Phoenyx: Flesh & Fire (18 page)

“Yes, Mrs. Groenenberg.”

She buttoned up her blouse and adjusted things. “I want to explore you too, of course. And if I like what I see, I may take something off next month’s rent.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Groenenberg.”

“Breathe a word of this to anyone, of course, and I’ll dump you out in the street as quick as blinking, you filthy cunt.” Her palm caught me across the cheek and slapped my head to the side. I nearly cried out, or objected, when I saw the smirk worming its way across her lips. It was all part of a game, I guessed – a game that only she knew the rules to, and which I would learn only by doing the wrong thing and being punished for it.

And it was only then that I realized what she had meant by her vocal overture at the start: she had already
seen me
at the Klub, perched somewhere out of sight at the back end of the bar, staring with goggle-eyed lust and envy at my naked swinging curves while clutching a gin in her trembling clammy hand; her thighs squeezed together beneath her skirt as she imagined my face buried there and my copper hair flowing across her lap.

She gripped my chin and pulled my face back around. “Do you understand, harlot?”

“Yes, Mrs. Groenenberg.” I blinked and a hot tear dropped out from under my eyelid. She seemed to like that, for she turned and stomped off with a haughty, proud walk, more pronounced than her usual impatient scuffling. Her backside swung under the tight pencil skirt with a great deal more animation than I had ever seen displayed before. And as if she was aware of the fact that I was watching her, a hand slid down the side of her thigh, came up back over her ass, and she gave her whole bottom a knowing little shimmy as she came to a halt at the end of the corridor. The door opened, then closed again, and I continued to kneel there, blinking, wondering what I’d just let myself in for.

If she was hoping for this to be a regular thing, would she even allow me my trip to Tokyo? Would I end up blackmailed, a virtual slave to her whims of repressed desire?

I could only imagine that Mr. Groenenberg didn’t know anything about this. If he was even still around.

“Perhaps she murdered him,” Honey chuckled over her coffee the next morning. “I’m serious about it, though – I still wouldn’t mind a three-way with her. These bourgeois middle-class types are all the same. Strict and tight-laced, until you spread them out on a bed and shove two fingers up their ass – and then they turn into the biggest sluts on the planet, as if all those years of pent-up frustration just get rolled back at once.”

I’d decided to share the shock of the previous night with her as we sat in the
Café
Cream
, not far from Rosenfestplatz. In typical Honey style, she had pressed me for the more explicit and intimate details of it all, things I didn’t even like to say out loud in a public place in case we got overheard and mistaken for prostitutes.

“Well,” I said, “I still think she’s crazy.”

“I think it’s kind of cool. And if she’s hot for you, babe, then she ain’t crazy. She might even be a dominatrix at heart. If you’re into that, you could be into a real good thing. It’s all about needs, really. Isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” I groaned. “It’s all too much. Like I’m walking on eggshells now, in case she throws me out in the street.”

“And like I said, you silly big bitch, there’s always space at mine.”

“Thanks so much, Honey. I know that, but I can’t stay at yours forever. Can I?”

She just looked at me. “Why not?”

I froze, as it only then occurred to me what she was hinting at. “Well, I-I’d be in your way. All of the time.”

“And you’d be in my way too, dear. But isn’t that the point? When you find someone you really like, you try to stay with them?”

I could feel my cheeks starting to burn. “I guess so,” I stammered. “I’d never really thought of it like that. You, and me, that is. I mean – um – sorry, I’m not explaining this well.”

She reached over and grabbed my now-trembling hand, sandwiching it between hers.

“Yeah, babe. I know. You were brought up to believe that two women – or even one-and-a-half women – shouldn’t live together like that. Or two men, or whatever. Well, society is gonna have to get its head out of its big fat repressed ass, because there’s a lot more people like me around than you think. And we’re not all gonna stay hiding in cupboards for ever. There’s a lot more to love than boy meets girl, y’know, and no other human being on this planet has the right to tell another who, or how, they should love, since it’s nobody else’s business. And I think you are smart enough to know, Phoenyx: if you care for someone, tell them. The worst way to live is to live with regret, and guilt. That’s no kind of life at all. Even your dirty bloody landlady has told you how she really feels about you, finally – oh, that was no surprise. I saw it in her eyes when I was there, the way she looked at you. And the way her eyes shot evil daggers at
me
.”

