ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE  

Twosome Honour

“Stop it,” Tristan orders Catherine, sensing her struggle to hold back tears. He has just branded her, and echoes of the burning sensation as well as those of so much more are overwhelming his female, crushing her.

You stop it! What’s he doing now? Choosing another way, since he didn’t use the branding to end me?

I can’t see what you can’t see, healer reminds her, since her eyes remain shut. You were foolish to take a stand like you did, and to keep your eyes closed after he ordered you to open them. But you did both. Now open them, Catherine. Enough.

No, because I don’t want to see, she repeats. What if he has an axe, a sword, a . . .

I didn’t see that kind of weapon in this room, healer interrupts her.

It’s so easy for you, because it’s not your existence on the line.

Tristan doesn’t seem as angry as he should be, as he would be.

It’s just the calm before the storm. My God, for a woman to ever willingly put herself in restraints . . . How can a woman ever trust a man that much?

Many objects in this room can force a woman to remain calm, and calm is good.

Shut up! Catherine snaps at healer. I’m just like the women in the coatrooms, now, tied up like this, and . . .

Just open your eyes, Catherine, healer interrupts yet again.

When Tristan’s female finally wills herself to see again, her master is standing where he did before, across the room from where she lies on the flex, with his back to her. As if he senses her watching him, Tristan raises his head and turns it to the right, before what is to his left gets his attention. He walks to that something, away from the counter in the back.

“You can’t see me now, can you?” He sends across the room.

Catherine’s collar indeed does not allow her to see her master now.

“Just a voice,” he adds, before the clanging and clinking sounds of objects being manipulated fills the room.

When they cease, the buzzing reverberation of a small motor possesses the playroom. Its rather high-pitched sound obviously responds to commands of outputting more or less power, as heard through its shifting humming. Its whine increases Catherine’s agitation, and when it begins to assail her eardrums with more and more might, she knows that Tristan is approaching with the object.          

See? I told you, she fearfully sends to healer. Something that . . . something that will cause more pain and create a memory for him that will surpass the one that comes to his mind every time that he’s in here. What an honour, she sarcastically adds.

“Small, but powerful enough to drill a hole into a skull,” Tristan describes, once he is standing by Catherine’s upper torso and sees that her eyes are finally opened again.  He slips the tool within her fixed line of vision and then away again. “And also powerful enough to cut out part of someone’s skull, which then allows one to play with a human-marionette,” he adds, as the power device produces a different sound, after being commanded into a different setting. “Because after that, a touch of the brain here, a poke of it there, and one gets results. But I have to admit that I can’t play that game on my own. Dr. Terverti has to help out. Marco,” he adds, before considering whether or not he should have brought up the latter. “It has other uses,” he then informs his female, as the tool in his hand produces yet another distinct humming sound.

Like, to destroy my heart, to go straight through it . . .

Tristan next sends the device to one of Catherine’s ears, and the noise that it then screams out at her there pains her much. She feels the air that its motor displaces as it powers up the tool, and wishes dearly for calm.

This object is certainly not one of the ones that you claimed can force a woman to become and to remain calm, she nervously sends to healer, as bloody images of what the device might do to her succeed one another in her mind. I guess that’s one way for Tristan to finally get my mind, to finally find his way to it . . .

“Yep: this is the sound of rules, Lovely. Do you recognize it now?” Catherine’s master menaces, his voice louder in order to compete with the noise occurring right by his female’s ear. “What made you forget it, when you broke that rule?”

“I . . . ” She stops when Tristan commands the tool to make even more noise. “I . . .” She soon begins again, but then stops once more, as it becomes clear to her that her master will command the tool to outdo her whenever she opens her mouth.

As she looks into Tristan’s mad eyes, a single tear escapes one of hers. Since she is aware of just how much he hates tears, she must hate them as well, for her own good.

“Sorry,” she therefore apologizes.

Tristan frowns, commands the tool to silence, looks once more into his female’s eyes, and then returns to the back of the room, where he drops the device onto a pile of other objects. “I told you that we don’t have time to play. To play,” he then reminds Catherine, who, however, refuses to attach any meaning or implication to this clarification.

When different sounds then take over the room, she guesses correctly that her master is picking up, dropping again, or running his hands against objects near him that could indeed be used for play, for the kind that would not leave a submissive dead.

“I’ll just finish what I started, and then we’ll go watch the show.”

Finish what? Catherine worries. That there is no true weapon currently espied within Tristan’s reach is of no comfort to her.

He’s heating up another letter, healer reports, seconds later.            

What?

Another letter, healer repeats. You saw a handful of tattoos, this weekend, on some of the true. Small, discreet markings that display ownership by their master. I wonder which hurts more, tattoo or branding, especially on certain body parts.

Is that some stupid attempt to distract me? He’s just indulging in another appetizer, before the main course, Catherine replies, as she continues to fight the exit of more tears from their home base, tears that are much freer to leave, now that her eyes remain opened. She considers closing them again, but does not. I know him so very well. He won’t let me get away with what I did.

“Being branded is an honour, Lovely. Being mine is. You break a rule, but I give you this honour anyway. I choose something that’s punishment because it hurts briefly, but that, in the end, is a reward forever for you, so you should actually be thanking me. Will you not enjoy everyone seeing that you’re mine? Won’t you enjoy being mine for all to see?”

