Chapter 6: Vicious Welcome
The walk from The Rusty Nail to Agatha’s rented bungalow was a blur of cold air and furious, circling thoughts. The single word—Yes—echoed with every footfall on the cracked sidewalk. It wasn’t an answer. It was a trapdoor opening beneath her. By the time Rio shoved through the wrought-iron gate, her hands were numb, her chest heaving with something between rage and a terrifying, bottomless hunger.
The bungalow was dark except for one window upstairs, Agatha’s bedroom, glowing like a warm, secretive lantern. Rio didn’t knock. She used the key Agatha had given her weeks ago, a cold sliver of metal that felt like a betrayal now. The door swung open silently onto the dark living room, the ghostly shapes of modernist furniture looming in the gloom.
She took the stairs two at a time, her boots thudding on the polished wood. The door at the top was ajar, a slice of golden light cutting across the hallway floor. Rio pushed it open.
The smell hit her first—lavender, the faint acrid tang of stale coffee, and underneath it, the unmistakable, musky scent of arousal. The record player in the corner hissed quietly, the needle stuck in the run-out groove of a finished album. Tck-tck-tck-tck.
Agatha was on the bed.
She was naked, propped against a mountain of pillows, the patchwork quilt a riot of color at her feet. The light from the single bedside lamp gilded her skin, catching the silver streaks in her dark hair, which was tousled as if she’d been running her hands through it. Her legs were spread, one knee bent. Her right hand was tucked between her thighs, her fingers moving with a slow, deliberate rhythm inside herself. Her eyes were half-lidded, watching Rio from the doorway, her expression one of utterly cool appraisal.
She didn’t stop. Her fingers curled, a wet, soft sound in the quiet room. She let out a low, deliberate sigh.
“You took too long,” Agatha said, her voice a husky murmur that vibrated in Rio’s bones. “So I started without you.”
All the coiled tension in Rio—the lies, the fear, the furious confusion—snapped. There was no room for words. She crossed the room in three strides, her own jacket hitting the floor, her sweater following. She didn’t undress fully. She simply dropped to her knees at the edge of the bed, her hands gripping Agatha’s hips, her face plunging between the older woman’s thighs.
The taste was immediate, intense, and familiar—salt and iron and Agatha’s unique, dark flavor. Rio replaced Agatha’s fingers with the flat of her tongue, licking a broad, hungry stripe from her soaked entrance up to the swollen, tight bud of her clit. Agatha’s hips jerked off the bed. A sharp, ragged gasp tore from her throat.
“Fuck,” Agatha hissed.
Rio’s world narrowed to this: the heat, the smell, the giving softness under her mouth. She lapped at her, greedy and inelegant, her nose pressed against coarse hair. She used her tongue to fuck the tight, clutching opening before swirling it hard around Agatha’s clit. She was claiming, devouring, trying to consume the source of all this madness. Agatha’s hands fist in her curls, not guiding, but holding on, anchoring herself as Rio ate her out with a frantic, possessive intensity.
“Just like that,” Agatha moaned, her composure unraveling. Her thighs tightened around Rio’s head. “Your fucking mouth… God, yes…”
Rio pushed two fingers inside her, crooking them, and Agatha cried out, her back arching. Rio sucked her clit into her mouth, pulsing her tongue against it while she pumped her fingers, feeling the internal muscles clamp and spasm around them. The wet, obscene sounds filled the room, syncopated with Agatha’s broken breaths.
“I’m not… your fucking lawyer,” Rio growled against her, the words muffled by her skin.
Agatha laughed, a breathless, choked sound. “No. You’re my dirty little secret.” She tugged Rio’s hair, hard, pulling her head back. Their eyes met. Agatha’s were black with desire, pupils swallowing the hazel. “And you love it. You love being my secret.”
She pushed Rio’s head back down. “Now make me come.”
The command, delivered in that cultured, architectural firm voice, was a lightning strike to Rio’s core. She obeyed. She fucked Agatha with her fingers, deep and relentless, and sucked her clit with a focused, rhythmic pressure. She listened, learning the hitches in Agatha’s breath, the tightening of her abdomen. She could feel the climax building like a storm, a gathering tremor in the muscles under her lips.
Agatha came with a raw, guttural shout that was nothing like her speaking voice. Her whole body seized, bowing off the mattress, her pussy clenching rhythmically around Rio’s fingers in hot, pulsing waves. Rio rode it out, gentling her tongue but not stopping, drinking her in until Agatha finally collapsed back onto the pillows, shuddering, one arm thrown over her eyes.
Rio slowly pulled her fingers out, glistening. She knelt there, breathing hard, her face wet, her knees aching on the hardwood floor. The power dynamic had shifted, then shattered, then re-formed in the span of minutes. She felt used and powerful, filthy and essential.
