And she still wears leather, but they don't get to see her wear what she wears only for me.

But they all know, how could they not? When I moved from my parents' home and into the apartment that she must have made for us, even though at the time I thought it was just coincidence that she had decided to look for a place at the same time as me, it was only a matter of moments before she claimed me.

She is my queen and my queen wears leather.

Tight, black, smooth leather that she allows me to run my fingers over and taste with the flat of my tongue.

But only when I'm very, very good.

* * * * *

"Liz? Is that the last box?" Isabel called in from her bedroom in the back of the small apartment.

"Yeah. We just brought the last one up and Alex is about to take off. Come say goodbye." I gave him a big, sweaty hug and surveyed the apartment around me. I was so eager to unpack and start to settle in, it was a new era in my life. I just didn't know how new, yet.

Isabel never did come out to bid Alex adieu, she said it through the walls and when she'd heard the door close behind him and the locks snap shut, she emerged to just the perimeter of the room. Isabel stood at the end of the hallway with an expression on her face that I know the meaning of now, but in that moment couldn't decipher.

Her hand lit to her black, leather hip and she leaned against the wall, observing me. I felt the heat rush through my entire body, not understanding its power, and not yet recognizing hers. Her smile lit the room. Her high heels clicked on the hardwood floors.

Isabel had always carved an imposing presence in a room, and that day was no different. Or, it was completely different. On any other day, I might not have felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, or noticed the way her blonde locks fell around her face. Then, it was all I could notice.

"Let's get you unpacked," she told me, her hand touching to the small of my back and lingering there.

I felt so small standing next to her looming over me with painted on pants and heels at least three inches from floor to ankle. There was a comforting power in her smile, though. Something that set me immediately at ease, yet threw me off my usual balance. Something I found both intimidating and stirring. Something I liked.

I had been over her brother for the better part of a year. Her brother who never, ever, made me feel so tiny.

Max needed to be with Tess, no matter how strong things between us had been. Lovers come and go when you're young, and we had been too young then to know what would be better for us in the end. And we had been able to remain friends, it had taken healing time and the realization that we'd never be able to ever be without each other in our lives. We just weren't made to be together, and that was okay. It had to be. During the trauma of putting it all back together, Isabel and I had gotten closer.

Later that night, after we had put most of my things away, Isabel stretched out on the couch and invited me next to her and opened a bottle of wine. She poured us each a glass and dimmed the lights around us. Music piped through the apartment.

"To doing what we want from now on," she said, raising her glass to me.

It was a perfect toast to our freedom and our new lives as adults. The crystal clink of glass touching glass.

She didn't make a move on me that night, or the night after, or ever. She let our relationship grow slowly over time. Over nights cooking dinner together and sharing bottles of wine. Nights watching television and studying together on the couch. Nights where her toes would curl under my thigh and the excitement would grow in my chest and cause me to beam delight into her soft eyes.

One night she leaned over me to refill my glass and her breast caressed the sensitive inside of my arm, the hard pebble of her nipple scraping against me. My breath caught in my throat and I could hardly bear to breathe.

Immediately, a dark flush took my cheeks and I excused myself to the bathroom.

Pacing back and forth in the tiny, tiled room, I was so embarrassed. Isabel had become the closest person in my life, the person I lived with and spent almost all of my time with, and here I was building a sexual attraction towards her.

And I realized that it had been seeding itself since the moment I had moved in.

And I thought that it shouldn't be happening. It wasn't that we were both girls, I had thought about those kinds of things already, and even played pre-pubescent games with Maria before we even knew that there was anything sexual about it. Later, I had spent more than one sweaty night lying in my bed thinking dirty thoughts about other girls.

But I had never allowed myself to think about Isabel.

We were so different. Isabel was smooth and strong, always in control, everything in a woman I had ever wanted to be. And I was frantic, and small, and had never been in control of anything in my life.

