Master's Flame (Cirque Masters)

by Joseph, Annabel

  “Eat,” he said when she paused. “The vegetables too.”

  She shivered, feeling especially naked tonight, even though she’d been naked every night she’d been under his hand. When she was home, and free, would she eat dinner naked every night to recall these times with him? Maybe. Yes, she probably would.

  “If you can cook like this,” she said aloud, “why do you pay someone else to do it?”

  “Time, mignonne,” he replied with heaviness in his voice. “I have very little of it. But it’s our last night together, and this is my favorite dish.”

  He’d cooked this for her, his favorite dish. She wanted to cry. Tina, pull yourself together. Across from her, her Master took a leisurely sip of wine and leaned back in his chair as if this night were like any of the others.

  “What will you do with your time once it is your own again?” he asked. “Return to seducing every single heterosexual man at the training center?”

  “I was never that bad.”

  “You were. You even broke up Silas and Peter’s relationship, and they’d been together as long as I could remember.”

  “They were on their last legs. They would have broken up by the end of that month anyway,” she protested. “And obviously, neither of them was one hundred percent gay.”

  “None of us are one hundred percent anything. Anyway, I’m only teasing you. You may do as you like. After tonight you’ll be free, at least when it comes to service. I’ll probably still have my fingers all over your career.”

  Oh, that imagery didn’t help. “I hope you will, Master. I mean, Mr. Lemaitre.”

  “It can be Master for one more night.”

  “Master,” she repeated quietly. “I’ll miss calling you Master.”

  He stared at her a moment, then down at his plate. “We’ll take everything into the kitchen and leave it for Galvin. I’m not in a dishwashing mood tonight.”

  Valentina couldn’t frame a reply to that. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t imagine her Master up to his elbows in soap suds, or loading the dishes into his gleaming oversized dishwasher. She didn’t want to imagine him that way.

  Once they carried their dishes into the kitchen, her Master led her to the white room. He was still dressed in his work pants and a white shirt, and she was still naked. Please, please tell me to do something. Tell me to get on my knees. Tell me to suck your cock.

  Instead he took her sketchbook from the top of her packed belongings. Oh no. She didn’t want him to look through it but if she tried to stop him, he’d punish her and look at it anyway.

  He flipped through the pad, expressionless, studying page after page of half-drawn, scribbled, smeared, and scratched-out renderings of his face and body. She wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. “I didn’t really... I wasn’t really able to...draw anything.”

  “Except me. You tried, anyway.” He turned one page to the side with a dubious expression.

  “I couldn’t get it right. I’m sorry.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “No apologies. I know more than anyone that art is a matter of trial and error. Some works take years. A lifetime.”

  Valentina nodded, biting her lip, but she knew there’d be no “lifetime” with them. If she hadn’t been able to draw him while living as his slave for thirty days, she wouldn’t be able to draw him when they were merely boss and performer. She wanted to tell him you’re too much of a puzzle, or you’re too complicated, or you’re too great and beautiful, or you’re too... Whatever. She could never explain why she’d been unable to draw him, and they would all seem like excuses anyway. Better to let him believe what he probably thought right now—that she was talentless.

  He tossed it on top of her neatly stacked suitcases and gestured to her. “Come here. Kneel in front of me.”

  Thank you, God. In this, at least, she wasn’t talentless, especially after a month of his training. He reached down and wove fingers into her hair, brushing them against her nape, tugging until she felt some pain.

  “Oh, Master,” she sighed. He didn’t permit her to go on and on when they were scening but all the words screamed in her brain. That feels so good. I’m going to miss this. Please hurt me. Please force me to do whatever you wish.

  He let go of her hair and tipped up her chin, so she gazed at him from the floor.

  “I wonder...how have you changed, mignonne? What have you learned?”

