Mutual Probing

It had been a few weeks since Holly had moved in with Amy and, for the most part, they were blissfully happy with each other. Holly realised now how little she had actually enjoyed sex with guys in the past, at least on most occasions. They would go out of their way to get her into bed, say and do anything they thought she might like and attempt to play the true romantic, but once they had her between the sheets it was like any effort to impress her had completely ended. She usually felt like a prop, to be fumbled around with for a while until they were hard enough to enter her. Then, after she had been thrust in and out of in a manner that usually caused more discomfort than arousal, and which left the parts of her that transmitted pleasure largely untroubled, they would pull out and consider the experience over and a success.

It was nothing like that with Amy. Their love making sometimes lasted for hours, and felt more like that than fucking, with Holly's girlfriend often being able to bring her to multiple orgasms within one session. Outside the bedroom, the emotional connection was the strongest Holly had ever felt with anyone and that seemed to be reciprocated. She already struggled to imagine a life without Amy at the centre of it.

And yet, not everything was perfect. Both had a strong sense the other was keeping a fairly major secret from them. In fact, in Amy's case she didn't just sense it, she knew it. The witch was a little disappointed Holly hadn't yet trusted her enough to confide about the family curse. Her younger sisters consistently strange behaviour around her friend was dismissed as merely a unique bond the pair of them shared. Amy hadn't even managed to figure out who Holly's, apparently benign or perhaps even benevolent, master was. There were no obvious candidates that she could think of.

And so, she had picked the perfect opportunity to try and probe her partner gently on the subject. Holly was a fan of the show Supernatural and, as the pair cuddled up against each other on the couch, it felt like a perfect segue into the kind of conversation she had wanted to start for a while.

"You love this show, don't you Hols?"

"Yeah, it's awesome. You're enjoying it too, right?"

"I do. You've got me hooked on it, babe"

Amy stroked lovingly up and down Holly's thigh as she spoke. Her girlfriend was wearing the shorts and T-shirt combo she so often favoured when the weather was at all decent. As the pair were just lounging around at home today, and laundry day was approaching, the top Holly had on was clearly a few years out of date and too small for her, leaving her midriff exposed.

"So do you believe in the supernatural?" Amy enquired.

"What? No" Holly lied, not even defensively at this point, such was the seemingly mundane nature of the question "That's part of the reason I enjoy this show so much. It's pure fantasy. Escapism."

"So you don't think witches are a thing?"

This time Holly reacted a little more noticeably, like some kind of nerve had been struck. But she quickly composed herself and gave exactly the kind of stock answer Amy might have expected.

"I don't want to insult anyone's religion or beliefs like Wicca or whatever. But magical beings casting spells on people? No"

"Okay then, what about curses?"

"No!" this time Holly had instinctively reacted more than she knew she should have done, shifting into a sitting position, folding her arms and sounding unintentionally irritated "Can we just leave it at I don't believe in the supernatural? Why, do you believe in curses?"

"Maybe" Amy shrugged as Holly untensed and slipped back down into a lying position "I used to live in New Orleans and they all believed in that kind of thing there. Curses. Hexes. Curse removals. If that many people swear it's a thing maybe there is something to it"

"You lived in New Orleans? For how long" Holly seemed curious.

"I don't know, a few years"

Some of the references Amy had dropped into conversation about places she had genuinely lived, but within a four hundred plus year time frame, were not adding up for Holly.

"So you were born and raised in England, but your accent is totally gone. And since coming across the pond you've lived in Boston, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Portland and now Chapel Hill? And you are what, a touch over thirty?"

"Yeah, I guess I'm pretty nomadic"

"You sure are. Anyway, I need to pee. You don't have to pause, I know these episodes pretty much off by heart"

Holly had, in fact, decided to lock herself in the bathroom so she could text Jared, her ever obliging master, to get to the bottom of this ever increasing discrepancy.

Hey babes, a quick command request when you have a sec. "Holly. you now have a talent for asking subtle yet probing questions which quietly catch people off guard and cause them to reveal more than they intended to" I'll explain next time we talk. Love you! Hxxxx

It felt like a fairly harmless and non-invasive skill to acquire. It wasn't like she would be putting a gun to Amy's head and demanding answers, just gently encouraging her partner to open up more to the person she professed to be in love with.

Not long after she settled back into her seat her phone buzzed. With Amy still staring at the TV screen, Holly was able to read back the repetition of the command that she had scripted, and which her master had just returned to her as an official order, quite naturally. She then placed her phone face down on the coffee table and resumed her questioning less directly.

"I'm trying to imagine you with an English accent" Holly stroked Amy's hair disarmingly as she spoke "It seems so weird it's gone completely. When did you lose it?"

"I don't know, I can't really remember"

"Well, did you have it in Boston?"

"Of course! I was fresh off the boat"

"What about New Orleans?"

"I'm not really sure. Maybe? It's hard to tell"

"Well, how did people react to you there? You'd think you would stand out living in the deep south of the US with a northern English accent"

"Why would I have ever had a northern English accent?" Amy snarked back "Lincoln is in the East Midlands"