Perfection

by Kitty Thomas

  The audience is addicted to us. We are a drug to them. Each night, the applause is more thunderous. On Sunday night, when Sebastian ripped the blindfold off, in the quick beat of silence after the orchestral crescendo, I heard an audible gasp in the audience. This is how transfixed they are.

  I'm dancing with a man I used to stupidly fantasize about when I first became a professional dancer. Even though he didn't dance at the same company, it didn't stop my stubborn willful wishing mind. I half-believe every candle and wishing star had a second wish enfolded inside the first, that I attached Sebastian to that childish magic, and somehow he appeared. Somehow the magic worked.

  Only now I don't know if I can take him. I thought he was larger-than-life before I knew him, but now even that vision seems so small.

  He goes out with us after the performances, sitting beside me, holding my hand, confirming that yes, in fact we are seeing each other. The gossip about Conall fleeing the country has finally filtered down through the company.

  The other principals say they didn't like him anyway. I'm suddenly ashamed that some part of them knew Conall was hurting me. Can they similarly detect the nature of my relationship with Sebastian?

  In my dreams, I'm the firebird. Always trying to fly away, always being captured again by the impossible-to-escape Prince Ivan. In the dream, we are on stage, dancing while Morgan watches. Then we are fucking on the stage while Morgan watches.

  I wake from this dream Monday morning, my heart thundering wildly in my chest, an undeniably strong arousal flaring to life between my legs. Even though I've seen Sebastian every night for our show, it's different in the daytime. Alien.

  We are in Studio A, running one of the pas de deuxs while Morgan offers his opinion on how Sebastian could hold me differently in the lift for better lines. Sebastian agrees with this and tries again.

  A few steps are changed, and we both like the tweaks to the choreography.

  Other dancers are at the far end of the room practicing other parts, but I can feel their eyes on me. Do they notice the strange tension with me, Sebastian, and Morgan? Can they tell Sebastian and Morgan are related?

  Both men keep a professional distance in rehearsal, neither of them touching me too long or with too much familiarity. But after lunch, Morgan pulls me into an alcove in the hallway, kissing and pawing at me. One of the dancers in the corps catches us, but Morgan doesn't pull away. The man has not an ounce of shame. I bury my head in his chest, wanting to disappear.

  Great. Everyone in the company will hear about this. They think I'm dating Sebastian. They won't accept them both. In their minds, I'll be a cheater. A whore. The deeper truth that I'm the captive firebird of both men would be too far out of their experience to comprehend or accept. And maybe that's for the best because if my blackmailers go down, I go down with them.

  I'm exhausted by the time I get home—physically and mentally. I just want to lie down and catch up on so much of the sleep I've lost over the past few nights. But when I go to my room, the sheets are stripped off my bed. All my personal belongings are gone.

  I run to the closet to find nothing but empty hangers. There’s a crisp white envelope on the bed. I pull out the paper and unfold it to read the note in what I assume is either Sebastian or Morgan's handwriting.

  My dearest firebird, your things have been moved to your newly appointed cage. Sleep on the bare mattress if you must, but Wednesday you are ours. Nine p.m. And this time, we won't be letting you go at midnight. You'll find your key on the kitchen counter.

  Below the note is the address to their penthouse. There’s a challenge in these words. They want me to choose to come to them now—early. I don't know exactly how Sebastian got into my house. Maybe he took my key from my bag one night when I was blindfolded and gave it to Morgan to make a copy. It's the only possibility I can think of.

  I should have activated the alarm, but I rarely bother during the day. I didn't think there was a need. I go to Conall's home office and pull up the security footage from earlier in the day. I watch video of the moving van pull up. Movers emerge with boxes and disappear inside the house which is pretty much what I expected to see. After all, Morgan and Sebastian were with me all day.

  I sleep on the bare mattress, unwilling to run to them just because they took my things away.

  During rehearsal on Tuesday, Sebastian whispers in my ear, “You will be at the penthouse on Wednesday.”

  “Or you'll report me?” I hiss under my breath.

