Suzy and Quinn held hands as they walked up the path to the house, but by prior agreement they let go when Suzy opened the door and introduced Quinn to her waiting parents. Quinn shook hands with Suzy's father Greg and accepted a hug from Suzy's mother.

Quinn was dressed much more casually than when she had met Emily before, though still avoiding any provocative styles: she wore one of her few shirts that had sleeves, and pants that were nicer than her work jeans. No leather anywhere other than her shoes. Her hair, however, had its normal, unruly look.

Suzy, rather than wearing her hair in its usual bun, had pulled it farther back into what Quinn assured her was a very cute ponytail.

During dinner, Quinn responded to questions about her family and her work at the auto body shop, but didn't hint at having another career. Suzy volunteered information about how things were going at the library, and about some new friends she had met at "a club" she and Quinn had gone to, with some amusing anecdotes about them, without giving the "club's" name, "Pretty Kitty," or characterizing it as a lesbian bar. The stream of excited talk coming out of Suzy was nothing like either of her parents had ever heard from her.

To the inevitable question from Greg about how the two of them had met, since Quinn didn't work in the library or even live in town, Quinn gave the same answer she'd given Emily before: that she'd been in town on an errand and stopped by the library to check on their martial arts books, and had asked "Susan" where they were. Suzy broke in at that point to say, "Yeah, because I looked just like somebody who would know," which brought laughs around the table.

Suzy and Quinn avoided, during the meal, giving the impression of being more than friends. They wanted to get through dinner, at least, without introducing any of the tension that their later announcement was going to stir up. It was just as dinner was ending that Suzy took a deep breath to steady herself, and said, "I wanted to tell you guys something." After Emily had responded, "What's that, dear?", Suzy took Quinn's hand once more and said, "We're getting married."

Greg dropped his fork, blinked once and asked, "Ummm... to whom?"

Quinn, determined to maintain the cordial atmosphere such an announcement would create under more normal circumstances, smiled as warmly as a male suitor might and said, "I asked Suzy to marry me, and she said yes." She leaned towards Suzy and brushed her shoulder against hers.

Emily sucked in a quick breath, while Greg set his jaw, shaking his head slightly.

Emily saw her husband's reaction and quickly said, "Greg, I need some help with dessert," taking his hand and almost jerking him out of the room.

As soon as the kitchen door swung closed, Emily said to Greg in a tense whisper, "I know what you've said about the whole gay marriage thing. I've always agreed with you. But that woman..." she pointed at the wall in the direction Quinn would be, "...brought our little girl back to us, after all these years. You can see that, can't you?" Emily didn't know any specifics of what Quinn had done, and certainly not exactly where their "little girl" had been these past seventeen years, but she knew no one else could possibly be responsible for the change in her daughter. "As far as I'm concerned, they can do anything that makes them happy. And you'd better figure out how to feel the same way."

Greg gulped, and at length nodded.

Back in the dining room, without remembering, for the moment, to bring any dessert out with her, Emily gestured with both hands for Quinn to stand up, gave her a warmer, tighter hug than before, and said, "Welcome to our family." Greg stood to the side, looking a little uncomfortable, and stammered, "So when, ahhh, when is the... wedding?"

Suzy, after first mouthing "Thank you!" to her mother, told her father their plans.

Quinn had known there would be no problem with her father. Philip Burress had long known his daughter's sexual orientation, as well as what her hobby was, and had always firmly believed Quinn should be able to do anything that made her happy, as long as it was legal.

With Quinn taking an afternoon off from the shop, and Suzy some leave time from the library, they went to be married at City Hall in Watney, under the names Susan Bachman and Paula Burress. While they were there, they filed requests for legal name changes, to Suzy Bachman-Burress and Quinn Bachman-Burress, Suzy explaining she had been Suzy all her life, which was technically true, and Quinn explaining that, outside of official documents, she had been known by everyone as Quinn for a decade. They later received an amended marriage certificate in their new names.

They held the wedding reception at the Pretty Kitty on a Saturday afternoon -- the bar didn't open for business until five o'clock, and Jo, the owner, was happy to rent the space for a token fee. Quinn's father and Suzy's parents split the catering costs. The music came from a CD player stocked with songs from Philip Burress's collection.

In addition to the parents from both sides, several friends from the Kitty were there, and, to Suzy's surprise, Mrs. Corcoran and several of the library employees came -- even a couple of the men, despite their knowing, if they were realistic, that a lesbian wedding wasn't the ideal place for men to meet women.

Suzy and Quinn began the festivities by entering from opposite sides, taking hands, facing the guests, and exchanging vows they had written, and no one asked later why the vows weren't quite symmetrical, with Quinn adding the words "outside and inside" to her promise to meet Suzy's needs.

