Alex arrived early, by a good 20 minutes. She simply couldn't wait long enough to leave home. Also, being early gave her a chance to check out the hook-up pool for herself before Tanya hogs all the glory.
Make no mistake, Alex was a feast for the eyes, regardless of gender. However, Tanya carried herself with a certain flare that was impossible to miss. She was magnetic.
Tanya and Alex met in college. Both of them were working on their doctorate thesis, and shared late-night ours in the library. Even then, Alex was interested in unhinged personalities. It didn't take long for the two young women to become friends.
As years passed, both of them had their fair share of lunatics and bad decisions. They weathered these downhill periods together, getting closer and closer. It was hard to tell who started it, but they referred to each other as sisters at some point.
Tanya was an African-American gal with beautiful, luscious hair and a killer body. She could've had a modelling or acting career - that is, if she could tolerate at least a bit of bullshit here and there.
However, diplomacy was not her strong point. She had a foul mouth, an unbendable sense of justice, and the confidence to not give a fuck about anything that didn't match her version of truth.
Her kind of people usually ended up with a small social circle and became rigid. Tanya managed to keep an open mind and never stopped at challenging her views - and others'. She was a menace for most ordinary people, but surprisingly popular at the same time.
The evenings at Harrison's started slow. It was 8pm, so most of the party population was still at home, having dinner. Alex thought ahead and ordered a bunch of appetisers - the pub had an unexpectedly tasty menu.
The patrons currently present weren't of much interest for Alex. Sure, a few hot stallions were horsing around in spite of the early hour - however, none of them was alone.
Contrary to her expectation, a male couple walked up to her table nonetheless.
"Hello there gorgeous!" Started one of them, a femboy. He was barely old enough to enter the premises.
"I must say, your apparel is out of this world." Said femboy before Alex could return the greeting.
"Why, thank you. Your taste seems exquisite too." She said, eyeing the femboy's partner. That man looked like a college student of some leisure major - he had time and energy to work out.
"My Stevie here is actually bi, and he fancies you quite a lot. He likes cougars, you see." Femboy didn't mince his words, calling out Alex on her age like that.
"A wise decision, I must say. Surely, I can show him things you couldn't even dream of, little boy." Alex jabbed back gracefully. It wasn't beneath her to take cocky bastards down a peg or two.
To avoid any misunderstandings, she waved her hand in front of her hip, like stroking a round ass, and thrusted her pubic area forward. She wasn't interested in taking Stevie like a woman. She was ready to beat the femboy on even ground.
"Nah, I'm strictly a top." Said Stevie, looking almost convincing.
"Of course you are, sweet cheeks." Tanya entered the chat, smacking Stevie's ass as she walked up to them from behind. He didn't seem to mind, which earned a scornful stare from Femboy.
"I was born a lesbian, but Alex here almost made me consider men a few times. You two wouldn't be the first fruits who break up over her pegging game." She sat down next to Alex, leaving a dark purple lipstick stain on her neck.
"I need to get out more." Alex took over. "It looks like my reputation is waning around here." She seemed sad.
"Dungeon rats don't get credit on the surface, darling." Tanya reminded her, and turned to the confused couple.
"Either get us a Long Island each, and join us, or go on your merry way." She offered the choice for them.
Stevie was about to turn toward the counter and actually get the drinks, but Femboy yanked on his arm hard.
Both Tanya and Alex lost interest in them at that point, so they simply ignored them.
"I ordered drinks too, by the way." Alex pointed at the tall glasses on the table.
Tanya looked at her, horrified.
"Don't tell me you plan to stop at one drink?! That's not how we do girls' night, right?!" She asked, as she took a long sip from her glass.
"Hell, no!" Replied Alex. "I need to get proper wasted, and restart my bloody brain after today's shitshow. We drink till I forget where I am."
"That's right, bitch! Don't go all sober on me. Tell me about the fucker who made you like this." Tanya jumped right in at the deep end of the pool.
"He's a broken piece of shit, you know me. A marine veteran, first lieutenant. He's chubby, plain and boring. Straight, vanilla, green and fucking paranoid." Alex didn't need to speak in coherent sentences, Tanya understood her just fine.
"I feel a 'but' is coming." She predicted.
"No buts. That's it. He's gloomy, clammed up, can't let go of the stick in his ass, and ruined two pack trainings already!" Alex whined.
"Do you take me for a fool, girl?" Tanya asked between two bites of grilled cheese covered nachos.
"What do you mean?" Alex feigned innocence. She rarely met up with Tanya like this. She wanted to milk her dry of attention and affection tonight.
"Bitch, I ain't your sub toy nor your therapist. You have my whole night, but if you keep playing games, I ain't coming for your on the first call next time. Out with it, the whole story!" Tanya demanded.
