Venus Aspiring Teaser

Yesterday I submitted Consequences Ch. 7, which was another combination of reader requests.  Trying to combine reader ideas has been both challenging and interesting, although I'm probably not going to be able to do all of them, I'm glad that I've been able to work some of them in.

I'm also about halfway through the next chapter of Sarah's Private Dick and hoping to have that in soon.

And I got a ton of work done on Venus Aspiring. As promised, here's a teaser excerpt!:

During the afternoon Jessica pulled Hilary into the women's room to give her an update on her lunch with Olivia, the fact that she'd forgiven the other woman, and get her opinion on what to do.

"Both of them?" Hilary asked a little incredulously.  It was one thing to experiment at a school, far away from everyone else, but that sort of thing didn't work in real life did it?

"I know," said Jessica, slumping. "It's... god I feel like such a slut."

"Oh no, don't! That's not what I meant at all. I was just surprised.  I mean, you went to the school for BDSM stuff, I didn't realize that you had an interest in... um... what would you call it anyway?"

"Menage romance, I guess," said Jessica with a small laugh. Romance indeed.  Had there even been any romance when she was at the school? It seemed like it. The little touches they'd given her. The way they had taken care of her over the weekend.  Or was she imbuing everything with special meaning because of her own feelings? Although Olivia had seemed pretty convinced that the men had fallen head over heels for her.  And she believed Olivia. Mostly. It was just hard to think of herself that way, so attractive that she'd managed to nab two completely gorgeous and sexy dominant men. Who, if Olivia was telling the whole truth, were ready to come running if she but crooked a finger at them.

"I don't know... I mean... I think I'm just going to try to get to know them and see if anything is even there. Make sure I haven't fallen for who I thought they were in my head. It's not like I can say I really know them."  

"That seems reasonable," Hilary said.  The two girls looked at each other in the mirror.  Hilary sighed as she pulled her ponytail holder out of her blonde hair and brushed it back, redoing it.  She gave her friend a teasing smile. "I'm a little jealous actually, two men and here I'm struggling just to find one!"  

Jessica gave her a wry smile, knowing that Hilary was making the joke because the idea made her a little uncomfortable. Hell, it made Jessica pretty uncomfortable.  Part of her was wondering if she was crazy, even telling Olivia and Hilary that she thought she wanted both of them when she didn't really know either of them. But she couldn't imagine just being with one of them... that weekend spent with them together and alternating time with them had been perfect. She wanted that again. 

Did that make her greedy or perverted or just outright skanky? It definitely didn't make her feel good about herself. Especially since she could see Hilary struggling with the idea, much more than Olivia had. That's what it would be like.  

She made a face at herself in the mirror and both of them giggled.

"Maybe I'll date them and find out that one of them is actually perfect for me and the other is perfect for you."   But as soon as she said it a rising tide of green jealousy rose up in her.  Which one would she be willing to part with? As wrong as it was, considering that she wanted to be with two men, she hated the idea of seeing either of them with another woman.  Not that either of them were hers. Yet, according to Olivia.  

Hilary was watching her with sympathetic eyes, seeing Jessica struggle with her feelings. While she might not entirely understand it, it was obvious that Jessica really did have feelings for both of them.  And, knowing her friend as she did, Hilary was pretty sure those feelings went a lot deeper than Jessica was admitting.  She obviously didn't want to see either of the men with Hilary, and Hilary couldn't really blame her.   

"That's okay," she said, reassuring her friend but also keeping her tone light, so as not to embarrass Jessica by letting her know how transparent her true feelings were. "I have this policy of not sleeping with anyone my best friend has. Leads to complications."  She winked saucily. It was true too. "Besides, if they're as kinky as you are they'd probably think I was a prude and they'd send me screaming the first time they tried to spank me."  

Both of them laughed.

"You're getting kinkier," said Jessica, relaxing as she grinned. Hilary always knew exactly what to say to calm her down, set her at ease. She could tell that Hilary was still struggling with her desires that the e-books had brought up, the strange realization that she wanted to be dominated.  That's not the kind of urges an independent modern woman was supposed to have.  Being with two men was even more taboo.  Jessica made a face again and then sighed.

"How can you not judge me?" As soon as the question left her mouth she wished she hadn't asked it. How could she possibly expect an answer she could live with. "Never mind."

"No, it's okay," said Hilary slowly.  Jessica tensed, feeling like she was standing on the edge of a cliff as her best friend in the world, the one who always supported and loved her no matter what, thought through her own feelings. "I guess... I can kind of understand it. The fantasy at least. Two men, each one providing what the other doesn't to your life.  The sex sounds hot. I get the fantasy. I'm just not really sure how it would work in reality. How neither of them could become jealous. Would fights turn into two against one? And I know that half the reason I'm being so understanding is because you're my best friend and I love you no matter what."

"But if it was someone else you'd probably think she was a slut."

Jessica's shoulders slumped, her emotions overwhelmed by all the problems that Hilary had just so succinctly listed.  Those and so many more.

"Maybe I'm just asking for trouble. There are no guarantees that I'll feel the same way once I start getting to know them. I don't know why I'm wrapping myself up in knots over bare possibilities."

"Probably because deep down you don't think you're going to change your mind about caring for both of them," Hilary said.  "You're scared about putting yourself out there, even just a little bit, because everything might blow up in your face."

Too much truth right there. No wonder talking to Hilary always helped Jessica sort through her problems. She had a way of seeing right to the heart of things, especially when it came to how others might react.  That's exactly what Jessica was so frightened of, why she had ran. Not because she was angry. Although she was. Not because she'd been deceived. Although she had. It was because she was damn scared.

"Dammit."

Hilary laughed.  "I know that look on your face. You looked that way when you decided to tell Sean that you wanted to be tied up."

"Yeah and look out how well that turned out for me," she said dryly.

"Well it got you to the school."

Looking at herself in the mirror, Jessica sighed. "I guess I'm getting into the car then."

Hilary rolled her eyes. "Please don't ever tell anyone else that you got your inspiration for life from that movie. I will not judge you for taking on two men, but I will judge you till the end of time for it being because of that movie."

The night before she'd asked Sean to tie her up for the first time he had finally convinced her to watch Transformers with him. It hadn't been as bad as she thought it would, the story was actually kind of interesting even if it was a little silly, although he didn't appreciate all her inappropriate giggling.  Justin had thought it was great that she'd giggled her way through the attempting-to-be-series/dramatic moments of the Chuck Norris movie they'd watched together. At any rate, there was one scene that ended up striking her dumb with its profound message.  The yellow car had just pulled up to Shia Labeouf and Megan Fox and she asked him if he was seriously considering getting into the car.  He'd turned to her with this challenging look in his eyes, full of adventure and asked "Fifty years from now, when you're looking back at your life, don't you want to be able to say you had the guts to get in the car?"

That one sentence had turned the way she looked at her life on her head. Jessica had never been gutsy. She'd never even been particularly brave.  And her life had gone along, humdrum moment after blah day, while she never took a single risk or even stepped up to the plate to try out a challenge.  Okay, so it had just been a line from a movie, not even a deep movie, but it had changed the way she looked at herself. Given her the courage to ask Sean for what she really wanted.  Kept her from chickening out about the Venus School.

Maybe she would end up heart broken. Maybe she would end up with only one or neither of them. But when she looked back on her life, didn't she want to at least know that she'd tried?