Chapter 10: Thursday, Eleven O'Clock
Ten minutes to eleven, and the room was a stage with nothing on it but the set piece.
Bessie lay in the center of her own bed, dead center, the clipped lamp above her throwing a hard white circle down on her body. The cuffs were already on. Leslie had buckled the left wrist, Megan the right, and the ankle straps were snug against the frame, legs spread wide enough that the cool air of the room moved over her bare, soaked cunt without mercy. She'd been wet since seven. She'd admitted it out loud at seven thirty, because the rule was the rule.
"How does it feel, being the thing people come to see?" Megan asked, kneeling by the bed, adjusting the strap at Bessie's hip one notch looser.
"Like a piece of meat on a hook," Bessie said, and her hips rolled up off the mattress without her permission.
"Wrong answer. Try again."
"Like the best thing in the world." Bessie's voice cracked in the middle of it. "Like I've been waiting my whole stupid life to be put on display and told when to come."
Leslie stood at the door with her ear to the hallway. The girl across the hall had left for the weekend, bags thumping against her door at six, and now the corridor was dead quiet except for the building's pipes ticking. "She's early," Leslie whispered. "Footsteps."
"It's ten fifty," Megan said.
"She's early."
The footsteps stopped outside the door. Leslie counted heartbeats. At ten fifty-nine, precisely, there were three knocks, evenly spaced, unhurried, the knock of someone who had calculated the exact second.
Megan looked at Bessie. Bessie's chest was heaving under the lamp light, nipples hard, thighs already trembling against the straps. "Ready?"
"Do I get a vote?"
"No," Megan said, smiling. "That's the whole point of you."
Leslie opened the door.
Priya Patel stood in the hallway in a gray hoodie and black warmups, hair still damp from a shower, and her eyes went past Leslie's shoulder into the room, past Megan, and landed on the bed. On Bessie. Tied down, lit up, spread open and glistening in the harsh white circle. Priya didn't move for a second. Then the gap in her front teeth showed.
"Hey, Chen," she said. "Nice room."
She stepped inside and Leslie shut and deadbolted the door behind her. Priya walked the room the way she walked the pool deck, slow, owning the floor, and she stripped the hoodie off her shoulders and dropped it on the bare floor like she was allowed. Underneath she wore a black sports top and her arms were bare and she'd been wearing the gloves the entire time. Black neoprene, fingers cut off at the tips, the kind she wore in the goal in cold water. Her hands flexed once, and the soft creak of the material filled the silent room.
Bessie made a sound. It wasn't a word. It was the sound of three months of August-to-now hitting the mattress at once, and her hips jerked up, and her cunt, already slick, visibly clenched around nothing, and Priya watched it happen and grinned wider.
"You're already soaked," Priya said. "I've been listening to you through that wall for weeks, you know. I heard you scream in here. Twice."
"We know," Megan said. "We're counting it as a preview."
"I'm counting it as me buying a ticket early." Priya looked around at the stripped walls, the single lamp, the chair Leslie had positioned facing the bed. "Where do I sit?"
"Front row." Leslie pulled the chair out. "It's yours."
Priya sat down in it like a throne, knees apart, elbows on the armrests, gloved fingers drumming once. From there she had the entire sightline: Bessie spread under the lamp, every inch of her, the wet shine between her thighs catching the light. She stared for a long time. She didn't smile now. She just looked, the way she looked at the field before she screamed at it.
"Okay," Priya said finally. "House rules."
Megan laughed. "You don't get house rules."
"Everybody I keep gets house rules." Priya leaned forward. "I don't touch unless somebody tells me to. I don't repeat anything I see here, ever. And I talk." Her eyes cut to Bessie. "She knows I talk. That's the whole thing, right, Chen? You want the whole team hearing."
"I want you hearing," Bessie whispered.
"Speak up."
"I want YOU hearing me," Bessie said, loud, her face burning red down her throat and across her chest. "Every day since August. There. Now you know."
"I've known since August, you absolute disaster," Priya said. "You look at me like a starving dog looks at a steak. I pointed at you at practice because I wanted to see if you'd blush. You blush every time." She settled back into the chair. "So. What happens to her?"
