Catching Fire

Author's Foreword: This series has themes of romance, sex, friendship, humor, safe and consensual BDSM, and above all, intimacy and the concept of memory. Any resemblance to real people or events is coincidental. I want you, reader, to come away with more empathy, appreciation, and joy for yourself and others than you began. As I did when writing this.

***High Summer***

"Here," Erin said, "tell me what you think." She handed me an envelope from her purse with a few sheets of simple college-ruled paper inside. It was a handwritten letter. We had just pulled into her driveway after getting back from a light dinner and an even lighter, very unpopular movie. We had picked the unremarkable flick and the back row of the theater on purpose, and I'd put my coat on the floor to keep her knees from bruising. Still, she hadn't let me get even close to pleasuring her, and I was confused and a little worried about that. I opened the letter.

"Dear Andrew?" I read out loud, glancing at her.

"Uh-huh," she said. Her cheeks seemed nicely flushed. She was bouncing her foot. Those were good signs.

"Should I be concerned about it?" I asked.

"That depends," she said cryptically. I raised an eyebrow and read. After a few sentences, I found myself reading faster. I looked over at her.

"Quite the story you wrote here," I said, putting a hand on her flat stomach, then slowly sliding down the waistband of her dress, "very detailed."

"More like *in-depth* reporting," she said with a smile, spreading her legs slightly and dragging my hand over and down with both of hers. I did my best to keep reading while slowly fingering through her pages and listening to her little sounds.

"Reading this," I said, leaning over to lightly bite her neck and ear, "you'd think all you did this summer was me."

"Problem?" she asked. She dragged one fingernail from my chest down to my crotch, then teased the rest of me more slowly.

"Not at all."

"Keep reading," she said, pressing against me harder to encourage firmer caresses. It was hard to focus on the words, but eventually I got to the end and I stopped and turned slowly towards her. She looked up at me through half-lidded eyes and a devilish smile.

"This whole evening?" I asked.

"Mmhm," she murmured expectantly, one leg writhing out and back.

"And you didn't tell me," I said with a threatening flatness. She giggled nervously and shook her head.

"That was very... very... bratty of you," I growled with a growing feeling. She bit her lip and shivered slightly.

"You're right," she said, unbuckling her seatbelt and slithering over to me, "It was. And I'm not sorry at all. I'd do it again if you let me get away with it. What do you think of that?"

"I think," I said, setting aside the papers down on her unoccupied seat, "that you're going to write a copy of that letter for me."

"I already have."

"And," I said evenly as I took her wrists in one hand, gripping a little harder than usual, "you're going to add a few more things to that letter before you send it. Like how I'm going to inspect all of you - thoroughly - before we go out in the future. And our signatures - of a sort." She whimpered and squirmed, unable to suppress her panting. I saw the flush start to creep up from her core to her neck. I easily pinned her to the car's ceiling with my left hand.

"And finally," I said, massaging her roaringly hot, slippery pussy a little rougher than I typically did, "you're definitely going to get a reminder of how to behave."

"Y-yes Sir," she gasped.

"Don't worry," I assured her, fingertips reaching further back to press firmly on the toy she'd just admitted to wearing all evening, "You'll be safe with me. Sorry, but safe. You've got a long night ahead of you."

***End of Spring***

As Erin and I drove away from the party, a somewhat awkward silence crept into the car, infrequently broken up by the swish and squeak of wiper blades in the light rain. The local college radio station faintly played a song I hadn't heard before. At the time, it meant little to me. It's playing now as I write this.

We really hadn't said much to one another since we met. I cracked first.

"I gotta admit," I said, turning on my blinker to change lanes without knowing where I was driving to, "I'm surprised getting in my car was your idea."

"Why's that?"

"We've only known each other for a few hours. Barely talked. I could be a monster. Or at least a maniac behind the wheel." She blew air lightly through her nose.

"Don't forget," she said, "I've known Lily and her crazy-traditional parents since I was a kid. The fact that you've driven her around more than a few times, even been to her house at night, means that you're not a creep and you're a safe driver. Plus I liked that your car was clean inside and didn't have any dents in it."

"Solid reasoning, but Lily may have told her parents I'm gay or something."

"Mm," she conceded, "Anyway, want to head to Rosemary? They're in this part of town and should be open for another few hours. It's summer, so they're up late for tourists. We can get something hot and a dessert. Never had dessert with a monster before."

