PRIVATE JOURNALS OF THE VAMPIRESS LAURA — Section Six
I assembled the first volume of my “Crimson Kiss Chronicle,” in ten chapters, during my first year among the Kindred, as I traveled with my Sire, the Vampiress Violet LeBlanc. Once that first volume was competed, I sent it back to Crimson Kiss Manor for safekeeping. That turned out to be a costly mistake.
In order to protect the secrets of that Sanctuary, its keepers were forced to destroy Crimson Kiss Manor. In the resulting conflagration, it was assumed that my Chronicle was lost. In truth, only about half of the first volume succumbed to the flames. The tome had been laying face down on a marble tabletop, and only the last several chapters burned away. The remnants of the book fell into police hands, but the story it told was disregarded by all except one extraordinary individual. How this affected her is recorded among the various tales that comprise the second volume of the chronicle, which starts with Chapter Eleven.
I am piecing together such records as I can to fill in the gaps left by the loss of the latter chapters of the first volume. So far, all I have been able to find are the excerpts from my own journal pertaining to the time recorded in the now lost Chapters Six through Ten of my Chronicle. Below are my recollections of the evening originally recorded in the now lost Chapter Six of the Crimson Kiss Chronicle. In keeping with the tone of that work, I have rewritten here these in the third person. If my tale seems a bit disjointed, recall that it is from my point of view alone — those of the other participants do not survive — and I was not exactly myself at the time this all occurred...
Frantic
Laura is heading for the kitchen to fetch the tea Master Guillaume requested for a new guest in the library when she sees Mistress Narcissa coming down the stairs, arm-in-arm with a beautiful dark haired woman. They move together with the casual familiarity of lovers. Laura scowls at the stranger enviously. The woman responds with a lazy smile, as if to flaunt that she has what Laura so desperately wants... Narcissa’s sensuous attention.
“Laura, my dear,” Mistress Narcissa calls down the staircase as they descend, her voice flowing like honey, causing Laura to guess correctly why Narcissa seems so contentedly relaxed. “Come with myself and Amantara downstairs to serve us some wine. I’m sure your help is needed now that Zalen is comfortable.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Laura responds automatically as the two women reach the bottom of the stairs and turn toward the parlor, not giving Laura an opportunity to explain that she is on an errand for Master Guillaume. As she hurries to the kitchen, Laura hopes it will not delay her too long.
They say a watched pot never boils. An eternity passes for Laura before the teakettle begins to whistle. She pours the scalding water into a silver pot and sets in it a spherical cage stuffed with Darjeeling. Adding the teapot to a tray already holding four china cups, she carefully carries them all to the library.
When Laura enters the library, she finds a single occupant, a thin woman with long auburn hair. She appears to be about the same age as Laura. She looks up from a massive old book as Laura sets the silver teapot and cups on the side table, and takes in its place the crystal goblets and decanter left there from earlier in the evening.
“Master Guillaume asked me to bring you this tea,” Laura explains by way of introduction. “Now, please excuse me, but I must take this wine to the parlor.”
The woman opens her mouth to speak, but Laura is already rushing out the door. Laura crosses quickly to the parlor, hoping the diversion to brew tea has not delayed her long enough to upset Mistress Narcissa.
***
Friendly News?
“Tricia, Laura,” Master Guillaume calls. “There is a young lady named Camilla waiting for you in the corridor. She came here tired and cold from her journey. Please take her upstairs and find her a room. I believe the one across the hall from ours is vacant. Perhaps draw her a hot bath to drive the chill from her bones. There’s good girls.”
The two women nod in unison and head out into the broad, stone-tiled hallway. Another woman is standing just outside the doorway, near the wall, with a chagrined expression on her face. Laura recognizes her as the girl to whom she had earlier brought tea in the library.
Laura hesitates a moment, unsure how to address the woman. Master Guillaume has taught her to call all ladies who reside in this house, with the exception of the servants, as ‘‘Mistress.’’ It is unclear to Laura whether this girl is a servant, a guest, or some other sort of visitor. Regardless, she does not carry herself with the aristocratic self-confidence that makes it so easy to address Narcissa or Violet as “Mistress,” and as she obviously has not resided here, so Laura decides she is not entitled to that honor.
In fact, Laura suspects that she, like Laura and Tricia, is just a college student away from school on Spring Break. Thinking back, Laura remembers the worn backpack next to the woman while she was studying in the library. Is she here doing research?
Laura gasps silently. Her best friend, Belle Phillips, had come up here last week to work on a term paper for an anthropology class. Belle hadn’t come back to school, and Laura had come up here to look for her. She met her only briefly, at the Phillips’ vacant summer home, and Belle told Laura only that she wasn’t returning to school because was running off with a new lover.
The Phillips’ lake house is not very far from this manor. Belle had spent every summer of her life there. Maybe she had heard of the superb private library in this mansion and come here to do research for her anthropology paper. She might then have met some friend of Mistress Narcissa and Sir Guillame — some romantic knight with similarly libertine habits — and been swept off her feet, just as Laura had imagined since first hearing, ever so briefly, of Belle’s adventure.
With each passing day, Laura believes she is coming closer to understanding what caused Belle to leave behind her friends, family, and promising academic career, and take off on a lark with some mysterious stranger. Perhaps this new woman, a fellow researcher, had met Belle and had spent time with her before she ran off. Maybe she knows where Belle went... and with whom! Laura would have to ask her.
But standing here in this corridor is neither the time nor place for that conversation. Laura needs to do as Master Guillaume has asked and find this woman somewhere to bathe and bed down for the night. Laura takes another step closer as the woman tilts her head at her in curiosity.
“Hi!” Laura smiles. “You must be Camilla. I’m Laura; and this is Tricia. Let’s go find you a room.”
***
Misstep
“Hi!” Laura smiles in greeting for the woman Master Guillaume asked her to get settled into a room. “You must be Camilla. I’m Laura; and this is Tricia. Let’s go find you a room.”
Before Camilla can answer, one of Master Guillaume’s guests comes out of the parlor. Laura has not heard his name, but she saw him greet Mistress Narcissa’s dark-haired friend with a chivalrous kiss on the back of her hand. He is obviously part of the aristocratic circle that frequented this mansion.
Stepping into the corridor, the stranger closes the double doors from the parlor behind himself. He leans back against one of the closed doors, crosses his arms casually across his chest, and explains, “I decided to follow you all and find a room for myself. I hope you don't mind.”
“Mind? Of course not,” Laura responds. “Tricia or I can....”
Suddenly, the door on which the man is leaning is pulled open by someone inside the parlor. The new guest loses his balance and tips backward through the doorway. Master Zalen, who must have been the one to open the door, steps back as the other man falls.
