The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica (58 page)

“That’s more like it,” Catherine sighed.

Glancing up at her, noticing the woman was about to recline on the bed, Nelly’s gaze met the stark glare of Catherine’s eye. The intimacy they had been sharing seemed to augment,
like the moist and swollen lips that filled Nelly’s mouth. Catherine’s contented grin turned wicked and her eyes shone with the most devilish excitement.

“You
do
want me to horsewhip you, Nelly!”

“No, mistress.”

Catherine was pushing her aside, standing up and reaching for her horsewhip. “You do, Nelly. Don’t deny it. I can see it in your face. You want to feel my switch brand your haunches.
The truth is as plain as if you’d spoken the words aloud.”

Nelly tried again to voice her protest but Catherine would hear none of it. With a swiftness that belied her bucolic disposition, Catherine hiked up her servant’s skirts and pulled down
the large cotton drawers. Nelly accepted the indignity without protest. The chill of the room’s air touch the naked flesh of her bottom. She cringed with sudden shame. Her mortification was
made complete when Catherine gasped loudly.

“Oh! Nelly!” she exclaimed. “You’ve been keeping secrets from me.”

Shaking her head, nervous beyond words, Nelly stammered, “I would never keep secrets from you, mistress Catherine.” She couldn’t see the woman. Catherine had taken a position
behind her and Nelly knew her buttocks and intimate secrets were being perused with clinical attention to detail. Her chest was so heavy the air couldn’t reach her lungs. “I
haven’t been keeping secrets, mistress.”

“That’s not true,” Catherine murmured.

Her tone was playful.

Teasing.

As she spoke she traced small, warm fingers against the mounds of Nelly’s backside. “You’ve been keeping this glorious backside of yours a secret from me. How long have these
gorgeous cheeks been hiding ’neath your skirts when they could have been presented for my entertainment?”

Nelly could think of no reply.

She remained rigid as Catherine’s small hand fluttered from one cheek to the other and then nestled on the crevice between them. The pressure of the woman’s fingers, deliciously
light and maddeningly arousing, lingered for a moment on blushing flesh. Then, with a slow deliberation that suited the mood of arousal, Catherine’s fingers slipped against Nelly’s
sex.

Both women gasped.

The shock of sensation was enough to make Nelly feel ill. She tried to stay still as Catherine continued to explore, not wanting to cause upset, or suffer the repercussions she knew would be
waiting for her if she moved away. But the intrusion of the fingers between her legs, and the wondrous sensations inspired by Catherine’s fingers against her heat, all plagued Nelly until she
could no longer remain motionless. With a breathless shiver she tore herself away.

“Nelly,” Catherine admonished. “You really do want to feel this horsewhip, don’t you?”

Groaning with embarrassment, Nelly nodded.

She remained on the floor, facing away from Catherine and showing the woman her buttocks. Holding her breath, not sure if she was dreading or needing the sting of the horsewhip, Nelly trembled
with mounting arousal. An agony of uncertainty clutched her heart as she waited to hear what Catherine would say. She was momentarily pained by the fear that her mistress would berate her for being
so deviant and demanding.

The whip slashed through the air with the force of a winter tempest.

Nelly heard the hiss of the leather.

And then she was pierced by a brutal sting across both cheeks.

The switch landed with the sound of winter bracken breaking.

And Nelly howled from the sudden rush of agonising pleasure.

In the first instance it was almost as though her rear was ablaze. The heartiest fires that scorched the chimneys of Wuthering Heights had never produced as much heat as the inferno that
currently branded her bare backside. She did not think her body had ever endured such a shocking heat. And it was only when the furious warmth bubbled into her sex that Nelly learnt she could
suffer more intense temperatures.

Catherine slashed the horsewhip against her a second time.

Nelly’s sex seared with the blistering heat of her rising need. Her upper thighs were sticky with the sudden overflow of her arousal. Her whole body had been reduced to a quivering
convulsion. Gasping from the shock, pain and pleasure, Nelly remained motionless as Catherine continued to stripe her backside.

“That’s it,” Catherine laughed.

Her voice was rich with a merriment Nelly hadn’t heard since they were growing up together as children.