Megan stepped up beside the bed and put two fingers on Bessie's inner thigh, high, not touching where Bessie's whole body was straining toward. "Ten edges. She announces when she's close, out loud. Then she counts herself down from ten to one, we take turns, and she comes on one. She's allowed to scream. It's encouraged."
"It's practically mandatory," Leslie said from the foot of the bed.
"Who does the edges?"
"We do. Roommates' privilege." Megan paused, and Leslie saw her do the thing she did, the quick calculating flick of her eyes, the trade being weighed. Then Megan looked at Priya. "But the last one before the countdown. The tenth. That could be yours. If you think you can keep her right on the line without taking her over."
"Me?" Priya's gloved fingers flexed. "I keep shots out of a net eight feet wide for a living. I can keep her on a line."
Bessie was making a low continuous noise now, something between a whimper and a moan, her wrists pulling at the cuffs, and all three of them plus one looked at her, and Priya stood up from the chair.
"Not yet," she said, and sat on the edge of the bed, beside Bessie's hip, the gloves creaking. She laid one gloved hand flat on Bessie's stomach, over the trembling muscle, and felt her jolt like she'd been shocked. The neoprene was cool and slick against hot skin. "God. Look at you. Tied up in your own bed with your pussy just dripping for the room."
"Priya," Bessie breathed.
"That's right," Priya said. "Say the name you think about. Tell them whose name you say when you're in the shower at two in the morning."
"Yours," Bessie gasped. "Yours, yours, fuck."
Megan knelt at the foot of the bed and put her mouth an inch from Bessie's cunt, breath washing hot over the swollen, wet pink of her, and looked up at the room. "Edge one starts now. And Bessie, sweetheart? Announce like the whole floor's listening. Because it might as well be."
Priya's gloved hand slid up from Bessie's stomach to cup one aching breast, thumb and forefinger closing on her nipple through nothing, and Bessie's spine arched clean off the mattress.
Megan's mouth closed over her.
No teasing this time, no warm-up. Her tongue dragged flat and slow up the whole soaked length of Bessie's slit, tip to top, and then circled her clit once, twice, and Bessie's cry hit the bare walls and came back at her.
"Close," she gasped. "I'm close, I'm close, fuck, I'm CLOSE."
Megan pulled off. Just like that. Bessie's hips chased her mouth, jerked against the ankle cuffs, and dropped back empty. Her cunt pulsed in the open air, clenching around nothing, slick smeared all the way down to the sheet.
"Edge one," Megan announced, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Any comments from the audience?"
"She's louder in person," Priya said. Her gloved hand kept working Bessie's nipple, rolling it, pinching until Bessie whined through her teeth. "Through the wall I always wondered if that was pain. It's not, is it."
"No," Bessie sobbed.
"Say what it is."
"It's so good, it's so fucking good, please."
"Please what?" Priya asked, and she leaned down and put her mouth against Bessie's ear, and the neoprene creaked as her fingers tightened. "Finish the sentence, Chen. You've had three months to write it."
"Please make me come."
"Too easy. Try again later." Priya sat back up and looked at Megan. "Again. I want to hear how many times you can rip it out of her before she starts begging in complete sentences."
So they ran her.
Megan's mouth, then Leslie's. Leslie licked her slow and deep, fucking her tongue into her cunt while her thumb pressed circles on her clit, and Bessie announced edge two with her whole body off the mattress, wrists straining, the cuffs clicking against the frame. Edge three was Megan again, two fingers curled up inside her against the rough front wall, sucking her clit hard, and Bessie's announcement broke apart in the middle into a scream.
"Announce it properly," Megan said, fingers still, buried, unmoving inside her while Bessie shook around them. "Full sentence."
"I'm close. I'm close, please, Megan, please let me."
"No." The fingers slid out, drenched, and Megan held them up so the room could see the shine on them before she licked them clean. "God, she tastes like she's been marinating since Tuesday."
"She has," Leslie said. "She told us. Since Kiara."
"Since Kiara," Priya repeated, and her eyes flicked to Bessie's face. "Interesting. So I'm not even the only girl you've been dripping over this week." Bessie's voice failed. Her chest heaved under the lamp. "No. You're the one I think about when I do it."
"In the shower. Two a.m. I've heard that too, you know." Priya flexed her gloved fingers slowly. "Thin walls, Chen. I've heard everything."
