Reyna's Anniversary Part 9 (Patreon)

***

You giggle as she sorts through her equipment. So much metal. So many sharp objects. So much shiny. It’s hard to believe that this is all for you, like a pile of gold some worshippers dropped at your feet. 

Or her feet. 

You squirm in your seat, trying to get comfortable. The ballerina nerves spin over your skin, up and down your arms, but it’s nothing compared to the tap dance in your stomach or the tango over your thighs. 

The beautiful woman in green, her face a beautiful tapestry of piercings, her skin a canvas for tattoos of nude women and spiders, tells you it won’t hurt much. 

Much. 

You lean back in the chair and whimper, but the strange woman doesn’t laugh at you. She puts her hand on your bare thigh and coos. Warmth spreads from her hand soothing you and numbing you. Your thighs tingle with the heat, like stepping from the snow next to a fire. Decades of cold melt away in fuzzy numbness from her fingertips. 

You want to laugh at the touch, to giggle again, to cry out with surprise or delight or arousal. You want to tighten your core, your thighs, your hips, and raise your whole body to her hands, to her flesh. Maybe all of her is like that. Maybe each inch is a warm cup of coffee on a rainy day, filling your insides with fire and satisfying all your desires. 

Instead you nod and let her lead. She smiles in appreciation, and moves her hand up your body, to where the metal will make love to you. 

Her hand slides up innocently enough, but wherever her skin meets your, oozy pleasure washes over you. Your mind and skin fog with the sticky ecstasy as you go numb. Skin to nerve to mind. All goes numb. You relax into your chair, giving one last sigh of satisfaction as she grasps your breast. 

Esmerelda holds the machine ready, poised to fuck you with metal, to back love in one quick thrust. Her eyes meet your own. Are you ready? 

You nod. 

And when she fucks you, the world burns white and wet. 

***

Grace woke up with a knock from the door. Part of her wanted to go back to sleep, to go back and finish the dream. They always ended there, but she wanted to know what happened after. After she was pierced and numb and sitting bare and nude before the beautiful stranger in green. 

Esmerelda. 

“Gracie?” asked her mother from the other side of the room. 

“Yeah?” 

“You getting up soon? It’s almost noon.” 

Grace groaned and looked at the clock. 11:37. There was plenty of time till noon. 

“Yeah. I’ll hop in the shower.” 

“There were more phone calls this -” 

“Yeah, I’ll get it. Thanks, Mom.” 

Every day was the same. Dozens of phone calls. Reyna’s lawyer, and now Esmerelda’s lawyers. She wasn’t postive how the stripper had afforded a lawyer for a sexual harassment suit, but she was sure Reyna had something to do with it. 

Reyna had something to do with everything lately. 

Like the articles online about corruption and fraud in Grace’s practice. Or maybe the reviews of her business online or maybe the angry phone calls from friends. Well, technically, they were “concerned” friends. The conversation always started off with concern. They heard she was going through a hard time. They want to help. They’re worried about her. Then it switched to. “Is it true you groped one of your clients?” 

The most heartbreaking were her former clients, calling her scared. They asked if their paperwork was wrong, if they needed to be concerned. With one swift move, Reyna had undermined years of trust that Grace had earned with this neighborhood. They thought they had bought security from Grace, but now they saw they were reaping fear. Should they go to work? Should they find a new job? Could they find a new job with no paperwork? 

It was a shit show. 

And for a week, Grace had hidden in her room. For the first day or so, her parents didn’t ask any questions, but now there were dozens of little hints from her mom. There were tiny questions from her dad during dinner. They had caught wind of the scandal, and they wanted to know what she was going to do about it. 

Hide, apparently. She hadn’t gotten to a plan behind that. 

Because no matter what she did or said, no matter how brilliant her maneuvering was in court, even if she fought off Reyna’s malpractice suit and go to the bottom of Gaudalupe’s rejected papers and deportation, Grace couldn’t ignore the fact that she had groped Esmerelda. She’d groped her, and each night her dreams brought her back to the dancer. Each night her body ached to touch her again. 

She’d groped her, and she’d do it again. 

That was the problem, she couldn’t articulate to her parents. That was why she hid in her room. She could go through a legal battle. She was trained for that. But what she couldn’t do was trust herself out in the real world. She couldn’t sit in a courtroom across from Reyna or Esmerelda. She couldn’t look at them without looking at them, and then she was doomed. She wasn’t just a failure as a lawyer, she was a pervert, a deviant, a hungry wolf whose hunger hadn’t been satisfied. 

And she wasn’t sure it could be satisfied by just Esmerelda. 

Grace stepped out of the shower and dried herself out. She got in pajama bottoms and an oversized sweater, which was all she could manage putting on now, and went downstairs. Mom greeted her with coffee and asked if she wanted anything to eat. Grace didn’t. She’d pick at her plate and eat a few things tonight at dinner, mostly to keep Dad from asking her if she had an eating disorder. 

There was a knock at the door, and Mom got up to get it. Grace stood staring at the contents of the fridge. She knew what was in here. She knew she didn’t want to eat any of it. And yet … here she stood, checking again. And again. And again. As if my looking around she could change the contents. 

“Grace?” asked Mom from the other room. 

“Yeah?” 

“Someone here to see you.” 

“Who is it?” 

“She says her name is Guadalupe?” 

Grace slammed the refrigerator door and rounded the corner through the hallway to the front door. There, standing in the doorway, in front of her mother, was Guadalupe Ramirez. She was tall, strong, with curly black hair, a look of disdain, and a … maid’s uniform. Guadalupe Ramirez, the straw that broke Grace’s back. Guadalupe Ramirez, clearly not deported and ready to report for work. Guadalupe Ramirez, former employee of Reyna. 

