Miss Daisy Warbucks was nothing if not forthright. As soon as her father's coffin had been lowered into the hard ground on a cold November day, she walked away to confront a piece of his unfinished business. She ignored the stares and whispers of other mourners. Daisy felt no need to explain her errand to her mother, and pretended to be too distracted by grief to follow ordinary rules of etiquette.

The address she had found on an envelope in her Papa's writing desk was in easy walking distance of the cemetery. For several reasons, however, Daisy drove her sleek black sedan to the front doorway of the slightly shabby limestone building. An enormous vine, now almost leafless, covered one wall. Nothing could have made it clearer to Daisy that all delicate green things must die when winter approaches. She held her handkerchief to her eyes, wanting to dry her tears before anyone else could see them.

Indoors, cigarette smoke wafted though the hallway like the scent of vice. The tinny sound of a recorded waltz competed with a woman's suggestive laughter as shoes scraped rhythmically on a wooden floor. Daisy was relieved to discover that these sounds were not coming from Number 2-C. She rang the bell emphatically.

The door opened just enough to show a beautifully androgynous face looking back at her. The tenant's eyes were large, warm and brown. Her eyebrows were carefully plucked and penciled, and her cheeks and lips were slightly rouged. Her nose was perhaps too prominent, like that of a Roman statue. Her skin had the texture of rose petals, the color of aged ivory. Her mouth was full and expressive, but her chin looked resolute. Long chestnut-brown hair framed her face and spilled over the shoulders of a crimson chemise dress cut low enough in front to show a shadow between two hills. The woman looked experienced but not yet past her prime. She seemed to know herself well.

"Yes? Oh, Miss Warbucks! I'm so sorry for your loss!" The stranger looked as though she might reach for Daisy with both hands.

"Are you Rosamund?" Daisy saw no reason to treat this creature as her social equal.

"Yes. I knew your father --"

Daisy had already removed her gloves. Before she could reconsider, she slapped Rosamund in the face as hard as possible in the available space. "I know how you knew my father! I found your filthy letter before my mother could see it, thank God! How could you? His death is on your hands!"

Anger flashed briefly in Rosamund's eyes. "You're mistaken. I tried to give him courage. I miss him too."

Daisy saw herself reflected in the dark eyes, and what she saw increased her bad temper. She was plump and rosy, with naturally wavy, bobbed blonde hair in the modern style, which now made her look like a petulant child. The demi-veil that descended from her black hat seemed intended to hide her eyes, as though she were trying not to be recognized. Her black woolen coat looked shapeless. Daisy imagined herself in a maid's uniform, arriving to work for a family of her former friends. That image made her feel faint with dread.

Daisy suddenly understood Rosamund's words. "What do you mean, you tried to give him courage? He had courage! For your information, he won a medal in the war. His death was an accident. What are you suggesting, you cheap, greedy, dishonest --" Daisy's hand was raised to deliver another slap.

"Don't do it, Miss Warbucks." Rosamund's voice was low and sensual, but with a core of steel. She seized Daisy's arms with both of hers and pulled her inside the apartment to prevent a public scene. Already, other faces had appeared from behind doors.

Inside the lair of her father's mistress, Daisy was trapped against her warm body, breathing in her scent and tickled by her hair. "Let me go!" she demanded, trying to sound quietly fierce. She didn't want all the surrounding ears know that she was losing the struggle. The harder Daisy fought, the more tightly Rosamund held her.

"Are you going to behave like a lady?" The insolence! Rosamund was showing Daisy that she could overcome her resistance by using brute force. Daisy had never before been in such a predicament, sweating in her coat while breast-to-breast with a woman who was no lady herself.

Daisy looked down and saw that she was held by five long fingers with lacquered red fingernails. In desperation, she bit the hand. A blow to the backs of her knees made them buckle as her nose was pinched shut, forcing her to open her mouth to suck in air. Her hat was pulled off, scattering hat pins. She realized that she was kneeling in front of her enemy, looking flushed, sweaty and unkempt.

"Do you really wish to fight me, Miss Warbucks? I've studied the art of hand-to-hand combat, have you?"

