Knowing the Ropes by Teresa Noelle Roberts

and caressing her, and a couple of times had her fetch drinks for him or perform some other small service. Sure, Alison kept grinning wickedly and flirtatiously at her.
    Alison in a bikini was an erotic force of nature. She had a surprisingly tight, lovely little body. And who’d have guessed about the tattoo starting somewhere below her teeny turquoise bottom and working up onto her gently curved belly? A chained rose. A lot of the other guests also sported suggestive tattoos or piercings, but Alison wore it better than say, Joe-Bear and his boyfriend. They were obviously hot for each other’s stocky, hairy, tattooed bodies, but the view didn’t do much for Selene.
    But then a couple showed up with kids in tow, and the older couple from next door dropped by, as did some of Garth’s and Alison’s coworkers, and while the edgy undercurrent remained, nothing happened.
    Not until much, much later. Not until after dusk, when most of the guests were gone and mosquitoes and black flies drove the remaining ones inside.
    Finally, it was down to Garth and Alison and Selene and Nick. Alison was settled at Garth’s feet, not kneeling, Selene had noted, but leaning back comfortably against her master in a way that seemed as sweet and loving as it was dominant/submissive. Selene was curled up next to Nick on the love seat. It was funny that it seemed so natural. Just because they’d had wild monkey sex, even wild kinky monkey sex, didn’t necessarily mean they’d be one hundred percent comfortable with each other, but already, they seemed to prefer to be in easy touching distance if not actually touching.
    It all felt very cozy and relaxed and pleasant.
    And then the bomb dropped.
    “So,” Nick said, “I hear you were kissing Alison.”
    Selene felt her eyes widening, her cheeks burning. She nodded, suddenly unable to speak.
    She wasn’t sure why she was so embarrassed. Kissing another woman wasn’t something she did every day, but other people did it on a regular basis. Maybe it was Nick’s tone, both richly amused and scolding. Maybe it was that both Garth and Alison were in the room.
    Or maybe it was that the heat of embarrassment blurred with another kind of heat that flared from her lips to her nipples down to her groin as she remembered that kiss.
    “Not very generous of you two not to share, was it?” Garth looked rather sternly at Alison as he said that. “You know the rules.”
    Was Alison going to be punished for what they’d done? Imagining dark and terrifying possibilities based on erotic novels and kinky websites, Selene sprang to her defense. “It was just a little smooch. You didn’t miss anything.”
    Only when the words escaped her mouth did she admit to herself that some of the dark possibilities rushing through her head sounded more intriguing than alarming, and that if there were any interesting punishments being handed out, she wanted her share.
    Nick and Garth exchanged significant looks. She remembered how Alison had said they were like brothers, but brother wasn’t the right word. Best friends, two sides of a coin and definitely coconspirators, but the situation that was rapidly unfolding just wasn’t a brotherly one.
    “We’d like to be the judge of whether we missed anything or not,” Garth said.
    Nick nodded. “So we want a recap.”
    Time for that deer-in-the-headlights feeling again. She should be getting used to it by now, but apparently it wasn’t one of those things she got used to easily. “But…” Wasn’t it a little tacky to perform like that, like two women kissing was something that only happened for men to enjoy? Ms. Manners probably didn’t cover it, but she’d bet Betsy or some of the women she’d volunteered with at the Rochester domestic violence hotline might have a pretty strong opinion.
    Alison hopped up off the floor and closed in for the kill—or rather the kiss—without hesitation.
    Selene froze.
    “Selene,” Nick said in that deep, menacing voice.