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Imago: The Seduction of Arlene - Author's notes and feedback


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Imago: The Seduction of Arlene 

Ok – so the standard warning! 

If you’re shocked by portrayals lesbians indulging in all manner of kinks – you best be on your way. There is nothing for you here! 

For anyone disturbed or outraged by the concept of gay marriage – I’d prefer it if you’d just fuck-off! 

NC-17 – sexually explicit content. 
F/f – with references, of varying levels of explicitness, to numerous secondary F/f and some F/f/f and, F/F/f relationships. 

I do not own these characters – even the ones I made up – and I am certainly making nothing from their misuse! I do not mean to imply anything about the sexual preferences of any of the actresses cast. 

As always – f/b gratefully received but please be gentle with me. 


And so…an explanation…and bear with me – this is going to take a while… 

It’s been a long time, a very, very long time, since I published anything new. 

But then, in fact, this isn’t new at all. I mostly wrote it over a decade ago and rediscovered it a couple of months ago when clearing out some old files on my old lap-top and realised I could do something with it. 

Firstly I have to confess that this is definitely a bit, well, odd I guess…mainly because it’s really completely detached from the original show cannon… 

‘Arlene’ is essentially a spin-off, a random mutation from another fic – an AU tale of how Joyce Summers became Faith Lehane’s submissive lesbian housewife. Unfortunately that original fic became bit of a monster that I was never able to finish. After struggling with it for the longest time – on and off for about three or four years before finally abandoning it - I found that ‘parent’ fic increasingly difficult to write as the initial plot spun further and further out of control, getting bigger and more complex with ever more sub-plots and relationships to distract my focus. One of those (all too numerous) distractions was ‘Arlene’ which began as one of a number of ‘scenes within a scene’ in the overarching tale. 

Sadly I now doubt that I’ll ever finish that originating fic! Though I never thought I’d publish this...so I suppose you never really know. 

However what I did manage to pretty much finish at the time was ‘Imago’. 

I guess it was easier to complete because it’s fairly self-contained, not say shorter – though not short – I never did manage to do short! But also I suppose, because the principal character is in effect, a blank canvas onto which I could project my own – ahem - depraved imaginings. Ironically though it was that which really what led me to decide that the whole thing was all a bit too ‘free form’ and speculative to be worth putting out there. 

Now, looking at it again though – I reckon – ‘what the hell’. I like it! 

So with a bit of spit and polish I’ve managed to tidy it up into something approaching a coherent bit of smut. To be honest I’m quite aware that it really needs a bit of critical editing to tighten it up, thin out some of the meanderings and smooth over some of the clunky bits that might have worked had it been part of the wider story – but I really don’t have the time or inclination to do that. I’ve run it through myself to correct the obvious grammatical errors (though there may be more I’ve missed) but please bear in mind that this has not been beta’d – so I can’t make any great claims for its consistency or coherency. Additionally it doesn’t really have a conclusion and the final segment is pretty ragged. This is partly, I guess, because it was meant to be part of the wider whole and has extended beyond that origin – but mainly I think it’s that I just couldn’t land the dismount! 

So, for better or for worse then, it is what it is. I apologise if it doesn’t hold together for you but putting it out there kinda feels cathartic – like getting it off of my chest. 

Anyhoo – to make any sense of it – because like I say it’s a bit of a…speculative, self-indulgent musing which has no real basis in, well, anything really…you’re probably gonna need to know some background to the story it derived from! 

Given that the central character is a barely mentioned background figure in BTVS canon and I’ve moved so far from the premise and characterisation of the show as to make the connection almost nonexistent it strikes me that it’s so AU that it’s barely fanfiction at all! 

To be honest, looking at it now I reckon the idea was entirely mad in the first place…but whatever…it just happened! And, looking back, it still works for me now even after a decade of growing older…I guess it’s a case that when the muse takes you I think it’s best you follow where she leads, ‘cos you never know when she’ll be back. I certainly know that! I haven’t seen her round here for the longest time! 

