by H. A. Kotys
== ~ ==
The kiss of silk on skin as she slid up the bed was a daily luxury for Mela. She’d become accustomed to the buzz of the timer each day. The metallic clank always followed and when the lock slid back she nudged open the door to emerge. Almost in her sleep now, she could find her way onto her Mistress’ bed. It was required to be that way, to wake her in the sumptuous manner she expected.
Today though, Mela’s first thought had been of another. The nameless abducted young woman was kept in a similar cage on the opposite side of the bed. Mela had paused. It would be frowned upon but still she had diverted her ascent. She had wanted just to reassure her that she had a friend and she had done that. But she had needed to wake the young woman, part to show she was there, part to stop the sleeping sounds that risked betraying Mela’s diversion.
Mission accomplished, Mela slowly drew down the soft sheets. A leg of the slumbering body shifted to one side. She had the access she needed and Mela crept forward, hands carefully pressing toned thighs apart, guiding them to positions to accommodate her approach. She pressed further forward, tongue stretching out, finding its target, finding favour.
Mela’s mind drifted back to that evening. It’d been a bold move, she’d been summoning the courage for weeks and when the day came around, the knots in her stomach almost forced the plan to be abandoned.
She’d long been intrigued by bondage. If pressed, she would admit to the trigger being her first boyfriend. He had held her wrists to guide her into a position to fulfil his needs at the expense of hers. That was the night she chose to explore it further. She needed that release, needed that journey.
She’d planned it ever since spotting the discrete ad in the back of an obscure local paper. A BDSM evening. Demos, talks, everything a curious girl needed. Mela knew she would have to go.
Mela. Teased tomboy. Wallflower. She was going to step outside the comfort zone described by her ‘oh so conventional’ upbringing. A tentative step but one into a world that even hours of research on the net couldn’t fully prepare her for.
The outfit she chose was edgy for her. That said, it would barely scrape in against the dress code the evening demanded. A PVC bustier scooped up breasts that she convinced herself were ‘just right’, though in more open moments after the loosening effects of wine she would admit to them being too small.
The skirt she wore flared wide. Black taffeta laid layer on layer to flare out the uppermost PVC. She’d cut holes in it too to create the punkish look she’d strived for. A gauntlet adorned her right wrist, a cheap oversize watch, the other.
Boots were a must. Buying them off the internet was the bravest thing she’d ever done. She remembered how she’d paced back and forth, waiting to intercept the parcel before her parents got to the mail. The cheap-looking black patent belied the cost but if the height of the platform and heel were a gauge on price, they would have cost the earth.
Two hours on her hair and makeup but the reflection in the mirror had told Mela it was worth it. Hair spiked ‘just so’, dark heavy makeup completed her look. Purple lips matched purple eyeliner and emphasised the hint of purple she’d earlier washed into her hair. She looked every inch the dangerous punk she’d aimed for.
An all-night function, Mela knew that if she took her keys she’d be tempted to turn around before she got to the club. She had needed to be bold, so leaving her key inside, Mela had slammed the door behind her. No turning back now. Nobody would let her back in until morning. If she hammered on the door, there would be questions, disapproval, perhaps more. With that definite click of the lock, she was on her way.
== ~ ==
A satisfied moan from above told Mela she had hit the right tempo. Tasting her Mistress, she smiled and recalled more of the night she was taken.
== ~ ==
She’d wobbled down the street like some desperate street hooker out turning tricks for the first time but she’d soldiered on. Shortening her stride, Mela had learnt how to walk in her unforgiving boots.
God she’d been brave to do that. She could still remember the turmoil in her stomach as she’d walked down that street. She was a new invention, new Mela, a Mela unrecognisable from her regular look. She looked like who she wanted to be, on the outside at least. She recalled the way the doorman had looked at her. She’d known him from the bookshop she worked in but he’d searched her somehow familiar face, found nothing to spark his memory, shrugged and just let her in.
The club was dark as most clubs are. The wispy smoke of dry ice swirled at knee height adding cliché to the atmosphere as music thumped. The easy option first, the bar. Mela had settled at one end, fortifying alcohol firmly in her grasp, soon followed by a second, a third, and she forgot how many more.
Mela remembered how in awe she’d watched people breeze past in outfits only previously seen on her laptop. A five minute talk barely raised her interest but when the demonstration started interest was soon hooked. Shibari Techniques it was called. Mela watched wide-eyed as a man was bound uncomfortably in an intricate web of rough hemp rope.
== ~ ==
A hand reached down and rested gently on Mela’s head. It was confirmation that her mistress was waking in her preferred way. She breathed a small sigh at the relief. Punishment had been avoided, for now at least, and Mela’s mind drifted again to the club to place her back where she had seen her for the first time.
