Sweet Gwendoline

When I woke up, it was 6:36 am.

I could feel a warm body snuggled up affectionately against mine. I listened to the sound of soft, gentle breathing and realized that it was Lyndsay. She had one arm around my waist and one of her legs interposed between my two legs. We were both lying on our sides and Lyndsay was spooning me.

It was a warm, wonderful way to wake up, intertwined with a warm-blooded, loving woman who wasn't shy about displaying her affections.

As I drifted more into wakefulness, I remembered the night before. Lyndsay and I had gotten into a three-way with Julie. That was intense. Julie is my best friend, and they say that you should never have sex with your friends.

But, wow, it was

really, really good

sex.

Julie wasn't a lesbian, and she was really inexperienced when it came to having sex with another woman, but she was an attentive student, and Lyndsay was an excellent teacher.

I tried to replay the events of last night in my mind and realized I wasn't certain how many orgasms I had. Was it three? Four? Whatever. It was some intense lovemaking. Both Lyndsay and Julie were exceedingly attentive to my needs. There were mouths, lips, tongues and fingertips all over my body, kissing, licking, cupping, fingering, fondling and caressing repeatedly.

Lyndsay murmured something in her sleep and her grip around my waist tightened for a few moments. I briefly thought that Lyndsay was waking up, however she was just having a dream. The leg that was sandwiched between mine twitched slightly for a few seconds and then Lyndsay was still. Whatever Lyndsay was dreaming about, it wasn't the sort of thing to drive her into wakefulness. She stopped murmuring and twitching, and I fell asleep with her naked body wrapped around mine.

* * * * *

The next day was atypical. Lyndsay followed me around everywhere I went. I couldn't even go into the bathroom to pee without her wanting to follow me. She was like a little puppy dog that couldn't stand to let me out of her sight for five minutes.

Julie wasn't herself either. She cornered me in the living room and offered to give me a foot massage. I mean, Julie's foot massages are heavenly, I absolutely revel in them. However, Julie only massages my feet when she wants something from me, usually something huge. However, Julie didn't ask me for anything this time.

I suppose when one of your closest friends is forcibly drugged and abducted, it can cause your attitudes to change. Paul Darcy had me in his clutches for

hours.

For all Lyndsay and Julie knew he could have

killed

me. In some ways, they may have been traumatized by the experience more than I was.

Another change in behavior was that Lyndsay was constantly touching me. Every chance she got she was either holding my hand, stroking my hair, wrapping an arm around my waist, massaging my shoulders, pulling me into an embrace, nuzzling me, it was like she constantly needed to touch me to be reassured that I still existed and wasn't going to disappear.

When Lyndsay's mom said that she wanted to speak to me in private, Lyndsay practically had a meltdown.

"Why can't I be in the room with her? What are you going to be doing to her?" Lyndsay demanded, on the verge of an irrational temper tantrum, or possibly a panic attack.

It took Dasha and Mrs. Brie about ten minutes to calm Lyndsay down. And even ten minutes might not have been enough, however, Mrs. Brie had Lyndsay take an avittan. I know from experience that avittan is a great drug. It calms you right the fuck down. I would do commercial endorsements for avittan if they asked me to.

"Poor Lyndsay," I said when Mrs. Brie and I were alone in her bedroom.

"She's been traumatized," Mrs. Brie replied, "Last night she came face to face for the first time the reality that someone that she cares about could die. Most people feel a certain sense of shock and uncertainty the first time something like this happens. When you're very young, you feel like you and your loved ones will live forever. There's this childlike notion that no matter what you do you'll always be safe. It can be quite a jolt when you're disabused of that notion."

I nodded in agreement. I wasn't much older than Lyndsay and I understood the mindset that Mrs. Brie was talking about. It was only a few years ago that I graduated from high school, and most of the students I went to school with had a youthful recklessness and unlimited self-confidence about them.

Lyndsay had just lost that.

"I get that," I said, "For some reason this has shaken Lyndsay up more than me...and I'm the one who's life was in danger. I barely feel anything at all. It's like getting kidnapped by Darcy wasn't even real, like he was just a bad dream."