Anyway – going back to when I did have the creative urge to make this – what I found was that as it was so separate from the ‘reality’ of the show it allowed me to play with the sort of [kinky] ideas that I like without having to worry any about consistency or chronology within the fandom; which in turn allowed me to use (and slash) characters whose lives just don’t intersect. 

I have to confess that there is a degree personal transference on my part in how this fic developed. It doesn’t take a great deal of psychoanalysis on my own self to work out why the idea of an older sub/younger Domme, inter-racial f/F dynamic does it for me. Put simply – it goes pretty much exactly to my own personal knik and suffice it to say I really wish I was about 25 years younger! 

In the original ‘parent’ fic what I wanted to create was a sort of Buffyverse meets Rebecca’s Housewives at Play confection. I do lurve the fantasy world of Rebecca’s Housewives at Play comic books and their off-kilter perverting of the middle-class/middle-aged/middle-America housewife stereotype. And, I’d always wanted to create a BTVS based fic that reflected the feel and style of HAP – partly on the grounds that I can’t draw shit! 

So my overall starting point was to try to give it a comic book feel – I don’t know if I succeeded in that with this spin-off but I hope I’ve got a bit of it. 

Added to all that; as an – errm – shucks – ‘older’ fan of kinky femslash (I’m enough of a vain old broad not to reveal my age but suffice to say I probably should know a lot better than be wasting my time on this sort of thing!) I’ve grooved on the idea of seeing Joyce Summers, as played by Kristine Sutherland (oh and I so would…I mean…) forcefully and painfully converted into a hot, horny, nympho lesbian sex-slave. 

These two ideas kind of merged together for me way back when, with Joyce as a sort of avatar for the Cathy character trope. And what came out of that fusion of ideas was the original larger fiction which went by the working title: ‘The Servitude of Joyce Summers: Sappho in Suburbia’. Snappy I know – but you can probably see where the whole thing was going. 

In adapting (and adopting) the characters – and also adding a small number of OC’s and some crossover characters from other fandoms for good measure, I had hoped to retain a sense of the traits of those found in the original TV material (which, just to be clear yet again – I do not own! I’m just taking them out to play) viewed through a sort of Housewives at Play (which I also don’t own) filter. 

Moreover, in the AU that both the parent fic and this spin-off occupy there are no Slayers or Vamps, no witches, demons, monsters or any other supernatural factors. That would just have distracted from my HAP comic-book style musings. Having made that leap it also provided me the additional happy advantage of allowing me to access the entire dramatis personae of BTVS without concern for the continuity of the show. It let me expand in a couple of significant instances on more minor characters and, as I said, at the same time include a small number of crossovers and add a couple of OCs of my own creation: so allowing, for example, Joyce to have lived on healthily to find her new direction and a new love; Dawn to grow up and discover her own sexuality while Kennedy and Tara could be alive at the same time to jointly dominate Willow. It also allowed – and critically for this spin-off piece – Kendra to have survived: because, as there are no such things as Slayers, she never died – easy! The same applied to the Jenny Calendar, Anya, Darla characters – among others with roles of varying importance. 

So basically what I’m saying here is that there were no rules…which was probably, in large part, why the whole parent piece span so completely out of control! 

Nevertheless as a result of the absence of rules I found that one of the bits that fell out of the overarching ‘The Servitude of Joyce Summers: Sappho in Suburbia’ fic was the story of Joyce’s older sister Arlene, which just leapt out at me shouting ‘Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!’ And when I looked at it a casting for the role just stuck out for me. 

Anyway, after all that meandering – a brief (well briefish) if slightly incoherent prasee of ‘Sappho in Suburbia’ by way of a summary of what lead up to Arlene’s story: 

The story opens with Joyce Summers – lonely divorcee and mother of two girls (Buffy, 19 and Dawn, 16) answering her door to find Faith, Buffy’s older friend and, the somewhat homophobic Joyce suspects, ex-girlfriend, paying a call. Faith however isn’t there to see Buffy and she forcefully and shockingly (for our middle aged heroine anyway) seduces Joyce. Dominating her, Faith has her way with her repeatedly. 