***

We parked and I opened the car door for her, which she smiled at before taking my hand and stepping out.

"Very formal," she said.

"I keep telling you: just awkward," I replied, putting my leather jacket around her shoulders for the continuing drizzle. She sniffed the collar and smiled at its clean scent.

"The door-opening kind of thing usually happens *before* people get all frisky in a bathroom," she teased as we walked down the block. I locked the car as we went. We didn't hold hands or anything. I enjoyed the precise sounds of her heels striking the sidewalk.

"We really did go to different schools, didn't we? A little less Cotillion, a little more civilian on my end of town."

"Did you just make that up?"

"Sadly, yes."

She let me open the door for her and we went into the cozy-yet-airy bistro. There were only a few patrons left - it was a late weekday evening, after all. Candles in jars on plain white tablecloths felt intimate without demanding fancy attire, and we got the isolated two-seat table by the window, far from anyone else. I thought about how I'd only ever seen young couples sit at that table, looking attractive and excited to be together. Good advertising. We picked up our ice waters and slender dessert menus.

"I want you to pick something I'd like," Erin said, admiring the ambience of the place before fluttering her eyelashes at me theatrically. She also seemed pleased to have my coat still draped around her. The reserved, logical persona she'd shown in the car was gone, replaced by an impish, simmering playfulness that I wasn't sure was a mask or her real face. Or was even directed at me in particular. I thought about Alex's chocolate comment, then decided not to pretend I knew things I really didn't. If anything was going to happen, I preferred authenticity. I also wanted to see her reaction to hearing the name of the ostensible reason she came to the party in the first place.

"Alex told me you don't like chocolate," I said while scanning the menu, "but he's not the most observant when people steal his keys. So I guess I'll ask if you're allergic to anything." She narrowed her eyes with a tight smile.

"Did Lily tell you something?"

"No. I really don't know much about you," I said, "and I'm not sure Alex would catch the difference between someone who turned down an offered chocolate, and someone who turned down an offered chocolate because it also had poison."

"I'm allergic to macadamia nuts," she said, "I don't mind chocolate, but I won't eat a whole dessert. Too sweet."

"Same, though I'm not allergic to anything. How about splitting the strawberry-chocolate cheesecake, then? Tea?"

"Deal." She didn't seem to care at all about Alex at the moment.

***

When our tea and dessert arrived, I poured for us and we chatted about more normal things for a while. Growing up. Jobs. Schools. Majors. Hobbies. People.

"Wait," I said, "You have a boyfriend?"

"Mm-hm. Andrew."

"Is he here?"

"No, he's in New York."

"And..."

"Oh, right. It's fine," she said breezily, "Trust me. You?"

"No," I said, "Not since early Spring." I was a little stunned at her nonchalance but I was desperate to act casual and cool and worldly.

"I like that. 'Early Spring.' Everyone at my school talks about quarters or months. Nobody talks about seasons when referring to their own lives. Like they grew up looking at a bank calendar or something. Anyway, does the boyfriend thing bother you?" she asked in amusement, twirling her spoon in her cup.

"No," I said, "as long as you're both okay with it... good for you, I suppose. I guess it's just new to me."

"So you haven't heard much about me from Lily," Erin said, sipping her tea and changing the subject.

"Can't say that I have, beyond that you've been friends since you were little. And that you used to dance and do gymnastics together before she decided on music instead."

"Oh, yeah," she smirked, "her boobs got way too big, too early, and she dropped. She even had to swap from playing the harp to piano because her tits got too enormous. Me, though, well," she shrugged and held her teaspoon to her chest.

"I could tell you did ballet," I deflected, much as I wanted to watch her use the spoon.

"Was it my small tits, or were you checking out my legs?"

"You're stunning all over," I admitted, since she seemed to like straightforward compliments. She smiled.

"But your legs and, uh, flexibility told me you were probably a dancer," I continued, "It was the fact that your feet obviously hurt. That's what said 'ballet' to me."

"What Lily told me about you at first," she said, interrupting my ridiculous Sherlock Holmes schtick, "is that you had an eye for detail and a good memory. Also that you're smart. Kind of cute, maybe, in a certain non-traditional way."

"Maybe, in a non-traditional way? Oh, good. If you'll excuse me, I'm just going to drown myself in the bathroom sink."

