Chapter 4: Confessions Over Chardonnay
The chilled Sauvignon Blanc trembled in Iris West’s hand, the liquid catching the late afternoon sun like shards of pale topaz. Across the table, Carol Ferris watched her, concern etching lines around her composed, CEO-perfect mouth. The rooftop café was a symphony of normalcy—clinking glasses, distant traffic, the soft murmur of other conversations—a world Iris felt violently disconnected from.
“You look tired, Iris,” Carol said, her voice gentle. “Are you sleeping at all?”
Iris took a sip, the wine doing nothing to quell the static in her veins. “Sleep’s complicated,” she muttered, setting the glass down with a sharp click. “The dreams… they’re not really dreams. They’re reruns.”
Carol leaned forward, her perfume a clean, expensive scent that was aggressively out of place. “You can talk to me, you know. Whatever it is.”
A bitter smile touched Iris’s lips. “That’s the thing, Carol. You think you want to know, but you don’t.” She looked out at the sprawling city, her mind’s eye superimposing the rusted bars of the cell over the gleaming skyline. “It wasn’t just the fear. Or the humiliation. It was… the things we did. The things we wanted to do.”
She began to talk, her voice low and steady, a horrific contrast to the casual elegance surrounding them. She didn’t spare the details. She described the way Ivy’s pheromones had felt like a physical invasion, a warm, syrupy poison in her lungs. She talked about Lois, the initial desperate solace that curdled into something else under the green-skinned woman’s gaze. She described the feel of the cold floor, the taste of another woman on her tongue, the relentless, watching red eye of the drone.
“My God,” Carol breathed, her face pale. Her hand had gone to her throat. “Iris, that’s… that’s monstrous.”
“Is it?” Iris’s gaze snapped back to Carol, sharp and challenging. The shame was still there, a cold stone in her gut, but it was now intertwined with a dark, thrilling thread of power. She saw the way Carol was looking at her—not just with pity, but with a fascinated horror. She saw the quick, unconscious dart of Carol’s eyes to her lips. “It didn’t feel monstrous. It felt like the most real thing I’d ever done. It felt like survival. And parts of it… parts of it felt fucking incredible.”
She let the vulgarity hang in the air, a deliberate stain on the polite atmosphere. Carol’s shocked gasp was barely audible, but her pupils dilated. Iris leaned forward, mirroring Carol’s earlier posture, invading her space. The chain on her wrist was gone, but she could still feel its ghost, a psychological tether to that raw, stripped-down version of herself.
“He filmed everything, Carol. Lex. He watched. And sometimes… sometimes I think about someone else watching. Someone… safe.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, intimate and conspiratorial. “Do you want me to show you?”
Carol’s breath hitched. “Iris, I… I’m not… that’s not…”
“It’s just a story,” Iris murmured, her hand sliding across the table to cover Carol’s. Carol’s skin was warm, her pulse a frantic bird beating against Iris’s fingertips. “A demonstration. To make you understand. No one’s watching here.”
It was a lie, of course. Someone was always watching now, even if it was just the ghost in her own head. But Carol was already lost, hypnotized by the danger in Iris’s eyes, by the taboo of the confession. She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
Iris stood, dropping a few bills on the table without looking. “My place is nearby.”
The short walk was a blur. Inside her apartment, the door clicked shut, sealing them in a sudden, profound silence. Carol stood awkwardly by the sofa, her arms crossed, the picture of bewildered heterosexuality about to be undone.
“It started with a touch,” Iris said, her voice low and steady. She approached Carol, not with Ivy’s predatory grace, but with a grim determination. She cupped Carol’s face, her thumb stroking the high cheekbone. “Just a touch, to see if we were still human.”
She leaned in and kissed her.
It wasn't gentle. It was a reenactment, a mimicry of stolen desperation. Carol froze for a second, then a small, broken sound escaped her, and her mouth opened under Iris’s. Her hands came up, not to push away, but to clutch at Iris’s shoulders.
Iris broke the kiss, her breathing uneven. “See?” she whispered, her lips brushing Carol’s ear. “That’s how it starts. The excuse falls away.” Her hands went to the buttons of Carol’s crisp white blouse, fumbling them open with a practiced efficiency that felt alien. “Then you stop pretending you have a choice.”