"Oh yes," Mrs. Brie responded, "Darcy is what I wanted to talk to you about. His death has already made the news. I wanted to discuss Darcy without Lyndsay being around. There are certain aspects of last night that Lyndsay just isn't ready to know about."

"Aspects?" I asked.

"Aspects like me being a succubus," she replied, "Aspects like me being shot multiple times and shrugging it off like it was no worse than a skinned knee. She knows I rescued you last night, but she isn't ready to hear about any of the supernatural parts of my life."

"You sure?" I asked her, "She might actually think it's kinda cool having a succubus for a mother."

"I tried telling her back when she was sixteen," Mrs. Brie explained, "She got very upset and shouted me down. She threw a series of temper tantrums and I think she's now buried the memory of when I tried to tell her about her succubus heritage."

"Wow," I said.

"Wow indeed," Mrs. Brie said, "She was raised as a human and she's heavily invested in being part of human society. If I tried to force her to come to terms with what I am; and what she might someday become; I think it would tear her world apart."

"She wouldn't be able to cope?" I asked.

"I don't think she would," Mrs. Brie said as she shook her head in negation.

Eventually we got to talking about Mr. Darcy once again. His death had made it into the news, however, a lot of important details about his death weren't being reported.

The news reports discuss how the police responded to 911 calls about gunshots being fired at Paul Darcy's estate and that police arrived to discover that Darcy had been murdered.

The news reports neglected to mention that Darcy died from severe blunt force trauma to the head. From the news reports, you could easily assume that he'd been shot rather than bludgeoned to death.

The news reports also neglected to mention the armed thugs who had also been killed at Darcy's home. And despite the dozens of shot that had been fired, none of these men had died of gunshot wounds.

"The police are holding back details from the press," Mrs. Brie explained, "It's a trick that they use. Now, if a person talks about Paul's death, and they mention details that weren't mentioned in the media, it will clue them in that that person was an eye-witness to the crime."

"I have to be careful what I say, don't I?" I asked.

"At the moment the police have no idea we were in his home when he died," Mrs. Brie observed, "but, if you say the wrong thing, you could attract the wrong sort of attention to yourself. And I don't want either one of us getting caught up in a murder investigation."

"Neither do I," I said. I mean, I didn't kill Darcy or any of his associates, however, I think I would have if I had been capable of doing it. Darcy was a dangerous, despicable criminal who hired thugs to drug and kidnap me. He deserved to die, and I was glad that he was dead.

"Good girl," Mrs. Brie said, "I was shot while I was rescuing you. The CSI teams will have found plenty of my blood at the crime scene, but I don't think that will be enough to link me to Paul's murder. There aren't any databases out there with a sample of my DNA, and the police won't request a DNA sample from me unless they have a reason to suspect me of being involved."

* * * * *

When I next saw Lyndsay, she was soaring on an avittan high and had a really adorable smile on her face. Oh yeah, avittan is a fun drug, and Lyndsay was even more adorable when she was on it.

We both sat on the couch and cuddled. For a long time, we didn't say anything to each other. We just snuggled up close to each other and enjoyed the comforting feeling of each other's body warmth. When we finally began talking again, I was the one who broke the silence.

"We should go out tomorrow," I suggested, "just the two of us. We'll do something fun."

"Ooh, what kind of fun?" Lyndsay asked, smiling merrily.

"We could take another trip to Erotische Dessous," I suggested, "You seemed to enjoy finding ways to expose my naked body in public and embarrass me last time we were there."

"I do enjoy exhibiting your naked body to total strangers," Lyndsay admitted, "It's especially fun when I can get you to blush. You're adorable when you do that."

"If that's what you enjoy, I'll do my best to blush for you," I responded.

We remained affectionately entwined on the couch for most of the day. Lyndsay found an autographed photo of Josephine Angel I had left in the living room and this led to questions.

Lyndsay had never heard of Josephine Angel before, so I tried to explain how I had met her at the Vineyard, and how Josephine was a talented and successful Hollywood actress.

"Are you sure?" Lyndsay inquired, "Name one movie that she's been in."

I named several. In her early career, Josephine only got supporting roles or cameo appearances, but much more recently she'd gotten top billing in a few movies.

No matter how many movies I mentioned that Josephine had been in, Lyndsay had never heard of any of them. As a result, Lyndsay and I spent most of the day on the couch, watching movies with Josephine Angel as part of the cast.

