Leatherbound Hearts by Darkwolf

[llaallaa]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ cant wait for the next part. Thank you for sharing this.

[teanndaorsa]

Part 5 up tonight, enjoy!

[throwaway140124]

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. You did indeed promise this, and absolutely delivered! That was every bit as captivating and delightful as I could have hoped, and promises so much more to come.

Things I loved in no particular order: 1) the use of names vs. pet names - when Claire calls Elise by her name, or vice versa, there's the clear implication of "let's pause the game, I need to talk to my girlfriend right now", and it's lovely how they both accept that and let the game pause for the necessary moment. Equally, when they call each other mistress/pet, and the implication of "we're back in this roleplay", and I think it was the moment right outside the Daily Grind (excellent name for a coffee shop) of Elise saying "It looks like the guest of honor beat us to the punch, pet." that I really loved because it's Elise using that term and the associated roles to almost buck up Claire. Like "I know you're worried about this, so here's a way that you can pretend it's an order to get out of your own head" - similar to Claire's rumination about bondage being an escape from life's daily responsibilities earlier.

2) The fun dynamic that comes from dating a masochist. Obviously, one of the signs of a healthy relationship is that you're able to support your partner/rely on your partner for support in practical matters, such as if one of you leaves a sweaty catsuit lying on the bathroom floor (that's a common occurrence in most romantic relationships, right?). But then if you've got the d/s dynamic, it affords the domme so many more opportunities to "punish" the sub. And that can play into the idea of dommes being inherently superior, someone who shouldn't have to do manual labor. Which, again, very hot in this sort of relationship, deplorable in real life. All men are created equal, etc.

3) How possessive Elise is willing to be now, and how eager she is to initiate sex. Going back to what you said about the domme being in charge, but the sub being in control - which is a phrase I'd never heard before but absolutely love it. In their earlier sessions, Elise was very much fulfilling Claire's desires, but in the scene in the shower, Elise wants to grope Claire? She gropes. Elise wants to go down on Claire? Elise goes down on Claire. And obviously that's partly from their roles in the game, but also illustrates Elise as being someone with obvious desires who's willing to act on those desires, particularly with someone she's head-over-heels for. 4) The compare and contrast of Claire looking at Elise's bed head and being amazed by her beauty, then looking at her own state and finding herself wanting, only for Elise to make it clear that she's all but hitting herself over the head with a cartoon mallet and going awooga.

5) Elise being the one to go comfort Talia, and Claire acquiescing to that - it's a lovely sign of these characters' trust in one another that Claire is willing to trust Elise to intercede in and handle/manage what - until a year ago - had been the most important relationship in Claire's life. Also the way that Elise handles the situation with such maturity, and similar elements as you noted to aftercare. Clearly she learnt a lot more from previous relationships than simply bondage & massages. And then 6) the deliciously complicated note this leaves the characters on. Clearly there's incredible love on all sides of varying types, and everyone wants what's best for everyone else, but then how's that going to hold up to practical stresses not just of romantic relationships but also the internal challenges of a d/s dynamic, and the way that the world would react to all of that.

7) Final one on a technical note - very nice to use "Claire Devroux", full name, in the opening and closing paragraphs. Excellent bookending (Which I now notice you've done in most of these chapters. Nice!)

Thanks again for sharing, looking forward to what comes next!

[Caras pet]

Again, excellent work, thanks for sharing.

There is no way not to love your characters and their beautiful relationship, is it?


Looking forward to the next part  

[teanndaorsa]

Last part up tonight, enjoy!

[Caras pet]

I anticipated that you would choose a merge into A Conventional Affair as the ending of this one, but I really hoped for more Elise & Claire dynamics before that would happen 😿

Anyway, you did a really good job writing this, thanks for sharing.

[throwaway140124]

Epilogue? Nooo!

As ever though, so many things here to love. Ending it at the start of the convention bookends this really nicely, and allows for plenty of options on where to go next, or bid adieu to this world altogether (though I really really hope that's not the case!). Having Elise's pov for the epilogue works really well too - it's hard to look back and see one's own growth, so to have Claire looking back wouldn't have the same punch, I don't think.

