Subdom

"Repeat after me," she said. "

I am

never '

obnoxious

.'

I am entirely lovable, delectable, and delightful... however I feel

."

Allie laughed. Screwing up her face in imitation of a five-year-old having a tantrum, she cried, "I won't! You can't make me!" She got all the way through, "Shut up, you're not the boss of me" before breaking into a grin.

Diana didn't laugh. She tightened her hold on Allie's shoulders. "

I am lovable. I am delectable. I am delightful

. Say it."

Still grinning, Allie told her, "All right, you've made me feel better. Thanks." When Diana didn't release her, "Chill. It's all good."

Up close, Diana's gentian eyes showed a rim of deep brown around the iris, so dark it was almost black. There aren't that many people in the world with truly blue eyes. Usually they're blue-gray, or blue-green, or contact lenses. Allie still wasn't used to seeing Diana like this; little physical details kept catching her off-guard.

"I'm not letting go until you say it."

"Really?

Really

?" She sighed. "Oh for crying out loud... OK. I am lovable. I am—what was it?—delectable." She smiled. "I'm delightful, I'm delicious, I'm de-lovely."

"Nope." Diana shook her head. "You're not even saying it as though they're words. You're just parroting sounds you think I want to hear, like you can fool me into dropping it. That crap might work on a dom—if he's really thick, or off his game—but I'm sub like you, Allie. And I've been doing it a lot longer. I know all the tricks." She leaned closer. "Even the ones you haven't thought of yet."

"I never claimed to out-sub you, babe. You're queen sub of the subdom."

"Say it."

"Sure you're not finding me just a little bit obnoxious right now?"

They'd known each other for months. Wait—it was over a year now. Well over a year since that first e-mail from a woman half-way around the world, responding to the very first story Allie ever posted. She'd received other e-mails, and responded to them all, but this one woman had written back again... they'd become friends, in the strange, unpredictable way that individuals occasionally do through the technology that everyone kept whining was isolating people from one another.

They both wrote about sex, and they read each other's writing; there had never been anything sexual between them, not really. Allie assumed that Diana was pretty exclusively straight, so she didn't worry about her intentions being misread. Their correspondence was marked by growing mutual affection, offering edits and suggestions, swapping ideas, encouraging one another, exchanging jokes, commiserating. When Diana mentioned that her academic research would be bringing her to a city about fifty miles from where Allie lived, she didn't immediately assume they'd meet, but as her travel date grew closer, a few "ifs" and "maybes" were tossed back and forth. Their tentative inquiries about actually getting together crossed in cyber-space.

Allie had driven down so they could get together for coffee. They'd spent a fabulous couple of hours walking and talking, poking around a few antique shops, getting comfortably lost in a used-book store.

As they were retrieving their bags from the front counter, Diana asked if she'd mind if they stopped by her room so she could change into something cooler. The temperature had been in the low sixties when she'd dressed that morning, she said; who knew it would be in the eighties by mid-afternoon? Everyone who lives here, Allie laughed; and thinking nothing of it, accompanied her back to her hotel.

Diana stepped into the bathroom to change, which Allie didn't take personally; everyone had different levels of comfort with dressing in front of someone else. After about five minutes, though, she called out, "Girl, what are you

doing

in there? Getting an extreme makeover?" and Diana came out wearing a cotton skirt and a big men's-style shirt, tails tied at her waist.

"Oh, sweetie, take your time," Allie apologized. "Don't mind me. I'm just irretrievably obnoxious at times."

That, as they say, is when the trouble started.

Now a slow, grim sort of smile bloomed on Diana's full lips as she stepped in closer, her grip hardening. Without realizing it, Allie took a step back. Another, as her friend continued to advance. Her heel hit the wall behind her, startling her.

She should say something. Diana probably didn't realize the effect she was having. It wasn't fair to let her continue, not when Allie could feel her own response to those hands, those eyes... the things beginning to happen in her body were not, she was sure, within the boundaries of their friendship.

Diana's voice dropped lower still as she brought her mouth close to Allie's ear. "You know how to act obnoxious. You're a good little actress, I'll give you that." She closed the last scrap of distance remaining between them, her willowy-looking body warm and full of unforeseen strength.

OK, maybe she

did

realize. Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing, far better than Allie did.

