Lyda pulled up to the house, which looked like a 1920s clapboard farmhouse. Moonlight glinted off several large greenhouses beyond it. A line of solar lights etched out the front walkway. Removing the key from the ignition, Lyda put her wrist on the wheel. She slid a finger along Gen's knee, playing under the hem of the dress. "You're a very sexy woman, Gen. The more you believe that, the more people will feel it when you're around them. They'll see it in the way you walk and dress, the way you present yourself to the world. You're a woman who, if you were truly owned and cherished, would set the world on its ear."
Gen had never thought of herself as any of that. Up until that last part, she would have said that Lyda was describing herself. But Lyda would never be owned.
"If you were treating me...heavy handed, what would you do? Unless it's revealing your diabolical master plan. Or mistress."
Lyda's lips curved. "Don't taunt me, rabbit. It's not a place you're ready to go." Her gaze swept Gen again. "As we were driving home, I would have ordered you to spread your legs and put two fingers inside yourself, your thumb on your clit. No movement of those fingers, no playing with yourself. Just your hand on and inside your pussy while I was driving, to remind you I'm in charge, that your body belongs to me. It's my plaything tonight. I'd want you to feel how wet you were getting, not from the stimulation of your hand, but from the thought of how I'm controlling you, commanding your arousal."
Her gaze shifted. "Once we pulled into my driveway, I'd have you pull your fingers out of yourself, show them to me. I would tell you to suck on them, clean them with your mouth. Then I'd kiss you, taste your pussy on your lips, and think about what I'm going to do with that tasty little cunt to keep it wet for me. You're a squirter and--"
"Don't. I hate that word."
She hadn't meant to cut Lyda off, as much because it revealed too much about herself as to avoid being rude. "Guy, my first husband, laughed about it. It made me feel dirty. Gross."
"Asshole." Lyda stroked her thigh, tugged on the hem of her dress. "Look at me, Gen. I loved watching you do it. Do you remember the noise Noah made? It turns him on three ways to Sunday. He'll work his ass off to earn the right to fuck you, feel that happen around his cock."
"That would be my choice, not yours."
"You're right about that. But if we go down a road where you give yourself to me, at times it becomes one and the same."
She should disagree with that, but the way Lyda said it, the sensuous inflection, her fingers still drifting over Gen's thighs, made it difficult to articulate the reasons it wasn't true. She struggled to get back on track. "What else...would you make me do?"
"I have no close neighbors." Lyda drew her attention to their surroundings. The white house had one outside spotlight, showing Gen a small yard with a variety of flowers and potted plants. A stepping stone walkway was illuminated by the solar lights. "I'd tell you to take off the dress, walk up to the door in that cute bra and panty set and your heels. That's all you'd be wearing for the rest of the night. Or less."
"What does that give you?" Closing nerveless fingers on her thighs, Gen cleared the rasp out of her throat.
"There's a sweet vulnerability to a woman who submits to another woman. The way she kneels at my feet, wearing nothing but her underwear. I like looking at the line of her spine, the nape of her neck when her hair drapes forward because I've made her lower her head, raise her ass in the air, spread her legs. It's exciting you, isn't it? Hearing me describe it to you."
Gen gave a spare nod.
"Spread your legs, baby." Lyda said it so softly, and she used that same endearment Noah had. Like the two people themselves, it elicited different reactions from her, both of them intense. Pleasurable. Gen loosened her thighs, throat working as Lyda slid a finger beneath the panties, stroked her cunt. "There you are, so wet and hot for me."
"I don't know anything about you," Gen said desperately. "Except you worked two jobs in high school."
They hadn't had any of the normal discussions for a date. Background, family. She knew Lyda's profession only by happenstance, not inquiry.
"I'm a Mistress, Gen. For tonight, your Mistress, by your own choice. There will be time to learn more, but there's a difference between asking because you want to know me better, and trying to hold onto control." Lyda withdrew her finger, touched it to Gen's mouth, a gentle but inexorable probe that had Gen tasting herself.
"Sweet, sweet honey. I want to fuck you into oblivion, Gen. Until I'm the only thing you can hold onto to keep your world sane." Her gaze ran over Gen's flesh, encompassing the dress and shoes, the hair curling around her face. "You've given me hints of who you are, enough that I want to pull you out of that chrysalis and see what you become when you let go of the shit you don't need anymore."
Light flooded the vehicle as Noah pulled in behind them. Gen, snared in a look that had become more steel than liquid silver, was released as Lyda glanced in the mirror. "Let's go inside." Opening her door, she exited the vehicle without Gen's response.
Gen stared after her. Her car was right here. She could ask Noah for the key, leave. She wasn't a prisoner. Lyda was trying to unbalance her, and it was working. She'd done something she'd never done before tonight. She wasn't up to a whole night of that. It was time to step back, retreat. If Lyda didn't like that, well, she'd just have to pull someone else out of their "chrysalis". Maybe over-the-top, charismatic Dommes had tried-and-true pickup lines, just like anyone else in the vanilla dating game.
If so, it was a doozy. Gen would give her that.
Lyda had denied Gen any personal information, claiming that Gen was trying to hold onto control. Well, yeah. That was what normal people did, right? Tried to figure each other out, balance the scales, keep things on an even keel so one didn't feel so out of her element she might drown.
She opened the door, slid out. As she did, she was arrested by what was happening at her car. What Lyda had described was apparently a standard requirement for Noah. He'd changed into jeans, maybe when he'd stopped to grab the quick drive-thru meal. He'd put the McDonald's bag on her hood because he needed both hands free to remove the T-shirt Lyda had tossed him. While Gen watched, he shucked off the jeans. Beneath he wore charcoal-gray cotton shorts-styled briefs that made the most of his legs and hugged the appealing package at his groin. He toed off his shoes as well, his bare body a pale blur illuminated by the solar lights.
Gen looked toward the house. Lyda had gone inside and left the door open, a screen door keeping out bugs. Gen could see her tossing her keys onto an entranceway table, unconcerned about when and how they might follow her.
She thought about walking from the truck in only her panties, bra and heels, like Lyda had described. She imagined Lyda walking next to her, fingertips trailing over the valley of Gen's spine. It gave her a shiver.
No. She wasn't ready for that tonight. Wasn't even sure how much of this submissive stuff she was into doing, outside of the structured club environment. It felt more real here, less like a game.
When Noah touched her back where she'd imagined Lyda touching her, she twitched. He had his clothes folded over one arm and extended the other with a reassuring look, offering his hand. "Like Hansel and Gretel," he teased her.
Going into the home of a powerful, scary witch. It wasn't entirely off the mark, though the danger of this one was in the desire to be eaten, not the fear of it. She gazed up into his face. He was relaxed. This was normal to him. Whereas she wondered if she was going to Crazytown, because she took his hand and felt a bit steadier from his firm clasp. But Lyda had made it clear all choices were hers, and so far she hadn't asked Gen to do anything she'd refuse. The desire for escape had passed, for now.