When I finally got up the courage to leave the bathroom, she was waiting for me on the other side of the door.

She had changed from her silken pajamas into those tight leather pants and a black bustier, her previously bare feet hidden by high heeled boots; she twirled an empty wine glass between two fingers.

"Oh!" I started, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you needed to-- that you were going out." I stuttered my words, thinking to myself that it was because I felt guilty for taking so much time in the bathroom we shared. But mostly, it was because she looked so ravishing. I was positively awestruck.

"I'm not." She held out the empty glass towards me. "Go open another bottle of wine and pour us another glass." Her golden hair framed her face and shone in the dim light of the room.

"Then why?" I let my words trail off and took the glass from her fingers, walking past her to the kitchen for the wine. When I returned, she had cleared the couch of our schoolbooks and was sitting dead center, her hands on her knees and long, red fingernails.

"Good girl." And I blushed again not even knowing why. My eyes fell to the floor. "You didn't have to get embarrassed before, Liz. You're allowed to be aroused. Now, come sit down and pour the wine."

Instinctively, I did as I was told. Like a good girl.

I had no words. I wasn't sure if I needed any.

Isabel nodded when I had poured and she leaned deeper into the couch. "We trust each other, don't we, Liz?" The way her tongue wrapped around my name made it seem like I had never heard it spoken before.

"Of course we do, Isabel." My heart thundered in my ears.

"Shhhh... Don't speak. Just listen to me. Even if I ask you a question, you just nod or shake your head. Is that clear?" Her voice was soft and steady. I nodded my assent.

She made me feel strong just listening to her voice. I did trust her, as implicitly as she had trusted me for so long; through Max, through Michael and Maria and Alex and everything that had happened between and to all of us.

She moved closer to me and took my hands into hers, her lithe fingers wrapping around my wrists gently and holding them tight. "I know what you've been thinking, Liz, I've been inside your dreams. I've seen everything." I could see her grinning though my eyes were turned to my lap. I couldn't help but feel ashamed. I swear I had never thought about her that way, I swear I hadn't.

She turned my face up to hers and stroked it with electric fingers, her eyes even and locked with mine.

"Smile for me, Liz. You're lovely when you smile." She was beautiful, always. I did smile though, I smiled for her. Her hands moved up into my hair, smoothing it away from my face, her thumbs tracing my trembling lips.

"I want to tell you this story, and it will just be between you and me, all right? Once upon a time, a long time ago in a lifetime before this one, there was a woman named Vilandra. Vilandra was very beautiful and her life was very good despite a horrible revolution tearing her home apart, but she was never satisfied with simply being the sister of the King, or being the betrothed of his second. You see, second was never good enough for Vilandra."

Isabel stopped and took a long sip off her glass, then put it to my lips and tipped it for me to drink. Whatever was left behind on my mouth she whisked away with a feather-light touch. I watched her, with rapt fascination in my eyes, bring that finger to her own lips and her tongue snake out to taste the drop.

I wanted to be that droplet of wine on her lips.

"Liz? Will you make Vilandra the Queen? Do you want to satisfy her, to satisfy me?" In her long pause, I nodded emphatically. A sweet warmth spread across my chest as I felt my heart fill with emotion. She told me that I could speak, then.

"Yes. Please." There was a smoke to my tone.

Isabel stood and moved in front of me and I held back every urge to run my palms up her long, hided legs and show her right at that moment how I could satisfy her. My hand began to reach out and she caught my wrist firmly in her fingers.

"No." She said calmly, but with a sharp edge. Guilt over my bad behavior colored my face and neck. My ears burned.

But Isabel stood still before me and didn't move away, and that made me feel somewhat better.

Bending down to me, her lips touched mine slowly. The first touch came with a pulse of energy that grew more and more momentous as her tongue slid out to outline my mouth and I separated my lips for it to travel between them and let out a tiny moan. As our tongues tangled together and she explored my mouth, I was conscious of every bit of her force, and of the bittersweet taste of the wine on her breath. The way that she maintained the distance between our bodies, the way that she still held firmly to my wrist, her other palm flat against my sternum holding me away.