"You can act obnoxious, and bossy, and tough. But you are not. You," she breathed, and she bit Allie's neck gently, "are," biting again, a little harder, a little higher, "

sssssssoft

," hot breath in her ear and the full weight of her pressing from shoulder to thigh, a strange firmness at Allie's groin, rubbing against her sex, drawing a gasp from her throat.

"Packing? You're

packing

? What kind of straight-girl sub are you?"

"Aren't you the one always spouting queer-theory dogma about busting up the binary and questioning the categories?"

"Well, yeah..." struggling for words as the hardness at her crotch found a gentle insidious rhythm, "but... that was... before you... you... pinned me to a wall with your

cock

."

Diana chuckled in a way that sounded positively feral. "That's the kind of sub I am, Allie," the motion of her hips unrelenting. "The most committed kind. I'll do whatever it takes. You're trying to change the subject. I told you, I know all the tricks." Her mouth went to her captive's throat again, tongue probing, teeth just grazing the sensitive skin. "Soft... and sweet... all the way to the center."

A wordless moan. Confusion. Warmth radiating into heat blossoming outward from the place at her core where those words seemed to pulse into life, glowing brighter as the mouth on her throat became more demanding, bringing another moan, and another.

"Oh, hear that? That soft, soft moaning? That's what you are. Soft." A hand left her shoulder, moved to her breast. "Sweet." Fingers caressing swelling flesh over panting breath. Stroking around, seeking out the point that hardened beneath the blouse and bra, fingernail raking through the fabric, making her cry out, quietly. "Even this," closing around it, inescapable, "this hardness here... surrounded by softness. And you feel it inside, don't you? The harder it gets, the softer it makes you... softer, and sweeter, and softer still..."

"What..." Allie rasped. She couldn't seem to make her voice work properly. "...what are we... what are you... oh

gods

" as those merciless fingers gripped harder and she felt the flood rush out of her, drenching her.

The other woman stepped back, less than an inch, just enough to create a breath of space between them. "Take down your pants, Allie."

Eyes fixed, voice immobilized, she stood.

"Take them down."

"I... you..." She shook her head, more in befuddlement than refusal. But she couldn't have done it even if she wanted to.

Diana's gaze was implacable. Unwavering.

She knew she was still breathing because she could hear the sound of air coming out of her mouth. She clamped her lips together, forced herself to breathe through her nose. It didn't help.

"Allie."

That didn't help either.

"Sweet Allie. I know you're stubborn. You don't have to prove that to me. But I can stand here longer than you can. Do you have any idea how long Robin has made me stand, waiting, wanting, craving him, his touch, his cock? Hours, Allie. You're beautifully strong. But you're going to run out of adrenaline soon, and very quickly after that you're going to get very tired. And the only way you're moving from this wall is with your pants down."

Still. She couldn't move. Could not.

"It's all right. You can do it," coaxing now, gently, "You can. Undo the button," her hands moved to the front of her trousers and the button was open. "Pull down the zip." Her hands obeyed. "Slip your fingers under your panties," barely a whisper now, "... push them down... over your hips, that's it... let them fall. There. There. That's it."

The air felt cold on the bared wetness coating her sex, her thighs.

Diana reached beneath her skirt, slid her underwear down and off. She gathered up the fabric in front and tucked it into the waistband, exposing the tool she wore strapped around her. A tiny portion of Allie's brain observed that at some other time, in some other context, the incongruence might have made her laugh—not in derision, but in delight. She loved the unexpected, the juxtaposition of images conventionally perceived as opposites.

Discourses of power, expansion of the imaginable, explosion of constructed categories... it all ran out of her futilely grasping brain, like sand from a split bag, leaving her mind empty and every bit of her awareness focused on the aching hollowness brewing, coiling, wracking her cunt.

Unable to look away, she watched one hand come up to hold the black phallus, fingers running fondly from base to tip, slipping back to guide it closer. Stopping just before it touched her sex. Pulling it upright so it rested between their bellies as she pushed her hips against Allie's once more. Stroking her hands up over Allie's legs, along her sides, one hand coming behind her neck to bring her mouth to hers.

Kissing girls was something Allie knew how to do. Grateful to be on something that felt like familiar ground at last, she slid one arm around Diana's waist, her fingers finding the small of her back and pressing in gently, intending to trace them up alongside her spine, knowing how a woman is hardwired to shiver under that sort of touch.

