Whatever bound her wrists above her head, it was as soft as it was strong.
Possibly it was the same substance across her eyes, leaving her blind to her surroundings. Almost certainly, it was the same substance around her ankles, anchoring them to something on the cool hard floor so she was forced to stand with her bare feet the width of her shoulders apart.
The air was warm enough to team up with her heightened adrenaline and encourage her to sweat, but the humidity was low and she could feel it drying on her exposed skin—which was all of it. Every so often, a whisper of a breeze wrapped around her, tickling her impartially in places intimate and not. It brought no sounds with it, though. The silence around her wasn’t the vast and echoing sort, but softer, the silence of a private safe retreat from the world. Within it, she could hear the rapid thumping of her own heart.
She wasn’t alone. Without sight or sound, she knew that, even before the touch. A gloved hand, tracing the line of her jaw with a finger, the slow speed and light pressure as smooth as the leather, and she whimpered, turned her head in a futile attempt to catch that finger in her mouth. That finger strayed down along her side of her throat, opened into a palm at the level of her collarbone, and drew a path of hotly stimulated skin from there down over one breast, down over her belly and her hip. Ankles bound, there was no way she could press her legs together to fend off the hand as it ventured up her inner thigh, up to stroke her outer labia. She moaned, fighting the restraints madly, as that gloved finger probed more deeply, found the hot wellspring of the lubrication that was making exploration so easy…
And she woke up.
Kate blinked into the darkness. Well, such as it was. This was Magda’s apartment, and being what she was, Magda disliked the dark, so every spare outlet had a low-powered LED nightlight in it. Not that there was much to see, other than bare white living room ceiling, since she was lying on her back.
That might be because she had her hand down her panties, and two fingers between her labia.
Magda was still in bed, in her room, with a mostly-closed door between, and it was far enough from sunrise that there was little chance of interruption.
Although, she reflected, even if Magda caught her, her only response would probably be to ask whether she needed a few more minutes.
Her right hand still firmly in place, she used her left to shift the bedding around a bit, even though it was only a sheet and a lightweight blanket over her. She’d slept in less comfortable places than this couch.
The dream she’d been in… what had been happening?
Lazily, she let her fingers wander, thumb and index finger on one side and ring finger on the other parting her outer labia so she could tickle her sensitive inner folds with her middle finger, her palm cupped warmly over her mound.
She’d been helpless, she remembered that, restrained entirely naked in a position that left all of her exposed to the eye or touch of anyone who chose to take advantage of that. Being blindfolded had only added to the sense of vulnerability, though she couldn’t have done anything even had she been able to see a threat coming.
Yet, she had no memory of feeling afraid. At least, not afraid for her life. Certainly not afraid in any bad way. Apprehensive, though. And aroused, she remembered the heat between her legs, and how slippery everything had been while that hand was fondling her, how little friction.
There wasn’t much friction now, either. She stroked lightly with her middle finger, smearing lubrication up around her clit, taking her time about coating the entire area liberally. Skin-on-skin friction was counterproductive. And besides, it felt good. That little button of flesh that felt so amazing, that was after all just the tip of the iceberg, peeking out into the world. Nor was that single structure the sole source of sensation. The right touch in the right place at the right time, and the response wasn’t restricted to just a tiny localized exposed bundle of nerves. It vibrated through her entire vulva, she could feel internal muscles flex in response, and there was an abundance of lubrication available to get everything nice and slippery. That way, her fingers could just glide along the sensitive skin, unhindered. Such a perfect cyclical system.
Had she been there willingly? At least, within whatever passed for logic in dreams? Had she stripped off her own clothes, had there been someone watching, had she made a show of it? Or had she been bound, and her captor had removed her clothes afterwards, maybe even cutting them away? That didn’t necessarily mean she’d been unwillling. What happened in a dream didn’t have to reflect anything that had happened in reality, or for that matter, anything likely to happen in reality rather than in the secret depths of her daydreams.
Her own helplessness had felt delicious, giving everything a vivid intensity that reality always seemed to lack. She didn’t think it meant she was suppressing a desire to genuinely be raped or hurt, and she couldn’t think of anyone she’d trust enough that she’d willingly place herself in his hands so completely, but, well… fantasy. It was harmless to indulge herself with recalling the sensations and emotions, hard to define but lingering so powerfully even though the dream was over.
Harmless to fantasize that it wasn’t her own hand, gently teasing the hood of flesh over her clit, until her hips instinctively bucked upwards, part of her enjoying the pace but part of her impatient for something more direct.
Who had that hand belonged to?
Probably male, she could start with that. She couldn’t think of a woman, or for that matter anyone who didn’t fall neatly into a category, for whom she’d felt more than a passing moment of appreciation, although she couldn’t say it was impossible. Born on Darkside, not here on Brightside, she felt no particular need to define herself by an orientation label. Still, her experience suggested that she was generally more attracted to men, so that was a place to start.
Although the way that hand had touched her, so light and sure, unhurried and responsive, felt very different from that of any man she’d had any actual experience with. While she was certain that her own finite experience made for a poor sample size with inadequate diversity, it too often felt like anything other than actual penetration was treated like a lead-up to the main event. Even those she was sure genuinely wanted her to be satisfied as well seemed sure that, for her as well, it wasn’t just the ultimate goal, it was the only part that really mattered.
Maybe some part of her had fantasized a woman instead, one to touch her the way she touched herself. One to run a finger ever-so-gently along one side of her clit, then along the other, tantalizing the nerves over and around it. She felt her clit throb, and the pulsing echoed through the whole area. Muscles tensed in her thighs and buttocks and lower back, preparing to thrust upwards again, but she forced them to relax, and backed down a little, stroking the inner surfaces of her outer labia, fluttering over the opening of her urethra.