Her hand so close to my breasts, but not touching them. God, I wanted her to touch them, I wanted her to touch me.

Her lips left mine and my eyes were still closed. Her voice broke the symphonic silence.

"Liz. When we're alone, you can call me Vilandra. That's my gift to you. But only when we're alone. Say it now."

"Vilandra." I gazed up into her eyes and enunciated every syllable as if it were a prayer. Maybe it was.

"Beautiful, beautiful Liz. My brother never had any idea what to do for you, Liz. He never knew how to make you happy, because he has always been weak. I was sad for both of you when everything happened and both of you were so unhappy; but secretly, Liz, I was thrilled for you. Because you needed to be free from him and because I knew that I could give you what you've always wanted. I can love you like he isn't capable of."

Her voice never wavered when she spoke, it was lyrical and balanced and flawless. And her eyes never left mine, I swear she could see straight down into my blood. And her words were like a poem I had searched for for years and had never been able to find amongst the tomes. I believed her.

That first night, we slept together in her big bed and she let my hands and my mouth investigate her body. We were tender and sweet when we made love and she called me hers. She told me I was hers and that she would never hurt me, she would always be there for me. She peeled off each piece of my clothes like it was a precious layer between her and my bare skin and she laid me back into her bed.

And I was never scared or embarrassed or anything but reverential. Because Vilandra is my queen and leather feels so good under my hands. And I knew that she had been right about my dreaming of her even though I didn't know that I had.

* * * * *

The next morning, when I awoke, she was sitting in a high-backed chair at the side of the bed. I smiled at her and remembered the feel of her hands on me and the sound of her voice bubbling in her throat when I had made her come. And how my heart had threatened to blow up behind my breasts when I heard her cries of pleasure and knew that I had been the one to give that to her.

"Good morning, Liz." She was still nude, her skin glowing in the orange hue of the early sun streaming into her room. "How did you sleep?"

"Wonderfully..." I couldn't help but stare at her mesmerized.

"My name."

"Vilandra..."

"Very good. Now, Liz, I want you to go into the kitchen and make us some coffee, and when you're finished, you can bring it to me here." I sat up in bed and bent to the floor for my discarded clothes. She stopped me.

"Don't get dressed. And no speaking." I nodded to her slowly, perhaps a bit confused at the time, and left the room to do as she said.

Some people grow up in a naked home where nudity is a natural part of existence; I was not one of those people. I had never been outside of a bedroom or bathroom naked, never performed mundane activities in the buff. Standing at our kitchen sink, I was so cognizant of my nakedness, flecks of water splashed at my stomach and up onto my pointed and alert breasts.

I never even heard her standing behind me as she watched me silently. I turned around in the linoleum covered kitchen and found her leaning against the door jamb, starting slightly. She walked towards me and I stood as still as I possibly could, knowing somehow that that would please her. And I so wanted to please her.

Her hand brushed over my buttocks as softly as a breeze and I felt the moisture rise between my legs. Her voice telling me how beautiful I was as she pulled her hand like a rake through my hair. I pressed the start button on the coffee machine and she put her hand on my shoulder sinking me to my knees on the cold floor.

"Stay here until the coffee has brewed. Don't let your ass touch your ankles, clasp your hands behind your back and tuck your chin to your chest." She walked in a circle around me, her fingertips rotating around my shoulders and across my collarbone. I had never felt so beautiful or so loved.

And she left me alone there knowing that I wouldn't move even the tiniest bit until the bell sounded on our coffee machine and told me that it was time. I only wished that she could see my adherent obedience. I knew that it would satiate her to no end. But I also knew that she knew, and that sated me.

Oh, how proud of myself she made me feel in my discomfort.

