When Demons Are Redeemed: The Dominant's Muse

Seventeen - The First Circus Show

SEVENTEEN

The First Circus Show

Catherine, still displayed by Tristan on her pedestal, raises her eyes towards one of the big clocks affixed to the walls for the weekend. The large digital numbers clash with the ballroom’s artistic theme, but Catherine is passed pointing that out to herself, passed grumbling about them. She sees that 3 a.m. approaches.

The living canvas has by no means become comfortable with her nudity, and neither is she any less self-conscious about it either. In the case of one gender present all around her, she feels sick to her stomach, which allows her not to think of the possible bad luck that could befall some of the men there because of her, and, in the case of the other gender, with women being snippy and catty with each other about body image out of insecurity over their own body, and with their judging each other even more harshly than men do, she feels stronger, knowing that she can handle those attacks. It is the men’s eyes upon her, free to ogle without need to hide, with their status of master shoved into her face since they are fully dressed, that make her feel so very subhuman, so very irrelevant in all of existence, in all of the universe, as she is reduced to an object on a pedestal for one man to repeatedly climax upon, and for countless other men to generically scrutinize. It has only been an hour since the start of weekend play, and forty-eight hours seems to her like it might last forty-eight months.

“Time for the show. Come,” Tristan evenly orders her, before rising from the cot. He is referring to the first of the ten adult, circus-themed presentations of the weekend, and those words are his first spoken to Catherine since he took to the cot earlier on. They are devoid of any emotion, but she knows that her master is still very much displeased with her.

While Catherine had to remain posed on her stand, Tristan passed the time by observing luscious mounds of flesh, always two by two, either beckoning him from up top, in front, or sending out an invitation to him from down low, in the back. Downy triangles offered lines to offset the curves of those mounds. Whenever Catherine’s eyes unintentionally returned to him, she observed him observing. Laying eyes on nude women never gets old for most men. Women believe that surely it would, that it has to get old. But no.

Tristan leaves his station without looking back at his submissive. She watches him walk away for a moment, and then carefully steps off her pedestal. Her muscles are much relieved to be on the move again, and she stretches some of them as she walks, following her master from some steps behind him. She is certain that he is meant to have that head start.

Despite all the noise in the room, Tristan’s musician’s ears pick up the particular rhythmic sound of her high-heeled walk, and so, he does not need to turn back to know that she is following him. If he could hear the inner workings of her mind, he would pick up the rhythmic sound of a whip pushing her to keep walking, since every inch of her wants to stop and hide instead, to cover-up, and to end this vulnerability.

Standing on a pedestal with men looking at me in their kid-in-a-candy-store way, that’s bad enough, but being among them, like this, it’s so much worse. When they look at me now, they’re right in front of me, or right behind me, Catherine nervously thinks to herself, as men’s eyes indeed find her, travel her nakedness, linger here and there, and outright stare. She hates seeing their facial expression change, seeing their lips and their eyes first record an appreciation in the male way, before flight of fantasy, more than mere fancy, visibly takes them over.

There is no rule against masters studying every inch of another master’s submissive, but Catherine wonders if it is allowed during every themed weekend, or just during this one, because there is “art,” during this one. She cannot help but wonder how different her life will be, due to her “promotion,” once she and Tristan leave this place, and therefore cannot help but think of other weekends, even though this one has barely begun.