It had been a week since her first scene with Korra. Asami had kept herself busy at the office as she began laying the groundwork for the projects that would eat up the next few years of her career at the very least. Iroh had been present for the first day but she had spent the rest of the week alone as she made her very rough first estimates for everything that she would need. Engineers, technicians, construction crews, surveyors, labor and so on. The list and it was only then that the sheer scale of what she had agreed to do sunk in.
Completely overhauling the infrastructure of an entire nation. Hundreds of cities, towns and villages. Millions of people. Islands, plains, rivers, lakes, valleys, towering mountains and hundreds of volcanoes. There wasn't any possible way she would be able to plan out all of this on her own, Asami would have to delegate. Some of these were things that her subordinates would be able to handle but many of these tasks were out of Future Industries area of expertise and would have to be contracted out to other companies who specialized in them. But figuring out who she might want to bring in could wait for another day. Right now Asami had a much more interesting discussion waiting for her.
A week was long enough for Korra to reflect on their scene like Asami had asked her to do. She pulled her pocket watch out to check the time. Fifteen minutes after five left her the better part of an hour to get home for the dinner the two of them had scheduled for this evening. It would have been fun to go out and eat out somewhere but the conversation ahead of them was one best held somewhere without the risk of being overheard.
As she steered her car towards the garage Asami could see a furry white beast with four legs rolling excitedly on the grass. Korra wasn't anywhere in sight to her surprise but Asami did see her butler at the polar bear dog's side. The man wasn't anywhere close to her but she could see that he was as stiff as a statue in the presence of the large predator from the south pole. To his credit though he was still moving his arm, albeit haltingly, as he fed Naga what was probably some kind of treat.
The Avatar was waiting for her inside the mansion on the upper level. Asami's estate had more than one dining room but the two main ones had been made for larger gatherings than just the two of them. The last of three rooms was a parlor her father had used to entertain a visiting person or couple. There was a rectangular table in the middle of the room atop a thick rug that covered most of the wooden floor and a few paintings hung on the walls. Korra was looking out at the forest surrounding the estate through a window that took up the larger part of its wall as Asami entered.
Asami wasn't the quietest person in the world but Korra didn't seem to have noticed her arrival in the room until a pair of arms slid around her waist and Asami was softly kissing the top of her head. Korra turned around and gave a small smile "That's a nice way of saying hello. Care to ask how my week's been?"
That was an easy enough request to oblige and Asami ducked her head so that their lips came together. She had been expecting a quick peck but the Avatar reached up to grab Asami's neck and pulled the two of them closer together. Asami felt her heart skip a beat at the feeling of Korra's body pressing into her as the kiss deepened. Her hands wavered indecisively before she squeezed Korra tighter and returned the kiss with equal fervor. It only had been a week since they had seen each other but everything she had been dealing with at work made it feel like far longer to Asami. She moaned softly and reluctantly broke away before the urge to go further got any stronger than it already was. "So how's your week been Korra?" she asked.
Korra shrugged slightly "All right I guess. There's still a lot of rubble and debris left over from Kuvira's attack in downtown so I spent most of the week helping to move as much of it as I could along with demolishing the more unstable buildings. Kinda tedious but it'll help them in expanding the city or so I'm told. Recycling the metal and rocks or some such. What about you? Having fun at the office?"
Asami glanced away from the woman in her arms to check the grandfather clock in the room before responding. "There's still ten minutes before six but do you want to get started now Korra? The desserts won't be ready but everything else should be."
"Everything else? How much food are we talking about here?" asked Korra as she sat down at the table. Asami pressed a button on the wall next to the door before sitting herself across from the Avatar. Barely over a minute had passed when the door opened and a pair of Asami's servants entered with silver platters in their hands. They set them down and removed the lids on the dishes they had brought before politely bowing to Asami and leaving.
Octopus fritters, noodle soup, lobster crabs, pau buns, mango, figs and there was even arctic hen from the south pole along with some kind of tea to drink. Korra's head swiveled back and forth as she looked over the meal in front of them "Where did you get all of this? This looks like stuff you'd order at Kwong's."
Asami laughed quietly at the surprise on the Avatar's face "Funny you mention Kwong's because that's actually where I hired my chef from. It took a lot of persuading and a hefty paycheck but he's worth every yuan I pay him."
Korra sat up straighter in her chair as the words sunk in. Kwong's was easily the finest restaurant in Republic City and could hold its own against any restaurant anywhere else in the world. Getting one of the chefs from that place to come work for Asami was very far from a small accomplishment. "How did you pull that off? Isn't Kwong's the dream job of every chef in the United Republic?" asked Korra.
"Like I said, it took a lot of persuading but the biggest thing aside from money and a retirement portfolio was the creative freedom I offered him. I give him a blank check every month and he can use it to cook whatever he feels like. So far its worked out well with the new combinations that he's come up with but occasionally it backfires horribly." Asami grimaced at the memory of what he had tried to do with the giant flies from the Foggy Swamp. "But enough about the food, I want to talk about what we did last time you were here. It's been a week since our first scene so I figure that's long enough for you to have thought things over."
The Avatar hesitated and her gaze swung away from Asami to the door and back "Are we going to be alone? I don't want anyone overhearing us if we're talking about this now."
