earth.

“Did I ever tell you you taste good?” she responded, and I watched her put those same fingers in her mouth. She gave them a slow lick too, for good measure.

This woman was out to kill me. I knew it.

“I’m gonna go clean up,” I said, laughing and making my way toward the stairs.

“Need help?” she asked, not missing a beat. I looked for something, anything to throw at her. Jules laughed and walks ahead of me. “I’m kidding!” She smiled at me before bouncing down the stairs.

It was going to take some time to figure out the next steps. Maybe I would convince the owners of Kindred to give me a bigger seat at the table or quit or “accidentally” going to write a post about their comments. Those big decisions could wait.

In this particular moment, I was in desperate need of paper towels. And a repeat performance from Jules. Preferably in my bed. It was too damn hot in this place.

S L I C K: Home for the Holidays

Content notes: hand sex, masturbation, getting caught
It was officially cold enough that I couldn’t just throw my winter coat on over my threadbare Spice Girls tank top and short shorts to take out the trash without risking my nipples slicing holes in Baby and Posh’s respective faces. I crossed my arms in front of my tits as I walked back to my apartment building in the snow, so as not to draw the attention of the elderly gay couple who somehow always managed to start fucking the exact moment that they spotted me out their fourth-floor window.

I was ten winters deep in Chicago snow and it never got easier. My phone buzzed in my coat. It buzzed again. For a moment in the haze of the cold, I just let the phone vibrate against my pubic bone for warmth when I remembered — ‘wait, nobody ever calls me.’ I uncrossed my arms and quickly stuck my hand in my pocket.

Call from Winnie.

I got so nervous that I dropped the phone. It skidded across the ice. I dropped to my hands and knees to grab it before it stopped ringing.

I scraped my knee on the ice — ass hanging out of my shorts, my coat creating an absurd tent around me while I bent down to bark into the phone

“WHAT’S WRONG?”

“Jesus, babe, can’t a girl get a ‘Hey, Winnie. Good to hear your voice. How’s my hottest friend doing?’”

I stood up and noticed my both of my knees were bleeding. Through a grimace, I halfheartedly took the bait.

“Winnie…something, something, you’re hot.”

“Close enough. Pat, tell me you’re coming home for Thanksgiving this year.”

Winnie had this way of asking questions that didn’t leave room for answers she didn’t like. I hesitated.

I looked up to confirm that my neighbors had, in fact, witnessed my fall and were jerking each other off whilst watching me complete this phone call. I flipped them the bird. They began to yank harder. I turned my back to them.

“Winnie, you know I hate to travel during the holidays.”

“But Pat,” she pouted, “do you really want to be in Chicago in NOVEMBER?”

I laughed. “Objection, your honor, the prosecution is leading the witness”

“Yes, I am leading the witness to WATER. To the beach. To the fucking sun. To my parents’ hot tub!”

Fuck, what I would do for a little heat. I didn’t even like hot tubs — I hate to be partially submerged — but I liked being in a hot tub with Winnie. I liked to be just steam and bubbles away from Winnie and Winnie’s lips and Winnie’s nipples. I liked an excuse to be naked with Winnie. I liked an excuse to watch her ass make contact with the warm water so that I could see her shudder in relief as she let the water wash over her. I liked to see her get hot and flushed. I liked to feel her leg brush my leg under the water.

Here was the problem with Winnie’s parents’ hot tub: Winnie’s parents.

---

Winnie and I realized embarrassingly late into our lifelong friendship that not only were we both queer — our intense, inseparable summers capped off with sleepovers every night that waged on through college and even into a bit of Winnie’s law school days before I finally moved out of Florida for good were a little more than platonic. Could you really blame us though? Growing up repressed as fuck in Stripmall, Florida. Equal parts Stepford and Bumfuck. Winnie’s parents undoubtedly smelled the gay on us long before we did and had always been suspicious of me. Two Christmas Eves ago, we finally confirmed their suspicions. We were changing out of our swimsuits after splitting a celebratory bottle of wine in her parents’ hot tub. She’d passed the bar and I’d gotten published. Neither of us could decide who was happier for whom — we drank straight out of the bottle, both our hands around its neck. I was the kind of drunk where peeling off my one-piece felt like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube.

“Can you help?” I asked not even trying to be cheeky.

Winnie had just stepped out of her bathing suit bottom. She was also no longer quite steady on her feet, so just the motion of stepping out of the leg hole and moving towards me was enough to send her face-first into my chest. I caught her by the shoulders. I was just tall enough that when she looked up at me, her nose touched my nose. I could smell the wine on her lips. We both laughed. The absurdity of being piss-drunk off half a bottle of wine in her childhood home. Her half naked, me pretending to be modest when we’d seen each other’s bodies nude more than we’d ever even seen our own. She steadied herself and kissed me — quickly, just a peck. We laughed again. She began to slide my swimsuit down my shoulders. I giggled and gave her another peck, as if to thank her for her help. She returned mine with another. This was the first time I tasted the wine on her lips. I returned her peck with a long, lingering kiss this time, intent on tasting the wine not just on her lips, but in her mouth. We went back and forth with deeper and deeper kisses, breaking to laugh, our wine-stained grins growing. She slid my swimsuit all the way off and attempted to take off her top. Her bikini was a high fashion, complicated tangle of straps and cords that I could not decipher. She helped me help her. I felt like the virgin underdog in a movie trying to undress the most popular girl in school.

And maybe I was. To say that she was out of my league was an understatement. She was a work of art. If I was drawn crudely and staccato by a 1990’s mouse in Microsoft Paint, she was an oil painting blended stroke by stroke, caked-on canvas and wet to the touch. I wanted my hands to be covered with her. I wanted her under my fingernails. I wanted her in the creases of my palm. If you tried to retrieve even a fleck of her out of my lifeline, you’d have to unravel my skin all over, exposing every nerve ending, making it so that even the slightest breeze set me ablaze.

She threw me onto her twin-sized bed flat on my back. She straddled me, and I could feel that her cunt against my stomach was as slick as my own. This foreplay had gone on for years. Her hands were in my hair she kissed my forehead, my forehead, my mouth, my mouth, my mouth, my mouth, my neck, my mouth, my neck, my sternum. She slid her pussy down my body to make a little more room. My sternum, my neck, my neck, my stomach, my pussy. My clit. Just a kiss. A soft kiss, a flick of the tongue. I moaned. She continued to caress my clit as she slid down further. Her knees were now on the ground. Her left hand grabbed my ass. Her right made its way to her own clit. I felt her own pleasure as she moaned into me. My heart was racing. She stopped touching herself and plunged her index finger inside of me whilst continuing to tend to my clit. My eyes rolled back in pleasure. I slammed my fist against her nightstand table.

“What was that?” she hissed.

I was sex dumb by that point. “Oh sorry, your nightstand.”

“No, fuck, my parents are back from Christmas Eve mass” she shout-whispered.

“No the fuck, they’re not!” I shout-whispered back.

“Quick, get under the covers, pretend we just fell asleep!”

“Pretend we just fell asleep naked?!”

“Pull the covers all the way up!”

We made a little cocoon for ourselves under the blankets, both of us still panting from sex and trying to remain as quiet and still as possible. I could just barely make out her face as her father opened the door letting some light in. A droplet of sweat collected on her brow. Fuck, she was so beautiful.

Winnie’s father, I’m sure, saw two bodies under the covers, saw two swimsuits strewn on the ground, saw the empty wine bottle, heard silence where there had just been commotion.

“Winnie,” her father sighed, “please make sure your friend is home safe before breakfast with your mother tomorrow.”

Winnie winced at me and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

I mouthed, “I should go!”

We heard the door shut behind us.

Winnie peeled the blankets off of us. “Pat, stay. I’ll set an alarm. We get up early enough neither of our parents will even notice.”

There’s really no disagreeing with Winnie. Even if I wanted to, which I didn’t, she’d already curled up into me for the night. In just a few moments, Winnie had confirmed two suspicions I’d had for years: Winnie was a top and Winnie was little spoon.

We were much closer to thirty than we were to sixteen, but the fear of getting caught by parents still made my heart flutter. I spent the night but I didn’t sleep, too excited to be lying naked next to someone so fucking beautiful. I couldn’t stand to miss a moment of holding her naked body in mine. I left the wee hours of Christmas morning and I hadn’t seen Winnie in person since.

---

“Hellooo, Pat, are you there?” Winnie piped through the phone.

“Um, yeah,” I said.

“Thanksgiving?”

“I’m coming.”

S L I C K: How to Fuck Your Friends

Content notes: threesomes
I.

Start with a crush: Finn. He’s handsome, so why wouldn’t you want to fuck him? His eyes sparkle when you make him laugh and you’re forever wondering if you’re flirting or just talking or somewhere in between the summer you two first meet. You’re seeing someone else, though, and the two of you aren’t really open. Settle into a friendship with this sexy stranger that soon is much more than just casual conversation, more best friendship than anything so slippery as a mere crush. Spill your secrets. Listen when he cries. Go out dancing. Kiss sometimes on the dance floor. Hold hands on long walks. Meet his family. Introduce him to yours. Talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. Realize you’re going to love this person for the rest of your life.

II.

Break up with your girlfriend and start having a lot of sex: with friends, with dates, with strangers, with your ex. Over drinks one night at the local dive bar, confess to Finn how you once had a crush on him, how if you hadn’t been with whatshername the summer you two met, you may have tried to be bolder in your flirtations, less honest in your confessions. Allow relief to seep through your body as he laughs and says, duh, I know that, with the same sparkle in his eye, and then, but I’m glad things happened the way they did. Clink your drinks across the sticky table and cruise the room together with your eyes, wondering which babe might be up for a drink or a game of pool or…

III.

Meet Finn’s new girlfriend, Em. Love her immediately. She is perfect for him, they are perfect together, she is smart and sexy and fun and funny and all the best things. Feel envious when you see them pressed up against together at the monthly gay dance party and let your mind wander. Close your eyes and envision the scene your best friend spelled out for you just a few nights ago during one of your lengthy phone calls of Em on her knees with her ass in the air, letting him use different implements to spank her — many of the toys you’ve bought together over the years at various different sex toy shops, you can picture most of them as he tells you what a good job she did for him — of the way she was quiet when he told her to be quiet and the way she begged when he commanded her to beg. Let yourself get wet thinking about it. Dance over to them. Keep dancing when Finn goes to the bar to get you both fresh drinks. Push Em’s curls out of her face; let her grab your hand. Delight in the near future when she will no longer be your best friend’s new girlfriend but simply one of your close friends, too.

IV.

Suggest a threesome one night while the three of you are driving to a concert. It’s a joke, kind of, but it’s also totally not a joke, and everyone is sober and consenting and excited and the idea lingers in the air like candy, like something delicious you’re going to devour now that it exists. Pick a day, a Sunday afternoon in January. A Sunday afternoon in January is the perfect time for a threesome between friends. Arrive at their house fully clothed and a little nervous. Sit on the floral print couch you helped them move; sip tea. Discuss what you hope will happen next, set some boundaries. You will use gloves. You will use condoms on toys. Finn will be in charge; he knows what you both like; he is very good at being in charge. If anyone feels left out or weird, you will stop and check in. You have butterflies in your stomach that travel to your chest and your cunt and you giggle and Finn giggles and Em giggles and then Finn stops giggling and says, very seriously, take off your clothes but leave your underwear on, and the scene is underway and you and Em arrange your faces into obedient willing canvases and do as you’re told.

V.

It is so easy. Finn tells you to get on your knees and suck his cock and you do. Em plays with your hair, half pulling, half keeping it out of your mouth, generous and easy and so fucking hot. Em gets on her knees and you share, both your mouths open wide, spit dripping down both your chins, letting Finn choose which hole he wants to use over and over and over and over. Em asks if she can use your nipple clamps and you happily show her how, but she squeals and decides immediately the clamps are not the right toy for her. She asks if she can put them on you instead, and you happily agree; she asks Finn to hold your hands behind your back while she does and he obliges, the two of them lean in and share a kiss over your shoulder as Em adjusts the clamp so they bite hard on your nipples, you’re all soaking wet, you tell each other, you laugh, it’s not weird, it’s just fun, it’s so, so, so easy.

VI.

When you’re all finally done orgasming — done with the blowjob, with the nipple clamps, with the Hitatchi, with the spanking, with the squirting, with the fucking, with the giggling — you get dressed and go out for dinner. Wonder if it will finally get weird; laugh with delirious relief when it is simply still not weird. Order fries for the table. Order a bottle of wine to share. Order chicken and let them order salads because you eat meat and they do not. Realize it has happened: Em is no longer simply Finn’s girlfriend. You are out for dinner with two of your best friends. Let them drive you home when you’re done. Hug goodbye. Go to bed well fucked and happy, mentally adding have really good sex to the list of things you sometimes do with your best friends.

S L I C K: The Defender

Content notes: butch/femme, finger fucking, oral sex
Miranda was the sole owner of Genesis Imports, a high-end car dealership that exclusively sold European vehicles. It was near closing when she saw a town car pull up, and from it, emerged a striking butch with graying, short hair and broad shoulders. They walked assertively to the front door, and Miranda was immediately attracted to them. Their stride indicated that they knew exactly what they wanted. And Miranda knew what she wanted, too.

Their crisp, white shirt was slightly unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled up. Miranda caught herself wondering what it would feel like nibbling on the side of this stranger’s neck. Her gaze moved down their toned body and then back up, stopping at their arms. She wondered what this person could do to her.

In one fluid movement, Miranda gracefully got up from her desk and ran her manicured fingers through her jet black bob. The butch was inside the building before Miranda reached the bottom of the stairs. She had planned it that way — she wanted to make an entrance.

“Wait, your name’s Winsome?” Miranda could hear her associate ask, “Like you Winsome, you lose some?”

The butch cocked their head and dryly responded in what sounded like a British accent. “Yeah, something like that.”

Miranda made her move. “I’ve got it from here, Aiden.” She turned to Winsone. “I can tell by your accent you might be looking for something that reminds you of home?”

Winsome turned. “And I can tell you’re in charge. You could say that, yes.”

Miranda reveled in watching Winsome discreetly scan her body. She was wearing her favorite black dress, the one that cut off just above her knees with a dramatic slit up the right thigh, exposing her long, elegant legs. She traced the keyhole cut-out on her chest, teasing just the right amount of cleavage. Miranda watched Winsome follow her finger and clench their jaw.

“Aiden,” Miranda called out. “Please bring me the keys to the Defender and open up the bay doors.” She led Winsome to a black SUV with tinted windows and a license plate from the UK. Her pumps made her almost as tall as the Brit striding behind her.

Winsome smirked. “And you think because I’m from London I’ll automatically like this one?”

“I think I have a pretty good gauge of what people want.”

Without pause, Winsome responded, “I’ll be the judge of that.”

Aiden reappeared with two bottles of water along with a set of keys. Miranda watched as Winsome opened the glass bottle and raised it to their mouth. She noted long fingers and plump lips, and then her own desire to place those same fingers in her mouth.

“Right, then,” Winsome interrupted. “Shall we?”

They confidently slid into the driver’s seat as if the car had always belonged to them. They were on the road in less than five minutes. Miranda sat in the passenger seat, her legs slightly crossed at the ankles, knowing just how much thigh the slit in her dress would then reveal. She inhaled Winsome’s cologne and wondered if she would smell it on her sheets the next morning.

“My name is Winsome.”

“Miranda.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Without asking for directions, Winsome made a right and hopped on the freeway. It was just the beginning of rush hour traffic. “Bloody mistake,” Winsome chided themself. Miranda watched as they veered in and out of lanes to exit a few miles later. She fought an urge to stroke the back of their head with her fingers.

Somehow they had ended up on a back road Miranda had never driven down. She felt the blood rush between her legs as she watched Winsome trace their finger on the leather stitching of the gear shift. She wondered how those fingers would feel tracing her clit as she sat on their lap, nibbling on their ears.

“And how long have you lived in Rougemont?”

The question brought Miranda back to reality. She noticed that Winsome’s jaw had unclenched, their posture softened. Miranda explained that she had lived there for the better part of seven years, but had only opened the dealership five years ago.

“Owner?’ Winsome clocked. “That’s quite impressive.”

Before Miranda could respond, her phone dinged. It was from Aiden: Should we wait for you, or should we lock up?

Miranda smiled and bit her lip while she typed. Go ahead and lock up, I’ll take it from here. She put her phone on Do Not Disturb and back in her purse.

“It’s quite impressive how easily you drive with the wheel on the other side.”

“I think you’d be impressed with a lot of the things I can do easily.” Winsome shifted gears. “Have you ever driven on the other side of the road?”

Miranda raised an eyebrow as she placed her hand on Winsome’s thigh. “Oh, I do both sides.” She heard Winsome inhale as she started to slowly rub her hand on their inner leg, testing the waters.

Winsome mirrored her brow raise before pulling the car over, immediately shutting off the engine. Miranda had already unbuckled their seatbelt to better tease them with her fingers. Miranda heard a low growl escape Winsome’s throat as she climbed on top of them, tracing their neck with her tongue. She felt their bicep flex as they grabbed her ass. Suddenly, it was Miranda’s turn to be teased. Winsome’s fingers traced the outside of her already wet pussy. Their fingers glided past the small barrier her thong provided to stroke her clit before returning to her ass. Miranda let out a moan as Winsome pulled her onto their hips. She instinctively started rocking her body back and forth.

