Chapter 9: Compelled in Absentia

Claire felt unsteady on her feet as she turned off the shower. Clean… Just thinking a single word was enough mental stimulation to twist Claire’s mouth into a shape she couldn’t have made on her own if she tried. Her hair clung wet to her face and neck. Her eyes were open, but almost as blank as Sophia’s after Mae spoke those words.

“O-ohhhh…”

Her mind didn’t so much process distinct thoughts or words as easily as it had before. Instead, she felt the vague concept of how she’d made sure to clean her entire body, and how good it felt to know that she was now clean. It felt good to know that Mae, the woman who had shoved her fingers into Claire’s brain would be pleased with her.

Claire’s clit sang, and Claire’s throat struggled to match the pitch. It failed, but Claire was only half cognizant. It was difficult for her to know, much less understand anything or judge it to be of quality.

D-dry… M-must… D-dry…

“Ohhhhhh fuuuuuck…!”

Claire screamed, slowly falling to her knees in the tub with her hands between her thighs. All of her hard work to scrub herself clean was gone in a single moment as her pussy burst along her legs and she spent several long minutes just kneeling in her own juices. She stared at the shining metal of the bath’s spigot, not thinking of the reflections or anything at all. Instead, she was merely caught by the light glinting off of it from the bulb above.

Thoughts were still too difficult, but in some small, simple, almost animal way she could appreciate the aesthetic of brightness, of something shining like a beautiful chrome beacon. It caught her attention, and held it, as her fingers idly stroked along her slit without any understanding besides it felt good.

It felt good, and her pussy was still tingling from the feeling of words invading it directly from her brain—or from someone else’s lips. She lacked the understanding to tell the difference.

R-rise…

She trembled, and nearly fell as she stood, but some force stronger than Claire held her up. Nothing so physical as puppet strings, nor as personal as hands—it was more as though a force of nature, a gravity of lust pulled and pushed her upwards and didn’t allow her to stumble or fall. She was held upright, and the towel found its way into her hand.

D-dry… Dry… Dry…!

Her hips shook, and her mouth twisted each time the word repeated itself inside of her head as Claire rubbed away the many droplets coating her naked body. She moved not with a mechanical precision, but like someone who had never used a towel before.

The cloth was held in her hand, and she moved it in a way that functioned, but it more hung from her hand and was rubbed than moved in any experienced fashion.

W-walk… Walk… R-room… Go to… My… Room… Go to… C-Claire’s… Room… Clothes… Need… to… She stepped towards the door, and her hand was tugged to the knob before it turned. It hardly felt as though she yanked it so much as the door pulled Claire.

She still didn’t know who this “Claire” was, or where her room was, but the words themselves had a tug and a pull on her psyche and her limbs. Like a string tied to her clit was tugging her into a room that had some significance, Claire followed and when another string grasping a nipple pulled her towards a bed she looked down and saw a small pile of clothing.

Dress!

Claire screamed, falling to her knees in front of the bed. She rubbed her face into the sheets, her hands grasping uselessly at the air. With her palms facing away from the bed it was difficult to take ahold of anything, but she was less trying to accomplish a task and more lost in her state of useless mindlessness. Even obeying tasks was difficult with her mind in such a disordered, ruined state.

If she had a choice, or the control wielded over her was any weaker, she would simply remain on her knees with her eyes staring at a wall and her hands grasping at nothing.

Luckily, she had no such choice.

The same force of obedient, erotic gravity levitated Claire, and though the garments on her bed were too complicated for someone with little more functional gray matter than a small insect to possibly wear, the same force that pulled her hand to the knob had her grasping for her panties, her bra, and then the pair of sheer stockings.

Her hands moved as they’d been instructed, trained, driven by a force that neither she nor they could understand. What mattered was that they moved, and though it took far more effort and energy than if she were going through the motions herself, it wasn’t too terribly long before she was wearing the underclothes. After another entirely too long struggle a short skirt was tugged up past her legs, and a button-up blouse tugged onto her arms.