== ~ ==
The tall woman’s presence electrified the room, exuding a confidence Mela found compelling. She was introduced as Mistress Raven. Announced as the grand finale of the evening, she would give a final, formal display. Enthusiastic applause rang out.
All endless legs, slim waist and full bust, Mistress Raven’s body was emphasised by the dress that skimmed toward her high heels. A strange material, it clung hungrily to each curve of her body. The sheen caught the light. Mela had seen such things on the net, latex. She was quite something.
Though slightly blurred after too many drinks, the friendly barman nodded. “Yes it is.” Had she really spoken that out loud? She returned a smile of thanks as best she still could. If Mela be a moth, the woman was the flame, one that flared a remorseless allure on a moonless night. Transfixed by this woman, this mistress was the first she had seen in the flesh.
The minutes flew past. Mela stared at the woman on stage who held the room in her thrall. To Mela though, they were the only two in the club, all else irrelevant as she watched, mouth slightly open as the woman displayed skills with whip and crop on a blindfolded female.
Deliciously intoxicating, Mela pictured herself as that girl, shuddering from each snap of the whip. A pause in the proceedings and appreciative applause rang out. Mela slid off the chair and placed one foot forward, her ankle buckling at first, forgetting her heels.
Slowly, she had moved forward, veering with drunken care between the huddles of people who talked openly of things she’d thought of as taboo. She didn’t know what she was doing. She couldn’t reason why, but her legs still carried her forward and as the alcohol compelled to focus on her walk, her rational mind was oblivious to the danger she might be placing herself in.
When volunteers were called for, Mela had found herself already climbing the stage. She heaved herself up right in front, ignoring the steps to the side, breathing heavily, still fighting the spinning of the room.
A single finger had hooked under her chin to lift her head. As Mela looked up, she heard her own faltering voice whispering, “Take me, Mistress.”
Laughter? From the crowd perhaps but not from her. “Rise.” A single word of command and Mela’s legs had answered. And there she stood, the crowd watching confident, feminine hands explore her. Sampling. Gauging. Assessing. They squeezed as if testing livestock at auction. No more words were spoken. No more were needed. Mela fought to remain upright and still while her brain stumbled to sort through the fog.
== ~ ==
Mela remembered now how naïve, how stupid, it had all been but also remembered t
he thrill of feeling a collar slipped around her neck, the collar she still wore to this day.
She’d never looked back, never wanted to before. That evening she’d found more than she was looking for. Constraints that strangled her had been shaken off, replaced by restraints that freed her. Memories that haunted her found a refuge.
And yet, as her head was pressed deeper into the crotch of her mistress, Mela felt her first tinge of regret. She’d been hasty. The seething brutality of her mistress had first shocked her before it became routine. Only in seeing this new woman had Mela awoken, as if seeing her new persona from the outside for the first time.
The hand pressed harder, clamping Mela deep into the woman’s need. She felt dirty, used in a way she’d never done before. And as the woman came to the attentions of her tongue, Mela was oblivious to the pleasure, her only thought of another direction that beckoned.
== ~ ==
The candles now long dead, shafts of morning sun edged into the room. Katarina could only listen. Her release from the cage was probably close though as sounds and movements above on the bed told of morning. There were moans but that seemed the way of things here, they were incongruous to her cramped muscles which could only scream. She was glad she was gagged. Swearing would no doubt see her punished. That seemed the way of things too.
A bell rang from the bed. The double doors opened and swung heavily across the deep pile carpet. Amber and Red were framed in the doorway. Though her spirits sagged, as the sun pushed further shafts of morning into the room Katarina had a new resolve. They weren’t all monsters and where there was compassion there was hope. She knew that, whatever they threw at her, she would make it through the day.
CHAPTER XXI – Cellular
Entering the room beside the redhead, Amber saw the young woman again. Katarina was caged and she knew how her muscles must be cramping with the confining size and inability to stretch out. Hollowed eyes hinted that any sleep had been brief, if at all. Compassion pricked her but Amber quickly pushed it aside. There was no place for such things here. Well, not now at least and Amber had to check her eyes wandering over her.
Amber glanced cautiously at the woman standing beside her. Her red hair cascaded lusciously down her back. She was looking elsewhere, directly at the woman on the bed, the woman whom she yearned to emulate. It had been a recent admission and one that had shocked Amber, initially at least.
Amber had been the one harrying and eventually convinced her lover to, at first tentatively, explore her kinks. It had been slow at first, silken scarves loosely binding. Slowly Amber had edged her lover forward, exploring as first ropes then handcuffs embraced Red’s wrists. They learned together, locked together in bonds of passion and steel.
Gags had been bought. Floggers too and that electric toy that saw frequent use. That was such fun. She couldn’t remember who brought the subject up. But the conversation had twisted and turned until her lover suggested that they threw themselves in completely and just went for it.