  She thought hard because she knew she ought to say something wise and submissive at this moment. But all she could think was I’ve learned that I love you. I want to be with you. He wouldn’t want to hear that. He’d been perfectly clear the entire time that this was temporary, that he’d wanted to play with her and control her, but only for a while.

  “I’ve... I’ve learned to be more attentive to other people. To be less absorbed in myself,” she finally said.

  “I would agree with that.”

  His softly spoken words sounded like high praise, especially after all her struggles to please him.

  “And I think I’ve learned to be less impulsive,” she continued, feeling emboldened. “You’ve taught me to think before I speak and before I act. I’m so grateful for that.”

  His mouth turned down a bit. “Valentina without her impulsivity. I don’t know... I’m happy to have curbed it a little, but I think it will always be part of who you are, just as controlling and subduing people will always be part of my nature. But yes, you’ve progressed. Become more balanced, perhaps.” He studied her with an expression of gravity. “I haven’t had to fuck you against the contract wall in some time, have I?”

  “No, Master.”

  “But it would provide a certain delightful symmetry if I did it tonight. Don’t you think so?”

  She swallowed hard. “Yes, Master.”

  Were there to be no trips to the attic torture room this last night then? No beatings, no mindfucks? No restraints or tests of pain? Only this, the ultimate symbol of surrender? It was the way they’d begun, and he was right. It only made sense to end the same way.

  He lifted her and led her to the wall and pressed her against it. “Stay.”

  She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead to the words as she waited. She heard him undressing, heard the scrape of the drawer and the lube’s cap flicked open. She remembered how panicked she’d felt the first time, how certain she’d been that he wouldn’t be able to force his way in there. He’d proven her wrong so many times since then. He was about to prove her wrong again. She felt his thickness sliding between her ass cheeks as he took his place behind her. He pressed his thighs to the backs of her thighs and trapped her against the wall, his willing, trembling victim.

  There were no words, no commands, only his calm, steady breathing as he positioned his cock against her hole. He was slicked up. She wasn’t. He’d stopped giving her extra lube about halfway through the training, when she’d learned to compensate by relaxing her tense muscles and letting him in. He squeezed her ass and she arched back, offering her tender orifice to be impaled.

  He didn’t wait. Oww… Oh, it still hurt, even when she relaxed and cooperated. Because of his size it would always hurt, at least at the start. She moaned and let the pain fill her, wash over her and make her into that most delicious of things, an obedient slave. With surrender came pride and pleasure and arousal. As the pain eased into a lesser discomfort he forged deeper, grasping her hips so there could be no escape.

  Her hands balled into fists against the wall, then relaxed as he began to move. He slid in deep, so deep, then out again so she felt alarmingly empty. Then in again... It wasn’t a drilling. When he was in her ass, there was no need for him to be rough or brutal. The fact he was there was brutal enough, and she felt a low-simmering anxiety the entire time. There was a kind of pleasure in that fear, and a pleasure too in being so filled and so controlled. She made a small sound, a little moan of contentedness that she couldn’t contain.

  And then it occurred to her: this was how she’d chang
ed. The first day when he’d done this, all she could think about was herself, how scared she was and how much it hurt. She hadn’t thought once about what he got out of it, or what she, as his slave, ought to have been getting out of it. She’d only thought, I wish I could come, but I’ll never come this way. She’d shivered and shaken and wished for it to be over because it wasn’t what she wanted.

  Now, she wished it could on forever because it brought pleasure to her Master. She wished she could be his forever, to control and use, with his beautiful eyes and body, and his wild dark hair, and his stern, French-inflected voice. At her moan, he turned her head and lowered his mouth over hers. While he pinned her to the wall with his cock, he kissed her, deep and hard, his fingers curled around her chin. After a while he thrust his tongue in her mouth, and then he bit her. It wasn’t a kiss after all. He was devouring her, and she answered back with her own desperate passion.

  “You’ve changed me,” she gasped when he pulled away. “I see now. You truly changed me.”

  “I know.”

