The Principal: A Novel of Lesbian Love

Susanna Valent

Chapter One

It was her haughty little sniff that at once annoyed and amused me. Every day, it was the same scenario. I would go out to the flagpole in front of the high school at around 5:30 PM to lower the flag. As I was folding it, she would come down the broad, shallow front steps and head for her car, briefcase in hand, purse slung over her shoulder.

I would say. “Have a pleasant evening, Dr. Jeffries."

She would sniff.

That was it.

I don't think she even knew my name.

That didn't interfere with my enjoyment, that very evening, of one of many masturbatory fantasies about the principal of Windy Ridge High.

She sweeps into the room and removes her cape with a flourish, tossing it onto the leather sofa.

“Come here, Jane."

Her voice, soft and cultured, belies the toughness of character that is her trademark. At school, during the day, she never speaks to me. No one knows that we have even met. At night, in her office, it's different. Then, there, we indulge our wildest desires.

Naked, of course, I crawl across the floor of her office, scraping my nipples along the rough pile of her carpet. Finally my nose is bare inches from the toes of her high, black boots.

“Greet me."

Careful not to touch her leather with my hands, I pay homage with my tongue, covering her boots from sole to ankle with kisses. I'm not allowed to kiss above the ankles, either. Not yet, anyway.

“Enough."

She steps behind me and bends to shackle my wrists. Turning abruptly, she strolls behind her desk, leaving me facedown on the floor. I wait, paralyzed by my vow of obedience to her.

When she snaps her fingers, though, I respond. Two snaps means under the desk. I scramble awkwardly into the darkness and she rolls her chair into position. Flicking aside the calf-length skirt of her gray, cashmere dress, she sits in the enormous chair, flinging one leg over an arm.

One snap. The command to service.

I bow my head to her cleft. Dry at the moment, I will leave it steaming or my life won't be worth the pittance the Board of Education pays me. But I am not concerned, for I am the only one who knows how to pleasure this harsh, demanding woman. She herself has told me that no one else has passed her tests. No one else has demonstrated the willingness to submit, the staying power to return on command, the ability to make her come in great, volcanic surges.

It is a hard life, and hard to accept that I am nothing but a sex slave, and never will be. But I have at least reached one life-long goal, that of submissive to a capable dominant; a fair dominant, too, one who rewards me for good behavior, disciplines me just enough, and punishes only when warranted.

For now, though, my only concern is her pleasure. Whatever may happen to me is irrelevant. I lick her soft, smooth warmth, careful to keep a steady rhythm, a respectful pressure. A lapse of attention could prove disastrous, as any distraction can interfere with our mutual goal.

“Uhhhh… “she sighs.

I stifle an answering sigh of relief. Here in the cramped kneehole of her desk is not a good place to spend the night, precisely the punishment for failing to make my mistress come. It has only happened once.

“Steady… steady…” she warns, not that I need warning. My head continues to bob in her lap and I feel a casual touch on the back of my neck. I shudder. It is not loving, merely proprietary, yet I crave any contact with her.

“Slowly,” she whispers, and I can tell from this one word that her breathing is more rapid now. Her gloved hand presses down, the signal for me to lick harder.

Suddenly her hand is withdrawn, but I know where it is. Both hands grip the edge of her desk to keep the chair from rolling. My mistress approaches climax and growls as she draws closer. I continue my exact pattern without stopping, knowing better than to experiment, ever.

“Uh, uh, aaaahhhhhh!” she shrieks, rolling the chair tightly under the desk to keep my face in her boiling pussy. Some liquids escape; that can't be helped, but she enjoys a ferocious climax, and then another.

“Cease,” she breathes, and I withdraw slightly to clean up the oozing liquids I have coaxed from a reluctant and heretofore unloved cunt.

Eventually she backs the chair away and I fall on my face at her feet again. She leans down and releases the handcuffs, dropping them into the back of a desk drawer.

“Friday,” she says, rising to leave. “Don't touch yourself."

“No, Mistress,” I mutter into the rug. It is not unexpected. I usually come no more than once a week, and I know better than to cheat. The penalty for that is the loss of my position as her slave.

The door closes behind her, and I am alone once again in the darkness of her office.

I'm Jane Naismith, and at the time of that fantasy, I actually was a school janitor. I had been a lot of other things, and my mother would have been appalled at some of them, but she was no longer sharing my plane of existence. In fact, it was her death that had propelled me out of a cold and angry relationship and a dead-end job to live alone and write. But at the same time, one has to pay the bills. I moved from suburban Tampa to a rural setting fifty miles further away, far out in the country, a location not at all suitable to my lesbian lifestyle, but I had a plan. I would do my dull-but-dependable job by day or night (it hardly mattered which) and write during all other waking hours undistracted by culture, media, socializing, religion, you name it. I was going to stay in that job and write my books and mind my own business until further notice, or I won the lotto.