Daisy scrambled to her feet, heedless of the warning, and pulled off her coat as an impediment. Like a child, she reached for her enemy's hair to pull it, but Rosamund calmly held both of Daisy's wrists and forced them behind her, bending her backward. Daisy spread her legs apart to keep her balance, and Rosamund smartly kneed her in the crotch.

The jolt penetrated the thin barriers of Daisy's crepe dress and silk underthings. Aftershocks spread all through her, reminding her of how long her cunny (as it was called by Leonard, her last beau) had been neglected. Daisy had enjoyed heavy petting in a private box at the theater with him until his whiny voice and his contempt for “decadent” music and dance (anything with a saxophone or a shimmy in it) prompted her to break off their unofficial engagement.

Now Daisy's sex was awakened from its year of widowhood. In an instant, she understood why so many people, including her father, would risk everything else they valued to feed their most primal appetites. The scent of cologne and something else wafted up from the cleft between Rosamund's breasts, and Daisy yearned to see them exposed, to squeeze and torment them, to bite and suckle them. Daisy wanted the femme fatale to be publicly disgraced.

“I'll report you to the police!” she shrieked, pulling her hands out of Rosamund's grip.

“For what crime, dear heart? Defending myself from you?” Rosamund, the taller woman, held her tightly around the waist and shoulders as Daisy struggled to break free. The captive vaguely understood that Rosamund was restraining her because Rosamund had every reason to regard her as a threatening intruder, but Daisy couldn't force herself to hold still.

Daisy couldn't understand how such a rough woman could show signs of culture and poise. Daisy felt as if she might explode. To her horror, she burst into tears instead.

“Sssh,” soothed the connoiseuse of close combat, stroking Daisy's hair. “Have a good cry, let it out, my girl. It will do you good.”

“Why?” gasped Daisy between sobs, unable to say anything else. “Why?”

“I'll explain it to you if you'll let me make you comfortable. Come with me.” Daisy felt herself pulled into a bedroom and half-pushed, half-lifted onto a high bed covered with a thick quilt over a deep feather mattress. She felt as if she had fallen into a cloud, or into a dream about irresistible temptation.

Rosamund removed Daisy’s shoes and placed them neatly on the floor. She stroked Daisy's tear-soaked face, lay beside her and lightly ran her hands over her guest’s heaving breasts. “Daisy,” she murmured. “I think we should be on a first-name basis, don't you? Call me whatever you like, but we both know what would comfort you now. It's only natural.”

“It's all too much,” Daisy complained. “I don't know how you can live the way you do.” She really wanted to know.

Rosamund gazed into Daisy's wet, luminous blue eyes, and gently pressed her lips to hers. Daisy surrendered to Rosamund's kiss, and to the intrusion of a tongue in her mouth that tasted of mint. Tears continued to flow from Daisy's eyes. Rosamund softly withdrew from her lips to lick the moisture from Daisy's dewy skin, startling her. A rich dark curtain of hair shed its perfume around them both.

“Poor girl,” soothed the older woman. “You need it, but I'll leave you in suspense for awhile. You'll appreciate it more when you get it.” Rosamund laughed quietly.

“I can't -“

“Don't try to speak, dear. Listen to me.” Rosamund lazily stroked Daisy's full breasts through a brassiere that barely contained them. Daisy raised herself up enough to unbutton and unfasten everything that covered her, giving Rosamund free access to the firm tits that she had always considered too protuberant. They usually spoiled the line of a designer dress, as if that was likely to be a problem in the future. Now Daisy was in such a fatalistic mood that she didn't care, and Rosamund possessively settled one hand on one of Daisy's breasts.

“Your father's gun didn't go off by accident. You know what an excellent shot he was.” A fresh well of tears opened inside Daisy, and they poured from her eyes anew. “He did the honorable thing by his lights. He lost his property, and he couldn't bear to watch you suffer when he could no longer provide for you. You know what good soldiers do when they're facing defeat, Daisy.”

“What would you know about it?” Daisy sounded bitter, but she was sincerely curious.

“More than you know, darling. I really didn't have much influence on your father, though. I couldn't convince him that poverty isn't the end of the world. He and my other gentlemen have helped me a great deal. I never wanted to drain the life-blood out of them. “

Daisy was exhausted. She felt as if her life-blood were draining away, and it was a strangely seductive feeling. She realized that she had never known her Papa very well. He had usually been away on “business,” which included trysts with Rosamund and Lord only knew what else.

