The Puzzle a Lesbian Erotic Romance

By Anietta Strong

Two women united in emotional pain and sorrow resulting from loss in one case and dehumanising brutality in the other, are brought together by one woman solving a mysterious puzzle created by the other. Both are struggling with life, asking the inevitable question, is it worth carrying on with both having considered the unimaginable. Once the puzzle is solved and initial contact is made another bigger question remains or is it a fear, they both ponder? Are they too far gone to develop even a friendship, let alone anything more. Is the damage both have sustained beyond the means of repair. A fast-moving page turner, epitomised by a savage and disturbing opening chapter, brutally exposes pain and suffering with explicit descriptions of lesbian sexuality with more than a hint of BDSM. An uncompromising love story which might just work for both women and create an unlikely lasting romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anietta Strong
• Release date: Feb 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215799727

Anietta Strong

Hi, I'm Anietta, I've always loved to write even before my teens. Like most people who built a career and led a busy life,I took up writing seriously when life calmed down, which for me was when my family grew up and left the nest. I love to write about difficult issues, not shying away from areas where some writers prefer to avoid. Yes, they are edgy, maybe sexy too, but that is life. I'm particularly interested in women's issues and my characters reflect my own personality. I hate political correctness, the airbrushing of history, our cancellation society, Woke culture, and speak and write without fear. I hope you enjoy my books.Please note. all characters depicted in my books are over 18 when features in appropriate scenes in each book

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The Puzzle

A lesbian erotic romance

By

Anietta Strong

Copyright © 2012 Anietta Strong 2023

The right of Anietta Strong to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

The best views come after the hardest climb.

Contents

Gemma

Moving On

So Close

Solved

Contact

Rachel

Thirty-Five Months and Twenty-Two Days

Puzzle – Six Months Later

A Meeting of Mind and Body

Level Ground

Chosen

Chez Rachel

Seraphina

Leaving and Returning

Closure

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About this Author

About Texshire Books

Gemma

The train made steady progress through the open countryside. Earlier it had left Dorchester, heading north. For me, time was immaterial. Today, was very similar to yesterday and I doubted tomorrow would be any different. That was how life is when you live alone. At least, with no pot plants to water, not even a fish to feed, I had no urgency to return. Any needs were personal and those were very personal to me and what I had become. My name is Gemma Mathews and I’m 36 yrs. of age. I’m no longer sure what or who I am. I have a few red lines that cannot be crossed; these have been created involuntary by the deliberate actions of others. Ironically, for someone who cannot bear the presence of a man near me, I had just joined the train on its return journey having spent the weekend sharing a home with one. His name is Steve Cooper. But he didn’t count, in that sense of abhorrence, because he was my exact gender opposite. The journey, the route to oblivion I had travelled, had seen his own feet travel too. The very same despicable acts which had destroyed any hope of emotional happiness for me had been carried out on him too. In a way, we are soul mates. He could hug me, hold on for far too long, but not to any degree where it ever became uncomfortable. I knew he had the same scars, some visible, most invisible; emotional and mental scarring which could never be erased. I was returning home after an annual pilgrimage. Now the third time. He hadn’t changed, well, not for the better, I hadn’t changed either. I doubted anything would change in the coming year, assuming I made the same trip back. As I passed through a short hillside tunnel, I couldn’t imagine I wouldn’t make this same trip, but that depended if there was anything to travel back for.

One thing I did look forward to, was continuing a puzzle. There would also be a package awaiting me too and late tonight I would try out its contents. The puzzle was simple or so it appeared initially. A crossword puzzle, something I’d enjoyed doing since childhood. I’d seen this in a magazine exclusively for women – lesbian women. I’d stormed into it, then suddenly, as my mind expanded rapidly and the answers to clues across and down appeared in my head, long before I even checked the clues, I saw there were alternatives? I had frowned because I wasn’t sure the crossword had been designed thus. But then I realised there could be no other explanation – it had to have been. The wording and dare I say, the ambiguity of both the clues and the words which resulted, were designed in such a way, that only someone with a deep interest in a certain lifestyle could only ever understand. The author, or as I suspected authoress, had been clever, even brilliantly so. It had been carefully designed to eventually become meaningless with answers which made little sense, that is of course unless its participants were fluent in at least three European languages with a sprinkling of Latin, even Hebrew thrown into the mix, which I was. I’d been working the puzzle for weeks and the signs were good, progress was being made. A name was forming on a nine-letter word where letters changed as each clue found it’s intended home. I realised the woman, of course it was a woman, was looking for someone and that person had to be her match, a worthy opponent. A shiver had run down my spine as I felt I was closing in and the only thing I could conclude was it had to be a contact email address? It had taken days and it had been a mixture of clues displayed in French and German which had finally exposed the possibility of .com or. something. I still wasn’t sure; I hoped my break would clear my mind.