I had only really been half-listening to Honey’s speech. My pulse was hammering in my neck and in my head, my body racked with strange and alien fears. She dug around inside her shoulder bag and slid an envelope across the table to me.

“There – your ticket for Tokyo. We leave in ten days’ time. I really want you there with me.”

“I want to be with you too, Honey.”

“Then be with me. What’s the worst that can happen? Old Groaningbug kicks you out, and you end up in my bed. Suddenly, no rent worries, and you won’t have to fear getting raped every time you walk outside after sundown. I know you like your own space. You’re trying to make your own way, and that’s fab. I’m not going to push you into anything. But just go with the flow. If it feels right – it probably
is
all right. That’s what I always say. Guilt is for priests, and criminals.”

Put like that, I realized how petty and silly my fears were. But there was something deeper behind it all – something about
me
, my real and true nature, which I was still in the process of finding out about.

I hoped, deep down, that I was just like Olivia – capable of loving everyone and anyone, and that this wasn’t just some stupid crush that I’d wake up one day and find I had grown out of. I figured that my trip with Honey would either kill or cure my worries over how I felt about her.

I took the envelope and pressed her hand to my lips.

“Thanks,” I said. “You’re so sweet. I’m so glad I have you.”

“That goes double for me, babe. But, you know – if old Groaningbug gives you a better offer, I won’t be upset.” Her mouth twisted in that wonderful ironic way of hers. “So long as I get to watch, anyway.”

Honey had things to do and we split after breakfast, leaving me to get on with my own business. She had given me a list of tasks I needed to do with little explanations against each one, and I was slowly but surely working my way through them all. The passport was the biggest thing and that had already been dealt with. I spent a couple of hours in the nearest library that afternoon, looking through Japanese phrase books and copying out the phonetic translations, just so that I could get some kind of grip on the language – as nightmarishly impossible as it looked. I had been good at learning English at school. French bored me, and I had forgotten most of that anyway, and Honey’s first language wasn’t German, meaning that we both got to practice each other’s languages regularly.

I went back home, hungry and feeling that I’d stuffed as much into my head for one day as was possible. It was time to relax with the radio and my own thoughts and dreams of what lay ahead at the other side of the world.

I’d no sooner finished feeding myself and put the dinner things in the sink, when a loud knock from the door interrupted some old Abba hit single. It was that familiar, stern knock which I was becoming used to now, and that could mean only one person.

I dried my hands and worriedly adjusted my hair, making myself look as respectable as I could. I opened the door and it was indeed Mrs. Groenenberg in a dark overcoat, looking at me expectantly.

“Are you alone?” she asked, getting straight to the point.

I nodded. “Just me and the cat.”

I stepped aside obediently to allow her access, and closed the door behind her. She pulled the clips out of her hair and shook it all down, showering me with the fragrance of the same shampoo I used. She locked her hand around my chin and pushed me into the hallway wall, following up with her mouth as she sucked my lips and stole my breath away.

“My husband suspects I’m doing something I shouldn’t be,” she told me in a whisper. “He probably assumes another man, but he’d die if he knew the truth. And that makes me feel very excited.”

She stepped back and untied the belt of her overcoat. She pulled it open and slid it off her shoulders, showing a black leather corset and stockings, no bra, and again, no panties. I didn’t have time to gasp. She whipped a riding crop out from her coat and slapped it underneath my chin.

“Strip off,” she snapped.

I opened up my bathrobe, dropped it to the floor, and stood there naked, arms at my sides as she stepped back to admire the sight. She cracked the crop across my tits, making me flinch. I almost cried out but I held my lip between my teeth, unwilling to upset or annoy her. That twisted the side of her mouth into a little corkscrew smile. The crop tickled me around the nipples, then traced the line down my belly to my pubes, over my mound and in between my thighs. It slapped against my flesh, then slid up between my ass cheeks.

“Turn around.”

I did so, waiting for the crop to land across my bare ass.

I waited longer, wondering what she was doing, not even daring to look behind me.

Then I felt the leather lifting up the back of my hair, playing between my shoulder blades, and down my spine.

