Page 30 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
“I wear these knickers so that I can put little subs with impudent mouths to use at a moment’s notice,” Rebecca says, and with a sharp tug of my hair, my mouth is pressed against her lace-covered sweetness. “Do your work, little pet. And I’ll think about what needs to be done about all this misbehavior of yours.”
My work. God. We talked about this too before we came here, about what me moving in would mean, about how we would be here in Rebecca’s flat and in the club and out in the world. Where I would serve her, where I would kneel, and where we would just be a regular couple. The places where there might be a little of both—certain dates, maybe, certain evenings at work when she was alone in her office and needed to fuck.
Here—here though, it will be absolute between us. She will be mistress, and I will be her pet—and although it will sometimes be informal, because we are also people with jobs and Netflix shows to watch and face masks to use (in my case anyway)—my first priority will be her. My work will be to please her however she wants, whether that is offering up my mouth for her use, or offering up my body for punishment.
I remember the night I watched Rebecca and Auden spank Poe in the library. I remember how I felt Rebecca’s commands to Poe like fingertips on the nape of my neck, even though I wasn’t even the one being commanded. Later, I’d found Poe and asked her about the spanking, about the pain, about kink and what it meant. What about the parts that aren’t about the pain? I’d finally asked. The parts that are about doing what someone says?
It’s like being loved, Poe had answered. Like loving.
And so she was right. Because with Rebecca’s hands twisted in my hair, and my lips pressed against that wonderful part of her, I know that all my doubts earlier were not doubts at all, but tiny, rippling awakenings. Like coming awake next to the ocean, and realizing that I’d been dreaming the roar of the waves for hours without even knowing it.
I was falling in love long before now.
The realization is so exciting, and to have it like this, with my tongue flickering over lace and warm skin and with assertive hands fisted in my hair, is heaven.
Before I can think better of it, I murmur the truth. “I love you.”
It’s like I speak the words into her very skin, like they coil up through her belly and chest as hungry, grasping vines, because suddenly her body is tensed and flexing and trembling. She’s not breathing, and for a moment—oh, for a stupid, ditzy moment—I think it’s because she’s happy. I think it’s because she’s about to say it back.
And then the silence bores on, chewing a hole through me, and I simply know. I have a problem with being blurty and blunt, and I should have thought, I should have shut up, because now I’ve poisoned this.
I thought I was being so careful hiding how needy and uncertain I am, but now I’ve just gone and proved it by saying something unsophisticated and unwelcome.
Rebecca relaxes the tiniest bit against me, and even though this time I’m not brave enough to look up at her, I know she’s relaxed because she’s figured out what to say. I’ve given her a complicated maths problem and now she’s solved for x. She’s solved for Delphine Can’t Be An Adult About Kinky Sex. It’s in her voice when she answers, gently and knowledgeably: “That’s common to feel in a scene, Delph, it’s very natural.”
She sounds like someone assuring a teenager about getting an erection in P.E.—I know this is embarrassing for both of us, but don’t worry, it’s normal, you’ll get control over it one day.
I close my eyes, my mouth unmoving against her, although I can still taste her on my tongue, I can still smell her. She is sweet and the littlest bit tart and something else that’s all her. Perfect. She is perfect and I love her and she doesn’t love me.
“I’m going to take you to the club as soon as I can,” she’s saying, and now she’s stroking my hair, like I’m a pet in truth, “and you’ll meet lots of other submissives there. You’ll get to see so many other people playing, so many scenes, and then you’ll see. You’ll see that it’s a perfectly natural reaction to have.”
What can I say to that? What can I do other than nod against her? Yes, you’re right, Mistress, it is just the scene, it’s just hormones.
It isn’t the way you frown so adorably at elevations and ecological impact studies. It isn’t the way you suck your teeth at certain soil reports, like you’ve just found out soil has been subtweeting you for weeks.
It isn’t the way you know obscure plants that medieval monks grew and it’s not the way you never come back inside the house without a wildflower for me—a different kind each time, as if you’re worried I’ll get bored if you keep bringing me the same species.
It isn’t the way you smile when you come, it isn’t the way you hold me when you think I’m asleep. It isn’t how the light itself changes around you, like you are a living filter and your mere presence makes everything bright, saturated, alive.
No, I can’t say these things. I don’t think she’d want me to.
“Delph,” Rebecca whispers, and her voice is strange, and if she hadn’t just told me in so many words that my feelings weren’t reciprocated, I’d think maybe she felt conflicted? But I know inside her firm exterior lies a perceptive and kind person, so she’s probably worried about me. Worried that I’m upset.
I don’t want to worry her, I know that much. I don’t want to be anything other than someone who makes her happy. I want to be easy for her, so easy that she’ll never tell me to go away.
I open my eyes when she cups my chin and lifts my face to hers.
“Delph,” she says, and then swallows. “Are you—are you okay? We can stop if you need time to process. I should have waded into this. We should have started slow and built our way up, and that’s my fault that we didn’t. I’m sorry, pet, I’m so sorry.” She does look sorry, and each and every word is like a slap, a burn, a cut. Each word of her apologizing for my hasty declaration. Each word undoing my own feelings and reshaping them into a byproduct of bad dominance. Even though they’re not a byproduct. And she’s not a bad Dominant.
“I don’t need to stop,” I tell her. “You didn’t do anything wrong, please. Rebecca. Mistress. It’s fine. Just the scene, like you said.”
She doesn’t let me lower my face for a long minute, keeping me tilted up to her gaze. Her eyes flick dark and concerned over my face, and I just want to die, I’m so embarrassed. “Please,” I say again. “Let’s please forget about it.”
She releases my face, but she looks like she wants to say something else, like she’s not finished trying to smooth over my gawky blunder, and I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it a second longer, and so I bury my mouth between her legs once again, running a slow lick up her core.
I feel her relent; I feel the moment she chooses to let it go. Her breath stutters out, a long exhale, and then she spreads her legs even more, pushing her hips against my kiss. I respond eagerly, using the tip of my tongue to make wet promises through the lace, and then sighing in contentment when she finally pulls her knickers to the side and lets me service her bare skin.
With her legs parted like this, the tight well at her center is exposed, and so is the dark berry of her clit. I lave and lick at both like how I know she likes, following her sighs and the tugs in my hair. I feast on her until she starts arching and pushing even harder against my mouth.