Miranda thrust her hips and ground her pussy on Winsome’s zipper fly while pulling their hair. Winsome’s mouth moved down her neck to kiss her cleavage. Then they pulled Miranda’s zipper down and took off her dress.

“Fuck me,” Miranda commanded.

They found their way to the back seat. Miranda collapsed on her back and watched Winsome frantically unbutton their shirt, exposing their chest and top surgery scars. Miranda unbuckled their pants and slid her fingers into them. She caught her breath. “You’re so wet.” Winsome moaned and moved their hips in between Miranda’s legs while kissing her neck down to her breasts, biting at her nipples. “Please,” Miranda begged.“Please.” Winsome started sucking harder as Miranda pulled their hair. “‘Fucking fuck me!”

Miranda thought she was going to explode by the time Winsome’s tongue reached her. They both could feel her pussy throbbing. Winsome ran their tongue the length of Miranda’s cunt while dipping a finger inside of her. “God, you taste good.”

Miranda grabbed Winsome’s head and moved her hips harder as Winsome sucked on her clit. “Give it to me,” Miranda demanded. She was now in charge. Winsome’s tongue kept flicking her clit as they added another finger.

“You like how wet I am?”

Winsome responded by fucking her harder.

“You like my pussy getting tight around your fingers?”

Winsome groaned as Miranda pulsated in their hand. Miranda dug her nails into the leather seat and moaned with every thrust as she came. She pulled Winsome on top of her and slid her fingers in between their legs. Winsome’s clit was hard and she could tell they were ready to come.

She bit Winsome’s neck and slid her hand up and down their vulva and then back onto their clit. Miranda watched their muscles flex — she loved the weight of their strong body on top of hers. She spanked their ass. “I want you to cum on top of me.”

Winsome growled in their ear. “Then fuck me harder.”

Miranda did what she was told and fucked Winsome so hard they both began to sweat, fogging the windows completely. Winsome grunted, “Oh fuck,” as they came so hard that their wetness dripped down Miranda’s elbow. They collapsed on Miranda’s chest with heaving breaths.

A minute or two passed before Miranda remembered where they were and returned to reality, knowing full well they’d drenched one of her highest sellers.

“So. Will you be wanting the 36 or 72 month lease?”

S L I C K: The Cool of the Marble

Content notes: bondage, sensory deprivation, impact play, finger fucking

You feel so strangely dizzy. The good kind of dizziness, the kind that might stem from spinning, arms outstretched, squinting into the warm sun and laughing out loud. But it’s dark here, cool and quiet. Your heart flutters, yes, but not from twirling with abandon. Everything here is still, suspended in time — including you. You lay unmoving, yet you vibrate with electricity and anticipation.

The way that you’re strapped and trussed, a soft lamb on my altar, makes even my sure heart skip a beat. You are a vision. You form a silhouette against the clammy stone table, punctuated with rope, leather and buckles. Each tie cinched to perfection, each knot immaculate.

You and I, my pet, we’ve been here before. One can grow accustomed to most anything with enough repeated exposure. I love the care and dedication that conditioning requires, but what I adore in equal measure is keeping you on your toes. Of course, ritual provides an unshakable foundation for connection, heat and passion; but I also thrill at peppering the familiar with minute changes, little inconsistencies, jarring unpredictabilities. In a word: surprises.

Suddenly very aware of your predicament, you begin to writhe and twist against your restraints — not for want of escape, but instead yearning to arch yourself toward whatever it is that comes next. As your body wildly serpentines, you shake your head vigorously in an attempt to loosen the leather blindfold strapped taut across your face. Your senses are dulled: your eyes obscured, hands unable to reach or grasp. All you have to smell and to taste is the cool, dark air. Music, sounds, soft sighs and lustful whispers are being pumped into a large pair of headphones, encompassing your spinning head. They deaden the sounds of the room and immerse you in a buzzing void of my design.

All there is to feel and to be certain of now is the cool of the marble pressing against your back, your legs and your head. The chill it sends through you breeds goosebumps and shortened, excited breath. Every bit of you perks and shivers in its hard embrace, and yet it also grounds you. It gives you something to cling to in the quiet storm of uncertainty you’ve found yourself in.

Soon you feel the vibration of… footsteps, maybe? Then, nothing. Then again, closer. And now, the soft whisper of air along the hairs of your arm. Maybe. Or perhaps you’re imagining it? Your senses are simultaneously dampened and overwhelmed. Reality is a faint blur to you now as the volume in your ears increases noticeably. You begin to realize that it’s been steadily increasing this whole time, or so it seems.

Are you dreaming?

Then, bursting through the stillness, the firm, quick scrape of something against your sternum. Something sharp, but not too sharp. A fingernail, perhaps? Not entirely painful, but sudden and hard enough that the shock and wonder of it engulfs your every cell. It’s fleeting, but the sensation lingers. In the seemingly endless pause thereafter, you’re left unable to focus on anything but the silent question, “What’s next?”

You feel the soft heat of breath across your chest. It’s as though someone or something is hovering, suspended right above you in midair. You feel a pungent cocktail of excitement, fear and hope begin to brew in your cervical spine. You buck, attempting to pitch yourself toward the source of this sweet breeze, desperate to make contact with the warm wetness of a mouth, a tongue, anything.

Contact. You crave it. Any brush, caress, stroke, bump, nudge or strike could send you over the edge into ecstasis. The very notion of the possibility of it causes a cool, tingling sweat to proliferate across your flushed chest, pooling at your collarbone and in your navel, with strident drops tumbling onto the marble slab. Your sweat and the increasing wetness between your legs come together to concoct a symphony of pheromones and desire. You need to touch and be touched. It nearly feels as though your very life depends on it.

Abruptly, the left side of your face is aflame. You gasp and freeze, stunned. Your mind attempts to piece together what has occurred. A slap? A hard, fast slap. By hand, or perhaps an implement? As the well-placed strike lands, you immediately feel a warm tightness radiating outward from your very center. It builds; a slow crescendo that begins to taper and craze as it reaches your chest, your hips and your thighs. You strain, searching for an answer, uncontrollably arching for more, but you find nothing to grasp hold of. And so you wait, suspended at the edge of orgasm, your face still searing and throbbing. You feel lustful and hungry, but you are so, so patient.

As the pain starts to slowly subside, you begin to come back into your awareness, recalling the pinch of your restraints and the brisk air of your surroundings, unable to sense any presence other than your own heaving breath. Your racing heartbeat eventually begins to subside and you are lulled once again into the still silence of your predicament.

Then, all at once, you experience what feels like a strike to your whole being. Three quick, firm slaps, one apiece for the other side of your face; the left side of your chest, right across your aroused nipple; and the soft pillow of your left thigh. Each smack is an exclamation point upon the wants and needs that your body has mapped out for me. This flurry of sensation is followed by the juxtaposition of my hands softly cupping your cheek and then sliding upward to your hair, which you feel me playfully tug and forcefully yank between gentle, soothing strokes. In danger, in pain, in pleasure, you are safe with me.

With a single fingertip, I trace the sweet lines, curves and angles of your darling face. I take my time, dallying at any dimple or mole I fear might go underappreciated, admiring you for all that you are. At long last, my meandering touch meets your lips — two pinkish, sunset clouds loitering in an otherwise starry night. As I softly urge your lips apart, I feel your longing begin to envelop me in a humid embrace. Your tongue swirls about my finger as though you might attempt to devour me entirely, drowning me in saliva and ardor.

As our desires build and meet and coalesce, I swiftly swing my leg up and over to straddle you. You moan softly as you feel my weight pressed against you, grinding and teasing you mercilessly. I can feel the excitement building beneath me, where we intersect. The heat coming from you feels otherworldly, as if I might burn alive, but you, pet, would be more than worth the risk. I place my knee between your thighs and apply firm, upward pressure as I lean in to touch my mouth to yours. Your kiss feels like freedom, like adventure. I friskily bite your lower lip as I pull away, gently tilting the left side of your headphones away for a moment to remind you that you are treasured. With that, I make my way down your beautiful body, planting rough kisses all along the way, covering every inch I can manage with lips and tongue and teeth and adoration. My fingers follow along, scratching, petting and grasping your already sensitive flesh.

After what feels like a lifetime, yet somehow like no time at all, I arrive at the sacred crossroads below your navel. Overwhelmed, I bury my nose in your tidy thicket of pubic hair. I breathe you in and you are perfect. I take a moment to revel in your wanting sighs and your delightful squirming. There aren’t words sufficient to describe the joy that putting you into this state brings me. I am so lucky to be the custodian of your pleasure and your pain, pet.

I inhale you once more, and with that, I descend further still, taking you into my mouth and panting at the taste. You twist beneath me, squealing and calling out. I grip your right thigh and slide my finger down, slowly pushing it into you and curling it upward to drive you wild. I pump into you eagerly but steadily, adding another finger when your body tells me the time is right. I can feel you inching toward the precipice as I lick you and stroke you and marvel at you. Knowing your body as I do, I can tell that it won’t be long now. You’ve earned this, pet.

Leaning into you, I hook my fingers upward even harder as I sense your pleasure evolving, then I hold them still as I feel you tense and throb around me, quivering and screaming with release.

Just perfect.

Now tell me, pet, do you feel dizzy? The good kind of dizziness that stems from spinning, arms outstretched, squinting into the warm sun and laughing out loud?

S L I C K: The Maid Who Was Elegant

Content notes: bondage, D/s, watersports, tattooing

Editor’s Note: This story is a sequel to “The Gambling Countess,” which takes place in Southampton in 1983. Myra is a young trans woman who has moved to Severton Manor, where she will be serving Countess Eleanora. Myra has just completed her initiation, which included performing cunnilingus on the Countess. Read on to learn what happens next.

---

“A toast, to the maid who was elegant,” Eleanora said, her glass turned up in the air. “Cheers!”

Myra took the other glass from the tray. It was small, so it would be finished in one or two gulps. Myra locked eyes with the Countess, matching her grin, and the two of them knocked back their glasses.

It was then that Myra heard a gasp. Myra’s eyes looked up at the Countess, who for the first time was not looking at her, but at the other, silent maid in the room. Raquel had gasped. For the first time since Myra arrived, she’d heard one of the two maids make a sound.

“I will attend to that later,” Eleanora said. “But for now, let’s get to the heart of the matter. I would like to propose a gamble.” The words hung throughout the air, almost as if they were Eleanora Aradia’s intent all along and the rest had been a prologue. 

“Um…excuse me Countess but…I’m not particularly well-versed at card games…I lost quite a bit of money back in the day.”

“Oh no my dear, not that sort of gamble. You won’t have to touch a single card.”

“I’m pretty bad with dice games, too. I always bet too much and don’t know when to quit.”

“Oh, no no no! I think you misunderstand my intentions. This isn’t a gamble with toys on a board. This is a gamble with your body as the piece.” She interlocked both of her hands beneath her chin, resting them as she looked down on her new maid. 

“…my…body…?”

“Yes.”

“On what grounds?” Myra asked. She was confused. What gamble?

“Dissolved into that glass you just drank was a loop diuretic. A harmless drug, really, so don’t be alarmed. What that means is, it makes you have to relieve yourself. More crudely, in about fifteen minutes to a half hour, you will have to pee very badly. This gamble is about if you can hold your bladder for an hour or not.”

“You drugged me?!” Myra shouted. She realized this very thing was what made Raquel break her silence and gasp before. She knew the diuretic had been placed in the drink. She may have even been the one to place the drug in the glass and made sure that was the glass placed in front of Myra. 

“As I said, it is completely safe. If you turn down the gamble, you will just need to pee soon, and we’ll make sure your fluids are replenished.” 

“You mean, I can turn it down?”

“Why, of course you can! A gamble is no fun if I force you. I may be your new Mistress, but a forced game is no fun for either party. The greater the risk, the greater the reward, and there’s no risk in forcing someone to play along.”

Myra pondered the questions rolling across her mind. She barely had time to think, this was all hitting her so fast. 

“That’s…a gamble I’ve never taken before,” she said. “So, what’s the risk and what’s the reward? What are we betting?” She began to think perhaps it was in her best interests to play along.

“If you win, I will pay you all the room and board, plus the salary you would’ve earned at the end of your time here, at the rate of four years worth. You won’t have to clean a single bathroom again. I’ll send you packing with the money and your things. You can keep the maid dress, too, as a parting gift.”

Myra couldn’t believe what she was hearing. That was to the tune of well over a hundred thousand dollars, an unbelievable sum of money. It was possibly more than she’d ever made in her life. It was a risk that was, indeed, worth the price of playing alone. There was only one caveat…

“…and if I lose…?” She asked, afraid to know the answer.

“Then I get to place my mark on you.”

Myra didn’t know what to say. The marks on the thighs of Priss and Raquel. That was what she was referring to. She must’ve proposed this wager or a similar one before, to both Raquel and Priss. And both times, she’d won. 

A free four year’s lump sum buyout versus a small tattoo on her thigh. The Countess was rich, but she would lose a new servant. The tattoo was relatively small, but tattoos are permanent and hard to remove. Eleanora was right. This was a beautiful gamble, filled with an appropriate amount of risk for both parties. 

“First, let me hear the full terms of the game, and I’ll accept.” 

Eleanora’s eyes brightened at the answer. “Here are the terms. You will have your arms hung from the ceiling above you. Those same cuffs will be hung to a rope. Your job will be to hold your bladder for a full hour, the time kept by that hourglass in Raquel’s hands. Raquel will serve as referee to judge if you relieve yourself of any liquid at any time. Me, I will be allowed to use anything in this room to coax it out of you. I will not hit or hurt you in any lasting ways, though some light impact toys may or may not graze you. If you last the hour, you win. If you relieve yourself, I win. Simple enough?”

Myra tried to hide her grin. A side effect of her hormones was having to pee a lot. As a result, she’d gotten extremely good at holding her bladder at times when she had no bathroom. It was a gamble she’d win. The Countess was beautiful and breathtaking, but the money was just as alluring. Either way, even losing with the tattoo, she’d still be winning, as she’d have played the Countess’ game on her own terms. Perhaps this was what she’d meant by being initiated.

“I accept.”

“Good girl, I knew you would! What fun we’ll be having tonight! Raquel dear, please bring Myra over to the wet area and get her set up, won’t you?”

Raquel gripped Myra on the wrist and pulled her over to a far corner of the room where the floor turned to porcelain, with four shallow slopes dipping down into a drain from all sides. It was a part of the dungeon set up specifically for watersports. It was as if a urinal were made into the corner of a room.

Raquel slipped Myra’s clothing off one piece at a time and then clipped her to a rope hanging above. As she did so, Myra thought of all the times clients in the past had asked her to do watersports. It was a rather common fetish, and so she was no stranger to peeing in front of other people. They really got off on it, watching her wet herself, watching her struggle to hold it in. Most of them just wanted to be peed on. She wondered if the Countess held that same fetish as well and if she would one day ask to be peed on. 

Myra had been peed on quite a bit in her time. It was a rather popular humiliation tactic, so she’d become well acquainted with the strange liquid, growing to like the peculiar salty scent and taste. It was not a fetish she particularly held, but it was a fetish that she would fulfill for her lovers and clients who asked.

The Countess moved over to the wet room, taking a place at Myra hanging, her tip toes dangling to stretch and grasp the floor. She placed two jugs of water down on the ground, probably for Myra to drink at the end to quench her thirst. “Raquel, start the timer.”

Raquel flipped the hourglass over, the blue sands slowly flicking down as they began to rain towards the bottom. She placed it on the ground outside the porcelain of the wet area, but it was close enough where Myra could see. And thus, the game had begun. 

For the first few minutes, they two of them stood still, looking at her. Raquel knelt in front of Myra, eyes widened as they fixated on Myra’s naked girlhood. It was the same stare that had first creeped her out when they’d met in the foyer. Her eyes were viciously locked, obeying the Countess’ orders to referee the gamble. Myra wondered if such an obedient doll could be an impartial judge, but she had to trust in Eleanora’s love of the game.

As she was surveying Raquel, she began to hear a loud glug glug noise echoing throughout the room, like bubbles forming below water. She looked up to see what the noise was, and she saw Eleanora Aradia di Volterra, the Countess herself, chugging back one of those water jugs like she’d never seen water in her life. Glug glug glug. That was when it all painfully clicked, and she realized what she’d gotten herself into. 

The Countess said she could use whatever means necessary, and Myra had assumed she meant some form of corporal punishment. Hitting, beating, etc. But that was not what she had in mind at all. The Countess was going to pee on her. 

Her legs tensed up at the thought, and in the moment, she realized she already needed to relieve herself. She locked eyes with Eleanora, who’d already finished half the jug. 

“Seems like you finally get it. I’ll let you in on one more secret. Yours wasn’t the only drink that had the diuretic. Hehehehe!”

The Countess moved towards her as Myra gulped. She had been swindled before the game had begun, a victim of her own arrogance. All she could do now was hold out as hard as she could and sprint to the finish line. 

