“Good seeing you again, Joan,” Stormy says as she pats my shoulder. She takes Sheila’s hand and they slip out.
I’m alone with Lynn. “Here’s my card,” she whispers, tucking it into my pack. “It’s totally against hospital rules for patients to hook up with staff, so please don’t tell anyone, okay?” I stare at her in horror, but she just beams. “I bet you’re ready for a smoke, huh?” she says, lowering the lift.
In the waiting room the elderly lady and Janet sit on the green hospital chairs. Janet puts down the Cosmo she’s been reading. “Got all the pictures they needed?” she asks.
“And then some,” Lynn nods, pulling a DVD out of her bag and saluting me. “I’ll see you again, Joan,” she says, tapping the disk, then pocketing it. “And again and again…”
Janet looks quizzically at me. I’m remembering the blinking red light in Sheila’s booth and Stormy’s words: We’ll keep an eye on you.
“You look a little green around the gills,” Janet says, and frowns. “Maybe someone should look at you before we leave?”
“Nobody’s looking at me!” I snap. “Get my clothes! We’re getting the fuck out!”
“Okay, boss,” Janet rolls her eyes. She steers me out the door and into the parking lot. The sun is blinding, reflecting off glass and chrome. I try to close my eyes to the glare. The door to Imaging hisses shut behind me.
BIRTHDAY BUTCH
Teresa Noelle Roberts
I’d love to say JT and I met at a seedy bar, like characters in a’50s pulp novel with a cheesy title along the lines of Women in the Shadows or Cruel Female Lusts. Actually a mutual friend introduced us, and I don’t think Edgar imagined that we’d hook up. He just knew that JT was looking for someone who’d tend bar at her birthday party and I do a bit of bartending. People seem to enjoy having a tiny slip of a woman in a slinky vintage cocktail dress and high, high heels mixing them drinks. It’s eye candy for those who like pretty ladies, retro fun for everyone, and I make a mean cosmo and pull a perfect pint of Guinness if I do say so myself.
As soon as I met JT, something pinged my radar—not my gaydar, because Edgar had already mentioned we were both dykes, but the other radar, the one that found women who might particularly fancy a woman like me, a woman who looked like she was all sweet curves, but knew how to bring a submissive type to her knees. JT was big, buff and loud—and absolutely gorgeous—but I sensed something else, something that wanted to stop, if only for a little while, being so damn tough. I think she sensed the steel inside my fragile trappings, even if she wasn’t sure, initially, what to make of the combination.
Even before I did the smoldering yet arrogant sideways glance, even before I crossed my legs in a way that showed off my Cuban-heeled stockings, hellishly high heels and kitten-with-a-whip tattoo on my calf, JT looked me up and down stealthily, yet wouldn’t meet my eyes. She held my hand a little too long when she shook it, yet stood farther away than I’d expect a big, good-looking butch to do with a pretty femme. Especially not when I’d made a point of mentioning I wasn’t dating anyone as soon as I saw her big brown eyes, strong arms and mischievous smile.
It was a smile that seemed less confident around me than it did around other people.
Some women might have found that discouraging.
I found it promising.
There’s cool distance, the kind you maintain as a barrier between you and someone you don’t particularly like.
And then there’s hot distance, which is what happens when you like someone a lot, but are baffled by what you’re feeling and aren’t ready to act on it.
This was hot distance.
And I intended to close it.
I watched JT with other women as I served drinks at her birthday party. She flirted. She danced close, even with women who were definitely part of a couple. Hell, she danced close with guys, including Edgar, who was there with his husband. She hugged and smooched and grabbed butts. She laughed a lot, deep and sexy and hearty, the way I like to see a woman laugh. Especially when she’s big and strong, with hands that could span my waist (if I’m wearing a corset).
But not with me. With me, it was all shy glances from downcast eyes and the kind of “pleases” and “thank yous” and gentle good behavior that would make a churchgoing grandma proud.
It made me giddy, as if I’d been drinking just enough champagne for the bubbles to get to me.
Maybe she wasn’t sure how to treat someone who was essentially the hired help for the night, but could just as easily have been a party guest. But I didn’t think so. I ventured a guess that she’d read something in my body language, my carriage, the way I walked in my heels as strong and confident as she did in her Docs, and it touched some part of her that wanted a small, soft woman who could make her feel small and soft herself. She wasn’t sure how to go about courting a domme in a pretty vintage dress, though, especially when we hadn’t met at a munch for kinksters or a play party, and it made her adorably shy.
Certainly she made a lot of excuses to fetch drinks for her friends and visit the bar again to half-talk to me, to not quite meet my eyes. And I took advantage of those visits to brush my hand against hers, to lean forward so she could look at my cleavage (and then look away again, a telltale red on her cheeks), to lead her shamelessly into flirtation despite her best efforts to remain polite and respectful.
JT was definitely intrigued, but I thought it might take more than one night to get her to take the bait. After all, we’d just met, and through Edgar, lovingly dubbed Cottage Cheese Boy because he was milder than vanilla.
Then a couple of drunk, rowdy bois decided to do my work for me. After the cake was cut, but before the presents were opened, the cry went up, led by one particular couple, “Time for JT’s birthday spanking!”
I stopped washing glasses and leaned on the bar to watch the show.
JT started out protesting, squirming and doing all the things you’re supposed to do when overenthusiastic, tipsy friends decide to smack your ass in public.
In the midst of her struggles JT glanced over at me.
Very slowly, very deliberately, I winked and nodded.
Her eyes widened. Her struggles continued, but less emphatically and, at least to my eyes, less believably.
Since everyone else was watching JT and her friends roughhousing, I leaned forward and cupped my breasts so they spilled out of the neckline of the strapless dress I wore. A quick flash of nipple and they were back in my dress, but I think I made the point: get spanked and you might get these.
JT licked her lips and relaxed visibly.
The slighter of the bois grabbed her wrists and pushed her forward, pinning her wrists down to the table so her butt stuck out. Seconds later, the other laid a good whack on her ass.
JT’s body stiffened and she yelped.
On the second whack, though, she sagged, yielding.
I clenched. That moment when a strong woman surrenders, even if someone else provoked it, is always delicious to see.
She turned toward me again, her eyes wide and stricken, her mouth slightly open. I could tell she was breathing heavily.
For the entire time she was being spanked—first fairly seriously by the bois who’d instigated it, then a playful smack or two from most of the guests—she kept her face turned toward me, letting me watch each expression that passed over her face. Playful amusement changed to panic, and panic changed to a delicious mixture of panic and arousal. The arousal grew as her friends continued to torment her and the panic eased back to nervousness or self-consciousness, but never fled altogether.