Don't Be Shy 2 (Patreon)

“Room 1010,” the elevator operator said to her, after he’d twisted the wheel and the car had come to a shuffling stop. “The door’s unlocked.”

Kara nodded to him—too scared, no, trepidatious to be more fully polite. She shuffled out of the elevator car, thought of what a scared little lamb she must look like to the man in the elevator, and forced herself into bigger, bolder steps down the hall.

The Continental was no hotel she’d ever heard of; obviously, it had evaded her search for an apartment when she’d first come to the city. It struck her as the equal of a Hilton or Marriot, except that it was so old-fashioned. The bellboys in little hats, the guests sitting around the lobby and smoking cigars. No HDTVs in the elevators or glowing Dubai lights in the hallway. Everything was so classical that Kara wouldn’t be surprised if Humphrey Bogart turned a corner… or maybe Seneca.

She reached Room 1010 and thought of the dog, Rin-Tin-Tin, and that there was something more threatening about a thing trying to be cute than admitting it was dangerous. Her hand stretched out for the doorknob. Kara thought better of it and knocked.

“Enter,” a voice rang out, clarion clear with a brisk accent—Irish or Scottish or maybe Welsh. It didn’t interfere with comprehension like a heavier accent would; it seemed modulated to let Kara hear the speaker’s origins without her untrained ears losing anything.

Kara turned the doorknob and came in.

The room was a match for the rest of the Continental’s architecture. Immaculately clean and orderly in a way that bordered on sterile, except for the sumptuousness of the furnishing. Not garish or even rich, but with vast swathes of rugged floor and uncluttered wall that were pleasingly tasteful.

Comfortable looking chairs and antique wooden pieces abounded. The lights were off and there was a fire crackling in the fireplace, casting a warm glow that melded and competed with the pink neon light from outside, coming through the windows in a jail-bar pattern.

Sitting by the fire at one of those tables big enough for a chessboard and no bigger was a woman.

At first glance, Kara wondered if she wasn’t going to the opera. She wore a tuxedo, or something like one. Tailored black pants, as tightly wrapped around her slender legs as cigarette papers. A white dress shirt under a black dinner jacket. There was a plate on the table and she was just setting down fork and knife, picking up something she’d set down along the plate and wineglass…

Kara looked to her shadowed face and there was something off about it, something wrong with her mouth, but before she could see any better, the woman had replaced the mask—it was like a Kabuki mask, only like a surgical mask. Stretching from ear to ear, covering from the tip of her nose to just under her jawline, leaving her upper face bare.

Which was beautiful. The sweep of her nose could’ve been described by a fountain pen’s most eloquent calligraphy and her eyes were… they seemed too much, too vivid, for the arrow hole slits they really were, made narrow by a burial of dark eyeliner. Pinpricks of green ice burning at the center of her elegant expression, under eyebrows that were just exquisite, quirking as they considered Kara.

And Kara had to wonder how she looked, her body silhouetted in the light streaming in from outside, surely showing all of her in the little black dress that either held to her body like paint or was rendered invisible by the light pushing between her thighs and mercilessly showing her naked figure.

No… it couldn’t be that bad… she was letting her imagination run away with her, getting intimidated by the surroundings and the woman and the mask…

“Is that for Covid?” she asked. It just slipped out.

The woman finished adjusting the mask to her face. When she spoke, it didn’t seem to muffle her voice at all. “Take your shoes off.”

Kara did. Crouching low to undo the satin laces, then straightening. Stepping out of the pumps. She wondered if she should bend down again to pick them up and place them against the wall—no, just leave them there, she was supposed to be seductive.

That was the point of this, right? Sex. Money. Although why a woman like that would need to pay… Kara wasn’t even a lesbian, but if lesbians weren’t falling over themselves to let this woman do them, it really was a mental illness.

“Quick to obey,” the woman said, praising Kara but also seeming somewhat amused by her. “That’s a good start.”

