Elle
Elle knew what it was like to have a sucky family. Her feelings about her jerk father, repressed mother, and sexist dumb-butt brother varied between tepid and neutral. Her teen years had been the slow but ultimately happy process of realizing she didn’t need to be near those people if she didn’t want to be. Instead, she moved out and made her own family with Tory and Ben, and people from work and uni. She learned to care for herself and not assume that everyone needed a white picket fence and a nuclear family, or that such a notion was even healthy.
Now, eight years after she’d left her family home and all its yelling, tension, and endless drama, she’d been thrust back into the volatile landscape of Family Issues.
Jackson had called her minutes after she left his apartment begging her to come home but she’d refused.
“I’m going to stay with Tory,” she told him. “This isn’t a fucking power move, Jackson. I need space, and you need to talk to your mother without me there. It’s been over three weeks. You need to find out what she wants.”
“I can’t!” he said. “She’s too drunk to talk now!”
“Then speak with her tomorrow,” Elle said as she walked toward Southern Cross Station, shivering slightly in the cold. If only she’d thought to grab a jacket before she stormed out, not to mention a bra. Power walking around without one was no fun whatsoever.
“I will speak with Maman tomorrow.” Jackson’s voice was soft and velvety, the way she loved it most. “Ellie, please come home. I love you.”
“I love you too,” she said. “But I can’t be where your mother is. At least not until things get sorted out.”
Little did Elle know that in making that statement, she was condemning herself to spend the week on Tory’s couch. It seemed that once Jackson and his mother started talking, there was an awful lot to say.
First Valeraine announced that she wanted to divorce Marius and live in Melbourne. Then, that she wanted Jackson to take over Marius’ business in Lyon. Then, that she wanted him to spend a summer in France and make sure he really wanted to be with Elle.
Every evening Jackson called and relayed the latest conversations to her as though they all carried equal weight. As though he was just as inclined to cut off all contact with his mother as he was to move away to France.
“The problem is, if I tell her to leave and not come back, she’ll never forgive me,” he told her. “I wouldn’t mind that so much, but she’ll try to stop me from seeing my siblings. I just…I don’t know what to do, Ellie.”
She wanted to tell him what to do more than she wanted air, but the past month with Valeraine had taught her that her opinions carried very little weight with her boyfriend, at least on this subject. So she said nothing besides, “Take all the time you need,” and, “I’ll be waiting.”
He never apologized for calling her crazy, and though the memory of it burned like fire, she refused to bring it up. In the face of a family breakdown, it seemed insignificant, and besides, talking about it hurt too much. All her life she’d been called crazy. She was loud, prone to anger, and she liked being in charge; all qualities society found deeply unattractive in women. Since witch burning was no longer an option, she got labelled crazy. When she tried to join her brother’s football team, she was crazy. When she punched the school captain for grabbing her tit, she was crazy. When she got the highest grade in her metalwork class, it was because she sucked off the teacher. Also she was crazy.
It Never. Fucking. Stopped.
When she left her parents’ house, Elle had made herself a promise; people would probably always say she was crazy, but she would never tolerate hearing that word from those who were supposed to love her. Being tough and liking atypically masculine things didn’t make her crazy or a bitch or a freak or a slut. She was a good person with a bad temper and she liked being outside, that’s all there was to it.
That night on Jackson’s dining table she realized her promise didn’t hold a lot of water when it came to her boyfriend. He’d always defended her right to be who and what she was, and then he’d let his mother run roughshod over both of them for a month. He’d let Valeraine call her names and mock her body, and job, and accent, and everything. And when she pointed out that the woman clearly hated her and was trying to mess up their relationship, he called her that fucking word.
What did that mean for their relationship? Was it over?
Elle loved Jackson and she understood that his feelings toward his mother were complicated, but if they had any future as a couple, he couldn’t just sit idly by while she took potshots from his relatives. He would have to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘Maman, Ellie is the woman I love, and you will learn to respect her or you will not be welcome in our home. Now, please leave. Elle is coming over so I can eat her pussy for one hundred hours in order to apologize for being such a dick.’
At least that’s what Elle hoped he would do. As the days passed without any resolution, it began to feel as though her lover was bracing himself to end things between them.
“You’re wrong,” Tory said as they walked down High Street a week and a half after Elle had left his apartment. “Jackson loves you. You guys are meant to be together. You’re soul mates.”