“Get on your hands and knees,” she told me. The crop dropped down and slapped me on the hip. I went down and did as I was told. “Now crawl to the bedroom.”

I started to move off as instructed, slowly, carefully, fearing that I’d scrape my knees.

“Faster, you lazy cunt!” she snapped, and I flinched as the crop lashed me across the ass, the hard crack that I’d been expecting all this time. I hurried up, scrubbing my knees over the carpet and risking damage from the old nails which stuck up from the threshold of the bedroom where the carpets didn’t quite meet properly. I dragged myself onto the bedroom rug as Groenenberg stomped through the doorway. I risked a glance over my shoulder as she swung towards me.

“Stay there.”

I did just that, almost afraid to move now. This was raising the stakes in our game just a little too much for my liking, and I hoped I wouldn’t stray over the new boundaries. She strode past me, shaking her full curvy ass as she went, and dragged the basket chair away from the window.

She sat on it facing me and opened her legs wide, showing me her mottled pink pussy lips and expectant hole, already glistening and pouting. I had to admit it, she looked good for a woman of her age, and I did have to wonder why she wasn’t still getting as much action from Mr. G as she deserved.

She raised a leg and planted a black stiletto shoe into my shoulder.

“Lick my heel,” she commanded.

I twisted my head and tried to get my tongue around her heel. It was awkward, but I just about managed it. I slid it all the way up and when I glanced upwards, I saw her working her fingers deep inside her pussy, gleaming with her juices. I kept on licking as I heard her fingers slither and slurp inside her.

“That looks fine,” she whispered. “Now, the other one.”

She stamped the other heel into me, and I got to work on that too. She was cleverly holding me in place, forcing me to obey while her masturbating hand got more and more frantic. I licked at her harder while she groaned and growled, squeezing her free hand up inside her ass.

Then she came, shooting warm jets of cum all over my face. Her juices hit my tongue and ran off my chin as I kept going, teasing her fine thin stiletto as though it were a rigid cock.

Her spasms continued and then faded to a halt. “Very nice,” she sighed. She reached out and grabbed a fistful of my hair. “Did you enjoy that?”

“Yes, Mrs. Groenenberg. I love your heels.”

She slapped her vagina and urged a final trickle out of herself.

“And I love your tongue, slut.” She lowered her heels to the floor and wiggled her hips forwards, pushing her glistening labia and puckered asshole closer to me.

“Lap up my juices,” she commanded. The crop slapped onto my shoulder. “Deep and slow. The way you know I love it.”

I crept forward and buried my face in there, inhaling her perfume which could not disguise the dirty, earthy taste of lust. The crop flicked my hair away and I set my tongue between her labia, teasing her, making her moan again.

She switched the crop over my shoulders and back, nipping me, as I squeezed my face deep into her greedy, slobbering pussy. I kept on probing my tongue into her when suddenly she grabbed me by the hair and pulled my face up.

She looked down, smiling at me with heavily-lowered lids.

“Hm, I just wanted to see your mouth covered in my cum, you slut,” she said. “Lick your lips.”

I did, slowly, running the tip of my tongue along my top lip, keeping eye contact with her throughout.

She stood up slowly from the chair and dragged me up with her. Hands on her hips, she stepped back and looked at me again; flushed and red, lips moist. I anxiously awaited her next move.

Her crop smacked into my inner thigh.

“Legs apart, whore. Play with yourself. Show me how cheap and dirty you are.”

I did so, peeling back my lips to let my fluids pitter-patter out of me.

Then her hand cracked me across the cheek, almost knocking me sideways.

“Harder than that, you repressed little bitch. I want a real
orgasm
from a real woman, not a couple of drips from a frigid runt of the litter. Get on with it.”

The crop snaked around my hip to land, expertly-placed, in the centre of my ass, burning a spot of anger into my flesh. This nasty older woman was taking me places I never even knew existed, confusing pain and pleasure in my mind in such a strange dark fusion that I didn’t know whether I should feel scared or liberated. Her words were cruel and sharp yet I did not feel them; perhaps because I knew it was all part of her game, or perhaps because they meant nothing to anyone other than her, and it was just another thing to turn her on. And the more she did it, the more I felt it might just be helping to turn
me
on, too.