Romance with Leather

By H.H. Johanna

Romance with Leather is H.H. Johanna’s controversial sequel to her lesbian romance novel, Romancing the Dream. In Romance with Leather, Romancing the Dream’s main characters, Lia Forrest and Jacqui St. John are challenged to rethink everything they thought they knew about lesbians and leather when they cross paths with Jacqui’s childhood friend, Athena Drake. Is there such a thing as matriarchal BDSM? You decide.

Jacqui’s friendship with Athena dates back to their days at summer camp. But Camp Linda is now in danger of being sold to developers by the Ember Girls, who can no longer afford to maintain the desirable waterfront property. In a bold move, Lia proposes to buy the camp, preserving it for the Ember Girls and using it as a conference and retreat center.

The first retreat under Lia’s leadership is a weekend work party for the lesbians of Kulshan, the small Pacific Northwest town of which Lia has been recently elected mayor. At the insistence of Lori Daly, a young, newly-out lesbian who has recently had her consciousness raised, the group agrees to a “womon-positive” gathering. But her politically-correct definition of “womon-positive” is badly shaken when leather dykes Athena Drake and Oriana Gay arrive to join them.

Through their developing friendships with the leather women, and a surprising older woman, the lesbians of Kulshan find themselves re-examining their own conceptions of power, control, consent, pleasure, and pain, in their sex lives and beyond. What they discover will change each of them forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xanthippe Books
• Release date: Jan 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310347597

Book preview

Romance with Leather

by

H.H. Johanna



Xanthippe Books



Xanthippe Books

Seattle, Washington, USA

Romance with Leather – Smashwords edition

Copyright © 2014 by H.H. Johanna

All rights reserved

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted by any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to persons (living or dead) is purely coincidental.

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Introduction

This sequel to Romancing the Dream was written years ago and never published, because of its leather and S/M content. I was told when the manuscript was rejected by its prospective (and contracted) feminist publisher that it had split the editorial committee in half.

Leather and S/M has been a divisive issue in the lesbian community for as long as I can remember and for much of that time has also split the lesbian community in half. When I first came out I went to a lesbian-feminist conference where lesbian leather S/M became an issue. It divided the conference so badly that it became the topic of almost every session in one way or another. The issue was processed and processed until, it seemed, everybody was hurt, leather and vanilla dykes alike. In fact that was the weekend I learned what the term vanilla meant. Vanilla sex was non-S/M sex.

At that time, if I could be considered to be on a side, it was the vanilla side. At that time I did not understand lesbian S/M, or really even know very much about it. My curiosity about lesbian leather and S/M probably dated from that moment, although I did not immediately began to investigate it. It wasn't until I moved from California back to Washington State (where I'm from) and began to make friends with some lesbians in the S/M community that I decided to find out more.

Romancing the Dream came out very shortly after I returned to Washington, and it was written from the perspective of what I can only term politically correct feminism. While living in California I had the great good fortune to study with some of the premier feminist thinkers of the movement, and Romancing the Dream was a reflection of that influence. It came from my experience and my thinking at the time.

When I returned to Washington, some of that thinking began to be challenged by what I was learning about lesbian S/M from the women I was meeting. These women were not anti-feminist. In fact many of them were as strong (or even stronger) in their feminist thinking and practice as some of the vanilla lesbians I knew.

My first professional training was as a journalist, and journalists (at least in the tradition in which I was trained) strive to be objective. I felt that I needed and wanted to apply this objective practice to the issue of lesbian S/M. And I wanted to talk about it in the Romancing the Dream sequel.

As I began to think about lesbian S/M, I tried to mentally strip away the trappings - the black, the leather, the fetish, the costumes - and look at what really went on. Because the objections I heard from the vanilla side were rarely ever really about costumes, they were about physical violence, the abuse of power and the death of the female and feminist soul. In order to really understand and write fairly about lesbian S/M, I needed to approach it objectively, laying aside all of the politics on both sides of the coin.

It was also a question of the erotic, and lesbian erotica. With Romancing the Dream I did not deliberately set out to write a piece of erotica. It just turned out, as I was informed by my editor, that I had a flair for the erotic. They liked the sex scenes I wrote so much that they actually asked me to increase the erotic content of the book before it was published.

After publication, as I began a series of author appearances and public readings, I discovered that what the audience was really there for was to hear me read some of the erotic sections aloud. Without really intending to, I had become overnight, a writer of lesbian erotica (and so, of course, an instant expert on the subject).