  “Yes.” He practically growls the word. I don't know if I believe him. But I'm also not sure I don't. The crazed possessive look in his eyes tells me he'll do whatever it takes to gain my compliance. And if they lose me, I lose everything.

  On Wednesday, I use the last of the warm vanilla bath oil to take a bath. The movers didn't take it when they were packing. I guess they were told just to focus on my bedroom.

  I sprinkle in rose petals, light candles, and perversely listen to the Firebird music as I lean back against the tub, the steam rising off my skin. Somehow it was so much easier when everything was a mystery behind a blindfold. The truth is too big for me. The reality of the power imbalance remains the same, but before, shielded in the darkness of the blindfold, it was like an erotic dream. Now it feels so much more real. I don't know if I can do this.

  Maybe they wouldn't report me to the police. Maybe they aren't that cruel. But they could put me back in the corps. These men have that kind of power. I don't want to believe they'd use their money in the same way Conall used it, to clip my wings. But if these were good men, they wouldn't have done the things they've done to me already.

  Finally, I get out of the tub. I wash my hair in the shower. The only clothes I have left are a plum-colored leotard and tights the movers missed because they were in the dryer. I'm angry they've taken all my choices away, that my illusion of freedom is disappearing. But this house is so big and lonely, and there are so many bad memories. Is moving out of it the worst thing in the world?

  I get ready exactly as I've gotten ready every Wednesday night, and put the jeans and T-shirt I was wearing back on over my dancewear. Then I take the key off the counter, get in my car, and drive to my new cage.

  It's a few minutes past nine when I walk into the large lobby of the high-rise building.

  A security guard nods in greeting when he sees me. “Good evening, Ms. Lane. They're expecting you.”

  “H-hello,” I say, startled that he was given my name.

  His gaze goes to my throat, and I swear he knows that it's not just some pretty piece of jewelry. From the lust in his eyes, he knows. And he said they're waiting for me. I swallow past the lump in my throat and hurry past him.

  Inside the elevator, I use my key to unlock access to the penthouse floor. I take slow shuddering breaths as the elevator lurches upward to my doom. I fantasize about it reaching the top, then going into a free fall so I don't have to face these men again.

  I'm not sure these few days of space have done anything to soothe my nerves or help me accept this new reality. It feels like the opposite. It's only given me space to run through the mazes in my mind, freaking myself out more and more about everything. Part of me wishes they'd simply demanded my obedience, that Morgan hadn't been soft with me, or that Sebastian had refused the suggestion to give me space.

  When I open the door to the penthouse, I walk in to an empty room. “Hello?”

  Sebastian and Morgan appear suddenly from opposite doors on either side of me, like wolves circling prey.

  “Hello, little rabbit,” Morgan says, reinforcing this impression.

  I drop my bag on the floor and my keys on the counter. My hands are shaking. My gaze drifts to the giant windows. A ballet barre has been set up there.

  “Go to the barre,” Sebastian says.

  But I don't go to the barre. Instead, I pace back and forth like a caged animal. The tears come then. “Please... I can't.” I glance up to find Sebastian raising an eyebrow at this pronouncement.<
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  “You can't go to the barre? That's an odd issue for a ballerina.”

  “I can't do this!” I shout.

  “Morgan, get the cane.”

  Morgan pushes off the wall to follow this instruction.

  For the second time in this penthouse, I crumple to my knees. I can't think of anything else to do but beg for mercy that isn't coming.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Sebastian says. “We've been doing this shit for months, and you've seemed happy enough to obey.”

  “It's different now.” I can't explain it, but the spell is broken. The shift away from the opera house, the loss of mystery, the loss of the safety of the blindfold and the certainty that I must obey, that I can't negotiate, that it's safe to accept the pleasure because I have no choice. Now it feels like I have choices, even though I don't think I really do. I'm not sure anymore.

  How can I make this choice without the blindfold and the secrets? How can I choose not just one man, but two? It feels so wrong to give myself to two men. It feels as though the secret they kept from me has broken some sacred bond that I thought was just me and Sebastian.

