It had been the strangest conversation.
They’d been dancing around it, in retrospect, for a while. But that night it got real.
She’d had a bad day at work. She’d had a bad few months at work, honestly, and Jonas had become frustrated because they’d been over it so many times. But no matter how much sympathy, how many pep talks, plans made for what she’ll do about it, she didn’t seem to be able to stand up to them, tell them that what they were doing was wrong. It just got worse, and she was getting worse, and Jonas was having to pick up the pieces more and more often.
“It’s crazy. Get a new job. Tell your boss, tell the HR person, do something. It’s not right what they’re doing to you.”
It was all true; he was right. But she was in despair. Though it was hard to admit, she just didn’t have the strength to deal with the situation. She’d never thought of herself as strong, but then, she’d never thought of herself as weak, either; she’d always been sweet, and had friends who liked having her around, and looked after her, she realised. But work wasn’t like that. PR was a cut-throat struggle for recognition for the junior staff it seemed, and Lola was being bullied.
So Jonas, as he had done before called Annelies, and she, as so often, came over with a couple of bottles of good wine and a take out.
Annelies was the bright spot in Lola’s life, beyond her Jonas; only a year out of uni, and it seemed that their old friends had all moved— out or on or away. They kept in touch, a little, the odd wedding, even a baby already, but hardly saw any of them regularly anymore. Jonas had work friends, but they never had time for socialising outside of work it seemed.
But this time, Lola had worries about Annelies coming around, along with her anticipation. It was bound to come up.
It was fine at first; as usual, Annelies had dominated the conversation, telling them about her latest successes and funny stories.
Annelies was in PR, too— that’s how Lola had met her. She’d applied for a job with Annelies at KCD (the famously lesbian-run and fabulously influential PR agency) and not got it, but somehow ended up going to a bar with her, where they had got along so well that Lola— at Annelies suggestion— had called Jonas to meet them, and Jonas had liked Annelies at once and— well, she was wonderful.
Annelies had quickly begun inviting Jonas and Lola to great parties with interesting people (slightly intimidating to Lola, but everyone had been nice), and Jonas had ended up getting a job with someone that way— a really impressive architecture firm, so much better than the run-of-the-mill place he’d been with (though they worked him hard— another reason for her weakness— Jonas was often kept working ’til really late these days, and she struggled with worrying about work when she was on her own— it went round and round in her head).
Jonas and Lola were the young ones in the circle (Annelies was nearly 30, her friends mostly older still, successful, confident, intelligent, cool and fun)— and everyone seemed to want to look after them, Lola in particular. But it was Annelies who they saw regularly.
That night, as always, Annelies had achieved what she set out to do and shifted the mood. All she’d said about Lola’s work problems at first was; ‘Fuck those creepy corporate pole-climbers’. They ate and drank and even Lola found herself laughing and gasping at how bold and funny Annelies was about her clients, her competition, her boss; somehow Annelies could take everything in her stride and come out laughing— and often on top, too, though she was honest about her defeats; she laughed at them, too.
But then, as Lola had known she would, Annelies got serious.
“We all know the solution, Lola. You’re just not cut out for the office. You’re not tough enough. You need to be free, like the lovely little bird you are, free to make your art and to make everything pretty and sweet and light and fun. That’s your special gift and we love you for it, and it’s being crushed and damaged by that place. I hate it, and I know what to do about it, and you know it too. You’re just too scared to do what’s good for you.”
“You know it makes sense— I want you, want to fuck you; we all know it, and Jonas is happy to share you— wants to; we got there, too. And however coy you are, I can see it in your eyes— Jonas agrees— that a big part of you is hungry to find out what it’s like to be with me. Jonas and I want to fuck, too, though I know that makes you feel squirmy, Little Lo.”
(Annelies had started calling Lola Little Lo in the bar right after the interview, gently patronising— I couldn’t give you a job, because you are such a sweetie, Little Lo, and KCD didn’t get the ‘Killer Cunts and Dykes’ nickname for nothing— it would be a meat grinder for someone like you. Lola knew she ought not to like being given such a diminutive — like a pet-name— but in fact it was the other way around. Being called Little made her feel that Annelies was promising to protect her, and she wanted that so much, felt deeply grateful for it. It was weird when she got called Little Lo at the parties, though— but everyone there seemed to think it was cute, and no-one was mean about it, so it was beginning to ’take’ in that circle too; even Jonas called her Little Lo every now and then, especially during and after sex, and that was squirmy too, but good squirmy, because it was true, all too true, that she spent too much time thinking about what it would be like for Annelies to take her for sex— Lola had no illusions that it could be any other way— Annelies had told them about other conquests, and it was clear that she was a greedy and commanding lover with the young women she picked up, and that was all part of the squirminess; Lola wanted to know what it would be like to be commanded by Annelies. Jonas knew it too, and gently took advantage of it, and it made the sex better, and it made Lola squirmier and it was all getting more intense).