"Funny when you want to be, but otherwise reserved and sincere. Not tall, but surprisingly athletic for a mega-nerd. Also that you had big, strong hands. Here, put your hand on mine. Holy shit, look at those paws!" I took my hand back from where she'd pressed her palm into mine with her fingertips barely at my first knuckle. I blushed slightly.

"Did she also say I'm hopeless at AP Chemistry?" I asked, wondering where she was angling.

"Maybe, don't remember. And... she also told me that you're a little bit of a writer," she said, making sure I saw her smile at me, the tip of her tongue touching her upper teeth. She raised her eyebrows slightly. I felt an odd sense that I'd missed something.

"Yeah," I said, a little confused, "I was able to get a teaching assistantship for it this year."

"Oh, of course you did, smartie pants," she said, sitting back and unlatching her purse. Erin pulled out a tightly folded sheet of white printer paper and kissed the front exaggeratedly. She turned it around to show me the slight impression of her lipstick on it and then slowly unfolded it. There was something printed on the inside.

"What are you -" I said, before she interrupted me with a single raised finger.

She wriggled to sit up straighter, took a sip of tea, and then cleared her throat slightly.

"Wrapped in Silk and Silence," she read in a crystal-clear tone and pace, "by SafewordMustContain."

Son of a *bitch.*

***

Erin winked at me over the top of the page, then kept reading with a precise, practiced enunciation from what I assumed was captaining the Debate Team or something. I set my porcelain cup down and glanced around the bistro. Nobody was in easy earshot with the house guitar and piano music on. Still, my vision was a little gray at the edges.

"Well," Erin said when she finished, "I don't know about you, but I'm feeling pretty good after that. I liked having this in my purse today. It's the first thing of yours I ever read. Anytime I felt bored today I could just touch it and get a little thrill to save up for later. And I really like reading something before I go to bed, so I keep almost all the others in my nightstand. You've got a whole binder all to yourself. Not exactly a sleep aid, but quite relaxing. Eventually."

The check came, and I numbly flipped out my credit card for the waiter to take away. I took a deep, steadying breath.

Relax, I told myself. Keep breathing. I hadn't done anything wrong. Think. Find out what she wants.

"I'm... very glad you liked it," I said eventually, "So how long has Lily been ratting me out?"

"I've known about SafewordMustContain for at least a year. Though I've thought of you as 'Silence' in my head; much hotter, less dorky. Less awkward. Very fun to read all those stories and poems. I knew it was a friend of Lily's, but you? Not until very recently."

"Wonderful," I said numbly.

"Oh come on, take some pride," she chided me for my grim face, "Not many men even know what a prose poem is, let alone could write about BDSM with it and get a girl they never met all excited by it. And if they tried, they'd end up in purple prose or mixed metaphor territory in no time."

"Excited?" I asked, suddenly coming back to Earth. I suddenly felt a foot on my calf, hidden by the long tablecloth. I hadn't noticed her slip the shoe off. She smiled innocently at me, elbows on the table and her face in her hands.

"Mmhmmm," she purred, nodding slightly as she stroked my leg, "You know what? This has already been the nicest date I've had in a long time, but it's so late they're starting to put chairs on tables. Let's chat some more in the car. "

I'll be damned, I thought, we actually were on a date.

I tried not to jump as Erin's foot found a firmer purchase. I'm not one for feet, but she also left me with little room to complain. Or maneuver.

"One request, if you don't mind," she said, mimicking me from earlier.

"What's that?" I asked, straining to keep a straight face and steady voice as her precise, flexible limb control made me sweat. She slid the printed poem across the table to me.

"Can I have your autograph?' she cooed.

***

"I'm not some dumb blonde, you know," she said as we pulled away from the curb.

"You're very obviously neither of those things," I said. She laughed and reached across the center console to me. Good thing the traffic light was still yellow, because I definitely put my foot down a bit harder than I meant to.

"Funny, but don't push it," she warned me, "Now shut up and listen. Oh, also, get us onto the highway heading north."

"Taking you home?" I asked. She nodded and checked her makeup again in the visor mirror. This could be either very good or the most debilitating case of blue balls I'd had in my life.

"I know why you came to the party tonight," she said, "because that's how I planned it." I blinked.

"I think I want to hear this."

"I know you do. So. We've all been home on break for hardly any time at all. Lily's a total homebody with strict parents. Never goes out, hardly has any visitors that aren't on the approved list. And yet she 'happens' to dig up a total hunk for an actual hook-up? Before me? Please. When I asked her how she found him, she told me a very interesting little story."

