Romantic Entanglements

[hamish1024]

Storm’s eyes fluttered open from a deep sleep, and she tentatively stretched - only to have her movement halted by the restraints pinning her wrists behind her back. Startled, she looked around, and discovered that she was sat in the corner of the private ring, handcuffed to the turnbuckle.

“Oh, fuck.”

It was more in exasperation than fear. She knew all too well that this was a little joke arranged at her expense by her lover, the Morrigan. Over the past few weeks, they’d managed to schedule several hookups; sometimes drinks, more often “sparring” sessions, with lurid stakes, that served as foreplay for frenetic sex on LAW’s private mats. The two heavyweights played rough, but the raunchiness was always worth it. Their lust for each other had not dimmed since their first wild meeting. Still, those backroom bouts had always felt a little transient, so when Jack suggested they go back to her place, with a private ring built into the home, Storm had jumped at the chance. Seeing a bit more of Jack’s personal life seemed like the natural next step in their fledgling relationship, a possible promotion from ‘fuck buddy’ to ‘actual girlfriend’.

So Storm had no regrets, even if it had resulted in her being shackled to a steel post. She knew it could have been worse; she’d not been gagged or stripped, and was still in her wrestling gear, albeit the skimpier version she wore specifically to excite Jack, with the blue sports bra cut lower than usual, and the booty shorts riding higher. A part of her would probably acknowledge she deserved this little bondage punishment, too - over the past weeks she’d been pushing Jack to use more technical skills, to move beyond the brute force of a pit fighter. She could hardly complain if her student did as asked, Jack pulling a surprise reversal on one of Storm’s holds that had left the brunette’s head stuck helplessly between the goth’s pale and powerful thighs, scissoring her to oblivion.

“Very funny Jack, well done, you win,” the Scot called out to the echoing ring. No answer. She sighed in frustration.

Storm was inescapably reminded of her first night with Jack, when the domme had made a show of smashing free of such handcuffs with pure brute strength. Maybe that was the game here? Storm grit her teeth and grunted as she tried to pull her arms apart. No progress, beyond chafed wrists. A stark reminder that she didn’t quite have the same ferocious upper body strength as her lover.

The defeated Scot sighed and slumped back in the corner, resigned to her fate. Given the times she had topped Morrigan, a little reversal was hardly unfair, or unwelcome. Since she was stuck, and alone with her thoughts, the handcuffed girl allowed herself to drift into a pleasant reverie about what she would say and do on Jack’s return. Storm didn’t exactly have a bondage fetish, per se, but she had come to realise that she could cope with these sorts of prolonged predicaments reasonably well, her stoic nature helping her pass time alone quite passively. Compared to her partner Lyssa, who would noisily thrash and writhe at being restrained, like a bluebottle under glass, Storm could take this stuff in her stride.

Suitably zoned out, the shackled woman lost track of time. It could have been twenty minutes, it could have been an hour, when she heard footsteps nearby.

“I am SO getting you back for this Jack, you do realise?” she called out playfully, squirming a little in her seat as she eagerly awaited the Irishwoman’s return.

[BlackAkuma]

”Tall and tan and young and lovely…”

It had been a boring few weeks for Sabine, and frankly? She despised boring, with a searing passion.

Fortunes began turning a month or so ago, when S+M’s tag team prospects started drying up. For whatever reason - be it bad timing, or a dearth of solid opponents, or management being unwilling to put smaller talent up against the ‘big, bad, heels’-the two of them hadn't had a tag team match in a while, with booking frequently keeping them out of rotation. Sabine accepted that things like that happened from time to time, LAW had a huge roster, insanely so, and it was inevitable that some talent would fall through the cracks and go to the wayside. But it was annoying to be said talent.

”The girl from Ipanema goes walking…”

Thankfully, she and Morrigan had alternate income streams that were enough to sustain them in lean times, but even then things had been dreadfully dull. Their recent clients had been on the more mundane and less adventurous side, wanting little more than the standard affair, the tepid, old, ‘reverse 50 Shades of Black’ experience that BDSM was so often boiled down to in popular lore. She was a professional, she provided what was given, but she always preferred to stretch her creative muscles, and they were growing painfully atrophied.