“We’ve talked about it a few times now, with no pressure, but honestly, Little…”
(It was quite often contracted to Little, these days, or even Lit, Annelies’ hand casually on her upper arm, or her thigh, or round her waist; all very girlfriend-ey, but Lola felt the sexual energy, stronger and stronger; Annelies meant it, too, it was in her eyes and smile, honest and amused at Lola’s nerviness, at her helpless acceptance; it really was a dance, with Annelies enjoying every aspect of it, finding it enormous fun, while for Lola it all felt heavily consequential and unnerving. At the bottom of it were four words, which had come to her, thinking about it all, one evening, waiting for Jonas, and tasken an immediate hold of her; Annelies will eat me alive).
The idea of Annelies eating her alive had come to take up quite a bit of her headspace, if she was honest with herself, in more than one set of imaginings.
“… this sort of thing is happening all over these days— polyamorous arrangements; it’s not so weird— and it’s not like we don’t know each other quite well now. Together, Jonas and I can easily support you, so you can leave work and to do what you’re made to do, which is to make your lovely art, make a lovely home, and be our lovely girl, our sexy Little Lo, happy to be free from those assholes, and always available when we want to have fun. I mean, they pay you almost nothing anyway, the sharks.”
And Lola, this time, couldn’t even speak. She’d always protested before. But over the months the protests had fallen away for the very simple reason that when she said out loud that she didn’t want what they were proposing (Jonas was very definitely in on it, though he didn’t bring it up unless she did, and she rarely did, because it was so embarrassingly obvious how weak she was)— whenever she tried to give a reason, they both laughed at her, every time. And when she tried to affirm her arguments, they just laughed more until she’d had to accept that they were right. Whatever it was, whatever she tried to claim, it was never the reality of the situation between the three of them, but some moral position that Lola was trying to defend, or some assertion about what she wanted which they all knew was at best her saying what she thought she ought to think or feel, but was most of the time a flat lie.
“Lola, you keep on making things up to stop yourself having what you want. It’s a pattern. But this is crazy; it’s really getting to you, now, doing you real harm; and we want to do you good! ‘Real good’, in my case.”
Annelies said the last ‘real good’ with a growl in her voice and a feral, wolfish smile; it was all play acting, but at the same time not at all; a real promise of how Annelies would be with Lola if she got the chance; a promise which Lola could not hide her reaction to from either of them (blushing, her eyes flickering to Annelies’ and away again, shifting in her chair, her breath catching audibly), bringing out more grins.
So now the situation was that it was pointless for Lola to claim that she wasn’t interested in having sex with Annelies, pointless to tell them that they didn’t know what they wanted, that they would find find it impossible to share her, where there was no way she could convince them that she was serious about building a career in PR industry, that there was no way that they would ever believe that she didn’t want to make her art anymore.
They’d burst out laughing before she’d even got halfway through the sentence when she’d said she was not really a sexual animal. She hadn’t even tried to make the argument that meeting Annelies hadn’t been good for Jonas. And her attempts at talking about the finances hadn’t even been listened to; everyone knew she didn’t care about money and was terrible at managing it.
So that night there’d been nothing to say, and Annelies had made her move;
“What we have here is a classic situation of a silly girl who doesn’t know how to say yes to something that she knows she wants because her lovely little head is full of cotton wool and fear. Yes Little, I am being rude about you now. Honestly, I’m not interested, anymore, in talking about it. What I’m going to do, now, tonight, is non-negotiable. It’s happening. I’m going to make it happen; and you, Lovely Little, are going to thank me forever, on your knees with your tongue in my pussy and Jonas’ dick up your ass, and you’re going to mean it from the bottom of your sweet and silly heart as you come like a fucking steam train.”
Annelies let only just enough time to pass for Jonas to break out the biggest smile Lola had ever seen, turning his head to one side to avoid looking too triumphant and totally failing, and for Lola to realise that Annelies was serious; that something decisive was about to happen, right then, unless she did something to stop it;
Which I don’t think I even know how to do, let alone actually do it.
Annelies is going to eat me alive.
Oh God I’m not going to be able to stop it. Not with Jonas grinning like that.
OhGodOhGodOhGod…
Lola was full of desperate energy, and at the same time frozen, paralysed, her chest heaving, but no air moving in her throat, mouth dry, heart racing, nipples stiffening, the squirming, deep inside her, right in her crotch, so urgently sexual; almost making her faint, so hot was she suddenly feeling— Lola had been a through an adolescent period where she had fainted semi-regularly, which was part of why she was so conflict avoidant— she feared stress could bring her fainting fits back anytime.