There was one other, tiny distraction I had to allow myself, both for the money and the experience, and frankly, to satisfy my physical needs without getting involved. I had had enough involvement to last me a lifetime.

The dungeon. That wasn't its official name; that was what we insiders called it. Located in a basement under an old cigar factory in Ybor City, it was, as far as anyone knew, the only D/s location for lesbians on the entire Sun Coast of Florida, and that was just fine with us, because we charged whatever the traffic would bear and profited handsomely. Not enough to provide health and retirement benefits for the entire staff, but enough to supplement our day jobs and have some fun.

I found it during the days of my mother's final illness, after my retired lover, sick of living with someone who was dying of cancer, ran off to Colorado, indefinitely, to visit her folks. That's what she called it.

“Call me after she's dead,” Lucille advised.

I never did.

But, back to the dungeon. Having stumbled across it while looking for a much more run-of-the-mill bar, and realizing no one there knew me, I stayed. I stayed and stayed and returned again and again, only lurking at first, then taking my first tentative steps into the hidden world of lesbian dominance and submission. There was always a nurse's aide or hospice volunteer at the house, and no one thought anything of my absences late on Friday night or Sunday afternoon. In fact, Lucille's sudden departure to Aspen caused more alarm and curiosity than my unexplained excursions. How they came to the conclusion that I was off being comforted by friends who never appeared at the house, I'll never know, but it left me some free time to get out of myself and away from my problems and come to a decision.

After Mom died, I put her affairs in order and discovered she had left me enough to make a break. I hired a lawyer, she contacted Lucille, I packed my stuff and Lucille sent me a check for my part of the house. With it and my inheritance, I moved to Windy Ridge (a misnomer, but never mind) and began my new life: school janitor by day, writer by night, dominatrix on the weekends.

Chapter Two

I think perhaps dominance appealed to me because in my personal relationships, I had always been at a disadvantage. My lovers had always had the upper hand, emotionally, financially and therefore, psychologically. I had had enough of being dominated, used and dumped because I was basically just a real sweet person. Mom raised me right, except I always took a beating. Never a physical one, but there are other kinds of beatings.

During my lurking phase, I watched the “other” dommes (Like I was one already! It doesn't happen overnight.) to see what to adopt, what to discard, what I might have to invent from scratch. Since being submissive was my “natural” role, I took that part first, to learn. In that role I was just one of many naked slaves, moving from cavern to closet to cell; wherever my many mistresses wanted me to go in the dungeon, doing whatever they wanted me to do. I had been told by one of the staff that no one becomes a dominant without spending some time as a submissive first, although the opposite was not true. Most of the submissives I've ever met not only wouldn't be dominant, they couldn't. Some of us could switch, most of us chose a role and stayed. I decided that if I could become dominant, I would stay put right there, where I felt safe and in control.

After learning all there was to know about the submissive mind-set, and it was dangerously comfortable for me, I approached one of the staff dommes for formal training before I lost my nerve. Her name was Beverly and I chose her because she was silent, reserved, rigid and absolutely not stereotypical. No stilettos, mesh stockings and bustier for her. Those things were rare among lesbians anyway. She barely said a word, most of her control coming from a look or a gesture. She wore a Nazi SS uniform, complete with jackboots, sidearm, swagger stick and dark glasses. It was perfect for her. At well over six feet tall, blond and with not a little of the Prussian about her, she pulled it off well. She wasn't a Nazi herself-far from it. The Nazis had wanted to wipe out homosexuals, after all. A Nazi officer was, however, the scariest thing she could think of, and I had to agree with that. Everyone agreed with Beverly if they knew what was good for them. She was the alpha domme, and no one even thought to challenge her.

I flat out told Beverly I wanted to become a domme because I was writing about the life and I was sick and tired of being taken advantage of. It had occurred to me by then that it could also be a part-time job and would keep me safely from real emotional involvements.

Beverly didn't give a shit why I wanted to do it. She took my money and ordered me face down on the cold stone floor to lick her size 12 boots, whacking my backside liberally with her swagger stick when I failed to lick hard and fast enough. Thus began my apprenticeship.