She looked up at her new - friend? Daisy rejected this label even as she admired the proud vitality of a woman who seemed to have cast off shame. “Nothing makes sense any more, Rosamund.” Daisy twirled a lock of dark hair around her own pale finger. “What is the stock market? It isn't real.”

“Not like flesh and blood, is it? We women know what's important. That's why we survive the disasters made by men. War. Dishonor. Economic collapse.”

“Rosamund, what will I do? What will you do?”

“I'm a singer and an actress, did you know that? I know quite a few men in the entertainment business, including producers. That's how I met your daddy. I'll probably land on my feet, like a cat with nine lives.” She smiled at Daisy. “I can help get you a job. Have you ever worked as a waitress or an usher or a coat-check girl? Sold cigarettes?”

“Not yet.” Daisy thought of working for money as a kind of humiliating adventure. “I suppose I can learn.”

“Oh sweetheart, you can learn about real pleasure too, so if you need to go through the motions to please a paying customer, you can put on a good performance. Few men really know what to do because they're not used to focusing all their attention on someone else. Daisy, has a woman ever made love to you before?”

Daisy blushed. “No.” She didn't know what else to say.

“You're just my type. I adore blonde debutantes with Rubenesque figures. Modern fashion-plates are just too silly, as though grown women should look like young boys. Let me show you how beautiful you are, Daisy. I need to see you without a stitch on.”

Daisy raised her dress over her head, grateful that it temporarily hid her face. Rosamund unfastened her garters and rolled her silk stockings down her legs, stroking her skin in a way that sent shivers right into Daisy's moist cleft. After gently pulling the stockings off Daisy's small feet, Rosamund rubbed and pressed her bare soles and pulled her toes like a mother playing with her baby.

“Oh!” sang Daisy in surprise.

Rosamund laughed. “Your drawers come next, girly. By the time I let you put them on again, you'll be thoroughly ravished and made a woman of. What do you think of that?”

Daisy laughed too. “I think I'll just die if you don't do it! But you can't corrupt me. I'm already a woman.”

Rosamund seemed mightily amused. “Are you really? If you give yourself to me completely, we'll both find out. I don't want you to change your mind halfway through, now. Can you trust me, dear?”

“Trust.” Daisy contemplated the word. “I'm not even sure I can trust myself. No, I'm sure I can't trust either of us.”

Rosamund licked her lips as she pulled Daisy's silk drawers down her thighs. Daisy wiggled her hips like all the hussies and floozies who disturbed Leonard so much. “I'm here in the altogether,” she said. “I guess I trust in fate.”

“You're a picture, doll.” Rosamund crawled over her and squeezed her left breast. She lowered her generous mouth to a plump pink nipple and sucked it until Daisy's breathing became audible. Then she turned her attention to its twin. Rosamund nibbled the hard buttons and flicked them with her tongue until Daisy shivered uncontrollably.

Daisy seized Rosamund's nearest hand. Her need was unmistakable.

“Now spread your legs and show me what's between them. I'll take a moment to ready myself.”
Rosamund stood beside the bed and reached over her own shoulders to unbutton her dress. When it dropped to the floor, Daisy could see that she had been naked underneath all the time.

Rosamund's breasts were melon-shaped, not large but crowned with purple-tinged nipples like ripe fruit. They were hardening in sympathy with Daisy's. Rosamund's slim waist and deeply-indented navel marked the mid-point between her bosom and her gracefully-curved hips. The triangle of dark curly hair between her thighs looked like the inviting sign of buried treasure, and Daisy wanted to comb those curls with her fingers. Rosamund's skin held a silky shimmer from her collarbone to her ankles.

Daisy's response to Rosamund's beauty showed in her face. She could see why so many men had been drawn to this woman like moths to a flame, and she had no doubt that painters and photographers had striven to capture the very look of her in some permanent form. Daisy remembered the kings' mistresses whose names were recorded in history books. She doubted whether Rosamund would want to be seen in public with the likes of Daisy Warbucks now that her family name carried no prestige.