Try as she might, the buttons were too difficult for the force of lesbian lust that inhabited her body. She was technically wearing it, and though her bra was visible, it was nearly acceptable for public consumption.

The only people who would be looking twice would be doing so with the hopes of seeing more of her skin, not to report her for public indecency.

L-living room… c-couch… kneel… kneel…!

As though a great collar were around Claire’s neck, and some harness around her waist, Claire stumbled forward until she was summarily pulled down to the floor in front of the couch. Once she was there, head down, resting on her knees with her arms hanging limp at her sides, the burnt-out flame of Claire reignited.

C-Claire…

She groaned, her thighs clenching as she moved her fingers uselessly in the air.

I-I… I’m… C-Claire…!

Her eyes fluttered, thoughts and ideas that were too complicated for the husk of a young woman to understand slowly beginning to coalesce without the overwhelming erotic weakness they’d brought before.

M-Mae-mommy and Sophie-mommy’s daughter… College student…

She moved her lips as though trying to remember how they worked but not in any attempt to speak quite yet. Remembering how to speak was an integral step in deciding what to say, and Claire needed to take things one step at a time. There wasn’t enough of her together in one piece for her to skip anything and come out functional on the other side.

Without needing to be told that if she rushed she would be as useless as she’d been moments before, Claire knew. It wasn’t from the words that someone had implanted into her core, but some instinctive understanding that came from feeling herself be torn asunder.

The bridge of her nose itched, and the place between her eyes felt like a bee sting.

Mental toxins drained from her brain through her pussy, making it easier with each slick rivulet of lust for something resembling an actual human woman’s mind to coalesce.

I’m… I’m a lesbian. I was… was before whatever happened to me. I have a crush on Elizabeth Baxter… Belinda Kim is my best friend… My favorite color is red…

“That’s right…” A woman’s voice crooned at her, and Claire shuddered from head to toe. “Piece yourself back together. I’m not here to tell you who you are, or to change that. I’m just here to make sure you have a safe place to do so without anyone else… slipping anything else in. Concentrate on the things coming to you. Concentrate on you, Claire…

“Because you’re very precious to me, and I would hate to change a single thing about you.”

Claire’s thighs clenched. Her head nodded. The woman speaking knew such complicated ideas, and had such important sounding things to say.

Claire was still struggling to not drool all over herself.

I almost skipped the second half of kindergarten becausae I didn’t want to spend less time with my Sophie-mommy… In fourth grade my teachers helped my mommies learn that I had dyscalculia…

The floor was a simple carpet—light gray without any special patterns—but the longer she focused on it the more it gained a certain vibrancy that it lacked moments before. The texture of each individual carpet fiber looked more defined, more of a singular entity and less a mass of blurry shapes. As though her mental faculties were a pair of glasses, Claire was slowly perceiving the world more and more as it was and less as a blurry, confusing mass of interrelated shapes.

It was certainly far easier to take in than the way the world was before, but her eyes ached. Her mind felt slow. There were so many points of contention, so many little arguments she was having with herself to reconstruct Claire and not some impostrix.

I first went on a date with a girl named… Dakota… When I was… Five…? Six…? We had… breakfast… I think I had… waffles…? No… Claire slowly shook her head. Pancakes. She had waffles. Made fun of me. Said the waffle had syrup trays. I cried. She apologized. I was so embarrassed, but she shared her waffles with me. I’d never been so happy… then she moved away, and I cried for weeks…

Claire shook her head, groaning at how it nearly hurt to feel everything inside of her skull sloshing to one side of reality and then the other with each motion. There hadn’t been so much room before, and there was less and less room as more of who and what she was expanded to fill the space, but that took conscious effort.

Unless she tried to recover herself, to remake Claire from the shards littered around her, she might not be anyone.