After the guests made use of the caterers' services, Jo announced that the newly married couple would have the first dance. Suzy took Quinn's hand and led her to the middle of the floor, only to have Quinn double over laughing when the CD player's speakers issued forth the Manfred Mann version of "The Mighty Quinn." They improvised a dance to the song, and it was Suzy's turn to laugh when the music switched to Creedence Clearwater's "Suzie Q." Jo had asked each of them separately, beforehand, if they had some particular music they wanted played.

In the general dancing that followed, Suzy's parents danced with each other, Emily danced with Philip, Greg danced with the slightly embarrassed and giggling head librarian Alice Corcoran, and the girls from the Kitty danced with each other and the librarians, including the men.

No one noticed when Suzy and Quinn departed the party to drive to an isolated, scenic hotel, their reservation there being Emily's and Greg's wedding gift.

Suzy and Quinn found a house to rent in Watney, tiny but clean and nice, and moved Suzy's meager possessions and Quinn's exercise equipment into it. Between the two of them they could afford it, with help from a thousand dollar wedding gift from Quinn's father to get them started. It was a long commute to the library for Suzy, but she soon was making more money -- to the surprise of Alice Corcoran, Suzy volunteered to give elementary school groups the tour of the library, taking the job off Mrs. Corcoran's hands. That earned Suzy a raise.

And one night, Suzy's direction in life changed again.

Quinn, a little reluctantly, not quite sure she wanted Suzy to see her in action, gave in to Suzy's persistence and let Suzy watch one of Quinn's sessions with a client -- Quinn found a spot in the shadows of the basement from which Suzy could observe unseen.

After the session, Quinn found a wide-eyed, almost speechless Suzy, and not for the reason Quinn had expected. Suzy suddenly burst into a torrent of words: "Honey, I want to do what you do! I want to be a domme. Will you teach me?"

Quinn gave her an uncertain look. "Babe, I love you, and I always will. You don't have to earn..."

Suzy shook her head vigorously. "No, it's not just because you do it. It's not to impress you. I barely even noticed you were you, while it was going on. I was watching her. She seemed so scared, and humiliated, and I could tell it hurt when the whip hit -- but she was so turned on! It was so easy to tell from that far away. And you took her all the way to orgasm! I really understand now -- I thought I did before, but now I really get it. The women you see... You're filling a big hole in their lives. That woman, Sarah -- she's got some authority, right? I could see it in the way she was standing, before the session started. But she kind of shed the authority with her clothes, and it was like... that's exactly what she wanted! Someone she had to please, someone to bow down to, to give her orders that she had to follow even if she didn't want to... that's her fantasy, what she daydreams about."

Quinn blinked in surprise. "How do you know all that about her? She's the manager of an electronics store, so yeah, she gives the orders during the day. But how...?"

"I could see it, somehow. And I know that's just her, and other clients might have other fantasies for other reasons, but for all of them, they come here because there's something they want that they can't get from anyone but you! You do that for them, what they want, what they need!"

Quinn smiled. "I'm not the world's only domme."

Suzy smiled back. "Only one in town. But I want you to teach me. Please?"

Quinn pinched her lip between thumb and forefinger. "You might find there are some things about it that you can't make yourself do. But okay, we'll see that when we get that far. As of today, you're my first student trainee."

Suzy threw her arms around Quinn.

Suzy felt a growing need to make her body her own. She had been born into it, and as grateful as she was to Susan for coming into being when she was desperately needed, Suzy wanted to reclaim what belonged to her.

She also wanted to develop the persona she would bring into sessions, once Quinn decided she was ready to interact with clients. That would be separate from everyday Suzy, but there would obviously need to be some overlap. Suzy was sure that she would need a real-self image that could sustain her approach to dealing with clients, not something she faked during the short time of a session.

She decided to start with her hair, which was easy, because she remembered an actress in a movie Susan had watched whose extra-short hairstyle had impressed Suzy. Suzy went online to print out a screenshot of the actress from the movie, and took it with her to show to one of her new friends from the Kitty, a hair stylist named Bonnie, who had offered Suzy a first appointment at half-price. Bonnie had looked at the picture and said, "Are you sure, sweetie? 'Cause once I cut it off I can't put it back on." Suzy had laughed and said she was sure. So Bonnie cut off nearly all of Suzy's hair, to a length of barely an inch on top, and tapering slightly on the sides, down to wispy points of sideburns that somehow maintained a feminine look -- Bonnie was very good. In contrast with Quinn's chaotic field of red, Suzy's dark brown hair lay neatly flat, almost not needing a comb, while Quinn's hair resisted one. Suzy loved her new look, and Quinn declared her the "cutest dyke in town."