The bell tolled and I rose and prepared our mugs of coffee, remembering from earlier mornings how I had seen her add three sugars and five dashes of hot chili sauce in to hers, then tasting it and adding two more shakes of the small bottle. And I was confident that she would be pleased that I had made it correctly for her.

I walked slowly back to her room where she sat again in the stiff, throne-like chair, dressed again in all black, skintight against her fantastic form. Handing her the steaming mug, I kneeled at her feet and she took my chin in her cupped hand and drank. I waited for the smile I wanted so badly.

"Oh, nice... perfect. You're such a good girl. Stay there, but you may relax and drink." She took another long sip from the cup and smiled down at me.

Watching her from my position at her knees, I felt as if my heart might cry out to her. The tingle between my legs had become an aching throb. I learned well without even being taught, learning was instinctive.

My reward was her hand sliding up the inside of my thighs to the juncture of my legs and her narrowing eyes when she discovered how wet I had become just watching her enjoy something I had prepared so carefully for her. I stayed perfectly still for her and waited for her to allow me move into her palm. I tried to anticipate what she would want and not do anything that she wouldn't approve.

Her approval was imperative to both of us.

"Does that feel good, Liz? Would you like me to stroke you more, for my hand to explore deeper?" I nodded that yes, I would. And she stopped her movement and brought two fingers to my clit, swollen and excited, and pinching me fabulously hard. I sucked in my breath and saw stars. My goddess, my queen touched her lips to mine finally and took me over the waves in a dizzying frenzy.

It was natural, this progression of ours. I never once thought of it as anything but precisely the way we were meant to be. Isabel, my Vilandra, was so good to me that all I thought about were ways to make her happy and further prove my love. And every night she laid me down and we made love.

* * * * *

Where no one else will ever see, I had her name tattooed into my skin.

I knew that for a moment she would be upset that I shared our secret and my skin with another, but I knew that in the end she would be proud that I wanted her so permanently on me.

I would have let her brand me. Maybe she still will...

* * * * *

The night she gave me her gift, I gave her mine.

I had cleaned the apartment to sparkling and when she returned home from her class, I was waiting in my spot in the corner of the living room. Hands clasped behind my back, knees together and back stick straight; she liked it when I waited for her, my face turned to the wall.

She couldn't see my expression, but I felt it creep across my face the minute that I heard her key in the door.

"I'm home, my love." I heard her shoes clack across the floor to me and remained still as her hands encircled my waist and she lifted me to my feet. "I see you've been very busy today, you do love to please me..." She turned me around to her and twisted my left nipple between her fingers, the heady rush clung to my nerves.

Isabel backed away from me and walked into the bedroom. I followed after her eager to spread my legs and show her what I had done. For her. For Vilandra. For my mistress and my queen.

She turned around, her eyes set as stone and piercing with anger. "Did I tell you that you could move? On. Your. Knees. Now." She pointed to the floor at the foot of the bed. "Liz, you know better than to follow me without permission." She stood behind me so close that I could feel her sigh wisp the back of my neck.

I had been so good, I didn't know what had come over me, that I had been so forward when I knew how much she didn't like that. I knew that my punishment would be severe, I could feel the velvet fire up my thighs to the soreness of the spot where the inked needles had scraped my skin.

"Liz, baby... I am going to have to teach you a lesson in subservience tonight because you've been very unruly. You want me to hurt you, don't you? You want to learn how to do things correctly for me, right? Now, answer me."

"Yes." I kept my eyes turned to her feet in front of me.

"Yes, what, Liz?" She grabbed my hair at the base of my head and pulled it back to look at her. I still kept my eyes from meeting hers, sure that she would think that too bold. I knew the answer that she sought and I gave her exactly what she wanted.

"Yes, Vilandra."

She let go of me with a sharp toss of my head towards the floor. The excitement was building inside me with my unspoken apology to her. I heard her move away from me and tried to stay as quiet as possible as I heard her go to the tall dresser across from the bed and open a drawer.