The giving of rings was a lovely gesture, and I love comparing and contrasting the two rings. Obviously they're very different themes to one another, but then neither are the classic smooth metal band (plus or minus gemstones). And then the aforementioned styles are fun, giving a nice insight into Elise's two different relationships - obviously there are strong indicators of who have which ring, but I like the choice not to say it outright. I like the ambiguity that that leaves.

Having Talia as a girl in a box is fun, nice classic image, and it's fun to have a character who leans into the "willing helplessness/pseudo-cnc element of kink. It also ties in really nicely with her awkwardness asking to try particular kinks - I'm sure we all want, to varying degrees - someone to take some decisions out of our hands! Also having the breathing tube silence someone so completely is a fun idea I'd never considered!

Elise & Talia's foreplay, so to speak, is wonderfully imagined and excellently written, but that's a mean position to put a sub in. Free permission to cum, but not enough stimulation to get you there, and no way to get any further!

And then that brief fantasising session from Elise is so good! Obviously so much of these two relationships is theatre (not unexpected from dating a professional domme) but I love how much more obvious that is to Talia than to Claire. We've mentioned comparisons to TTRPGs before (it feels like an appropriate anecdote is the idea that, behind the screen, all the GM has is a piece of paper reading "gnomes???" underlined three times and then "MAKE IT UP" at the bottom) and I love that Elise is consciously keeping up the mask of the professional domme because it's what her girlfriends want, so she does that as a service to them. Plus, as a bonus, keeping to her role allows her to indulge her personal predilection for tying up pretty girls! Win win! But then Elise has her own desires as well, slips into her own fantasy, but it's shaped in such a way that while she's cumming like a rat with an orgasm button, she's still in command/Claire and/or Talia are still literally or metaphorically beneath her. (I've also got so many thoughts about kink/ttrpgs and being "in control" - wanna talk about those?)

The bizzare facets of Claire and Talia's relationship are delightful (Elise being able to compare Elise to her mother in her dirty talk, Claire smirking at the sight of her fruitlessly rutting daughter), and the way Claire described Brianna was fun. It felt like she was rambling a bit, which contrasts nicely with her aforementioned growth in confidence to show how much that meeting affected her, which Elise seems to pick up on too. Nice then to follow it up with Elise putting Claire in her place, in multiple senses. Interesting that Elise then consciously shuts down her idea of having both Claire and Elise service her at once. One has to wonder - if Claire and/or Elise voiced the same idea, which would win out, Elise's aversion, or desire to indulge her subs? (and we're right back to "domme as a position of service")

And then a delightfully sweet ending, and 10/10 punning on "tie things up". Thank you so much for writing and sharing these. It's incredible work, and very kind of you to share them for free. Thank you, and good luck with whatever comes next!

[Darkwolf]

Epilogue? Nooo!

All good things must come to an end unfortunately

Truth be told, while it was a lot of fun and also a bit of a challenge to write this story, I didn't want it to get out of hand and grow into a sprawling mess.  Once I'd hit the beats I wanted to hit it seemed only reasonably to wrap things up and tie them back into the story where these characters first appeared.  But fear not, I don't think I'm quite done with them just yet.

The giving of rings was a lovely gesture, and I love comparing and contrasting the two rings. Obviously they're very different themes to one another, but then neither are the classic smooth metal band (plus or minus gemstones). And then the aforementioned styles are fun, giving a nice insight into Elise's two different relationships - obviously there are strong indicators of who have which ring, but I like the choice not to say it outright. I like the ambiguity that that leaves.

I've seen a few stories where the giving and wearing of rings stands alongside cuffs an collars and other kinky thinks as gesture of devotion and ownership and I always liked the imagery of it all.  That Elise chooses to wear a symbol of her own devotion just as her lovers do, if in a very different way.  Would it surprise you to know that I originally was going to indicate who gave which ring, but I kept flip-flopping on it and so in the end decided to leave it ambiguous and let the reader decide for themselves.  You might even say I don't actually know, so you're interpretation is as good as mine.