To make matters even stranger, Jack, usually her emergency spice in such times, was becoming less and less present around the household, apparently having acquired a ‘girlfriend’. The details she could glean from the woman were sparse; the Irishwoman wasn't the most loquacious sort, even at her best, but she had been oddly tight-lipped about her new paramour. It wasn’t Sabine’s business to pry, but she couldn't help being curious about Morrigan, who, so far as she could tell, rarely dallied for more than 24 hours, yet was suddenly trying something that required real commitment.

”And when she passes, each one she passes, goes…”

It was all vexing, terribly vexing, and when she was vexed, Sabine found that a good workout could clear the mind. That was why she, after coming home from a particularly long and eventless session today, immediately showered and slipped into her

, looking to do a little training in the ring. Singing as she went, her voice echoing through the lonely house, she headed straight for the garage…

”...ah.”

…where a woman she had never seen before was handcuffed in the corner.

It was a testament to the sort of life Sabine led that, while she was surprised to see this, it didn't elicit the response 99% of people would have to such a sight. Immediately, the gears turned, and she made a few logical deductions. This was Morrigan’s doing, most certainly. Her first instinct was that she had walked in on a session, but her partner would not be so irresponsible as to leave a stranger handcuffed and unintended in their house. That likely meant this wasn’t a stranger, but someone that Morrigan had a good deal of trust in.

Therefore, with everything she knew, she could draw a reasonable conclusion about the identity of the woman strewn before her.

”Storm, I presume?” She tilted her head, appraising the woman as she approached with a subtly sultry stride. ”Guten tag.”

[hamish1024]

Storm’s senses, dulled from her somewhat enforced daydreaming, slowly came back into focus as she realised she was no longer alone. She felt a vague sense of unease as she thought she heard someone singing elevator music - a decidedly un-Morrigan thing to do. Storm shuffled and rattled in her restraints, but she was still stuck sitting in the corner.

The other person entered the garage. The shock of red hair confirmed Storm’s suspicions - this was not the woman she had been waiting for. Their eyes met across the airy room, as they both took in this sudden and unexpected sight.

“Oh,” Storm reacted, as dryly as the redhead. She wrinkled her nose awkwardly, but otherwise elected to ignore her embarrassing predicament for now. Instead, she watched closely as the athletic redhead slunk into the ring and sauntered towards her. Storm swallowed hard, trying to disguise her apprehension. This woman was beautiful, which coupled with Storm’s helplessness, made her heart skip a beat. There was a lot of uncertainty over what would happen here, with Storm at a ridiculous disadvantage.

“Er, yes, hello. And you must be Sabine.” Storm already had already known, even before the sultry sprinkling of German in her introduction. She’d been with Jack for a few weeks, so of course the subject of tag partners had come up. It was interesting, though, that Sabine seemed as clued in as she was. Storm hadn’t wanted or expected her relationship with the Morrigan to be secret, as such; she just hadn’t really stopped to consider the goth confiding in someone else. She couldn’t help but wonder what details had been shared.

There was a pause. Storm realised they were both sizing each other up. It wasn’t entirely unreasonable for Sabine to be assessing the heavyweight wrestler she’d just stumbled upon in her own garage, but still, Storm found it unsettling. There were calculations being made behind that pretty face, but as to what they were, Storm was unsure. Sabine’s eyes were inscrutable. The Scot tried to remain poker-faced too, but given her hapless position she felt she had to break the silence when it ran slightly too long to be comfortable.

“Er, nice to meet you, Sabine. You wouldn’t have happened to have seen Jack around on your way in?” she said, trying to be as personable as possible. “Me and her were, um, kind of in the middle of something?”

Storm suddenly had a nagging worry that that this was somehow planned, that Jack had set her up for this. She tried to dismiss the idea; the goth was pretty reliable when it came to consent, and it wasn’t her style to pull stunts like that unless it was part of the game. Still, Storm was really hoping for some more context on this meeting, hoping it was an accident. She steadfastly ignored the elephant in the room, though, and avoided mention of her handcuffs, as if it somehow made her less helpless to disregard them, as she held the German girl’s gaze.