But the hand behind her neck tightened and Diana's other hand pushed her arm out and away and then those fingers were back at her breast, finding her nipple, scraping across and flicking, pleasure streaking from that point to the one between her legs, a whimper escaping her throat. Her face burned as she heard it.

Diana broke the kiss; the feral smile returned. "Blushing! Oh, Allie... tough girls don't blush like that," rolling the nipple between finger and thumb as her hips pressed harder, her cock still between their bodies, the base sliding between the slick folds to rub against the very top of Allie's clit.

"Don't come yet," Diana's voice hard as bedrock. Allie took a deep breath and seated herself against the pleasure boiling up inside her, pushing it down, obeying without thinking. She felt the pressure increase and undulate as Diana rolled her hips. "Yes... look at me, Allie... I love this. I love how you feel. I love how wet you are for me. Do you want to come, sweet Allie? Do you want me to fuck you with my cock?"

"Yes... yes, fuck me..."

"Mmmm... I love that. I love hearing you say that. Say it again."

"Fuck me... please, fuck me..."

"Oh, yes...

lovable

. That's what you are. Lovable."

"... please..."

"Say it."

"Please fuck me..."

"

Lovable

, Allie." The fingers released her nipple to take hold of the cock rubbing against her, guiding it between her thighs. Stroked its hardness across her soaking flesh. "I. Am. Lovable." The rigid shaft gliding gently back and forth against her sex as Diana thrust her hips again, bringing forth another hot gush. "Step out of your pants. Spread your legs for me. That's it. Now... say it. Say it, Allie."

"I...

please

... just..."

Cock poised at her entrance now, circling, driving her mad. "I can do this all day. All night. I love this. That look on your face... hungry, starving, so unbelievably sexy. I love that look. Love it. I'm not a guy, Allie. I don't need to stick this in you. I'm getting off on this, right here."

Allie groaned. Excruciating need roared through her.

"Oh, Allie... I love how much you want my cock. I love how you're dying for me to fuck you. Lovable. Say it for me.

Lovable

," just the head of the shaft stopping, probing imperceptibly at her opening, words coming up from her cunt and out of her throat,

"I... am... lovable," panting out the words and filling her all at once sliding up in deep, hard, she cried out, cried out again with the fucking fucking fucking all the way inside her in the softest sweetest center of everything she was.

She came before she knew it was happening, spasming uncontrollably around that cock still fucking into her, fucking the softness, defenseless against the insane pleasure it poured into her, the base stroking across her clit and the curved end working that spot inside, the one she could never seem to reach herself, working it more and more and she was burning up, coming again, spread open, pinned to the wall, mindless, exploding,

again

...

*****

You are NOT a closet sub!

No... you're definitely not sub.

I can't think of anyone less likely to submit to anyone or anything than you.

It all made sense to Allie. She wasn't a control freak, exactly, but she liked making her own choices. She'd worked hard, years ago, to achieve a sense of empowerment, of agency in her own life. Besides, these were the conclusions of people who had a lot of experience in the Dom/sub arena, while she had exactly none. She accepted their statements as expert opinion.

None of the standard icons did anything for her. The idea of wearing a collar didn't scare her, it just made her giggle. Calling someone "Master" or "Mistress" seemed patently absurd when she tried to imagine it. She understood that those things did truly work for other people... sometimes she envied them, just a little. It would make things simpler, she thought. She definitely had no interest in being treated like a piece of furniture or a vassal that only spoke when spoken to. Someone who couldn't keep up with her when she was free to say what she liked wasn't anyone she wanted to have sex with.

The thought of having her hands tied was exciting, though. The couple of times she'd tried it with a partner had been fun, and arousing, although not... quite... everything she was hoping for, but she certainly enjoyed it and would have liked to try it out more.

She loved giving her partner pleasure; it was one of her favorite things about sex. She was fine with initiating, though of course it was nice when the other person started things up sometimes as well. It was just that... when it came to her own ability to orgasm, it always involved something inside her that was different. A little internal struggle, a wall to be breached or a defense to be overcome.

It was only recently that she had come to identify it as

surrender

.

