13. Arlene

THIRTEEN

Arlene

T ruthfully, I didn’t know how I managed to go to Claude. My knees felt as weak as they’d ever felt. What was walking, anyway? We might’ve just been less than two inches apart, but it seemed like more. Or maybe it was just the symbolism I hadn’t been ready for. This was just… something new we were trying out. I might not be a relationship guru, but no one had told me it would feel this way.

And when they praised me? I suddenly understood all the videos, and all the Xena fanfics I’d shamefully read underneath the covers while I was growing up. Back then, I hadn’t realized what a foundational experience that would be.

I didn’t have a lot of time to wander in my head, though. Claude’s hands were on me, gripping my waist over the corset—the one that had felt fine when Dylan tightened it, but all of a sudden now felt suffocating.

I needed out.

This time, the urgency settling in my belly was not a result of anxiety. I didn’t feel out of air because I was on the verge of a panic attack.

I did need to feel closer to Claude, though. I just hadn’t realized it was going to turn me into a live wire.

“Please,” I breathed out the word. The next thing I knew, their lips were on mine. I faltered backwards. They were guiding me to the bed in the middle of the room with so many details in red velvet that it made me regret I couldn’t do a transatlantic accent because it would totally fit the vibe. “Claude.”

“And I’m the impatient one.” They tutted playfully. “I think you should show me how you fuck yourself.”

“I should?” My lips parted, and my head tilted back.

I didn’t even know what they meant, or where the request had come from. I only knew there was little I’d say no to—and for most of those things, I felt safe in the knowledge that Claude wouldn’t ask them of me.

“You should.” Claude’s hands traced a line from my knees to my inner thighs, their fingers nimble and teasing, barely grazing the skin at times, and digging more purposefully at others. “You brought this upon yourself, really.”

I had?

“I did?”

Claude just hummed. There seemed to be a perpetual smirk etched on their face when it came to me. I liked it, in a strange turn of events. Or maybe it wasn’t so strange. I wouldn’t know, would I?

I didn’t even know what I was saying. Following trails of thoughts was hard when a fog seemed to cloud over everything.

“You’re the one who told me you enjoyed it, and I told you I was curious about it.”

For a few seconds, I just stood still. To be fair, I’d told them many things. It was a result of my general awkwardness and the fact that I completely lost my marbles around them. I supposed it was good to know they didn’t see the problem with it.

Oh .

Ooooh .

That could’ve clicked faster, sure.

My ass clenched. “You want me to…?”

“Yep.” Claude tilted their head to the side—as they did. The movement was becoming so intrinsically associated with them in my head, it spoke to how often I’d seen them do it in the last week alone. “Unless you aren’t comfortable?”

I swallowed. “I’m comfortable.”

I’d only played with my cunts in front of one other person before, but I was comfortable. It was just… nerve-wracking, as everything seemed to be lately.

“Where do you want me?”

“You can be there.” I cleared my throat. I had no idea how I was managing to push the words out—while sounding relatively sane, too. “Between my legs, I mean. Just, uh, if you can help me with the corset?”

A part of me was curious, felt hot all over, imagining fucking myself for Claude in the outfit. Another part wasn’t sure I could do it with the pressure in my abdomen. Maybe another day, when I was more… confident.

“Sure.” Claude shrugged. “Full disclaimer, though, I don’t know how these go.”

“It’s fine.” I snorted. “I don’t, either.”

“So… we’re fucked,” they said in their driest tone. “Fun.”

It was all teasing, though. Claude scooted so that I could stand on my knees on the bed and turn around. They might not be as quick with it as Dylan had been, but they didn’t flounder, either. I wasn’t sure I would’ve managed if the roles were reversed. Well, I would’ve done it, but it would’ve taken longer.

My chest expanded the second the pressure of the corset was out of the way. I liked the way the corset shaped my body, but I didn’t know how people managed to wear them on the regular. I’d rather stick to my dresses.