“My apologies,” Zalen says, looking down at the fellow now on the floor. “I had no idea you were there.” Zalen then looks past Camilla, Laura and Tricia, his gaze drawn up the stairs.
Laura glances back over her shoulders, but sees no one there. So her attention returns to the fallen guest. She steps forward and kneels down next to him.
“Are you okay?” Laura asks, offering her hand to him. “Here, let me help you.”
***
Lost and Found
“Are you okay?” Laura asks the fallen guest as she kneels down and offers him her hand. “Here, let me help you.”
“No, quite alright,” he responds, even as he takes hold of her arm and lets her help him to his feet. “I’m... I’m fine.” His bright smile reassures Laura that he isn’t hurt.
He then glances at Master Zalen, shrugs, and turns back to Laura.
“Thanks for asking though,” the stranger continues. “Perhaps I should go wash up from my travels.”
His gaze settles into Laura’s eyes. Laura’s breath catches in her throat, then escapes as a warm sigh. She finds herself unable to look away from his impossibly blue eyes, just as any scene of incredible beauty will capture a person’s attention. It stirs a passionate nostalgia in Laura, although she cannot remember the precise events that gave rise to those feelings. She is sure she has felt this when looking into a man’s eyes before, but she cannot remember with whom. Varying confusing images rise in Laura’s thoughts and are just as quickly gone. Perhaps there has been more than one man who has touched her this way with just his smile...
Men? Only Men? Well, of course.... It would only be men... right?
For the moment, unknowingly overcome by the hypnotic power of his vampiric stare, Laura can focus only on the man’s eyes. All other consideration are lost: The things Guillaume told her, often when looking at her just like this, though she does not recall that... Her surprising self-epiphany when speaking with Drakonic... Her unnatural need for the companionship of Narcissa and Violet... The things she has done since coming to this mansion... Even more so, the details of her entire life before coming north to this place.... They are all buried and unrecognizable beneath the overwhelming presence of this man’s incredible eyes....
“So, which room should I occupy?” he asks, but Laura does not notice he is speaking until he says her name. “Laura, do you think you could show me a room when you’re done with the other guest here?”
“Yes,” Laura whispers. It is not mere affirmation, but total surrender. It escapes her throat so softly that she doubts anyone could hear. But she knows the man understood her. Such eyes must be omniscient.
Laura is drawn further from her trance by the intrusion of a voice from behind her. “Hello. I don’t think I met either of you gentlemen. I am Camilla Ashner. Mister Guillaume has allowed me to spend the night. I seemed to have lost my way while doing some research in the woods.”
Laura shudders as the man’s gaze shifts past her, as he looks up to respond to Camilla. Laura looks down uncomprehendingly at her own hand, still holding his. What is she doing? What just happened?
She lets go of his hand as if it has thorns and backs away. No longer lost in his eyes, her unrecognized addiction reasserts herself, reigniting her desire to be with Mistress Narcissa or Mistress Violet, and reminding her of her recent conclusion that she is truly a lesbian.
She studies the stranger. He is certainly handsome, but she had not appreciated the self-assured cockiness he had shown earlier. She hopes his embarrassing fall taught him a lesson.
Laura cannot comprehend what she had felt when looking into his eyes, but it surely hadn’t been sexual. And with her preternatural need for the companionship of Mistresses Narcissa and Violet returning with a vengeance, the whole experience simply confirms Laura’s mistaken belief in her own homosexuality.
She decides there is something about this man she doesn’t like, although she cannot put her finger on it. On the other hand, he has specifically asked Laura to show him a room. Laura knows that finding new guests accommodations is one of the ways Master Guillaume and Mistress Narcissa expect Laura to help out around their mansion, in which they have so generously invited Laura to stay.
So, after the two men have introduced themselves to Camilla, from which Laura learns the new guest’s name is Davis Santiago, Laura directs them to the grand staircase.
“Please follow me,” Laura calls back as she begins to climb the marble steps. “I am sure I can find you each something you will find comfortable.”
***
Accommodating
As Master Guillaume instructed, Tricia and Laura show Camilla to the vacant room across from the hall from his and Mistress Narcissa’s boudoir. Like every other room Laura has seen in this house, it has a large bed, many antique cabinets and chests of drawers, a nice writing desk and a private bath. Although this room is much smaller than the suite Laura and Tricia share with Narcissa and Guillaume, its position on the southwest corner of this wing of the mansion should mean that come daylight, a lot of tree–filtered sunshine will stream through the large windows set in two of the room’s walls. Laura thinks how generous it is of their hosts to leave such a wonderfully bright and airy room for their guests.
Remembering Master Guillaume’s instructions, Tricia and Laura go into the bathroom and start filling the large, tiled tub with hot water. They set out bath oils, soaps, shampoo and conditioner, and two large towels. Laura leaves Tricia to finish filling the bath.
“The tub will be full in a few minutes, Camilla,” Laura announces as she reenters the bedroom. “Why don’t you have a nice soak and make yourself at home?” Laura steps back toward the door where Davis waits. “I am going to help this gentleman find a room as well. Tricia can get you anything more you need. I’ll be back in a bit to see how you are doing.”
Laura returns to the corridor and leads Davis back the way they came. The door to the room next to Camilla’s is ajar. Laura peeks inside and it appears unoccupied. She pushes the door fully open.
The room is every bit as opulent as the one she gave Camilla, and almost twice as large. Its only drawback is that it has only two windows, one on each side of a huge canopied bed. There are dark shades drawn over the panes.
Laura steps back so that Davis can see inside. “It this okay? All the rooms are pretty much the same. But if there is something different you might like, I would be happy to help you try to find it.”
***
Countervailing Forces
“This room will do just fine, my dear; but there’s something missing,” Davis tells Laura from where he sits on the huge canopied bed. “I would enjoy your company for the rest of the night, if it’s not too much to ask. I’ve traveled a long way and haven’t talked to anyone in a long time. Just some conversation perhaps?”
Laura wonders if conversation is all he really wants. She knows from frat-house experience that when a man invites you to “just talk” in his bedroom, conversation is usually the last thing on his mind. Some lingering fragment of Laura’s crushed ego hopes he wants more.
Not that Laura would go to bed with a man she has just met! But she was surprised when first Sir Drakonic, then Master Zalen, had shown no interest in her even after Mistress Narcissa had made it clear to those gentleman that she would not object if they took liberties with Laura. Of course one reason — although, Laura recalls, not the primary one — that Drakonic had sent her away was his recognition of what Laura herself had only just come to realize was her true, lesbian nature. None the less, it has hurt the vestiges of Laura’s pride to find that she no longer seems attractive to men.