She pushed the blouse from Carol’s shoulders, followed by her bra. Carol’s breasts were full, her nipples already hard peaks. Iris lowered her head and took one into her mouth, sucking hard, biting just enough to make Carol cry out and arch her back.
“Iris… wait…”
“No,” Iris said, her voice hard. She walked Carol backward until her knees hit the edge of the sofa and she tumbled down onto it. Iris followed, straddling her, pinning her in place. “There’s no waiting. That’s the point.” She yanked at Carol’s tailored slacks, dragging them and her underwear down her hips in one rough motion. “He watched. He watched everything. And now you’re going to watch me.”
She settled between Carol’s spread legs, her own need a cold, sharp knot in her belly. She was not here for her own pleasure, but to exorcise a demon by giving it a new body. She used her fingers first, pushing two inside Carol without ceremony. Carol gasped, her body tensing, then yielding, her hips lifting off the cushion to meet the thrust.
“You’re wet,” Iris observed, her tone clinical even as her own heart hammered against her ribs. “For me. Because of the story I told you.” She worked her fingers in and out, a brutal, piston-like rhythm. “This is what he saw. This is what we became.”
She leaned down, replacing her fingers with her mouth. She ate Carol out with a furious intensity, her tongue lashing and probing, a performance of remembered debasement. Carol’s moans filled the room, high and helpless, her hands tangling in Iris’s short hair, holding her there.
“Please,” Carol begged, though for what, she probably didn’t know.
Iris rose up, her face slick. She unfastened her own jeans, shoved them down, and guided Carol’s hand between her own legs. “Now you,” she commanded, her voice ragged. “Make me feel it. Make me forget I’m here.”
Carol’s touch was hesitant at first, then grew bolder, her fingers mimicking what Iris had done to her. It was clumsy, unpracticed, but the raw novelty of it, the sheer transgression, sent a jolt through Iris. She rocked against Carol’s hand, her eyes locked on Carol’s wide, stunned ones.
“Harder,” Iris gritted out, her own orgasm building not from pleasure, but from a deep, dark well of catharsis. “Don’t you dare be gentle with me.”
Carol obeyed, her movements becoming frantic. Iris came with a choked scream, her body seizing, the pleasure sharp and laced with pain. She collapsed forward, forearms braced on the sofa on either side of Carol’s head, breathing heavily.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breaths. Then Carol, her voice small and shattered, whispered, “My God, Iris.”
Iris pushed herself up and looked down at the woman beneath her—disheveled, exposed, and utterly changed. The thrill of conquest was cold and ashes in her mouth. She had dragged Carol Ferris into the darkness with her, and all she felt was the vast, echoing emptiness of the cell that now seemed to live inside her forever. She had recreated it, right here in the safety of her own home. The victory was its own kind of prison sentence.
The victory was its own kind of prison sentence. Iris rolled off Carol, her body slick with a sweat that felt unclean. The sterile, air-conditioned air of her apartment chilled her skin, a stark contrast to the humid decay of the memory she had just forced into the room. She stared at the ceiling, seeing not the smooth white plaster but the rust-stained concrete of the cell, the unblinking red eye of the drone.
Carol lay perfectly still beside her, her breathing a shallow, rapid rhythm. “What… what was that, Iris?” she finally whispered, the words frayed at the edges.
“A demonstration,” Iris repeated, the clinical term tasting like ash. She turned her head on the cushion. Carol’s makeup was smeared, her lips swollen. “You asked. I showed you.”
“You didn’t show me,” Carol countered, her voice gaining a sliver of steel. She pushed herself up on one elbow, her gaze sharpening through the shock. “You used me. You reenacted your trauma on me.” Her hand, which had moments ago been tangled in Iris’s hair, now gestured weakly between them. “This wasn’t… this wasn’t us. This was you and her. You and them.”
Iris flinched. The accuracy of the accusation was a physical blow. She sat up, the movement jerky, and reached for her jeans. “Then you understand. Now you know what it’s like to not be in control of your own body.”