Allie had always needed fantasy in order to make herself come. In her mind, she could usually create the circumstances of that surrender, that final giving-up or letting-go she needed. She had a fertile imagination and she loved to read erotica, so she never suffered for lack of masturbatory material. No one had ever told her, while growing up, that it was wrong or dirty or shameful in any way, so she had been free to become quite good at it. Almost everything she learned about her own sexuality was through independent study. When she could, she applied the knowledge she gained to her relationships. When she couldn't, well, that's what her right hand was for.

For years, she figured that was enough.

***** "Have some water, use the toilet. Then go get on the bed."

Allie looked up at her. "Diana. That was... incredible. Mind-blowing. I loved it. Thank you. But I think... I think that's all I can take, for now."

Diana laughed. "Oh, sweetie, trust me. We've not even begun to approach the borders of all you can take." She ran one finger down Allie's nose, brushed her bottom lip with a thumb. "Get moving."

Cracking open a bottle of water from the honor bar, Allie poured half of it straight down her throat. She didn't care if it cost four bucks; that's probably what the hotel owners counted on, she thought wryly. Unplanned sex followed by thrift-eradicating thirst. Three hundred percent mark-up supported by rampaging lust. Whatever. Right now, in this moment, it was worth it.

When she came out of the bathroom, Diana was sitting on the side of the bed, the spread thrown off, sheet and blanket pulled down. Two pillows stacked in the middle behind her. "Take off your shirt. Bra too." She made no move to remove her own clothing, skirt still tucked up into the waist in front.

Allie hesitated. She really didn't understand the forces operating here, urging her compliance, except that she knew she wasn't a coward. Marshalling her courage, she stripped off the garments, tossing them onto a chair as Diana watched. "Over here now. Face down."

Moving awkwardly, Allie climbed onto the bed, turned as she'd been instructed, pillows beneath her pelvis. Tried to find a comfortable position, the beginnings of fearful vulnerability sending seeking fingers out from deep inside as she settled down, ass raised. Focused on breathing.

She opened her eyes to see that something had appeared in Diana's hand. A long, broad, flat, stainless-steel kitchen utensil with a wooden handle, the kind short-order cooks used at the griddle. "Where did

that

come from?"

"Junk bin. At the second shop. Bought and stashed it in my backpack while you were looking at the burger-franchise glasses." Diana looked smug. "Eighty-five cents. Robin's going to be thrilled." She turned and sat back on her heels, the implement in her right hand, her knees level with the pillows on which Allie rested. "You can guess what comes next, can't you?"

"OK. Wow. Um..." Allie drew a deep breath. "OK. Start... start slow?"

"Of course." A hand caressed her spine, making her arch involuntarily. "Have you never been spanked?"

She didn't know why that question should make her blush. Resisting the urge to turn her face away, she made herself answer. "Not in real life. So no. This, I've never done. I've fantasized... a

lot

... done some exploring with... a friend... on the phone, you know. Just never... never..."

"Never had your bare bottom spanked, good and hard."

Her cunt spasmed. "This is... we're kind of getting into... unfamiliar territory."

"It's OK. I'm an excellent guide. I know all the best spots."

"Um, yeah." An uncertain sort of laugh broke from her. "Hope so."

Diana's arm swung up in a graceful arc; the flat of the utensil struck her bare ass with a sharp

crack

.

"Relax. Don't tighten up like that. It only makes it hurt more."

Without moving, Allie squeaked, "Isn't it supposed to hurt?" and heard Diana's gentle laugh in response.

"Oh, it's going to hurt, trust me." Her fingers ran lightly from the small of Allie's back down through the crack of her ass, making her shiver. A whimper scalded her face again as it slid from her throat and those fingers dipped lower, coating themselves in her wetness, back up to tease the tight ring before continuing to retrace their path, slowly, sliding deeper between her cheeks, gently opening her. "But it will hurt so much

better

with these muscles loose. Let go, Allie. Come on."

Struggling to release her lungs, squeezing her eyes shut, she blew out her breath, let it return... sank into the bed. Relaxed her knees, her thighs. Allowed the other muscle groups to follow. Felt her legs fall open a fraction more. Forced herself to concentrate on the sensation of the bed sheet against her mouth, the warmth of her breath coming back against her face, fixing herself firmly in the present so she wouldn't tense up in anticipation of what she knew was coming.