When she was in her early twenties, Josephine got cast in comedies like

Oh, Hell No,

and

How I Survived my Midlife Crisis,

where she played a sexy teenage daughter with a penchant for getting into trouble.

However, in her mid-twenties she was cast in the action/adventure movies like

Be Afraid of the Dark

and

Dance of the Dead.

These are my favorite Josephine Angel movies. These are the movies where she really starts to shine. She plays an action hero named Claire Underwood.

Claire Underwood is an ass-kicker with supernatural abilities. She's sort of a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Selene, the vampire from the Underworld movies. She kills vampires and zombies and other creepy things that try to kill innocent humans.

Since Lyndsay had never seen any of Josephine Angel's movies, we decided to curl up together and binge-watch several hour's worth of her movies on Netflix.

* * * * *

"Wow," Lyndsay exclaimed as we watched one of the action scenes from Be Afraid of the Dark, "She's very acrobatic."

I had to agree. We had just witnessed a fight scene where Claire Underwood fought a small army of zombies on the streets of San Francisco. We saw her do spinning roundhouse kicks, somersaults, handsprings and backflips.

"She's like a cross between a gymnast and a martial artist," I commented, "Those slow-moving zombies never stood a chance."

Lyndsay agreed with me, and then said, "You know, I could teach you some of those moves. If you added some of those moves to your stripper choreography, it might be interesting."

I thought about this for a few seconds and playfully responded, "You think my clients would approve if I whacked them in the face with a roundhouse kick?"

Lyndsay twisted around and kissed me affectionately and said, "Silly, I was thinking more like teaching you flips and handsprings. A young, sexy woman doing handsprings and flips while she's stark naked? That would be awesome. How many strippers in Southern California can do those sorts of gymnastics?"

I mulled that over for a few seconds.

I had always thought that gymnasts were sexy. When the Olympics were on, the women's gymnastics were always my favorite event. They weren't just athletes, they were artists. They performed dance-based moves, including leaps, poses and acrobatic skills like walkovers and back handsprings. They were poised and graceful and showed super-human flexibility, like when they did front scales, back scales, split-leaps or an arabesque where their toes damn near touched the back of their skull.

And if gymnasts did their gymnastics routines in the nude, how much sexier would that be?

"It probably would give me an edge over the other strippers," I finally admitted.

"Nowadays strippers have to do more than just stand in front of an audience and take off their clothes," Lyndsay said, "You need to give them a performance. You're already quite flexible. Why not build on that?"

I decided to take Lyndsay up on her offer. I'd become her student and allow her to teach me everything she knew about doing leaps, flips, handsprings and other gymnastics moves.

"It'll be fun, you'll see," Lyndsay assured me, "And you'll become one of the most popular strippers in Southern California."

* * * * *

It took Lyndsay a few days to arrange things at Erotische Dessous. I don't know what sort of influence Lyndsay had over the staff and management of that place, but they seemed to be willing to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it.

I'm guessing a lot of money was involved. Lyndsay's family was incredibly wealthy. If you slide enough money into the coffers of a business, it can buy a whole lot of cooperation.

We arrived at the Fremont Mall around 9:30 in the morning. Most of the stories in the Fremont Mall didn't open until 11:00 a.m., so the mall parking lot was almost deserted. This early in the morning nobody was at the mall except for mall walkers, mall security and employees of the various mall shops.

Lyndsay got an excellent parking space near the front entrance, and for several minutes she just sat there in the driver's seat of her Jaguar XK and looked out across the parking lot.

After five minutes of this I was filled with confusion and getting weighed down by a lingering and uncomfortable silence. Why was Lyndsay just sitting there?

"Um, aren't we going into the mall?" I finally asked.

Lyndsay continued to stare out at the parking lot and finally replied, "When you were kidnapped by Darcy's goons, it was in a parking lot very much like this parking lot here."

Lyndsay's voice sounded hollow and frightened. I had thought that we'd gotten past this. I guess I had been too optimistic.

"Darcy and his goons are never going to kidnap anybody ever again," I assured Lyndsay. I took her hand in mine and I gave it a comforting squeeze.

Lyndsay squeezed my hand in return and gave me a little smile.