A shuffling from inside the bureau, then she brought me to her chair and pulled me over her lap, I shivered as her hand grazed gently across my ass and yelped when she brought the paddle down hard on my skin. I bit my lip to stifle my cries, I knew she would want me to quietly take it.

But each spank made me wetter and hotter and I felt my skin burn under the flat paddle's hits. Vilandra smoothed down my pain between blows, rubbing them in with the flat of her palm and the smooth pads of her fingers. Then she raised her hand high and brought the paddle down again.

Through it all, she spoke in her placid, level voice telling how she expected better from me, that she loved me, that I had to trust her because she knew what was best. And I knew that she was right. And I did trust her. And I had been bad. I knew that if I could see her face, that I would see that this was hurting her more than it hurt me. Her suffering eyes would tell me that.

The last, hot smack came down and she brushed my welted skin down with a light touch, sliding her fingers over me and slightly parting my legs so she could feel how wet I had gotten for her. I quivered under her lazy ministrations and wished that she would slide inside me and quell my burning hunger for her. But I knew that she would make me wait because I didn't deserve her yet.

She righted me in front of her and set me on my knees, walking back to the dresser where I couldn't see her anymore.

Click, click, click of high heels on the floor came towards me. The icy touch of cold metal around my left wrist. A delicious fear in my palpitating heart. She led me to the bed and raised my arm to the top bar of the headboard and secured me there arranging my limp body in the center of the bed.

"Give me your other hand." Her eyes were like ice.

I raised it to her and she secured it with another handcuff to the post.

"You'll be good now. Tell me."

"Yes, Vilandra. I want to be good." I do. I want to be good. Please let me be good.

My love bent and removed her pants. So beautiful. The house was silent as she moved towards me clad in just her bra and a pair of crotchless, lace panties that she had let me pick out for her all by myself. Just that she wore them made me feel proud, and then awful for disappointing her.

She straddled my face inches above me, her finger dipping down through her slick folds and into her glistening pussy. She moved it slowly inside her and then pulled it out touching it to my lips. I lapped at it like a dog, cleaning it with my tongue.

"Now, Liz." She was too far away, I strained my face towards her but I couldn't get close enough. I would have told her, but I knew not to speak when she was so angry.

I wanted to taste her deeply, to savor her orgasm course over my lips and drink from deep inside her. And I wanted her to let me make her happy, to run my tongue across her heat murmuring my apologies.

I strained further, pushing my back off the bed and finally reached her. With my mouth over her cunt, I whispered into her, humming lightly over her and gnawing at her darkened lips. Far above me, I watched her grip to the bedpost with white knuckles and I slid my tongue inside her, stretching myself closer, gnashing my teeth against her clit as she let out a deep moan and made me feel all better.

When she came, her body shaking and her breath in quickened pants, I sucked harder until the wave had completed and when I felt the tension leave her, I slipped my tongue over every inch of her until I tasted nothing but her honeyed skin.

She slid down my chest and settled, sitting on top of me, her wet slickness and coarse curls teasing my stomach.

Her soft laugh made me catch my breath.

"Say thank you."

"Thank you, Vilandra." And she slid the ball gag to my mouth and fastened it behind my head. If I could have smiled at her, I would have. She released my hands from the cuffs over my head and ran her fingers tenderly over the marks they had left behind, my hands were shaking.

I knew that her punishment wasn't over, to me it had hardly begun.

But my excitement was held for the moment when she would finally discover my secret. I had never kept a secret from her before and the sting between my legs reminded me every moment that passed that she would be so angry with me. And so proud.

She stood and went to her chair pointing to the floor in front of it. She didn't need to, I would have went and knelt for her no matter what. It was my favorite place to be in the world. I could always tell, from that place, when I had succeeded in making her happy, when she was pleased, when I had given her something that she needed.

The longer she kept me there, the happier she was.