Having Talia as a girl in a box is fun, nice classic image, and it's fun to have a character who leans into the "willing helplessness/pseudo-cnc element of kink. It also ties in really nicely with her awkwardness asking to try particular kinks - I'm sure we all want, to varying degrees - someone to take some decisions out of our hands!

Yeah, after spending so many chapters talking about Claire and her motivations and explorations of what bondage means to her and why she enjoys it I wanted to emphasize that Talia is different in her own ways.  That she enjoys many of the same things but for different reasons.  I also wanted to emphasize that in many ways she'd not as self-confident as her mother yet and that while she might protest and struggle she really likes being taken care of and controlled.

Also having the breathing tube silence someone so completely is a fun idea I'd never considered!

I can't even remember where I originally encountered that idea though you're right that it's not something you see very often, but it occurred to me at some point that a person in such a situation wouldn't simply be muffled or unable to speak but completely unable to make any noise at all and the dynamic of it and how that would affect things fascinated me.  There's a brief mention in A Conventional Affair (I can't remember which chapter off the top of my head) when Elise is talking about her own training as a domme and having endured a breathing tube.  It was sort of a throw-away originally, a hint of how kinky her teacher was, but the idea struck again as I was writing this chapter and I just ran with it.

Now, being fairly extreme, it's not the sort of thing you see much in real life, but it's not unheard of among medical bondage enthusiasts either.  If you want to see some crazy things check out this link, though it will require a bit of digging and either Google translate or a working knowledge of Mandarin.

https://x.com/Claire_mengyao1

Elise & Talia's foreplay, so to speak, is wonderfully imagined and excellently written, but that's a mean position to put a sub in. Free permission to cum, but not enough stimulation to get you there, and no way to get any further!

Elise can certainly be very cruel sometimes, though she likes to think she makes up for it in the end.

And then that brief fantasising session from Elise is so good! Obviously so much of these two relationships is theatre (not unexpected from dating a professional domme) but I love how much more obvious that is to Talia than to Claire.

Thank you very much, I'm glad that you enjoyed the scene and that the character dynamics I've tried to develop worked for you.  I'm also glad that my efforts to differentiate the characters from each other was successful.  Something I'm always worried about as an author it making sure that my characters are different from each other in more ways than just their physical description.  That they react to each other and to the world in different ways, that's they're unique people for lack of a better word.

(I've also got so many thoughts about kink/ttrpgs and being "in control" - wanna talk about those?)

I'd certainly be curious to hear your thoughts as someone who has participated a fairly large number of TTRPG sessions (both as player and game master).

The bizarre facets of Claire and Talia's relationship are delightful (Elise being able to compare Elise to her mother in her dirty talk, Claire smirking at the sight of her fruitlessly rutting daughter), and the way Claire described Brianna was fun. Interesting that Elise then consciously shuts down her idea of having both Claire and Elise service her at once. One has to wonder - if Claire and/or Elise voiced the same idea, which would win out, Elise's aversion, or desire to indulge her subs? (and we're right back to "domme as a position of service")

That would be an interesting conundrum to solve.  I know I took some risks in this story with its more "taboo" content for lack of a better term and while I did not dwell on it overly much I certainly wanted to hint at the fact that those involved are aware that what they are doing is unconventional at best and certainly fraught with some real emotional peril.  So called "mother-daughter" fantasies are common enough, but most such stories don't really concern themselves with the specifics of what sort of relationship that would actually be and how it would work.  And while even I'm not sure of the answer at this point it is a curious point to raise.  If both of her girlfriends asked her to indulge, would Elise say yes?  Possible, I've stressed that she finds herself unable to truly deny them, but also possibly no if she thinks that's a line that shouldn't be crossed.  Probably would lead to a fairly serious discussed between the three of them if nothing else, and might be interesting to explore in the future.

And then a delightfully sweet ending, and 10/10 punning on "tie things up". Thank you so much for writing and sharing these. It's incredible work, and very kind of you to share them for free. Thank you, and good luck with whatever comes next!

You're very welcome.  Stories like this one are a lot of work, but being able to share and engage in discussions like this one make it all worthwhile.