The idea was somewhat complicated, but it was simple enough to even her current understanding that Claire shuddered with fear. She needed to pull herself together, to find every last piece. She needed to be the same woman she’d been before… before…

Can’t… remember… Pussy… so… wet… C-came… So hard… Someone… put something… inside of me… someone… some… thing… so big… so… much…

“Aah… a-aaahh…” Claire whined, her eyes fluttering as she strained to keep ahold of her fledgling consciousness even as the sound buffeted her understanding like a hurricane tearing siding from a dilapidated house. “Cl… Claaaair… Claaaaaiiiiire… M… maaaaa… Maaaa… Maaaaae… M-maaaeeee…”

I’m… Claire Guest… That’s my name… That’s who I am… What I am… who I want to be… Need… need to keep ahold…!

Her fragile grasp felt like it was faltering, like she was going to feel the many small pieces of who and what she was unravel leaving her even less than she was as the husk, but then she remembered how it felt to squeeze her mother’s breasts through her sweater, and somehow that was enough to form a tether that didn’t snap no matter how heavy the turbulence.

Mae’s lips, melting into hers.

Mae’s finger, pushing up along her nose and ramming something into her brain.

Mae, with her brown eyes so much like Claire’s own.

Mae.

Mae.

Mae.

“M-m-mae… M-m-momm…momm-yyyyy…!” Claire strained to lift her head, catching a glimpse of long, smooth, shapely legs emerging from a tiny skirt. Her head fell, neck fragile, head too heavy, and she choked back a sound that was a combination of an orgasmic cry and a pitiful sob. “M-mae… M-mommy…!”

Mae-Mommy touched me… Kissed me… That finger between my eyes… Her tongue… Made my mind go numb… Made everything break, made me…

Sh-shatter…

Claire screamed, feeling the rending, ripping, soul shattering sensations that made her a shattered excuse for a person all playing out in reverse. Every little piece of mental shrapnel, shards of broken self, fitted back into the right place as she cried and shook in agony.

When it was over she didn’t try to raise her head again. She didn’t try to move. She just tried to breathe, and recover.

She did that… with just… the softest touch… Claire twitched, her lips rubbing faintly against each other as if to test the reality of the sensation. Okay not the softest, it was pretty firm, but… She just… stroked me, and I… I wasn’t a person, I wasn’t me, I was… this broken… quivering… I was nothing and it wasn’t… horrible or terrifying or frightening or depressing. It was… nothing.

If she didn’t encourage me to come back to myself…

…I wouldn’t be Claire anymore.

Her eyes filled with tears that quickly overflowed, running swiftly down her face. She didn’t feel betrayed, or fearful of her mother. She’d felt what she could have done. She knew how much Mae avoided changing her, leashing her, making her into something other than herself.

Even if I’m her daughter… that had to be hard. Who wouldn’t want to take control of their daughter's life, at least a little, to take care of them? To make things… easier… Claire sniffled, rubbing away her tears without lifting her head an inch. She could have done that to me… any time I didn’t go to bed, any time I stayed up late with my phone curled up under my blankets… she waited until now, and she…

She still held herself back.

I never even imagined someone could do that…

“So…” Mae smiled, crossing her legs casually. The motion ended with the end of her foot below Claire’s chin, rubbing the gentlest, faintest bit on the way past. With a faint tip of her foot, she lifted Claire’s face so their eyes met. “Do you believe me now, Claire?”

Slowly, her eyes not so much vacant as still holding hints of her pain and discomfort, Claire nodded.

Mae hooded her eyes, a faint sad, apologetic twinge to her expression. “I could have made you believe me, and not left any room for discussion or argument. It would have been remarkably easy, and you wouldn’t even need to remember it. If I wanted to, you’d be thinking we spent the night cuddling and you woke up more in love with me, more wanting to please me than ever in your life—I want more for you than that.”

Claire nodded again, listlessly.

She didn’t feel any compulsions to believe her, any need to believe it as undeniable truth.