[BlackAkuma]

As a woman who routinely wrestled in nothing but pants and suspenders, Sabine was acutely aware when someone looked her over and sized her up. She could say, with no small amount of certainty, that Storm was doing much the same.

Of course, so was she, and what she saw in the Scotswoman intrigued her. She was big. Not as big as Morrigan, but few women were. Big enough that she could only imagine what they had done to the room they'd occupied in their first encounter. She certainly saw the effects of it on Morrigan’s body after she came home, the lacerations and bruises and cuts decorating her skin.

Morrigan - or ‘the Morrigan’, as she insisted on calling herself at the start of sentences, for some odd reason - favored women her own size, whenever possible. All the better to keep her up with the vigorous pace she set. That would explain the attraction, but not why Storm was enduring where others had been sent walking. For that, Sabine would need to probe deeper. But first…

”Bingo.” So they already knew each other’s names. That was good. It saved her the trouble of explaining basic facts. She brought her attention to the handcuffs, examining them for a moment as she leaned, dipping into Storm’s personal space as she did. Her long, fiery red hair slipped over her shoulders and dangled about the Scot’s lovely face. ”Yes, yes, I can see. She left you in a rather compromising position. And no, I did not see her on the way in. She’s a difficult woman to miss, too, as you well know.”

Sabine straightened, put a hand on her hip, and considered the situation for a moment before speaking again. ”A callous woman might leave you like this until Morrigan returns. Perhaps even have some fun of her own.” Her eyes narrowed, turning sultry, before widening again. ”How fortunate, then, that I am not callous.” She clapped, slipped through the ropes, and headed to a toolbox on a nearby shelf. ”The lock is simple enough to pick. A screwdriver will serve us well.”

[hamish1024]

Storm pursed her lips, trying to keep her composure as Sabine advanced toward the corner. This woman, to put it mildly, had a reputation, and whilst Storm was hazy on the details (despite her dating Jack), she felt she had a general idea of what the German was about.

Sabine was calm to a fault, quietly imperious as she leaned in close, under the pretence of checking the cuffs. In doing so, her long red hair trailed arrogantly across Storm’s face.

“Mngh,” the seated woman grunted, twitching at the indignity. In truth, Sabine’s hair was actually quite delightful, with none of the dry scratchiness that might have made a face full unpleasant. It was soft, silken, and sweetly fragranced. Still, it served to irritate the handcuffed Scot, and for a fraction of a second she considered kicking out in protest. Of course, that would have been a spectacularly stupid idea, given how utterly she was at Sabine’s mercy right now, and she swallowed down the slight, forcing herself to simply sit there and take it.

Storm exhaled sharply and tried to collect herself as Sabine stepped back, evidently still assessing her as she commented on Morrigan’s absence. “Yeah, I guess if she were here, we would know about it,” Storm agreed. “She might have said something about going out to fetch something? I’m not sure, I was… struggling with consciousness at that point. We were just, um, sparring, you see.” Storm felt she obviously owed Sabine somewhat of an explanation, but something about the German’s self-control made her feel like she was blabbering like an idiot.

She quietly gulped as Sabine ran her predatory gaze over her again, mulling her options before finally declaring she was “not callous”. At which point, Storm let out a badly-supressed snort of incredulity.

So much for not being spectacularly stupid.

“Good, I’m glad,” she spluttered, trying to save face from her faux pas. “I just… look, all I really know about you, is that you are the S in “S+M”. I didn’t want to… draw conclusions from that. But, yes, if you could help me out of these handcuffs, I would be extremely grateful.”

Storm sighed as Sabine left the ring in search of a toolbox. The brunette dropped her head, feeling her cheeks blushing. As far as first impressions went, this one was proving to be remarkably awkward.

[BlackAkuma]

Sabine liked this one, she decided. Morrigan had chosen well.

Just from this interaction alone, she could tell the woman…soft? No, that wasn’t quite the right word. She could tell that Storm was powerful, that she had a body that could leave her foes trembling. Morrigan would not have courted a ‘soft’ woman. But she knew the value of tact, knew when to speak and be spoken to, and she wasn’t demanding or aggressive. Good humored, relaxed, and voluptous. Oh, those curves. She suspected Morrigan would need to invest in a bed with a little more structure than her current one.