Even this was buried elsewhere and then diagonally. So far, I’d found three of the nine letters of ‘her’ name. Just six to find. I looked up, not in distraction, but as a looming question formed. It was one which had crossed my mind with ever increasing frequency ever since I realised the information this woman was giving up clue by clue, in language, even dialect by dialect was in fact a contact email address; so, what then? Was I meant to contact her and if so, why? What to even say? I had worked in British Military Intelligence. I was a mid-ranking army officer. It was in the family blood; I’d joined the armed forces after university. I was an obvious ‘shoe-in’ to The Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Here, I had passed head of my year and I was quickly absorbed into special forces where that shady side of my life was invisible to everyone except those who knew. It was this and the specialised training I’d received at secret establishments, which made the quest I was now on an irresistible challenge, one I couldn’t let up on, except briefly, when my mind went to mush and I found the time-out fed my brain and enabled my mind to start out afresh. I knew as soon as that email address exposed itself, I’d have to write, but quite what to say was another thing? What did this person want? As the train pulled into Bristol, I knew that would have to be put out of my mind. I had to change trains and head north, past Stroud and get off at my final destination - Kemble.

I had met Steve at Sandhurst. We were both heading in the same direction, military intelligence and working either alone or in small specialised units, behind enemy lines. I knew what befell those caught in espionage. I spent a whole month, first learning about the military code. The treatment of prisoners caught up on the wrong side when things didn’t go to plan. I knew the Geneva Convention on prisoner welfare backwards, but I also knew those rules meant very little to those I was fighting my subversive war. I’d spent the rest of my time in interrogation training. First being the interrogator, then being on the wrong side of such interrogations. I shuddered at the utter futility of the training and how little it had prepared me for what really happened when I was caught. I’d spent six months being held while feverish negotiations took place to gain my release. It was only later I realised Steve, separately, had been held in the same brutal, detention facility in the freezing wastes of the Russian interior. My opinion of men had never been great, but what men had done to me defied description. I stared hard out of the window, smiling almost with derision when months of intensive rehabilitation couldn’t spare me of the memories of their abuse. I’d been stripped of my clothing and left in a filthy cell with no sanitary facilities. I had been brought along and questioned by men who leered and made aggressive, sexually suggestive comments. That was at the start; my head had been shaven and then the torture had commenced. Chained to a wall, blindfolded, mock executions. Guns placed to my head and triggers pulled. Hung by my wrists, my feet off the ground. I’d been whipped. Then even worse, hung by my ankles often with my legs wide apart, the whippings had continued. Then, as if nothing could get worse, it did. When it became clear my usefulness was spent and I was nothing more than a mere bargaining chip, I was handed over to animals, who kept me bound and naked tied face down over a metal framed bed to be systematically raped whichever way those who carried out that heinous crime, chose. These are the flashbacks I cannot erase. These are the memories I endure, night after night, even now as I sit on a train. They still come back and I freeze in my seat because then, as now, I am trapped in my body and I cannot escape.

Steve knew this too. He’d suffered the same abuse, possibly in the same block where I found out later, we were both being held. He’d been raped too, although I knew I offered my abusers a choice where Steve could not. My farewell hug, felt very final this time. We’d both said, until next year, when both, or certainly I knew, I’d never see him again – alive! He’d undergone reconstructive surgery upon his return, then an unrelentingly painful recovery, only to know he faced even more surgery later. I found out he’d already attempted suicide, something, a need of finality, which thankfully had eluded me thus far. The only question now was, for how long? Steve had even spoken about joining mercenary forces fighting the Russians in Ukraine; his goal was simple, to kill every Russian that appeared within his sights. I wasn’t sure what was worse. After three years of slow, standing still, where any future seemed non-existent, to kill himself by blowing his head off or to eventually succumb to a Russian bullet or worse, if caught up in battle, to be recaptured. I knew I had to forget Steve. To be there, if he called, or to attend his funeral which seemed ever more likely. Meanwhile, my trip to see him was nearing its end; the train was pulling into Kemble station and my car would be waiting to take me the two-mile journey to my home.

