Costly Confusion

Halfway naked, she looked back up at her. "Aren't you gonna get naked too?"

Val shook her head. "That won't be necessary," she informed her.

Donna put on a sad puppy face and pouted her bottom lip.

Val continued with a sexy smirk. "Because, I'm gonna tie you up and blindfold you."

Donna perked right back up. "Ooooh, I like the sound of that!" she said. "Kinky! What are we gonna do?"

"Oh, you'll see," Valerie assured her. "You just keep getting naked for me, my dear."

Donna did as she was told. When all her clothes lay in a heap on the floor, Valerie pointed to the bed authoritatively.

"On your back. And no arguments."

"No problem!" Donna replied, practically leaping onto the mattress.

"'Atta gal, now then..." Valerie retrieved her toys, starting with the blindfold. "Here you go..." She proceeded to sit her back up and blind her, subsequently asking, "Can you see?"

Donna grinned and shook her head.

"Very good." Val gently pushed her down on her back again. "Now, hold still..."

Donna got a chill, remembering how Valerie had also given her this order when they were playing Mommy and daughter.

Valerie had figured the best and most effective way to do this was to put her hands and feet in cuffs, thread rope through them and connect them under the bed. So that was what she did. When she'd finished doing precisely this, and pulled the restraints good and tight, minimizing the slack, she asked Donna, "Now, how much can you move?"

Donna hadn't exactly expected to be tied up quite this tight. "Mm..." she muttered, a bit uncomfortably, "Not much."

"Really really try, Donna. I don't want you breaking loose on me."

Donna hadn't been lying. She struggled as much as she could, which wasn't too much at all. "Nope," she sighed. "I'm stuck."

"Tee-rific then," Val said, silently opening the last item, a shrink-wrapped package with a half-dozen...

...Long, stiff, sharp-bladed red, white and blue feathers—quite a bargain, left over from the store's 4th of July sale.

Looks like I'm gonna win today, she thought, removing one and twirling it between her fingers. But before she started with this, she wanted to have a little chat with her first.

"So what're we gonna play?" Donna asked in eager anticipation.

Val reactivated the phone and navigated again to the voice mail. Still in her friendly, affable voice, pacing her words until she could get to the message and play it again, she said, "We...are gonna play...a little game...called..."

Her tone suddenly turned sharp, low and very hostile.

"'Tell...Your Wife...The Truth.'"

Donna's blood suddenly went cold on her. She wasn't exactly sure what was going on.

"W—...what?"

The next thing Donna heard was her cell phone on speaker. It beeped.

"Friday...one...thirty...five...a.m."

"Hey, you sexy thing...I had the best time with you the other night. MMmm, you were amazing, you naughty lady! What a dirty, dirty mind you have! All the better to tease me with, right??...Oooh...my pussy's still wet. You bad girl! I think you put something in those cookies, lover! Hee-hee! See ya next time, sweet ass!" Click.

When the message finished, Val hung it up, leaned down to face her bemused wife, and said, "That's what."

Donna didn't understand. "Th—that w—...that was on my phone? I...that sounded like Lesley!"

Valerie shook her head, angrily tossing the phone on the mattress. "Don't give me the innocent act, Donna. You heard it, and I heard it. Of course it was Lesley, damn it! How could you, Donna?! How COULD you?!!"

Donna started to shake her head in frightened confusion, sputtering for words. "D—how could I what? Valerie, th-I-sh-I...I have no idea what she's talking about!"

"Donna, for God's sake, how the hell gullible do you think I am?? The evidence is right there on your goddamned phone, and you still have the guts to deny it?!"

"Deny wh-th-there's nothing to deny!" Donna insisted, almost starting to cry. "I didn't d—"

"Didn't what?!" shouted Val. "Didn't fuck the little whore??!"

Donna did start to cry at this outburst. "WH—NO!! God, no, Valerie! I love you! How could you even think that??"

Val picked up the feather and began twirling it again. "Boy, you really do wanna play hardball, don't you..."

"I...I'm not trying to play anything! I don't know what's going on here! Valerie, sweetheart, I, LOVE, YOU."

Silence followed.

"I believed that yesterday, Donna."

"But, I—"

"But now I'm gonna make you pay for this."

Donna's heart began quaking through her chest. "Pay for what??" she wailed. "Why won't you believe me?!"

"Give me one reason I should."