  He kissed her again, stealing her breath. His lips were hard and commanding against hers, as rich and warm in flavor as a fine wine. His fingers trailed over her body and then down to her pussy lips. He parted them and found her clit, stroking it with proficient skill. Her moan tore wide and became a begging cry into his mouth. His stroking felt so good. Her hips bucked back against his cock, and then forward against the teasing joy of his fingers.

  “Oh, please, Master. Please.” She pleaded for him to let her come because she wouldn’t be able to come unless he helped her. Unless he let her. As good as it felt, she knew he might stop pleasuring her at any time, only to enjoy her sagging disappointment and distress. Or he might let her come. She didn’t know. He stoked her clit in rhythm with his strokes, not too hard or fast, but lazily, as if he had all the time in the world to play with his toy.

  Her hands spread against the wall, pressing against the words he’d written and her own name. Her nails scraped over the silly hearts. He still held her head and kissed her, occasionally letting his lips meander over her cheek and across her jaw. Her frantic panting mounted as her orgasm curled and built, aching to break wide. Her Master stopped kissing her and pressed his cheek to hers. Her pussy was so wet now she could feel his fingers gliding through the moisture. The warmth of his body engulfed her. A strangled sound rose in her throat and he groaned against her ear.

  “Now, then. Do it. Come for your Master.”

  His rasping words took the rising winds of her climax and spun them into a cyclone. If he hadn’t held her, she would have fallen to the floor. The orgasm took all the strength from her body, concentrating it in her mad, contracting core. Hot satisfaction drowned her. He drove his fingers into her pussy and she clenched around them as he drilled her asshole, fucking her fast and hard until he went rigid behind her. His heart beat against her back, and he shuddered with a restrained kind of resonance, so different from her crazed gasps and cries.

  He remained motionless and she did too, except when her ass contracted randomly and involuntarily around his cock. She felt so close to him, so protected and nurtured. Then her eyes opened and she stared at the words in front of her. I belong to Le Maître, and today’s date, February fourteenth.

  She turned her head and saw him looking at the words too. He pulled out of her, leaving her bereft. He lifted her chin for one last, fleeting kiss.

  “You’ve done it, mignonne. You survived.” His lips turned up in a faint smile. “And I did too.”

  “What happens now?” Her voice sounded tight and a little sharp. She’d felt protected before, but now she felt scared.

  “It’s time for you to get ready to go,” he said, stroking her shoulder. “It’s time for you to fly away to freedom. Clean up and I’ll take you home.”

  He walked away. She felt rage, panic, anxiety, all of them attacking her when she was least able to withstand the assault. “That’s it?” she cried. “‘Clean up and I’ll take you home’?”

  He turned back, his previous warmth and tenderness disappeared. “That’s it. Your term of service is over. I hope it was everything you dreamed.”

  “Everything I dreamed?” She searched his eyes. There was nothing there now, only distance. Irritation.

  “Why are you repeating everything I say? I am still your Master until I take you home. I’ve asked you to clean up and prepare to leave. Let’s not end this on an unfortunate note.”

  She wanted to scream at him. An unfortunate note, really? But mimicking his cool words wasn’t going to change anything. She took one last look at the words on the wall and then closed her eyes and turned away. She couldn’t bear to see them anymore.

  Chapter Fifteen: Deal

  Valentina was not the first slave who’d shed tears at their parting. Surely, she wouldn’t be the last.

  Michel tried not to be affected by her quiet sniffling and sobs as he drove her to the Cirque compound and her dormitory. Honestly, he’d feared worse, which is why he’d been so remote and cordial with her at the end.

  He felt regrets, of course, but also a sense of relief. He’d survived a month with his tempestuous sex slave, and enjoyed it for the most part. He’d changed her. Perhaps. Whether he’d changed her for better or worse, he wasn’t sure. He’d been a little depressed when he’d leafed through her sketchbook full of scribbled-out drawings. Apparently his control had stymied her creativity—the very creative spirit that made her who she was.