Claude was almost reverent as their fingers grabbed on the hem of it. They were only teasing, but my breath still caught. My body caught up before my brain did, too, lifting my hips up in the air for them.

Again, I was soon naked—well, almost, underwear notwithstanding—while Claude was fully clothed. Exposed, while they were a shielded fortress.

It was ridiculous, and made me a total simp, but it made me hot.

My cheeks heated as I let out a soft moan before I’d even touched myself—or Claude had.

“You really are horny all the time,” they said.

They were using my words from before. It was mean, I supposed, but it just had me writhing on the bed.

“You make me horny,” I protested.

I didn’t care if I wasn’t fully coherent, or if the tone of my words contradicted the urgency in my body.

“Get to work, then.” They winked, settling back until their ass met their ankles.

I nodded. I just needed a second, to close my eyes and breathe. This was fine. I wanted this—wanted much more than this. Claude wanted it, too. I knew they did, even though I couldn’t always tell how their want would manifest.

I trusted them to tell me, too, if I was getting it wrong somehow. If anyone was going to get something wrong, it would be me. That was just being realistic.

I unclasped my bra first. It was silly, but I always felt awkward playing with myself when I wasn’t completely naked. It felt more intimate, more meaningful, when there was nothing shielding me. I liked having my body looked at by a partner, too. There was something about it that elevated the experience for me.

Claude didn’t say anything, but there was a certain glint in their eyes. Approval. Or maybe I was projecting. I couldn’t say I quite cared. Whatever it was, it was still there when I pulled my matching undies out of the way.

I gently pressed a hand against my lower belly as I did so. I’d tucked before getting dressed, and there was a certain comfort in feeling the result of it.

“You said you’ve never seen someone muff themselves, right?” I remembered to ask.

It wasn’t relevant, and it didn’t change anything, but a part of me demanded to know, to confirm. That part rejoiced in the knowledge that I could be their first one, to give them one experience they hadn’t gotten from anyone else.

In a way, it felt like balancing the scales.

Claude shook their head. “I’ve just read about it.”

I nodded. “I know it’s different for other women, but for me, it’s mostly about comfort, and… gender euphoria, I guess. I think of my inguinal canals as my cunts, so it’s like… I’m fucking my cunt, because I have one.”

“That makes sense.” Claude nodded. Something crossed through their face, but it was too quick for me to catch it, and I was too stimulated by everything else going on to stop and analyze it. “Can you come just from it?”

“Yeah.” My hips lifted off the sheets in response. I’d try to act more rational and less like I was a touch starved nymph, but Claude would’ve said something already if they cared about such things. It would take too much effort, anyway. “Well, I come my way. Same as I get hard my way.”

“That’s hot,” Claude offered before doubt could seep in. “It’s just using your fingers, right?”

“I think some people train themselves for more, but… yeah.” I swallowed. I could hear my heart thumping against my ribcage. “I can’t do both at the same time, either. Well, I can, but it feels better to just focus on one.”

Claude wasn’t the first person I’d talked through something during sex. It felt like it, though. They were the first person who listened raptly, as if they had to absorb every piece of information. They weren’t missing a thing.

“You look so hot,” I breathed out the words, losing some of the self-awareness that sometimes kept me from saying them out loud.

Claude chuckled. “I do, huh?”

“Yeah.” I swallowed down the knot building in my throat. “I wanna fuck myself for you so bad. I want you so bad, too, and….”

I groaned.

My hand found the head of my clit, my fingers wrapping around it. I didn’t want to make myself come this fast, but the pressure kept building, and I didn’t know what else to do when every cell in my body was screaming for touch, and pleasure, and…. More.

I needed more.

“You can have me.” Claude’s words came out slow, calculated.

It made me frown, but it was hazy enough that I didn’t do or say anything. One second and some rustling later, their body was covering mine, not touching but almost. It sent a shiver down my spine. I struggled to meet their gaze, but I did regardless.