Kara felt a flash of irritation. It wasn’t enough that this woman got to pay for her body, she got to be highhanded about it? “Should I take off the rest of my clothes or are feet all you’re interested in?” she snapped.

The woman’s eyebrows rose. With the bottom half of her face obscured, an expression like that seemed explosive—it made Kara feel like apologizing.

“I should think nudity would make you uncomfortable at this stage. We have some things to discuss. You can remain clothed for this. Unless it would make you more comfortable to go nude.”

I could be wearing enough layers for Ohio in winter and those eyes would still feel dangerous to me. “What could we possibly have to discuss? You pay me, I lie back and think of England, right?”

“I’ve been to England. There’s not much to think about,” the woman said crisply. She stood, so damn precise in her posture that Kara felt like she was about to bow. “Introductions are in order. You are, of course, Kara Danvers.”

“Pleased to meet me,” Kara said laconically, but a second later, the quip didn’t feel at all as clever. The woman’s eyebrows didn’t move an iota.

“My name is… complicated.”

The woman leaned against the waist-high table. Redolent in how she relaxed herself as much as she wanted to, but didn’t slump, didn’t slouch. Everything was still so precise. She looked like she could’ve been painted into that pose by a master artist.

“I want two things from you, Kara. They’re somewhat contradictory, which poses a challenge, I know. Which is why I’m prepared to pay you one thousand dollars every day you are able to meet my needs.”

Kara’s mouth went dry. One thousand a day? Just for sex? She’d heard that lesbians kept going and going like the Energizer Bunny, but… no, it had to be something kinky, something really kinky. Would she have to get nipple piercings? Would she have to get peed on? Would she have to get peed on by a donkey?

“That’s a lot of money,” Kara said, thinking she should say something.

“It’s actually a rather small sum, provided I get exactly what I want. When you know exactly what you want—you know what it’s worth.”

Kara gulped. Now her throat felt dry. She needed a glass of water. Maybe a cough drop. Because she could imagine this woman asking her to do all sorts of things and she couldn’t imagine saying no.

“What is it you want?” she forced out.

“First, I want to be friends. I don’t wish to order you about, see resentment behind your eyes, have you rip your money out of my hand at the end of each day because I’m your awful boss you can barely stand to be polite to.”

“I’m very friendly,” Kara insisted. “I have lots of friends!”

“None who could put you up for the night or spare you a bite to eat?”

“That’s just because—because—this city sucks!”

The woman’s eyes widened slightly, as if Kara had surprised her. Which Kara would’ve thought to be impossible, given they’d only just met.

“That it does,” she agreed, eyes narrow again. “But I can tell you’re a summer, so to speak. Making friends comes easy to you. It doesn’t to me. But perhaps you’re better at being a friend than I am at being alone.”

“I think if you want to be someone’s friend, you’re someone’s friend. It doesn’t have to be hard.”

“It is for me.”

The woman straightened. She took one long stride towards Kara. Her leg was sleek and graceful, ending in a six inch slingback heel. Painted porcelain toes poking through the open toebox—the red lacquer reminding Kara of the lipstick imprint painted dead center on her bone-white mask.

“Because the other need I wish you to service is for pliancy. You will do what I want, when I want it. You will wear what I choose, from make-up to panties, and you will live in the suite next door to this one. You will be on-call twenty-four-seven. When I want you, I’ll have you, as I see fit and for as long as it takes to achieve the desired effect.”

“Wait, wa—”

“You’ll accompany me on business trips around the city, when needed. Again, wearing what I want, speaking when spoken to, drawing no attention to yourself—you will be an extension of my persona, not an individual in your own right.”

The mask trembled slightly. The woman’s jaw working underneath it. Kara wondered: was she licking her lips?

“And you’ll climax for me. That is very important. When I finger you, when I go down on you, when I use a toy on you, you will orgasm.”

A nervous titter escaped Kara. She couldn’t help it. The woman was just so serious. “That’s not something I can control.”

“It very much is,” the woman stressed. “But I’ll test for that before giving you the job. The difficulty of the task should be within reason.”