  Not good.

  So, it was out of the question to try to extend any connection between them. Part of being a good Master was knowing when to let go because your control was damaging rather than improving a slave in your care. That, too, had happened before, and would certainly happen again. Not that he hadn’t selfishly held onto her until the end of her term. He was human, after all.

  It was after eleven when they pulled up to the dormitory. He made her compose herself before they got out to unload her things. It wouldn’t do for everyone to see him moving his sobbing, weeping slave back into her place. Or perhaps it would enhance his reputation as a hardass. In the end, he just wanted her to stop crying, so he ordered her to, and she did.

  She opened the door to her apartment, calmer now, and he resigned himself to stay awhile, until he was sure she was okay. Ending a single scene could create a wretched case of sub-drop; ending an entire relationship could trigger a much worse one, even if the sub in question had known all along this would be the end. He helped her put away her things and monitored her outward emotions. She seemed sad but not depressed. Being among her art and personal possessions surely helped ease the sting a bit.

  Then he remembered and shoved his hand in his pocket. “Here. This is yours.”

  It was the curled red leaf she’d picked up on the way home from the symphony. Valentina reached out and took it. “I had forgotten.”

  “It’s just a leaf, I suppose. One can find them anywhere.”

  “That’s not true. This one has memories.” She went over to the jury-rigged easel that held her self-portrait and considered where to place it. He noticed the piece of red cellophane on the table from before. She slathered both of the items with glue and placed the cellophane in a spot near the middle. She added the red leaf just above the figure’s shoulder. It looked perfect there.

  “C’est belle,” he said. “Is it finished?”

  She shook her head. “They’re never finished until someone takes them away.”

  “People take them away?” Unreasonably, he wanted to take all of them away and keep them for himself, not that he had a place for them in his monochrome house. Valentina’s place vibrated with color. He felt trapped all of a sudden, and anxious to escape.

  “Well,” he said.

  She gripped her hands in front of her. He could see her eyes go glossy with tears. “Please wait, Mr. Lemaitre. I have to...to go wash my hands.”

  She scurried to the kitchen to soak off the glue she’d slathered on her fingerti
ps. Michel stared at her self-portrait. Candy. It had candy on it, round red bonbons that looked like frosted jewels.

  “Will you still...” She called out to him over the patter of the water in the sink, then waited and shut it off. “Will you still see me? Ever?”

  “I’ll see you all the time,” he answered as she shook off her fingers and dried them on a towel.

  “I mean, will we ever play together again? Perhaps at the Citadel?”

  The Citadel, he thought. He’d never even taken her to his back room. It seemed a terrible omission. “I don’t think so. I don’t go much anymore. My daughter goes with Jason now and…you know.” But his daughter would be in California for a week. Perhaps then... No. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to play casually.”

  “Why not? We obviously do well together. I mean, in that way. We turn each other on.”

  He considered her, fighting questions in his own mind. He looked away and flicked at a piece of lint on his shirt. “You’re more of a full time project. And I won’t do full time with you again.” As he said it, he understood why. Because he would lose himself, and worse, she would lose her creative spirit, her spark.

  Her lips trembled. The gathering tears fell. “Didn’t you like our time together?”

  He gave a frustrated sigh. “You’re right back to being that silly, dramatic girl. Why ask such a question? Did I enjoy our time together? What do you think?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know what to think. How can you so easily release me? How can you just walk away after all we shared?”

  “I told you, thirty days. It’s better for these things to have a finite life.”

  “These things? What is this thing? You mean all the fucking and service, and all the things I did for you because I lo—”

  He grabbed her and put a hand over her mouth, muffling the word he didn’t want to hear. “Stop. Don’t,” he growled. “This is not going to be. You don’t love me and I don’t love you. We are two very headstrong personalities who just spent a month in an emotionally heightened dance. Now the dance is over. You understand?”