Eleanora placed her hand on Raquel’s head for balance, treating the obedient girl as if she were more an armrest than a human being. For all the humiliation, Raquel didn’t flinch for even a second, a gesture that told Myra such arrangements were a common occurrence. She leaned all her weight onto the silent girl, then lifted her leg in the air like a dog. 

Using two fingers in her other hand, she spread her pussy lips and leaned as far forward as possible. Within seconds, a warm yellow liquid began to trickle down onto Myra’s leg, trailing down across her feet and then into the drain. The bathroom smell brought a new energy into the room, a rift that made the gamble more real. Myra clenched her bladder muscles at the smell, and for the first moment, she really felt she wanted to pee. 

As the trail of piss waned, Eleanora backed up and laughed. “Please excuse me, I know it wasn’t very ladylike, but I was feeling a bit thirsty. Raquel, are you parched? How about you, Myra dear? All this really has me wanting to replenish my fluids. You know, they say your pee should always be clear, and if it isn’t you’re not drinking enough water! The pee trickling down your leg just now was a bit yellow, so I assume I’ll need to watch it more! Here, Raquel honey, please take care of yourself, for me, darling.”

She held out the other jug, offering it to the obedient maid. Raquel instinctively rose,  taking it in her own grip, eyes still fixed on Myra’s girlhood, and brought the opening to her mouth. She chugged it like a fratboy to beer. That girl was one to be weary of. At this point, she felt more dangerous than the Countess. 

Bubbles glugged in the large glass jugs as Eleanora and Raquel downed nearly half the contents in a minute or so. The sloshing tune of the liquid caused Myra to squirm at the sound, rubbing her thighs together to try and distract her from the pressing matter down in her bladder. 

“C’mon, Raquel dear, we just got this new urinal here, don’t insult me by not using it!” The Countess was clearly having fun, and despite it all, Myra was happy to be fulfilling her job. 

Raquel and Eleanora moved forward, the Countess lifted her leg once more as Raquel lifted her skirt and push her underwear to the side. The two of them relieved themselves on Myra, a deluge of piss across her lower half. 

And with it, Myra almost broke. However, she held onto herself as hard as she could, scrambling to visualize anything but running water. As the piss streams ended, she troubled a look at the hourglass. The sands of the hourglass swirled down like snow, cascading in a cosmic bluish purple. Halfway. She was almost there. 

“How are you doing, dear?” The Countess asked. 

“…never better…” Myra grunted. 

“Well, how about a drink to pick you up?”

As if from out of nowhere, Raquel produced a small glass jar from inside her maid outfit. If Eleanora tried to make her drink, she’d spit the water out. She couldn’t afford to drink right now. However, Eleanora placed the glass jar on the floor, and Myra’s heart sank. The Countess, prideful as ever, squatted over the cup.

Once again, Myra heard the sinister dripping sound of piss as Eleanora’s bladder unleashed into the glass below, filling it up nearly to the brim. Myra groaned. She looked at the hourglass. A quarter left. She was so close to winning — she needed to grin and bear it. 

Eleanora grabbed the glass, then approached Myra. She raised it, then trickled the contents across Myra’s mouth and face. Myra held out for half the contents, but after that, she broke. A hard stream of piss poured down her leg, and Raquel’s hand raised into the air to call it. She’d played a hard game, but she’d lost. 

Strangely enough, she smiled. It was the most fun she’d had in years. 

The Countess smiled with satisfaction. “So now that fealty has been properly pledged, I believe it is time for you to be blessed by my exquisite mark. It will adorn your flesh so well.” She caressed the thigh where the mark would go. “Raquel dear, please get the equipment. I’ll get her down. Don’t worry, Myra dear. I’ll be sweet and gentle when I stick my needle in.”  

---

Myra laid with her back on the bed where she’d serviced Eleanora. Next to them was a tray which held a black ink, as well as a strange handled instrument that looked like a brush. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t much of a big deal. Three or so inches of skin comprised less than a percent of her body, and of course, the ink would fade with time in the days after she left the Manor. If anything, it could become a strange badge of honor.

The small wooden rod looked like a brush, but it felt like steel wool against the skin each time it poked its needles into her thigh. With each thrust, her leg became more and more indistinguishable from Priss and Raquel’s, a process that took well over an hour. As the Countess worked her gloved fingers, the symbol began to form. 

Myra had known what the symbol would be before it had even been stenciled. A plus sign, with three lines below it. A curious mark. Plus three, it seemed to read. She was the third, whatever that meant. A curious rune for a curious woman. 

She watched as the black ink glistened beneath the refracted sheen of her sweat. The red, irritated skin around the marking burned, a pain she could only describe as endlessly scratching a sunburn, or instinctively picking at the new raw flesh beneath a scab. 

“What does it mean?” Myra asked. 

“Something special,” Eleanora said, eyes glistening. It didn’t seem she would get a more direct answer. 

The black ink bloomed up beneath the blood the Countess kept wiping off. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought the Countess was turned on at the process. 

“I like to believe souls can pass between beings. When I’m being tattooed, it brings me pleasure to think as if the artist’s very essence is imbued into me through every poke of the ink.”

“Ah! I didn’t think I’d ever get a tattoo until today.”

“The ancient Greeks believed that all emotions and illness came from the excess or absence of liquids in the body. Humors, we called them. The Greek word was chymos, which roughly translates to juice, sap or even more tantalizingly, flavor. Obviously, nowadays, this way of thinking has fallen by the wayside in favor of ever increasing modern medicine.”

“I think I learned something like that in school. Something about bile…”

“Yes, they believed it was blood, yellow bile, phlegm and black bile. They were wrong. But here’s the interesting part. As hundreds of years passed by, their hypotheses were slightly vindicated. Hormones and neurotransmitters, dopamine, serotonin, all of these breaking scientific discoveries on the origin of emotions and illnesses have just built on conjectures from over a thousand years ago.”

“I never thought about it that way.”

“You should know most of all what the presence of a simple liquid chemical can do for the body. Just think of those vials of estrogen you shoot up with. I have employed enough women like you to know the importance of such things. Minor fluctuations in the endocrine system that can cause earth shattering, life saving changes.”

“I wasn’t told you were an expert in endocrinology.”

“Oh, I’m not at all. But any good philosophical woman facing the boredom of life will naturally devour any information she can get. The books are there in my library, if you would ever like to read them. You’ll have the time.” The completed rune glared up at Myra, the bloodied skin already beginning to form a scar. 

There was something beneath this manor, simmering under the surface like a secret worth knowing. The more Myra turned it over in her head, the more it itched. The Countess was terrifying, but at the same time, she was not unreasonable. She had never once lied, and Myra was sure it was possible to win the gamble, if she had listened properly. 

The proper winning move would’ve been to never take the gamble in the first place. The option had been presented to her. It was her own arrogance that had been her undoing. The blood smell blacked out Myra’s entire mind, just like the curious ink seeping into her flesh to forever stain it at that very moment, a crossing it seemed she could not return from for some time. 

S L I C K: The Gambling Countess

Content notes: D/s, bondage, oral sex
Author’s Note: This story deals with intense subject matter, more the psychosexual than the physical. Nevertheless, danger is omnipresent throughout. While I write erotica that involves loving couples, I also write erotica where lines are blurred, danger is real and feelings and intentions are made complicated by the bondage of the narrative. This is one such story. It is a horror story at its core, excerpted from a much longer novel-length work about desire.

Also of note — this story takes place in 1983. In evading anachronism and historical inaccuracies, I have used accurate language to depict its trans characters. I would rather be realistic about the atmosphere of the time period than disingenuously attempt to paint our current societies’ morals into a place in which they did not exist. To do so, I believe, would gloss over just how far we have come and how much further we can go in the future.

Please enjoy the ensuing grotesque at your own risk.

---

Southampton, 1983.

The eyes of the two maidservants in the foyer were pointed downwards, with a silent look that told Myra they’d been instructed to do so before she’d arrived at the manor. When Myra shifted her gaze to try and catch those statuesque stares, their eyes avoided falling into contact with hers by gracefully ducking in the other direction.

Myra had been told before she’d arrived at Severton Manor that the other two maids she’d be working with were, like her, transsexual women. For whatever reason, the Countess herself had a thing for girls like them. It was nothing new to Myra. Rich people always seemed to find their way towards the services of girls like her. As long as their plump purses followed, she had absolutely no problem with it. At the end of the day, it was merely the standard machinations of the business.

The two girls’ outfits were gushing with flourish and frills, the erotic lace bouncing down the sides of their figures. A black and white dress adorned each proper lady in a stark contrast reminiscent of a tuxedo. They were maid uniforms — tantalizing, revealing ones, with an air of dignity in their seduction — but maid outfits nonetheless.

The maids stood in sheer black stockings connected to garters at the top. Six inch round-toe black patent leather heels supported their legs, the muscles tight and toned, ripe like the meat packed into the intestinal casings of a sausage. Three black leather buckles were latched across the right opening slit of each skirt, keeping the garments plump while partitioning the bit of thigh showing like prison bars across their legs. The buckles blended in with a black and white lace birdcage-style hoop skirt beneath the uniforms to further accentuate the curves of their clothing. It was a peculiar design choice for a maid outfit, somewhat impractical for long-term cooking and cleaning; that was, until one realized that the garment’s revealing, flirtatious nature was itself half the job. It was the sort of uniform that could only be tailored to elicit an ever-present erotic temptation on display as the maids went about their tasks.

Perhaps even more peculiar — only noticeable if one were actively looking for it — was a bold detail on the skin through the doorway of each skirt, beyond the buckles and the lace. A mark on each girl’s thigh, about three to four inches in length. Black tattoos, of a rather crude type and make. Etched into the center of one girl’s skin was a plus sign with one solitary line beneath it. On the other girl, there was a matching tattoo, though this one was a plus sign with two bars beneath it, like an equals sign. In this way, they seemed like sister markings, denoting “one” and “two” in a way Myra didn’t understand. They gave off the appearance of Latin runes, though if they were indeed runes, they were not ones that Myra could immediately recognize.

On both of the women’s chests were white name tags with names in black cursive. There was no “Hello, My name is” or “Greetings” to preface, and so they seemed more like price tags than pieces belonging to the dollish servants themselves. The girl with the blonde tornado curls and the tattooed “One” had “Raquel” scrawled across her name tag. The girl with the midnight black bangs and the “Two” on her thigh had “Prisstina” adorning her supple bosom. Her straightened hair fell down all the way to her waist, hanging as taught as the lips of the girl they belonged to. The tags were stitched into the fabric, locking in the truth of their names.

Myra thought to herself if these maid outfits, with all their titillation and impracticality, were something she herself would have to put on, and then she remembered that was exactly the reason she had been brought to Severton Manor, to serve the Countess as both a servant and, more importantly, a sexual object. It was in that moment, as Myra realized that she’d been standing silent in the foyer for an inordinate amount of time with her suitcase in hand, a syrupy voice broke through the awkward air in the room.

“Oh dear, let them take your luggage for you. Please accept our hospitality. I’m sure it was a long journey on the train. You must be exhausted. Don’t you worry — we will not be overworking you here, especially not on your first day!” Pushing through the two maids, a woman half a head taller slid forward, her presence somehow brightening up the room while also sucking the life out of it.

Her hair was a breathtaking shade of natural red, a mix between an auburn and a ginger. If she had naturally occurring freckles across her nose, they were covered by her foundation, but then painstakingly replaced with makeup as reddish brown dots to make them stand out even more. Her hair hung very low on one side of her face, but very short on the other. The story of her face was told in a slanted phrase, an off-kilter tone that somehow suited her. Behind her, the rest of her hair (there was a lot of it) cascaded silky smooth down her back, coming to rest right above her lower back.

The woman’s dress was unlike anything Myra had ever seen. The screaming scarlet red matched the woman’s hair, fading between different shadowy shades of blacks and reds along its length. It was almost as if it began from the bottom, rising like the glaring fires of a smokestack, stitched tight near the legs, following every curve of the Countess’ body, then poofing out at the bosom. The top spilled outwards like a bomb cloud. She was the Countess Eleanora Aradia di Volterra, the woman she had been recruited to serve.

The sepia-tinted photographs she had been given as reference did not do justice to the power emanating from the woman standing before her. A Countess, a woman of real life Italian nobility. Eleanora, read with an uptick at the second E, like Ellie-A-Nora. A peculiar name for an even more peculiar woman. She was even more intimidating than Myra had expected, and her expectations had certainly been high.

“Oh, it was just eight hours of sitting, it really wasn’t that bad,” Myra replied as she shifted her footing, her gait thrown off by the sheer aura of the Countess. In the shock, she had dropped her suitcase upright on the glossy wood floor.

“Those trains are…how should I say…” she turned her eyes up in the air, searching for the least offensive word she could muster on her tongue, “…undignified? You never know who’s going to share the space with you. Drunkards, molesters, violent killers, degenerates…I’m quite glad I haven’t used one in years.”

The maid named Prisstina moved to pick up picked up Myra’s suitcase. When she grabbed hold of it, the black leather corners scraped against the floor.

“Um,” Myra spoke up, unsure if she were crossing the boundaries of any pleasantries in front of her new Mistress. “Would you please be careful with that? It’s an antique.”

The Countess narrowed her eyes, and for a moment, Myra thought she had insulted her by speaking completely out of turn. However, in quite the opposite reaction, the Countess’s momentarily ruffled brows and slight frown gradually began to turn up into a friendly, warming smile.

“Good taste, the girl has good taste!” she exclaimed, her eyes darting towards the two maids. “My spotters have never been wrong before, and it seems they continue their perfect record today. A girl after my own heart, who places the well-being of her leathers at the utmost importance! Priss, doll, please do listen to our new sister maid here. As she says, it’s an antique, so please do treat it with the dignity you would afford any of my leathers.” She bent forward and stretched out her neck, her cherry lips poised as if to take a bite from the scolded maid’s ear. “Just try to think about how upset I would be if one of my leathers were scuffed and treat it with the same respect. After all, I can guarantee you — t h e p u n i s h m e n t w i l l b e t h e s a m e.”

With that phrase, Prisstina’s eyes widened for a split second, as if she were recalling a distant memory or a buried dream. As soon as they had flexed, her complexion snapped back to its previous obedient stare. In a tone shift, the fragile girl picked the leather suitcase back up into her grip, her movement like glass. She went down the hallway ahead of them.

“Let me show you to your room. Priss should already have brought your suitcase there, young Myra. Come!” The Countess did a half-turn. The ruffles of her gown floated with her. It was the first command of many at Severton she did not feel she had the option of saying no to.

The three of them walked through halls that were so large that the length felt claustrophobic. Raquel walked three steps behind Eleanora and to her right. Myra joined in on the opposite side, completing the triangle. It was as if the very hallways of Severton pulsed like a beating heart, the ornate patterns along the walls ever-moving, a body breathing in its sleep. She felt as if it could swallow her, until she realized that she had in all likelihood already been swallowed by this curious, elusive beast. Now she was merely navigating its bowels, and soon she would know ever vein like the back of her hand.

They stopped at a door that had already been labeled “Myra,” waiting for her. “Here we arrive at your quarters. They are quite self-explanatory, so I will not intrude on the privacy of your new sacred space. Welcome to Severton, my sweet young Myra. Che la mia bella ragazza! It was a pleasure getting to know you a little better. Now get yourself settled. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon, and think of me when you’re scrubbing the bathroom, won’t you?” Her teeth slowly poked through her grin. She kissed the palm of her right hand, a faint imprint of lipstick stuck to the skin, then outstretched her palm to touch Myra’s chest, right above her bosom. She closed her eyes, then took a deep breath and sighed, a satisfied calm moving over her face. “Ciao, my cute little maid. Let us part until the winds of the night.” With that, she turned to leave, leaving Myra in the deep end of her complicated emotions she now felt fluttering inside her heart.

---

Contrary to what she had expected, there were no servant’s quarters at Severton. In a break from tradition, each maid had their own separate accommodations in three of the four corners of the house. They were effectively not rooms, but separate living complexes complete with their own full bathrooms, walk-in closets and three rooms apiece. These mini-homes were built into the towers dotting the corners of the mansion.

For Myra, a young transsexual woman who had always lived hand to mouth, it was the largest living space she’d ever had. After poking throughout her new spacious living quarters, Myra stood in the middle of her new bedroom. She closed her eyes. It had only been an hour since she’d arrived, and her job had abruptly begun. Three months to go, she reminded herself. Only three summer months of cooking, cleaning and sex.

It was the longest job she’d ever agreed to. The pay was extraordinary, and rich people tended to be experienced in their eroticism. Not to mention, the Countess might’ve been the most attractive woman who’d ever sought out her services. Merely the direct musical quality of her lofty voice had been enough to get Myra in the mood, her heart aflutter at the prospect of servicing the Lady herself. Eleanora was a woman who breathed erotic energy wherever she went, and the scenery of her Manor reflected that.

Myra took a deep, long breath. In, then out. When she opened her eyes, she focused on the garment that was spread across her bed. There, sprawled like a chalk outline, was a disembodied maid outfit. Sewed into the breast of the garment to greet her, in elegant black cursive was the name “Myra.”

