Tina sat cross-legged on Shane’s beat-up sectional, nursing a beer she hadn’t actually drunk from in twenty minutes. The bottle had gone warm and slick in her palm, condensation pooling between her fingers the way she’d been pooling between her thighs for seven straight days now, every time her brain decided to replay that night in excruciating, full-color detail.

Alice was sprawled in the armchair across from her, one leg slung over the armrest, grinning like she’d personally orchestrated the second coming. Shane sat on the floor, back against the couch, rolling a joint with the kind of focused precision she usually reserved for seducing straight girls at the Abbey.

”So,” Alice said, drawing the word out like taffy. ”You gonna tell us, or do we have to waterboard it out of you?”

Tina’s face went hot. ”Tell you what?”

”Oh, please.” Alice sat up, eyes gleaming. ”You’ve been walking around like someone rewired your nervous system. You nearly walked into a door at The Planet yesterday. Twice. And you keep doing this thing…” she gestured vaguely at Tina’s body, ”…where you zone out mid-sentence and your whole face goes pink.”

Shane lit the joint, drew in a slow drag, and passed it to Alice without taking her eyes off Tina. ”She’s right. You look like you got hit by a truck,” she said, exhaling with a cough. ”A really good truck.”

Tina groaned and dropped her face into her hands. ”I don’t… I can’t…”

”Oh my god, just say it,” Alice said, voice pitched high with glee. ”Say, ’Alice, you were right, Mistress Bette Porter fucked me so good I forgot my own name.’”

”Alice–”

”Say it!”

”Fine!” Tina’s head snapped up, cheeks blazing. ”Fine. You were right. Is that what you want to hear? You were right, and I haven’t been able to think about anything else for a week, and I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do with that.”

The room went quiet except for the hiss of the joint and the distant thrum of traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Shane exhaled a plume of smoke and studied Tina with those sharp, knowing eyes. ”So it was good.”

Tina laughed, the sound jagged and a little unhinged. ”Good? Shane, I…” She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. ”I didn’t know my body could do that. I didn’t know I could feel like that. She…” Her voice cracked. ”She made me come like a million times. A million. And by the end I was begging her to stop and begging her not to stop at the same time, and she just… she knew exactly what I needed before I did.”

Tina’s wrists flexed against the silk-lined cuffs, not tight enough to hurt, but enough to remind her she wasn’t going anywhere. 

So she just stood there.. exposed, waiting, her breath coming in shallow sips while Bette circled her like a predator deciding where to strike first.

Then she stopped. 

Directly behind her, close enough that Tina could feel the heat radiating from her suit-clad body.

The touch was light but unexpected.. a single finger trailing from the nape of her neck to her tailbone. Tina arched involuntarily, a moan slipping free.

“Shhh,” Bette’s voice was a low rumble against her ear. “No sounds unless I ask for them. Can you be quiet for me, Tina?”

Tina nodded, biting her lip.

“Good girl.” The words settled over her, pulling everything inside her tight. “Because I really don’t want to have to punish you. Not this early.” 

Bette’s hand flattened against her lower back, guiding her forward toward the table. Tina’s legs obeyed before her mind could catch—

”Up,” Bette commanded, releasing the cuffs.

Tina rose at once, palms and knees pressing into the cool, yielding leather. She crawled forward with a fluid, animal grace that surprised even her.

“Stop.” 

Tina froze, mid-crawl, breath snaring in her throat. Cool air kissed her naked cunt. A thick drop of arousal slipped free, tracing a slow, molten path down the quivering insides of her thighs. 

Vulnerability shivered through her, but she didn’t move. She held the position for her mistress.

Bette wanted to savor this.. to discover exactly how much Tina could withstand before she broke into something breathtaking. She circled the table with agonizing slowness, counter-clockwise, her heels clicking like a merciless metronome in the silence.

“Relax.” Bette’s voice was barely a whisper as she paused beside her. “Now on your back.”

Tina did as she was told, gasping as the chill of the table bit into her shoulder blades, her body bowed reflexively, a fleeting curve that lifted her breasts toward the dim light. The cold was a shock, but it melted fast against her heated skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Her thighs parted wider without thought, what an offering, Bette thought. 

“Well done,” Bette murmured, letting the praise drip like warm honey. 

Without breaking eye contact, she produced a long midnight-blue silk scarf from her pocket. She walked to the head of the table, leaned over, and gathered Tina’s wrists, binding them above her head to chains attached to a ring underneath the table.

Tina Kennard had not slept with anyone in fourteen months, three weeks, and five days.

She knew because she’d marked the last disappointing encounter on her kitchen calendar with a tiny red X, the same way she used to mark ovulation days when she still pretended she wanted a baby with Eric.

The X had become a tombstone.

Now it was just another Friday night, and she was sitting on Alice’s overstuffed couch in Silver Lake, barefoot, wineglass trembling against her bottom lip while Alice scrolled through her phone with the enthusiasm of a woman who had never once in her life been disappointed by sex.

“You need to get laid, T,” Alice said, not looking up. “Like, professionally laid.”

“I’m fine,” Tina lied.

“You’re clenched so tight I’m worried your jaw is going to seize and you’ll have to eat through a straw. Look, I’m not saying you have to fall in love. I’m saying you need someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing to take you apart, piece by piece, until you remember you have a body.”

Tina laughed, but it came out brittle. “I date. I’ve dated.”

“You’ve dated finance bros who think missionary under the ceiling fan is adventurous. I’m talking about someone who will ruin you for vanilla forever.”

Alice finally glanced up, eyes glittering. She turned her phone around.

The website was black, minimalist, and expensive-looking. One photograph dominated the landing page: a woman in a tailored charcoal suit, white shirt open at the throat, one hand braced on a leather wingback chair. Her face was half in shadow, but the line of her jaw and the authority in her posture made Tina’s breath snag.

Mistress Bette Porter
Exclusive. Discreet. Unforgiving.

Below, in elegant serif: First-time clients welcome. Safe word required.

Tina’s mouth went dry. “Alice.”

“She’s the best in L.A.,” Alice said, softer now, like she actually cared. “She’s safe, she’s sane, she’s impossibly hot, and she doesn’t do sleepy investment bankers who call her ‘Mommy’ by accident. She’ll read you like a book and then burn the pages while you watch.”

“I’m not… I’ve never been with a woman.”

“I know.” Alice’s smile turned gentle and wicked at once. “That’s what makes it perfect. No history. No baggage. Just you, on your knees, finally letting someone else be in charge for once in your goddamn life.”