Laura still has not come to terms with her recent and sudden belief in her own homosexuality. It totally contradicts what had been Laura’s well developed and certain self-image prior to meeting Mistress Narcissa. Despite the way she feels about Mistresses Narcissa and Violet, and the things she has done with them, Laura still cannot quite conceive of herself as a lesbian.
And... Laura has to admit that Davis is very handsome. Although she is sure she would never actually want to go to bed with him, it feels nice to think that such an attractive man might still take interest in her.
He is a little too overbearing for her tastes anyway, Laura tells herself. Then again, he had handled his embarrassing fall downstairs in a good-natured manner. Maybe his original masculine arrogance was just his way of compensating for the awkwardness of meeting so many strangers. Now that he seems more comfortable, it all gives him a certain roguish charm....
Laura blinks, realizing that she has stood mute in response to Davis’ question, and surprised to find she has been evaluating Davis no differently than she might some recently met handsome boy back on campus. Laura has become so convinced over the past few days that she is a lesbian, that the idea of having any such attraction for Davis now, is as unsettling as her original suspicions of her own homosexuality were when they first surfaced a week ago.
Even as she stands here, alone with this dashing gentleman, every fiber of Laura’s body yearns to again relish the embrace of Mistresses Narcissa or Violet, or even to simply hold hands with Laura’s dear friend Belle Phillips. This need arises from an unsuspected biochemical addiction, caused by the introduction into Laura’s blood of the DNA of these three women, who are, unbeknownst to Laura, Vampiresses. The physical craving for their touch almost completely overwhelms Laura’s true, heterosexual identity. Thus, any physical attraction she feels for Davis simply confounds her.
Still, he has extended a friendly invitation... simple conversation... on his bed.... Laura remains cognizant of the long silence that has so far been her only answer. Unsure how she should respond, Laura opens her mouth to speak....
A knock on the door holds Laura’s tongue. From behind comes Mistress Narcissa’s welcome voice. “Laura?”
All confusion and uncertainly vanishes. Laura turns to face Narcissa and smiles. “Yes, Mistress?”
***
An Essential Choice
“Laura my sweet,” Mistress Narcissa purrs. “I was wondering how you were faring so far this evening... and since you have been such a gracious young lady tonight, I have decided to let you decide which room you shall stay in tonight.”
Laura knows that a week ago, she would have found that a simple choice. Back then, given the alternative of spending the night in the bedroom of a brazen man she had just met — even for mere “conversation” — or attending to the demands of an audacious bisexual dominatrix, Laura would have chosen the third option and slept alone in her own bed. But during this past week, unbeknownst to Laura, her blood has been infused with the addictive essence of three Vampiresses. Of those three, Mistress Narcissa has spent the most time with Laura, and played the greatest role in reshaping her psyche. Now she stands there, a few feet away, offering Laura the choice of where she would spend the night.
Because of the addiction to Narcissa caused by her essence saturating Laura’s body, all Laura can think of now is how desperately she wants to touch Narcissa, to feel their bodies pressing together. If Mistress Narcissa is serious that Laura can chose where to sleep tonight, Laura cannot help but want to share Narcissa’s bed, and cuddle close to her Mistress all night through. But before she can say anything, Davis interrupts.
“If I may be so bold,” the handsome man’s voice is low and smooth. “I would request that Laura stay the night with me. I’ve traveled a long way alone and only wished a bit of companionship before retiring for the night. The bed is big enough in here for four people to sleep in, and I promise not to defile her... yet.”
Laura’s jaw drops, and even Mistress Narcissa looks slightly shocked, although then instantly amused, by Davis’ last comment. Laura turns to glare at him, but is immediately disarmed by his wink and chuckle, suggesting that he was simply teasing. Laura has to concede that Davis does have a roguish charisma. And having an attractive man show such obvious interest in her does stir Laura, both emotionally and, just a bit, physically. She realizes that despite his “frat boy” arrogance and humor, had she met him back at school, she might have wanted to get to know him.
A momentary image, a fleeting fantasy, of being with Davis flares through Laura’s imagination, quickening her pulse. But it is almost instantly overwhelmed by her biochemical need for Mistress Narcissa, and any natural desire ignited by the attractive gentleman on the bed is thereby transposed onto her yearning for Narcissa. Once again, the insidious working of Narcissa’s essence seems to confirm Laura’s recent and mistaken notion that she is a lesbian.
“Um, Mistress,” Laura interjects softly. Laura’s confusion about her sexuality, and her repeated surrender to Mistresses Narcissa and Violet’s most intimate (and sometimes humiliating) demands, has caused an almost complete loss of self-confidence, even self-identity. And as desperately as some small, lingering remnant of Laura’s true personality still rejects all she has done and become over the past week, the idea of ever returning to her former life, and forever losing her Mistresses’ companionship, is unthinkable. Laura’s prior proud and independent spirit thus broken, the once assertive women now speaks like a timid little girl.
“I don’t want to offend your guest, but shouldn’t I stay in our suite with you, Mistress? I mean... I have taken on certain duties here — things I’m happy to do to help out... to show my appreciation for you and Master Guillaume letting me stay in this beautiful mansion. I would hate to be away if there was something you needed.”
***
Unfamiliar Manners
As Mistress Narcissa requested, Laura heads up the hallway back toward their suite. She finds Master Guillaume standing at the door across the hall, the one to the room in which Laura had left Tricia and the new guest, Camilla. Guillaume is conversing with Camilla, who stands just inside the doorway. Laura does not see Tricia anywhere.
Master Guillaume finishes speaking as Laura approaches, so she dares to interrupt.
“Excuse me, Master. But Mistress Narcissa suggests it is time to retire, and has asked me to turn down your bed and make any other preparations for the evening. Is there anything in particular that you require of me?”
Laura blushes slightly as she notices the astonished look on Camilla’s face. Laura herself does not know where she found such words. Somehow, she has picked up the Old World formality used by so many in this manor. Instinctively, she understands that this behavior will please Mistress Narcissa and Master Guillaume, and so increase the chance that they will let Laura remain in the mansion. Laura cannot tolerate the thought of having to leave here and return to her mundane life at school, and thus be forever separated from Mistresses Narcissa and Violet.
But the few remaining fragments of Laura’s crushed dignity recognize the humiliation of acting this way in front of Camilla, her ostensible peer. Embarrassed, unable to meet Camilla’s eyes, Laura drops her head and casts her gaze to the floor near her feet. She is unaware that this gesture, viewed by a stranger like Camilla, simply completes the image of Laura’s evident subjugation.
