Chapter 16 : Sonia

"What the fuck are you doing here?!"

I shriek.

Sonia's eyes bulge with fear. Then narrow as she peers at my face. Recognition slowly dawns on her face, her jaw dropping. "Wait, is that-- holy shit!

No way!!!"

Panic causes me to lose my breath. Sonia hops up and down with shock and disbelief. She shakes out her hands anxiously. "Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod!" she repeats loudly.

"Wait-- did you not expect it to be me?" I ask, suddenly confused.

"No!"

she exclaims. "I was looking for Lisa. I didn't know that

you

were Lisa!"

I feel stricken and stupefied.

Sreeni dashes over from her table. "Perhaps you two would prefer to take this to a

private room?"

she whispers forcefully.

I look around and every person is turned towards us. I feel my cheeks getting hot. I grab Sonia's arm and drag her out of the lounge to my private Client room. I slam the door shut and wheel around to Sonia. "Okay, explain everything

right now."

"Me?!"

she cries in astonishment.

"You're

the one who should be explaining!"

"How did you find me?!" I ask in a high pitch. "How did you even get in?

Who the fuck is Alejandra?!"

Sonia lets out a huff of air. "Look-- I got an appointment with Lisa to try and find out where you were."

"How? They would've never approved an appointment for you knowing that you know me."

"I figured. That's why I used my cousin's name instead of mine."

"But you'd need more than a name. You need bank accounts. They'd do background checks."

"Well-- I helped my cousin with her home loan. So I had all of her info already. I was able to open another bank account and credit cards in her name, ha!" She grins with visible pride.

"Cool cool. You committed identity theft and fraud."

Sonia shifts her head side to side. "Well, yeah okay. But... all for you!"

I roll my eyes and shake my head. She continues, "I guess my cousin and I look enough alike that no one questioned when they did a background check. That's kinda racist actually," she babbles, tapping her cheek with a finger.

"Oh my god." I put both hands in my temples. "How did you even know about Lisa and this place?"

"Wait wait wait, no. Timeout. It's my turn. I need to know all about

this."

Sonia gestures widely at my body. She circles around me, staring me up and down. "Holy shit!"

I shift my weight and cross my arms. Sonia shakes her head. "No, nuh uh! You ain't hiding those things. Lemme see!" She grabs my arms, pulls them apart and away from my chest. "Hooo-ly shit!"

She grins, open mouthed. "You are fucking stacked, man! Wait-- is

man

right? You still got your piece down there?"

"Oh my

god!"

is all I can manage.

"I'm not poo poo-ing. It actually answers so many questions. Like-- the quitting suddenly, the exercise equipment, the disappearing..." Her expression darkens. "Which,

fuck you

by the way! You promised you'd keep in touch. And you fucking didn't! You just abandoned me!"

Her face twists into a frown. Her eyes tear up. "I thought we were friends!"

Shit. I'm an asshole. I did promise to keep in touch. But with everything going on, it was the last thing on my mind.

"You're right," I say somberly. "I promised you. And I fucked up. I shouldn't have done that. I'm so sorry."

I gesture at myself. "But hopefully you can see that I've been preoccupied."

She chokes out a laugh as she wipes a tear away. "Holy shit, I'm still flipping out about it. I mean, I didn't even recognize you at first. And your voice!"

I explain to her the whole process: the Cocktail, the physical training, the vocal surgery. She nods with rapt attention.

"Man, you really totally went for it, huh?" She puffs her cheeks as she lets out a loud exhale. "But it works. It's like, I don't see any signs that you weren't born a chica. I barely even see you as you. I mean, I even saw photos of you and didn't realize."

"Wait, what?"

"Oh yeah!" She digs in her bag and pulls out her phone.

I blink in disbelief. "What the-- you're supposed to leave your phone at reception. And shut off! How do you have that in here?"

She snickers. "I gave them my work phone. This is my personal one." She clicks her tongue as she winks. I shake my head.

She taps on her phone and then holds it up to me. I crane my neck closer to the screen and see a pixelated photo of me with Mistress Elizabeth.

"What the fuck?!" I search my brain for where that could be. There's no real background, it's just dark with a bright beam of light on us. We're dressed in white. Ohhh...

She flicks to another photo and we're in a crowd with other latex clad people around us. These are pics from the Fetish Ball.

"These are how I tracked you down!" She points down to her phone. "I looked up your neighbor-- who isn't named

Lisa.