"But, what about other people?" Lyndsay asked, "There are other fanatics out there. What if you go out into public and get ambushed by somebody else?"

I was kind of stunned. I had always felt like Lyndsay was the fearless one and I was the one who had anxieties. I wasn't used to being the strong one, but being in a relationship sometimes means that you end up with unexpected challenges.

"What if an airplane falls out of the sky and crashes into your mother's house?" I countered, "What if there's an 8.9 earthquake that kills everyone in Fairhaven? Lyndsay, if I cancel my plans based on every possible scary thing that can happen, I'll end up paralyzed with fear and I'll never do anything ever again."

I hated being the strong one, but I told myself that this was surely a temporary thing. Lyndsay couldn't stay like this forever. Some day soon she'd get past this trauma.

When she continued to sit in the car, I decided to take more extreme measures. I got up out of the car and headed across the parking lot without her. Since her fear was centered around horrible things happening to me, I gambled that she wouldn't just let me walk into the mall without her.

My gamble paid off, and by the time I was inside the mall, Lyndsay was running after me.

"Wait up," Lyndsay called out as I marched down the lobby of the mall.

I turned around and gave Lyndsay my sweet and innocent look and said, "Yes?"

Once we were inside the mall, Lyndsay seemed less agitated. Apparently, she was less apprehensive of me being attacked inside the mall than she was of me being attacked in a parking lot.

Lyndsay held my hand as we walked through the mall. We never used to hold hands in public, but ever since my abduction Lyndsay wanted me to be in physical contact with her as much as possible.

When we reached Erotische Dessous, Lyndsay knocked on the door. The doors were locked, but Claire recognized Lyndsay immediately and promptly sprinted to the door and let both of us inside.

Once we were inside, Claire locked the door behind us, and I noticed two unfamiliar women in the store with us.

Both women were attractive, however one of them was slightly younger than me, and looked full of enthusiasm and innocence. The other woman looked to be about ten years my senior and had a look of seriousness and authority about her.

The older woman gave Lyndsay a polite smile, and with a very proper British accent said, "Oh good, you're here. Lyndsay dear, I've heard so much about your young suitor. Won't you introduce us?"

Lyndsay made introductions all around. The younger woman was named Mina. She was a salesgirl, who had been hired just six weeks earlier. The older woman was named Noel, and she was Lyndsay's boss. Both Lyndsay and I were cautioned to be polite and respectful to her. Apparently, this morning's activities were something that Noel agreed to reluctantly. They were far out of the ordinary, and if Noel felt that we were disrespecting her, or her shop, she had the power to throw us both out.

"Set your purse down, Gwendoline," Noel instructed me, "and come closer. I wish to get a good look at you."

I walked forward nervously. Something about this woman just seemed to compel obedience and respect, and it wasn't just the British accent. There was a firmness to the tone of her voice that made her sound calm, authoritative and determined. There was iron in that voice. You could command entire armies with a voice like that. When a voice like that gave you an order, disobedience was unthinkable. It was like her words bypassed my higher brain functions completely and just took control of my body.

Noel had me turn this way and that, taking special interest in different parts of my anatomy, my lips, my chin, my hair, my waist, my ass, my thighs and my calves.

"She's quite adorable," Noel said to Lyndsay, "I can see why you're so taken with her. She has a quality about her, alluring without being arrogant or flashy. She must have worked hard to possess a body like that, however, she doesn't act like her body makes her superior to other women."

"She's a sweetheart," Lyndsay said in agreement.

"Quite," Noel said.

Then Noel turned to me and said, "Take off your clothes dear, everything, including your undergarments."

We were out in the main lobby of Erotische Dessous. If I were to get undressed here, I'd be extraordinarily exposed. Not only would Noel and her employees see my naked body, but so would anyone walking past Noel's shop.

"Shouldn't I pop into one of the changing rooms to do that?" I asked.

"Oh, tut-tut, child," Noel said, waving her hand dismissively, "We're all females here. There's nothing untoward about being unclothed in front of your fellow females."

Then I glanced nervously over my shoulder at the front doors and the huge display window. There weren't many people in the mall yet, but someone might walk by at any moment and see me. There was no way of telling when somebody might pass by this shop.