Human? Had it been a memory, not a dream, she’d have to say yes, but there were a handful of other possibilities Darkside, and therefore among bothsiders. She had no particular aversion to non-humans—Magda, who had been her best friend for as long as she could remember, was half luminal, and Kate got along very well with Magda’s large sprawling family that included a jumble of humans, luminals, and one semi-aquatic full hydran and her half-human children. Some would introduce complications to life, but that wasn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, not for the right person.
Not that anything about that dream had necessarily implied an ongoing relationship, only a moment of surrender. Maybe even within the dream she’d had no idea who it was touching her.
She circled her finger around the mouth of her vagina, smiling to herself at the warmth and wetness. Even if she couldn’t admit her deep dark fantasies to anyone else, even if by daylight she could tell the difference between what turned her on and what she really wanted to do, those images reached something below thought and made her body respond eagerly to the idea. All tied up, being touched and explored by someone who might be a stranger whose name and face she would never konw, or might be someone she’d see regularly afterwards with the knowledge that they’d done that. Which would be worse? Which was more arousing?
She slipped her middle finger inside, just a little, running it around the edge and opening herself to a further flow of slippery fluids. Meticulously, she spread them around, adding to the lubrication before it could get dry. Already swollen and stimulated, every millimeter of skin sang to her in response to the light touch, and she felt vaginal muscles pulse, felt tension farther forward. Her outer labia felt firm and tight under her fingers, and her clit felt engorged and hypersensitized to even the slightest contact. With a feather-light touch, she stroked the sides of it, feeling not the bit that was exposed but tracking the short ridge beneath. Not right on the crest, that was too sensitive and not pleasurable at all. But along the sides, with controlled pressure and speed… just like that.
Would her family be more horrified by a non-male lover, in violation of Brightside’s odd obsession with absolute gender roles and all that came with it, or a non-human one, in defiance of Darkside’s age-old taboo? Humans, who were all originally immigrants from Brightside, were often perceived as so much like luminals as to be considered a subspecies, but even that combination drew disapproval from a small minority. A relationship with a hydran or a tenebran or either type of shapeshifter, whether wolflike warg or spotted feline pard, would on Darkside be comparable to a highly visible same-sex relationship on Brightside.
She didn’t much care. She loved her family, but her life involved travelling to wherever the next job came up, and she saw them only irregularly. She wasn’t even always in the same world. She could, if necessary, put up with complaints over the holidays.
That was a moot point anyway. She had no current candidates of any gender or species, and little likelihood of having one turn up.
But fantasies, oh, those she had in abundance, and there were no strings attached, no deeper implications. What was unthinkable in real life could be exciting in a daydream.
Fingers still moving, she let her mind play with the echoes of the dream, building a situation out of it, a context, and then take it from there.
An outlaw, perhaps, called by some a highwayman, by others a freedom fighter and hero. One who usually took ready cash and valuables, or goods that could be sold swiftly and anonymously or that were of use to his people. Now and then, he took captives and held them for ransom. Most of what he gained went, Robin Hood-like, to the care of his people, as civilization encroached mercilessly into the ages-old hunting grounds of the nearest pard tribes, disrupting the migrations of hunters and prey alike. And if one such captive was her… pards and wargs both, she knew, were strongly oriented towards scent, and perhaps a pard who smelled arousal on a bound captive would begin to get… ideas. No matter how embarrassing the captive found it…
She pretended those weren’t her own fingers, rubbing along the sides of her clit with increasing speed and force. It was a pard outlaw, exploring everything between her legs, finding the copious lubrication and taking that—and her ragged breathing, the involuntary little sounds she made, the scent of the sweat drying on her skin—as encouragement to continue. His fingers, not hers, found how dilated she was, her body eager to welcome something inside. He took a moment to ease first one finger, then two, into her, as she whimpered and her back arched, her pelvis instinctively thrusting towards him.
Back towards her clit, but her other hand, no, his hand was moving, stroking her breasts and investigating the hard nipples, her belly and her thighs. Claiming every inch of her as his for him to do as he pleased, and bound as she was, she could do nothing except wriggle and moan and perhaps plead with him to stop. But how convincing could those pleas really be?
The finger against her clit moved more rapidly now, the pressure greater than before, no longer roaming around at random. As her breathing and her heartbeat both accelerated, she found exactly the right spot and the tip of her finger moved so swiftly it was nearly a vibration.
Pleasure climbed rapidly, centred on her finger and its actions but spreading out around it. She braced her feet, her knees raised and apart, aware of her own hips making small instinctive thrusts without conscious volition.
And as it crested, the white curl on top of a growing wave, she felt her breath catch in her throat, every muscle briefly tensing. Her pelvic muscles all spasmed, and her legs tightened, pushing against the surface of the couch below her. That wonderful, delicious feeling, pleasure that really had no proper equivalent in anything else, crashed down over her, and for just a few seconds, the rest of the world drowned in the flood.
As it faded, she relaxed. All the muscles that had clenched tight released completely. Her hand still cupping her mound, her fingers stopped spreading her labia without actually withdrawing. She stayed still, savouring the blissful languor that never lasted long enough.
She still had some time before Magda woke up and started getting ready for work. Eyes closed, she made no effort to move, just let herself wander around in the dream-inspired fantasy until she dozed off.
Continued in Brightside 2, in which Kate gets to meet some of her best friend Magda’s local friends, and life starts to get interesting fast.