***
Quiet Collaboration
Laura enters the suite she and Tricia share with Mistress Narcissa and Master Guillaume. She carefully turns down the covers on the huge canopied bed, like she has sometimes seen in hotels. She wishes she had some candies or flowers to place on the pillows. Thinking about it, Laura realizes that she really hasn’t seen either anywhere in the manor. For all its opulence, this mansion seems to have strange gaps in some basic amenities.
Satisfied with the appearance of the bed, Laura moves to the bathroom. She turns the gold-plated spigots to start filling the spacious tub. She then moves to a shelf to pick from among the myriad available perfumes and oils to add to the steamy water. She is interrupted when Tricia enters.
“When you didn’t come back to Camilla’s room,” Tricia explains. “I went downstairs to see if you were in the parlor or library. I did not look to see if you had found Master Davis a room, in case... you know....”
Laura blushes. It seems her friend has not realized what Laura has reluctantly (and, because of the three vampiresses’ essence infusing her blood, incorrectly) come to accept: that Laura herself is a lesbian. It seems strange to Laura that Tricia would not have figured it out right away. Tricia has always been quite in tune with her own sexuality, and shown prior interest in Laura’s. Laura wonders how it could be that the one person in this house who knows her best is apparently the only one who still doesn’t recognize Laura’s homosexuality.
Frowning at this conundrum, and happy to not have Tricia any the wiser regarding Laura’s dilemma, Laura changes the subject. “Master Guillaume requested that I prepare a bath for Mistress Narcissa and him.”
Tricia nods and starts to help, finding two stacks of towels to set on either side of the tub while Laura chooses and adds the bath oils. They find two fragrant bars of soap, and set these on thin porcelain trays atop the towels. As they circle the room lighting vanilla-scented candles, Laura reflects on how pleasant it is to have Tricia’s company. Unlike that Camilla, Tricia understands, and shares, Laura’s willingness to attend to the needs and desires of their hosts. How else could two simple girls like them ever hope to live in a luxurious palace like this, socializing with such sophisticated and cosmopolitan, although admittedly eccentric, people?
Laura tells herself she is happy, really, to do a few chores to help out around the manor, and thus show her appreciation for being allowed to live here. True, making beds and drawing baths was not the future Laura had envisioned when she started college, but it gave her the opportunity to rub elbows with these worldly aristocrats. Of course, there is also her odd relationship with Mistresses Violet and Narcissa. Laura still cannot understand how she so willingly and readily came to give her body, even her dignity, to the wanton desires of those two women. But, Laura keeps telling herself, it must be what she really wants. Why else would she find the idea of leaving them so intolerable?
Having readied the bath, Laura and Tricia each sit on either side of the tub, waiting for Mistress Narcissa and Master Guillaume. Neither girls speaks. It is as if, at this moment, mere words might have enough force to shatter a secret and fragile illusion.
***
Feeling the Heat
“Ahhh, jasmine,” Mistress Narcissa sighs as she enters the bathroom and inhales the musky aroma rising on the steam from the huge tub. “Laura, you wicked girl, you’ve read my mind.”
Laura beams from where she reclines next to the bathtub. She looks across the hot water to her friend Tricia, who shares her smile. Then, both of their attentions return to their Mistress as she sheds her robe, then pauses a moment as if to consider what to do next.
Laura suddenly finds herself a bit awed by Mistress Narcissa’s curvaceous body. Her shoulders are quite square, like those Laura has always found sexiest in men. And although Narcissa’s shoulders not very broad, her thin waist compensates for that, as do the smooth but solid muscles Laura has seen rippling beneath Narcissa’s perfect alabaster skin. The firm fullness of her breasts and hips do not detract from the magnificence of her form. Rather, they add a large measure of sensuality that perfectly compliments the solid strength to which Laura has so often been satisfactorily subjected. It occurs to Laura that Narcissa’s surpassing femininity adds touch of softness absent from even the sexiest man, making her, Laura suddenly decides, the perfect lover.
Unaware that these thoughts about Narcissa are actually caused by Laura’s addiction to the woman’s vampiric essence infusing Laura’s blood, Laura wonders if this is why she did not come to suspect she is a lesbian until she met Narcissa. Mistress Narcissa combines the masculine strength Laura has always found appealing with a feminine sensitivity she has come to believe she needs.
“Laura, Tricia, disrobe,” Mistress Narcissa requests. “Join me in the bath tonight. Let us enjoy the bubbles together.”
“Yes, Mistress,” both women respond in unison. They stand and begin to undress as Narcissa settles into the tub. It takes Laura far less time to get out of her silk lamé gown and delicate sandals, than it does Tricia to remove her leather mini-dress and knee boots. Unsure why, Laura waits, standing at the side of the tub while her friend finishes undressing. It just seems to Laura the proper thing to do.
Once her friend is also naked, Laura sees how she hesitates, looking to Mistress Narcissa for some signal before entering the tub. Laura does the same. She has noticed that Tricia seems completely comfortable and familiar with the expectations of Mistress Narcissa and Master Guillaume, while this whole lifestyle remains quite new and strange to Laura.
After a few seconds, Mistress Narcissa nods, and Tricia and Laura step down into the tub, with Laura on Mistress Narcissa’s left side, even as Tricia enters the water on Narcissa’s right. While Laura has always liked her baths quite warm, she knows Mistress Narcissa likes hers almost scalding hot. Laura drew this bath with that in mind and grits her teeth a bit as she lowers herself into the water.
Laura gasps when the steaming water reaches the tops of her thighs and engulfs the delicate flesh in between. Being so close to Mistress Narcissa, and thereby feeling the full effect of her biochemical addiction to Narcissa’s essence, her body wrongly but irresistibly interprets the yearning for closeness to Narcissa caused by that addiction as sexual desire for her. Laura’s hissing intake of breath as the hot water covers her stomach turns into a low, throaty moan as it burns across the tips of her tightly erect nipples.
Laura feels herself blush as she stares down at the bubbles gathering around her breasts. It still amazes her how much she has changed in so little time. Laura is shocked to discover how she now feels. She realizes that only Tricia’s presence prevents her from turning to Mistress Narcissa for what Laura now thinks she so desperately needs... to surrender to Narcissa and share fully with her the ecstasies that until now Laura has tried to resist.
***
Taking It from the Top
Tricia settles into a corner of the huge bathtub and allows Mistress Narcissa to lean back against her as Tricia begins to shampoo Narcissa’s hair. Laura selects a fragrant body bar, and starts to lather it between her hands. Laura reaches for a sponge, but then remembers Narcissa’s request to be massaged.