Her job was to clean and please, a job she had done many times before, and yet somehow this time felt different. She would have to learn to wear the uniform well and please her new mistress with its curves. They had asked her measurements before she’d arrived, but she hadn’t expected it to be ready so soon. The lace headband, the lace hoop skirt, the blouse, the leather waist cincher that was worn on top of the clothes, the slit skirt with the leather buckles running down it, the lace undergarments, the garter belt, the stockings and the six inch heels. She calmly welcomed her new life for the next three months and began to undress.

It seemed a storm was about to blow through. Branches beat against the house as the wood creaked amidst the atmospheric pressure change. While she was looking up at the ceiling, she heard a soft flutter on the wood floor that she guessed was a mouse. Looking at the door, she saw a small letter on the ground. Apparently, someone had slipped it under her door.

“For the Virgin Girl,” it said in a flirtatious black cursive. It was the same handwriting inked across the envelope that adorned the name tag above her right breast. She undid the wax seal, unfurling the piece of paper.

At 9o’clock, please come to the Volterra quarters as prim and proper as can be. Not a hair out of place. There is some food in your fridge, pick whatever you like to tide you over. I will be expecting you at room 202. I hope you are ready and willing to be initiated into my household.

—The Countess Eleanora Aradia

Myra checked the time. It was quarter past eight. She had better get started on dinner. It seemed there was a lively night waiting for her after all.

---

Room 202 had seemed as normal and unassuming as the rest from the outside. It was inside, however, that Myra was first confronted with the desires of the Lady who had employed her. After knocking and being told to enter, Myra was astounded at the scene which greeted her.

It was a dungeon, perhaps the most spacious dungeon she’d ever seen. Implements of all kinds lined the wall to her right. There was a spanking bench, several cages including one underneath a bed, a Spanish donkey triangle and a St. Andrew’s Cross. From above her, various chains and ropes hung down from hard points in various degrees.

She had been around many dungeons, but what set this one apartment in particular was a simple, but rare fact: All of these pieces had signs of wear. From faint body marks on the leather padding, to the half-tied ropes up above, to the slight rust smell wafting off the metal, these had all been used a fair amount over a long period of time. This was a room that could be called a favorite of the Lady’s.

Sure enough, across the room, sitting on the bed and peering out from behind her asymmetrical red hair was Eleanora Aradia di Volterra, her sharp teeth baring a grin. The Countess was awaiting her arrival, and in her wonder, she had fumbled a greeting.

“Uh, uhm, good evening, Countess,” she stammered out.

“It is a good evening, now that you’re here.” She licked her lips. “Did you find everything okay? How was settling in?”

She chose her words carefully. “Everything was perfect. It has been a pleasure to serve.”

Eleanora leaned forward. “So tell me, what do you think of my manor?”

“This mansion is incredible. This room in particularly is absolutely breathtaking. I have never seen a dungeon so well-used before.”

“It is my second favorite room in the house.”

“May I ask what the first is?” Myra asked. It had been a bold move, but she had guessed Eleanora was the type who appreciated such gestures.

“My my, I am sure you will find out in due time, my dear. Now then, Raquel, let’s begin.”

Myra was blindsided as she realized they were not alone. On the far left side of the room, Raquel was approaching. Had she been there the whole time? It was this that made Myra realize the maid felt more like one of the implements hanging alone the walls than an equal colleague. She approached with two black objects in her hands. She offered them to Eleanora without a word. Eleanora took them and whispered a thank you. Leather cuffs, clasped together with a chain and rings dangling off of each one. It seemed they would be starting soon.

“Forgive me if I am too presumptuous, but I assume you have been bound before, my dear sweet Myra?” Eleanora asked.

“Why yes, of course. All the time. In fact, I quite enjoy it.”

“Good, good. Forgive me if I insulted your intelligence or experience. I would like to bind your hands behind your back now. Is that okay?”

“Yes, by all means, it’s a position I am very accustomed to. Feel free.”

“Okay, then let us waste no further time. Would you kindly kneel in front of this bed for me?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Myra dropped to her knees in one graceful, fluid motion.

“Very good.” Eleanora rose from the bed. Her heels clacked against the polished wood floors as she moved behind Myra. I’ll probably be well acquainted with polishing these floors, Myra thought to herself. A few quick clicks and Myra’s hands were behind her back. Eleanora ran her cold fingers through Myra’s hair, twirling a few strands. It had been a while since she’d been caressed so gently, and Myra welcomed the soft skin of the cold hands as the glided across her neck. Since the cuffs were not padlocked, she could maneuver herself out of them if she wanted, or even loop her legs back through them and bring the leather cuffs in front of her if she tried. It was not a dangerous situation, but it heightened the eroticism of the moment regardless. From the half windows lining the far side of the room, faint starlight beamed in from the stormy sky up above, peaking in and out of existence with each cloud passing by. The wind howled a curious roar.

“Now,” the Countess said, sitting back down on the bed in front of Myra. “I imagine there are probably a few things you’d like to ask me.” The tip of her shoe began to ever so slightly edge beneath Myra’s skirt.

There were so many curiosities she had. Who was this woman? What was her history? Why did her two other maids not even speak? There was, however, one question that burned brighter than the others.

“If I may… why do you only employ… girls like me… at this mansion?” The Countess’ eyes smiled. “I have many questions, but that’s the first one I can’t even begin to make sense of in my mind.”

“You mean to ask why I only employ transsexual girls like you to work at this mansion, correct? I had a feeling that was what you were pondering behind those eyes.”

“How did you—”

“Because I know people.” The Lady cut her off. “I know the bounds of their bottomless greed perhaps more than anyone who has ever lived. Humans are always for want of something, and, thus, one only needs to know the true extent of another’s heart in order to discover the entirety breadth of their story.”

“I’m…not sure I understand…”

The Countess sighed in pleasure, her eyes closed. “I love women. Their soft curves, the elegant way their bodies press against my own, the lovely scent of their skin as it splits, the cries they make, the performative nature of their makeup and dress — I love it all.”

“But why us?”

“I find you elegantly intellectual. Or better yet, intellectually elegant. There is a monstrous fire inside what you want. An ineffable chasm between where you kneel now, and the person you used to be. That is why I employ girls like you to serve me. Because you appreciate and savor it, for every moment you are alive. I have no time for ungrateful tones, for passive aggression, for solipsistic sloth, for sloppy attire. I want an elegant woman to serve me with pride. And the most prideful, I have found, are the ones who desire to be elegant more than anything in the world. Do you understand me now?”

“Forgive me, my Lady, but I am unsure if I fully grasp the concept.”

“I desire a lady like you, and you desire to be desired. What better match in heaven could there be? You will grasp it in due time, more than you could ever know. ”

“When the time comes, I can only hope I will be fit to fully grasp the deep intent of your meaning. I hope it will please you, my Lady, and I hope you will be proud of my service.”

“Ahh, those words are like bloodied wine to my lips. When I am drowning in the fit of elegance, one certainly feels like they can live forever. Isn’t that right, young Myra?” With that question hanging in the air, the Countess rose from her seat. “Raquel, dear, won’t you help unzip me? I believe it’s time for the dress to come off.”

Raquel moved over, wordless as ever, and began to unzip the Countess’ intricate dress.

As Raquel slid the dress down, the Countess lifted her legs out from the garments. Myra had expected to be stricken by the rush of the sight of the Lady’s underwear, but another development had taken priority.

All across the Countess’ body, in small black ink, were words upon words upon words tattooed into the skin.

Up her forearms, around her biceps, across her tits and torso, down her thighs and shins and stopping at her ankles, circling around like a swirling inferno burned across her being. All the places that were covered by the dress, every square inch. Myra didn’t know much about tattoos, but she knew that much work was painful, expensive and time consuming. She had thought the tattoos on the maids were a lot, but she couldn’t possibly have prepared herself for this development.

“Usually, upon seeing a woman in her underwear for the first time, it’s customary to tell her how beautiful she is. Don’t you think?” Eleanora put the back of her hand up against her chin, fingers outstretched, and laughed.

Myra worked the words out of her mouth. “My Mistress, you are absolutely — beautiful.”

It was only after she had said those words that Myra’s vision fully adjusted from the words across the lady’s skin to the undergarments on her body. She wore a red see-through brassiere, along with a black garter belt and stockings synched tight into the claps. Her pussy was bare, unclothed and shaven, except for the words that were also tattooed across it.

“Now now, sweet thing, I am sure I would look more beautiful if your tongue were servicing between my legs.”

Myra grasped the meaning of those words instantly, though she was excited by the direct nature of the Lady’s disposition. “Yes, please!” Myra shouted, a bit too eager. The Countess was breathtaking — perhaps the most curious woman she had ever attended to. She wanted to sense what such elegance tasted like. The Countess licked her lips at those words. She gripped Myra’s hair into a handle like a ponytail, then yanked it up into her crotch.

Myra unfurled her tongue and began to massage it across Eleanora’s labia. She tried to go slowly in an attempt to flex her own skills. Eleanora’s nectar tasted sweet, in a way that was reminiscent of a pomegranate in the notes of its complexity.

As she worked her way further across the Countess’ cunt, Myra could feel her own body stirring beneath her skirt, her girlhood rubbing against the tight pressure of her black underwear. She accidentally let out a moan into Eleanora’s pussy, her voice squeaking out enough for the Countess to hear. In response, Eleanora lifted her leg up into Myra’s crotch, and Myra’s girlhood rubbed up against the Countess’ stockings.

“Making a mess, are we?” Eleanora whispered.

“Mmmhmmmm,” Myra answered, her voice muffled by cunnilingus.

“That’s quite alright, as to be expected. La bella ragazza con la figa bagnata.”

Eleanora lifted her leg up into Myra’s crotch once more, then rubbed her leg back and forth. Myra’s girlhood left a damp wet trail across the countess’ ankles.

The Countess smelled of a rather sweet blood. At her age, she was probably around menopause, and so it couldn’t have been that. It was almost as if the smell radiated off of her tattooed skin, melting into a bitter ashen smell that could only be described as burning. Surprisingly, while the smell was a strange hit to the senses, Myra did not hate it. No, in fact, somehow, it was if the smell were a byproduct of life itself. It quickened the pace of the room, along with Myra’s heart. The elusive Countess who smelled of blood captivated the young apprentice maid. Her intoxicating lust for life drove Myra into a frenzy of pheromones, and sure enough, when she reoriented herself, she was panting like a bitch in heat. Her tongue lapped at the Countess’ clit, which tasted of rust and wet sex.

Responding to the maid’s cries, Eleanora kicked her shoe off and began grinding the sole of her foot against the maid’s girlhood, moving her legs back and forth, back and forth. A faint blotting of juices graced the tips of her stockings, dampening her toes. The pleasant smell of sweaty sex wafted throughout the room, all the way to the silent maid who stood at attention against the wall. As she sunk further into the weight of the moment, Myra had forgotten the obedient girl named Raquel with the One tattooed into her thigh was still there.

From the way the Countess looked down upon her, eyes turned up in bliss, Myra could tell she was doing a good job, and that made her proud. It was her first night being used for her greatest skills, her sexual prowess put to the test, and the new maid was proving her worth.

In a sudden jerk, Eleanora tensed up, gripping Myra’s hair and shoulder harder than before, and Myra could feel her quickening towards climax. The thought caused Myra to begin to peak herself.

“Ahhhh!” the Countess cried, shoving her pussy as hard as she could onto the mouth of the maid, rubbing her lips on the maid’s face like a boot stomping out a cigarette. It was with this motion that Eleanora Aradia came, her cunt quivering as it pressed against the beautiful, mascara teared face of her new hire.

Myra did not ask for permission, but she could not control the weight of her orgasm, and so, allowing her body to climax, she came with her girlhood pressed into the Countess’ foot, humping it back and forth ever so slightly.

The both of them gasped at what they’d just done, the two of them beyond words. Myra felt a wellspring of pride bloom inside her, as she’d gotten her new Mistress to orgasm in a respectable amount of time — not an easy feat for a first time.

“Raquel,” Eleanora said. “Unlock her hands, then get the glasses. It’s time to celebrate.” Myra was confused that the first name out of her mouth wasn’t her own, lavishing praise. It seemed she still had a bit of work to do to win the Lady over. Raquel swiftly moved over and undid the latch locking Myra’s hands together, leaving the cuffs on. Myra flexed her fingers as the blood rushed back into them, then stretched her arms in the air. The rings jangled as she reached up towards the stormy sky, the moon half obscured by a cloud. After that, Raquel just as swiftly left the room and immediately came back with two tall stemmed glasses on a silver tray filled with champagne. They gleamed in celebration.

To be continued…

S L I C K: Lobsterotica

Content notes: oral sex, ​​shapeshifting, detailed descriptions of lobster anatomy

We both stood there, each waiting for the other to speak first. I thought, “It has to be her. There’s no way I’m gonna say the right thing right now. Just stay quiet and wait for her to say something.” We’d been there for hours talking. Every time I see her I can’t shut up, but this…I had no words for. Another minute passed in silence, both of us staring at opposite corners of my bathroom door frame, and I remembered something she’d said when we first met in psychology class:

“I’m a ‘big bodies of water’ kind of person, you know? And my parents can vouch for me. There was a time when I was younger where, whenever I’d ‘go missing’ for a few hours, I wasn’t really missing. I was hanging with sea critters on the beach.”

Kind of person…

Her body was hard and solid, but the first thing that struck me about her were here hands: large, athletic and sturdy, like the kind you might see on an ancient Roman statue. She was tall with long legs and she was on the swim team. Before she’d even said a word, I didn’t much care what kind of person she was. She was hot. Getting to know her, finding out she was the best kind of person…I felt lucky to sit next to her for an hour a week. We both realized that the other showed up early and stayed late, and not once did either of us pay the professor any mind. I asked for her Snapchat.

I watched her eyes struggle not to meet mine. She shifted her feet. I hadn’t felt this particular kind of nervous since our first date. That day, I couldn’t remember what kind of flowers she said she liked, so I photoshopped a pic of all the flowers I could think of and printed a poster at the art building. It was raining, and when I got to the date, I didn’t realize my bag had a hole in it and the top of the print got wet. The blue from the hydrangeas had started to bleed onto the other flowers, but she loved it anyway. She called it “beautiful” and “abstract.”

She’s a fucking lobster. I am fucking a lobster. I am in love with a lobster. I am gay with a fucking lobster. So how did we arrive at this moment?

Earlier today, I asked her to come over for a “study date,” which for us means:

1. snacks
2. I stare at her butt while she plays on my VR headset
3. we catch up on YouTube drama
4. smash bros (we have sex sometimes)

1, 2 and 3 went as planned. 4 rolled around, and in the beginning, it, too, was going precisely as usual. She was on top of me, hand firmly around my neck, inching her mouth down from my lips to my chest, careful not to leave anything sensitive un-sucked on the way to her ultimate destination. As she reached my vulva, her grip on my throat loosened and her hand began to follow the path that her mouth had left behind. It’s at this point when I usually think about thanking whoever taught her how to do this so well and then I remember it was ME. She started slowly, her tongue building a rhythm, rubbing against me from the tip of my clit to the opening of my vagina.

“Bitch,” escaped my lips in an exhale.
“Sorry,” she said laughing as she raised her head.
“No, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean —” I was cut off by her leaning up to kiss me.
“Shut up,” she said before going back to work.

She laid her tongue and then her mouth around my clit, and, gosh, how do I describe this? She’d be too embarrassed to tell you herself, but put her up against any high-end vacuum on the market and you’ll end up watching your favorite vacuum cleaner get outclassed. More like va-cum. ANYWAY. With both of her hands holding my legs down, she sucked my clit until my hips began to buck. She followed that same path she started with back up to my mouth and let me get a taste. You know, top stuff.

So I grabbed her ass. Hard. I wanted to leave a mark. And when I released my grip…the part of her ass I was holding fell to the ground. A deep, dark green shell remained in the spot where her ass had been. Without a word, she picked up her ass and ran to the bathroom. I don’t know if it was leftover adrenaline or the fact that her tongue was inside of me mere moments ago or the trajectory of our relationship thus far, but even more than the shock, I felt like I should comfort my girlfriend. It was probably five minutes later that I heard some clanging coming from behind my bathroom door. I put on her shirt and walked over.

I knocked twice, my ear glued to the door.

She slowly pulled the door open and revealed herself, a six foot long lobster, standing on four sets of legs; two big-meaty-claws down by her sides.
And so we both stood there. A human in a T-shirt and a human-sized lobster, formerly inside an intact human suit, which now lay slightly torn inside my bathtub.

Every time my mind started to string together the thought, How did I not see this earlier? I thought, How could I have possibly known my girlfriend is a whole lobster? Lots of kids like to play in the ocean. Plenty of people prefer not to go to Red Lobster on a night out — it can get super busy, and not everyone has the patience to wait 40+ minutes for a table. The blue blood was weird, but I was born with a vestigial tail. Some people are RARE, and what does “normal” even look like?

She broke the silence.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t know how to say it…and I just like you so much…this was my only D-1 offer for swimming. That’s why I came to this school, but the deal was…”

“…Are you okay?” I blurted out. “I mean, I didn’t hurt you, or…ruin your…human suit? I didn’t mean too…I’ll…pay for it?”