Agatha lowered her arm. She looked spent, beautifully ruined, her lipstick smeared from where she’d bitten her own lip. She reached down, her fingers tracing Rio’s swollen mouth. “Get up here.”
Rio stood on unsteady legs, shedding the rest of her clothes. She crawled onto the bed, the quilt soft beneath her knees. Agatha rolled onto her side, facing her. For a long moment, they just looked at each other in the lamplight, the record player still ticking in the corner.
Agatha’s hand came up, cupping Rio’s cheek. Her thumb stroked the high bone. “You texted me a hand grenade,” she said, quietly.
“You texted back a detonator,” Rio replied, her voice rough.
A faint, almost sad smile touched Agatha’s lips. “Yes.” Her hand slid down, over Rio’s throat, her collarbone, closing over her breast. Her thumb rasped over the nipple, making Rio gasp. “This can’t be about anger, Rio.”
“What else is it?” Rio challenged, though her body was leaning into the touch.
“Need,” Agatha said simply. Her other hand slipped between Rio’s legs, fingers finding her wet and ready. Rio bucked into the contact. “It’s a very pure, very stupid need.” She pushed two fingers inside Rio in one smooth, firm stroke.
Rio’s head fell back, a moan ripped from her. Agatha’s fingers were inside her, her mouth was on Rio’s neck, biting, sucking. The careful, composed architect was gone. In her place was this hungry, demanding woman, rolling Rio onto her back and straddling her thigh, grinding her still-sensitive flesh against Rio’s muscle.
“You want to fuck the mystery away?” Agatha breathed into her ear, riding her thigh, her wetness slicking Rio’s skin. “You can’t. It’s in the foundations now.”
She shifted, sliding down Rio’s body. She pushed Rio’s thighs apart, her gaze locking with Rio’s as she lowered her mouth. Her tongue was a flat, ruthless pressure, licking through Rio’s folds before zeroing in on her clit. It was different from Rio’s frantic hunger—slower, more knowing, unbearably precise. Agatha sucked the stiff peak into her mouth, and Rio saw stars, her hands flying to tangle in the silver-streaked hair.
“Oh, god, right there,” Rio begged, her hips coming off the bed.
Agatha hummed against her, the vibration scattering Rio’s thoughts. She added a finger, then another, stretching her, filling her in a deep, slow rhythm that matched the torturous work of her tongue. She was building Rio’s pleasure like she would a complex model, layer by deliberate layer. Rio was babbling, a stream of filth and pleading. “Don’t stop, please, fuck, Agatha, I’m gonna—”
The orgasm didn’t crest; it detonated. It was a white-hot burst behind her eyelids, a seismic shudder that locked her spine and tore a scream from her throat that was raw and stripped of all pretense. Agatha held her through it, gentle now, lapping softly until Rio whimpered from oversensitivity and pushed weakly at her head.
Agatha moved back up the bed, lying beside her. They both stared at the ceiling, breathing in the damp, sex-heavy air. The record player’s persistent tck-tck-tck was the only sound.
“The interview with Miranda Colson is Thursday at ten a.m.,” Agatha said, her voice returning to its normal, measured tone, as if discussing the weather. “You’ll wear the navy blazer and the black trousers. Not a skirt. You want to look substantial, not decorative. Your portfolio is in order. You will be exceptional.”
Rio turned her head on the pillow. The woman beside her was once again the poised professional, the mentor. The taste of her was still on Rio’s tongue. The ghost of her fingers was still inside her. The lie about the professor hung between them, and Ellie’s trusting face flashed in Rio’s mind.
This was the real obscenity. Not the sex. This.
“Why?” Rio asked, the word exhausted.
Agatha finally looked at her. Her eyes were clear, unguarded for a fleeting second, and what Rio saw there was not love, or even simple lust. It was a profound, complicated recognition. A reflection of her own damaged, hungry self.
“Because you are,” Agatha said softly. “And because I can.”
She reached over and lifted the needle from the record. The sudden silence was absolute, and in it, Rio understood the terms of the silence she herself would have to keep. This room, this bed, was the only place where the truth of them could exist. Outside, the narratives—the professor, the lawyer, the promising intern, the dutiful mother—had to hold. The architecture of the lie had to remain sound.
Agatha switched off the lamp, plunging them into a darkness that felt like both a sanctuary and a tomb. She pulled the quilt over them. Her body curled against Rio’s back, skin to skin, a perfect, warm fit.
“Sleep,” Agatha whispered into her shoulder.
Rio lay awake, staring into the dark. The need was a satisfied, sleeping animal in her belly. The dread was a wide-awake sentry, standing watch over everything she stood to lose. She could still feel the phantom pressure of Agatha’s fingers, inside her, shaping her. Building her. Burying her.m