  “Fucking Frederick,” Morgan says. He's returned with the cane. He passes it to Sebastian, and I tense.

  If Frederick hadn't gotten hurt backstage, Sebastian's hand wouldn't have been forced. He wouldn't have had to choose to save both me and his ballet by joining me on stage. If I'd had any thought that he might have orchestrated that reveal, that he wanted me to see him, I was wrong.

  “You didn't plan to ever let me see you, or to know about Morgan, did you?” I ask.

  “No,” Sebastian says. “You were never going to see us, but I was working toward introducing you to the idea that there were two of us.”

  I'm sobbing now. “I want it back. I don't know how to get it back. I can't let myself...” I don't know how to say these things inside me. They aren't the only ones angry with Frederick. I'm angry, too.

  Everything was perfect.

  I jump when the cane clatters on the floor, and then Sebastian is beside me. He pulls me into his arms. He frees my hair from the bun and smooths his fingers through it. “Shhh, you're safe.”

  I only cry harder. I wanted him to say those words last week... so badly. I know they're true—at least to an extent. These past few days in my own house have at least given me that perspective.

  “We won't report you to the police as long as you don't report us,” Sebastian says. “We wouldn't harm you like that. But you belong to us. You know that, right, Cassia? We won't let you go.”

  Morgan sits on the ground on the other side of me and starts stroking my back. “Just give in to us,” he says.

  “You said you'd report me. You said it recently!” I say to Sebastian, trying to ignore Morgan's soothing touch. The million ways I've been betrayed by this man... by both of them... I can't...

  Sebastian sighs. “I know what I said. Everything felt out of control.”

  Yes. That's it. Everything is out of control. How do I get it back?

  “Undress,” Sebastian says. He and Morgan help me stand.

  I hesitate. I want to do this. I want things to go back, but I don't know how to make this choice. I don't know how to let myself do this. Then Morgan is behind me, tying the blindfold around my eyes.

  “Undress,” Sebastian says again. He's moved a few feet away from me. I hear the distance in his voice.

  Suddenly, I’m back in the opera house. Everything is normal again. Cello music begins to play out of the sound system, and I take off my outer layer of clothes. I stand there, now in leotard and tights, hesitating.

  “Undress. It's the final time I'm telling you. You're already getting a punishment for your resistance.”

  I peel the leotard and tights off.

  “Good girl,” Sebastian says. “Now kneel for your punishment. You know how I like you.”

  And now it's back, that throbbing and wetness between my legs. Just like that. So simple. I'm helped into a kneeling position on a soft rug, so I don't have to kneel on the hard floor.

  My arms stretch out before me, my palms on the hardwood. My forehead rests there as well.

  “Please, Master... not the cane.”

  “Yes, the cane,” he practically growls. “You need to remember who you belong to, and nothing drives it home like the cane.”

  I'm crying again. But part of it is relief. Because I've given in. I've surrendered. I will do whatever he says. I will do whatever Morgan says. They will punish me, and then they will fuck me, and we will have breached this final boundary between us. And it will all be perfect again.

  “You will count,” Sebastian says. “I will give you five, and then Morgan will give you five. Say, yes, Master.”

  “Y-yes, Master,” I whisper. I want to beg him because ten is too many. I can't take ten. But I need things back in control. I need to return to the peaceful calm place inside my head that Sebastian gives me.

  “Say it so the cheap seats can hear it,” Sebastian says.

  Morgan chuckles at this.

  “Yes, Master,” I say louder.

  “Good girl.”

  Everything inside me relaxes at these words.

  The cane slices through the air, and I flinch as it strikes my bared ass. But it isn't as hard as the last time he did it, the time when I made thirty-two mistakes. It hurts, it sears and burns into my flesh, but I know he's holding back just enough that I can take it.

  “One,” I say. I take long, slow breaths and fall into a rhythm with him. My surrender, his power. This exquisite torment.

  After the fifth one, he passes the cane to Morgan.