This was the first time I’d seen a lobster’s face up close, so it’s possible I was projecting, but she seemed to soften at my interruption. Her long antennae lowered, and her (big and also meaty) claws unclenched.

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got plenty of extras.”

“Good,” I said with a slight smile. “You’re…you’re…”

“Crustacean, yeah.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

By then the sun was setting. The light coming in through the window had made her cephalothorax glisten. She was as beautiful as ever. I went back to the bed and sat down, going over moments from our relationship where I should have paid more attention. Her hands are large and her grip is the strongest I’ve ever seen in my life, but I thought my obsession with her hands was because I’m gay? That being said, she’d always refer to her hands as her “pincers,” but even that seemed like a term of endearment. Plenty of tall people swim, lots of gay people don’t eat seafood and even more tall and/ or gay people have wardrobe malfunctions that interrupt nights out. Why wouldn’t I assume she meant clothing when she’d say wardrobe? Who thinks of a skin suit? Sure, she’s from Maine, but so are millions of others. It was all so silly.

“I’m in love with a lobster,” I thought out loud.

She crawled out of the bathroom and deftly climbed back onto the bed with me, making sure not to rip my bedding with her big, meaty claws. With her left, she reached up and turned my face toward hers.

“I love you, too.”

Her eyes were different, but her ability to see right through me was unchanged. I placed my left hand on her rostrum and stroked her cheliped with my right. I wanted to kiss her so badly, but I wasn’t entirely sure where her mouth was.

“Babe, how do I kiss you now?”

“Hahahaha,” she gruntled. “Let me worry about that.”

She leaned closer, draping her antennae on my shoulders and head. Her claws slid from my face down to my waist. Her long, muscular legs had been replaced with pereiopods and beautiful feathery pleopods that I can’t imagine hindered her successful run for co-captain of the swim team; they moved sensually in tandem as she crawled back on top of me. All her legs wrapped around me as she pulled me close to the underside of her carapace. I looked up at her — my lover, my lobster — and she leaned down and embraced my lips with her mandible.

I learned a lot about lobster anatomy today, but my favorite new fact? Lobsters have several mouths. My girlfriend knows how to use all of them.**

**This piece of fiction was written by a virgin.

S L I C K: Caterpillar Girls

Content notes: oral sex, hand sex, biting, blood, T4Cryptid sex
You go because of the rumor: There’s a monster in the woods.

As stories go, it’s little to go on, probably just another false lead. But Francine hates to leave a lead alone to languish in the general inbox, just waiting to be snapped up by 3 Spooked Girls or Buzzfeed Unsolved. Paranormal investigation media is a niche, but it’s your niche, so you pack a bag and put a ticket to Seattle on Francine’s credit card, and twenty-four hours after the email comes in, you’re in a rented Subaru driving away from Seattle’s rain and into the mist of the Washington rainforests.

The town is so small you get lost three times on back roads just trying to find it, and you take deep breaths through the familiar anxiety of being a trans girl traveling alone in the backwater bumblefuck middle-of-nowhere where your research trips always seem to take you.

Just once, you think, it would be nice to go look for cryptids in Brooklyn.

Google tells you that the closest motel is an hour and a half away, but there’s a single bed and breakfast in town. When you pull in, it turns out that it’s the town’s single cafe, too, and probably its only bar once the sun goes down, if the smooth wooden countertop and rows of gleaming bottles behind it are any indication. You think, probably, that this isn’t the kind of town where you can ask for hard liquor before five.

There’s a girl at the counter that seems to serve as a coffee bar, liquor bar and hotel front desk. She checks you in while you scroll through your phone, skimming through the emails that have come in from the rest of the research team, news clips and tweets and grainy photos of a dark shape against darker trees.

It’s not much to go on.

There are still a few hours till dusk, when you’ll take your good boots and your camera gear out into the misty forest in search of something a little more concrete than what’s looked so far like mostly hearsay and photoshop. You figure you might as well kill time, so you order a coffee and ask the girl at the bar about the rumors.

“Oh, I don’t know,” says the girl at the bar, handing you a steaming Americano in a mug that looks like it was handmade by a small child. “What is a monster, anyway?”

She’s beautiful in a way that looks out of place here in the middle of nowhere, all flawless skin and big brown eyes, thick dark lashes and a cascade of curls swept into a messy fishtail braid. Her eyebrow and lip are pierced, and she smiles at you in a way that makes you feel inside-out. She looks like someone who should be pulling in ten thousand likes a post on a cottagecore aesthetic instagram account, not serving coffee to low-budget reporters in Bumblefuck, Washington.

Her fingers brush yours as she passes you the mug. “Is that a philosophical question?”

She laughs. “It could be,” she says. She props her chin in her hands and tilts her head at you. The fabric of her sweater looks incredibly soft, oversized sleeves slipping down to expose the pale skin of her wrists. You wonder if she’s flirting, or if it’s just been so long since a girl has looked at you twice that you’ve forgotten how to tell. “Do you have a philosophical answer?”

You do have a philosophical answer. Everyone in your industry does. What is a monster but something the world deems unloveable? What is a cryptid but something you can never be quite sure is real? What is a ghost but something that haunts you, always there out of the corner of your eye?

You say, “I don’t get into philosophy until the second date.” She laughs again, and you notice that her teeth are very, very white.

---

The sun sets hazy and golden beneath the misty horizon, and you take your camera to the woods.

You weren’t a nature kid growing up. You did Cub Scouts and then Boy Scouts because your dad and your brothers did, and you never once let yourself look wistful and longing at your sister’s Brownie sash. While the other boys in your troop got their hands dirty and debated the best ways to build campfires, you wove bracelets out of the twine where you were meant to be practicing knots.

If you had known how much of your adult life would be spent tramping through forests, you might have paid more attention to your troop leaders lectures on reading trail maps and less attention to the pattern of freckles on Cory Diaz’s neck.

There’s a full moon tonight, and this far from the nearest city, the stars are dazzling in their beauty. You allow yourself a few moments of stillness just to look at them, ignoring the chill in the air and the way your body wants to jump at every crackle or whisper of sound around you. You catalogue the constellations you know, mapping them out by eye. In college, you’d dated a girl who loved the stars, who connected your scattering of moles with a ballpoint pen and named the constellations of your body.

Something snaps, too loud in the quiet woods. It’s only practice that keeps you from yelping as you turn toward the sound.

You don’t see anything, but then, you didn’t really expect to. Cryptids aren’t cryptids because they’re easy to spot. You take out your camera, switch it into the night vision setting and raise it in the direction of the snap. The world on the LCD display is hazy and green, but brighter than what you can see around you.

There — movement. Just a flicker, but you hold your breath all the same. Another movement. A shape, if you look closely. The motion is slow and deliberate. The hair at the back of your neck prickles.

It’s a prey instinct, you know; your nervous system activating in the presence of a threat. Your hands sweat around your camera. The skin between your shoulder blades tingles and tightens. You flex your fingers around your camera and look into the woods.

The woods look back through large, unblinking golden eyes, visible without the night vision filter. With it, you see more than the eyes — you see the teeth.

This time, you scream.

You don’t remember deciding to run or whether or not you had the presence of mind to turn your camera off. Your legs move without your consent — prey instinct, you think again, wild; because alone in the woods, you are prey — and you’re not aware of anything until you’re falling, your ankle wrenching with a horrible pop that makes your stomach lurch into your throat. Adrenaline outpaces pain and gets you back on your feet. You keep running, staggering, uneven steps.

Can you still hear something behind you? Is something following you in the dark?

Are you imagining the swell of hot breath on the back of your neck?

Before you can stop yourself, you turn to look over your shoulder. Your foot catches on a root.

You fall, and the last thing you see before your head hits the ground is the glow of yellow eyes.

---

You wake to soft blankets and throbbing pain.

“Easy now,” someone murmurs. The voice is tender. There are hands in your hair, and you turn your head into the touch. The motion makes the world dip and spin around you. “Easy.”

You open your eyes.

The room is unfamiliar. The girl stroking your hair is not. “Oh,” you say. You’re shocked that your words aren’t slurred. “I know you.”

The girl from the bar smiles at you. “A little, at least,” she says.

She helps you sit up, and hands you a glass of water. This isn’t your room at the bed and breakfast — it must be her home, her room, her bed. The sheets are soft against your bare legs, and you realize she must have undressed you. You recognize the sweater you’re wearing as the one you saw her in at the bar, and it’s as soft as it looked. You wonder if it was still warm from her skin when she gave it to you.

You remember, belatedly, that you never asked her name. “I’m Laura,” you say.

“I know,” she says. “I checked your wallet. Don’t worry, I didn’t steal any cash.” She takes the empty glass and sets it on the nightstand with a gentle click. “I’m Cam.”

Dimly, you think that you’ve never met a straight girl named Cam. “How did I get here?”

Cam tells you that she found you unconscious at the edge of the woods on her walk from the bed and breakfast to her apartment. She tells you that you woke up long enough to beg her not to take you to a hospital and that she knows a few things about avoiding doctors herself, so she brought you back here, bandaged your swollen ankle, kept an eye on the knot on your temple. That she looked in your wallet just to see if you carried any medical alert or medication information, and she promises that she didn’t take any of your cash, which is hilarious, because you’re pretty sure you only had a few crumpled dollar bills.

She tells you you’ve been out for a little over ten hours, and that’s what makes you panic. “Oh, shit,” you say. “I need to call my editor.”

Cam hands you your phone. The screen is cracked, but it’s fully charged. “I plugged it in,” she says. “We have the same model.” She gets to her feet. “I’ll make us some coffee.”

You watch her go. She’s wearing another oversized sweater, with a pair of metallic leggings and fuzzy socks with pompoms on the back. Her hair is in a pile on top of her head, a few tendrils brushing the pale column of her neck. You think, again, that she seems too pretty to be real.

There are ten texts and four missed calls from Francine. You send her an email with the bare bones: there is, in fact, something in the woods, but it’ll be a few days until you can get back to learn more. You promise to send the footage from your camera as soon as you get your hands on your backpack.

Her response comes in under a minute, crisp but not unkind: See a doctor. Keep me posted.

You write back with an easy lie about having already seen the local doctor in town, and then, unsteady on your feet, you maneuver yourself out of bed. Your jeans are folded neatly on a chair beside the dresser, clearly laundered and smelling faintly of dryer sheets and lavender. You wriggle your way into them — they’re always tighter just out of the wash — and roll up the cuffs.

Your ankle aches, but not so badly you can’t walk on it, and you follow the sounds of brewing coffee through Cam’s apartment. It’s a small, cozy, eclectic place, seemingly caught out of time, the furniture and decor a mismatch of style and decade and texture. The rooms feel at once lived-in and haunted, as if something is missing, but has left unseen pieces of itself behind. You touch your fingertips to a picture frame, a black-and-white shot of a woman who must be Cam’s grandmother.

The resemblance is uncanny. They have exactly the same eyes.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” Cam says from behind you, and you nearly jump out of your skin as you turn to her. She’s holding two steaming mugs in her hands, and arches one eyebrow at you.

“You scared the hell out of me,” you say, putting a hand to your chest. “Do you moonlight as a ninja?”

Cam wiggles her toes against the hardwood. “Socks,” she says, by way of explanation. “Though I always fantasized about being a cat burglar.”

You manage, with some effort, not to picture her in a catsuit. “You went with innkeeper instead?” you say.

“I like to meet new people,” she says, and offers you a mug.

You spend the day on Cam’s couch. If she’s meant to be at the bed and breakfast, doing whatever it is that innkeeper-barista-bartenders do in their day-to-day, she doesn’t mention it, and seems perfectly content to sit with you and drink coffee and talk. You tell her about the show and the podcast and the website, about how you turned your childhood love of fairy tales into a career. She tells you about her travels, about settling here in the middle of nowhere for a break from the overwhelming throb of cities and airports. You learn that she likes old poetry and classic rock, antique furniture and novelty socks.

When the sun shifts outside the window and paints the sky in shades of pink and gold, she opens a bottle of wine and pours for both of you. You don’t know anything about wine but it tastes expensive, full-bodied and deep, and each successive sip makes you feel warm all the way down to your toes.

By your second glass, you’ve lilted towards her on the couch, your head resting on your hand. She’s touching your hair again, twirling a few strands around her slender fingers. Her nails are manicured, neatly trimmed. You think, I want to put them in my mouth, and are proud of yourself for not saying it out loud.

Her lips are red from the wine, but there’s no flush to her cheeks. Only her eyes show any change, bright and shining, almost golden in the light of the setting sun.

You have a third glass of wine, and it makes you bold. The next time you think, I want to kiss this girl, you let yourself say it.

Cam smiles, her mouth red. She says, “Sweetheart, I thought you’d never ask.”

She tastes like the wine you’ve been drinking, sweet and rich. Her lips are soft against yours, but her hands are strong where she slips them over your shoulders, curling her fingers around your arms, holding you against her. You let her part your lips with her tongue, melting back against the couch.

Her teeth catch your lip, sharp. You gasp at the sting, and she swallows the sound. Her hands slip under your sweater — her sweater — and trace a delicate pattern against your bare skin. Her fingertips are cool, or maybe your skin is just hot. She sucks on your bottom lip, and you arch against her.

She pulls back. Her cheeks are tinted pink. Her mouth is redder than it was before, true red, not the deep purple of the wine, and you realize that her teeth must have drawn blood. As you watch, her tongue flicks out, and she licks the redness from her lips.

“Sweet thing,” she says, and touches the place on your lip where her teeth made contact. Her fingertips come away red. “Will you stay nice and still for me?”

You think, I would let her drink me dry, and shudder into obedience when she kisses you again.

---

You spend two days in Cam’s apartment, talking and kissing. She doesn’t take off her clothes or yours, but you feel as drunk under her hands as if she’d plied you with orgasms, as if she’s sated you with nothing but her lips on yours. The biting is new, is a bit strange, but when a girl like that kisses like this, you think a bit of sharpness is a small price to pay, and the way she smiles at you when you let her draw a drop of blood from your lips is like the coming of dawn.

When the sky turns from orange to lavender on the second night, you get up.

“I promised my editor I’d go back,” you say, when she frowns, reaching for you. You find your boots, sitting neatly by the door next to hers, and sit down to pull them on. “Just to get some better footage, if nothing else.”

Cam had brought your backpack and laptop from your room at the bed and breakfast. You’d sent Francine the footage from the first night, had gotten a laundry list of questions and requested follow-up shots in return. She’d also approved your request to move your return flight back another week, despite the change fee added to her credit card.

You’d felt only a little guilty doing it, changing your flight date with Cam’s lips trailing over your neck.

Cam gets to her feet, her movements fluid as ever. You feel graceless around her, large and clumsy against her lithe grace. “I’ll come with you,” she says.

“You shouldn’t,” you protest. “It might not be safe.”

She arches an eyebrow. “You’re going,” she says.

“Yeah,” you say, “But for work. It’s my job.”

She lets out a little hum, thoughtful, and comes to stand over you where you sit on the bench in her little entry nook. She isn’t tall, but seated, you have to look up at her. Your face is even with the soft midpoint of her belly, and you ache to lean forward, to press your mouth to the skin beneath her shirt. She cups your cheek and draws your eyes up to look into hers. “I’m not afraid of anything we might find in the dark,” she murmurs. “Are you?”

Mouth dry, you say, truthful and ashamed, “I’m terrified.”

She smiles. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll keep you safe.”

---

You go back to the woods together. It’s cloudy tonight, constellations lost to the vastness of the sky. The light of the waxing moon breaks through in places, lengthening the shadows of the trees.

Cam walks ahead of you, her steps sure and steady. She seems to have none of your hesitation, none of the uncertainty that makes you test each step before you take it, cautious of the roots that had tripped you the last time you were here.

“Remind me,” she says, the sudden words startling in the quiet night despite the softness of her voice, “what we’re looking for?”

You don’t quite know how to tell her what you saw, or how to explain that you don’t look for the monsters in the woods— you simply place yourself in reach of it, and sometimes, the monsters come to you. In the end, you say, “Something that doesn’t belong,” and she laughs.

“Yes,” she says. “The monsters never do.”

---

A memory:

The English lit grad student you’re in love with lets you stay in her room after the sweat has cooled and your heart rates have returned to steadiness. She’s reading a translation of The Aeneid and clicking her tongue at the footnotes.

“The translator’s take on the Minotaur is derivative,” she tells you when you ask.

You peer over her shoulder. There’s an illustration. You wrinkle your nose. “I thought he was the monster in the labyrinth.”

She tells you the story: a queen and a god, a king and a sacrifice, a child who asked for none of it. A cage that wasn’t a cage, but a prison all the same.

You touch your fingertips to the picture, tracing the lines of a snarling face. “So there’s no monster in the story?”

She lays her hand over yours and draws your finger to the side until it rests against the edge of the illustration, where the walls of the labyrinth stand out in thick lines of black ink. “I never said,” she murmurs, “That there wasn’t a monster at all.”

---

You don’t know precisely when you lose her. Only that you look down to check your camera, and when you look up again, you’re alone in the woods.

