Title: Learning By Doing

Author: McKay

Rating: R

Pairings: Catherine/Lady Heather

Spoilers: Slaves of Las Vegas

Feedback: Always appreciated. Constructive is my favorite kind. A general "you rock" is an ego-boost. A general "you suck" helps nobody and won't make me go away. Flames will be laughed at, posted on the Web and openly mocked by all. So don't say I didn't warn you.

Distribution: You want it, take it, just ask first. Common courtesy and all.

Summary: A surprisingly gentle touch and the beginning of an education.

For Elyssa

Learning By Doing
By McKay
* * * *

"Twenty a week, you said?" Catherine picked up what she thought was a rubber mask and turned it over in her hands.

"Something like that."

"Can't believe you actually get paid to do this." She half-smiled and Heather laughed.

"I'm good at what I do." Catherine wasn't sure why this statement made her cheeks grow warm.

"So what is it, exactly, that you do?" She asked, hoping to distract Lady Heather had she noticed Catherine flush.

"You know, I'm not sure exactly."

"I'm sure your clients love to hear that." Heather laughed again and Catherine returned her smile.

"No, no...well, yeah, I know what I'm doing. I just don't think most other people do. I'm not a prostitute, nor am I on some sort of demented power trip. Well, maybe I am on a lifelong power trip. But it's not really sex work, it's not acting...it's...it's its own, I suppose you could say."

Catherine nodded and turned her attention to the chunk of rubber in her hands.

"But what do you do all day?" Heather grinned and stretched, catlike, arms over her head.

"Play."

"How in the hell did you get into this?"

"Just happened. It was an expensive place to start up-the equipment runs pricey-but I was a girl with a dream," she said with a smile. "It wasn't hard to love. I'm a real SM person, not just a dominatrix. It's how I live my life, my personal life, my relationships." Catherine glanced at Heather, briefly making eye contact.

"Must make it hard to get a date." Heather's laughs sent tiny jolts of electricity through Catherine, leaving her pleasantly uncomfortable.

"It can, I guess. I do give off a bit of a 'danger' aura, don't I?"

Catherine nodded agreement. "Thing is, I'm not. Dangerous. I know what I'm doing, and the whole point of what I do is for people to enjoy themselves. If I'm inadvertently hurting them-really hurting them-I'm not doing my job, nor am I doing what I love doing."

"There's irony for you. But isn't it inherently violent?" Catherine looked genuinely perplexed.

"It is and it isn't. Physically, I guess...I mean, I use whips, floggers, canes...yes...but mentally...it's not, because once they say 'stop,' I do. You understand?" Her eyes locked with Catherine's and the blonde woman was momentarily thrown.

"I think so. What's the difference between a whip and a flogger, by the way?"

"One's a single tail, one has many." Heather reached for a thick-handled leather crop. "And then there are these."

"Looks painful," Catherine commented, running her fingers along the solid braid. "People really enjoy being hit? Repeatedly?"

"They keep coming back," Heather pointed out with a chuckle, "but they don't all go for that, no."

"What else is there?" Heather smiled strangely and cocked her head, regarding Catherine.

"Why so many questions?"

"You said I'd make a great dominatrix. It sure as hell sounds better than what I do now-which, by the way, you can question me about later if you so desire."

"Well, there's bondage, which gets more involved than you'd realize. Mummification, latex body suits-and liquid latex, which I think you and your partner have already had a crash course in-hoods, leather restraints, blindfolds, masks, handcuffs, straitjackets, body bags and gas masks-"

"Whoa, wait...mummification? Canopic jars and all?"

"Saran wrap. Sensory deprivation."

"You wrap a guy like a leftover and he gets off on it?" Heather threw her head back and laughed heartily, and Catherine felt a tingle through her body that was both foreign and familiar.

"There's role-play, phone torture, humiliation, interrogation, cross-dressing, maid, puppy and slut training, foot worship. Very little if any physical pain involved in those." Heather shrugged.

"Humiliation sounds like fun for the woman."

"Being the top in that situation really does, as they say, rock. People actually get off on being slapped, spit at and generally degraded. You saw Mistress Gina with her 'dirty little stink boy' when you were poking around, didn't you?" she asked with a subtle eyeroll, and Catherine couldn't suppress a snicker. "I admit, some of it does seem ridiculous to me, but I understand it to an extent. I understand the need to be dominated. I don't understand why someone would want to be pissed on."

"You really do that?" Catherine asked, disgusted and intrigued.

"Not me, personally. Nor do any of my girls. But it is done, yes."

Catherine mock-shuddered.

"It just sounds so disgusting."

"Well, until bacteria has a chance to breed in your urine, it actually is sterile."

"I know. But still..."

"I agree. Which is one of the reasons it's not done here."

"But you understand this being whipped thing?" Heather gave a tolerant smile.

"'This being whipped thing' is indeed a big part of what I do. And yes."

"What's the appeal?"

"It's..." Heather paused. "Exhilarating. Not knowing when or how hard, but knowing it's coming...knowing you can make it stop with one simple word."

"We're back to power again," Catherine commented, lifting another braided crop, this one green and white, from the sink and examined it, tapping it experimentally against her palm.

"I guess we are." Heather reached for a long-handled black whip with a single thin lash. "This one's my favorite. Simple, effective, fits my hand like it was tailored for me."

"It's...nice." Catherine paused, searching for a way to bring back the conversation. "You're a top then?"

