[Author's note: Cassidy Hayes, psychologist by day and mother of two, is struggling as her husband Damian cheats on her with Lily. Blackmailed through incriminating videos into doing what Lily tells her, Cassie finds herself yielding to the domineering sexy blonde younger woman. Meanwhile, Cassie is exploring a strange world, having made a new friend in Madame Syn, the owner of the Lost and Found and a highly accomplished Dominatrix. As her marriage implodes, torn between urges to dominate and submit, Cassie must make a choice.]
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TWO BIRDS, ONE STONE
Ally had sent her a message mid-week after nearly a month of radio silence, suggesting a catch up. Cassie had jumped at the chance, eager to find out how they were going in their new life, but however she juggled it, she couldn't make it work. In exasperation, she went back with a suggestion of a picnic at the waterfall by the lake on Saturday. Cassie was going to take the boys down there and Billie was going to bring her wife and daughter too. It would be a family affair. Cassie finished the message with the words that she understood completely if it wasn't suitable and was stunned by how quickly Ally came back. Love to, she'd replied, I'm only bringing Quinn.
Damian had told her that he was going kayaking. She knew he wasn't because Lily's message had been gleefully explicit. Damian was going to be spending the afternoon at her apartment. It could go later into the evening, she'd warned, depending on how many times he could get it up. Cassie had slammed the phone down on the benchtop and walked away, loathing her more than ever.
She wanted to tell Syn all about Lily, to ask for her help. Out of everyone, Cassie was sure Syn would be able to guide her out of her awful situation. Syn would understand about the dark, subservient feelings that Cassie felt each time Lily put her in her place, the way Lily could trigger her to switch from the confident, professional woman who guided people through their issues into the powerless submissive unable to escape her own. But something stopped her; Cassie didn't want to confess to her new friend that she was under Lily's thumb. Cassie enjoyed the high regard that Syn seemed to have for her, the mutual respect. She didn't want to look like a failure in front of the formidable Dominatrix. Syn had managed to switch all by herself, taking charge of her life and the club after her husband passed away. Cassie realised she needed to do the same. Her problem was that Damian wasn't gone; he was still there each morning, a tether to a rosy past life that no longer held any meaning.
Cassie thought about Quinn again, then Ally, and then an idea occurred to her. She knew it was a distraction, attempting to take her mind off her disintegrating marriage, but she if she was ever going to escape her current predicament, she needed to stretch her wings. Cassie picked up her phone again and made some very specific arrangements of her own, messaging Victoria, the woman who she was coaching through her own tough marriage decisions.
C: Are you free on Saturday Vicki?
V: I can be
C: Good. I have an exercise in mind, something I think we need to explore
V: What do I need to do?
Cassie smiled as she read the other woman's response, sensing an eagerness there
C: Nothing yet. But I'm going to need to keep you locked up until the weekend, okay?
There was a long pause this time. Cassie prompted her again.
C: Okay?
V: I was hoping to be let out. Marlowe is taking me out for dinner tonight
Cassie considered her response carefully.
C: Your loving husband is doing something nice for you, and yet here you are arranging to go behind his back. What kind of person would do that? What does that make you?
V: I don't know
C: A slut
Cassie looked at the words that she'd typed, imagining the expression on Victoria's face as she read the messages.
C: You're lucky you're locked up safe and sound. I'd hate you to get tempted. No, we're going to have to extend your denial period so you'll have to find another way to show your husband your appreciation. It's not fair that he goes without, just because you can't be trusted out of chastity
V: I suppose
C: Good. See you Saturday
Cassie put her phone down again, pleased with how easily Victoria had acquiesced and allowed Cassie to extend her period of sexual denial. She had a good idea how the other woman would be feeling by now; it had been weeks since Damian had shown any interest in Cassie, leaving her supremely unsatisfied herself.
Cassie's mood darkened again at the thought of him. Their worlds were diverging faster and faster. Each night that she slid into bed next to Damian it felt more and more like a lie. In place of the love that she had cherished for so many years, now they lay in silence as the secrets they kept from each other multiplied in the dark.
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"Stop," Cassie growled, threading the car through traffic, "Not one more word or I'm turning around."
"He started it," Sam pouted from the back seat, "I don't know why I should get into trouble."
"You were prodding him," Cassie retorted, "I saw it."
"How?"
"I'm a mother. When you give birth, you also get given a second pair of eyes in the back of your head."
"Do not."
"Do too."
"Prove it."
Cassie smiled to herself. "Put the towel down," she grinned.
Sam's eyes widened, looking down at the rolled-up towel he was obviously about to hit his twin brother with.
"See?" she said, "All knowing."
Cassie watched the scene playing out through the rear-view mirror, one step ahead. More than a match for seven-year-olds, still.
"Anyway, we're nearly there. Then we can have a swim. Ready?"
"Yes," Charlie replied, "So long as Sam doesn't make you turn around."
Cassie smiled. "Good boy," she said.
They turned off the road, heading down a dirt track between the trees. Cassie was careful, avoiding potholes left after the rains, but navigating to a wide expanse of gravel and dirt on the edge of the lake. She pulled up next to a silver four-wheel-drive with bull bars and mud spatters. In the back window was a bright pink love heart.
"Looks like they're already here," Cassie called, as the doors flew open to release her offspring into the sunshine. The doors slammed and she was treated to a moment of perfect silence. She took a few seconds for herself, then picked up the beach bag from the passenger seat and got out.
The terrain rose to her left, becoming a cliff hanging over the edge of the lake, strewn at the bottom with half-submerged boulders that her kids were already busy hopping between. The waterfall cascaded in a single gossamer veil from the clifftop, a dozen metres above the surface of the clear water, into a rounded plunge pool of its own making. At the water's edge, the grass was already marked with a picnic blanket. A hand snaked into the air and waved: it was Billie.
Cassie waved back and then pointed up to the brick toilet block. She saw Billie nod, then stand up to greet Cassie's boys as they came hurtling over. Hope was already in the water with her mother, splashing. Cassie trudged up to the toilet block to get changed. She hadn't intended to go swimming, but now she was here, and the day was so nice, it seemed a shame not to. Cassie picked one of the unisex stalls and locked herself inside.
Quickly, she stripped, working her shorts down her legs and unfastening her bra, wriggling everything off at once, rolling it into a ball and dropping it into her beach bag. This was the real reason she hadn't got ready at home. She had a choice to make: the one-piece from summer last year or the new black bikini. Cassie closed her eyes and for some reason, the memory popped into her head of opening the door in the club, stepping out into the crowd in the tight, short white latex dress, with the leather stiletto boots laced all the way up above her knees, the rush she had felt as strangers' eyes fell on her body. She stuffed the one-piece back into her bag and slipped her new bikini on.
Emerging from the toilets, she headed over to Billie, walking as nonchalantly as she could in her new purchase. The bottoms were high-cut, showing off her shapely thighs and the curve of her bottom; the top was a single wrap-around lycra panel with shoe-string straps to keep it in place, pushing her breasts together and showing off her cleavage. As she got closer, she could see that Billie was grinning.
"You look good."