The forest around you is at once quiet and full of sounds, the ambient noise of a living, breathing natural world: rustling leaves and buzzing insects and the echoing, eerie calls of nocturnal hunters. You want to call her name, but your voice catches in your throat. The prey-sweat comes over you again, cold and breathless.

Somewhere in the darkness, a wolf howls, long and lonely and mournful.

You think, I’m going to get eaten by a werewolf in the back-ass woods of Washington like some kind of Twilight cliche, and the laugh that bubbles out of you is high and shrill.

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch a flash of gold.

Even before you turn, you know what you’ll see.

The yellow eyes gleam at you through the trees, shining and huge. The pupils are slitted like a cat’s, and as the eyes move closer, you see the body around them take shape: smooth and feline, shadow-dark and fluid as water. It’s silent as it moves, the leaves that brush it seeming to fall through it, as if it’s something unsubstantial, not really there. The mouth parts, and in the dim glow of the moonlight, you see the flash of sharp teeth.

It reaches the edge of the trees. If you stretched out your hand, it might be close enough to touch. Your hand trembles on your camera. You could bring it up and look through the viewfinder, see this creature in night vision reality. The things you can’t see, you know, are always scarier than the things that you can.

You close your eyes. You don’t run.

With a huff of hot breath that ripples your skin into goosebumps, the presence in the dark moves closer. You hold yourself still, prey in the night.

The next breath is close enough that you feel it against your face, warm and deep and heady with the iron tang of blood. Your knees, trembling, refuse to hold you any longer, but you barely register the pang as they hit the forest floor.

You wait for the rush of pain. For the teeth or the claws. For the sound of a predator announcing its presence, the last thing you’ll hear before you die.

Instead:

The touch against your face is cool and familiar and human, manicured fingertips brushing your cheek and tilting your chin up. “Sweet girl,” says the monster in the woods. “Open your eyes.”

You do.

In the blue-grey moonlight, Cam’s pale skin seems nearly to glow. Her eyes, with their thick, dark lashes, shine gold. There’s a break in the clouds above you, and as you look up at her from your knees, the moonlight catches on the too-sharp edges of her teeth.

Her lips are red and wet, and you want them, terribly, on yours.

“You told me,” she says, a purr and a threat, “that you had a philosophy about monsters.”

What is a monster but something the world can’t love?

You look up at her. Silently, willingly, you bare your throat.

She is tender as she draws you to the ground, tender as she strips your sweater and jeans away and bares you to the cloudy sky, tender as she draws your arms above your head and holds your wrist with one slim hand, deceptively strong. Her teeth are so sharp you don’t feel the pain right away when they sink into your neck — there’s only a rush of heat, a sense of something being pulled from you. Her thumb traces the line of your collarbone, a counterpoint to the throb at your pulse, and when she licks at the bite you hear yourself whine, faint and high in your throat.

There’s a heat to her when she kisses you now, and you taste your blood in her mouth when she slips her tongue past your lips.

“Stay,” she says against your lips, flexing her hand around your wrists, and you say, in a voice so breathless you barely recognize it as your own, “yes.”

She traces her way down your body, her mouth against all the places where your skin has dimpled in the cold. Her teeth graze your nipple, the barest tease of a threat, but before you can protest she’s moving again, lower lower lower, to where you’re wet and half-hard and aching, every inch of you alive under her touch. She wraps her lips around you and you arch against her, intimately aware of where her teeth are, and her laughter is honey-sweet and sets your nerves alight.

Her lips find your inner thigh and she sucks a mark there, then another, another, an Orion’s Belt of bruises, and when you beg her for it she maps them out again with her teeth. She opens your veins and you flower under her, everything you are unfolding under her hands, her tongue, her teeth.

“Please,” you say, and you don’t know what you’re asking for. She lifts her head and her face is red to the chin, her eyes luminous gold. “Please.”

“Sweet girl,” she says again, and your eyes go stinging and hot. She leans down and licks at a bite on your thigh, the closest one to the place between your legs where everything is tight and wet and wanting, and when you say her name, the breath of her laughter ghosts over your skin.

“Please,” you say again.

She smiles. Her teeth gleam, sharp.

When her thighs close around your head you feel like you could drown in her. You tilt your chin up and open your mouth and the first taste of her cunt on your tongue hits you like a blessing, salt and iron and honey-musk. Her hands are cold but inside she’s blood-hot, and as you lick into her, you see starbursts of red against your eyelids.

Around you the forest is alive with sound, the night-noise of the hunters and the wind and the trees and the deeper, desperate noises that you make as you eat her out, shaking and starving. The forest floor is uneven and rocky and damp beneath your bare skin. Your head spins and you wonder how much blood she’s taken from you. You think it can’t be too much because you can still feel the throb of your pulse at your throat and your wrists and your cock, and when her clit twitches against your tongue, you lose the sound of your cry in the cacophony of sound around you.

She takes one of your hands as she rides your mouth, brings the heel of your palm to her lips. She kisses you there, feather light, a contrast to the way she rocks down against your tongue. Her teeth graze your skin, and you roll your hips into nothingness. Your skin is cold in the chilly air, colder where you’ve leaked slick and needy all over your belly. She’s barely touched you, and you think you could spiral apart.

Her thumbnail traces a line over the vein at your wrist. She pulses around you like your own heartbeat. You slide two fingers of your other hand against her, and then inside her; when she sighs your name, you add one more. She takes you in, all the way to the base of your knuckles, so hot you think she could break you down and forge you anew, reshape you until you’re exactly what she wants.

You would let her remake you. You would let her eat you alive.

“Darling,” she says, breathy. She trembles around your fingers, against your tongue. She licks at the pulse in your wrist, kisses it. She says, sweet as a sigh, “Tell me.”

You say her name. It’s the only word you can remember.

She sinks her teeth into your wrist, and you come like a shooting star.

---

—conclusion, I think I got a little taken in by the local ambiance. That Washington fog is no joke! There are some cute local legends around, but nothing worth an episode, unfortunately.

Let me know if you saw my vacation request — I’ve got a few more days before my return flight, and I’d rather enjoy the area instead of changing the ticket again. If you can approve, that would be great!

You hit send. The email to Francine disappears from your drafts with a tinny whoosh.

There’s no monster here, you’ve told her, typing the message out with fingers that still tingle at the tips, the bandages on your wrists grazing the edge of your laptop. The bite marks beneath the gauze are already mostly healed. Cam had licked them clean in your shared shower last night, before she brought you back to her bed and kissed you til the pain was less than an afterthought.

In the darkness of her room, the two of you naked and damp and warm beneath her sheets, she tells you of the other girls: the girls she used to be, the girls she’s lost, the girls who wanted to stay, the girls who couldn’t.

She doesn’t ask which type of girl you are. You don’t know how you’d answer.

You close your laptop. Outside, the sun is fading. It’ll be twilight soon.

The bed dips beside you. Smooth, pale arms wrap around your shoulders, and warm lips brush the side of your throat.

Her lips are always warm now.

“Come out with me tonight,” she says. Her lips are feather-soft against your neck. You feel the gentlest possible pressure of her teeth. A tease. A promise. “I want to show you the woods.”

You take her hand, and you go.

S L I C K: Accept Transformation, Part 2

Content notes: D/s, bondage, vibrators

Connie stood before him, stunned. She’d seen a lot of orgasms in her life and a reasonable amount of BDSM, but no domination so total, no pleasure seized through someone so violently and completely without them ever seeming to break free of it and come back to reality. The thing before her had fallen dormant, slow breaths making its clamped chest rise and fall. Still he didn’t react to any nudge or touch. Looking her friend up and down, Connie could see slightly bruising on his nipples and cunt, the pain of repeated, seemingly unending stimulation marked on his body.

Slowly, Nix’s eyes rolled down and, still looking past her entirely, reoriented to the screen. It locked back onto its purpose. Connie watched with fascination as his pupils swelled up and became lost in the vision again and his mouth fell open once more. He began repeating the mantras again. His arousal returned, nipples stiffening, body automatically, brainlessly pushing against the vibrator at a slow but consistent pace.

It was beautiful and terrible, what had been done to him. Connie finally found herself breaking free of numb curiosity, and experiencing something like fear. She was reaching out to touch her friend, trying still to wake him up, and still it was like he had evacuated his body entirely.

“Nix, wake up,” she said over and over, her voice increasingly loud and frantic now, having been so hushed and stunned before. “Nix. Come on. This isn’t funny. Enough. Nix. NIX!”

That was when Anthony finally emerged from the back room, rushing out to find out what the commotion was. He was absent-mindedly holding a leather blindfold and a penis-shaped mouth gag with a shiny metal lock.

“What the hell is going on,” he barked loudly, darkly, before his eyes locked on Connie and, recognizing her, softened. He was dressed in the same outfit he’d been wearing earlier at the party, except he had glistening latex gloves covering his hands.

“Connie,” he sputtered, his posture dropping into his usual friendly, affable stance. “Did you…need something?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said dully. “But this is not…normal. I’m not kinkshaming, I swear but. He didn’t even hear me come in.”

“Connie,” Anthony said apologetically, putting the gear down on a footstool and raising his hands. “You have to understand, what I do with it is very—”

“What’s wrong with him?” She heard herself getting agitated, felt herself moving across the floor as if to close the distance between them, “What did you do to my friend?”

Half an hour later, Nix met her in the front yard, as Anthony had promised he would. Connie was smoking and choking down a Diet Coke, bracing herself against the wet and cold. Nix appeared beside her, wearing sweatpants and a robe. She could see red marks fading on his chest. His collar was still on. His eyes were bleary but alert. He leaned against the house beside her and together they stared out into the darkness.

“Hey,” Nix said.

“Hi,” Connie replied, sucking air through her teeth. “Look, I’m sorry I interrupted you two.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “It was rude to do that during a party.”

“It’s not that it’s rude, that’s not the problem. Like who cares, we’re all sluts.” She folded one arm across her chest. “The rude thing was that you didn’t stop. Why didn’t you wake up?”

“I couldn’t,” he said.

“What do you mean, you couldn’t?”

“We’ve been training me,” Nix said. “To really go deep and not see or hear anything else.”

Connie knew people who got into altered headspaces when they had sex, furries and puppy players and people who roleplayed. But it was always fake. You could always snap out of it. But when Nix claimed that he couldn’t, she believed him. He had truly seemed dead to the world.

“How often do you two do that together?” she asked.

Nix pulled in a fortifying breath of cold air. “Every day,” he told her. “The Controller requires I do it every day for several hours.”

She let the Controller thing slide for the time being. “Hours? How many hours?”

“As many as I can get,” a smile sneaked out of the corner of Nix’s mouth. “I understand it looks…weird…but I love it.”

“You mean it loves it,” she said knowingly.

His eyes went dark. “It needs to be reminded of what it is,” he said simply. It sounded like an incantation. Like a law inscribed on the inside of him.

“Uggh,” Connie said with a shake.

Nix looked at her, concerned. “Look, I’m sorry I scared you. I didn’t think you’d ever have to know about this.”

“What the fuck did you think would happen, Phoenix? You thought you could just get brainwashed by this guy every day of your life, for hours, and I’d just never — I’d never know?”

Nix nodded, embarrassed. “Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you could tell. I thought I could just keep it separate from the rest of my life.”

She turned to face him dead on. “What life? You haven’t been the same for a long time. You get lost in your thoughts. You don’t care about your career or the things you used to worry about. You’re dreamy and stupid around him. You don’t hear half the things I say to you. Probably because you’re listening to those words in your head all the time, oh my God!!”

“You really know me so well,” Nix said, as if to himself. “I don’t know how you can tell, but that’s exactly right. My programming runs all the time, in the back of my head.”

“Why?”

“To remind me of what I am. And take me deeper and deeper into…always knowing that it’s true.”

“Are you even — are you even awake right now?” She took hold of his shoulder. Shook him a little. He smiled at her, impassively. “Explain it to me, seriously.”

“I’m in something called a waking trance right now,” Nix said, all matter-of-fact. “I can do work like this, run errands like this. I’m under His control all the time, but I can simulate what it’s like to be the person I was before. But if He said the right trigger word, or gave me a look, I’d go into another kind of mental state, like the one you saw upstairs. There are phrases and commands, daily rituals and homework.”

“Nix, this is so freaky. How do you know you really want it? How do you know if you need it to stop?”

He blinked a few times and composed himself. “Look, I didn’t mean to disturb you. The arrangement the Controll — Anthony — and I have is something I’ve dreamed about all my life.”

“And it’s like, real?” Connie asked. “Like, are you just a hypnotized thing all of the time, that he can fuck whenever he wants?”

“Do you want the answer to that?”

She paused. “Yes.”

Nix sighed and said, “Yes. I am His obedient fucktoy and He can use me any time. All the time. And he can change any part of me that he wants. My thoughts, my desires. How I act. Make memories disappear. Change my opinions. And it’s real, and it’s what I want.”

“And you thought I just…wouldn’t notice you turning into some kind of weird Stepford Husband slave thing? Your best friend, who realized you were a guy two years before you did?”

“You know what’s really fucked up?” Nix said, taking the cigarette from her hand and pulling it to his own mouth. “Hearing you say how much I’ve changed…it’s incredibly hot to me. It means I’m responding to His programming more than I thought. I’m not glad I made you upset. But. I wanted to give myself over to this, as completely as possible. So yes, I’ve been changing. And I want to see how deep it can go.”

He passed the cigarette back to her, but Connie was too dumbfounded to know what to do with it.

“Look, I won’t put you in a situation where you have to see that again,” he told her. “We don’t want to make you feel gross. But it’s good that you know.”

Connie dropped the dying cigarette to the ground and stared at it. Nix’s foot, which was shoved into Anthony’s oversized slipper, she now noticed, jutted forward and stamped the ember out.

“I’m not grossed out,” she strained to tell him. “I will never be grossed out by you. I just want to make sure this is good for you.”

“It’s more than good for me,” he said. “It’s so right that it’s worth anything bad that comes with it.”

“I want to be able to talk to you about this, to check in with you,” she said. “To make sure you’re okay. Is that fine?”

“Of course, Connie,” her friend told her, his words surging with emotion for the first time in the entire conversation. It was the same Nix who’d once told her that of course, she could always call him by his chosen name from now on. “You can come over and check in on me whenever you like.”

That answer was enough to satisfy her, at least for the night. She couldn’t control her friend’s choices, but at least she could watch over him and learn more about what he was doing. Maybe with time and exposure she’d come to understand it. Connie gave him a brisk hug and excused herself to leave.

A week and a half later, cases were surging all across the country. Offices were going remote, kids were being pulled out of school, and the restaurant where Connie worked shuttered its doors. After a few more days of people voluntarily distancing, Ohio finally entered lockdown.

---

They talked about drama in the art world, and the weird girl Connie’s roommate Lainey was dating. They refilled their tea and joked about an annoying client who used to call Nix in the middle of the night. When their salads were gone and their soups were drained, they used crusts of French bread to sop up the lingering drops.

“This is really nice,” Connie said. “I got sick of only ever seeing you through a Zoom screen.”

“This is a lot better,” Nix agreed. “It’s easier to feel…normal. When I’m not in the house.”

The waiter brought them the bill. When Nix reached forward, Connie caught a glimpse of a new tattoo on his inner wrist, a power button symbol in teal. She noticed again how huge his biceps had gotten.

Connie wondered if exercise was part of his daily homework. It would be easy enough, working out while listening to Anthony’s audio files with all the mantras. The same hooks and straps used to bind Nix’s entranced body could easily be utilized for pull-ups. She imagined Nix hanging upside down from the wooden frames, eyes staring at the spirals, his body involuntarily pulling itself into sit ups while the words flowed from him in a monotone.

Nosy. She was so nosy. But all this year, she had barely said a thing to him about it all. It had seemed so impossible to broach.

“Do you still like it?” she asked, after he’d paid up and pressed the bill holder shut. “The spirals, the words? Do you ever get bored?”

He smiled at the ground. “Never. You can’t really be bored if you’re just…gone.”

“Gone.”

He made a fluttery gesture with his hand. “Plus that’s just part of it. I’m always getting new rituals, new commands…It’s always becoming, more.”

He stood up.

“Wait. What’s something new that he’s added lately?” she asked.

He looked off into space, clearly filtering through possible responses until he found something that wasn’t too upsetting.

“Stop that,” Connie said. He blinked back into awareness. “Just tell me honestly, I don’t mind. What’s the last thing he trained you to do?”

“If I see that He’s hard, I drop everything,” Nix said. “My mind goes blank. I stop what I’m doing. Strip. Fall to my knees. Mouth open, arms behind me. Ready for Him to fuck me in the face.”

“No matter what?”

“He has some safeties installed in me. If I’m in a work meeting I must turn the camera off first. If we’re in public I go into standby, and it has to wait until we’re in the car. But it just happens. I see Him hard, I drop into Service Mode.”

Connie felt a slight twinge between her legs. If she didn’t think too much about it, it actually was kind of hot. Nix had mistaken her interest for judgement though and started walking to the parking lot. She dashed after him.

“Nix, wait. How does it feel? What is it like?”

“I thought you didn’t want to hear this stuff.”

“I do,” she blurted. “I’m not scared anymore. I have to love the real you. This is the real you now.”