If I wanted to, I could deny it, I could argue it… but… Claire whimpered. I’ve felt what it’s like, I… She did that to Sophie-mommy…? She… I…

“I want your happiness, my little Claire-bear, and while right now you might be afraid of me, might be wondering how I could ever do that to someone else—I want you to know that what you experienced is not exactly the same as what Sophia felt when I… infiltrated her.” Claire watched Mae shudder, and then quickly shake her head. “Now how’s that for a clinical, passionless term?

“Ironically, reshaping a woman is often far less painful than breaking her apart and helping her put herself back together. Reshaping is pleasurable, and in fact, you rarely need to break down all but the most stubborn of women… even then…” Mae snapped her fingers. Claire quivered. “Is it pain if you never consciously feel it, never remember it, and it never impacts the rest of your life? If it is, then I have hurt a lot of people, but I think that it’s all been for the best.”

Her snapping fingers neared Claire’s face again, and the younger woman didn’t whimper though she felt the instinct. She nuzzled the offered hand, and felt the fingers slowly slide through her hair as she closed her eyes.

This is… so much more complicated than I imagined. Claire wiggled her hips, shifting closer to feel her mother’s petting that much more, to nuzzle into her hand with more leverage. Here I just thought, from what Sophie-mommy said, that Mae-mommy was a hypnotist, and this was just some… stronger version of that, some… advanced version? Some… true hypnosis…?

Instead she’s some sort of… infiltration expert… for a lesbian conspiracy.

Claire blinked, looking up and seeing her mother’s face but more looking past her and into her own amazement.

My life got a lot more complicated very quickly…

“And I told you—I’m a hedonist.” Mae’s fingers moved through Claire’s curls, nails teasing along her scalp, and Claire moaned in exhausted, overwhelmed bliss. “I believe in the inherent rightness, justness… positivity…? Of pleasure, for its own sake. Pleasure, as its own cause, its own faith. If I thought that making you softer, more obedient, simpler would keep you happy at all… then I would. If I thought I could make one small change and make you a happier person than I could through the hard work of talking to you like this, then I would…

“But I don’t think you would be happy like your mother is.” Mae slowly shook her head, moving her foot to direct Claire’s head back and forth, too.” You might enjoy it for a time, but a girl like you… you’d rebel, thrash, and when you couldn’t succeed… you might hurt yourself.

“Emotionally, physically… Even just mentally.” Mae frowned, looking more woeful, more despondent than Claire had ever seen in her life. “I couldn’t do that to my precious little girl, my amazing little Claire-bear. Shatter her mind with an orgasm strong enough to temporarily blot out reality to get my point across?”

Mae shrugged.

“Yes.”

Claire quivered.

My reality… shattered. Blotted. That’s… definitely how it felt. I… I don’t want to experience that again…

“Trap her in a situation that would slowly drive her mad?”

Mae slowly shook her head, her strawberry-blonde pageboy adorably bouncing and swaying with the effort.

“Never.”

Claire nodded thoughtfully, swallowing as she finally parted her lips to speak. “You said you were… just a member of… one of these organizations, one of these… conspiracies.” Mae nodded, smiling as her toes curled and wiggled to tease under Claire’s chin. She giggled, then shook her head. “You made it sound like a lot of these conspiracies are basically the same thing… not getting along because they’re so much alike… right…?”

Mae nodded again, though she shifted her weight in a way that seemed far more uncomfortable with the question than Claire liked.

“But… not all of them. There are some of them that don’t… that don’t share your beliefs in making people happier, making things… the kind of better where people are smiling more, and more… doing what the conspiracy wants…” Claire looked away, clearing her throat as Mae’s foot moved to once again bring their gazes in line. “That means there are people—women—out there who… can do what you do… and they don’t care if the person they do it to is hurt or not.”

Mae remained silent for several long moments, before giving a hard swallow. She moved her toes to break Claire’s line of sight, if only for a moment.

“I left my conspiracy because I realized that I was working alongside people who only wanted to achieve their goals, and though some of them used pleasure to get it… pleasure wasn’t their goal. They used orgasms like a sledgehammer,” Mae shuddered, but didn’t allow herself to pause. “They didn’t care where that left their victims in the long term. I realized that I was already very close to becoming the same… so I left.