Rosamund seemed to read her mind. “Lover-girl, any painter of the Flemish Renaissance would prefer you to me. Don't you know that? And any one of them would feel blessed to be in my place.” She placed herself between Daisy's spread thighs, and used both hands to spread her outer lips apart to reveal the little man in the boat. It was swollen and red.

“Ahh,” said the seductress with satisfaction. She buried her face in Daisy's crotch, pulling Daisy's quivering clitoris deeply into her mouth.

Daisy almost screamed as Rosamund sucked, nibbled, stroked and tormented her pearl. “Stop!” she begged. “It's too much.” She felt perversely grateful when Rosamund ignored her plea and kept going, raising her level of pleasure to such an unbearable height that she spasmed, over and over again, and drenched the quilt with her fluid. Rosamund didn't seem to mind.

When she raised her face to look Daisy in the eyes, Rosamund wore a smug look . “Now the little flower is open,” she smiled. “We're only completed the overture, my dear, and we have the rest of the opera before us. Do you have strength for the next five acts?”

Daisy laughed aloud at the metaphor. “Let me catch my breath, and then I'll keep up with you. I'm probably damned for my sins already.”

Rosamund gave her a look of exaggerated horror. “Don't say it! Perish the thought! I want to raise you to heaven, little angel, not drag you to hell. Who are we to ignore the pleasures that are spread before us?”
Rosamund slid off the bed, crossed the floor and opened a handsome wardrobe of walnut wood. She returned carrying a cylinder covered in smooth black leather, two gleaming metal handcuffs and a coil of hemp rope.

Rosamund posed threateningly before Daisy. “If you're as wicked as you believe, you're very likely to break the law to satisfy your selfish desires. And then you’ll get careless, and get caught by the police. Oh, they're very scrupulous, never fear. A matron like me would be assigned to examine you, all perfectly respectable. And to be sure of your compliance, you'd be restrained.”

Daisy felt as though electricity was still flowing from her clitoris. She couldn't remember ever feeling as excited as she was now. “Please do it, ma'am,” she begged, stretching her pale hands toward Rosamund like the heroine of a melodrama. “I've been a wayward girl.” She felt proud of her ability to catch the mood and play a role opposite a real actress, yet on some level Daisy was in earnest.

Rosamund leaned over Daisy and caressed her wrists. With a gentle tug, she pulled them over her head and attached each cuff to one of Daisy's wrists and a brass rail at the head of the bed. Daisy tested her bonds and found that she could move her arms from side to side, making a clatter as metal scraped against metal.

“There,” said Rosamund, a hand on her hip. “We'll see if you can escape from that. But your legs can't be left free. A hooligan like you might kick.”

Daisy was distracted by her steel bracelets. “Did you really get these handcuffs from the police?”

Rosamund smiled. “Some of the boys in blue think turnabout is fair play. They’re swell players to have on one’s team.” She winked at Daisy as she wrapped an end of rope around one of the brass footposts of her bed, then tied it in a knot. She looped it around each of Daisy's ankles, then tied the rope around the other footpost. Daisy found that her legs were loosely secured in a way that left her wet crotch exposed.

“I love to see you so helpless, my girl, and so artfully arranged.” Rosamund picked up the leather cylinder and stroked it suggestively. Daisy guessed its purpose, and wondered if it could be pushed deep inside her without tearing her flesh.

“Are you familiar with dildoes, woman of the world?” Rosamund straddled Daisy, holding the object at her own crotch.

“Not very,” answered the captive. She had never seen one before.

“This gives more pleasure than a man's cock, and it’s always ready. It won’t get you in trouble either.” Rosamund held the dildo with one hand as she slid two fingers into Daisy's opening, tickling her inner folds. “Very good, you're wet and elastic. Are you frightened, Daisy?”

Having boasted of her experience, Daisy didn't want to confess her fear. “No, ma'am,” she lied. “Not if you go slowly.”

Rosamund looked delighted. She held Daisy's deep-pink sex wide open as she guided the dildo into her dark channel. The cool leather felt soothing in Daisy's hot core, and her hips thrust up to meet it in small, rhythmical waves. Inch by inch, Rosamund's phallus forged its way as Daisy gave herself up to it. “Oh!” she wailed.

“Am I hurting you, dear?”