She turns Joyce into her sex-slave and they enter into a kinky relationship in which, while Joyce continues at Faith’s insistence to run the art gallery she owns during the day, at night she becomes Faith’s submissive, lingerie clad housewife and plaything to meet all Faith’s fantasies of having an older woman serve all her lusty needs. 

Following Joyce’s seduction she experiences numerous sexual adventures with Faith: a first date when Faith takes Joyce to a lesbian dance club where she very publicly and very intimately fondles and gropes her before spanking her in the bathroom for some minor infraction. Joyce is made to leave her panties with the woman behind the bar. They dance and by the end of the night a very confused but undeniably aroused Joyce is taken home by Faith who makes passionate love to her again. 

At work the next day Faith calls Joyce leading her into coercive phone sex which ends with Joyce masturbating as Faith tells her what she’s planning to do with her. Faith instructs Joyce to join her when the Gallery closes – bringing her panties with her – at the Espresso Pump. There Faith explains to Joyce that – if she agrees – she’s going to make her into a submissive housewife for her to do with as she wishes. There is a leather paddle on the table – Faith tells Joyce that if she accepts what Faith wants she should pick up the paddle and hand it back to her. Faith sets out her conditions – the painful, humiliating, sexual things Joyce is going to have to accept. She promises her complete domination and endless wild, kinky sex. Swept away by Faith’s intensity and passion, the promise of such and exotic life so different from her currently unexciting existence Joyce while terrified takes a deep breath and picks up the paddle. Faith immediately takes her home to Revello Drive where she spank and paddles her until she is sobbing, before making love to her over and over until she is utterly spent. 

The next day Faith begins to take over Joyce’s life. She makes her take the day off. First they move Faith into Revello Drive and then they go shopping. Joyce’s credit card takes a hammering as they buy her a new, slutty, wardrobe, erotic lingerie (which is all that she will be permitted to wear about the house from now on), sex toys and, much to Joyce’s shock and embarrassment, a large quantity of porn. During the day Faith fondles and gropes Joyce constantly and publicly, showing her off and fucking her in the changing rooms of one of the stores they visit – and then again in the car in the parking lot. She makes her browse the adult bookstore at length making a show of her as they select several movies and a number of sex toys. When they get home Faith makes her strip and she shaves her before making love to her yet again. 

Swept off her feet and plunged into a new life Joyce has no choice but to quickly come to accept and enjoy her new sexuality and submissive lifestyle and she finds herself falling deeply in love with her young Mistress despite – or perhaps because of – the all the things to which she is subject at Faith’s hands. 

At the same time Joyce’s daughters are going through their own changes. 

Dawn has recently consummated her relationship with her girlfriend Janice when they are caught in bed together by Janice’s mom, Dayna. 

Despite the discovery of long forgotten feelings in herself Dayna is shocked to find out that her daughter is a lesbian and she forbids them from sleeping together under her roof. Angrily Dawn and Janice head for Revello Drive. 

When Joyce and Faith come home, very aroused, after a romantic, sexy date at the local dyke-bar again – where Joyce has had her first lap-dance, they are surprised to find Dawn and Janice naked, making love on the sofa while one of the porno movies that Joyce and Faith bought together is playing on the TV. 

A disagreement follows with Joyce initially siding with Dayna’s position; but when Dawn points out Faith’s hand on Joyce’s ass saying that she knows about their relationship after seeing, a few nights before Joyce, naked on the bathroom floor being shaved and then fucked by Faith Joyce realises that she cannot be a hypocrite and concedes that the two teens can sleep together under her roof. 

Meanwhile Buffy’s brief relationship with her former High School teacher Jenny Calendar is in difficulties and it ends painfully when she finds Jenny spanking another  blonde girl – and Buffy knows from personal experience what that will lead to. Devastated, she turns to her room-mate Willow for comfort but returning to their dorm-room she finds Willow being double-teamed by her girlfriend Tara and a new girl, Kennedy. 

And so at a bit of a loss she returns home to Revello Drive where she is shaken to find her mother in bed with Faith and her sister with Janice. 