Forgetting the sponge, Laura gathers more lather in her hands, and then begins to spread it upon Narcissa’s left shoulder and down the length of her arm. Laura moves slowly and steadily, kneading the firm muscles under Narcissa’s soft skin. When she reaches Narcissa’s left hand, Laura sandwiches Narcissa’s palm between her own two hands. Laura presses her right thumb gently into and around the sinews and bones of Narcissa’s hand and fingers until they are all loose and relaxed.
Laura has given plenty of massages before. As a college Freshman, she was a founder of her dorm floor’s informal “back rub club.” The rules were simple. Any “member” could go to any other “member” and request a twenty minute back rub, which then had to be given. Laura had started the same thing up when she moved to her sorority house. So with almost two years of such experience behind her, she knows how to employ her hands to soothe and massage.
But in all that time, Laura has never enjoyed giving a back rub as much as she now relishes massaging Mistress Narcissa. Laura finds it mollifies herself almost as much as she hopes it pleases Narcissa. The biochemical addiction caused by Narcissa’s vampiric essence in Laura’s blood induces a yearning for physical contact the body usually misinterprets as sexual desire; but any prolonged, significant touching will placate it. Thus, massaging Narcissa has transformed the almost overwhelming lust Laura felt moments earlier into a sensual satisfaction her psyche now misconstrues as amicable devotion to Narcissa, something akin to romantic love.
Laura sighs contentedly as she finishes stroking Narcissa’s left hand. One of the tricks Laura knows about giving a successful back rub is to never break physical contact with the other person. So she gently moves Narcissa’s left hand over until it settles upon Narcissa’s right palm. Only then does Laura slip her own hands off of Narcissa’s left hand to start massaging Narcissa’s right fingers and palm.
Laura slowly works her way up Mistress Narcissa’s right arm, following the exact opposite course she had taken down the left. She frequently adds more of the slick soap to ease her caresses, always leaving one hand touching Narcissa as she lifts the body bar with the other. She reaches Narcissa’s right shoulder and massages the tight muscles of her neck, then down to her chest, just below the collar bone.
By this time, Tricia has finished the shampoo and has worked a thick covering of conditioner into Narcissa’s hair. Tricia’s strong fingers begin tenderly rubbing Mistress Narcissa’s scalp just as Laura’s hands hesitate above Narcissa’s breasts, half submerged in the hot water. No experience with her “back rub clubs” prepared Laura for this moment.
Mistress Narcissa’s head lulls back, her eyes closed, obviously enjoying Tricia’s expert scalp massage. Laura knows Narcissa will expect Laura to continue the bath and massage down to her breasts, and then even farther. If Laura stops now, or skips the breasts, Narcissa will be disappointed, and probably angry. Laura is too fully enthralled by Narcissa’s essence to ever again knowingly risk her Mistress’ wrath.
Laura’s right hand again retrieves the body bar as the fingers of her left urge the last few knots out of the tendons at the top of Mistress Narcissa’s breastbone. Laura slowly spreads lather across the tops of Narcissa’s firm breasts. Narcissa arches her back slightly, raising more of her chest out of the steamy bath water.
Laura sets the body bar aside, and spreads the plentiful lather with her hands. Taking a breath, Laura lets her hands slide down to envelop Narcissa’s full, round breasts, one to each. Her fingers spread wide, and Laura moves her hands in slow circles, covering Narcissa’s breasts with the slick soap.
Mistress Narcissa sighs — perhaps even moans, ever so softly — as her head lulls back further. Laura feels herself blushing as Narcissa’s nipples harden to pleasingly tickle Laura’s caressing palms. Thoroughly embarrassed, Laura looks up to see Tricia watching her with open, compassionate eyes. Laura finds comfort in Tricia’s warm gaze, and smiles timidly in reply.
***
Middle Ground
Mistress Narcissa stretches out in the tub, with Tricia and Laura on either side of her. Laura reaches under her to scrub and massage her back while Tricia washes her ribs and tummy. When Tricia starts scrubbing her right hip and buttock, Narcissa purrs softly and spreads her legs as far as the wide tub will allow.
Trying to keep approximate pace with Tricia, so that Narcissa finds the bath most relaxing, Laura gently kneads Narcissa’s left hip and bottom with her soapy palms and fingers. But Laura purposely lags a bit as Tricia moves on to wash Narcissa’s right thigh. Because it still makes her so uncomfortable, and therefore plagues her thoughts, Laura cannot help but stare down at Mistress Narcissa’s fully exposed and most intimate flesh, readily visible beneath a few inches of water and the wet, wispy curls of her naturally red hair.
Laura knows Mistress Narcissa will expect them to wash all of her, even her most private and sensitive places. Laura decides to let Tricia get there first. Laura justifies this to herself through her knowledge that Tricia apparently has more experience with women, going back to even before they met Mistress Narcissa and Master Guillaume and became enmeshed in their libertine lifestyle. Tricia, Laura tells herself, will do a better job of pleasing their Mistress.
Laura only hopes that Mistress Narcissa does not guess the real reason she hesitates. Despite all she has already done with Mistresses Violet and Narcissa, and having come to accept — on an intellectual level at least, if not an emotional one — that she is actually a lesbian, Laura still cannot quite accept the idea of being intimate with a woman.
***
Over the Edge
Having made love with Mistresses Violet and Narcissa several times over the past few days, it neither shocks nor disgusts Laura — as it surely would have only a week ago — when Tricia leans forward and starts enthusiastically french-kissing her. Laura knows Tricia is bisexual. Tricia had even once made an unsuccessful pass at Laura, before Laura had come to mistakenly believe — due to her insidious addiction to the essence of three Vampiresses — in her own homosexuality.
Now kissing Tricia for the first time, Laura thinks back to that night at the Phillips’ lake house when Tricia had let Laura know she was welcome in Tricia’s bed for more than just sleep. It amazes Laura that everyone around her seems to have guessed her lesbian nature before she herself suspected it. What was it about Mistress Narcissa that brought it out?
Trying to get in the spirit of the joke Mistress Narcissa has proposed playing on Master Guillaume, Laura responds to Tricia’s kiss by sliding her own tongue a few times back and forth along the side of Tricia’s tongue. Laura even slips her tongue tip once past Tricia’s teeth, to teasingly tickle to roof of Tricia’s mouth.
Tricia’s purrs and presses Laura back against the side of the tub, the passion of Tricia’s kiss increasing as her hands slide down from Laura’s shoulders. Tricia’s left hand comes to rest on Laura’s right hip; her right hand cups Laura’s left breast. Laura has to admit that Tricia is an exceptionally skilled kisser, and Laura’s nipple hardens under Tricia’s tender caress, but Laura finds she still does not physically desire Tricia. Even the persistent empty yearning again burgeoning between Laura’s thighs is not in direct response to Tricia’s sensual attention. Rather, Laura can only think of Mistress Narcissa, sitting naked in the hot water, a few feet away.