Elle didn’t reply. Tory was her best friend, and while they agreed on almost everything—animal rights, socialism, banana being the best flavor of Nesquik—Tory had a hearts-for-eyes approach to love that didn’t jive with Elle’s lived reality. Or any reality. If she and Jackson really were soul mates, they wouldn’t be about to split up over a fight with his fucking mum.
Elle pulled her hoodie tighter around her face. “Can we go get a coffee?”
“We just had a coffee.”
“I want another one,” she said, steering them toward Galvano’s café. “We haven’t tried here yet! It’s meant to be great!”
A hazelnut latte later and Elle’s hands were pleasantly tingly. This was how she’d been coping through the past week; drinking so much caffeine, she was essentially an alien life form steering a meat sack. It kept her up most of the night, but she wasn’t sleeping so well, anyway. She just played games on her phone and looked at Jackson’s Instagram feed, admiring his golden skin and easy smile, the way you could see the sweetness radiating out of his dark brown eyes.
Stalking him—was it stalking if you were technically still a couple?—felt very prophetic. Once her only contact with Jackson had been scanning his social media accounts late at night, alternately full of hate and longing. They’d been enemies then, at least as far as Elle was concerned. What would happen if they broke up? Would they become enemies again? Would she return to the single life broken and alone, her only contact with Jackson via screens?
“Elle,” Tory said, grabbing her hand and holding it tightly. “Everything’s going to be okay, you know that, right?”
Elle swallowed. “Um, yeah?”
“That doesn’t sound very convincing.”
“I know it’s just…look!” Elle pointed to a gorgeous boutique store across the road. “That looks amazing. Want to check it out?”
Tory sighed. “I know what you’re doing, but fine.”
The conversation was mercifully derailed as she and Tory crossed the street and approached the store. Aptly named Longing, the window was full of the most stunning lingerie Elle had ever seen. Sheer lace panties embroidered with forget-me-nots, raw silk camisoles, intricate lace bisque’s and, Elle’s heart began to hammer at the very sight of it, latex. Not the cheap blends sold in chain stores, but authentic latex, taut and shiny and malleable. Call her a cliché, but she fucking loved latex. She had a bra and panty set that she’d bought on her twenty-fifth birthday that she’d worn over a hundred times.
“It's so beautiful,” Tory moaned, pressing her hands to the glass.
Elle looked over to see the display reflected twice in her friend’s big brown eyes. “Should we go in?”
“I don’t know, man.” Tory looked understandably nervous. Longing was a place where a woman could fall into a lingerie haze and emerge four thousand dollars lighter without breaking a sweat. But Elle spotted a red latex catsuit and her mouth filled with spit. “We could just go inside and look…?”
“I…Ben and I…we can’t afford…I really shouldn’t.”
This time Elle seized Tory’s hand. “Come on, friend. You know you want to.”
Inside it was better, and worse, than they could have imagined. The air was warm and scented with vanilla and frankincense, the crystal chandelier cast a flattering light over everything, and the red velvet carpet was almost disturbingly plush. It was all Elle could do to not pull out her wallet and just start chucking cash into the air.
Margaret, the burlesque model-looking woman behind the counter was delightful, appearing to take actual pleasure in finding lingerie that suited them. She quickly located a peacock blue corset for Tory and, once she confirmed it matched her skin perfectly, paired it with gold knickers, stockings and Elizabethan-style heels, transforming her from someone who’d just been walking down the street in tracksuit pants, into a vision of full-figured beauty.
While Tory traipsed around the dressing room, talking herself into buying the outfit, Margaret turned her attention to Elle. “What do you like? What suits you?”
“Latex,” Elle said. “Sharp lines. Bold colors. Nothing frilly.”
Margaret nodded. “We’ll find you something amazing.”
She began presenting Elle with items of latex lingerie; basques, and catsuits, and a tiny red dress that clung to her body like cold toffee.
“You have the perfect figure for latex,” Margaret said, as Elle modeled a small girdle skirt.
“No tits?”
“Petite,” she corrected. “You have the right attitude for latex too. Some women get too nervous about their squishy parts showing, they don’t have the confidence you need to pull it off.”