They all settle into an uneasy peace with Joyce and Faith sharing their lives together and Dawn spending most of her nights with Janice. Buffy is lonely. She masturbates frequently, often to the frustrating sound of her mother’s and sister’s noisy sexual escapades. 

Some days later Joyce’s friend (and Janice’s mom) Dayna visits the gallery to demand that she stops their daughters from sleeping together. 

Joyce explains that she can’t and, when pushed by Dayna as to why, explains the reasons, coming out to her friend. As they talk Dayna realises that her objections to Janice’s relationship with Dawn are mainly about her own jealousy and she admits to Joyce that she’s lonely. She confesses that she had several girlfriends in her college years and had only married Janice’s dad due to parental pressure, when she never really loved him. 

Lightened by the admission she tells Joyce that she’d like to have a girlfriend again. When they talk more she also admits that she’s attracted submissive women – like Joyce – only younger. Joyce invites her to join her and Faith at the lesbian club and she reluctantly agrees. When they get there she hooks up with one of the dancers, Cordelia. They go home together. 

Never one to miss a good reason to tan her lover’s backside Faith ensures that Joyce pays a painful price for inviting someone on their date night, giving her a severe, public, spank ing before taking her home. 

A few days later Dayna shows up at the Gallery again and tells Joyce that she had a great time with Cordy but it was only a one night stand – albeit with a very hot, young, submissive stripper. Now she’s had some time to think about it she realises wants more. 

After some thought Joyce realises she’d be perfect for the lonely Buffy and offers to set them up. 

Dayna can hardly believe what Joyce is saying but she eventually agrees to take her up on the offer though she says she doesn’t really know what to do. Joyce tells her to be forceful – like Faith was with her – aggressive even, handsy and pushy. Don’t give her any choice, she tells her. Boss her. Tell her how it’s going to be and just make her – spank her if you have to – she’ll thank you for it in the end. 

Later Dayna comes to Revello Drive to tell Buffy that she’s going to take her out on a date. She gives her a dress to wear (it’s very short, very tight and very revealing and slutty) and some very specific instructions – she’s to be ready at 7.30 promptly, she’s to wear heals, pack a toothbrush because she *won’t* be coming home, and she’s *not* to wear underwear. The date is a success and they are both strongly attracted to each other with Buffy struck by how dominant Dayna is. Dayna takes her home, spanking and making love to her. After arranging to see her again she drops her back home the next day. Buffy is very tired and dishevelled but blissfully in love. 

Buffy’s life is transformed and soon she moves in with Dayna while Janice moving the other way in to Revello Drive. 

Meanwhile Joyce and Faith continue to explore their relationship: visits to the tattooist and the piercing studio; the night Joyce [and Buffy] are made to strip at the club they frequent; the times Joyce is publicly spanked; and a threesome with a client of Joyce’s at the gallery (an art buyer by the name of Piper Halliwell) who Faith gets her to hit on and bring home. And eventually they both realise that they want to really want Joyce to become completely Faith’s so, Faith proposes to her and Joyce accepts willingly. 


And after two quite different bachelorette parties they get married. 

(Please remember that this was written before the recent – if incomplete – progress made on gay marriage on both sides of the Atlantic. I’ve always fantasised about the conceit of the kinky lesbian wedding conflating ideas of commitment and coming out and submission in a feminised but traditional wedding scene. I know I touched on it a few times in the stuff I wrote in the deep and distant past but it’s something that comes back to me time after time.) 


There was going to be more to it after that – honeymoon and some more around Dawn and Buffy and their relationships going forwards but I rather lost the will to continue. However it’s that wedding that provides the back-drop to Imago and so, enter: Joyce’s sister Arlene – as played in my fevered mind at the time I wrote this, by an old favourite of mine, Gates McFadden once of Star Trek: the Next Generation. Forgive me that complete and total self indulgence! 

Included at the end of this are several short scenes – vignettes perhaps. Their original purpose was to provide a sort of contextual relief within the chapter on Joyce’s wedding day (and night) in the main ‘The Servitude of Joyce Summers: Sappho in Suburbia’ fic. And it was from one of these that Arlene’s story originally formed and expanded in my mind to be what you see below. I’ve included the other vignettes here in their original form to illustrate where Imago grew from – and partially, simply because I wanted to. Please feel free to disregard! 