“No one wanted to come after me, because, as it turns out?” Mae wiggled her fingers, drawing Claire’s gaze with the sudden motion. “I’m very good at what I do. There was a very… legitimate… worry that if they came after me I might… not be very appreciative. Mostly… because I wasn’t.”

Claire stared up at her mother in visible awe, her eyes wide.

“Don’t be too impressed…” Mae shook her head, waving her hand as if to push away the silent praise as she stared down at one of her own hands. “I was… a lot younger then, and while I did my best to live by my ideals, to make sure that what I did to them would make them happier, would make them better, I was younger and didn’t yet understand that some people don’t bend—they only break. I’m… not exactly proud of what I did—in the conspiracy, or to my fellow weavers.

“They might have struggled their way free of my work… I was at the top of my game back then, but I was headstrong.” Mae shrugged. “There’s no telling what I overlooked, missed intentionally… For all I know, I only did a good enough job to convince their superiors to break them back down and build them back up to serve the higher members of the conspiracy due to being seen as failures. We all knew failure carried… risks.”

Claire frowned, gently kissing her mother’s foot before wiggling closer to nuzzle into her knee. Mae continued to pet Claire’s hair, and Claire wrapped her arms around her mother’s legs. “It sounds like you lived a whole life that I never even knew about… Was mom why you stopped being a member of the conspiracy—to live with her…?”

Mae stared almost suspiciously down at Claire who blinked back in visible confusion.

“You really are still willing to trust me even after admitting—and proving—that I used to work for an organization that trained me to use desire and craving and need to turn women into our slaves to advance our political agendas?”

For a moment, Claire took on a serious and introspective look. “You didn’t need to tell me this. You could have made it so I was not only unquestioning, but encouraged you to change me and mom more, in dramatic ways to make you happy…” Claire nuzzled her mother’s knee, quietly sighing as she squeezed a little tighter, and wiggled a little closer. “You’ve always encouraged me to be independent, even when it bit you in the ass… I think if anything… you did what you did to me to make sure I’d believe your story, and for my own safety.”

Mae whistled.

Claire grinned.

“I’m more than just a pretty face.” She wiggled her ass before softly kissing Mae’s knee. “I’m also just plain hot. And smart. Probably. You weren’t exactly the best at hiding your intentions if you meant to, but… I don’t think you did.”

Mae shook her head. “No… I didn’t mean to do that at all. You got me there, and… Honestly? I’m incredibly relieved that this is the way you’re choosing to react after…” Mae lifted both of her hands up into the air, wildly gesturing with her fingers splayed before shrugging and letting her hands fall beside her on the couch. “I was half preparing for you to take your mother and run…” Mae sighed. “Never to see you again…”

What do I even say to that? Claire frowned, squirming against her mother’s legs. I… I mean I was thinking about that, and I only didn’t because I’m a sexual deviant who really wanted to fuck her own mother, so… I don’t think I have any room to talk.

But saying that, right now?

Claire didn’t shake her head, but she imagined it.

That’s the last thing that mom needs to hear…

“I think a part of me was hoping you would, and solve the anxiety that I haven’t been quite as forgotten as I like to believe, but… that would be cowardly of me to hope for too loudly. Especially when I really did mean everything I said. I love your mother, and all I did to help her fall in love with me was help… open her up to her latent lesbianism. A little…” Mae wiggled her fingers. “Casual Sapphistry.”

“Casual… Sapphistry?”

Mae grinned.

“Mm-hm. I used a more… extreme version of it on you, to make my point. I intend on teaching it to you… if you’re interested in learning, anyway. It does carry a certain degree of risk.” Mae’s fingers returned to Claire’s hair, stroking along her curls as Claire wiggled and mewled. “Once you learn it’s always there, in your fingertips, in your voice… just waiting for an opportunity. Sometimes you’ll find a straight girl, or even an outright lesbian disaster, and you’ll need to restrain yourself. Never bite off more than you can chew.”