Laura remembers that Mistress Narcissa wants them to put on a show for Master Guillaume. Laura knows she must please Narcissa, if she is to have any hope of remaining with her here, and sharing in her remarkable lifestyle in this wonderful manor. Mistress Narcissa wants a show...
Remembering how she had washed Mistress Narcissa’s breasts just a few moments earlier, Laura lets her soapy hands slip from Tricia’s shoulders and down her chest to envelop Tricia’s full, round breasts. Laura’s fingers spread wide, and she moves her hands in slow circles, covering Tricia’s breasts with the creamy soap.
Tricia moans softly into Laura’s mouth as they hear Master Guillaume’s deep seductive chuckle from the other end of the huge tub. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Laura does not know if it is in response to Laura fondling her, or Master Guillaume’s awesomely masculine voice, or a combination of the two, but Tricia reacts with fiery passion, spreading her legs to straddle Laura’s thighs as she settles onto Laura’s lap. Both of Tricia’s hands now desperately massage Laura’s breasts as she bend’s Laura’s head back with frenzied, tongue probing kisses.
One submerged bit of Laura’s intellect still understands that she and Tricia should not be doing this. Despite Tricia’s unrequited feelings for Laura, they are in fact still just casual friends. Deep inside, Laura knows this is all wrong — not just joining in the kinky antics of this manor, but especially having done so by abandoning school and their ordinary lives back on campus — and that something inexplicable has wreaked havoc upon their once promising futures. Laura still cannot comprehend how she came to be engaged in these perverse acts with her schoolmate and a household of strangers, but she knows it must end, and Laura resolves to do so NOW!
Laura attempts to move her head to end the kiss, but instead groans with horrified ecstacy when she discovers she cannot stop what she is doing with Tricia. It is not just the force of Tricia’s impassioned embrace holding Laura in place. Laura’s certain knowledge, that kissing and petting Tricia for Master Guillaume’s depraved amusement is what will most please Mistress Narcissa, makes it impossible for Laura to do otherwise. Fueled for Laura by this undeniable substantiation of Laura’s utter devotion to Narcissa, Tricia’s dexterous tongue and fingers ignite Laura’s unnatural desires for the nearby Narcissa into a ardent lust that blindingly burns all other concerns from Laura’s mind.
Overcome with unimaginable sensations and emotions, Laura can find in herself no firm basis for reason or thought. Her psyche teeters between the extremes of who she knows she once was, and what she believes has now become. Laura’s unrelenting lust for Narcissa balances precariously against Laura’s guilt at sharing intimate pleasure with her dear schoolfriend Tricia. Laura’s shame at her wanton exhibitionism is knocked aside by her desire to please Narcissa. Smothering concerns of modesty, ignoring her obvious humiliation, the past several days of confusion and torment finally overwhelm Laura’s once proud sense of identity. Her mouth still pressed to Tricia’s sensuous lips, Laura growls like a trapped animal, even as she willingly surrenders her body — and with it, she believes, her soul — to whatever fate Mistress Narcissa and her companions decide.
***
Ecstacy Loves Company
“Oh... GOD!” Laura moans softly, her head falling back on Mistress Narcissa’s shoulder as Narcissa reaches around from behind to teasingly finger Laura’s most intimate flesh. Although Laura had started to enjoy the raw sensations from petting with her schoolmate Tricia, Laura had not felt any true desire for her friend, and the lingering perception of its inappropriateness had tempered her ardor.
On the other hand, having parted from Tricia, Laura now has no resistence to the pleasures of Mistress Narcissa’s caress. Through repeated and regular closeness, Narcissa has become the focus of Laura’s insatiable desires ignited by the pseudo-sexual addiction from the bites of Narcissa and two other Vampiresses. Narcissa’s most casual touch feels like ecstacy to Laura. Only by consciously avoiding the one spot encompassing the pinnacle of feminine sensitivity, does Narcissa cruelly deprive Laura of the carnal release she so desperately craves.
Mistress Narcissa’s knees hook over the tops of Laura’s thighs, holding Laura’s legs wide open, while also controlling the rhythmic but futile thrusting of her hips. Leaning back against Narcissa’s body, relishing the incomparable cushion of Narcissa’s firm breasts pressed against her back, Laura watches through half-closed eyelids as Tricia moves slowly to the other end of the huge tub, where Master Guillaume awaits.
Laura has never before experienced any voyeuristic impulses. But having fallen into her own pit of wanton depravity, a part of her wants to watch her friend debase herself totally before Guillaume, that haughty and handsome knight. Then Laura won’t feel quite so alone, having already on many occasions surrendered herself to Mistress Narcissa’s vilest demands.
Laura groans audibly when Mistress Narcissa growls further encouragement to her friend. “Go on then Tricia, show us what you can do.”
Laura nearly climaxes at the sound of her Mistress’ voice, but Narcissa again moves her fingers away to further taunt Laura’s desires. Laura’s hips buck desperately as she snatches at Narcissa’s wrists, and urges Narcissa’s hands as far up between her thighs as they can go. But Narcissa is too strong, and continues to torment Laura without allowing any suggestion of providing imminent satisfaction.
Laura relents and again leans back to watch Tricia. Laura hopes that whatever Tricia does to Master Guillaume, it will inspire Mistress Narcissa to make unrelenting love with Laura, to their mutual satisfaction.
***
Addicted to Love
Laura squirms. Her body struggles vainly against the unbearable yet irresistible ecstacy of Mistress Narcissa’s unremitting caress. It silently horrifies Laura to find herself unable to hide the wanton lust ignited by Narcissa’s touch.
Laura had hoped everyone’s attention would be diverted to Tricia, whom Mistress Narcissa has encouraged to publicly demonstrate what she could do to please Master Guillaume. Laura had guiltily desired to witness her friend — who has seemed to immediately fit right into the kinky antics of this household — attempt to meet this challenge. But for some reason, Guillaume has turned Tricia away, and set her to menial tasks as he directs his full attention to Laura.
Laura follows the movement of Master Guillaume’s eyes, as he blatantly shifts his gaze up and down her body, from her strained countenance down to where Narcissa’s hands are pleasuring Laura, and back up again. Laura feels like a musical instrument Narcissa plays to entertain Guillaume....
No... not an instrument...
Laura gasps remembering a recent dream. Laura surrenders to the undeniable realization that she is not Mistress Narcissa’s lover. Nor even a cherished possession like a musical instrument. She is nothing more than Narcissa’s puppet. Her plaything. A mere toy to be used as its owner sees fit.