It was getting late when I finally got home. I tossed my overnight bag in the hallway; it hadn’t contained a lot. Two pairs of soiled knickers, tee shirts and my toilet bag. I wondered what Steve would be doing; I glanced at my watch and reckoned he’d be holding the bar up at the local pub, getting increasingly drunk. I wasn’t sure what was more preferable, to remain in the house where I knew he had a loaded hand gun and plenty of lethal rounds, or down at the pub where some idiot might just say the wrong thing and realise too late, a violent man could be easily provoked. By the time the police arrived, together with an ambulance, the bar would be transformed into matchwood amongst the broken glass. I put the kettle on, I looked over at my project. Like Topsy it had grown from small beginnings. What had started at the kitchen table with a women’s specialist magazine and a ball point pen, had become a life of its own. The whole corner end of my kitchen was taken over by the puzzle. I had purchased a whiteboard which I had carefully and accurately drawn out the outline of the puzzle itself, with a permanent marker pen. I had blanked out the squares which acted as separators. Then, with non-permanent pens I had filled in the letters as far as I had got. Nearby, a large cork board was covered in post-it stickers; drawing pins had multicoloured ribbons, connecting words. The task appeared massive – which it was. I stared at progress. At least I was now sure it was an email address although I still had no idea as to the email provider.

‘You fight dirty.’ I spoke as I looked at something which gave little away - - R - - H - - A. I moved closer, taking a sip from a mug of steaming tea which was freshly made. My mind still went back to Steve. I realised, that no matter how much I worried about my friend, the only thing keeping me from doing similar things was what I was staring at now. I was tired, today had been both a physically and emotionally draining day. The walk along the beach with Steve at low tide had been hard and it bothered me how reluctant he was to return when the tide had started to turn. At one stage I feared I would have to leave him or risk getting cut off. There was just a ten-foot dry path left as we reached the headland which was about to become overwhelmed. I’d never seen him like this. His whole house seemed filled with empty bottles and cans and opening the fridge reminded me of a Curry’s showroom where nothingness was the norm. Mine wasn’t overstocked but at least I had enough food inside to avoid the inevitable take out. I’d bought dinner that night but Steve only pecked at a meal he’d have considered a starter in his prime. I left the puzzle area; I’d sleep on my thoughts and get up early. Coffee, black as treacle and sweet beyond healthy, would keep me going till lunchtime. I had a hunch I wanted to pursue and this involved dragging the family bible off the stout shelves which housed my books. The Old Testament beckoned, with too many clues in Hebrew for that to be a coincidence.

A knock on my door brought me to the present. Opening it, I saw the Amazon man closing the gate, a Rumanian with a broad smile. Two parcels of equal size awaited my attention. I’d expected one but forgot about the other. I returned my own smile now. ‘If you even had a clue!’ I muttered, grabbing them up and taking them inside. I’d had enough of the day. Another night of troubled sleep beckoned, but I’d first try to entertain myself before then. My thoughts went back to the start, my second day at Sandhurst where I had met Anna. She’d marched into my room in full dress uniform, cap in place. She stood to attention and saluted me as I sat sheepishly on my bed.

‘Officer Cadet Anna Midhurst, reporting for duty.’ She had announced with a confidence I could never match. She had her swagger stick tucked under her arm too. That was then, we became lovers but she was always in charge, just as I needed it to be. As I lathered soap over my body, I wondered how she was now? We’d parted at the end of our training and I’d made the now fateful decision to move into active service where success was applauded and even rewarded. Failure, meant denial of my very existence, I was an inconvenience, I’d made the fatal mistake of getting caught. Steve had made a similar mistake and we were both put down as collateral damage. Something to be denied in upper circles, but as I viewed my body in the mirror afterwards, I knew I was very real. I was still beautiful, my body was lean and hard, dare I say muscular. I was a lesbian and I knew I could dress up in my glad rags and soon gain attention. Mostly from men! I could handle those - mostly. There were a few who tried it on. I could cope with anything other than being groped. A hand gripping my arse, that hand working its way up between my legs, my breasts grabbed. When you’re tied face down over a bed and a succession of men steal those unwanted actions - like it or not, that is one thing, but not when my permission had been overlooked - taken for granted. That’s why I don’t go out now because if nothing else, I CAN handle myself and being thrown out of a nightclub for defending myself was not worth the hassle.

I lifted my leg up onto the side of the bath. I looked at myself there. Ten years earlier, I was one hot bitch! Anna couldn’t get enough of me. Now it was a dead zone, desensitised by repeated abuse. I