"Bec—because I'm telling you the truth, Val! I am telling you the truth, I swear to fucking God! I married you, and I love you, and I have never lied to you in my life, and I never would! Valerie, listen to me! I wouldn't hurt you for anything in the world!"

Valerie let the feather twirl between Donna's toes.

"AAAHH!" cried Donna.

"Give me another reason."

"What the hell was that?" Donna demanded to know.

"That was karma, Donna. And so is this."

With that, she began rapidly swishing the feather up and down the sole of Donna's right foot.

Donna, predictably, went insane. "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHAAHAHAHAHAAHAAA!! OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD!" she shrieked between hysterical forced laughs. "PLEASENO! PLEASESTOP! PLEASEGODVALSTO-O-O-O-OP!! PLE-E-E-E-EASE!!"

"Nah," Val casually tossed off. "I enjoy seeing you like this. I want you to suffer."

Donna was so ferociously ticklish she wouldn't last very long at all before running out of breath. Valerie tickled her foot for about thirty seconds straight before she finally let up.

When she realized she wasn't being tickle-tormented anymore, Donna threw out her breath with an audible, "Oh!" and gasped for inhalation, coughing it out. Val did feel this was rather cruel, but not enough to completely let up. In fact, she decided to get a second feather out of the packaging and let it too get in on the action.

Once Donna could gather together enough breath, she shouted, "VALERIE!"

Valerie waggled the feathers over her ankles, making her twitch and emit squealing "Eeee!" sounds. The sounds intensified as she slid them farther up Donna's legs, ankles to knees, to thighs, up to her belly, where she paused, swishing them over Donna's heaving abs. She was trying to hold it back, but when Val let one of them slip into her belly button, she blew like a volcano. Her laughter turned to the other side of wild and raucous. She struck the bed with her fists and heels as hard as she could manage.

Val at last grew bored with her belly button and abandoned it for the moment. Affording Donna just a free second to catch her breath, she moved with the feathers to her ribs and danced them up to her breasts, toying with her nipples. This sensation coerced a different variety of laugh out of Donna. At this she thrashed left and right, winging her vulnerable titties back and forth. Unfortunately, she didn't get a lot of relief either way.

When Val decided she was done, at least for now, with Donna's boobs, she worked on her armpits, which had roughly the same effect, and gave her a rest from the wrath of the evil feathers. Again, Donna struggled to catch her breath.

"OH my God, you're killing me," Donna wheezed out. "I'm gonna die."

She waited for Valerie to say something, but she didn't, so Donna added, "Valerie, sweetheart, for the love of God, please pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease don't tickle me anymore! PLEASE!"

"You know something, I'm just not sure this can be saved, Donna."

"But you're torturing me!"

"You haven't begun to feel torture yet."

"Valerie, no kidding, I'm serious, okay? This was kinda cute at first, but enough is enough. Now will you please let me the hell go so we can figure this all out together like grown women?"

"Perhaps soon enough, Donna...but for now, the worst is yet to come."

Donna flung her head back down in the mattress and moaned in irritation. "I don't like this, Valerie! It's not fun!"

"Could've fooled me, the way you're laughing like that," Val commented. "All right, I'll at least end the suspense." She took both feathers in one hand and used the other to pull up and back the skin above Donna's labia, exposing her vagina and clit.

Gasp. "Valerie Megan O'Hanlon, don't you dare!"

"Don't I dare what?" Valerie asked calmly.

"Valerie, I swear, so help me—"

"Do this?" she asked in the same tranquil voice, lightly gliding both the feathers upwards between her legs, trying to brush both the insides of her labia and her clit at the same time.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!" Donna exploded. "FUCK! NO! GOD! STOPPIT!!"

To say that Donna erupted at having her cunt tickled aspired to an understatement. Her reactions burned off the charts. Her screams went through the ceiling as Val tortured her pussy. She was officially out of her mind. She could never have guessed Valerie had the capacity within her to be so cruel. She wasn't just playing a fun sexy tickle game with her; she was abusing her.

"VALERIEFUCKINGSTOPGODDAMMIT!!"

"Okay," said Val, pretending to honor her request. "I'll just keep one here and remove the other one."

"REMOVE 'EM BOTH!" demanded Donna, trying not to tell her wife that she hated her, or anything else regretful.

"Oh, I think we'll just do one for right now..." pondered Val, holding the skin around her pussy stretched out with her left hand and one feather against it with her thumb. "And then, uh..." She slid the other up the bottom of Donna's left foot, which to this point had been left out of the fun (no pun intended).