A total surprise, Amber had hesitated. She knew the dangers that might bring but she recognised that a new dynamic in their relationship was evolving. That evening Red had taken complete control for the first time, Amber alone wearing handcuffs.
From then, Red had flourished and Amber gladly went along with it as her lover unfurled dominant wings. Unfamiliar items started to embellish her previously classic wardrobe. Leather and silk quickly became more than mere garnish and Red’s heels rose along with her need for control.
It was the Sunday before Easter though that things really changed. They’d been out separately the night before, those occasional nights that were important to give each other the space that any lasting relationship needs. The next morning Red had come back a different woman. No longer the apprentice nudged into new experiences, now Red was a dark butterfly. Sure in her mood, confident in herself.
Mistress Raven was the catalyst. To this day though Amber could only guess at the exact nature of the events of that night – it may not have even been the first. Inside the month, they had both moved into the manor, discarding their true names and adopting pseudonyms - Amber and Red.
She’d flowed with the current and if Amber was true to herself, she’d initially been intoxicated by the total immersion into a world in which she’d previously only paddled in the shallows. She’d loved it at first, watching her lover fulfil the potential she knew she had, switching smoothly between control and service as they each found deeper reward in the other.
Things were changing though. Amber had already feared she was losing her but now had a bruise on her jaw to confirm it. She had so carefully concealed it but could still feel it there. The moment replayed in her head. Amber relived her objection then felt again the full force of Red’s blow.
It had frozen her in shock. How could one she loved strike her like that without justification? She’d only hesitated a moment to process the command but apparently that was all that was needed.
The command had been followed but the second blow came nevertheless. The third blow hurt both her face and her soul and, looking into her lover’s smiling eyes, Amber had recognised something there that took her beyond shock.
No tenderness. No warmth. None of the passion that had spiced their times together since they first met at that party, found their way into a quiet room and into each other’s lives. No. Malicious delight was the only emotion windowed by those cold hungry eyes. It was a look Amber had seen in another.
Mistress Raven. She’d been the incendiary. She’d lit the fuse in that night away and even now she fuelled the fire in the woman beside her, this woman who was now as a stranger. A dangerous stranger, she was the protégé of the woman Amber had always feared. But now fear had turned to loathing. The dull yet constant throb in Amber’s still tender jaw pounded the bitterest reminder of what she now realised was her loss.
The emptiness in Amber’s stomach gnawed at her beyond anything she’d felt before. Love was lost. Shattered and stamped on but as Red moved confidently into the room toward the caged girl, Amber knew she had an obligation to fulfil.
== ~ ==
A night slipping the leash of her darkest fantasies for the first time saw Red stride into the room. Amber had first brought her into this world but now she had been outgrown and only held her back.
The example of Raven had shown her what she could be. Mistress Raven, Red corrected herself. And there she was, sprawled luxuriantly on the silk-covered four poster, her slave’s face drenched in her juices and a newly taken woman caged beside her bed. Red knew this was what she wanted. The softness of Amber was her past, the hard luxury of power her future.
The clack of heels following half a pace behind across the wooden floor of Raven’s bedroom brought a smile to Red’s face. She recalled how the electricity had coursed through her when landing the first blow on the woman she had now moved beyond and clearly had no further use for.
Red wanted more. It was pointless to deny it any longer. What she’d suspected when playing with the unknown girl the previous day had been confirmed and that first blow had broken the dam. Her second was probably unnecessary, her third definitely so but she’d enjoyed the feeling of release. Amber was no doubt already her former lover as she’d dragged her to her knees by the hair. She pictured herself inflicting such delicious pain on her. But that time would come. First, she would need to bring misery to the new girl. That was the direction of her Mistress, and so Red had stopped her blows at three.
Her Mistress. She lay there on the bed, beautiful, a manifestation of confidence and control. Darkly sophisticated with a taste for the luxurious, Red watched her momentarily, feeling other eyes following and coinciding with her gaze. With a yearning to please, she stepped toward the caged girl, an echoed step half a pace back.
Red was walking away from the past but still it tagged on behind. Amber was baggage. Raven was opportunity. She would follow Mistress Raven anywhere and in anything. Learning. Growing. She would paint a spec
trum of skills on the canvas that the new girl represented. She would impress, gain value and hopefully in time, gain her bed.
== ~ ==
Katarina watched the twin leather-clad women pause briefly before stalking into the chamber toward her. There was tension. Barely perceptible but there nonetheless. Her brow furrowed, remembering how the two had acted as one the day before. Something had happened but she could only guess at the cause. That would be for later though, the women were beside her, one either side.
A clang to her left caused the cage to shake and Katarina instinctively recoiled away to the right, catching sight of a wicked smile framed by a red mane. To her right, a second kick to the bars and she slammed left to avoid the reverberation of the blow, bruising her hip as it struck steel.