“Can I come in?” she asked. 

“Of course, of course,” said Grace’s mother, stepping aside and closing the door behind her. Grace took a step back as Guadalupe entered her parent’s house, the one safe space she had found, bringing in the spectre of Reyna with her. 

“Do you need anything? Water? Coffee?” 

“Coffee. Yes. Thank you.” 

Grace stood and watched as her mother played host to the stranger. She couldn’t take her eyes off of Guadalupe, and her former client couldn’t take her eyes off of her. She stared daggers at Grace. Maybe it wasn’t always a lie. Maybe Guadalupe was working for someone else. But she clearly wasn’t in Louisiana. She clearly wasn’t deported. 

Grace’s mother led Gaudalupe to the living room, and Grace moved to follow. The two women sat across from each other, glaring, inspecting the other like two warriors before a fight. 

“Did Reyna sent you?” asked Grace. 

“Yes.” 

“You weren’t deported?” 

“No.” 

Grace gripped the edge of her sweater. “Is your paperwork wrong?” 

“Yes, but because she made it so.” 

“How do you -” 

Grace’s mom walked into the room with coffee for Guadalupe. “Thank you,” said Guadalupe. 

“Of course.” Grace’s mom straightened to go, but she hovered at the door, awkwardly. 

“You can go, Mom.” 

“Well, I … I think in light of recent … I think I should stay and listen.” 

Grace’s jaw dropped. “Mom, I’m not going to … I can’t believe you’d even …” She blushed and looked down. Her own mother assumed she couldn’t be trusted with Guadalupe. She had to be supervised at all times? Because if she didn’t, the pervert in her would - 

Heat spread all over Grace’s body. At first it was the heat of anger, of embarrassment. It was the heat of rage and her mother’s disappointment in her. It flushed through her necks and up her cheeks, but then it moved. Down. It ran down her neck, over her breasts, over the corded knot of her stomach, and down to her thighs, down between her legs. 

Grace’s eyes widened with shock, and then she tightened every inch of herself to suppress a moan. She couldn’t. Not now. Not with her mother … 

Guadalupe smirked at her. “You been having the dreams?” she asked. 

“What?” asked Grace’s mom. “What dreams?” 

But Grace’s mouth went dry.  “You know about that?” 

Guadalupe spread her legs a little, not enough that Grace’s mom could see anything, but enough so that Grace could see that she was wearing no panties and her legs were covered in tattoos. Dozens of them. 

“No one works for Reyna against her will. We all come to her once we get the dreams.” 

“Is that what she wants? Me to work for her?” 

“Who?” asked Grace’s mom. “Who is this Reyna?” 

“She’s the one sueing me,” said Grace, but she never took her eyes from Guadalupe. The woman across from her slowly put her legs back together, crossing them with poise. 

“Should you be talking to her without a lawyer?” 

“I am a lawyer.” 

“Yes, but -” 

“She sent me with a message,” said Guadalupe. “This all can go away.” 

“How?” asked Grace’s mom with too much interest. “A settlement? A deal? And will you get the articles offline and -” 

“If Grace wants that. It will all go away.” 

“Well, of course -” 

“Mom,” snapped Grace, holding up her hand. “We have to find out what she wants.” 

“No one comes to Reyna un … without … como se dice a regañadientes.” 

“Unwillingly,” translated Grace.

“Yes. No one comes to Reyna unwillingly. She wants you.” 

Grace’s skin crawled. Another translation error? Surely, Reyna doesn’t … she couldn’t … Grace looked over at her mother watching her. They were haggling for Grace? Like she was a piece of property? Like all Reyna wanted was her … was her … her body? 

“She has no real claim for a malpractice suit,” said Grace, stalling. “I don’t owe her anything.” 

“No,” said Guadalupe. “But she wants you. And you want her.” 

Grace felt her mother’s eyes on her. Her skin flushed again with the embarrassment. Her only hope was that her mother didn’t read into the words, didn’t see the demand dripping with sexual connotation. She’d avoided talking to her mother about the accusations, the accusations of groping a woman. They hadn’t had a talk about Grace’s sexuality, but she could feel it now in her mother’s gaze. Her daughter was not straight. She didn’t know what she was - and neither did Grace - but she wasn’t straight. 

“What is she talking about Gracie?” 

Grace tried to speak, but when she looked to her mother’s eyes, she didn’t just see confusion. She saw disappointment. She saw shame. And in her mother’s eyes she could see not just her career unraveling, but her parent’s approval. At first her mother could believe all the accusations and stories are lies. She could think that her daughter was wrongly accused, but now a realization was dawning on her mother. The accusations were true. Everything they were saying about her daughter was true. 

And though humiliation gripped Grace’s body, so too did lust. She looked away, her whole body burning red, but that heat spread down, down, down, down between her legs. SHe squirmed in her seat, probably looking uncomfortably, but trying to ease the pressure building by rubbing her thighs together. Instead of putting out the fire, the flame built there. 

Guadalupe’s smile widened. 

“It can get bad or good,” she said. “Reyna can control it.” 

“She does control it, doesn’t she?” 

Guadalupe nodded. 

“She won’t stop will she?” 

Guadalupe shook her head. 

Grace sighed. She shifted in her seat again, rubbing her thighs together. “What do I have to do?” 

Guadalupe took out a folded piece of paper and slid an address to Grace. “Meet her there. She says she will make your dreams come true.” 

***

Where does Reyna want to meet?