This led to my appearance at a women's festival where I gave workshops about various forms of lesbian erotica, including writing, photography, and film, and how to write your own erotica. And how can you understand the lesbian erotic without understanding lesbian S/M?

The weekend I gave those workshops I missed almost all of the rest of the festival because I was staying in town at a borrowed house with three other women who had come with me. Two of us were vanilla dykes, two were leather-S/M dykes. As part of my presentations, I had brought along a stack of lesbian erotica anthologies, including some work by leather dykes. When I wasn't scheduled to be at the festival giving one of my workshops, we began to entertain ourselves by reading these stories aloud to each other.

Each of us chose stories from the anthologies that we found personally arousing. One of the S/M dykes was really into whipping, and this was a notable element of the turn-on stories she chose to read to the group. I didn't understand whipping at all, and I did not understand how anyone could think it felt good, or how anyone could be sexually aroused by whipping, or being whipped by another woman. Whipping had to be really painful, I thought. How could anybody get sexual pleasure from that?

Sometime later I found myself in a New Age shop. Along with the relaxation music, yoga mats, etc., for sale, were a pair of something called thigh bongers – rubber balls about the size of tennis balls on long, flexible metal handles, which you were supposed to use to bong your thighs for health purposes. Ouch!

It occurred to me that the only real difference between the new agers’ thigh bongers and the S/M dykes’ whips was the context. Make the thigh bongers black (instead of bright colors), put them in The Crypt, and they’d be kinky. I began to wonder if I needed to rethink my position on whips. Upon later investigation I learned that whips can actually be a lot less painful than thigh bongers, depending upon the design and the material (heavy leather, soft deer suede, etc.) from which they’re made. Some whips create more sound and show than pain. Although others, it should also be noted, are extremely physically dangerous and should be used only by those who have had proper training.

The most important thing I learned in my investigation of lesbian S/M is that education is essential. It can be a fun and enjoyable form of sex, but it’s also an advanced form of sex. If you tie or restrain someone incorrectly, whip, or play with other toys without knowing what you’re doing, you can cause permanent, debilitating injury. And make sure you completely know the meaning of consent, safe words and limits. There are responsible S/M (gay and non-gay) groups in most major cities. If you’re interested, join the network, attend their classes, pay attention and learn to play safely.

One of the most important things the leather dykes have done for the lesbian nation as a whole is to look carefully at issues of power, boundaries, limits and consent in our relationships. Call it BDSM or call it interpersonal relational sociopolitical cultural analysis, it’s information all of us can use.

N.B. – I thought about updating some aspects of this story from its original time period, the early 1990s. The boycott threats, for example, really happened back then, which was before an out lesbian could have her own network talk show.

And HIV tests, thankfully, no longer take a week to process, although I have been wondering recently if the LGBT community has begun to pay less attention to getting tested than we did, and than we should. HIV is still with us and we still need to stay safe and play safe.

This was also written well before Fifty Shades of Grey brought BDSM into the mainstream. In some ways Romance with Leather is a document of its time. I have decided to let it remain so.

Heidi Johanna, 2014

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Chapter 1

Seattle was having a heat wave. A woman with hair the color of strong coffee and eyes as deep as emeralds lay naked and sweating against the warm suppleness of black leather. Her hair was long and curling, spilling invitingly over the edge of the leather couch. It matched the curling hair of her mound, in which the fingers of one hand were gently resting. Her skin, though slightly tan, glistened pale against the dark surface. Her fingers were just beginning a journey of pleasurable exploration when, with a barely perceptible click, a key turned in the front door of the Capitol Hill penthouse. The door opened directly into the living room, where the dark-haired woman lay. The newcomer entered silently. She was tall, with perfectly-cropped blonde hair and a commanding attitude. Her eyes, a flickering blue-gray, took in the scene which confronted her with appreciation. As she turned her head, matching double sets of diamond studs flashed in the lobes of her ears.

The dark-haired woman on the sofa did not notice her, as she dipped her fingers into the folds of her vulva and brought up a welcoming wetness. Her lips parted as her breathing increased with her pleasure. The newcomer waited, watching the woman on the sofa bring her free hand up to one nipple and begin to rub and squeeze it. The fingers of her other hand were moving in and out of her vagina, and up to encircle her clit. The air was heavy with heat, scent, sex.