Their tongue teased my lips when I didn’t lean forward to meet them right away. I moaned. I didn’t have the words to call them off for being too impatient. Non-verbal sounds would have to do.

Claude just chuckled. But then they were kissing me, so it was okay.

The hand that wasn’t playing with my clit moved to their hip. I didn’t use pressure, but I still held them there. Claude sighed into the kiss, their lips ghosting over my mouth before darting down my jaw.

My neck.

My bare shoulders.

“I think there’s a bit of a pleasure Domm in me,” they murmured.

The term sounded mildly familiar. I didn’t care enough to ask at this very moment. Pleasure anything sounded good to me.

“Good,” I breathed.

“You’d think so, huh.”

I didn’t care that they were clearly teasing. I cared about the way they were quick to drive me wild with their mouth. That was about it.

“Didn’t you want me to…?”

“Right, because I’m the one who begged to get off track.” Claude smacked their lips together. “How do you feel about nipple clamps?”

I squirmed. “What’s that have to do with anything?”

Claude leaned back before they spoke. They were playing with me, I knew, but I’d never been good at squashing my reactions.

“I saw a few pairs in the drawers, and it just came to mind because I was face to face with your tits,” they said easily.

I blinked. Sure, that was the most natural thing to tell someone.

“I could try, I guess.” I imagined there was pain involved, which made me shrink back, but I did like some roughness when I played with my nipples. “It’s a maybe.”

“I can work with that.”

Silence settled between us after that, only the sound of my hands against my skin and our breaths filling the room. There was eroticism in the talking, but there was another kind of erotic charge in the air when there were no words.

There were no distractions. Just skin, and sweat, and the musky scent of sex.

My finger trailed down easily to find the spot my skin opened up after tucking. It wasn’t visible, mostly a feeling. I remembered the first time I’d tried it after reading a fanzine about it. I’d never felt clumsier in my life. Now, fucking myself this way came as natural as breathing.

My body stiffened for a second when the tip of my finger breached in. I paused, rejoicing in it, before I let out a deep breath. My eyelids partly shut, I felt as my body sank into the sheets before I kept going. I liked it more when I was slow, when I could savor every nerve sensationas I rubbed the inner walls gently.

“Fuck.” Claude broke the silence. It didn’t matter. “You’re getting so wet.”

Igrunted. I liked that they adapted to my language so easily, without the need for big discussions about it.

“Yeah.” I bit on my lip until the pressure helped me think clearer. “Feels so good.”

It felt better when Claude was there, too, their fingers teasing my nipples. I stiffened, only for a second.

“Need more,” I breathed.

I tried to make eye contact, but I wasn’t sure I succeeded. Sometimes, fucking myself provided comfort, and warmth. Other times, it amped up everything and made me ten times needier for everything.

“What do you need?”

When they asked like that, it wasn’t just a question. It was a command. I knew it, deep in my gut. My toes curled.

“I don’t care, just… something. Nipple clamps, your mouth, a dildo, whatever. I’ll take it.”

I’d be so good at taking it, too—anything they needed or wanted from me.

I got that desperate. It wouldn’t be long until I was blubbering all of that out loud, either. For now, though, I was too focused on the way the mattress dipped with their weight. “Hang on a second,” they said.

The irrational part of me wanted to complain. The most rational part of me knew it made sense that they needed to move to grab at least one—or two, I wouldn’t complain—of the two toys I’d mentioned.

“The dildos here are all larger than I like,” they admitted, “but there’s a smaller set of clamps I’d like you to try.”

“Okay.”

I’d just been thinking about how intimidating those sounded. Not anymore. I trusted Claude, as wild and irrational as it could be. Besides, they’d just said it was a smaller set, and they knew I had no experience with it.

“I actually enjoy nipple clamps,” they spoke as they rummaged through another drawer. What they were doing only clicked when I spotted them covering the silicone clamps with smaller, finger-sized condoms. “They make me burn all over in the best way.”

I’d remember that for another time.

Probably.