  The sixth strike makes me scream. I thought Morgan was the soft one. The kind one. I’m immediately disabused of this notion.

  “Master, please!” I shriek.

  Morgan laughs. “It's about time you said my name. Count,” he demands.

  “S-six,” I whimper.

  “Good girl.”

  It's the first time I've heard these words from Morgan, and they’re just as satisfying from his mouth as from Sebastian's.

  Seven and Eight are just as hard as Six. I scream with each strike. I worry other people living in this high rise are going to think they're killing me. Wouldn't it be fucked up if some random person called the police on all of us?

  Suddenly a hand is gripping my chin, turning my tear-streaked face upward.

  “Do I need to gag you?” Morgan asks.

  “N-no, Master. Please...”

  He pulls back a little on Nine. A welcome relief. But the final lash is just as hard as his first. I bite back the scream and count the last one. I'm so shockingly wet right now.

  I feel the cane press against the top of my head. “Lift your head up and kiss it,” Morgan says.

  I rise up and kiss the bamboo.

  “Now thank me for your punishment.”

  “Thank you, Master.”

  One of them, I don't know which, dips a finger between my legs and inside my pussy.

  “Are you ready to be fucked?” Sebastian asks.

  “Y-yes, Master.”

  “By both of us? Are you ready to take both of us, together?”

  My face flames, but I say, “Yes, Master.”

  “Good girl.”

  The finger is withdrawn, and one of them helps me to stand. He leads me to the bedroom. I hear zippers and clothes hitting the floor.

  “Straddle and ride me,” Sebastian orders.

  He's lying on the bed. My knees are on either side of him. I let out a gasp of pleasure as I lower myself onto his thick, hardened cock. I forgot he was this big. He gives me time to adjust.

  “Fuck,” he says. But it isn't an expression of pleasure. It's a command.

  I obey, raising and lowering myself on him. I've forgotten for a moment about Morgan, until I feel him licking the cane welts on my ass.

  “Poor little rabbit,” he says. He rubs a soothing balm over the marks as I continue to ride Sebastian.

>   A few moments later, I feel cold lubed metal being worked inside my ass. “Open for me,” Morgan orders. “It's going to be my dick in a minute.”

  I try to relax as he pushes the toy inside me. The double-penetration of the toy in my ass and Sebastian in my pussy is overwhelming in a way that erases all logical thought. Every doubt and fear fades away in this moment. Every protest of what I can and cannot do evaporates in the sheer visceral power of this moment.

  Morgan removes the toy, and then it's his lubed cock sliding inside my ass. I tense at first because he's so much bigger, and I'm afraid, but he strokes my back and eases in more slowly. Once he gets past the tight band of muscle, he gives me a moment. Both men still, letting me adjust to this fullness, this sense of being completely overtaken by them.

  “Are you okay, cupcake?” Sebastian asks, stroking my face.

  “Yes, Master.”

  He rips the blindfold off, and I'm staring now into his dark, intense eyes, that vicious scar. I reach out and stroke the scar. This time, he doesn't stop me. Then the three of us begin to move together in an intoxicating hypnotic rhythm. I come first, moaning and screaming out my orgasm, not caring that neighbors might hear us.

  Sebastian and Morgan come together after me.

  “Fuck yes,” Morgan growls behind me.

  Morgan pulls out of me first and lifts me off Sebastian. Then we are a tangle of limbs. I lay in the middle. I'm facing Morgan now. He strokes my face, while Sebastian runs his fingertips gently over my cane marks.

  Morgan leans forward and kisses me on the mouth, his tongue tangling with mine. Sebastian twists my body, opening my legs wide, and then his mouth is between my legs, his tongue moving inside me. I whimper and writhe, my moans being swallowed up by Morgan's mouth.

  Sebastian is relentless, licking and sucking me until another orgasm comes crashing over me. When it's over, I think they'll let me rest, but they only change places. Sebastian moves up to my mouth, letting me taste myself on his tongue, while Morgan's mouth is between my legs drawing out the same agonizing pleasure from my body.