As she began to feel it, Donna started to say, "Oh, hell!—" But her laughter cut her off.

"Not the feet!" she screamed at Val when she could form coherent words. "NOT THE FEET! NOT THE FE-E-E-E-E-EET!!"

As if she hadn't been going crazy enough already, Donna was starting to have some serious trouble getting air near her lungs. She coughed, hacked, gasped and heaved for oxygen. She thought she really was about to literally die.

"It's funny, isn't it?" mused Valerie. "That these tiny light little objects that come from birds weigh less than a toothpick, and yet can wield such an incredible power over a person."

This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be the Valerie O'Hanlon she married. Someone must have snuck into their room just at the moment she tied Donna to the bed, done something to Valerie, and then turned on her with this dead-on impression of Valerie's voice. My God... Was she going to survive this?

Though almost inaudible above Donna's fits, the doorbell rang.

"Well, that's too bad," said Valerie. "Our visitors are just gonna have to come back another time."

"V—...Vale—...rie, plea—...se answe—...door!"

Before Valerie could reply, a repetitive knocking came at the door. Then the doorbell was rung...three more times, in quick succession. Then more knocking again. Finally, Valerie got up to see what all the fuss was.

"All right, Donna, you get a break," she said, heading back through the bedroom door. "Now don't go anywhere!"

The doorbell chime and knocking kept up as Valerie hastened around to the front door. "All right, all right, I'm coming!"

When she at last reached the door and yanked it open, she was met with a surprise. Outside the door stood Lesley Walker.

When Valerie saw and recognized her, she burned with ire. She shoved open the screen door towards Lesley and slammed the front behind her. "Well, well...speak of the devil. If it isn't the little whore herself."

Lesley's first question was answered by her demeanor. "Oh, God, you know already...all right, you obviously heard it. Um, I—"

"You're goddamn right I heard it," Valerie growled, marching angrily on her. "And you're not getting anywhere near my wife, you homewrecker. She's mine. You're gonna have to go through me first."

Val continued inching on Lesley, prompting her to put up her hands and back away.

"M-M-Mrs. O'Hanlon, I—"

"You know something, I really do not like you right now," Valerie hollered at her, chasing her more quickly down the lawn.

"Mrs. O'Hanlon, please—"

"I think it would be a very good idea if you left."

"But—"

"In fact, I think it would be a very good idea if you got out, and stayed the hell out of our lives, forever, Miss Lesley Walker."

Lesley backed up until she bumped into the apple tree in the middle of the O'Hanlons' yard. Valerie closed in on her.

"Before I kill you several times, give me one good reason why I shouldn't."

"Mrs. O'Hanlon, I didn't have sex with your wife!" Lesley cried, shielding her head with her arms.

Valerie stopped and lowered her eyebrows in temporary confusion.

"We-w-we went out for a drink together, but that was it!" Lesley insisted. "I promise!"

"What the hell are you talking about, you didn't have sex with my wife??" Val said. "You left that message on her voice mail!"

"It wasn't meant for her! It was a mistake!" While she was cowering, Lesley dropped one hand to reach into her pocket and pull out her cell phone. She frantically brought up her contacts list.

"What?" demanded Valerie.

"I-I-I have a girlfriend," Lesley told her, opening the contact right below Donna in her address book. "See?" She showed her the display. Val snatched the phone to look. On the screen was a picture of a pretty petite blonde with contact info below.

"Her-her name's Dori," Lesley said. "Dori Young. She's 24, she lives in Green Plains, about fifteen minutes north of here, and she's a baker. She makes cookies and biscuits and stuff just like you. We've been together for about three years. She's five-foot-five, she's a Cancer and she doesn't smoke. She plays the piano, and she likes rainy days, puppies and ice cream."

She paused for a breath. "She was the one I meant to leave that message for," she explained in a mixture of embarrassment and fear. "See, Wednesday night, after work, Donna and I had a drink together, then I met up with Dori, and, we had a few more drinks, and then, well, things got pretty hot and heavy. So last night, I-I meant to call her, and leave her that voice mail, but..."

She sighed. "I...I drink like a fish, Mrs. O'Hanlon," she confessed. "I'm not proud of it, but, I really do drink a lot. And last night I was still a little tipsy, and, uh...well, my phone contacts are listed in alphabetical order, so when I was scrolling through to find Dori and call her and tell her all that stuff..."