“I can ‘chew’ a lot, if by ‘chew’ you mean… things… that I’d do… to… girls…” Claire flushed, and Mae laughed. “Anyway…! Of course I want to learn! I imagine I’ll need to practice on someone other than Sophie-mommy for… obvious reasons, but I’m sure that I can find a test subject or two…!”

“That’s my girl.” Mae kissed two fingers before pressing them just above the space between her daughter’s eyes. It didn’t feel like the pressure from before, the pushing, the nearly physical sensation that shattered her mind into a million pieces.

Instead, it felt warm and soft, almost as though the warmth of her mother’s lips were spreading along every contour of her forehead.

Claire moaned, and let her eyelids flutter. “Ooohhh… Your girl… Mmm…” Purring, Claire wiggled closer, resting her head atop her mother’s lap. “You know… small tastes of this aren’t so bad, even if I’m really not the kind of girl who would be happy to always be a bottom… Though I have nothing but respect for a nice pillow princess!”

Mae laughed, slowly shaking her head. Her legs wrapped around Claire, pulling her even tighter. “Your mother isn’t just one of those when she has a chance you know. I’ll teach you how to help a woman dissociate from herself so she can experience things she wouldn’t ordinarily. As a warning… With some? They begin to feel more fulfilled with the dissociation, and may actively resist any attempts—including your own—to changing them back into their formerly ordinary mode of functioning… That’s part of why you never want to encourage self-destructive behavior.”

“Don’t worry… I will be as gentle with her as I possibly can without disappointing her and not satisfying myself!” Claire sighed, nuzzling more into Mae’s lap as she fluttered her eyes. “Besides… I really love mom the way she is. Why would I want to change her in any serious way?”

“You just keep impressing me… but now really isn’t the time to teach you what you’d need to learn to begin your journey in earnest. You’ll need your rest.” Mae teased a finger along Claire’s chin, her eyes hooding low as Claire wriggled into the touch. “Though I can teach you about the less… arcane… tricks of the trade. Methodology. Things to keep in mind. While hypnosis isn’t by any means what we do, I learned a lot from hypnotists. The degree to which they’re able to emulate what we do is truly impressive.”

Emulate… Claire nodded with her head still comfortably situated in her mother’s lap. I wonder how much Mae-mom picked up what she’s done with Sophie-mom from casual hypnotists playing around—or playing naughty games. I guess if there are any weaker conspiracies that aren’t in the know they could always try hypnosis and see how far it got them…

But it’s hard to believe that anything could compare to what Mae-mommy is capable of doing with a single finger!

Claire shifted, pulling free of her mother’s leg-hug just long enough to crawl back onto the couch, nuzzling back into the same place she’d occupied moments before. Her knees were starting to get sore, but she wasn’t by any means ready to stop cuddling with her mother. Mae’s lap might not have been as plush as Sophia’s, but the pleasant firmness was nice in a different way.

“For one…?” Mae’s finger tapped Claire’s nose, but this time it just felt like a perfectly ordinary touch—not the touch of a skilled Sapphic Mistress of Forbidden Arts. “People have a lot of reasons why they do things, and if you aren’t careful you can make things a lot worse.”

Claire shifted so she could look straight up at Mae’s face, a quizzical expression overtaking her face. “How so…? Wouldn’t you be giving them new reasons?”

“You can, but… well… let me explain what I mean first!” Mae smiled, her fingers tracing faint, delicate paths along the shape of Claire’s cheek. They were still relatively ordinary touches, and Claire wasn’t entirely sure if she was disappointed or relieved. “For example…! Let’s say you think someone smoking is a bad, dirty, filthy, no good habit. It’ll kill them eventually, and you want them to be around for a long time. You can’t let that be, so you step in and simply command them to stop. With me so far?”

Claire nodded.

Mae continued.