So I kept googling

Mistress Lisa

but came up with nothing until a few months ago."

Until my public debut in Vegas. She swipes to a message board screenshot which shows a caption with the photo:

Mistress Elizabeth and Mistress Lisa.

"Even then it was hard to find out anything more about Lisa or Elizabeth," Sonia continues. "Like, I joined fetish groups online and had to ask around. I even went

in person

to a fetish meetup to ask if people had heard of Mistress Lisa or Mistress Elizabeth. And let me tell you-- there's some freaky stuff going on at those meetups. I'm not judging, but wow!"

I look at Sonia. I can't help but be impressed at her tenacity and resourcefulness. "Are you a private eye? You should open up your own detective agency!"

"I know, right?" She smiles. "So it took some asking around, but I finally met someone, who knows someone, who'd heard of Eden, who knew

someone else

that's a client here. And I befriended them, chatting and stuff, and eventually they were like 'Yeah, I can get you a referral for a session' and voilà! Here I am!"

"Damn. I'm impressed," I say in a hushed tone.

"Yeah, I'm pretty proud of myself!" She makes a basketball dunking motion, but quickly hardens her face. "But you scared me, you know? I thought you'd been kidnapped, or like converted into a cult, or sold into slavery. My mind was going all sorts of places!"

I place my hand on her shoulder. "I know. That wasn't right. I'm really sorry. I don't think I expected you to care so much or go through all that you did!"

I pulled her in for a hug. "You didn't hit up my sister?"

"No, I didn't want to freak her out until I knew more. I was kind of figuring that I'd get some more info from Lisa about your whereabouts, and then if I needed some help to like rescue you, then I'd bring her in on everything." She looked thoughtful. "Wait, does

she

know?"

I nod. "Yeah, not at first. But I had a face to face with her too."

"Whoaaa. Did she lose her shit too?"

"Oh yeah. One thousand percent." I nod. "She tried to pull at my hair and everything."

Sonia laughed. "No, that's real. I can tell."

"Well, we can-- and will-- talk more. But I don't know how pissed everyone's going to get if they find out about you. I should get you out of here."

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold up!" She puts up a hand. "I paid for a session. I want the full experience!"

I recoil. "Uh yeah,

no.

That's definitely

not

happening."

"Uh, yes it is!" Her tone becomes stern. "I went through all this shit. I put down some serious cash for this. You know how much you cost?!"

I stop. Sonia tilts her head. "You

don't

know?! Well, what's your cut?"

I continue to stare at her blankly. Her eyes flash wildly.

"You get paid for this, right?!"

Honestly, it had never occurred to me. I try to reach into my brain to recall any conversations about salary or compensation. I can't come up with anything. I was handed a credit card when we went to Vegas. I was allowed to keep it for whenever I went anywhere else, like Miami. And now, I just have it whenever I need. But I hadn't thought to scrutinize my financial situation.

Sonia's eyes go googley. So I say a little white lie, "Yeah yeah, of course I get paid. We're just not allowed to talk about it with Clients."

Her shoulders relax. "I was about to lose it! Don't tell me you're some sex slave."

"It's not like that at all. It's more like connecting to someone," I explain. How

do

I explain?

"But the sex is pretty fucking good, right?"

"Oh... yeah. It's been some great sex, for sure." I laugh, feeling flushed cheeks.

"Well, sign me up! Let's do this."

"Hold on! We are not having sex." I slash my hands horizontally through the air.

"Why not?!"

"Because we know each other! We're friends!" I falter for more words.

"What does that matter?"

"Cause... it'd be weird!" I'm suddenly confronted with the funny realization that my conditions for having sex have changed radically. I used to only want sex with someone that I had created a meaningful relationship with. I used to shy away from casual sex. But recently, having only really been with strangers or Clients, the prospect of having sex with someone I actually know is off putting.

"You're a professional aren't you?" Sonia is pushing the issue and doesn't seem to be willing to back down.

Suddenly, I feel my blood rising. "Why do you even want to have sex with me now? You never wanted to before."

"What?"

"You had all the casual sex you wanted with dudes hanging all over you, but you never even considered me sexually viable," I say in a rising tone. "I wasn't good enough for you then. But now, what? Because of these?" I grab my breasts.

Her jaw drops. "Okay, yeah you're slamming hot now, I admit. But I think you're being a little unfair."