Several months of weekend nights later, when I was aching and sore from tongue to toes and had had every conceivable object inserted into every orifice, Beverly told me she could do no more with me. To begin with, she had thoroughly torn me down and when I was nothing, she began to build me back up into a domme after her own image. I emerged from my submissive chrysalis as a fledgling domme. Together we took on the subs, starting with the least experienced, working up to those who were inured to all but the most specialized and intense forms of pain. Having been the recipient of pain myself, and having gotten off on it, I was no longer squeamish about giving it. I needed very little pain to climax, myself. Mere verbal control and a completely authoritative manner were enough to excite me nearly to orgasm, and the delay or denial of orgasm itself usually sent me the rest of the way. Beverly had a lot of fun with that, and suggested that since I knew it so well, it would make an excellent specialty for me. I concurred and incorporated this behavior into my repertoire.

The costume, the role, came last, almost an afterthought. Having been tossed out of the Army before attaining the rank of major, I chose that as my title: The Major. I wore unrelieved black: combat boots, fatigue pants, dress shirt and suspenders, topped by a black military-style cloth cap with a high peak and a large brim. The gold leaf insignia rode below the peak of the cap. I carried a riding crop and wore dark glasses, like Beverly's. I had to, or my round, innocent good-natured baby face would have rendered me a joke. I hid my short blond hair under the cap so that I looked utterly androgynous-as long as you overlooked my big tits. In the dark, and anxious to be dominated, most subs didn't notice them at all.

As dommes frequently came and went, there was room for me on the staff as soon as Beverly pronounced me a graduate of her program. My shift was not the best, ending late Saturday and Sunday nights when I had to be up early for work on Monday morning, but I went along with it for the experience and slept in as much as I could on my other days off to compensate. Usually I was so jazzed when I got off work on Sunday night that I just stayed up until I finished work Monday, then crashed. It was annoying to have to spend the rest of the week adjusting to Sunday nights, but gee, the money almost made me contemplate not writing anymore. I admit, until I was done with my training and got used to the weird schedule, my writing went on a back burner, but, oh, the material I was collecting!

All week long I looked forward to Friday, when I worked eight PM to three AM. I loved my little outfit, I loved seeing the subs wet themselves for me, and I loved getting off on their faces. It was so much better than caring! What the hell took you so long? I would demand of myself. I swore I would never get involved again. I didn't have to.

Beverly and I weren't the only ones with costumes, of course. Almost everyone had one, although there was a lot of duplication. Among the dommes, there were police, military of every description, cowgirls, mechanics, clergy (yes, isn't that scary?) doctors, and dark-suited lawyer and broker types. Subs came in rags, slutty bimbo outfits galore, dressed as schoolgirls, or just plain naked. I had regulars and I had one-time visitors. The galleries were full of women in street clothes, either curious or contemplating a foray into the life.

All of the staff dommes had regular customers. There was no need for staff subs. Subs showed up by the carload every weekend. Any visiting domme who wanted one had a huge variety to choose from. It wasn't infrequent that a sub took a number to be with the domme of her choice for thirty minutes to an hour to all night. I didn't care how many I saw; the rates were the same regardless.

After a few months on staff, I knew all the regular subs and could do their routines practically in my sleep. Thus I discovered one of the drawbacks to being this involved: after a while, it isn't different enough to be exciting. Eventually I needed “fresh meat” to get off during a performance. That, or I would spend some time with Beverly, playing sub to her domme when time permitted. She wasn't the best for no reason and it scared me that I was starting to find her attractive and even necessary in my life. I used those interludes only as a last resort. I had the impression she would have liked more, but I loved that sternness, those boots, the silence until her orgasm, way too much not to be very scared of where it might lead. I just wasn't ready for more quite yet. Besides, I was supposed to be a domme myself!

Before that became a real problem for me though, something happened. Something happened to mess up my nice, carefully orchestrated life, and I didn't know whether to be pleased or pissed off.

Chapter Three

Friday afternoon.

“Good evening, Dr. Jeffries."

She sniffed. My day was complete.

On the way home to change, I thought about her. The little dynamo was both a mystery and source of amusement to me. She was cute as could be, but she hid behind a tough, brainy exterior that had the students, faculty and staff either on their toes or back-pedaling out of her way all the time. Just over five feet tall, and not one to bother with foolish and uncomfortable high heels to compensate, she could still silence a rowdy assembly or faculty meeting with one steely look. Most of the teachers, especially the men and not a few of the women, would have killed for a smile from her. No one stayed on her good side for long. No one was perfect enough for Lynn Jeffries, BA, M. Ed., Ed. D., Fulbright scholar, published author and sought-after lecturer. Did I mention she wasn't married? When would she have had the time?

I think if she had been nice to me, I would have adored her. I could have adored her. She was just my type, someone who would overwhelm me with her accomplishments, her money, her brilliance; the kind who would have brought out the submissive in me until I was defenseless, and who would then have dumped me for any or no reason. Fortunately for me, I was well along as a domme-in-training by the time I landed the job at Windy Ridge High. Had meeting her preceded my discovery of the dungeon, I would have pined away for her quite uselessly.