That night, it had been an hour or so before she had pat her knees and I stood and sat on her lap as she rubbed mine for me.

"Are you thirsty? Nod."

I did.

"Go fix us something to drink." Her hand slid over my legs and across my belly and I looked up at her with loving eyes. Worshipping.

When I returned and placed our glasses on the nightstand beside her bed, in the precise centers of the circular coasters that she kept there for us, she stood and walked to me taking the gag from my dry mouth and sliding her wet tongue between my lips.

"I have something for you, Liz. A present."

She had gotten something for me? I smiled demurely and tilted my eyes to the ground. She didn't have to buy things for me to know that she loved me. I knew that every day that she let me do things for her and show her how much I loved her.

I waited for her to lift her glass and nod to me before I took mine.

"Do you want it now? You can speak to me, Liz."

"Yes, please." Oh, yes.

She sat on the edge of the bed. "Come stand in front of me. Show me how beautiful you are."

She turned me around and passed her soft hands over my body. My ass still carried the sting of the paddle, I knew it must be blazing red and bruising. As her lips touched my skin, her tongue laved the pain away.

Her arm snaked around my waist and she handed me the long box. It was wrapped in a silvery foil and gleamed in the soft light of the bedroom. "Open it, my sweet. And turn to me so I can see your face."

I had tears in my eyes.

"I saw this and I knew that I wanted you to have it. Now open it."

My beautiful lover. I gingerly slid my finger under the paper's seam and unfolded the wrap, folding it neatly and placing it on the nightstand beside our glasses. Lifting the top of the box, I froze at the sight of the long, silver chain nestled amid the perfect, black tissue.

"It's so you'll always feel like we're together, even when we're apart. Here, let me put it on you." I tilted the box to her and she pulled the broad links out from the packing. Cold, weighted silver encircled my waist, her fingers following its edge; I watched them move around to meet in the center of my belly.

"We'll never be apart."

"I know, my love." And she snapped the lock over the two ends. "But this will always remind you that you're mine and that I love you like no one else ever could."

"I am yours, Vilandra. Thank you so much, it's beautiful. You'll always be with me now."

The chain was heavy, resting just above my hips, the lock just small enough that it wouldn't bulge beneath my clothing, the chain just tight enough that I could feel its pinch as I sat down beside her and enveloped her in my arms.

Tenderly, gently, delicately her lips swam over mine and her tongue danced inside my mouth.

"Mine." She purred, stroking my hair.

"Yours."

She held me to her chest and kissed my breath away. Every iota of my skin tingled and my blood was like seltzer running through my veins.

As she laid me back on the bed and began removing her clothes to lay beside me, I quaked with anticipation. Her eyes twinkled into mine. She loved me so much. She loved me so greatly.

"Do you deserve to get fucked, my little princess? Have I made you wait long enough?" Her fingernails raked over my stomach and I laid flat on my back, suffering the moments before she would separate my legs and discover my gift.

I wiggled seductively beneath her hands as a yes.

Again, she lowered her lips to mine and I groaned between them, her fingers gently pinching at my tender thighs.

"I love you, Vilandra. I love you." I love you more than life itself. The wait was killing me.

I felt her fingertips graze over the raised outline carved into my skin and she pulled her lips from mine. "What's this?"

"I wanted to give you something, too. To show you that I was yours, completely. Forever." My voice was just a whisper. Her hands parted my legs and she looked between them and back up to my questioning eyes.

"Oh, Liz. You have been bad today, had I known earlier I would have spanked you harder. And more." But she was smiling, her painted red lips parting broadly as her finger traced her own name inked into the small area of skin where my thigh met my crotch. "Who did this to you?"

"I drove out of town, to Ruidoso, and had it done. Far away where no one knows anything about us." The nervousness showed in my voice.

"I should be very angry at you..." But she wasn't. Her tongue slithered across her lips and she bent to taste the script. "Mine, Liz. You will always be mine."

"Yes... Always."

* * * * *