”Sparring, you say? Is that what the kids call it, these days.” She chuckled at her own joke, corny as she knew it to be. She couldn't resist. ”Yes, I am the ‘S’. I must admit, I’m a touch dismayed - that's all you know of me? The woman lives with me and all she tells people is my name? I’ve failed at being interesting, it seems.”

After a little fishing, she found the screwdriver. More specifically, she found the screwdriver with the hammers, where Morrigan had misplaced it after the last time she used this. With a sigh, she pulled it out and made her way back into the ring.

”By all means, though, draw conclusions. I’ve certainly drawn a few of my own.” She sat beside Storm, cross-legged and leaned in. ”We’re about to get a little close, you and I. If you don’t tell Morrigan, I won’t.”

She winked, playful, then moved to work on the handcuffs, which required their chests to press against each other and put her mouth near the woman’s ear, giving her soothing German vibrations as Sabine spoke. ”Quid pro quo as I work, hm? I’ll tell you a little of myself, you share as well. You’re from Scotland, obviously. Beautiful country if you don’t mind the rain, which I don’t. What drove you to LAW?”

[hamish1024]

“We were sparring!” Storm protested, a smirk on her face. “I like to focus on the scrap first, and keep the forfeits and fun stuff for afterwards. Mixing them gets messy, and I am trying to help Morrigan improve her form a bit. Which obviously backfired on me today,” she added ruefully.

Storm closed her eyes and gently hit her head back against the turnbuckle, frustrated with herself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you were boring,” she apologised, feeling like she kept saying the wrong thing to Sabine. “She does talk about you… you’re clearly very important to her. Hell, when I try and get her to work on her ring techniques, she says I sound just like you,” Storm quipped.

“But yeah, you know her, she’s not one for gossiping or airing your dirty laundry. Maybe it’s her way of being tactful, not chatting too much about her ex to her current girlfriend.” Storm added a polite but pointed bit of sharpness to that last comment, interested in trying to establish her position with Sabine, rather than being seen as a total walkover.

Storm smiled demurely as Sabine sat along side her to help with the handcuffs, their bodies pressing together as the German leaned in, both friendly and flirtatious. The brunette’s heart quickened. Sabine was pretty, athletic, smart, and smelt enticingly of fresh shower gel. Storm had already felt low-level frisky, having spent the past however-many minutes of forced isolation thinking dirty thoughts about Jack, so it was impossible for her not to react to this new closeness. She bit her lip, subtly trying to supress her simmering libido and navigate this situation with at least some dignity.

She blinked heavily as she tried to straighten her thoughts. Sabine wanted to talk. Talking was good. Less chance of trouble. Storm smiled at the mention of her native land.

“Scotland’s not beautiful despite the rain, it’s beautiful because of it,” she sighed wistfully. “Brings that lush green and subtle lighting, that you just don’t get in places that bake under bare blue skies. Ugh, you’ll make me homesick!” she joked. A part of her realised it was true, though. The steel and concrete of Tokyo were not her natural habitat, a sad but necessary sacrifice for the path she had chosen.

“It was actually my tag team partner’s idea to come to LAW. I was probably a bit hesitant, but Lyssa, she pushed for the contract. And she was right to. I mean, it’s the fucking epicentre of women’s wrestling. Anyone who wants to make it big in this industry – and I always did, ever since I was a wee girl – has got to come here if they’re going to be serious about it. Bit of a rocky start, but it’s already paid off.”

Storm shifted a little, allowing the redhead a different angle for her work. They seemed strangely in tandem, the joint task helping them both focus.

“What about you Sabine? Germany’s pretty too, I’ve seen the Rhine, and the Black Forest looks gorgeous. I know you didn’t come to LAW as a team, either, so it wasn’t Morrigan that made you leave.”

[BlackAkuma]

At the mention of Storm helping Morrigan improve her form, Sabine immediately laughed. There wasn’t any wind-up to it, just a straight, unabashed, full guffaw that echoed through the garage.