The newcomer felt a sympathetic throb of her own heated vulva, felt herself becoming wet, felt her own breath change as the woman on the sofa intensified her touch, small moans escaping her lips. Her fingers were moving faster now, harder, hips rocking as she neared her crest, and then in a moment the newcomer was beside her, taking her hand and moving it away, leaving her teetering on the edge just before orgasm. The newcomer's fingers slipped into their place, slowly and more deliberately, bringing the dark-haired woman down just a little and increasing her need to come that much more. The woman on the sofa moaned and thrust forward onto the hand of the newcomer, begging with her body for those fingers to move harder, deeper, more swiftly into her openness, her wanting, her need. Her eyes closed, her only awareness the sensation of her vulva, her vagina, her clitoris.

The newcomer leaned closer, fingers stroking, rubbing, teasing, pushing the dark-haired woman higher, and higher still. The leather of the newcomer's jacket brushed the sweat-covered body of the dark-haired woman. The scent of the newcomer's expensive perfume rose and mingled with the smells of sweat and sex. The woman on the sofa gasped deeply, and shuddering, cried out, pushing hard against those relentless fingers, the thumb against her clit. Reaching down, she pulled the newcomer to her. Holding on, she rode the waves of orgasm again, and again, and again, and again. The jacket of the newcomer glistened with the dark-haired woman's wetness. Their mouths came together and held a long kiss. The dark-haired woman's moans echoed into the mouth of the blonde newcomer as they rode the crest of her wave together. And when it was over, they continued to hold each other, resting for a long, long time. When they finally separated, the dark-haired woman opened her eyes, saw the newcomer's face and smiled.

Welcome home, darling, she said.

July heat. Too listless even to drink her nearby iced tea, Jacqui St. John lay lost in a daydream, pasted to the black leather surface of the Danish modern sofa in her friend, Athena Drake's, elegant Capitol Hill apartment. Even the ice cubes in the tall glass had given up. Melted to the sorry size of miniature marshmallows, they were well on their way to disappearing altogether. Barely visible through leafed treetops, a view of Seattle's favorite landmark, the Space Needle, wavered in the near-hundred-degree haze. Jacqui would have closed the mini-blinds if she wasn't over-optimistically trying to catch something like a cross breeze through the open living room windows.

She'd come to Seattle for a change of scene and to do some writing, but the only thing she'd managed to accomplish this day, apart from pouring several glasses of cold tea, was to put up Athena's window screens. And that was only because Athena's fourth-floor apartment seemed to be on a direct beeline to somewhere. Bees kept blundering in through the open glass and getting lost in Athena's bookshelves. Jacqui had grown tired of capturing them in a drinking glass and releasing them out of doors on the rooftop deck.

You'd think anyone with enough energy to chase bees would have enough energy to write, wouldn't you, Diana?

Jacqui addressed a framed black and white photograph of a woman that dominated one living room wall. Athena called the woman her apartment goddess, and said the model's name was Diana. The portrait of Diana was notable for two aspects. One was the dramatic and elaborate tattoo of a dragon which the model sported along her left thigh. The other was the fact that apart from the dragon, the only other items Diana was wearing in her photograph were impossibly high stiletto heels and a pair of elbow-length black gloves.

The photograph was politically incorrect as hell, but so, reflected Jacqui, was Athena. They'd both come a long way from the school-age summers they'd spent together at an Ember Girls' camp on Harriet Island, Camp Linda. But Athena, at the time known as Christina, or Tina, had pushed the limits and boundaries of female roles and cultural toleration somewhat farther than Jacqui. A lot farther, actually, Jacqui corrected herself wryly.

A bee buzzed fruitlessly against the window screen and changed direction. Jacqui felt another drop of perspiration release itself along her back, wetting her Radical Women tee-shirt to an even darker purple. She sighed, wishing her lover, Lia Forrest, wasn't so far away at a mayors' conference in Santa Cruz. Lia, who'd been elected last year as the mayor of the small Pacific Northwest town of Kulshan, where they both lived, had asked Jacqui to come along, but Jacqui had declined.

No, she'd said. "Even if the other mayors did accept me as your partner, I still can't see myself playing first spouse with all the wives and/or husbands, as the case may be."

So, since Athena traveled frequently in her job as a marketing consultant, Jacqui had accepted her friend's invitation to use her apartment in Seattle's trendy, mostly gay and lesbian district for the week. An author, with several feminist-oriented books on her vitae, Jacqui had thought that the change of scene, summer in the city, would spark her creative self and inspire her in a new project. And she had enjoyed the bustle and the night life of the hill for the first few days, until the mercury had begun to climb to unusual and almost unbearable heights.

