A Dance of the Hunt and the Prize

A Circus Within (Part 4) draft

Draft --

Claire is arriving to the party on the arm of Sabine. The master of the house is mid-speech greeting the guests.
  She steps in when McAllister and the master are exchanging words, and hears the part about slaves and contracts. Sabine tells her that it's a little different than she might be thinking, and that the contracts are quite favorable to the girls. Claire is curios what that means but Sabine redirects her attention back to the scene. The pronouncement of the punishment for Pauline, scares and intrigues Claire. Sabine tells her some of the wording is for show and that while Mathew is going to punish her he ultimately is responsible for her safety and will take good care of her to make sure no one really hurts her. Pauline will probably not enjoy the embarrassment of being put on the spot, but the rest is consensual and likely to be quite enjoyable.
  Sabine then takes Claire down into the party, and introduces her to several people. A young man who Sabine knows approaches and greets them. Pleasant conversation, adrienne shows up and dismisses Sabine. She goes off with the young man. Adrienne brings Claire over to the master and she wants to confront him and addresses him by name. Adrienne starts to correct her, but he waves her off.
He asks Claire if she is comfortable, and she replies that she isn't sure yet, but the room is nice. He wants to show her something, and he leads into an adjoining room where people area doing sensation play, and cuddling. He explains that there is a lot of variety within the scene, and there isn't a specific set of ways one must be in order to participate. Variety and diversity are fundementally important. Claire asks if she could maybe try something with Adrienne since he is also her boss and she feels like it would be awkward.
(This would be a good place to get a few suggestions towards lightweight activities). 
While this is going on, she overhears another person talking about the activities going on in the pool room and is intrigued.