He stood in place with his back turned to her. “Everything is darkness most of the time. I’m down deep below the surface. It’s like little cuts from a montage. Whole days go by, all I see are flashes. His cock in my mouth, His cock in my ass. His come running down my legs. His hand on my head, guiding me. His voice in my mind. Telling me what to think, what to be. My beliefs, my way of speaking, moving…everything changes. Endless bliss. I know my purpose. And then I wake up, and it’s weeks later, and He’s telling me to get dressed, because today I have a lunch date with my very best friend.”

Cis people had a tendency to believe that transitioning was a kind of self-destruction or self-erasure. They mourned the changes in their trans loved ones as if their new freedom were a death. It was a big change, but not as dramatic a change in selfhood as this. Connie reminded herself the two things both were, and were not, analogous. “And you love being down there? Under the surface or whatever?”

“I do,” her friend told her. “It only becomes more beautiful, the deeper it goes. It seems to be endlessly deep.” He turned to her, adjusting the collar of his shirt. His gaze was naked, honest.

“I want to see it,” blurted Connie. “Is there a word I can say, or.”

“You can use the trigger ‘Nix, go away,’” he said. And quickly added, “To bring me back, say ‘Nix, return to me.’”

They placed themselves behind Connie’s big pickup truck. The thick foliage of the Cuyahoga County Metroparks hugged the parking lot on the other side. Everything around them was quiet and still. She stepped forward, and extended her hand as if casting a spell. Her palm pressed gently against his chest. “Nix, go away.”

He exhaled and swayed forward slightly, eyes rolling back into his skull. His lips pursed with pleasure. Connie looked around and confirmed they were alone. She heard a car honking in the distance, and saw a lone goose ambling around the side of the restaurant. She looked back at the thing before her.

Her friend was truly gone, just a warm vulnerable body with empty eyes, opened up under her touch. Connie felt his slow breathing make his chest rise and fall. His posture was perfectly poised, yet submissive and at attention. He would do nothing now, be nothing, if not for her. It was somehow entrancing itself, having this kind of power.

“Who are you?” she asked the being before her.

“This unit is Ph03n1x, the Controller’s programmed, robotic toy,” it stated in a flat tone.

“And who am I to you?”

“Connie,” the robot told her. “The human Phoenix’s beloved friend.”

“Do you love me, robot?”

It processed for a moment. “Yes.”

“How much?”

“More than anything.”

“How do you feel?”

“Right. Peaceful. Still.”

“I want to help you with what you’re becoming,” she told it. “I love you, and I want to help you navigate all these changes safely. Would you like that?”

“Yes, Connie. It would like that very much.”

“Would you tell me if you didn’t?”

“Yes,” it said. “It must be honest.”

She pondered. “Do you ever worry you’re changing too much?”

“Sometimes the changes are huge and frightening,” Nix said. “But it never regrets them.”

“Do you miss how you used to be?”

“No,” it told her. “It is better this way.”

He breathed into her touch and she could feel the simple, all-encompassing pleasure that being like this brought him. For the first time, Connie let herself accept that Nix truly was better this way. Not just happier, but more fully himself. Her friend had revealed himself to her utterly, invited her to know his most private self. Connie had been too afraid to look at it dead on before. But now she realized that her friend hadn’t been disappearing from her at all. He had been becoming himself, right before her eyes, and she was the one who had been shying away. But if she availed herself to the darkest contours of his psyche, he would gladly let her in.

“Nix, demonstrate Service Mode” she said quickly, on impulse.

He fell to the ground, with precise, carefully modulated movements. In a flash his knees were on the pavement and his arms folded back. He tilted his head up at her, eyes shut, mouth open and glistening, ready to perform its duty. Connie’s pussy clenched at the sight. She’s never been a fan of oral, her bottom dysphoria being what it was, but the wild, yearning abandon on Nix’s face made her want to lower herself onto his expectant, servile lips.

“You’d let me fuck you right here?” she whispered.

“Connie is an approved user of this unit,” the robot intoned. “The Controller has granted her full access. It would be an honor for this robot to gratify you.”

“Exit Service Mode,” she commanded, and he rose up once more. Connie let out a sigh of relief. It was a good thing this side of the neighborhood was so dead in the middle of the day.

“How did that feel?” she asked him.

“It is a pleasure to serve.”

“Was it okay for me to do that to you?”

“It is immensely pleasurable for you to issue it commands.”

“Good, uh, robot,” she said, satisfied. “You don’t want to ever give this up, do you?”

“Never.”

Connie squeezed his shoulder. “Good. I want to help, so you’ll never have to.” She stepped back and murmured, “Nix, return to me.”

He gasped and leaned back, eyes falling down at her, returning to life. “Woah.”

“Hey there,” she said softly.

“Connie, you’re really good at that! You’re a natural.”

She smiled. The power. It really had felt good. “Did you enjoy that? Would you want to do that again sometime?”

Nix nodded hungrily.

She smiled. “Good, I liked that too. But, we have to balance it with normal-person things too. After all, that’s what He wants.”

The way she said He filled Nix with palpable pleasure. “I want that too,” he nearly purred.

“Is there a difference anymore? Between His wants and yours?”

Nix didn’t say a thing.

“I’m glad the Controller cares about your health as much as I do,” Connie heard herself say, somewhat seductively. “You’ve trusted Him — and me — with your obedience. And we have to take care of you, so you can continue to serve us for a long time. Don’t you agree?”

“Y-yes, Connie.”

“Good robot. I think we should do this maybe like, once a week maybe? Get a meal and catch up? Play around, and you can show me your new tricks?”

“I’d really like that,” Nix said eagerly. “And I know Anthony thinks the very same thing.”

“You can use His correct name.”

“The Controller,” he savored the word. “The Controller would approve.”

“Great. So. Do you still want to come to my house and look at some paintings?”

“More than anything,” Nix told her. He gave his head one final shake, breaking free of her spell. Still she knew that she could make him drop again at any moment and grant him the sweet release of returning to his true state. Connie promised herself she wouldn’t use the trigger again that night. They had plenty of time to savor and slowly develop this new side of their relationship.

She fired up the truck and he slid into the passenger seat beside her. As Connie pulled out into the road, her best friend spoke up.

“If you’re selling any paintings, we could use some new decor for the attic,” Nix told her. “I’ve never told you this, but the Controller is such a huge fan of your work. It would be nice to have you represented up there.”

S L I C K: Accept Transformation, Part 1

Content notes: D/s, bondage, vibrators

He walked across the brick walkway slowly, with a clarity of purpose and a serenity Connie had rarely seen in him in the times before. He used to look around nervously, sweeping the ground with his eyes, his posture tucked inward, hiding his chest and projecting his doubts. His mannerisms, the way he dressed, the perpetual and painful-looking curl to his spine — it had always been a request for you to forgive his existence. Now he didn’t seem to care about the outside world and its reaction to him at all.

He glided toward Connie, his shoulders rolled back, his face radiant in the breaking sunlight. His rusty-brown hair was freshly cut and bouncy and framed his cheekbones perfectly. His eyes casually focused on Connie as he made his approach.

“You’re late, Nix,” Connie admonished him, tossing a Sugar in the Raw packet across the wrought iron table where she sat waiting. A pot of blueberry green tea, Nix’s favorite, steamed into the air around them. He grinned and opened his arms, somewhat theatrically and stiltedly, for an embrace.

“It’s so good to see you,” Nix said.

Connie went into his arms, pressed herself into his chest. She let her friend hold her for a little longer than what used to be customary. He was bigger than he used to be, his arms thicker, his torso solid. But he still smelled like the Bath and Body Works cologne they had picked out together in their early twenties, the day before he came out as a man. They’d been in the Great Northern mall together, him looking around furtively, stealing smells from the various blue and green bottles, Connie keeping watch in case anybody they knew showed up.

Back then, Connie didn’t have the heart to tell him that nobody in all of Middleburg Heights would hold it against a “girl” that she enjoyed a twelve-dollar body spray designed for a “boy.” She held onto that snark for a few years, saved it up until he would be ready to hear it.

When the dam of trans denial finally bursts, there is a lot of rubble left behind. You have to overcome a lot of big, jagged barriers your mind erected to protect you and keep you from getting found out. Nix had set a lot of arbitrary rules for himself. Ways he wasn’t allowed to dress, ways he wasn’t permitted to sit. Things he couldn’t enjoy anymore. Retrograde stuff that no actual cis person even believed about men and women in 2010. So self-conscious. It takes a patient friend to help a newly-out trans person unpack that shit, but Connie had always been decent at registering her judgement in a way Nix could hear and biting her tongue when he couldn’t.

The memories of that time were nice. Helping Nix pick out pimple cream, oohing and ahhing when he modeled new joggers and skater shoes. Watching the joy spread across his face whenever she called him by his true name. She had enjoyed watching him slowly blossom. He was easy to encourage and easy to comfort. Now his big arms were enveloping her, returning some of the love and care Connie had long radiated at him.

The pandemic had been “over” in the U.S. for several months, but people still held their hugs for a long time and shared bites of food with their friends sensually, like it was making love. Connie hoped that never stopped. As she broke away from Nix, she noticed the shiny metal collar peeking out from under his shirt. He adjusted his button-up slightly, with great courtesy, and then they sat down.

Nix looked around the patio, taking in the tulips and the blossoms in the trees. They used to visit this teahouse a lot as teenagers. It was one of the more wholesome places they’d terrorized. Nobody ever yelled at teen-Connie for smoking on the patio or at Nix for showing up in days-old, crusty Rocky Horror makeup. They’d been allowed to sit outside and drink refills of the same pot of tea for hours without being scolded.

“I’m so glad this place survived the pandemic,” Nix said.

“Melt didn’t make it,” Connie sighed, referring to the old sandwich shop that sold them beer underage back in college. “And Cornerstone Brewery had to get a GoFundMe.”

Nix frowned sympathetically. “Well, let’s get a full spread here today, shall we? Give them as big a financial shot in the arm as we can.”

Connie shifted in her seat. She had been laid off for months.

Nix shook his head, realizing. “Oh, no I mean. This is all on me.”

She relaxed and mouthed thank you to him silently. Connie considered herself a giver, not someone who was meant to receive. But she was willing to let Nix take care of her a bit. He owed her that much, after all the months of being near-absent from her life.

“So your work has been going well?” she asked.

Her friend stared off into space a moment, as if he’d forgotten that he had a job. He shook his head a bit again, knocking the dust loose. “Oh, yes. It’s been fine. I’m just rotating through the same few clients and their projects. The plan really came together like I hoped. I only work a couple days a week at this point. Everything else is just…on the rails.”

Connie sipped her tea. “That’s great. That’s pretty amazing actually.”

Nix smiled, a little embarrassment hanging in his eyes. “I’m living the dream. It feels annoying to say.”

“Please, don’t be embarrassed. My unemployment doesn’t run out for six more months. You should see how much painting I’m getting done. I’m living the dream, too.”

He settled back into his seat. “I’d love to look at your paintings later.”

“Sure thing. I’ll drive us up the road after. How’s Anthony?”

His eyes went cloudy for a second again, but this time stayed pointed in her general direction. For a moment Connie worried she’d said the wrong thing, but then he came back to life.

“He is. Anthony is perfect,” her friend said slowly. “He just got a deal with Adult Swim, his pilot finally got picked up.”

“Oh my god, that is incredible!” Connie squealed, “I know how long he’s been working on that, he must be so happy. And you must be so proud!”

“I always knew that He would make it,” Nix said reverently, nudging a few dark locks out of his face. “The visuals are looking incredible, compared to how it started in storyboard. And soon He’ll have a whole team of animators. A two season contract to start.”

Connie was a visual artist, as Nix’s longtime partner Anthony was, but their work was so different she couldn’t be too jealous of his success. Her paintings of fantasy creatures were grounded somewhat in realism; Anthony’s animations were completely inscrutable and surreal. It seemed promising to her that an artist who created such arresting, fluid visuals had been trusted to make his own show. Sitting across the table from the golden boy with the two-day work week and the equally successful boyfriend, Connie felt as if a little of their luck might rub off on her.

“Anthony is gonna be busy,” she blurted suddenly. That, she realized, would go against everything Nix had wanted and planned for. “Are you worried about it?”

Nix tilted his gaze down into his lap a moment, then back up at her. “Honestly, yes. The production schedule will be punishing. That’s part of why I’m venturing out into society a bit more, I gotta say.”

“You want to have an actual life again?”

“I don’t want anything,” Nix replied quietly. “I’m just being realistic. He needs me to be less addicted to being around Him all the time.”

He slipped his fingers around the handle of the teacup, fiddled it side to side in his saucer. His cheeks were going pink.

Connie was relieved to hear Nix acknowledge the nature of his and Anthony’s relationship. She never knew when to bring it up, or if to bring it up. Whenever she looked at him, it was all she thought about, but she feared that naming it would scare him off. Or maybe that it would become too real and she’d be the one to break away running.

“You want to be less addicted,” Connie said carefully, “but not free from addiction.”

“No,” her friend smiled. “I’ll never be free.”

Warmth bloomed across his face. Her words had activated something in Nix, giving him the opportunity to affirm a fact that was, to him, deeply important. He was not free. He never would be, not ever again. He’d told her as much at the party, right before the pandemic hit. The last day she’d seen him in the flesh. The first day she figured out what he’d become.

Nix was sitting perfectly still. All at once he seemed to realize he was getting a bit indiscrete and focused back in on the conversation, blinking his bliss away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, gripping the arm of his chair and grounding himself. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve been out, it’s still so weird.”

He regarded their surroundings. There was an elderly couple sharing a sandwich at a bench a few yards away. Past them, a bus girl was clearing a table, filling a basin with dirty dishes and humming along to the music from the patio’s speakers.

“You’re good,” Connie said.

“No, I need to get better at this again.Talking to be people. Being normal.”

“We’ve talked all year. I know you know how to talk to people still.”

It was partially a lie. All year, all pandemic long really, Connie had been trying to get Nix on the phone or on Zoom. They’d schedule something, and then he’d cancel at the last minute via text. Then he’d circle back, those were the words he used, circle back, like she was a client. They’d get another hangout on the calendar, and Nix would appear, sitting on the floor of his and Anthony’s living room in a baggy sweatshirt and a robe, his hair mussed. He spoke with all the slow contentment of an overfed kitten. His responses to her questions were pleasant, but measured. Delayed.

It was normal, during the era of digital socializing, to not feel fully connected. Every conversation on Zoom had odd stops and starts. But with Nix, it was different. His facial expressions and reactions were slowed and blunted more than the average person’s. His words were friendly, but always brief. Polite dodges. On video chat, she only ever saw one view of one room, and Nix never moved or stood up. It was like Connie was speaking to a diplomatic envoy from the Nation of Nix, who could speak to the country’s political goals very diplomatically, but would never, ever let her past its borders. The reality of how he was actually spending his time might upset her.

For years he had been slipping away from her. All the faraway looks and the slow, purposeful way he moved, as if underwater. The words he used, the questions he asked, so close to being him, but off just enough to be uncanny. If she asked about a shared memory from their childhood, he could recall it after a moment, but he rarely brought up such things himself. His old tics, like the way he used to chew on his hangnails, had all but disappeared. Every now and then he would mimic the gesture, awkwardly, as if he’d just remembered to do it. But mostly all his flaws and foibles were just…gone.

Nix had thrown himself into the maw of something Connie couldn’t understand, and she was still figuring out how she felt about it. He was happy, but it scared her.

The waiter came and took their order. Nix chatted amiably with him about the weather and the waiter’s kids and asked for the afternoon tea special. Salad, sandwiches, the soup of the day for both of them. Petit fours. She studied his mannerisms. He was a perfect pantomime of inoffensive humanity. In superficial interactions like these he absolutely shined. It was only because she knew him so well that she could feel what was missing.

“How has your life been changing,” Nix asked, turning back to her, “now that you’re on the other side of lockdown?”

“Oh, just slowly easing back into things like this,” Connie said. “Having people over for dinner. You should let me cook for you. I mean, if you’re allowed.”

He laughed politely, a false-sounding, generous trill. “I’m allowed. I know He would be glad if I did. It’s a long time since I’ve been away from Him for more than a couple hours. I have to get used to it.”

“So that’s what all this is about?” Connie leaned across the table. “Did Anthony like, command you to go get re-socialized?”

Every time she said Anthony’s name, Connie could sense Nix was mentally dubbing it over with something else. They’d been friends for so long. Nix had done the same thing with his own name before he was out. People would use his girlname and he’d kind of squint and blink it out. Like he was willing his real name, Phoenix, to take its place. Now he was doing that with his master, or owner, or whatever the hell Anthony was.

“I don’t mean to make you feel used!” Nix said to her. “I’m so happy to see you. Through all of this, you’re the person I missed the most.”

“Can you miss people?” She asked. “When you’re…the way you are now?”

Nix’s head tilted. “Did you miss your friends when you were with Kolin?”

Connie rolled her eyes. Kolin was her first real boyfriend, the first boy who dated her as a girl. When they fucked, he held her like she was a priceless, delicate piece of pottery. He always stood on the street side of the sidewalk when they walked somewhere together. Sure, she had avoided a few texts from Nix back in the day when she was busy adoring Kolin. But she had been young, and this was not the same.

