Don't Be Shy 32

Kara came back to herself feeling the blunt scratch of a marker between her shoulder blades. An X. Then another next to it. Then another.

“I counted six,” Lena said. “Before you stopped screaming and wiggling and then it wasn’t any fun. We’ll have to work on your stamina.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Kara was largely numb. What she could feel of her ass gave no indication that the strap-on was still present inside her. Just achy, swollen, overused flesh.

She glanced at the laptop. An icon with a slash through it showed her that it was no longer recording, but she could still see herself and she looked like a emergency room patient that had just been brought back to life. Her hair was like a ragged weed that had managed to sprout from her pate, her eyes were still glazed over, and her lips were cracked. Then Lena closed the laptop and Kara saw the bottled water and bowl of orange slices she had laid down behind it.

“Drink. That took a lot out of you.”

“To be fair,” Kara said, “most of it you put in me first.”

“Hmm,” Lena went, which for a neutral sound was very close to a laugh.

Kara drank. She ate some of the orange slices. She didn’t feel hungry or even very thirsty, but the act of chewing and swallowing seemed good for her, like petting a cat. Didn’t make the cat richer. Didn’t make her richer. But it was Good.

She lay there on her belly, a little afraid to try moving her lower body, while Lena sort of… leaned on her. She’d taken the strap-on off, which Kara found a bit of a relief, and her bare legs entwined with Kara’s. Her shirt brushed against Kara’s skin. It was like an experiment: how close could Lena get to her and still give her space. Sometimes, Lena was so close that Kara felt the chill of her mask, just… glancing off her forehead. Like a kiss from a dead woman. It was so cold and yet, and yet…

The laptop dinged. Lena opened it up again. It was an e-mail. Kara’s bleary eyes focused. Airline tickets. One of those confirmation e-mails that served double duty as a plea to follow someone or other on Twitter.

“You’re leaving?”

“Business trip. I need to go to Vegas for a few days. There are some prospects for an opening at the law firm and I want to get a feel for them as people, not cover sheets on a resume.”

Kara blinked a few times. Lena was only paying for one ticket. “What about me?”

“Think of it as a paid vacation. You’ll stay here and do whatever you want. Perhaps I’ll find time to Skype you. But probably not. I’ll be very busy.”

Kara rolled onto her side so she could face Lena. Oh yeah—she could tell that she’d been sodomized recently. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but it couldn’t at all be mistaken for the feeling of never having had anything inside your ass ever. “Why can’t I come?”

“Why would you want to?” Lena asked. “You’d be in a tiny hotel room, you wouldn’t see me except when I come in at night to sleep—”

“So I’d see you sleeping.”

Lena’s eyelids crinkled. Kara thought she was smiling; trying not to. But it would take more than a mask to hide how happy that girl was when she was happy. “I won’t have any time to spend with you. You’ll be happier here. You can watch… sports…”

“I want to go with you. I can, uh, fix you breakfast. Lunch, if you want to come back for lunch. Dinner, I’ll have dinner waiting for you…”

Lena looked away. “You’re a cook now?”

Kara squirmed closer to her, hugging her, like she could physically get at the giggle she knew Lena had in her. “I’m a great cook. While you’re working all day, I can go to the farmer’s market for fresh ingredients, I can have a slow cooker going… and if we order take-out, I can download the app that each individual restaurant wants you to have even though they program them to stop working on phones once they’re four years old.”

She felt Lena’s body shake with laughter. “Well… I suppose I can’t trust you to leash yourself to the bed if I’m gone for a weekend.”

“Absolutely not,” Kara agreed. “But if I’m in Vegas with you, you can check to make sure I’m wearing the collar each and every night.”

“And punish you if you take it off.”

“Or if you think I’ve taken it off,” Kara suggested. “It’s harsh, but you know we can’t take any chances.”

Lena looked at her with such softness in her eyes… and Kara knew how hard it was, how much of a struggle to let herself flower open and be seen and be loved… she just had to kiss Lena. Even with the mask in the way. Because the mask was in the way. Because in that moment, Kara loved her and the mask that protected her and the walls that couldn’t come down yet.

The mask’s lips tasted of her own sweat and Kara knew that was from when Lena had just had to kiss her too.

“It’s alright if you don’t feel you can kiss me. Just know that I want to be kissed. I really, really want it.”