Chapter 11 #2
Victoria squeezed Lauren briefly to let her know she understood. She stayed quiet, though. She needed Lauren to work through whatever she was experiencing.
“First,” Lauren said, “thank you for indulging me in this. You’re so accommodating. You didn’t make fun of me. You did everything right. And I think it was the ‘five more guys are coming’ part that panicked me a little.”
“Fantasies are great,” Victoria said, “but when they’re in your head, you can change the script as you go. Live like this? You can’t really do that.”
“It felt way too real,” Lauren said, accepting the small bottle of water Victoria handed her. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I want you to know that. You did what I asked you to do. But, whoa.”
“Intense.”
Lauren laughed. “Those voices were so good, Vic. OMG. Have you ever done something like this with someone before?
“No, no, never like this,” Victoria said. “CNC a couple of times, but nothing like this.”
“CNC means consent-no-consent, right?”
Victoria nodded. “They know it’s coming, but don’t know when.”
“Maybe my rape fantasies are better kept inside my own head.”
“That’s your call,” Victoria said. “I’m glad I was the one to help you explore it, though.” She pulled Lauren’s head to her shoulder, and they sat in peace for a while. Lauren was clearly hurting emotionally.
After a bit, Victoria said, “Have you given any thought as to why this particular fantasy showed up in your head recently?”
“Maybe meeting you?”
Victoria made a noise of disagreement. “I think maybe meeting me allowed you to explore a side of yourself that you hadn’t been able to before.”
“That’s very true.”
“And maybe when you went back to your real life, you realized something.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Lauren said. “Maybe I realized that I have different needs than…Okay, I have to fess up. I have a life partner.”
“I figured.”
“You did?”
“Yeah,” Victoria said succinctly. “When you weren’t asking to meet me outside of the dungeon, that was the biggest clue. But there were others.”
“Like what?”
Victoria lifted one of Lauren’s hands. “This white wedding ring line. You take off your ring right before you come in. I noticed it during our first session.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no, don’t be,” Victoria said. “Many people explore. But I’d venture a guess your person doesn’t know you come here. They don’t know you have these desires, do they?”
“No, she doesn’t. I mean, I’ve tried to bring it up subtly, like pointing out something on TV or conjecturing about someone at Venus Rising, but she just laughs and thinks it’s a big joke.” Lauren shrugged.
“And that’s making you feel how?”
The words were right there and came out fast. “Unheard. Unseen. Lonely. Stuck.”
“Like you have no voice. Like you have no control,” Victoria said, hoping Lauren would catch on.
“Fuck. So that’s why I wanted a scene where I had no control at all. I would never ever want that scene to be real. OMG. The brain works in strange ways, doesn’t it?”
Victoria laughed. “It does. So, I guess you’ll have to figure out a way to find more control or at least find a way to speak your truth. There’s always the polyamory way.”
“Which she’ll never go for.”
“You could start slow. Your partner may discover that she likes these things, too. Try asking her to bind your wrists to the bedposts with scarves. Or you bind hers. Have her give you a light spanking.”
Lauren laughed. “These sound like gateway drugs into BDSM.”
“For many, it is,” Victoria said. “I mean, you could say that you heard about these things somewhere and thought maybe the two of you could experiment. You know, for science.”
“For science,” Lauren said with a laugh.
“Maybe you could read a novel with BDSM elements with lesbians as the main characters.”
“They have those?
Victoria chuckled. “Yes. Look online. There are even social media groups that discuss books in that genre.”
“I’m in,” Lauren said. “Thank you for the advice.” She sat up and stretched. “So, Vic, how about you help me explore more of what Hunter was doing to me?”
“Aha,” Victoria said, standing up. “I’ve created an anal enthusiast, have I?”
“Maybe,” Lauren wrapped her arms around Victoria’s neck and kissed her thoroughly.
Ahh, yes, round two that afternoon would be so much more satisfying than round one.
~~~
Two afternoons later, Victoria sat in her pickup truck in front of her aunt and uncle’s house.
It was Sunday afternoon, time for the family dinner, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually get out and head up the walkway to the front door.
She still had her Friday afternoon meetup with Lauren on her mind.