Asami started filling her plate as she reassured the now uneasy looking Korra "They won't come back until I call for them again. No one's going to overhear us in here so you can say anything you want to me."
Korra looked at the food that Asami had served herself before starting to follow suit "Okay then, after we were done you said something about me trying to tough it and how I shouldn't do that. I don't see what the problem is here. I lost count of all the fights I've been in a long time ago. I've been electrocuted, beaten, poisoned, crippled and nearly killed on multiple occasions. What makes you think I can't handle a little bit of pain from... you sticking things in there."
"I'm not questioning your toughness, courage or anything like that Korra. Yes you can handle it but that's not the point. If it hurts when I'm sticking a plug into you then we're doing it wrong and you could get hurt. I know you have healing abilities but do you know how to deal with injuries caused by anal play going wrong? I can't imagine you'd want to go to the hospital for that."
Korra reddened in embarrassment at the notion of visiting a healer and having to explain just what they had been doing when this hypothetical injury had happened. And Asami's insight as piercing as usual about Korra's deficiency when it came to this particular kind of injury. Katara had been thorough as a water bending master but there had never been a day where they had covered how to heal injuries stemming from someone inserting sex toys into your rear end. "No, that's not something I would know how to heal." she admitted. "Katara taught me a lot but it was mostly focused on dealing with injuries from combat. I never learned how to deal with any of the trickier stuff like when Jinora's soul was trapped in the Spirit World for example."
Asami took a bite of the octopus fritters she had served herself before responding "Well have you ever considered learning the advanced stuff then? It'd give you something to work on and I'll admit to being a bit selfish here but it'd be useful if things did go wrong in any future scenes we do. Well assuming there will be any."
The Avatar paused in the middle of bringing a cup to her lips "What do you mean? I said I enjoyed what we did last week. Is there some reason that we'd be stopping now that I don't know about?"
"It's... it's just..." Asami grimaced as she tried to think of a way to explain this "I know you said you liked it and so did I but this isn't exactly a normal situation. Diving headfirst into things is kinda what you do and that's what makes this confusing for me. We've never been on a proper date or anything like it. You said you weren't ready for a relationship for me and then a couple of days later you ask me to have sex with you. And a couple of days after that I'm tying you up and using a vibrator on you while you're plugged. Even for you this is rushing things awfully fast so I guess I'm just worried you'll change your mind."
There was a lull in the conversation as the two woman looked at each other. After a moment Korra shook her head with an almost shy smile on her face "No Asami I'm not changing my mind. What you did to me was incredible. I didn't even know it was possible for something to feel that good. Any time you want to tie me up and do unmentionable things, I'm willing."
Korra had made up her mind about doing further bondage scenes with Asami before she had even left the mansion that night. This week of waiting had been little more than a formality for her, the only reason she had even agreed to wait was because Asami had insisted. Korra had been expecting Asami to be happy, to be excited or thrilled. But for some reason Asami suddenly wasn't able to meet her gaze anymore and she was instead staring at the table far too intently. "...Asami?"
"I... I have something I need to tell you then..."
Korra shivered involuntarily at the new found bleakness present in the other woman's voice. "Ummm okay.''
Asami looked away from the table to stare at the wall "After the Equalist rebellion I started trying to find someone who could teach me how to block chi. I've learned a lot of unarmed fighting styles over the years but I'm still a non-bender. Being able to block another persons chi would help me to close the gap for me but I was never able to find someone who could teach me. At least not until we went to the Fire Nation. That's what I was doing when we split up, learning how to block chi."
This still didn't make any sense to Korra so she had to ask "Okay so you learned how to block chi? I don't see what's bothering you."
Asami slowly shook her head "Because of what I did with it. Because after I tied you up... I blocked your chi. I took your bending."
Korra could almost literally feel the blood rushing to her face as it reddened at Asami's admission. Of all the possible things Asami could have confessed to this was the worst one she could have imagined. She had blocked Korra's chi, denied her the ability to bend the four elements, one of the pillars of her role as the Avatar. In a single act Asami had placed her in the company of the four people who had hurt her more than any others. The ones who had attacked her role as the Avatar. Amon. Unalaq. Zaheer. Kuvira.
Asami.
Both of her hands balled up into fists as she stared at Asami and Korra could feel that peculiarly alien sense of rage creeping up on her. This wasn't the first time it had crept out of whatever depths it normally resided in but she had always been able to hold it back, to keep it from overtaking her until now. Korra felt her sense of self fading away as it seized control of her and the parlor disappeared in a haze of white light.
"Korra! Stop! Please!"
The sound of Asami screaming her name cut through the anger and her vision slowly returned as the blinding light vanished. Korra's head slowly turned from one side to the other as the realization of what had just happened sank in. The glass window had been shattered into pieces and the table holding their food could be seen lying on the grass outside. Inside was another matter, smashed plates, broken chairs and a dozen spikes of ice all aimed at the corner where Asami was cowering, her arms over her face.
Korra took one step back and then another as the spikes dissolved into puddles on the floor. She turned and ran for the door. Where to she didn't know, but being anywhere else was better than being here. Better than having to face the look on Asami's face.
Fear.