“But what if this girl isn’t smoking because she likes to smoke? What if she’s smoking because the smoking area at her job is where you need to schmooze to get a promotion? What if it keeps her thin, or she’s using the self-harm as a way to stop herself from doing something that leaves outwardly visible scars—like cutting?”

Mae’s touches slowed, and Claire almost whined at how needy she felt for more intense, erotic touches. Instead she merely shifted, hands reaching down to smooth a skirt she never would have worn at home before.

Undeterred by her daughter’s pitiful squirming, Mae continued. “Making this woman in question stop smoking wouldn’t fix the problem you wanted to solve. Maybe she’d switch to sleeping with her bosses. Maybe she’d start using more dangerous drugs to keep down her weight. Maybe…” Mae waved her hand in the air repeatedly. “You understand, I hope. There’s a fancy psych term for it, but the only professional terms I learned for these things were Weaver exclusive.”

“…Weaver…?” Claire fluttered her eyes and stretched, blushing as she felt just how little her tiny skirt hid away. “You said that before, I think… What’s a weaver?”

“I’m glad you asked, because I was going to need to discuss them sooner or later.” Mae took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. “I was—technically still am because no one is ever allowed to leave—a Weaver. Inspired by the work of Sappho, my particular True Lesbian Conspiracy named itself after a name the great poet gave to Aphrodite… Ahem…”

Mae took a deep breath, and cleared her throat in a way that screamed importance. Claire settled into place, trying her best to look dutiful and curious. She was, but she wanted to look the role of a well-behaved student.

Impressing Mae-mommy feels a lot more important today, and it isn’t even because she shattered my mind into a million tiny pieces of confetti! Claire’s smile grew, but she remained silent as she waited for her mother to speak.

“Immortal Aphrodite, on your intricately brocaded throne, child of Zeus, Weaver of Wiles, this I pray: Dear Lady, don’t crush my heart with pains and sorrows.” Mae sighed, and seemed to instantly calm. “You would not believe how many times I needed to recite both that, and the alternate translation, ‘with varieties of brocaded flowers on your gown.’ I always preferred the throne… made me imagine her sitting atop a woman wearing the finest of silks and satins.”

“So…” Claire raised her hand up into the air, idly dancing her finger side to side as she worked her way through her thoughts. “That means that… your conspiracy named itself after an epithet of a goddess? A love and war goddess?”

Claire whistled.

“I think that’s many levels of hubris and probably a little heretical.”

“Probably!” Mae grinned wide. “But well… Up for a moment, mm? Just lift your head…” Claire obeyed, and Mae reached down, tugging her own skirt down—and her panties. Claire flushed, starting to look away on instinct before Mae’s fingers in her hair tugged her to look. Where some women would keep a well-trimmed tuft of soft hair, or be completely shaven, a red-and-white tattoo sat of a flower with elaborate designs moving out from the center. “This is my brand. The color designates me as an infiltrator. If Pink were weaved into it then I would be in the ruling… Caste? It’s been so long… and there was a lot I tried to forget…”

“But you could never forget how to make a woman into your drooling slut, huh…?” Claire stared at her mother’s tattoo in amazement. While the very center of the design was relatively simple, looking more like geometric shapes arranged together more than anything else, it had a certain charm.

It was also remarkably close to Mae’s lower lips.

“One never forgets how to ride a bike.” Mae laughed as she tugged her panties and skirt back into place with a single tug, and then guided Claire’s head back down into place. “but rest in my lap for a while, and I’ll teach you some things I’d like you to keep in mind for when you play with your mother, besides that our date night is Monday evenings, but if you want to join us then we might be able to arrange that… Eventually.”

“For now… Mondays are off limits! Got it!” Claire wiggled a little more, and fluttered her eyes as cutely as she could. “I’m all ready to learn, Miss Guest!”

Mae laughed.

Claire beamed.

“Well… Let’s see what all I remember… and what I can make up on the spot!” Mae’s fingers teased over her daughter’s shoulder as she began to speak, and Claire’s eager mind soaked up each and every word.