”Oh, oh, I do apologize.” She calmed down after a moment, settling into residual giggles. ”I wish you the best of luck on ‘improving Morrigan’s form’. That is a battle I have been fighting for so, so long.” She signed and gave her head a rueful shake. ”Perhaps you’ll have better results than I, though I doubt she’ll have an easier time focusing while she deals with a ravishing beauty such as yourself.”

And she meant that, too, Storm was truly beautiful. And she was so cute, too, apologizing. ”Relax, dear, I’m teasing you. Fair warning, you’re going to find I do that often.” Something she said did make Sabine prick up, though, and a curious hum escaped her.

”Her ex? I wouldn’t describe myself as such. Morrigan…I’m sorry, the Morrigan and I have our little flings now and then, but I wouldn’t say it ever approached romance.” She shrugged, contemplating for a moment, then shook her head. ”No, so far as I’m aware, you’re the first to capture her heart. The honor is all yours.”

Sabine got to work, pressing the screwdriver into the handcuff’s socket and working the mechanism. She took care not to be overly violent about it, not wanting to hurt Storm’s skin. She listened intently as the woman told her story, growing interested at the mention of this ‘Lyssa’. She'd heard that name before, often in passing during conversations about the tag division.

”Ah, you're industrious, I approve.” She leaned in a little more, as the lock proved surprisingly troublesome. Morrigan would use one of the older ones, wouldn’t she? ”Me? Believe it or not, I came to these shores as a missionary, sent by my father, a priest of some great renown back home. He saw LAW as a corrupting influence on the world, a poison spreading among its vulnerable youth and turning them to wicked ways.” She brought her head back, just enough for Storm to see the devilish gleam in her eye. ”He was not wrong.”

She moved back in and tossed her hair back, taking care not to let too much of it batter Storm’s face. ”Tokyo is an excellent place to find oneself, I’ve found. I wager your partner might agree - she sounds ambitious. You have plans in the tag division, I take it? Aiming high?”

[hamish1024]

Storm’s nose wrinkled in irritation as Sabine outright laughed in her face. She didn’t take it too harshly, especially since the butt of the joke was Morrigan’s fighting style rather than Storm herself, but yet again the German had made her feel somewhat foolish. Sabine seemed to be good at that, though she immediately followed with a compliment to Storm’s beauty, leaving the brunette wrongfooted.

“Maybe I’m working it into the training programme as an incentive,” she countered. “Like, beat me without using pub brawl tactics, and she gets a say in who gets ravished,” she said playfully. “Seriously though she has SO much potential, if she wasn’t so damn feral sometimes, it’s… maddening,” Storm finally sighed after some deliberation, clearly still bristling at the suggestion that she was wasting her time, even if Sabine was obviously in the better position to judge - and was openly admitting to teasing her.

“Hm, you’re a little like my partner in that respect, actually. I like to think I’ve built up a bit of tolerance to it.”

Storm’s targeted remark about Sabine’s possible girlfriend status elicited the desired reaction - namely, confirmation from Sabine’s own mouth that they’d never truly been an item.

“Really?” Storm tried to hide her pleasure at that news. “I mean, I know you’re not close close, but some of the stuff she’s said… I mean, it suggested you were fairly intimate.”

“Like, during our first meeting, when she threatened to deliver me unto you for some diabolical three way,” Storm added matter-of-factly. That particular exchange with Morrigan had always put Storm in mind of a cat bringing a captured live animal back to the feet of its master, and even though her relationship with the Irishwoman had changed dramatically since then, she still suspected that Sabine’s hooks in her partner were deeper than she was letting on.

“Wait, wow, there’s been, like, no other girlfriends?” Storm frowned as she considered this. Of course, she knew that Morrigan was firmly in the category of ‘live hard, move fast’ kind of person, but still. “That’s a bit sad.” It made her want to give Jack a hug.

With a grunt, Storm shifted, getting a little uncomfortable trying to hold position for Sabine to work.

It was Storm’s turn to guffaw as Sabine revealed her religious background, and they shared a conspiratorial chuckle over how badly her proselytising had gone.