"Then you already know," Bessie whispered, "what I say."
"Say it now. Out loud. For the room."
Edge four was Leslie's mouth on her clit while Megan pulled her nipple, and Bessie came right to the cliff and announced it wailing, and edge five she was already crying, tears sliding sideways into her hair, and somewhere in edge six, gasping while Leslie held her right on the line with feather strokes that never quite landed, Bessie said it.
"Priya. In the shed. Your gloves in my hair, your fingers inside me, the whole team outside the door hearing me scream your name. That's what I say. That's what I've said since August. Are you happy?"
"No," Priya said, standing. "I'm getting better material than I expected."
Edges seven and eight went by in a blur of mouth and fingers, Bessie's thighs soaked past trembling into constant shudder, her announcements dissolving into one long open-throated sound that had to be cut with the word close to count. At nine, Megan held her there for a full minute, tongue barely flickering, and Bessie's voice cracked apart begging, and Megan pulled away and stood up wiping her chin.
"That's nine," Megan said. She looked at Priya. "Yours."
Priya peeled off the chair and came around the foot of the bed. She knelt between Bessie's spread ankles, and Bessie strained her head up off the pillow to watch her, chest heaving, face wet, wrecked and lit white under the lamp.
"Look at me," Priya said. "Not them. Me."
"Yes."
"Ten. This is the last one. And I want you to understand something." She slid one gloved hand up Bessie's thigh, slow, the cool neoprene trailing through the wet on her skin. "I've been listening to you through that wall for weeks thinking, who is that girl, who screams like that, I have to have her. Then you texted me like you were handing me the keys." Her other hand joined it, both gloved palms sliding up the inside of Bessie's thighs, pushing them wider still, and Bessie's breath stopped. "So this edge, I'm going to give you my mouth. And when I take it away, you're going to scream my name so loud the floor hears it. Nod."
Bessie nodded, frantic.
Priya's mouth landed on her and Bessie's whole body seized against the cuffs.
It wasn't like the roommates. Priya ate her like she'd studied tape. Her tongue was broad and ruthless and exact, flattening over her clit and dragging, then closing her lips around it and sucking in hard pulses while two gloved fingers pushed into her and hooked forward, and the neoprene's texture dragged against Bessie's inner walls in a way skin never had, and Bessie heard herself start to make a sound she'd never made before, low and rising, continuous.
"Oh my God. Oh my God, Priya, I'm close, I'm close, I'm so close, please, I'm CLOSE."
Priya didn't stop.
She held her there. Sucked, slowed, lightened, and every time Bessie's orgasm lunged toward the edge Priya's mouth pulled it back by a millimeter, held, let it build again, and Bessie's screaming turned into words and the words turned into her name.
"Priya, Priya, PRIYA, please, I'm on it, I'm right on it, I can't, I CAN'T," and her voice tore upward into a raw, ragged scream that filled the stripped room and hammered against the deadbolted door, her tenth edge shrieked so loud the pipes in the wall seemed to answer, and Priya finally lifted her mouth, chin slick, gap-toothed grin shining.
"That," Priya said, wiping her face with a gloved wrist, "was worth the ticket."
Bessie hung in the cuffs, sobbing, dripping, thighs quaking, at the very top of the cliff with nothing under her but air.
"Countdown," Megan said. "Ten, Bessie. Start."
Bessie opened her mouth to count and Megan's hand closed over her jaw. "Wait." She bent down until her lips were at Bessie's ear, her hair falling across Bessie's cheek, and the whole room leaned in without meaning to.
"New rules," Megan whispered, loud enough that only Bessie got them first. "One. You count, but every number you say, you beg Priya in the same breath. Her name and what you want. No exceptions."
Bessie's breath shuddered. "That's not."
"Two." Megan's tongue touched the edge of Bessie's ear. "Eyes open the whole time. You look at her while you come or I stop everything and we start the countdown over from ten. Three." Her voice dropped even lower, a vibration more than a sound. "When you go over, you thank her. Out loud. For the gloves, for the wall, for every practice you blushed through. And then, after, still cuffed, dripping, you ask her for the shed. Out loud. In front of us."
Bessie made a wrecked, strangled sound, hips jerking off the mattress. "I can't say all that."