Suzy knew she couldn't wear her glasses in sessions. As she saw it, a domme couldn't show any sign of weakness, whether in vision or anything else. From an optician she obtained contact lenses which not only perfected her vision, but turned her irises a striking light blue, in place of her own brown. She decided to wear them to work as well, discarding her glasses permanently. Her shortened hair, already dark brown, she darkened further, and gave it a very slight dark blue tint, an effect so subtle that it might be mistaken for a trick of the light. She darkened her eyebrows to match.

Susan had never worn makeup, so Suzy had no experience with it. Using makeup advice she found online, Suzy began experimenting with different looks. Some were obviously wrong, and she washed them off immediately. She wasn't drawn to eyelash extensions -- a little too girly -- but she did start using mascara and some blue eyeshadow in a shade that complimented her new eye color, and the hint of blue in her hair.

She felt lucky Susan had avoided sunlight so much. Her pale skin seemed to her to go well with the look she was developing, so she took to wearing a thin layer of sunscreen on her face, arms, and legs, underneath a light blush on her cheekbones -- it took some experimenting to find sunscreen and blush that were chemically compatible. For lipstick, she chose a pale icy-pink shade, wanting only to make her lips more noticeable without being overly dramatic.

Susan had never worn jewelry either. Suzy considered various possibilities, and settled on a nose ring, through a pierced right nostril, and ear piercings, through which she wore earrings she had fallen immediately in love with when she saw them offered online: each earring featured two interlocked hearts, about an inch in diameter in a gold color, each heart having a small cross projecting upside down from its bottom to make it a Venus symbol. She gave a pair to Quinn as well, who kissed her and immediately replaced the earrings she had been wearing with the new ones.

Susan had never shaved her legs, since she never showed them bare to anyone anyway, but Suzy began using a hair removal cream, on her legs and her mound. Quinn loved it.

Suzy continued wearing denim pants to work, as Susan had, but replaced Susan's loose, long-sleeved all-covering breast-hiding shirts with t-shirts that were far more form-fitting.

The library didn't exactly have a dress code for employees. But as Alice Corcoran watched the increasingly attractive Suzy -- Suzy had persuaded Alice and her other coworkers to address her as Suzy -- moving around the library, with male visitors turning their heads to watch her go by (the male employees were well aware she wouldn't be available even if she wasn't married), the head librarian wondered whether perhaps she should say something. She was particularly alarmed by the nose ring. But when she saw how much the elementary school kids adored Suzy, seemingly in part because Suzy was much more interesting than they had expected a librarian to be, because she didn't look like one, Alice decided to let it go.

Watching Suzy daily, the film "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" came to Alice's mind more than once. But she always came up against the question of why extraterrestrial beings would replace any human's personality with one that was more functional in Earthly society than the original. She dismissed the thought, telling herself, with more insight than she realized, that it seemed more as though the girl she had known as Susan had snatched her body back from the aliens.

To Suzy, looking ahead to her partnership with Quinn as a domme, the most important thing was to work towards a more powerful body. It was essential, in sessions, to be physically intimidating. In the evenings, Suzy went to the local gym, except when Quinn had a session with a client, and at home she made use of Quinn's own exercise equipment in the mornings before work. She knew Quinn had built her own body long before finding her calling in life, but Suzy thought Quinn's muscular build exemplified exactly the sort of body a domme should have. Suzy's regimen included weight lifting, under Quinn's supervision, and she daily examined herself impatiently in the mirror for signs of muscular development similar to Quinn's. She took up jogging as well. At first she was disappointed with the short distance she could go before becoming winded, but she reminded herself of the way Susan had pushed herself beyond the limits of exhaustion when she'd been trying to get home from the park during her longer bondage adventure. It made Suzy that much more determined to keep going. She began parking her car at the park, near those tennis courts beside which Susan had encamped during her longer bondage weekend, and jogging the half-mile to the library, and then back in the evening. Eventually she sped up the afternoon jog to a near sprint.

She bought a new set of t-shirts with extra-short sleeves, and wore those to work. She liked making her increasingly toned shoulder and arm muscles more visible. Mrs. Corcoran stayed quiet about that as well.

Between workouts, Suzy studied the same videos and web materials Quinn had used to learn about domination and submission standards and practices. After each of Quinn's sessions that she witnessed -- she occasionally skipped a session if she'd seen Quinn with the client before, and went to the gym instead -- she asked questions and accepted Quinn's advice and pointers. And she began practicing on Quinn with the tools of Quinn's trade, with Quinn covering the targeted spots on her body with leather to avoid pain and markings. Quinn insisted that Suzy had to hit her hard. She told Suzy she could always dial back the intensity to suit a client's tastes, but she needed to develop, through rehearsal and habit, a sense of the maximum effort.

They made love every night and again in the morning, snuggled up against each other as they slept.