Chapter 36: Confessions...

"There's the other thing," Onyx said finally.

Molly twisted around to get face to face, taking Onyx's hands and looking at her directly in the eyes. Her voice was firm and assertive as well as reassuring. "I love you. I trust you. You would never do anything to hurt me, and I know it. Tell me everything."

"He's... he's really great, Molly," Onyx admitted. "This wasn't just casual sex. I don't think he can do that. Not with me, anyway."

"Yeah? You gonna leave me for him?"

"No!" Onyx burst. It was not too quick, nor too much. She looked at Molly pleadingly. "I love you so much, and if you say you never want me to see him again I'll totally—"

"I love you, too," Molly smiled. "Okay, then. So we're still lovers? Still a couple?"

"Yes. Always."

Molly shrugged. "Then don't hold anything back. Tell me."

Her lips quivered. She wasn't sure how to say this. "It was amazing."

"Scale of one to ten?"

Onyx hesitated, but finally ventured a movie reference: "His goes up to eleven."

Molly's eyebrows arched. "That good, huh? I've got a rival?"

"You can both do things the other can't," Onyx explained. "But he just... God, we went on and on and it was so incredible. He was so good to me. He was overwhelming but at the same time he was so nice. I didn't... I'm not saying I didn't want to be with you, but I kinda didn't want to leave, either. If it wasn't for that woman, I don't know when I would've come home. I would've, but probably not so soon."

Molly laughed a little. "You had my permission. If it turns out that all this is okay, I'm fine with you seeing him again."

"You are? I just... it feels wrong to be so intimate with someone else."

"Why?"

"Because I'm in love with you!"

"And that's not going to change," Molly said solemnly. "I can't put into words how sure I am of us. That's why I have to let you have your freedom." Molly rose up on her knees, coming closer to Onyx and kissing her softly and deeply. Onyx whimpered, running her hands through Molly's short red hair before clutching at her body and pulling her close.

Molly took the towel off Onyx's shoulders and held it behind her. She pushed Onyx backward to lay her out on the floor beneath them. There was only wet concrete there, but all the candles had made the room very warm and they often enjoyed playing in less than comfortable spots. The two had developed an affectionate habit of expressing their intimacy almost anytime and anywhere.

"I'm glad you had a good time," Molly said. "I'm glad you may have made a new friend. I'm even a little jealous now."

"I don't want you to be jealous," Onyx said in a soft voice. "I'll stop if it makes you jealous. I don't want anything to ever come between us."

"I didn't say I was jealous over you," Molly winked. She crept downward over Onyx's now very vulnerable body. Molly trailed soft kisses down her chest, shifting directions momentarily to make sure she kissed and momentarily sucked each hardened nipple. As her mouth moved lower and lower against Onyx's body, Molly's hands trailed behind, her arms stretched out as she drug her fingernails lightly down Onyx's flesh.

"Ooooh," Onyx breathed, "you're really going to do this now?" She reached out, fumbling around until she found the pile of her clothes in the corner. It was a rhetorical question, after all. Onyx was going to need a makeshift pillow, which she was busily preparing right now whilst the rest of her body was offered up to her partner. She could no more turn away from this reassurance on an emotional level than she could deny that she was, even a couple of hours later, still sexually revved up by her afternoon.

"I totally am," Molly said wickedly. "I think we both need a very physical affirmation of our love right now."

"You're not even undressed," Onyx observed softly. She inhaled sharply, trembling as Molly's kisses hovered around her pussy.

"I know. This'll be really one-sided. See how devoted I am to you?" Molly winked.

"Molly," she whispered, "we weren't using condoms."

"Magic birth control rocks, doesn't it?"

"What I mean is that I haven't done very much to oh! Molly! Mmmhh!" Onyx wasn't always very vocal, but Molly could draw it out of her. Moves like this sudden invasion by her tongue could set Onyx off. She was, for a moment, very conscious of the slightly open window, but the continuing attention from her lover's tongue made clear that they were simply going to risk a little potential embarrassment. It wasn't like the neighbors didn't make all sorts of strange and awkward noises of their own sometimes.

"I can taste as much," Molly taunted her with a smile. She probed Onyx again, curling her tongue back as it withdrew and giving Onyx a shiver of delight. "Wow. I can taste a lot. He really gave it to you, didn't he?"

"Yeah... I think maybe it was... maybe that was a little unnatural, too..."

"No kidding."

"You don't have to... Molly, I didn't expect..."

"Onyx. I love you more than anything else in the world. Now shut up and let me be kinky." With that she invaded Onyx again.

Onyx's eyes crossed, then fluttered closed. For all the potential worries and dangers and this new supernatural wrinkle in their lives that could potentially go far beyond their knowledge or capabilities, there was still this. They were going to stay here until Onyx had cum at least once, and then they were probably going to wind up either in bed or in the shower or both for awhile before they did anything else. It was very obviously going to be another one of those weekends.

There would be another cleansing ritual later that night, out where the water met the land. There would also be a heartfelt ritual of thanks for all that the universe had given Onyx in this accepting, nurturing, devastatingly sexy redheaded lover.

*************

"I can't believe how lucky I am," Alex said. His hand brushed through Lorelei's hair as he stared into her eyes. They lay side by side, still intertwined and in coitus on his bed. Onyx had only been gone for a short while. The scent of her hair conditioner lingered on the pillows. The room was growing a bit dim now as the sun was just beginning to set.

"You have gone to great lengths to earn this luck," Lorelei replied, but Alex shook his head.

"Not like this. People go their whole lives doing good deeds and risking their lives and they get nothing for it. Bad things happen to good people all the time."