"You can. You've been saying it in your head since August." Megan kissed the corner of her jaw and straightened up. "Rule's the rule. Start counting, sweetheart. And remember, eyes on her."
"Ten," Bessie gasped, eyes locking on Priya's grin. "Priya, please, I want your fingers, please."
"Better," Priya said. Leslie's mouth closed over her clit and Bessie's announcement tore sideways into a shriek.
"Nine." Her voice cracked. "Priya, I want your hands in my hair, I want you to pull."
"Nine," Leslie confirmed, pulling back, and Bessie's cunt clenched visibly, slick running down to the sheet, the lamp light catching every twitch of her.
Megan went next, fingers sliding into her and hooking, and Bessie howled. "Eight. Priya, I want your mouth, I want the gap in your teeth against me, fuck, I've thought about it, I've thought about it so much."
"You've thought about my teeth," Priya said, delighted, settling back on her heels between Bessie's ankles. "Keep going."
"Seven." Tears ran sideways into her hair now. "Priya, I want the whole team outside the shed door hearing me scream for you. Six. Please, please, I want your gloves inside me, both hands, I don't care."
"Both hands," Priya repeated, flexing her fingers, the neoprene creaking. "Noted."
Leslie's tongue dragged slow through the whole soaked length of her and Bessie's spine bowed off the bed, cuffs clicking against the frame. "Five. Priya, I want you to tell me what to do. Every day. At practice, in the water, everywhere." Her thighs were shaking so hard the whole bed trembled. "Four. Please. I want to be yours, I want, God, I want to be kept."
Priya went still for a beat. Then she leaned down, close enough that her breath hit Bessie's cunt, and looked up past the trembling plane of her stomach to her face. "Eyes open," Megan reminded her, and Bessie's eyes were open, fixed, glazed, burning.
"Three," Bessie sobbed. "Priya, please, I'm right there, I need to come so bad, please." Megan's fingers fucked into her, fast, ruthless, and stopped dead. Bessie wailed at the ceiling, empty and clenching.
"Two," she forced out, voice shredded. "Priya, please let me come, please, I'll do anything, the shed, the gloves, anything, I'll be so loud, I'll be so good."
"One." Bessie hung there on the word like it was a cliff edge, chest heaving, eyes wide on Priya's face. "One. Please. Please let me. Please, Priya."
"Now," Priya said, and gave the final stroke, her gloved fingers pushing deep and hooking while her mouth closed hard over her clit and sucked.
Bessie went off like a building coming down.
The scream started in her stomach and ripped up through her whole body, raw and continuous, her name in it, Priya's name, screamed over and over at the bare walls while her orgasm slammed through her in waves, her cunt gushing around Priya's fingers, squirting against the neoprene, soaking Priya's wrist and the sheet under her. Her wrists strained so hard against the cuffs the frame knocked the wall. "Priya, Priya, thank you, thank you, fuck, thank you for the gloves, thank you for the wall, thank you for every practice," she got out between the waves, hiccupping, crying, "thank you, thank you," and then the words dissolved entirely into sound.
Priya worked her through it, slowing only as the spasms eased, drawing out every last shudder until Bessie lay gasping and wrecked, thighs soaked past her knees, utterly boneless in the straps.
"Countdown complete," Megan announced, sitting back, her fingers glistening. "One left."
Bessie's chest heaved. Her eyes were still open, unfocused, fixed somewhere near Priya's chin. Megan leaned down to her ear again, whispered one word, "Rule four," and Bessie's whole face went red from her hairline down.
She gathered herself. Swallowed. Looked Priya Patel dead in the eyes, cuffed, dripping, ruined, and said it.
"Priya. Will you take me to the equipment shed?"
The room went absolutely silent. Pipes ticked in the wall. Leslie's breath caught audibly by the foot of the bed.
Priya straightened up slowly, chin still wet, and wiped her gloved hands on her thighs. The grin came back, the gap in her teeth, the one she aimed at the field.
"Chen," she said, "I brought a change of clothes in my bag for exactly this. I just didn't think you'd ask before you even came down from the first one."
"You planned the shed?" Megan said.
"I planned everything." Priya stood, flexing her fingers, looking down at Bessie spread out and sobbing-soft in the lamp light. "Question is whether her roommates hand her over for round two or come watch."