Laura’s despair at this sudden understanding is only amplified — as she groans when Narcissa’s fingers stroke an especially intimate spot between Laura’s thighs — by Laura’s realization that she finds so much pleasure and fulfillment in any attention from Mistress Narcissa, that Laura probably would not end their unequal relationship, even if she could.
Indeed, any thought of departure vanishes from Laura’s mind when Mistress Narcissa whispers hotly in her ear. “Beg me for release, my sweet.”
Laura moans ardently. She tries to think what she could say that would most please her Mistress and hurry the promised relief. Before she can speak, Narcissa’s demands become more specific.
“Tell Master Guillaume how much you love him, Laura,” Mistress Narcissa commands. “Beg me... Tell him....”
“Please, Mistress!” Laura gasps. “I need to come so badly!”
But Narcissa only torments her more, bringing her to the edge of release, but never fulfilling her need. Laura knows why. She has not yet done as she’s been told.
Sighing with the passion released by Narcissa’s roving fingers, Laura weakly shakes her head. Tell Master Guillaume that she loves him? Ridiculous! She hardly knows the man and, besides, all she has done of late with Mistresses Narcissa and Violet has Laura convinced that she must be a lesbian.
But... saying it will please Mistress Narcissa. Right now, Laura would say anything to convince Narcissa to finally bring her petting to its climatic culmination. Panting desperately, Laura forces herself to meet Master Guillaume’s intense stare.
“I love you, Master,” Laura says to him hoarsely, no longer caring if it’s true. But having made such a declaration to a man for whom she has little, if any, affection, Laura’s mind turns immediately to her need for Narcissa. For days, Laura has wondered if she had fallen in love with Narcissa. Now Narcissa herself has planted the thought of love in Laura’s vulnerable mind. “Oh Mistress... Oh Narcissa... I love you, too! O god, the things you do to me... the way it feels... I love you and need you so badly, Mistress....”
With that last statement, Laura’s attention returns to her physical desires. Now completely overcome with unsated lust, Laura begins to rant. “I need you so badly, Mistress... I love what you do to me... Oh god, you make me so horny! Please, I need to come! You want me to beg you Mistress? I will... I beg you Mistress... please Mistress! I beg you... I love you, Mistress! Please! I beg you... I need to come... I love you... PLEASE Mistress... Please... I BEG you to make me come!”
***
Circular Reasoning
Laura sits in the tub, shivering despite the heat. Her arms are folded upon the smooth ceramic tiles framing the huge bath, with her forehead resting on her crossed wrists. The irregular thrusting of her hips sends ripples across the water, creating intricate, undulating patterns in the remaining bubbles as the little waves echo back on themselves from the far sides of the pool. Laura struggles to regain control of her panting breath.
It would be so easy to give herself the climactic ecstacy for which her body so desperately yearns. But she keeps her hands right where they are, balled into fists at the edge of the pool. Although Mistress Narcissa did not specifically forbid anything, she did suggest that Laura needed “one more night of tension.” Her meaning could not have been more clear.
Sighing forlornly, Laura blinks open her eyes, sits up, and pulls herself out of the bathtub. Tricia waits there, and wraps Laura in a towel as she stands. Laura thanks her hoarsely as their eyes meet.
Laura immediately recognizes that Tricia suffers from the same acute hunger so plaguing Laura. Tricia had been invited to do as she wanted to please her beloved Master Guillaume, but then been denied the expected consummation of that opportunity. The two women gaze at each other with mutual libidinous sympathy.
Laura’s breathing again quickens as Tricia begins to dry her, gently caressing the bath water from Laura’s sensitive skin. Laura remembers the pleasant sensations of kissing and cuddling with Tricia earlier. It had started as a playful joke on Master Guillaume, but Laura remembers how her body had started to respond to Tricia’s petting just before Narcissa split them up.
Laura closes her eyes and moans softly between clenched teeth as Tricia tenderly dries her breasts, the towel teasingly tugging Laura’s taut nipples. She can barely keep her hips from rocking as Tricia towels her tummy, hips and buttocks. Laura cannot help but whimper as Tricia rubs the towel up and down inside her thighs.
Laura does not again open her eyes and catch her breath until Tricia completes drying her legs, finishing with her feet. Laura looks down to find Tricia on her knees in front of her, Tricia’s mouth mere inches from Laura’s fur-downed intimacy as Tricia gazes up into Laura’ eyes. Laura realizes the only thing keeping Tricia from bestowing on Laura the carnal relief she so desperately needs is Tricia’s own respect for their Mistress’ wishes. Laura shudders with a twinge of guilt realizing that had Narcissa not precluded it, Laura would this instant take advantage of Tricia’s repeated offer of love to sate Laura’s immediate physical needs, even though in her heart, Laura’s knows she cannot sincerely return her friends amorous affection.
But Laura’s loyalty to Mistress Narcissa requires her to resist this temptation, and thereby saves Laura the shame of merely using her friend for base sexual relief. In Laura’s hopelessly confused mind, this further justifies her unquestioning devotion to Narcissa. It reaffirms for Laura the notion that all the torment and humiliation Narcissa has inflicted upon her has somehow been for Laura’s own good.
This latest confirmation of her Mistress’ wisdom makes Laura smile. Her spirit soaring with the knowledge that Mistress Narcissa waits for Laura to join her in the next room, Laura steps back and helps Tricia to he feet. Instinctively, Laura takes Tricia’s hand, and the two women together enter their Master and Mistress’ large and lavish bedroom.
***
Perceptions of Privacy
During Laura’s freshman year of college, her dormitory roommate had a steady boyfriend who went to another school several hundred miles away. On the occasional weekends he came to visit, Laura always politely arranged to sleep elsewhere. One week, however, he had decided to surprise Laura’s roommate, and unbeknownst to Laura, arrived on a Wednesday afternoon while Laura was at class. Laura had returned to the room late, having spent the evening at the library, and found her roommate wasn’t there. This was not unusual. Her roommate was very involved on campus, and had an active social life; so even without knowing her roommate’s boyfriend was in town, her roommate’s absence did not worry Laura. Tired from a long day of classes and studying. Laura went to bed early.
She was awakened a little after “bar time” when her roommate and her roommate’s boyfriend snuck into the room with all the stealth of two drunks trying very diligently to be quiet. Deciding she did not want to deal with them, Laura pretended to still be asleep, and was gratified to hear the happy couple collapse upon her roommate’s bed, apparently content to pass out there.