She couldn’t look at them, couldn’t face them. It was going to be done to her; just as her fevered imaginings had foreseen; she must stop it, now, because it was going to be impossible to repair the damage afterwards; this was going to break her and Jonas, ruin their friendship with Annelies, destroy everything…
… or… or its going to be like living in a sweetshop full of happy dreams and … and rampant sex.
Anyway, it makes no difference what I think, because I can’t even speak, let alone move, so it’s going to happen, and I’m going to do what I’m told, because I have no ideas at all, none.
Annelies, satisfied that her bombshell had flattened any opposition, continued with the steamroller;
“There’s no way to do this piecemeal, nothing will ever stick that way; so tonight I’m going to force the issue; make a shocking break. Rip a hole in our lives that forces a change one way or the other.”
“One way this could go; we realise that I’m wrong, that you’re right, Little, and if that’s true, I get out of your lives, leave you alone, go and look for some other people. The other way, which of course I am very confident about, I’m in charge, from now on; like you know I already am.”
That had been part of it from the start. Jonas was not a weak man, but he he also wasn’t interested in ruling the roost. He had his work which consumed him. He liked a comfortable home life. He loved Lola. He fancied Annelies like anything. She was very obviously the person to have in charge, according to him; She can be bothered! was his simple comment, with one of his lazy grins that made Lola go all goopy inside.
No one even considered the possibility of Lola being in charge of anything. Not even Lola. But what hit Lola at that moment was;
I’m not even in charge of myself, when Annelies is around; I wait to see what she wants, and do that; and it makes me happy. Oh God this is all going so fast. She says she’s going to fuck me, and Jonas just nods and grins and … and me … I … I just wait for it to happen.
And still Lola couldn’t speak. Just looked for the longest while at Jonas, who grinned at her, encouraging but also hungry, like a cat who was about to get the cream. Then— for the longest while— at Annelies, who was not grinning, not looking greedy, but smiling, kindly, gently;
Patient; she’s saying bossy and demanding things, but she’s being lovely patient with me.
She’s perfect; so fucking clever; so fucking wonderful and I love her and I’m frightened of her and she’s doing it right and the only way I was ever going to find the nerve to say no was if she was pushy right now and so she’s got me, because she is kind and thinks about me and how I feel and what I need and oh fuck I need her to kiss me and hold me and I’m lost …
Lola could not maintain eye contact with Annelies then, and for the longest while she stared, unseeing, at her plate, blushing, trembling, frightened, feeling something strange building inside her; eventually realising it was hope, gratitude, wonder.
And when the silence had got to the point where Lola was almost ready to beg Annelies to tell her what was going to happen, Annelies did;
“Here’s the plan. You’re going to strip naked, for us, Little; we’re going to keep you naked or in sexy lingerie, mostly, from now on, when it’s just the three of us. Then I’m going to tie you up, and then I’m going to beat you with the strap of my handbag. Mostly on the ass, a few on your tits, and a couple between your legs, just to establish that this is for real; serious— start as I mean to go on.”
“Then Jonas and I are going to fuck while you watch, all tied up. And then Jonas and I are going to fuck you. Any way we like, still while you’re tied up. Make it clear to you that you don’t get to choose much, any more.”
“Then I’m going to whip you again, harder; make you scream and beg for mercy— really hurt you; mark your body— and then we’re both going to make you come, come like you’ve never come before, so that you understand just how good it will be.”
“You’ll be tied up naked down here all night. Jonas and I will have the bedroom from now on; you won’t have a room, or use the furniture much. Mostly naked, on the floor wherever we left you last, until we need you for something— cooking or cleaning or fucking.”
“In the morning, we’ll talk. If I’m right, Lola, you will discover that you have been completely changed. And I’ll take it from there— organise your life for you, so that it works.”
In Lola’s head she was saying; ‘No, no, no!’. But she knew it was just automatic, the way she was about everything. Her lips twitched, her eyes flickered up and down again immediately, looking at Jonas and Annelies in turn, but unable to meet their eyes; shifting in her seat, filled with nervous energy, trembling, knowing she should do something, must do something, but also knowing that she just wished they’d start in on her; not because she wanted it (or do I?, Maybe I do…), but because she couldn’t bear what Annelies was doing to her— making her complicit; complicit because the longer Lola said nothing, after the terrible things Annelies had said, after Jonas had heard them and was still grinning at her, the more it seemed that she was saying Yes.
But she couldn’t make her mouth say anything, or her body do anything but twitch and tremble, couldn’t even lift her head, and after a minute, they had indeed taken her silence, her immobility as consent, and started to clear the table.
Annelies’ words, her promises of what would be done to her, Lola, right then, were going round and round in Lola’s head, but she couldn’t form any thoughts that were any use, just;
Annelies is going to eat me alive.