To be honest I suspect that some readers are probably going to find it all too much, with too many ancillary characters thrown in – but they are all characters that figure to some degree in the wider parent piece and who find their way into here as part of the contextual scenery. However, as I said earlier I fully acknowledge that it really needs a bit of critical editing to strip it down and tidy it up where it doesn’t flow with [what passes for] the narrative and some of that would no doubt include some of those characters. But as I say – I haven’t got the time or inclination to do lots of rewrites – so I beg your forbearance.

For those reading this whose normal usage is American English - please remember that I’m English and much of my spelling and general usage is English-English so while I’ve tried to use America idioms it isn’t perhaps as consistent as I’d like.

Finally – a note on the Dramatis Personae: I’ve ‘cast’ all of the characters – speaking and non-speaking, OC or otherwise; minor or major and included them order to colour in the backdrop. Where these are Original Characters I had fairly clear ideas on what they would look like and who would play them. thus, visually at least, The Judge is clearly (and shamelessly) based on Lucy Liu as Ling Woo in Ally McBeal as Peri Gilpin (whose character is much larger in the parent work) is obviously based on Ros Doyle. And, at risk of exposing my hidden shallows, please bear in mind that when I started this way back when and set it in about 2003/4, I wrote it with these actresses in mind as they might have appeared at that time rather than as they may do today. 

And if all that lot hasn’t put you off – if I haven’t bored you all to death with my self-indulgent ramblings...at last…I hope you all enjoy the story as much as I did.

Please let me know.
 

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To those who have offered feedback so far - thank you. It is nice to be appreciated!

To respond to your specific comments:

LL72 - sorry you thought there was too much dialogue but I'm afraid that's just how I write  it helps me to get inside the character's thoughts and emotions. But as I said in my notes - I do appreciate that the fix is not as well edited as it might be and so has several faults. I guess that might be one for some!

I'm glad you liked Domme Faith and sub Joyce. and I've got some good news for you - I'm going to look at it again to see if I can finish it. No promises!

 

Saladie - thanks to you as well for your lovely comments! Lovely to hear from someone who remembers my earlier efforts! I might try to recover them all and past them here if I find the time.

Unfortunately I've had to move my Author's Notes to here because they exceeded the permitted length - mea culpa - but it's great to know that you appreciated them!

I love the idea of (Harsh)Dom!DaynaPenshaw/(reluctant)Sub!Buffyou.

I had always seen it as being more a case of Buffy being a willing sub who was looking for an older domme but your way is hotter!

If you think there is a story there - please feel free to write it! :D

Omegadelta - thanks glad you liked it. You can find most of my old stuff in the Sick and Twisted fanfic group on Yahoo  - but you'll have to do a bit of digging for some of it. But I'll see what I can do.

S.

 

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2 hours ago, salamandaslash said:

I love the idea of (Harsh)Dom!DaynaPenshaw/(reluctant)Sub!Buffyou.

I had always seen it as being more a case of Buffy being a willing sub who was looking for an older domme but your way is hotter!

If you think there is a story there - please feel free to write it! :D

Hello salamandaslash. Thanks for your lovely encouragement.

I’ll see what I can do. At the moment I’m trying to get back into writing. Real life and other stuff has kept me busy for the last two years, so I’m a bit rusty, and everything is rather slow.

Currently, I’m working on the next chapter to ‘Giddy Up Buffy’ but the Dayna/Buffy pairing has certainly whet my appetite, so much that I’m trying out some scenarios for that potential story. I have some tentative ideas that might work, and I’ll see whether I can rouse my good partner in crime NoRefund from his slumber. But be assured, the idea is tempting, very much so.

2 hours ago, salamandaslash said:

Lovely to hear from someone who remembers my earlier efforts! I might try to recover them all and past them here if I find the time.

Would love to see your older work up here. "Spanking the Sisters" is one of my all time favorites.

 

saladie

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