“Suffer my whip, you impudent servant. Then get back to properly serving me.”

“Yes, mistress.”

She endured a dozen slashes from Catherine’s horsewhip before her mistress tossed the instrument aside. When Nelly turned to see what the woman was doing she was amazed to find Catherine
undressed and sprawled on the bed. The divine splendour of her naked body was an unspoken invitation. Putting her own craven urges aside, hurrying quickly to the bed, she hovered over her mistress
and tried to discern where she should begin.

“Lick my hole,” Catherine insisted. “Lick at it now and lick it well or you’ll suffer another dozen stripes across your arse.” She glanced up from her repose, her
dark eyes shining with the most malicious glee. “Do it well, and I’ll satisfy your needs. But if you don’t do it right and soon, I’ll simply make you do it again and again
until you’ve properly learnt the skill.”

Falling greedily between the woman’s legs, Nelly didn’t think that either of those alternatives sounded particularly unpleasant.

Two hours later – both naked, sated and wrapped in each other’s arms – Catherine shifted position and stirred Nelly from the brink of a gentle slumber.

“Nelly,” Catherine whispered. “I need to solicit a favour from you.”

“A favour?”

“If ever . . .” Catherine’s voice trailed off. She paused and frowned as though looking for correct words with which to compose her sentence. “You will keep these
liaisons a secret, won’t you, Nelly?”

“Only the taste of your kisses will ever pass my lips,” Nelly sighed.

“You talk just like a gothic romance,” Catherine laughed. Her smile was deliciously warming. She regained her composure with a shake of her head. Dark tousled curls brushed her face
and brow. “I’m serious,” she insisted. “You must tell no one of the passion we share. And, if it ever comes about that anyone should ask you the history of the mistress of
Thrush-cross Grange or Wuthering Heights . . .”

“I’ll tell them nothing,” Nelly said flatly. “And, if they insist on hearing something, I’ll make up some bollocks about you being in love with that simpleton
Heathcliff.”

Catherine laughed. Taking Nelly’s naked body into her arms she continued to giggle as she added, “Now, wouldn’t that make for a great story?”

And Then She Kissed Me

Rita Winchester

I first saw her out my kitchen window. The kids were in school and I had a day of chores and cleaning ahead of me. Not very enticing or exciting. I was fighting my seemingly
never-ending cycle of depression. Everything was blue, not just the sky. My mood, my emotions, my thoughts – all blue. A suddenly single mother. A soon-to-be divorcee. A husband who had found
a twenty-something, gum-popping secretary more appealing than a happy married life. My happily ever after had ended.

The house behind us had been for sale forever. It sold the week Don packed up and left me. As he was moving out, the new neighbours were moving in. I soon found out it wasn’t
they
but
she.
She was tall and lithe. Her hair was the colour of my favorite blouse. A deep mocha that had just a tinge of red here and there. She was also obviously pregnant. Beneath the sweep
of her long graceful arms and above the length of her long slender legs, rode a swollen belly that made me smile and brought back memories.

When I would see her, I remembered the first swells of my pregnancy with Jacob and how it had seemed to take forever for me to show. I remembered the speedy bloom of my second pregnancy with
Lacie. How quickly I had gone from a flat stomach to a shelf that would hold my dinner plate if I so chose. I also remembered the exhaustion, excitement and somehow mystical feeling of growing a
life.

I introduced myself her third week in. Over the back fence, I shook her slender hand, told her that my name was Mary. She introduced herself as Holly and when I asked how far along she was, she
told me six months.

“Big baby,” I had laughed, looking at the bulk of her belly.

“They said he might end up around eight or nine pounds,” she laughed. “Of course that scares me to death.”

“First pregnancy?”

She nodded, a long swatch of dark hair covering her face for a moment. I had noticed that her eyes were the most amazing shade of cornflower blue. Added to the dark hair and her creamy white
skin, she resembled a mythical creature of the woods. A fairy or a wood nymph. Her appearance was nearly otherworldly when you added the rosy glow of motherhood to the mix.

“You’ll do fine,” I assured her. “And once you’ve given birth, you’ll feel like you can conquer the world.”