Valerie shut her eyes and filled in the blank, the awful real truth illuminated. "...You landed on Donna's contact instead."

"Yes, ma'am. Completely by accident. And like I said, I was still kinda drunk, and the voice mail didn't tell me her name, it just beeped. And I didn't even know myself until a little while ago. I called Dori to ask what she thought of my message, and she told me she never got it. So I went through my calls, and I realized I must have left it on your wife's phone. And when I found out, I just felt so, so terrible. You guys weren't supposed to hear that, and I am so sorry, Mrs. O'Hanlon. I would've called you, but my battery died, and of course I couldn't find my charger, and I would've called you in the car, but I'm not hands-free. But I...I hold a great deal of admiration and respect for Donna; she's such a wonderful, awesome person, but I'm not interested in her as anything more than a friend and a colleague. I swear on my mother's grave. I do get a little flirty when I drink, and we've shaken hands and hugged, but that's it. I'd never dream of trying to steal your wife from you, Mrs. O'Hanlon. I'm not that kind of person. I really really like her, and I really really like you too." She inhaled again. "I just wanted us all to be friends."

She paused, still fearfully holding her hands in front of her face. "Pl—...please don't hit me."

It was Valerie's turn to feel awful. Her voice and her disposition calmed down, guilt flooding her veins. "I'm not gonna hit you, Lesley," she said, giving her back her phone. "I believe you. And...I'm so sorry too for calling you a homewrecker and a whore."

"Oh, whew," Lesley exhaled in relief. "Thank you, Mrs. O. My sincerest apologies for any trouble or grief I may've caused you. I promise I'll go through my contacts list a lot more carefully from now on! I have to go now, so I'll see you later!"

She gave Val her extra enthusiastic handshake, trotted back to her car, got in, waved goodbye, and sped off. Valerie watched her go, starting to feel tears come to her eyes for a completely different reason than she had eight hours ago.

Eventually, she turned around to go back inside, feeling like raw sewage. Wow, she thought. What a mess I've made of everything. I don't believe it...how could I screw up this badly??

She slowly pushed the bedroom door back open with a remorseful creak.

"Valerie?" asked Donna.

"Donna...I—"

"Valerie, I can't take this anymore, I really can't. This has gone way too far. This is fucking insane. Okay, look, Lesley and I did go out for a drink the other night—I didn't tell you that before and I'm sorry—and...and okay, okay, we have flirted a little, just a little, but really, that's it, I swear! And she has a girlfriend! At least I think she told me she did," Donna explicated, sobbing through her words. "I honestly don't know where that message came from, or how it ended up on my phone."

I'm going to hell. I know I am. I am going straight to hell.

"But listen to me, Valerie," she shouted, throwing an extra dash of tearfulness into her voice, "I could never even think of cheating on you. You mean the world to me, but...if you still refuse to believe me, then I just don't think you trust me anymore. And if our marriage is already in this much trouble, I, uh...I think..." She cried. "...I think...maybe we should get a divorce."

Valerie looked at the floor, wiping at her own eyes in shame.

"Donna...um...that was Lesley at the door. She, uh..." She lifted the blindfold up from Donna's eyes, but didn't think she could look at her. "...She told me what happened. She meant to send that message to her girlfriend, but she sent it to you by mistake."

Donna turned her confused eyes to the ceiling, blinking away the lacrimal moisture, breathing deeply in and out, processing this. Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw Val somberly circling the bed, and felt her uncuffing her appendages one by one.

For a couple of moments Valerie was too ashamed to say anything. When she was done unbinding her wife, she sat on the floor against their dresser, dropping her face into her hands like she had that same morning.

She shook her head. "I was so wrong. So terribly...horribly wrong."

Dropping her tear-stained hands, Val let her head fall back against the dresser where she was sitting. "I don't even think I can ever apologize enough to make this up to you, Donna," she wept. "I can't believe how bad I messed up this time. I would say I'm so, so sorry, a million times over—and I am, sweetie; really, you just can't imagine how sorry I am right now—but I don't know if any amount of sorries can patch up a faux pas this bad. You didn't deserve this, Donna, not in the least, and I don't think I deserve your love anymore after what I did. Donna, I just want so badly to be able to say and mean that I do trust you, but I think I've thrown away all credibility at this point. I don't even trust myself. I'm too suspicious for my own good."