“I understand that you’re still in that cell,” Carol said, her tone softening into something worse than anger: pity. “And you just tried to pull me inside with you.”
Rage, hot and immediate, flooded Iris’s veins. It was a familiar feeling, one that had festered for months alongside the shame. She stood, jeans clutched in her fist. “Get out.”
Carol didn’t move. She just watched Iris, her eyes tracing the tension in her naked shoulders, the defensive hunch of her spine. “Is that what you want? Or is that what the script says? The one they wrote for you in there?”
“Get the fuck out of my apartment, Carol.” The words were a low snarl.
Instead of leaving, Carol stood. She didn’t rush to cover herself; she faced Iris, naked and unashamed in a way that was entirely her own. “No.” She took a step forward. “You dragged me into this. You don’t get to shut me out now that you’ve shown me the monster.”
“I am not a monster,” Iris spat, but the conviction was gone.
“Aren’t you?” Carol was in front of her now, close enough for Iris to feel the heat from her skin. “You just fucked me like I was a stand-in for your jailer. You wanted me to feel like you did. Powerless.” Her hand came up, not to strike, but to cradle Iris’s jaw, her thumb stroking the tense muscle there. “But I’m not Lex Luthor. And I’m not Poison Ivy.”
The touch was gentle, a shocking contrast to the violence of minutes before. It was the first truly voluntary, un-coerced contact Iris had felt since her rescue. It undid her. The anger evaporated, leaving a hollow, aching vulnerability. A sob caught in her throat, and she tried to turn away, but Carol held her fast.
“Look at me,” Carol whispered.
Iris forced her eyes up. She saw no judgment in Carol’s gaze, only a deep, unsettling curiosity, and a flicker of the same dark thrill that had compelled Iris to confess on the rooftop.
“You showed me their version,” Carol murmured, her voice dropping, becoming intimate. “Now show me what happens when you take it back.”
She leaned in slowly, giving Iris every opportunity to refuse. Iris stood frozen, a statue of conflict. Then, with a shuddering exhale, she met Carol halfway.
They kissed passionately.
This kiss was nothing like the first. It wasn't a performance or an attack. It was a slow, searching exploration. Carol’s lips were soft and insistent, her tongue tracing the seam of Iris’s mouth until she opened with a soft sigh. It was a reclamation. The taste was different now—not wine and confession, but salt and a fragile, burgeoning trust.
Carol’s hands slid from Iris’s face down her back, pulling their bodies together. The contact was electric, but this time the current was one of mutual need, not forced theatrics. Iris’s hands came up to tangle in Carol’s hair, holding her close as if she were the only solid thing in a dissolving world.
They broke apart, breathing heavily, foreheads resting together. The silence in the room was no longer accusatory, but charged with a new, dangerous potential.
“The bed,” Iris whispered, her voice raw. “Not the floor.”
They moved to the bedroom in a silent, urgent procession, their footsteps muffled by the plush carpet. Iris’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat syncopated against the fading echo of Carol’s command. Show me what happens when you take it back. The words were a key turning in a rusted lock, and the door it opened was both terrifying and exhilarating.
She pushed Iris down onto the duvet, its cool silk a shock against her feverish skin. Carol’s movements were different now, devoid of the hesitant pity from the sofa. She straddled Iris’s hips, her eyes dark and focused, pinning Iris’s wrists to the mattress above her head. “This time,” Carol murmured, her breath hot against Iris’s neck, “you’re not performing for anyone’s camera.”
Iris gasped, the submission sparking a fierce, sudden wetness between her legs. “Carol…”
“Shut up.” Carol released one wrist to trail a finger down Iris’s sternum, over her quivering stomach. “You’ve talked enough. You’ve remembered enough.” Her finger dipped lower, through coarse curls, and pressed against her clit. “Now just feel.”
Iris’s back arched off the bed, a broken sound tearing from her throat. Carol’s touch was not gentle; it was precise, demanding, a deliberate reclaiming of sensation. She worked Iris with her fingers, her thumb circling that hypersensitive nub with an intensity that bordered on pain. “Is this what you wanted?” Carol breathed, watching every twitch of Iris’s face. “To be fucked without the ghost of that green bitch in the room?”