Coming out of her reverie, Jacqui wondered idly if she should wander down to the Wild Rose Tavern. Maybe it would be cooler, and at least she'd be most likely to find some company to stimulate what brain cells she still might have, before they all evaporated.

Jacqui and Lia had run into Athena at the Rose. That was three months ago, when the two of them had driven into the city to see a performance of the much-touted and semi-controversial lesbian harmony group known as The Three Bitches. The Bitches had actually played at a short-lived lesbian leather bar, the Cyclone, but when Jacqui and Lia had gotten there it was packed beyond the limits of comfort. The overflow had drifted down the street and into the Rose, where a remarkable cross-section of Seattle's lesbian community communed cheek-to-cheek and breast-to-breast over beer and cafe lattes and black bean burritos. Jacqui and Lia were just forking into their own generously-filled salsa-topped tortillas when another wave from The Cyclone descended.

Oh no! Look! There's Cynthia Bach with her new top! A woman at the next table stage-whispered loud enough to cause Jacqui and Lia to turn in the direction the woman was indicating.

They saw a tall woman with a white-blonde mane of hair, wearing a tight maroon satin strapless cocktail dress just coming in the front door. She caused hardly a ripple among the leather-savvy members of the crowd at the Rose that night, even though the maroon dress was slit well up to the thigh and accessorized with matching five-inch spike heels and, around her neck, a maroon dog collar of the type usually work by standard poodles, heavily encrusted with flashing rhinestones. The stir was caused instead by the woman who was with her.

She was a woman for whom the wearing of leather was obviously an art, and she was a consummate artist. She wore a pair of black leather pants custom-tailored to hug her lower body with just the right amount of provocation. Her boots, black with highly-polished western-pointed toes, were buckled into bootstraps ornamented with silver studs and bright lengths of heavy, bevel-edged silver chain. Around her waist was a wide, black leather belt, decorated to match the bootstraps, and her leather wristbands echoed the theme. Over the black silk men's shirt she had tucked into her pants, she wore the most exotic black leather motorcycle jacket Jacqui or Lia had ever seen. It looked tough enough to take the road and soft enough to make love to, all at the same time. In ornamenting the jacket the woman had used complete restraint, adding to the jacket's own shining display of snaps and zippers only the flash of a pair of handcuffs hanging from one side, and a gleaming chain, dangling from what looked like a small set of padded clips hooked to the edge of her collar. Actually, the woman had two chains. One end of the second chain was clipped securely to the rhinestone dog collar of the women in satin maroon. The woman in leather had dark hair cut short and bleached blonde on the top, and deep, brown eyes. Eyes which seemed to commandingly survey and challenge the crowd before her.

Holy Goddess! Jacqui choked, prompting Lia to proffer a glass of water. No! Jacqui pushed the water away and swallowed. I mean, Holy Goddess, I think I know that woman, she said. That looks like Tina Drake!

Tina Drake? Lia set the water glass back onto the table.

Jacqui shook her head in disbelief. I haven't seen her since high school at least. I can't believe I recognized her. I can't believe... Jacqui shook her head again. Well, that's not the Tina Drake I knew! Or I thought I knew! I mean, she's got a woman on a leash!

Great leathers, though, commented Lia appreciatively. Lia was known in their home town of Kulshan's lesbian community for her own love of leather, and she had an extensive collection of elegant leather jackets, which she frequently paired with silk.

And what's that she's got in her other hand? said Jacqui. It looks like a black, silver-handled whip.

Silver-handled, black leather English riding crop, Lia observed matter-of-factly. A good quality one, too.

Jacqui turned to look at her lover in surprise. Oh, and how would you know?

I read a lot, retorted Lia, with a hint of mischief in her voice.

Oh yes? queried Jacqui suspiciously.

Yes, replied Lia, with a note of maddening finality. Anyway, your friend's coming this way. Why don't you ask her yourself?

Tina had led her companion to a table where she joined a small knot of other leather woman, and now alone, she was indeed headed in Jacqui and Lia's direction, on her way either to the bar or the bathroom.

I can't, Jacqui protested.

Then I will, said Lia, and then, in a louder voice with an exaggerated drawl, said to the oncoming Tina, Excuse me, Ma'am, but I seem to be having a little trouble with my lady friend here. Mind if I borrow your leash?