She knew Alex wouldn't reward a terrible sub with sex. This new sub was pathetic, if Alex told the truth. That would mean the fucked up fucking was bullshit. Either way, Alex was playing her, and she wouldn't have any of it.
"Fuck you, Tanya! I hadn't had a night off in two years, bitch, let me have my moment for fucks' sake." Alex pouted on the surface.
Deep down, she was happy that their friendship survived the long period they spent apart. They fell silent for a while, eating and drinking - they enjoyed each other's company without words.
"Langham dumped him on me. No heads-up, no therapy notes, nothing. He applied to be a pack member out of the blue. His application stinked from miles away, but I gave him a chance anyway." Alex started the story for real.
"Want me to scare the fucker with suspicious shades on his testical ultrasound?" Tanya offered support right away. This wasn't Langham's first strike.
"Don't bother. By the time the NDA lawsuit is over, I'll have his balls too, shade or not." Alex waved the topic away like a fly circling above their food.
"That's my girl. What else?" Tanya gave her seal of approval.
"Seth must have felt the remnants of his old mojo from the start. Their second meeting ended in fighting, despite my orders. You should have seen it, Tanya. Mikey tried his claws on him first with his usual drama bullshit. He played him like a fiddle." Alex chuckled and her face lit up from the memory.
Tanya was listening to her while eating and drinking until this point. However, the changes in Alex's mood made her stop and concentrate only on her.
"Does this ex-lieutenant have a name?" She asked, testing if Alex would snap back to reality.
She did not.
"Lawrence. We call him Larry though. He made Mikey look like a fool. It was hilarious. I'm telling you, he's prime dominant material. I wanna see him in his uniform once." Alex was gushing, and wasn't aware of it.
Tanya was privy to almost everything that happened between Alex and her clients. Their personal meetings were rare, but they exchanged letters every now and then. The NDAs binded Alex too, so normally she used aliases, except with pack members.
"Lawrence, huh? And Seth got jelly?" Tanya guided Alex back to track.
"He did, of course. He's so predictable, it's not even funny anymore." Alex said dismissively.
The last sentence raised the first flag in Tanya's head. Something serious was going on. Seth was like a holy grail for Alex for years. He challenged her as a therapist, as well as a dominatrix. Calling him predictable and boring was strange, even for Alex.
"Who won?" Asked Tanya, knowing of Seth's history with violence and martial arts.
"That's the point! Despite his chubby, out-of-shape body, he bested Seth in one move. He evaded and overpowered him in a blink. Seth couldn't even try to get out of the chokehold. I loved to see Seth like that." She retold the situation without exaggeration, but Tanya remained concerned.
"How did you two ended up almost fucking?" That was the main question. If Larry wasn't a sub, that meant a completely new dynamic.
"After he beat Seth, I played with Mikey later. I fingered him and myself as he was calling out Larry's name. I couldn't get it out of my head, it drove me crazy." Alex continued.
"Then this afternoon, when he moved to The Crib, I basically jumped him in his room. He gave a pretty good head, but chickened out right after." Signalling the end of the story, she shrugged her shoulders.
"When did you meet him first?" Tanya asked.
"End of last month. Three weeks ago. Oh, I also ran into him at the beach once. Then we went to the airport to pick up Rick. Right, he and Rob are a couple now, publicly. Can you imagine?" Alex blabbed away.
She was completely unaware of her behaviour.
Tanya found herself in a pickle. She had a hunch about the situation, but didn't want to jump to conclusions either. At the same time, if Alex continued this nauseating, gleeful nonsense, it was her responsibility to wake her up from delusions.
"How did you handle Seth?" She tried to change directions.
"Put him to time-out for now. I haven't decided yet. It would be good to see his face when I tell him I'm mentoring Larry as a top though." Alex replied with an arrogant smile on her face.
"Isn't it your first time?" Tanya tried to get as much detail as possible.
"Of what? Time-out? Heck no, Seth acts out quite often, but punishments are pointless with him. Time-out is the way to go, it worked before." Alex reminded her.
"I meant mentoring. Sub training is your forte, girl. You sure about this?" Tanya poked the hornet nest a little bit.
"Don't you worry. Larry's so green he needs to learn the words first. And the tools. And the methods. Mikey was right, a 'nilla of all things! We'll go slow. He'll be fine." Alex seemed confident.
< I better contact Richard. This girl fell so deep, she can't tell left from right. > Tanya thought, then dropped the topic for the night.
They changed locations after finishing dinner. Tanya brought Alex to a newly opened nightclub, and of course they got banned from entry for good. Once these two started to play, they played hard.
Neither of them noticed the man following and stalking them all night.