“Yes,” Iris choked out, her hips bucking uncontrollably. “God, yes, just like that.”
Carol shifted lower, her hair tickling Iris’s inner thighs. She didn’t ask. She simply spread Iris open with her thumbs and buried her face in her cunt. Her tongue was a flat, relentless pressure, licking broad strokes that made Iris cry out, then focusing into a tight, rapid flick that stole her breath. It was nothing like the performative, furious act on the sofa. This was consumption.
“You taste different,” Carol said, lifting her head for a moment, her chin glistening. “When it’s for you.” Then she dove back in, her tongue plunging deep inside before returning to torture her clit.
Iris fisted her hands in the duvet, the fabric tearing under her nails. The pleasure was a white-hot wire, singeing away the memory of other hands, other mouths. “Don’t stop, please don’t stop,” she begged, the words a ragged prayer.
Carol didn’t. She drove Iris higher, her mouth a wicked instrument of absolution. When Iris came, it was a silent, seismic event, her body seizing so violently her vision whited out at the edges. Waves of sensation pulsed through her, each one washing a little more of the filth away.
As the tremors subsided, Carol moved up her body, kissing a wet trail up her stomach, between her breasts. She stopped when their faces were inches apart. “My turn,” she whispered, her voice husky. She guided Iris’s hand down between her own legs. “I want to feel your fingers, not his memory. Make me come, Iris. For real.”
The command was a gift. Iris rolled them over, reversing their positions. She looked down at Carol, at the raw want in her eyes, and felt a surge of power that was entirely her own. She kissed her, deep and slow, tasting herself on Carol’s lips.
Then she slid down the bed, parted Carol’s legs, and looked. Really looked. This was not a cell. This was not a performance. This was Carol, flushed and open and wanting her.
Iris lowered her mouth, but this time her touch was different. It was exploratory, worshipful. She licked and sucked, learning the rhythms that made Carol gasp and clutch at the sheets. She slid two fingers inside, curling them, finding a spot that made Carol’s whole body jolt. “There?” Iris asked, her voice muffled.
“Yes! Right there, fuck, don’t stop!” Carol’s heels dug into Iris’s back, urging her on.
Iris fucked her with her fingers, a steady, penetrating rhythm, while her tongue circled Carol’s clit. She felt Carol’s inner muscles begin to flutter, a frantic, tightening pulse. “I’m gonna come,” Carol warned, her voice strangled.
“Come for me,” Iris commanded, looking up the length of their bodies to lock eyes with her.
Carol’s orgasm ripped through her with a guttural cry, her body bowing off the mattress. Iris held her through it, fingers deep, mouth soft, until Carol collapsed, spent and trembling.
In the heavy silence that followed, Iris curled against Carol’s side, her head on her shoulder. The city lights painted shifting patterns on the ceiling. The ghost of the drone was gone, replaced by the sound of their slowing breaths.
Carol’s hand found hers, lacing their fingers together. “So,” she said, her voice rough but calm. “That’s what it looks like when you take it back.”
Iris squeezed her hand. For the first time in six months, the space behind her eyes was quiet.
For the first time in six months, the space behind her eyes was quiet. The frantic, staticky hum of remembered pheromones and the ghostly click of Lex’s camera had receded, leaving a strange, hollowed-out peace. Carol’s breathing was a steady rhythm against her side, a metronome measuring this new silence.
“We’re a mess,” Carol murmured into her hair, her voice raspy.
Iris let out a shaky laugh that was half a sob. “Understatement.” She could feel the cooling sweat and the sticky evidence of their frantic coupling between her thighs. The scent of sex and stress was thick in the air, a stark reminder of the violence of their catharsis.
Carol shifted, peeling herself away from the damp sheets. “Come on.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed, her body a pale sculpture in the dim room. She held out a hand. “Let’s get clean.”
Iris took it, her own grip surprisingly firm. They walked naked from the bedroom, their footsteps silent on the plush carpet. The hallway light was too bright, making Iris blink. She felt exposed, but not in the way she had in the cell. This was a different kind of nakedness, one she had chosen.