The bed dipped again under Claude’s weight. They settled next to me, close but not as close as I shamefully wanted them.

“Just let me know if you want them gone, no safe word needed.”

“Did we have a safe word?”

The other day, we didn’t talk about safe words. After my research, I’d worried about it, and I texted them. They hadn’t answered for hours because they’d been shadowing another coworker or something for a meeting that never ended, which had been incredibly nerve-wracking. But then they’d said that we could talk safe words if we ever started playing heavier, but just asking to stop would be enough.

I agreed with them.

Yet…

Something about the way my brain was drowning in everything Claude felt like we’d hit that heavier play. I didn’t dare to say whether or not it was subspace, but it was definitely new and unexplored, and overwhelming in a titivating way.

“Red, yellow, green?” Claude suggested.

Maybe they also felt the turn I’d taken.

“Yeah.”

That was easy. I’d read about it, too.

“Good girl,” Claude drawled out the words. Their fingers teased my tits, circling and squeezing my nipples as they trailed there. I dug my heels into the mattress as my neck arched. “Breathe for me.”

It was hard, even before they’d done anything. I still pulled air in, though, still focused on their words even when there was too much to focus on as it was.

The silicone ends wrapped around my nipples soon after.

“I’m not going to tighten them too much this time.” Claude hovered over me, lips ghosting over my skin. “But just keep in mind, taking them off is gonna feel at least ten times more intense than what I do to you now.”

My mouth dried up. Claude’s words should have instilled fear, but they just made me hornier. Needier.

I watched, transfixed, as they tinkered with the tiny wheel on each side. The pressure was there, but it was not what I was expecting. It felt like having my nipples squeezed by my fingers. It was nice.

Then again, their words were playing on loop in my head. At least ten times more intense. Trepidation filled me as I found myself unable to look away. The tiny nubs pounded against the tight hold.

“How does it feel?”

I grunted. “Good.”

I couldn’t give them more than a one-word answer. It was a good thing they didn’t seem to be looking for more than that.

“I’m glad,” they teased. “Can you take your finger out of that needy hole of yours?”

“Why?” Did I whine? Maybe.

I didn’t know what to focus on, or why I should do it.

“Because you wanted me to suck you, and I’m not sure you can handle three things at once, gorgeous.”

I panted.

I wanted to protest, but Claude was probably right. “I want to.”

“I know,” they said. Their tone was soothing. It had the same effect as the back of their fingers trailing down my side. “We can talk about training you for it another day.”

Shit.

“Don’t say that,” I pleaded.

I wanted to last. Picturing those scenarios did not help stave off the building pleasure.

Their laughter didn’t help, either.

“So you don’t want to be the perfect slut for me?” Claude taunted as I pulled my finger out.

As with every hole, it always felt strange when it was suddenly empty. Some days, the emptiness pulled me into a mourning mood of sorts. Today, there was no time to mourn. Claude didn’t take any prisoners, didn’t tease around it. They just lapped at my clit until I had to focus hard on not thrusting my hips up into the air.

I didn’t notice right away, but I did when a sharpness like I hadn’t felt before pulled my focus back. Almost out of breath, I looked to see that they’d wrapped a finger around the chain connecting the two clamps together. Their eyes screamed wickedness when they stared up at me, giving a smaller, teasing tug.

“Again,” I breathed out the word—for reasons unbeknownst to me.

I thought pain would greet me, but it wasn’t quite pain. It was… fire, coursing up my veins and spreading throughout my entire body.

“Claude,” I warned. I didn’t know that I was going to last a lot more.

“You can let go with me,” they hummed, barely stopping the ministrations to my clit.

Their lips wrapped around the head, though, their cheeks hollowed out.

I felt that orgasm run through my entire body. I didn’t know what made me pass out—the orgasm itself, or Claude choosing that time to take off the clamps from my nipples.

Nothing had ever hurt so sharply, so physically. Yet, no pain had ever left such a feeling afterwards—a need to rejoice in it, to chase more of it.