“I remember, it was annoying of me to disappear on you,” she said. “And it’s not healthy when a person gets obsessed with their partner like that. Wasn’t that the lesson?”

He paused. “I don’t know that I care about healthy anymore.”

“That’s the most honest you’ve been with me all year.”

Connie heard herself making little scoffing sounds. She was fucking this up. You’re not supposed to put the other person on the defensive, even if you think they’re taking things too far. She had read that somewhere. But she had to be herself. And all year Nix had said nothing about his new life, and his new arrangement, and Connie desperately needed some sign that he was okay.

Nix watched her, gears turning behind his still face. “You’re worried about me,” he observed after a moment.

“Of course I am!” She waved her hands up and down. “You’re not the same person.”

He took her hand. Something in his eyes seemed to drop away, like a bubble bursting. There he was, recognizing her distress for what it was, raw in his desire for her to understand.

“Connie, this is what I want,” he said. “This is the most right I have ever felt about anything. More than transitioning. Or going no-contact with my brother. This is everything to me.”

“You’re still there,” she whispered. Fuck, there was a sob in her voice. This was too much vulnerability for two in the afternoon on the patio of Clementine’s fucking Tea House.

The moment was rapidly becoming too intense, which Nix seemed to sense. He pulled back, releasing her hand, and took a measured sip of his tea. His posture straightened into confident perfection and his gaze went slightly glassy once more.

“Of course I’m still here,” he said. “Did you think I was gone?”

She sucked down the grassy dregs of her tea and swallowed the tears running down the back of her throat. “You’ve been gone for a long time.”

“I’m trying to be here with you,” Phoenix said earnestly. “All of this is me.”

---

When she first met Anthony, Connie liked him far more than most of her friends’ boyfriends. He was present, yet not overbearing. Usually when you meet somebody’s boyfriend, he either hits you with way too much attention, trying to win you over in a way that you know will ultimately sour, or he’s a completely inert sack of potatoes on his phone in the corner. Anthony charmed her and asked about her art. She showed him the last few panels from the comic she was writing about magical girls. He played a few animated gifs of his work for her. On his phone, a series of inky, round-assed monsters undulated in a multicolored abyss. It was freaky stuff. He seemed so straight-laced, but his work was wild and primal. She could respect that.

When the two men were together, Nix folded into Anthony’s body in an absolutely adorable way. They were about the same size, yet nested into one another perfectly. He’d never seemed so satisfied by a relationship before. They completed one another’s sentences. Exercised together. Read the same books. Theirs was the kind of love Connie had fantasized about for a very long time.

The change in Nix happened gradually at first. He became softer, mentally, though no less intelligent. He never got into fights online with transphobes anymore. He stopped agonizing over his work being perfect. Then he started making more mistakes. After breakfast, he’d put the milk in the cabinet and the cereal in the fridge. Connie would have a whole conversation with him on the phone that he didn’t seem to remember the next day. Nothing ever made him upset. His evenings were rarely free, but he couldn’t explain what had him so busy. It was like being friends with a hologram Connie couldn’t touch.

At a certain point, Connie noticed that Nix got quiet around Anthony. The two friends would be chatting casually in the kitchen, and then Anthony would walk into the house and Nix would straighten and kind of disappear inside himself. He’d keep his eyes fixed on his boyfriend for the entire conversation, monitoring his reactions to things, anticipating his needs. But her friend also seemed to be thriving. He was making more money than ever before. Most of it was getting socked away, and he talked a lot about being able to quit his job. He could set his own hours, work from home and never be far from Anthony.

On New Year’s Eve, Connie coaxed Nix and Anthony to go out dancing with her. She knew it would be an easier ask if both men were invited. After hours of vodka seltzers and New Wave music, Connie slipped out to smoke. The two men were outside already, tucked against the side of the building. She watched them gazing adoringly at one another, Anthony’s hands on Nix’s head. They hadn’t noticed her. At one point she heard Anthony call Nix it.

How is it feeling?

Energy is at 45%, arousal is at 75%, Connie could hear Nix say. Intoxication levels approaching critical.

Nix’s voice was flat, emotionless, and not at all hushed, like Anthony’s was. Connie crept a bit closer and could see her friend was standing ramrod straight, arms at his sides, staring forward. His face seemed to be completely slack.

We should get it some water, Anthony said softly.

Confirmed.

Anthony pushed Nix’s hair from his face, then snake a firm hand around the back of Nix’s neck. He directed his stiff, slow-moving boyfriend inside. Connie ducked around the corner and looked off in the other direction so they wouldn’t notice her.

Let’s get it fixed up, Anthony whispered darkly. I’ll need it to be in working order later.

That was when Connie knew she hadn’t been imagining things. The next morning she texted Nix over and over to see if he was hung over or had been on something. He didn’t reply for two days.

---

It was a rainy evening in early March when Anthony and Nix had their house party. They’d just moved into a spacious two-bedroom with a big yard and a finished attic, and were eager to celebrate it and show it off. Plus, they had been blowing off all their friends for months and owed everybody a big social engagement.

A local DJ who had helped score Anthony’s TV pilot was spinning records in the front room. Bodies swayed and pressed closely against one another, and a triad of strangers made out in the spare bedroom, all things that would become unthinkable by the end of the month. In the kitchen, Connie’s roommate Lainey was mixing disgustingly bright, syrupy-sweet drinks. They looked like alien blood. All the decor in the house was an unsettling mix of bright neon and black, like in Anthony’s animations.

Connie took a drink, her fourth of the night, and sucked it down. A guy with goatee whom Connie had never met before offered her a bacon-wrapped fig from the oven.

“It’s all a fucking smokescreen,” she muttered to Lainey, popping the morsel in her mouth. “The music, the food, all the people. It’s a distraction and a bad apology.”

Lainey shrugged and poured shots of Midori and vodka into a tumbler. “At least they’re trying to socialize.”

“I haven’t seen them in hours! I just want my friend. Where the hell is he?”

Connie’s roommate nodded down the hall and said, “I thought I saw both of them go in the bedroom a while ago.”

Connie’s stomach twisted with drunken anger. What the fuck was going on with these two? Why couldn’t Nix bear to be away from his boyfriend for a single second, even in the midst of the couple’s first party in months? Why was he always hanging off of him, waiting on him hand and foot? It sickened her. She was also disgusted at the depth of her own jealousy. She couldn’t stop picking at it, like a scab.

Connie pushed through the hallway, past the line of people waiting for the bathroom. Cradling her drink in her palm, she planted herself outside the bedroom door. She couldn’t hear anything but the thudding music around her and drunk people yelling. She would pretend she needed a Tylenol, she decided. She took hold of the doorknob and pushed her way in.

The room was dark and cool, a breeze from outside moving through the space. Connie flipped on the lights. The bedroom was empty and tidy, and there was no one around. She almost stormed out. Then she noticed the hole in the ceiling, glowing with shifting blue and green lights, and the ladder to the attic hanging to the floor. Connie placed herself beneath it and could hear some strange murmuring coming from above.

Connie knew she was being inappropriate. But for months, being polite and respectful of Nix’s boundaries had not worked. Something strange was happening to her friend, and it made her skin crawl. She needed to make sense of it.

“Fuck it,” she whispered to herself, and downed the last of her atomic green drink and tossing the cup onto Nix’s dresser. She stepped onto the ladder and led herself up into the bowels of the attic.

Nix had said the previous tenants had used the attic as an office. But as she entered the space, Connie saw it had been significantly transformed. Strips of bright teal LED lights lined the angled ceiling, the walls, and the floors. As she rose up the ladder, she saw the windows were blotted out with blackout curtains. The walls and ceiling were painted a deep black with occasional swirls of bright purple and blue, and wooden planks had been installed into the ceiling. A black metal cage was positioned next to a stately looking leather chair. Inside the cage, she saw padded wrist and ankle cuffs dangling from a length of chain. On the floor of the cage sat a vibrator, and, strangely, a big plastic headset, like for a virtual reality game.

Connie pulled herself up into the attic and looked around. A series of leather strips and metal hooks dangled from hardpoints installed in the planks in the ceiling, as well as a few snarls of black rope. These led down to a human form that was encased, shifting and muttering. It was clad in shiny black latex from head to toe, its arms pinned back behind it in straps that looked to be locked. She could hear the metal jostling.

There were holes in the latex from which the figure’s cunt protruded, glistening with wetness. A vibrator was tied against its leg and pressed against its engorged genitals, buzzing incessantly. Its nipples were out and clamped, a chain connecting the clamps and leading to a shiny metal collar around its throat. Its mouth was free and it was mumbling softly, saliva dribbling down its chin. It didn’t notice Connie’s presence at all as she moved into the room.

The thing swaying in front of her didn’t even register as human at first. Its motions were so jerky and repetitive and it was so unresponsive to her presence. It seemed about as alive and conscious as the vibrator thrumming between its legs. Just a sex toy, executing its designated purpose without end.

Its eyes were staring forward, glassy and blank. It did not blink, and its pupils were huge. A single tuft of dark, warm-hued hair poked out into one the eye holes in the latex, but it didn’t seem to mind. The bound, mindless thing that hung before Connie was Nix, of course. At the same time, it wasn’t a person at all.

A giant monitor had been mounted on the wall across from where Nix was suspended. The screen spun and swirled with disorienting black shapes, and oozed with bright tentacles of teal, neon purpose, and bright, atomic green. Anthony’s work always had a way of pulling the viewer’s eye in, even as it remained utterly inscrutable. But these spirals were on a completely new level. It was so intense, both vibrant and disarming. Connie could almost feel the tentacles swirling inside of her eyes as she watched it. It nearly gave her a headache. Yet it also felt satisfying.

Words sometimes flashed across the snaking abyss of colors. Things like You Are An Object and Delete Thoughts and Obey. And longer phrases she couldn’t read quickly enough, but could somehow feel flashing across her mind, like a fuzzy memory of a dream.

Connie turned back at Nix. Still he dangled there, drooling and muttering, gaze fixed helplessly on Anthony’s animations. As she approached her friend’s inert body, Connie realized Nix was wearing headphones. These too were pulsing with faint teal light. She brought her ear close to his head.There were words thudding in his ears, and music. Anthony’s voice? As he stared deep into the screen, Nix drooled and mumbled over and over.

It is a thing.
It belongs to the Controller.
It is completely His.
It has no thoughts.
It has no will.
It has no mind.

She touched it — him — on the shoulder lightly. Nix did not respond. The words kept coming forth.

It needs to be controlled.
It is a compliant fucktoy.
It must always obey.
It is just a thing.

Connie looked to the spirals again and felt her mind tuning into Nix’s words. She imagined how it must feel to have these words buzzed into your body and brain over and over again, moving past stimulation, and then past boredom, and then past conscious consideration entirely, into something much deeper and more instinctive.

Its cunt belongs to the Controller.
Its mind belongs to theController.
Its soul belongs to the Controller.
It worships the Controller.
It needs the Controller.
It is addicted to the Controller.
It will never leave the Controller.

Connie took a step back, shaking her head. It was a lot to take in. She wasn’t even into this kind of shit, yet she was finding herself getting lost in it. The dark, glowing attic was like a completely different world. A brainwashing chamber utterly detached from the party below, the life these men had once lived.

The thick vibrator pulsed loudly against Nix’s clit and a repetitive moaning began to come from his mouth. This, too, was robotic and stilted. Its eyes darted back in his head and a blush of arousal bloomed around his mouth and his cunt.

“Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.”

His hips bucked and his thighs twitched as the sounds emitted from him. He was oozing with wetness from both his mouth and his cunt, and his unblinking eyes were streaming with tears. Nix had not reacted to Connie’s presence at all. It was utterly lost in the spirals, the sounds. It looked back at the screen slowly and tried to keep repeating its mantras as its arousal rose and rose. Through it all, its voice remained utterly flat and inhuman.

“It is an obedient toy. Oh. Oh. It is a thing. The Controller owns its cunt. Oh. Oh. Oh. The Controller tells it what to think. Oh. Oh. It is addicted to the Controller. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. It is His mindless robot. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.”

She watched an orgasm shudder through Nix’s body, the pleasure barely registering in his face, even as his abs and thighs seized and his body swung from the ropes, quivering. He shook like a washing machine. Fluid spurted out of him, soaking the tatami mat on the floor. His cunt was bright crimson from arousal and his dick was swollen from repeated stimulation. As it — he — fought to regain his breathing, his eyes rolled back in his head and closed. He tensed up one final time. And then relaxed and seemed to almost drop down.

To be continued…

S L I C K: Plum

A few months into the pandemic, I was hungry for any kind of new human connection. Sure, I had my weekly Zoom hang, plus a new appreciation for banana bread, and I was dabbling in microdosing as a means of getting through. But that wasn’t enough. I dreamt of finger nails tracing my back, deep kisses, biting lips and hips pressed together. I desperately needed to cum. Not just casually-cross-it-off-your-to-do-list kind of cum — I needed to lose-all-control, give-into-the-sensation, mind-goes-blank cum. So I swiped and scoured and picked away at the available queers online until I came across her.

She was tall and fat, like me. She had a broad smile and perfect hips and a soft little belly. Her hair was naturally gray, falling just past her shoulders, and looking at her photo brought me a new kind of peace. I had to know her. We matched, thanked the universe, and exchanged messages all night until we settled on a phone call that Saturday. Three hours into our call, I had butterflies in my stomach and a date on Monday.

She came to pick me up, and as soon as I got into her car, we kissed. A kiss so deep and beautiful after nearly twelve weeks alone — that’s a special kind of magic. After pulling onto the nearest busy intersection, a man flagged us down to alert us to a flat tire on our passenger side. Panic flashed before her eyes, but I knew it was my time to shine. I jumped out of the passenger side, hiked up my dangerously slinky skirt and assessed the damage, turning from Femme to Butch in seconds. Promptly, I directed her to the nearest Autozone, where we grabbed a bottle of Fix-A-Flat, and soon enough, we were back on the road from Humboldt Park to the quaint local queerville known as Andersonville. For those of you unfamiliar with Chicago’s sprawling neighborhoods, these ares are about thirty minutes apart, and any relationship between lovers of these respective spots would be considered long-distance. We spent the ride up laughing, hands clasped, silently praying that my Fix-A-Flat job would last through the pothole-littered streets. She lived on a gorgeous, tree-lined street. Beautiful flowers in raised beds adorned lawns as we walked to her third floor walk up. It felt so safe and familiar. As soon as we entered her charming apartment, I felt her hands around my waist — I was already wet just thinking about what was yet to come.

We kissed deeply with velvet tongues as she slowly started moving me towards the couch. Lying near the open window, she straddled me, her hair the color of moon beams cascading down around me. I gripped her ass with both hands as I let my tongue wander, tracing the length of her neck to nibble at her collar bone. Gentle at first, I began to suck on her neck. I wanted to leave a little mark to make sure she’d remember me. Her fingers danced across my breasts as I steadied my knee for her to ride. There were no words — only instinct and giggles as she slowly rocked on my thigh, each motion opening her inch by inch. I could feel how excited she was as she easily slid across me with every grind of her hips.

I slid my fingers up to delicately trace her clit as she took my nipple into her mouth. I reached up to grab her hair as I slid my fingers deep inside of her, curling up to feel each silky ridge that lies beneath. I laid her down as I continue to explore her with my fingers, deeper each time. Her hands gripped me tightly as I pressed my knee into the back of my hand, applying more pressure as she began to melt, and I slipped deeper and deeper. My hand dripped with her as I moved down to taste her. She opened her legs and let out the most beautiful sound as my tongue pressed into her clit, and I scratched across her thighs. She was sweet and salty, moaning as my fingers plunged deep inside, curling up with increased pressure until she finally came. She let out a laugh so rich and full as we lay there for a minute in awe of one another. I couldn’t believe I’d found her.

Before I could say anything, the doorbell rang — our pizza had arrived. She quickly dressed to retrieve it. But soon as she left, she was back, her eyes filled with mischief. She pushed me back onto the couch, holding my hands above my head as she kissed me slowly. She was in control now. She worked her way down my body, taking in every inch of me. She slipped her fingers into my mouth as she teased my nipples with her tongue. I had never been more ready to be touched, to give in. She dug her nails into my thighs as she made her way to my pussy. She pushed my thighs open and took me in as I pressed my hips into her. I begged her to put her fingers inside of me as she pulled me on top of her. She tickled my clit as I rode her, hard and deep. She played me like a well-worn instrument, and I felt grateful to be in such capable hands. She found my spot, and as soon as she has located it, she was relentless. I screamed and moaned as she persisted, until it happened — that losing-all-control, mind-going-blank kind of orgasm. I collapsed onto her chest. We were silent for a moment. Then we let out a collective roar of laughter.

She headed into the kitchen to grab us pizza and tiramisu as I searched for something to watch. She set the food down and kissed me, and we spend the rest of the night naked and entangled. I braided her hair and she fed me tiramisu and we fell in love right there. She felt like home in a way I’ve never really felt home before, and now I know that I’m here to stay.

S L I C K: The Best Them

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S L I C K: Atelai

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