Laura had soon come to regret her decision to feign sleep. She was just dozing back off when she heard the sound of stifled giggling and jean zippers from across the small dorm room. Laura was now too embarrassed to say anything as she heard each piece of their clothing drop to the linoleum tile floor. Laura then had to endure the creaking of bed springs, her roommate’s gasps and moans, and her roommate’s boyfriend’s grunts and squeals, as the two of them made clumsy, drunken love just a few feet from where Laura silently laid.
Laura got up at sunrise and left the couple snoring under their blankets as she slipped out for breakfast. Laura never told her roommate that she’d been awake or what she had heard. It would have been too embarrassing for everyone involved. Worse, Laura was secretly ashamed by the fact that as horrifyingly discomforting as it had been to be in the same room with them while they did it, a part of her had enjoyed listening to their love-making. By the time they had finished and fallen asleep, Laura had been too horny to sleep herself. For weeks afterward, every time Laura heard a dorm bed squeak a certain way, even just from someone sitting on it, it had, a little bit, turned her on.
That incident was well over a year ago, and Laura had pretty much forgotten it until now, as she lays on the floor next to the bed where Mistress Narcissa and Master Guillaume are loudly making love. The same mortifying mixture of shame and lust that afflicted her that night in her dorm room now returns to Laura a hundredfold. Laura grits her teeth against her desires.
If she could, she would slide her hands down between her legs to give herself the release she so desperately needs. But her schoolmate Tricia lays under the blanket with her, and despite all they have been through together since meeting Mistress Narcissa and Master Guillaume, Laura would still find it almost impossible to touch herself like that in front of her friend. In fact, by some strange definition of twisted mercy, Laura is spared from any temptation to so degrade herself. Mistress Narcissa has mandated that Laura suffer “one more night of tension.” Laura would suffer almost any torture rather than risk displeasing her Mistress and being driven from her exciting life here in this mansion.
Laura rolls onto her left side, turning away from the bed. She finds that Tricia is also on her side, facing Laura. Their eyes meet. Tricia’s desperate stare, the audible irregularity of her breathing, the spasmodic movement of Tricia’s hips, all betray that she is at least as tormented as Laura by what they hear on the creaking bed above them.
At first Laura just moves her face a bit closer to her friend’s, but then decides there is only one way to speak to Tricia without disturbing their Mistress, but still making sure Tricia can hear above Narcissa’s ecstatic cries. Laura leans forward, and Tricia and Laura’s bare breasts press together, just as Laura’s lips press to Tricia’s left ear.
“Although Mistress Narcissa has forbidden it to me,” Laura whispers. “If you want to... I mean... If, um.... I mean if you want me to turn the other way... Away from you... You know, if you want what little privacy I can give you... I won’t turn back until you tell me it’s okay.”
***
Growing Comfortable
“Thank you for the offer,” Tricia’s whisper quavers unsteadily in Laura’s ear. “But I am not allowed to have release either. I would just prefer to hold you close and try to sleep. Is that okay?”
The affectionate kiss on Laura’s ear with which Tricia punctuates her response does not shock Laura as it would have a just a week before. Laura still does not desire Tricia in the way she has come to yearn for some other women: Mistresses Narcissa and Violet, and even — in Laura’s fantasies — her and Tricia’s schoolmate Belle Phillips. But having come to mistakenly believe that she herself is a lesbian, Laura is no longer disturbed by Tricia’s bisexuality, and her once-professed attraction to Laura.
“Of course it’s okay,” Laura answers truthfully. “In fact, I’d like that very much.”
Laura settles onto her back and wraps her arms around Tricia, drawing her in until Tricia’s head nuzzles against Laura’s neck. Tricia remains on her side, and Laura is immediately conscious of Tricia’s breasts pressing against Laura’s ribs, and the gentle contact of their thighs and feet. Laura is still not entirely comfortable with even such casual intimacy with a woman. But she finds that the touch of Tricia’s skin to her own does help soothe the emotional turmoil roused by Laura’s physical need for Mistress Narcissa, whose cries of sexual ecstacy still torment Laura from the bed above.
Laura envies Master Guillaume, both for being able to so pleasure Mistress Narcissa, and to have her to himself in bed. Laura starts fantasizing what it would be like to truly be Narcissa’s lover, and share her bed every night, and to take her body whenever she wished. Laura imagines holding Narcissa tightly, hips to hips, breasts to breasts, lips to lips...
With these images in Laura’s mind, merely the sound of Mistress Narcissa’s orgasmic scream, immediately echoed by Master Guillaume’s triumphant roar, almost makes Laura herself climax. She is mortified to realize her hips are bucking up against the covering quilt, but her shame is somewhat assuaged when she notices that Tricia’s hips are likewise moving, thrusting gently but intimately against Laura’s flank.
“It’s okay,” Tricia whispers when she feels Laura’s body tense with embarrassment. “I understand. I would do what I could to help you, if Mistress would permit it... and if you would let me.”
Laura sighs. Several times over the past week, Laura has been tempted to take advantage of Tricia’s confessed affection for her, and selfishly use her friend to satiate the overwhelming libidinousness that has plagued Laura since their arrival in this deep and mysterious forest. Laura doubts she could now resist that temptation, were it not for Mistress Narcissa’s prohibition.
“I wish I could help you, too,” Laura replies, and instantly wonders if the ambiguity in that statement comes from her own subconscious. Not surprisingly, Laura still cannot comprehend how her attitudes toward sex could have changed so radically over the past several days. None the less, each time she finds lust and occasional satisfaction associated with acts that a week ago she would have found unthinkable, the more her inhibitions fade, as Laura learns to associate happiness solely with surrender to the sensual demands of her Mistresses.
Just then, Laura hears Mistress Narcissa’s voice. “Good night, my angels.”
Laura looks up to see Mistress Narcissa smiling down at them. Before they can reply, Narcissa lays back out of sight.
“See, Tricia?” Laura whispers. “Tomorrow’s another day. They are just showing us how things are done around here. It’s not like back at school. Things will be better once we get used to it all.”
Laura frowns a bit. She remembers that it has been Tricia, not herself, who has already shown herself comfortable with the eccentric, libertine, and even kinky, behaviors of their hosts. So why does Laura suddenly find it necessary to express such assurances?
She no longer doubts that she belongs here with Mistresses Violet and Narcissa. She has never been so sure of anything before in her life. So why, at quiet moments like this, does she still feel, deep in her soul, an urgent but unanswerable impulse to flee.
“Tomorrow’s another day,” Laura repeats quietly. “We should try to get some sleep.”
Only her utter physical and emotional exhaustion, combined with the reassuring comfort of Tricia’s embrace, allows Laura to eventually overcome her disquieting mixture of lust and dread, and eventually fall into a fitful sleep.
***
Read on to CHAPTER SEVEN.