"Am I? I mean, I was just your platonic guy friend, who was no threat at all. Just someone who'd tag along with you, until you found a dude you actually

wanted

to fuck." I immediately regret the harshness of the words that were coming out of my mouth. But it also feels like things I've been holding onto for a long time.

Tears begin welling up in her eyes. "That's all you thought you were to me? You meant

so much

to me! Yeah, I screwed a lot of guys. But you saw how meaningless that was. Your friendship was so important to me. It was what kept me going, kept my faith in humanity. That at least there was one guy who didn't just see me as a hot piece of ass to bang. Some trophy or achievement for his own tiny ego."

She wipes her eyes, but tears stream down her face. "You never showed any interest in me anyway."

Her crying softens me. I feel like shit. But the can of worms is open. I can't let it go just yet. "You never gave me the slightest indication that I would've had a chance."

"You don't think I thought about it?" Her voice wobbles. "But I didn't want to fuck up our friendship by fucking. Yeah, there were nights that I thought about making a move, but I was too scared to jeopardize what we had."

I take in her words for a few moments. "And now?" My voice tempers. "Things are different for you now? You'd want to do it?"

"Well, a

lot

is different now." She glares at my breasts. "I already thought I'd lost you. And I'm kinda super pissed at you." Her shoulders set, she visibly recovers herself. "So yeah, now I want to see what you've got."

I rub the back of my neck. I realize my feet are hurting from standing this whole time. "I don't know, Sonia."

"It's not just that," Sonia says. "Like you said, I've been with a lot of guys. It's all been fun, but empty. I want to have sex with someone who

means

something to me. Just to remember what it's like. That's what I thought about when I pictured making love with you."

She slowly steps towards me. "I want to be intimate with someone that I feel safe with. That I know. And trust." She strokes my arm and looks me in the eyes. "I want to be with someone who isn't out to just bang me because of my looks."

I peer deep into her eyes. I see a genuine yearning. Her vibrant energy has melted away into something tender. I feel a rise in my pulse.

For a second, I sense the panic of recalling Fabien's basement. But I fight the fear and the urge to run. I want to do this for Sonia. I want to show her love.

I cup her face in my hands. "Alright."

***

I bring my face down close to Sonia's to kiss her. She squirms out of my grasp. She does short hops from foot to foot. "Whoa whoa!"

I'm flummoxed. "Are you wanting to do this or not?"

"Yeah, yeah! I just-- I wasn't ready yet." She shakes the nerves out of her hands. "Okay, let's just-- can we go slow?"

"Sure. I think actually that would be good for me too," I say. "I had kind of a rough go the last time. I think I need this to be pretty gentle and chill."

Her face shifts to concern. "Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?"

"I really don't. But let's at least sit down."

I lead her to the sofa. We sit next to each other. I prop my elbow on the back of the couch to face her. "It's been a lot. All of this. But I'm actually really glad you're here. It's nice to see a friendly face."

She grabs my hand and smiles. "I want to be there for you. You gotta let me though."

I nod. "I know. You've been a better friend than I have. You've been an

amazing

friend. Fuck, I can't believe the lengths you went to find me!"

She chuckles. "What can I say? I'm loyal. And I'm tenacious."

I smile at her. She is beautiful. I can see why people are always enchanted by her. She's got a magnetic charm about her.

Sonia catches me observing her. She scans my face in return. I see her eyes drift along my lips. And then my breasts. "You know," she says in a soft tone, "I've never actually been with a woman."

I slowly scoot closer to her. "You'll be with me."

A smile curves on her lips. Her eyes are big and inviting. I lean towards her and we kiss. Gingerly and chastely. I barely press against her soft, full lips. I plant my lips on her just enough to stir her desire. I let her come to me. For her to dictate the pace.

We quietly kiss for a few minutes. It may be the most time we've ever not talked. She presses forward slightly. Her lips push mine apart. Her kisses become more bold. She places her hand on my leg. I squeeze her other hand in mine.

I feel her tongue venture into my mouth. I greet hers with a flick of my tongue. I lift my other hand and hold the back of her neck. Our kissing becomes more urgent. Our breathing is heavy.

Her hand skims up my leg, up my torso, and glides onto my breast. I push my chest into her hand. She's encouraged and cups my breast in her hand.

We kiss for a few more minutes before I break off and bury my head into her neck. I give it a few kisses and a long stroke with my tongue. She moans. "Oh god," she lets out.

I pull back to share a glance with her. She smiles widely. "You're a good kisser! Were you always this good?"