"In my work, yeah."

"And at home?"

"Come knocking tonight and find out." She winked and Catherine blushed, smiling a bit nervously.

"I, uh...I saw a room when I was here with Gil and Brass...purple and gold..."

"My harem room. My favorite, too. Nice, isn't it? C'mon, let me show it to you more closely." Heather grabbed her wrist and started off before Catherine could react.

The room was, indeed, 'nice.' 'Decadent' was more Catherine's word of choice. The mirrored ceiling appeared to arch high above her, higher than the other rooms'. Windows that stared out into wooden planks and plaster were draped with purple and crimson velvet lined with gold braid. Similar cushions padded the floor like carpeting. The lighting was strikingly soft, the walls gold and ivory, also lined with full-length mirrors. On one wall was mounted a bondage station with a kneeling bench nearby. A pile of red and violet pillows were in lieu of an actual spanking horse, and an eight-foot bondage table stood proudly in the center of the room. Silk blindfolds in shades of plum and vermilion were stacked in a corner with faux-leopard-lined handcuffs and skillfully crafted leather hoods.

Catherine's eyes widened and her fingers contracted involuntarily, causing her to grip Lady Heather's hand tightly.

"Like a faerie tale, isn't it? Or a daydream." Heather let her legs drop from under her and she sprawled backwards on the cushions. Catherine gingerly sat down beside her.

"More like something straight from the Arabian Knights." Heather clapped her hands.

"Precisely." She grabbed Catherine's hand again and tugged on her arm until she was lying down beside her. "It's exactly where I wanted to live when I was a little girl."

"You wanted bondage equipment as a child?"

"If I had known it existed then, I probably would have. I did have handcuffs." Catherine looked at her quizzically. "One of those cops and robbers game sets. Cheap plastic cuffs, badge, squirt gun, face mask. Even then, I'd cuff the masked robber to my bed." She chuckled, and so did Catherine.

"So there really is more to being a good dominatrix than the art of spanking."

"Much more, but the art of spanking's an important lesson."

"You really think I'd make a good dominatrix?"

"You'd have them scared shitless. You're a tough bitch, am I right?"

"I like to think so. I wouldn't submit to a man, though. Ego thing."

"Doubt that would be a problem. What about a woman?" Catherine wrinkled her brow questioningly. "Could you submit to a woman?"

"I think I do that every day."

"*Really.*" Heather rolled onto her stomach. "Do tell."

"Oh..." Once more, Catherine felt heat creep into her cheeks. "I was only being facetious. I work with this one woman...men piss themselves if she looks at them hard."

"Gotta respect that."

"I guess, but I can't stand her most of the time."

"You don't have to like them. Just don't let them get the upper hand with you, ever. Especially since you have an example to uphold."

"You mean my daughter?"

"Yeah. Zoe's in law school now, and I like to think I helped cultivate those killer instincts." Catherine shrugged.

"I don't think Lindsay's old enough for killer instincts."

"Well, what's her Barbie-to-Ken ratio?" Catherine choked on a laugh.

"She has one Ken someplace. She has no use for him, except to drive Barbie's dune buggy on occasion."

"Well, everyone needs a chauffeur. Barbie has a dune buggy now?"

Catherine jerked one should in a half-shrug.

"Bitch has everything."

"I take solace in her horribly deformed feet." Both women giggled, and Heather leaned over and kissed Catherine. It felt to her the natural progression of things. To Catherine, it felt as though robins, bumblebees, lightning and Popsicles had funneled into one woman, whose lips pressed and
intertwined with hers in a moment of sweetness, sharpness, surprise and bliss. And she kissed Heather back, feeling a rushing flood of both tenderness and the most primal desires within her.

She let her tongue meet Heather's, her head tilting back, braced by plush velvet. Heather's hands
were skilled as she undressed Catherine, barely ever breaking the kiss. She carefully pinned Catherine's wrists above her head as she kissed her mouth, throat, breastbone and stomach. Catherine struggled against her hold and whimpered as Heather's tongue traced warm, wet paths over her nipples, up past her collarbone, pausing to suck a patch of skin below her ear. She released Catherine's left hand and traced her fingers down the path she'd already marked and farther, until the tips of her fingers stroked her inner thigh. Catherine parted her legs willingly and Heather didn't tease or torment. She reached deeply into Catherine, feeling her own blood pound in her ears as she kissed the smaller blonde. Catherine groaned and arched her back, drinking deeply of Heather's kiss, biting her lip and tasting her surprising softness. Heather stroked the heated velveteen of Catherine's heated center and she felt powerful muscles bear down on her fingers.

Catherine gasped and cried out as her body spasmed and trembled, then stilled. Heather lightly kissed her mouth and forehead and smiled gently.

"You'd definitely be good at this. A good part of dominating is subbing." Catherine smiled slightly, her lips parted, as she regained her breath.

"I thought there was no sexual contact between client and domme."

"Catherine, sweetheart, I wouldn't take money from you for the world."

"But I didn't...you didn't..." Heather silenced her with a sticky finger to her lips, smiling faintly when Catherine's tongue flicked over it.

"When I hear a referral to Lady Catherine at my next event, it'll have been payment enough."

"So I can consider this training?" Heather grinned back at her.

"You do your best learning by experience after all, Catherine. You learn by doing."

"I'll take that under advisement," Catherine whispered, and offered Heather another satin-gentle kiss.

END