Jenny stayed where Susan had left her, on the daybed couch, still
tingling, still thinking. Or rather, thinking that she really didn’t
know what to think about Susan anymore. Or why Dana would have
demanded an audience with her. With Lara gone and Dana married, the
history between Susan and Dana, whatever had happened, should be
inconsequential by now.

Mostly, Jenny’s mind was still on what had happened between her and
Susan tonight. It was different, not just in context, but in tone and
timbre. The ritual of domme and sub was absent; they became, for that
short time, just two women making love. Jenny found that unsettling,
almost as if the plane of existence had tilted, and nothing was quite
what it seemed anymore. Feeling chilled, she pulled the throw off the
back of the couch and covered herself, hoping she wouldn’t be punished
for so small a thing as that.

The writer in her could not help but ponder and analyze. The submissive
part of her felt uneasy; some rule had been broken which made the
relationship unpredictable. That was the opposite of what this
relationship should be, it was supposed to be predictable. She shivered
at the thought of it being more or less than it was before this
interlude.

If Susan were capable of great tenderness, she could also be capable of
great cruelty. She already had that reputation and Jenny had expected
much more harshness than Susan had shown her. Yes, she could be cold,
demanding, controlling, domineering, even menacing; Jenny had
experienced all those things at her hand, even welcomed them at times.
But cruelty for the sake of inflicting suffering didn’t seem to
interest Susan nearly so much as the power to seduce, to persuade, to
claim what she wanted for her own.

Which made her rescue of Jenny from Francesca perfectly in character of
who she was, even if someone on the outside might have thought it not
of her character. Francesca had taken Susan’s pet, secretively, without
permission or even a struggle for dominance. So of course Susan had to
reclaim her at any cost. A challenge like this, for any Domme, would
harm her standing in the community. But for the owner of two BDSM
clubs, which flourished in no small measure because the community knew
the owner’s standards and knew she had the power to enforce them, it
would have been disastrous to allow Francesca to get by with it.