"I'm not sure," I reply. "I think I was okay. I've definitely had much more practice this past year than probably my whole life combined."

"Well, I'm impressed." She blows out a breath and fans her face with her hand.

I chuckle and stand up, tugging her hand to lead her up as well. I guide her to the bedroom. At the edge of the bed, I kick off my heels. I'm much taller than Sonia so this helps balance our heights a bit. She cranes upward to kiss me.

She pulls off her blazer, not taking her eyes off me. I hold her in a tight hug before I begin to unbutton her blouse. She lets out a shaky breath. "It's crazy how nervous I am. I can't believe this is happening."

"Probably not how you pictured us together, huh?"

"Uh yeah. Not the slightest." She strokes her hand through my hair. "You're so different looking. But I still

feel

you in there. I still feel that closeness with you, y'know?"

I finish with the buttons and slowly peel the blouse off of her, revealing a light pink push up bra. She pulls the bracelets off her wrists. I give her a few kisses on her shoulder. "We can take it slow. And we can stop at any time."

Sonia nods. She tilts her head away from me to present her neck. Her eyes are closed. I kiss from the base of her neck up to just below her ear. I nudge her earring out of the way and hover over her ear for a second. I breathe softly into it. She lets out a trembling sigh. I can see tiny hairs stand up on her neck. I carefully reach around and undo her necklace.

I gently nudge her to sit on the edge of the bed. She stares up at me as I begin to lower the zipper on the back of my dress. The top loosens and I let the dress go slack, gliding down to my feet.

Sonia's mouth opens as she gazes at my bare breasts. Her eyes dart around my chest and face. And then down to the g string pouch encasing my bulging package. Her eyes go as big as headlights. "Holy shit," she utters. "I'm not sure I can process this."

I caress her face. And use my hand to lead hers to my crotch. She gives a few test squeezes. "Ohh shit. I did not for a second think this was how tonight was going to go. So glad I wore good underwear!"

I laugh. "Speaking of which..." I kneel down and slide my hands up and down her legs. Her skin is smooth and warm, a silky tone of bronze. She shifts on her ass, watching me intently. I slowly let my hands drift up into her skirt. I lightly run my fingers along her inner thigh. She lets out a breathy exhale. I trace my fingertips along the contours of her legs, exploring all over.

I bring my hands out from under her skirt and travel up to the waistline. I look up into her eyes as I slowly pull her skirt down off her legs. I steer her legs up onto my shoulders as I bring my face down to her matching light pink panties.

She lets out a soft "Oh!" as she lays down onto the bed, spreading her legs open for me.

I press my nose teasingly into her panties, feeling the depressions of her labia mounds. I inhale deeply, taking in the scent of her sex mixed in with the moisturizer fragrance-- coconut I'm guessing-- coming off her thighs. I tease her with my nose over her panties. I use it to barely graze along the insides of her legs. Her short bursts of exhales tells me I'm having the intended effect.

I use my fingers to lightly tickle the skin of her upper thigh and pelvis. I plant soft kisses on her flesh. She begins to quietly moan. After a few minutes of gentle exploration, I hook my fingers over the top of her panties and slide them down her legs.

I lean forward and zero in on her pussy. Her public hair is trimmed short and neat. I lightly skim over the hairs with my thumb causing her to laugh softly.

I take my tongue to the left lip of her labia and take a long, slow stroke. Her pelvis arches and she lets out a moan. I repeat the move on her right side. My tongue explores the region without touching the center of her pussy. I can tell it's driving her crazy. I take turns alternating sides. She grabs handfuls of my hair.

I finally give her what she wants, bringing my wet tongue into contact with her pussy. She emits a laughing sigh, and pulls my face further towards her pussy. I start lapping with more frequency. Her inner lips barely peek out. I latch onto one side with my mouth. I create a light suction and lick with my tongue.

I move towards her clit, which is still hidden in the folds. I use my fingers to spread open the layers of skin to expose the tiny bulb. I greet it by blowing a cool breath of air. She shivers. Next, I give it a few licks of my tongue. Sonia bucks her hips and her legs shake. "Oh fuck! Yeah!" I give it another series of licks. Her legs spasm excitedly.

I put my two fingers into my mouth and lather saliva onto them. Then I press them against the entrance of her pussy. I test the opening and find it slick with her sex. My fingers pass through with minimal resistance. I feel the warmth and wetness inside her. It's tight. The walls close in on my fingers. I explore around with broad strokes. Sonia's hips sway in response.