“No--a little--but I don't want you to stop.” Daisy breathed loudly. “Oh! Don't--mind--if I'm noisy.”

Rosamund's face was flushed, and her pubic hair was wet enough to dampen a spot on Daisy's thigh. “It's music to my ears, lover-girl.”

Daisy felt more filled than she had ever imagined before. Rosamund pumped her slowly, then faster and more deeply.

“Ohhh-ahh!” screamed Daisy as an orgasm overwhelmed her like a tidal wave. Rosamund pressed against the outer end of the dildo as she lay full-length on Daisy and kissed her, feeling Daisy's galloping heartbeat and her quivering belly.

When the seductress gently withdrew her instrument, she saw blood mixed with love-juice on its smooth dark skin, and showed it to her captive. “Daisy,” she said with concern. “I thought you had lost your maidenhead before.”

Daisy blurted an explanation. “I thought so too, really I did. If a person can lose their virtue in stages, that’s what I’ve done. I’m not sorry! I swear, Rosamund, I’ll never blame you for making me into the kind of woman you are. It was in me before, really. I just hope you enjoy deflowering virgins.”

“Well, aren’t you a brave little soldier! I enjoyed it immensely, darling, and I’ll never devalue the gift. Now I’d like to keep you in my custody forever, but I have to let you stretch so your limbs won't go numb. I need you to keep up your strength.”

Rosamund went to the wardrobe and returned with a cunning little key that fit the handcuffs on Daisy’s wrists. Daisy couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if the key had been lost. She was greatly relieved when her hands were set free, followed by her feet. She rolled over on Rosamund’s soft bed, loving the feeling of air on her bare skin. What she loved more, however, was Rosamund’s reluctance to let her go.

Rosamund sat beside Daisy, who pulled the seductress into her arms. They kissed as though they had all the time in the world.

“I want to taste you, dear woman,” said Daisy. “No backing out halfway, that’s what you said. That goes for you too.” Rosamund rolled out of Daisy’s embrace and spread her legs invitingly. Her eyes flashed a challenge, daring the fledgling sapphist to show what she could do.

Daisy nosed her way into Rosamund’s rose-bush like a puppy searching for a buried bone. Rosamund inhaled sharply when Daisy’s hot tongue met a tense clitoris. Daisy sucked, licked and nibbled as Rosamund had taught her, and smiled inwardly at the squirming response.

Daisy raised her head. “Can you bear it?” she taunted. Rosamund whacked her lightly on the head. “Now you’re in for it,” warned Daisy. “No mercy.” She returned to Rosamund’s wet sex, and slid a finger all the way into her until she touched a kind of large inner nose with one long nostril. As Daisy learned later, this was the most secret of doorways, the opening of Rosamund’s womb. Fascinated, Daisy pushed another finger in beside the first. She stroked everything she could reach until she felt and heard Rosamund’s surrender to rapture.

The two women lay in each other’s arms, catching their breath.

Daisy seemed to emerge from her trance first. “I’m terrible,” she confessed. “My mother must be frantic. I should telephone her, but I don’t know what to say.”

“You’re not yourself today,” prompted Rosamund, pulling Daisy’s head onto her bosom. “You needed to be alone with your grief.”

“Alone where?” persisted the guilt-ridden daughter. “I’m not sure that will convince.”

“Then perhaps you should tell the truth. You needed to find an old friend of your father’s who was grieving too. Grief is lessened when it’s shared.”

“You call that the truth?”

“Nothing truer.”

Daisy groaned loudly. “There is nothing—nothing!—about this day that I can tell to anyone I know.” Tears stung her eyes and flowed down her face once again. “Rosamund! You’re already banned from all respectable households, I’m sure. Please don’t be offended. I’m only putting into words what you must already know. Now I’m likely to go the same way unless I can cover my tracks. I don’t want to be a liar, but I don’t want to be an outcast either.”

The older woman kissed Daisy, held her and rocked her, and Daisy felt more comforted by that than by any speech. Rosamund turned Daisy onto her belly and kissed her way down her pale, freckled back. When Rosamund reached Daisy’s firm young buttocks, she gave each a good squeeze.