Victoria had said to Lauren, “It’s hard to find your voice sometimes.
Especially when it has been stifled for so long.
When you finally do speak up, no one seems to hear you.
” As she said the words, she realized she was kind of thinking about her father’s situation.
He landed in prison for many years because he didn’t speak up when his brother did him wrong.
He had stayed “loyal to the family.” He put “family first” and didn’t rat out anyone else.
He took so much more than his share of the hit.
Victoria looked up at the comfortable two-story house in the well-to-do neighborhood. “And you benefited, Uncle Jimmy, didn’t you?”
She forced her thoughts back to Friday with Lauren.
After their second session, exploring several sexual positions and activities that Lauren had never done before, Lauren asked if Victoria had liked doing the fantasy rape scene.
Victoria had been honest when she said, “No, but it was something you wanted to explore, and I liked being able to do that for you.” But now two days later, Victoria knew she would never do a scene like that again.
After that, they had cleaned up, hugged, and basically said goodbye to each other since Lauren said she needed to focus on her relationship with Heather and that she wouldn’t be back next Friday or ever. Victoria let Lauren leave first.
The scene and Lauren’s departure had soured her mood that evening and into Saturday, and it was still with her now. She looked up at her aunt and uncle’s house. Somehow, she had to go in there and pretend to like the people who’d helped ruin her father’s life. And hers.
“Why was I the only one who got arrested that day, Eddie? Donny? Why did they find all that shit in the car and blame me?” She punched her thigh as if reliving the moment.
A police car had pulled up behind her that day and pulled her over as she was heading to the drop-off.
All the copper from her father and uncle’s construction business the guys had ripped out of the walls was stashed in the trunk, ready to sell.
Her cousins had promised her a 20 percent cut for her role as the driver.
“Those cops put me in fucking handcuffs, assholes. And where were you guys? Saving your skins.” Tears burned her eyes.
“You set me up to take the fall just like your father set up my dad years later. Family first?” She groaned and smacked the dashboard. “Fuck that.”
“What’d that dashboard do to you?” her cousin Erin asked from the sidewalk. “My mom told me to come out here and get you. I lied and said you were on the phone.”
“Reminiscing,” Victoria said succinctly. She took off her seatbelt, got out of her truck, and walked side-by-side with the one and only cousin she liked.
Aunt Jenny wrapped her in a hug the minute she got in the door.
Victoria greeted her Uncle Jimmy but only nodded at him when he made to give her a hug.
Eddie and Donny were watching a football game in the family room, so she gratefully got to ignore them until they sat down for dinner a little while later.
When they did come in, Eddie said to Victoria, “Hey, cousin. You look good. Older but good.”
She smiled, knowing the smile didn’t reach her eyes, and said, “You look older, too.”
Donny burst out laughing, then simply nodded at her in greeting. She returned the silent gesture.
They sat at the table and held hands to say grace, which almost made Victoria burst out laughing at the hypocrisy of it. And as soon as they let go, Aunt Jenny got started. She must have been chomping at the bit to get the goods on Victoria.
“No husband? Boyfriend?”
“Nope,” Victoria said and passed the potatoes along without taking any.
“It’s the hair, Victoria,” Aunt Jenny said, plopping a large scoop of potatoes on Victoria’s plate.
“You look so boyish. Let it grow longer. I’ll give you the name and number of my hairdresser, she’s wonderful.
Now that you’re finally back home, you’ll need to get things like that set up.
Oh, my friend Moira has a son who’s just divorced and available.
I’ll arrange a meeting for you two to get acquainted. ”
“Jenny,” Uncle Jimmy said. “Stop.”
“What? Victoria obviously needs my help.”
“Stop,” he said again.
And she blessedly stopped. Erin mouthed, “Sorry,” and Victoria simply shook her head as if to say an apology wasn’t necessary.
How Aunt Jenny managed to eat was a mystery because the woman never stopped talking.
She berated her grown sons about not cleaning their rooms. Yes, they still lived at home, even though they were both closer to forty than she was.
And when dinner was over, they bolted back to the family room to catch another football game on the television.
They didn’t even offer to help clear the table, and Aunt Jenny didn’t ask them to.