Carol pushed the bathroom door open and reached in to flip the switch. The fan whirred to life. She twisted the knobs on the shower, and a moment later, the spray hissed against the glass enclosure, clouding it with steam.
“After you,” Carol said, her gesture casual, but her eyes were watchful.
Iris stepped into the torrent. The water was scalding, and she welcomed the burn. It felt like punishment and purification all at once. She tipped her head back, letting the stream plaster her short hair to her skull and wash the taste of Carol and memory from her face.
Then Carol was there, sliding the door shut and crowding into the space. The water sluiced over her shoulders, tracing the curves of her breasts and the faint silvery lines on her hips. She reached for a bottle of shampoo, the motion practical and domestic.
“Here,” she said, pouring a generous amount into her palm.
Iris obeyed, bending her head forward. Carol’s fingers worked into her scalp, massaging with a firm, knowing pressure. It was intensely intimate, this simple act of care after the raw fucking. Iris closed her eyes, focusing on the sensation of strong fingers kneading the tension from her neck and shoulders.
“Rinse,” Carol commanded softly.
Iris straightened, the suds cascading down her back in dirty rivers. Carol’s hands followed, smoothing the water over her skin. They didn’t speak. The only sounds were the drumming water and the hum of the fan.
Then Carol turned Iris around to face her. Water dripped from their lashes, beaded on their lips. Carol’s gaze was direct, unflinching. She picked up a bar of soap, working it into a lather in her hands.
She started with Iris’s shoulders, her touch firm and deliberate. She soaped her collarbones, the swell of her breasts, her stomach. Her hands moved lower, through the coarse hair between Iris’s legs, and Iris flinched, a conditioned response.
Carol didn’t stop. Her soap-slick fingers parted Iris’s folds, cleaning her with a clinical thoroughness that was somehow more possessive than any kiss. She pushed two fingers inside, not to arouse, but to cleanse, scouring away the physical remnants of what they had done.
“He’s not here,” Carol said, her voice low and steady over the water’s roar. Her fingers curled, a deliberate, internal pressure. “His cameras can’t see this.”
A shuddering breath escaped Iris. She braced her hands against the wet tile wall, her head hanging. Carol’s fingers moved inside her, a slow, claiming pump, washing her out. The sensation was bizarre, both invasive and freeing.
Carol withdrew her hand, rinsing it under the spray. “Your turn.”
She handed Iris the soap. Her expression was a challenge, but her body was an offering. Iris took the bar, its scent clean and simple. She replicated Carol’s actions, lathering her hands and mapping the territory of Carol’s body—the powerful line of her back, the firm globes of her ass.
She knelt on the wet floor of the tub, the water beating down on her. She pressed her face against Carol’s stomach, then lower, soaping the thatch of dark hair. She pushed her lathered fingers into Carol, mimicking the cleansing ritual. Carol’s hips jerked forward, a sharp intake of breath hissing between her teeth.
Iris worked her fingers in and out, the soap creating a slick, strange friction. She looked up, water stinging her eyes. Carol was looking down at her, her expression unreadable, one hand braced against the wall, the other tangled in her own wet hair.
“Is it clean?” Iris asked, her voice rough.
“Almost,” Carol breathed. “Do it harder.”
Iris fucked her with her hand, the thrusts becoming faster, less about washing and more about claiming this new, clean space between them. The water rinsed the soap away, leaving only skin and motion. Carol’s body tightened around her fingers, and she came with a choked cry, her knees buckling.
Iris caught her, holding her up as the water washed over them both. They stood there, clinging to each other, spent and scrubbed raw. The steam began to thin. Carol reached out and shut off the water.
The sudden silence was deafening. Dripping, they stepped out onto the bathmat. Carol wrapped a large, fluffy towel around Iris, rubbing her arms briskly before doing the same for herself.
They stood in the steam-filled bathroom, wrapped in white terrycloth, their breathing the only sound. The quiet behind Iris’s eyes held. It felt fragile, a soap bubble poised on the edge of a razor, but for now, it was real. Carol’s fingers brushed against hers, a silent question. Iris laced their fingers together, a tentative answer. The night outside the window was deep and waiting.