“Until the insane cycle of two o’clock feeding, I hear.”

Then I laughed for real. A deep belly laugh that lit me up from the inside. I had forgotten the physical release of laughter. It had been too long since a good laugh had lightened the dark
things that had settled in me.

“Well, yes, until then. But cherish those feelings and those feedings. It feels as if the only people awake on earth are you and the baby. Do your best to remember because before you know
it, it will be gone and he will be telling you he needs field trip money or new soccer cleats.”

She nodded and smiled. Her lips were the shade of summer berries. “I’ll try.”

A tentative friendship had blossomed. I wasn’t exactly sure why it made me feel so elated when I thought about it. I had plenty of girl friends. It wasn’t as if I were starved for
female attention. I had my mother, my sister, my best friend from high school. Other PTA moms and even a few teachers from school who I counted as friends. Holly felt special, though. A a slow
rumble of excitement sounded in me every time I saw her outside. I never went to her house, but if I saw her in the yard, I watched her. I soaked up the sight of her. She made me smile. I tried not
to analyze it.

The week the weather finally turned to Spring and the flowers started to bloom, I happened to walk out on the back deck and see her there. Holly was in her yard with another young woman. Younger
than her it seemed but I was at a distance. They seemed to be fighting so I hung back, kept myself in the shadows by the sliding glass door. The younger woman was flinging her arms around and I
thought she might be crying. I felt my hand go to my throat and then I felt my eyes prick with tears. It was so odd for me to emotionally identify with a stranger, but this scene looked familiar.
It looked like a break up and my female instinct was to feel for this young girl.

Instinct told me to retreat into the house. I was witnessing something I shouldn’t. I was a voyeur to their pain and that was simply wrong. I stood frozen.

Across the large expanse of my yard a few of their words were flung to me by the warm wind that rocked the large oak trees.

“. . . love you!” The red headed stranger was sobbing in earnest now.

Holly went toward her. Her movements more motherly than those of a lover. Her emotions were already responding to the life growing inside of her. Her touch was not intimate but soothing.

“We can’t be together. I . . .” and then the wind shifted and the words were lost to me.

I waited. I watched and when Holly embraced the woman, I sighed aloud. And then they kissed. It seemed to last an eternity.

Holly’s ripe lips brushing the other woman’s light pink ones. The kiss was full of sadness and love and tenderness. Tears pricked my eyes again. This time for several reasons. It was
beautiful to watch but foreign to me. I had never
really
seen two women kiss. Not that way. Not the way I had kissed my husband a million times in our fifteen years of marriage. The other
reason was the swift and intense flood of arousal that ripped through me. I felt my heartbeat between my legs as surely as it thrummed in my chest.

Two women kissing. I responded. What did that say about me?

I fled into the house. For the first time since the day Don left, I allowed myself an afternoon cocktail. I had settled my pulse and my emotions by the time the school bus arrived at three
twenty. But through dinner and homework and baths, the kiss played over and over again in my mind. It was vividly playing in my head as I fell asleep that night.

I knew I was looking for an excuse. I knew it deep down in myself where the truth lives and refuses to be stifled. I put it out of my head. Every time my desperate brain tried
to come up with a feasible reason to go visit Holly, I turned my attention elsewhere. School volunteering, chores, shopping, dealing with my lawyer. Anything to stop myself from confronting the
fact that I was infatuated with Holly. That I wanted Holly to settle her delicate lips the way she had done with her former girlfriend.

I was not a lesbian. Was I? Was it normal to become infatuated with another woman? Was it the stress of my divorce? Was it a latent tendency in my sexuality that I was unaware of? Or the worst,
for some reason, was it Holly? Was it simply Holly who triggered this reaction in me?

My excuse arose on its own, without machinations from me. I was in the backyard transplanting my irises that had chosen to rise up in my dark, garden soil in a staggered formation. I had planted
them years ago in a nice, orderly row. Each year they spread and each year their blooming was more chaotic. I was muttering to myself about garden soil and compost heaps when I heard Holly cry
out.

I hadn’t even realized that she had come out into the yard. When I heard her cry out a sizzle of fear shot through me. Was it the baby? It was way too early. She still had nearly two
months to go.