“My girl,” the older woman told her slyly, “the opera isn’t over yet.” Daisy clenched her lower cheeks but didn’t change her position.

Rosamund stuck one finger in her mouth, then slowly circled Daisy’s small, puckered hole. “Courage, dear. You only need to relax if you want to feel the most exquisite pleasure.”

Daisy’s anus clenched against intrusion. “I can’t,” she protested. She sounded discouraged.

“Yes you can,” Rosamund chuckled. “It’s no harder than what you’ve already done. You’ve made me greedy to take all the virginity you have left. Raise your hips.” Daisy obeyed, and Rosamund slipped a pillow beneath her belly, raising her plump bottom.

“Daisy, has your derriere ever been bared to the cane of a cruel headmistress in some academy for willful young ladies?”

Daisy laughed. “Sorry to disappoint you, but my parents wouldn’t send me to such a place.”

“What a deficient upbringing you’ve had! But it’s never too late to begin. If the police or the head doctors catch you, I’m sure they’ll give you a full body search just to teach you submission.”

Rosamund continued to massage Daisy’s smaller opening until she felt it gradually relax and open. “Lie perfectly still until I come back for you,” ordered Rosamund.

Daisy pressed herself into the pillow, thinking of the ravishment to come. She couldn’t lie perfectly still to save her life.

All Daisy’s attention was focused on her small back entrance when Rosamund returned to the bedroom. The scent of her skin, her hair and her sex seemed richer and warmer than before. When Rosamund climbed onto the bed beside her tempting prey, Daisy glanced sideways and saw that she was carrying a dish of sweet-smelling oil and an oddly-shaped candle that looked like a large waxen corkscrew.

“Good girl,” said Rosamund, stroking Daisy’s sassy bottom. “Are you ready? If you don’t fight me, it won’t hurt you.”

Rosamund reached between Daisy’s legs and found her sex dripping with anticipation. The seductress burrowed slowly into her back passage with one oiled finger, pausing when she met resistance. “Ohh,” moaned Daisy.

“Open for me,” Rosamund reminded her, sinking in past the first knuckle. Daisy had never been touched that way before, and she chose to accept the thrill by staying as relaxed as she could.

Soon the finger was replaced by the candle, slippery with oil. Rosamund’s whimsical probe slid easily between Daisy’s cheeks, and announced its presence more pressingly as it sank deeper and still deeper. Rosamund moved it in spirals, and Daisy felt simultaneously tickled and impaled.

A trespassing finger found her clitoris, and the symphony of touch in different places sent Daisy into ecstasy. As her climax peaked, she had the sensation of spinning through the air.

Daisy returned to ordinary awareness as Rosamund was wiping her face and breasts with a warm wet cloth.
“ I must be yours,” the young blonde said dreamily. “How could I belong to anyone else after everything we’ve done?”

Rosamund laughed. “I’m honored, my love, but time will tell. Life is longer than you think.” She looked slightly abashed by her own thoughtlessness. “Well, it is for those who use up their allotted span of years.”

Daisy looked as if she might start weeping again. “But who knows how many will do that in the hard times to come? The 1930s haven’t arrived yet, but I hate them already. It’s probably better just to end everything when it can’t get any better, like star-crossed lovers.”

Daisy suddenly smelled the female musk of her own body. She was appalled to realize that she couldn’t return to her family before washing herself thoroughly, and that thought reminded her that she was still concerned about impressions and appearances.

“Daisy,” said Rosamund seriously, “now that we are closer than sisters, there’s something you must know. Your father wasn’t only defeated by the collapse of the stock market. He needed someone to confide in, and he chose me. He had been borrowing money from his business partner for years without his knowledge. Your father claimed he always intended to pay him back, but once that became impossible, he was sure to be found out. He could have gone to prison.”

“Stealing from Mr. Stockwell?” Daisy struggled not to smile. Mr. Stockwell was Leonard’s uncle, and she had always found him pretentious. “Well, poor Papa has nothing more to fear.”

“But he tried to make amends in his way. He speculated in land, and left the deeds in a safe deposit box in the Central Fiduciary Bank. I have all the papers. They were safe with me because I could never claim the property, of course. I was never officially related to your father. But you’re his heiress.”

“Rosamund! Why didn’t you tell me this before?”