That would be her sexual dominance, but Elle didn’t feel like telling Margaret that. She didn’t feel like blowing a fortnight’s pay on a sex-outfit either. As much as she liked the pieces, a nagging voice kept telling her she might need her money for the first and last on a new flat. Jesus, if she had to move out, it would be bye-bye waterfront apartment, hello again outer-city sharehouses with moldy shower curtains. The thought was like a lead weight in Elle’s gut. Suddenly the warm latex skirt was stifling. Thanking Margaret for her help she moved back into her changeroom and tugged it off, cursing as it snagged on her skin.
“Jackson,” she muttered as she kicked the skirt away. “What the hell are we doing?”
“Okay, I know I haven’t sold you on anything yet, but what about this!” Margaret burst into the curtained cubicle holding a hanger high above her head like a flag. “Ta dah!”
The item hanging off it looked like a wet black leotard with sections strategically cut out. Aside from Jackson on the brink of orgasm, it was the most beautiful thing Elle had ever seen. She stared at it like a woman possessed. “It’s…”
“Perfect,” Margaret agreed. “It’s Atsuko Kudo. A bodysuit in a cage-cut design. Stunning, isn’t it?”
“Stunning isn’t the fucking half of it,” Elle whispered. If I was wearing that I could get Jackson to do anything. Anything in the world. She shook her head. “I know Atsuko Kudo and I so can’t afford it.”
“Try it on,” the sales assistant begged. “For me.”
Elle resisted for a full ten seconds before agreeing. Once the bodysuit was on she felt like a woman transformed. Looking in the mirror she could see her Domme self staring out of her usual self, her eyes sharp, her lips plump with blood.
“Wow.” Margaret’s cheeks were slightly pink. “You look awesome. Wait here a moment.”
She returned with black spike heels, a latex choker, and perhaps most tellingly of all, a horsewhip. Like someone in a dream, Elle watched rather than felt herself donning the heels and choker, taking the horsewhip in hand. When she stood, straight-backed, and met her own gaze she wanted to gasp. Stripped of all her other roles, the woman in the mirror was primal, powerful, and yeah, beautiful. The kind of woman who could have a boyfriend like Jackson and no one would bat an eyelid.
“Stunning,” Margaret said, and this time Elle knew she wasn’t talking about the latex. “Can I say something?”
“Uh, sure?” Elle said, anticipating a sales pitch.
“There’s a party tonight at…do you know Blushfire?”
Elle raised an eyebrow. She’d heard of Blushfire, a cooperative that organized high-end BDSM play parties, but she’d never met anyone who’d actually attended an event. They were uber-secret, twice a year deals for kinky models and glitterati types. “Ah, yeah, I have heard of them, why?”
Margaret’s shifty expression grew shiftier. “How’d you like to come to a party tonight?”
Elle stared at her. “Um, I’m a little low rent for that, don’t you think?”
“Not at all!” Margaret looked shocked. “You’re gorgeous, and a Domme…I mean, you are a Domme, aren’t you?”
Elle glanced around as though someone else might be hiding in the changing room. “Yeah, uh, pretty much.”
“Well, hot young Dommes are so in demand. I could introduce you to like, fifty kinky guys who want a Mistress and they would crawl over broken glass to get to you. You have an amazing energy.”
Elle grinned. After weeks of being treated like a fungal infection, it was nice to be referred to as young and hot and energized. And to be invited to a secret Eyes Wide Shut party. “Thanks.”
“So will you come? You could wear the bodysuit!”
“Oh um, no thanks,” Elle said. “I’m…”
She took a second to consider her answer. What was she? Besides embedded in a feud with her boyfriend’s mum? “…seeing someone.” Someone who thinks I’m crazy.
“Is he like us?” Margaret said eagerly. “You could bring him.”
Yeah, that’s what she and Jackson needed, to see each other for the first time in almost a fortnight at a kinky sex party. “I don’t think so. I’ll get out of this outfit now.”
“Are you sure? It looks like it was made for you.” Margaret pursed her big burgundy lips. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you twenty percent off.”
Elle hesitated. With the discount she could afford it—barely—but the money would be better spent on a million other things. She thought of Valeraine with her Prada coat and constant hints that Elle was a dirty commoner, and came perilously close to saying, ‘sure, I’ll take it,’ but pulled herself back from the brink. “I just can’t afford it.”
Margaret looked heartbroken. “Okay, if you’re sure. I’ll let you get changed.”