"Oh?" I said obtusely as I merged onto the highway. Erin let me know it was many miles before the next turn, so I put it in cruise control and focused on steering and listening.

"Oh, yes. She said that the day after she got back home, she got a call from an old high school friend, a nice guy, Luke, asking if she wanted to meet at a bookshop to catch up, say around late afternoon, then get dinner. And of course Lily's always up for book shops, and you know how she can't say no to a dinner away from her parents' house, either. So then she meets with Luke and it's nice and all that and then - lo and behold! - they *happen* to run into Luke's best friend from another school, Alex, who was browsing through one of Lily's absolute favorite books! Imagine that! So they're all talking for a while and boy Alex sure is nice and good-looking and knows just what to say, but then, oh this part is kind of sad but also so perfect; just before Lily and Luke need to leave for dinner, Luke suddenly says his phone is buzzing, so he goes and takes a call outside, where nobody can hear him. When he comes back in, he looks positively chagrined because it was his parents reminding him that they're having family friends over that want to see everyone's favorite college boy, so he needed to head home right away. Shucks and Darn It! And he'd already made reservations at that place Lily likes... but, hey, maybe Alex could take his place? Are you sure? Oh, that's great, thank you both. And of course Lily is thrilled because her friend Luke wouldn't be friends with Alex if he wasn't a good guy too, you know? So off Lily and Alex went to dinner and exchanged numbers later because they had such a nice time. Oh, what a happy ending!"

I sighed and looked at her pointedly.

"Fine," I conceded, "So then why did you want me to go to the party?"

"Oh, I didn't want you specifically. Not at first. Let me ask you this," she said, "If I wanted a little summer fun for myself, why would I want to spend a bunch of time and take a lot of very real risks to sort through a bunch of shitty jerks just to find someone barely acceptable at the very *end* of break, if at all?"

"... When you could just get Lily to do it for you," I finished, not really able to hide a rueful grin of appreciation.

"Good job!" she exclaimed, "Round of applause. It only took a little heavy flirting - which I would have done regardless - for Lily to just 'happen' to start dropping hints to me about some different friends of hers. There's a long list of guys in her orbit, let me tell you. But none of them interested me in the slightest. That or I'd already been with them on a date or something and wasn't impressed. Still... I kept thinking about that one friend of hers who was smart enough to set up that little story earlier and then had the discipline to vanish and say nothing. I still don't think she's caught on, adorable little naive thing. So I said that this Luke sounded kinda nice. She seemed reluctant to bring you up, and I'm pretty sure I was breaking into her private reserve there, if you know what I mean. Yeah, you heard me. Anyway, she wanted me out of her hair more than she wanted you for herself, so pretty soon she was saying that you were maybe a bit cuter than she originally let on, and how both she and Alex have high standards for friends and all that. Oh, and she made absolutely sure I knew you were a smart cookie, because she knows I hate dumb guys more than fucking anything."

I took the exit she gestured at.

"And then...  that same evening, over some catch-up wine, among all the other stuff about you she was throwing out as bait, she blurted out that you really liked to write. Minor detail, just a hobby really. But oh my God, her face! Next moment, she practically fell over herself to say she had no idea what kinds of things you wrote, practically babbling about it. That's when I remembered all our talks about a *very* special guy friend somewhere out there, never named, who also liked to write. In a very particular genre. That definitely made me sit up. Oh, but that's not all she told me. Not even close."

She leaned over the middle console again, tracing her finger along my jaw, my ear, playing with my hair. I kept my eyes on the road and hands on the wheel. Her voice took on a conspiratorial tone and a slower pace. Throatier, I suppose. My eyes narrowed while I waited for the next part and the next turn to take.

"She gets real chatty when she drinks. And she wanted to distract me from the writing slip-up. She said you're quiet. Trustworthy. Discreet, even. So I asked her what she meant by that and poured her another. And turns out, it was *you* she'd told in absolute confidence about her little lackluster masturbation problem. I didn't even know about it before then. And that you helped her learn a little bit about herself, wanted to hear how it went afterward. Even suggested little adjustments to make it that much better. And... it goddamn worked. Now she can hardly stop. And it's making her wild to fuck your best friend. Well, wild as she gets. All thanks to you, Cyrano. How's that make you feel? Jealous?"