“Do you even remember what happens when you touch me?!” And Hell, apparently what happens now if she even talks to me?! Isabel gave a sudden, involuntary tremble, and realized that she shouldn’t have asked that. Nearby objects suddenly catching fire wasn’t the only thing that happened when Adalynn had touched her, and in fact, the other things were even more unforgettable. That was, unfortunately, the problem. The frisson of that memory made her newly conscious of her nakedness with Adalynn’s face still dominating the miraculously-undamaged flatscreen, and she looked around for something to cover herself with. Unfortunately, there wasn’t so much as a sweat towel here in the living room, and she still somehow couldn’t just walk away.
Adalynn’s voice lowered, and she was almost perfectly balanced between Adalynn Shields and Mistress Lanfear as she continued. “Don’t make me repeat myself, marath’damane. Those were the two best summers of my life. I remember everything. Don’t you?” And with that, she licked her tongue across her lips slowly and winked.
The frustrated stub of the orgasm—and other kinds of release—within Isabel that had been interrupted mid-course responded as if pleading from a cage within her soul.
“Oh, good God, girl, when was the last time you came?”
Isabel blushed to the roots of her hair. “Addie …” Please don’t make me say it.
“Were you thinking of me whenever it happened?”
Oh God, don’t make me say that, either. Not that Adalynn needed her to admit it. It had been a rhetorical question. God damn that gorgeous evil genius.
Adalynn give a tiny, soft laugh. Even that tiny movement of the other woman’s breasts in the form-fitting bodice of the sul’dam dress was somehow impossible for Isabel to look away from. “You say the nicest things when you say nothing at all.”
Isabel buried her face in her hands. The chrome buckles on the gag she was still holding jangled together as if laughing in her face. “A girl has needs. But I’ve had to start going outside of town when I really need to cum.”
Adalynn arched an eyebrow. “Outside of town? Say, maybe, forty-ish miles to the north?”
Isabel actually flinched. Even knowing that the woman had gone to MIT, every time they talked, Isabel still got a new revelation of just how smart Adalynn was. “I have unhealthy ways of processing shit. But seriously, I’ve had the condo association, the fire department, a social worker, even the cops all come here. Daddy’s had to smooth things over, and he might not next time. He thinks I’m crazy, or spiraling, or who knows what, and his help is just enabling my slide, and telling him about this is not going to convince him that he’s wrong.”
“Good thing I didn’t say I was going to get him to take care of you, then. I said I was going to.”
“No offense, but he’s a partner at Kaplan Stabler and he knows people here.”
“And?”
“And you’re a thousand miles away and dead broke.”
The background behind Adalynn on the TV rotated as she got to her feet. Her smile shifted, too, somehow becoming more powerful and confident without sliding back into Mistress Lanfear. “Oh for two.”
“What?”
There was a mysterious twinkle in Adalynn’s eyes. “Never mind. But I do need to get to work. I don’t want you to worry about anything, OK? Get some sleep if you can. Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, so we can hope that means no one gives you any shit. And if anything happens there and you need to crash somewhere else, you don’t need to go all the way back to Red Top. My parents have a new place in Atlanta, and they’re not there now. There’s food and everything, linens, toiletries, could be an AirBnB but they’re not using it for that. Wine cellar and liquor cabinet included.”
Isabel was so dumbfounded at that last remark that she forgot to ask when Adalynn’s parents had moved into the city from Chattanooga. “Adalynn, I haven’t had a drink since Red Top. Have you?”
Adalynn set the phone down on some surface that was higher than the one it had rested on before, just below head height. When her hand came back into view, there was a rocks glass in it, with traces of brown liquid in the bottom, clearly finished.
“You didn’t really think I was going to watch the season finale without oosquai on hand, did you?” She drained the last few drops in the glass, more water than whisky at this point. “I went with a George Dickel reserve. Highest corn content I could get my hands on.” It was mixing cultures within the fandom—oosquai was a strong, maize-based spirit favored by the desert-dwelling Aiel in the far east of the setting. The Seanchan that Adalynn and Isabel were cosplaying as for the finale were naval invaders from the across the ocean to the far west, more than a thousand miles away. But to Isabel’s eyes, that was hardly the gravest sin Adalynn was committing.
“Addie, are you serious?”
“A hundred percent. I told you, I’ve spent almost my entire time here at MIT working on this. And gotten some real results, too.”
Isabel didn’t know what to say, so she just fidgeted, naked, before the woman on the screen.
“Isabel. Do you trust me?”
“Too much. That’s my problem.”
“No, Isabel. It’s no one’s problem, and it’s my honor. Get some sleep. You’ve had quite a day. Even if it was a desperately needed one. Oh, and Isari?” she switched back to Isabel’s damane name, and her eyes suddenly hardened to Mistress Lanfear again. “No clothes. I’ll enjoy thinking about you like this while I take care of things.”
“W … what?!”
“Did I stutter, Isari? Did you fail to understand me?”
The caged, unsatisfied yearning within her strained harder on the bars of its prison. “No, Mistress,” she said. Why do I do this? Why do I feel like this when I do this?!
“Good. Later, beautiful.” With that, Adalynn–Mistress Lanfear–finally cut the connection.
Chapter 2
With the TV suddenly off, Isabel suddenly realized how dark it was in her living room, with the pendant lamps overhead and her floor lamp both shattered. The windows were large, though, and covered only with thin gauzy curtains, so the ambient light of Castleberry Hill filtered in from behind the TV. Without that, Adalynn probably would have had a hard time seeing more than Isabel’s silhouette. Isabel inched slowly along the wall, then climbed up onto the side of her couch, which let her get close enough to the TV that she could reach one long dancer’s leg across the gap between the couch and her entertainment center and grab her phone. She dropped the gag on the end table that sat catty-corner between the couch and the TV. She switched the phone flashlight on, which helped a little bit more, but not really enough to see where it was safe to walk on the path to her bedroom. Also, she almost immediately got her low battery warning. You and me both, phone, she thought.
Well, the couch was plush and had been the site of many a luxurious nap, including the occasional nude one. There was a wireless charger on the end table, and Isabel set her phone there to charge. Then she positioned her favorite throw pillow behind her head, and snuggled down to sleep. She could deal with the mess in the morning.
Fate had other plans. Or more accurately, her condo association did, but the two were equally relentless, possibly in cahoots.
She was just on the dreamy, meandering threshold of sleep when there was a loud knock at the door, followed within femtoseconds by the familiar Ring doorbell chime. She grabbed her ailing phone and quickly loaded the doorbell camera view, praying that it wasn’t who she already knew it was.
Ximena Gomez, a woman whose resting bitch face belied the fact that she was quite an active one, was the president of the condo association. She had retired from the compliance department at SunTrust just before the merger with BB&T, and her first retirement project was attempting to change the condo bylaws to prohibit renters. Not a week after she learned that Isabel was not really paying rent, she was staying in a loft owned by her father, she had changed the proposed amendment to include any non-owner-occupant. There was no one else like Isabel in the development, so the amendment had had no other purpose than to get rid of her. The other owners had voted down the proposal 27-28, in part because of a combined charm offensive from both Isabel and her father, Isabel saying as openly as she dared that it was unkind of Ximena to have changed the language just to get rid of her, and her father making the pitch to other owners that the condos were worth more if you could rent them out either to long-term tenants or as AirBnBs. Castleberry Hill was an up-and-coming neighborhood. Ximena had never forgiven Isabel.
Leave a Reply