"Bad things have already happened to you, Alex." She traced the scar on his chest. "Bad things may yet happen again. I would posit, however, that you have a habit of paying forward for your fortunes."

"I've been in danger a little bit this week. I got shot but immediately healed. I faced what was apparently a tiny demon and I only came out on top because my friends bailed me out."

"Alex. You do not understand the magnitude of all that you have done. Another person may have done the same, yes, but that isn't for you to worry about. I guarantee you that most people would turn away and choose easier paths than you do when faced with such decisions, and some with good reasons of their own that have little to do with courage." She let that sink in for a moment, and then asked, "Do you regret your fortune?"

"No. Of course not. I'm just... I don't know what I'm saying. Maybe that I'm afraid I'll start to take it for granted. Maybe I'm afraid I'll get a huge selfish ego. Or maybe I'm just trying to say that I'm really grateful."

"I can feel your gratitude," Lorelei grinned. She added, more seriously, "It is that gratitude and that humility that make me so comfortable with the way things are, Alex. It is difficult to explain without revealing things that mortals must not know." He frowned thoughtfully, searching for words, but Lorelei put a finger over his lips. "Do you think for a moment that Onyx felt anything while she was with you but excitement, comfort and joy? Or Taylor? Audrey? Or myself? Did you ever for a moment disregard the wants or needs of your partner? Feel less than grateful for your time with one of them? With me?"

"I know what I am to the eyes of men. Men and women have abandoned everything they have, even their lives and honor and souls to slake their lusts and possess me. Yet here I am, completely within your power. I have no recourse should you take a firm hand with me, and what has dominated your thoughts in every moment with me?" Her eyes seemed to sparkle, and her smile was undiminished. "'How can I make this up to her? How can I make her happy?' Those are not the thoughts of a petty or selfish person, Alex."

"How do I make you happy?"

"You see?" Lorelei chuckled, and then kissed him lightly. "You already do, Alex."

"Yeah, I know, you've said," he nodded softly. "But still. I'm asking."

"Embrace what we are together. You are the master. I am the slave. You are a wonderful master. It's thrilling. But even after all this, I know it still bothers you. You still feel guilt and hesitation and try to convince yourself that it's all just play... but it is not, master. You need make no compromise to make me happy, because I ask for none. You already offer every condition I might ever want or need for my own happiness."

"Don't you want to be free? Even if I can't give you real freedom, wouldn't you want as much as you could have?"

"That's complicated. I wanted my freedom when we first bonded, yes. I have always wanted my freedom. But I was created to respond sexually to my master. That would in turn evoke self-loathing. This part of my nature was used to punish and humiliate me by beings so awful..." she shook her head. "It's not worth talking about. Even Hell's pleasures are often cruel. But that was them, and then there is you, Alex. You don't treat me like they would. If we live ten thousand years together, you never will.

"The one aspect of myself that I hated the most is now at the core of the best part of my life, and that is you. And that natural response is only heightened by the ritual that binds us. I'm a hedonist by creation, after all. If it feels good, I want more. Being yours feels indescribably good. The more you embrace it, the better it feels for both of us. You have tested the waters and found them welcoming. Why do you not dive in?"

"I don't know if I can accept that," Alex said. "Now more than ever."

"Why not?"

"Because when we first met I felt like... well, it was wrong. I'd still say slavery is wrong. But now I just don't know if I can even play at it in jest."

"It's different now. You know this. There is consent here. Informed consent, even in the face of the bond that was forced upon us. We both know that being the master thrills you. We both know this is fundamental to what I am. But what was crushingly awful for me is now wonderful. We need only take it as far as we are both comfortable, and we will still be friends and more."

"I'm not asking you to push me around or abuse me. It's entirely up to you because you're the master. That has been true since we met, and we have only become closer and more comfortable together. So what else has changed?"

"I love you, Lorelei."

It hung there, in the few inches between their faces as they lay intertwined, as if he had changed her entire world yet again.

"You don't have to say anything you don't feel," Alex said. "I don't want you to. I need you not to, really. But I just need you to know. I've fallen in love with you, Lorelei."

"I felt this, tied into your desires," she murmured, plainly awestruck. "But I did not dare give it that name. I didn't know if that's what it was."

"That's what it is. I love you."

He moved one hand to wipe away the tear that formed in her eye as she stared at him, completely overwhelmed. He wasn't sure what else to say, so he remained quiet and just looked back at her. The room got darker and darker as the last rays of the sun fell away.

"I love you, Alex," Lorelei whispered finally.

"That isn't the bond talking?" He didn't want to belittle her feelings, but he had to be honest. He needed it from her as well. "Could you feel that because of... because you're supposed to?"

"No." Her voice wavered. He had never seen her look so vulnerable, nor had he ever imagined he would. "The spell and its caster knew nothing of love. He wanted to dominate and humiliate in the ugliest of ways, like every master before him... nothing like you," she added, not forgetting the subject that brought them to this.

"It's me," Lorelei assured him quietly. "I have been afraid to use the word. I didn't know that one such as I could feel it, but I am sure now. I love you, Alex."

They held one another tightly, lying joined together in his bed. There was a tear of his own. Though his voice held steady, she wasn't the only vulnerable one. The room had grown dark.

"That's what's different," he explained. "You can't have friendship or love without respect. Without equality. Not really. I want to do everything I can to make you happy, but... I don't want to turn into a monster on you. I'm afraid of what might happen if we go down that road. I love you. I love you so much. That's why I don't think we can be master and slave."

"Oh, my love," Lorelei smiled against his neck, laughing a little at how good it felt to say. "I am more assured than ever that we can be that, too. We can have it all."