“Ahh, Catholics,” she sympathised. “Yes, I can imagine you tired quite quickly of the missionary position,” she deadpanned, largely in an attempt to show Sabine she didn’t have a monopoly on cheesy jokes. “Bet that pissed the old man off. I take it you didn’t try to convert Morrigan.”

Storm squirmed a little again as Sabine moved for some more closeup work. She was starting to weirdly enjoy this, despite her initial fretting about looking foolish. Their chat was flowing now, as Sabine enthused about Tokyo and LAW.

“Winning’s always been the goal,” Storm said of their plans. “Though we keep a bit of distance, push our solo stuff as much as the tag team. Lyssa’s been dabbling in all kinds of stuff since she got here - little bit of domme work, little bit of backstage ambush streams. No lack of self-confidence on that one.”

Storm licked her lips thoughtfully. “Despite all that, it was our tag team that really got us noticed in the UK. Maybe we’ll end up facing you guys one day,” she said with a sideways glance. “Depending on what you’re aiming for?”

[BlackAkuma]

Sabine would say one thing for Storm: She was optimistic. At least, when it came to Morrigan. A good thing, she supposed, and she didn’t wish to seem like she thought the endeavor was fruitless. She had just banged her head against that particular wall enough times to know how well it tended to go.

”A novel incentive. Do let me know if it works.” She had a final, sighing laugh, before it was all out of her system. ”I hear you. I liken Morrigan to a hammer. And what is they say of hammers?”

She moved away just long enough to wag a finger at Storm. ”’When all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail’. For so long, her brawling has worked for her. It’s difficult to get that nature out of her system, to refine it. But perhaps not impossible.” She tapped the woman’s nose, then went back to work. ” Your confidence is infectious. Together, we might see progress.”

As she worked, the issue of girlfriends puzzled Sabine, at first, until she thought more about it. It was unlike Morrigan to describe them that way, and it was especially odd, since she seemed to have told Storm precious little, if anything, about her beyond the name. But the pieces clicked into place, the Scotswoman was probing, making sure the waters were safe to swim in, to see if Sabine had any attachments yet to disclose, if there was any competition to be had. Clever, clever.

”A three-way?” She audibly scoffed at the idea. ”I would think not, I believe she was merely messing with you. We’ve shared submissives during the occasional session at a client’s request, and we’ve had a POW every now and then, but as far as sex goes? No. I frankly find ‘threesomes’ overrated, anyway. It usually just ends up as regular sex with a third party occasionally interrupting. And Morrigan…” She considered her words for a moment, not wanting to outright say she found sex with her tag partner to be depressingly average - even though it was true - and looking for a more diplomatic answer. ”Some people are simply not as compatible in bed as you might think. I’ll leave it at that.”

She noted that Storm was starting to squirm, no doubt reaching the limits of their unorthodox position, and it was enough incentive for her to hurry up. ”None other, no, though I doubt it's for lack of suitors. She can be quite intense and intimidating; few can handle such energy in the long run.”

She simply rolled her eyes at the joke, with a listless laugh. ”Cute, but Morrigan has made that same joke so many times I’ve grown numb to it.” She shook her head. ”And no, I met her long after I fell into the devil’s grasp, as my father put it. Though I almost wish it wasn’t so. Morrigan has quite a few interesting views on religion, if you ever want to broach the subject with her. Animism, mysticism, paganism. Nothing I subscribe to, but fascinating nonetheless.”

The note about Lyssa ‘doing a little bit of domme work’ caught Sabine’s interest, but she made a note to follow it up later. Here and now, her efforts had borne fruit, as the handcuffs finally came loose, freeing Storm with a soft click. Sabine promptly slid them off the woman’s wrist and stepped out of the ring to set them on the table and put the screwdriver back in its proper place.

”Free at last, free at last.” She playfully chirped as she set her tools aside and made her way back in under the ropes. ”And to answer your question, I would be happy to simply have a match at this point, our prospects have annoyingly dried up. The tag division is a fickle mistress.” She shrugged, rolled her shoulder and began to stretch as she walked around the ring. ”One must stay sharp, however. I had actually come in here to train, but…” Her sly eye came over Storm, and an idea began to take shape.