Tina Drake stopped, startled and amused by Lia's audacity. Jacqui would have slid under the table if it weren't so small. Tina caught the drama in Lia's blue-gray eyes and grinned. She turned her attention to Jacqui and paused, her brown eyes sweeping with appreciation over Lia's companion, then she blinked in recognition, grinned even wider and laughed, an explosion of delight.

I'll be damned! Jacqui St. John!

And when Tina was certain that the dark-tressed, green-eyed woman she was confronting was indeed Jacqui St. John, she continued, It's been dog's years. Even though I've kept up with those books you write. She laughed again, her voice warm and tinged with well-practiced seductiveness. I must say they're impressive. So, how are you?

The woman in full leather pulled up a stray chair and, without ceremony, sat down.

It was Jacqui's turn to laugh, relieved that underneath the somewhat-intimidating black leather-boots-and-chain persona now slouching with studied negligence before her was the old friendly familiarity she remembered.

Tina Drake! You still use that old expression! You picked that up at Camp Linda the summer we were twelve. Texie, the camp director, used to say it!

And did I ever have the hots for her, added Tina. She was my first big crush.

Yeah, remembered Jacqui, you tried to climb the flag pole to rescue her underwear, because someone had hung it at the top, a grand old camp tradition.

Such is the course of true love, laughed her old friend.

Tina Drake, Jacqui repeated, I'll be damned. She took a reflective breath and looked at her old friend. Tina had been attractive in their younger days and she was even more attractive now, black leather adding to a natural mystique.

"Ah, actually, it's Athena Drake now, said her friend. I changed it a bunch of years ago, when the Goddess stuff got really big and well, I liked it, so I kept it."

Tina Drake, Jacqui repeated for the third time, taking in this revelation. Athena Drake. She looked Athena over with a critical eye. You really have changed.

Oh, not really, said Tina/Athena. Same dyke I've always been, just better packaging.

So I see, said Jacqui.

And I must say, you do package nicely, drawled Lia, breaking in on the reunion. Lia had allowed her gaze to run the length of Athena's leather-clad form, a frank look of critical appreciation.

Athena returned the once-over inch-for-inch. It took a moment. Then her face broke into an expression of delighted recognition. "Well, of course, you're Lia Forrest. The Lia Forrest. I read about you in the Lesbian Resource Center News. Realtor, activist, elected Mayor of the town of Kulshan not too long ago and building your own lesbian outpost up in the midst of the conservatives.

So Jacqui, this is your girlfriend? I must say, you've done all right! Athena again confronted Lia with an appraising eye. Lia was always so clearly on the controlling end of every situation that it amused Jacqui to see her lover the object of Athena's unconcealed and unhurried assessment.

What Athena saw was a woman of presence, one who was more than a match for Athena's own carefully-cultivated top superiority. Athena saw in Lia a strong woman, possibly her own height if she were standing, with carefully-cut, short, naturally blonde hair, a level, slightly ironic gaze, and the most amazing shifting-color eyes, which moved from gray to blue and back again to gray.

For the evening, in honor of The Three Bitches, Lia had chosen a glove-soft black leather jacket from her own collection. She wore it over a white silk shirt. Double sets of diamond studs twinkled in her earlobes.

Athena, in turn, positively radiated sexual energy. An aura so strong it was nearly visible, enveloping her as completely as the black leather with which she covered her body. There wasn't a single lesbian in the bar in whom Athena hadn't evoked some kind of involuntary primal response. Neither Jacqui, nor even Lia, could be completely immune.

Maybe it's all that leather, Jacqui thought, or maybe it's the fact that I once had a crush on her way back when we were at camp together. She gave an inward shake. Whatever it is, she thought, Tina Drake still gets to me. It's a good think I've got Lia. She stole a look at her lover, who was still looking Athena over. If I didn't I'd probably be at Athena's feet right now, along with that Cynthia Bach woman.

Now, in Athena's apartment, Jacqui recalled that meeting again with amazement. Cynthia Bach had the curious honor of being clipped to Athena's leash that night as part of an S/M scene. Athena had granted it as a birthday present for Cynthia, who was known in the community as both a dedicated femme bottom and a woman with a major thing for Athena. Cynthia's fantasy, it seems, had been to be Athena's slave for the night. To be allowed to sleep at the foot of Athena's bed, to wait on the object of her infatuation hand and foot. To be forced to lick Athena's boots and