She left in a swish of velvet curtain and Elle slumped against the wall, letting her belly expand. “It’s for the best,” she told her reflection. “You know it is.”
Delaying the moment when she would have to take the bodysuit off, she checked her phone. With a pang of excitement, she saw a message from Jackson, a video recording. He sometimes sent her clips of himself cooking food she liked or a song that reminded him of her. Her belly squirmed pleasurably. Maybe this was the moment when things started to get better. She pressed play. The video didn’t seem to have been taken on purpose, it was of Jackson’s foot—she recognized his brown leather oxfords—and he was saying something from a distance. She held her phone to her ear.
“…I don’t know what to do,” her boyfriend said to an unknown person. “You know how stubborn Ellie is. I don’t think she’ll accept it, she’ll just get angry and set the apartment on fire or something.” Jackson sighed. “Things are terrible right now, and I just can’t see them getting any better. Maman thinks I should fly home for a bit just to get away from everything. I’m seriously thinking about—”
The recording ended abruptly and not a moment too soon. Elle’s blood had turned to ice. She felt like she was going to pass out. Jackson was going to dump her. He was going to end things between them and all he was worried about was her going all Hulk-smash on his stupid, fucking apartment. And instead of telling her that himself, the idiot, the absolute fucking fool, had been dumb enough to accidentally record himself talking on speaker phone and then text it to her. Probably because he refused to use his touchpad, preferring to let Siri fuck up his life.
Sheer undiluted rage blended with the ten thousand milligrams of caffeine in her blood, and much to her surprise, everything went quiet inside. Suddenly she knew exactly what to do. Exactly how to react. She opened the voice notes app and hit record.
“Hello, Jackson,” she said, in a cheerful voice that was terrifying even to her own ears. “I’m going to make this really fucking easy for you. You’re dumped. We’re over. Fly wherever the fuck you want and take your stupid mum with you, because as of this text message, you are officially single, and so am I. Fuck you for calling me crazy. Also, you wish I loved you enough to burn down your flat, you narcissistic piece of shit. I am never coming near you or your flat ever again. As of now, you are less than nothing to me. Good fucking bye.”
Fingers trembling, she saved the recording and texted it to Jackson’s number.
“Elle?” Tory called from somewhere beyond the curtain. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Elle lied. She stuck her head out from behind the curtain and spotted Margaret adjusting a rack of nipple tassels. “Excuse me, do you have a bathroom?”
“Out the back.”
“Great.” Elle stepped out of the changeroom, her borrowed heels sinking into the carpet. “Back in a sec.”
“Um, we share a bathroom with the washing machine repair shop next door,” Margaret said, her blue eyes wide. “You might want to, um, change first.”
Elle felt herself grin. “I’ll just be a second.”
“But…”
“It’s fine. Let me do it.”
Margaret straightened up and said, “Okay.”
Elle felt her smile grow wider. She still knew a submissive when she smelled one, that boded well for her single life. “Thanks, babe.”
She shot Tory, who was looking deeply disturbed, a smile, and stalked out to the bathroom in nothing but latex, a choker, and heels.
Like a lot of old buildings in Brunswick, Longings’ toilet was located in a cement courtyard out back. It wasn’t a fraction as charming as the store. Broken glass and plastic littered the yard, the remains of old washing machines, Elle assumed.
“Well, fuck it, what’s a little more scrap for the heap?” she asked no one. Taking a deep breath, she raised her arm and hurled her phone at the ground.
The screen shattered at once, blistering into a thousand tiny pieces. The rest separated into sheets, like a wafer biscuit. Elle picked it up and threw it down again, splintering everything that remained into big, ugly chunks. She plucked up some of the larger pieces and hurled them at the concrete again, dividing them into bits that could never be used to contact or be contacted by another human being.
“Good,” she whispered. “It’s done.”
She went into the bathroom to wash her hands and when she looked in the mirror she saw she looked truly crazy. Beautiful but unhinged. It didn’t matter, she told herself, she was single. She was alone. She would never have Jackson again. But unlike her phone, she wasn’t broken.
With that in mind, she re-entered the store. Margaret and Tory turned around to look at her, their eyes wary and admiring.
“Are you okay?” Tory asked.
“I’m great.” Elle gestured down at her latex clad form. “Margaret? I will take this. Also, what time is this party?”