In any event, Lynn Jeffries wasn't that nice to anyone, not really. She was superficially pleasant but never honestly involved, never caring. Her infrequent smiles never reached her clear, China-blue eyes. Because as a janitor I was virtually invisible, people talked in front of me as if I weren't there or didn't speak English. It was easy to just wait and collect information. I never had to ask anything around that place. Rumors flew. Standing around, being a sponge, I soon learned all I needed to know about everyone in the place, but especially about Dr. Lynn Jeffries.

She was famous for saying things like, “Since there'll never be anyone to buy me things, I buy them myself,” and, “Since no one wants to go to these places with me, I go on my own,” and, “Since no one can stand to live with me, it's a good thing I have a dog.” It was a wall she put up, forestalling disappointment and rejection. I could almost sympathize. I mostly made do on my own, too, because when I allowed people to get close to me, I lost so much of myself; it wasn't worth the companionship, the comforts, the goodies. She must have had similar experiences. People don't just forswear all companionship all of a sudden for no reason. Human beings are social animals; we have to get hurt before we can make that decision.

When I was interviewed, and it certainly wasn't by Dr. Jeffries, I was told to steer clear of her and never to go into her office for any reason as I was the junior of the six janitors and obviously not to be trusted. Her office was so barricaded there wasn't much danger of that anyway. Two fat, grim secretaries sat guard almost all day long, and behind them was a wooden barrier reminiscent of a courtroom. Her office door was almost always shut, and just in case it wasn't, there was a folding mahogany screen in front of it.

This was not to say the principal was inaccessible; Dr. Jeffries just guarded her privacy, coming out or letting people in strictly on her own terms. She was always in evidence in the halls, especially between periods. She showed up everywhere, always without notice, even in gym classes and the cafeteria. Substituting in the social sciences was among her most effective methods of striking utter terror in the hearts of students. She had favorites among students and faculty alike, but not among staff. We were invisible to her. A doctoral candidate among the faculty or a kid headed to an Ivy League school was often found nestled securely beneath her Talbot-suited wing, only to be replaced by another temporary favorite before much time had passed.

In short, I didn't have a chance. It didn't keep me from fantasizing about spending the day under her desk, which I had never even seen, or of just hearing her say, “Thank you, Jane,” after I picked up an armload of books she dropped on her way home. The sniff was the only acknowledgement of my existence I was ever likely to wring from her, and I would be wise to let it go at that.

I was whipping a submissive, my mind on Lynn Jeffries as usual, my eyes more on the crowd than on the slave writhing against my boots. Soon she would beg to come on them, and after teasing her mercilessly, and interrupting her frenzy to make her pleasure me, I would give in, and she would go home happy, whoever the hell she was. If I got off, great. If not, I could go see Beverly, or maybe I would just go home and do myself, thinking of those big blue eyes, that dusting of freckles on unblemished skin.

I always watched the galleries. We had bets going all the time about who would cross over and participate, and when.

While my fourth slave of the evening was polishing my combat boots, Beverly happened by with a sub on a leash crawling beside her. The instant Beverly stopped, the sub attached herself to Beverly's left heel and started sucking. Beverly ignored her. “Upper left, in the long blond wig and shades,” Beverly remarked casually. “Been watching you all night."

“How much?” I inquired. I had seen her, too.

“Ten bucks on the next night she shows up. Not tonight, but soon,” Beverly predicted with a wink.

Personally, I thought this new sub-wannabe had a more hesitant attitude than most. I didn't think so. “You're on,” I agreed.

I won. The woman in the wig came back the next two nights but remained in the farthest corner of the largest gallery, sipping something non-alcoholic (you could tell by the color of the go-cup) and just watching. She watched all the dommes at first, finally settling on me, but she still didn't budge.

Beverly paid up without complaint. “I still say she wants you."

“Maybe, but I remember being right where she is. Making that first move takes a lot of nerve. Just coming here does,” I reminded my colleague.

“She's yours,” Beverly insisted. “Why don't you thrill her and talk to her?"

“Nah, she'll never come back,” I said.

“Just look at her directly a few times. She'll get the message,” Beverly prodded. “Wanna get it on, after?"

I looked at her jackboots, remembering. “Yeah,” I agreed.

I did look up at the woman, not that she could see my eyes behind my glasses, any more than I could see hers, but by the end of the night, she was gone. I stripped down to lick leather and Beverly's pussy and forgot all about the blond wig.

Chapter Four