How dare you mess with me this way, play with my mind, speak as if you won’t kill me. I see no way of being forgiven for betraying you, which means that you can’t trust me anymore, and so, so . . . You’ll make it go wrong, this time, won’t you? She realizes, which pushes her terror up a notch, into the petrifying red, and which prompts the nullification of the slight improvement that mind over matter had finally managed over her breathing.

“FYI, one of the many lessons that I learned in this room is that it’s better to brand when the body will still do its thing and make the end product look nice. Corpses don’t heal.”

Just an appetizer, see? Catherine presses to healer.

“Why are you so tense? It’ll hurt, Lovely, but then it’ll pass. You know that now. What we use and the way that we do it makes the mark of honour itself not so painful just minutes after it’s gifted, unless it’s touched, of course. That healing takes longer.”

“I . . . can’t . . . breathe . . .” Catherine returns.

“Take smaller breaths and don’t talk.”

Or, you could loosen this collar, so I can breathe. But would loosening it even help enough, now, since it’s what you’ve decided is to be my fate that’s plunged my body into this cataclysmic state? Its current frenetic behaviour asks why it should even  endeavour to continue to breathe, when permanent cessation is now so close at hand, when termination is a done deal. If . . . If only I’d never met Tristan, then I wouldn’t be afraid to die, because there would be no death for me, since it was he who . . . since it was he who . . .

Catherine?

I followed him, and then I . . .

What? You what? Healer finds himself pressing.

I . . . This is all his fault, and yet I’m the one who keeps suffering, Catherine adds, before halting her thoughts, since Tristan has approached her again.

Her eyes immediately find the end of the metal rod and expect to see an M there, this time, but they see the same fancy T instead.

I don’t want to look up into his eyes. I . . . She wishes, before finding it impossible, not to give in.

When Tristan looks away as soon as she looks up, her heart skips a beat.

What the . . . Oh, he’s searching the room for something, she realizes, before tensing up so much when her master walks towards what he has selected that her legs cramp up and pain her dearly all the way to her hips, and then to her abdomen. She is still cringing when Tristan returns to her.

“Your face, Lovely. Stop that. If there’s any chance at all that it can be salvaged . . . ”

There’s no chance at all that YOU can be salvaged! How cruel of you to give me hope that I’ll survive this! She screams at him, terrified of what he has just returned with, and of the pain, of the torment that it may be capable of, in his hands. Consequently, when she feels something being introduced to her lips, and then demanding access to her mouth, she vehemently refuses to let it in.

“I would normally say suit yourself, but since we’re still at play and there’s a contest, I must insist,” Tristan warns her. “So, open up.”

I refuse to “play!” No!

“Lovely, trust me.”

NO!

“It’s just something for you to bite on.”

Unless it’s your dick, no! Oh, how delicious that blood would be, entering my mouth, dripping out of its corners to my chin, to my chest. Now that would be some good red added to my designs, Tristan! Now that would be a gift, a great donation, a great contribution indeed, from you!

Catherine’s master digs in and roughly forces his female’s mouth open, which smudges some of her designs in the process. He then places the object between her teeth.

Why now and not before? Catherine frenziedly worries, as terror once more takes the reins from fury. Just how much will your “messing” up hurt?

Her eyes are ignored by Tristan, who instead finds himself once again drawn to the perspiration that his female’s anxiety is producing, perspiration that is travelling along her pale skin, among his designs and the length of tensed up muscles and other taut areas, as his female’s body lies supported only by its neck, bottom, wrists and ankles, on the flex.

When more images of past “practice” sessions in this very room then return to Tristan’s mind, they beget a small smile upon his lips, and he begins to hum the same song that Catherine sang earlier on to the occupants of the station behind her master’s, during this very same master/canvas hour. Annoyance with both Tristan’s smile and his humming makes Catherine bite down hard on what he has just inserted into her mouth.

I get it Tristan: I’m facing the music. Your music. Your punishment. And again, it’s music that, in your hands, is most unpleasant, and that you should really have no right to at all. And . . . was I even really humming that song, like you said I was? Singing is your thing, not my end of things, not my . . . How quickly I’ve gone from not being afraid of you, even when alone with you in that corridor, to being terrified of you again. Shut up, Tristan! Stupid song! I’ve inspired so much better! I’ve . . . She stops abruptly yet again, as the letter Q and the headache that she felt during the body-part guessing contest return to her with force.

The woman she clobbered’s not on her mind at all, Tristan thinks to himself. She’s terrified, but she’s always terrified when she displeases me, and that’s how it should be. Actually, she should be too terrified to displease me to begin with, and not just after she’s done so, but . . . am I missing something here? She’s furious, of course, but her terror is just so . . .

What are you waiting for? Catherine screams at her master in her mind, before revisiting punishments that made her stand for hours, or abruptly sent her away from her master’s sight, or made her watch band members participating in activities that this playroom could host. She did not worry much, back then, that Tristan could be upset enough, angry enough to make her participate, somehow, but now, now he is, and she is therefore front and center and participating as much as a woman ever does, when restrained and handled. I could’ve escaped! Why didn’t I even try to leave all of this behind me?! To leave you?! Now I’m all tied up!

When Catherine’s fury and terror next manage a blend that Tristan takes much pleasure from, he commands all uncertainties away from his mind, as they, after all, do not relate to the carrying out her punishment, but to her reaction to it. Thus freed, Catherine’s master then fervently feeds off his female’s eyes and predicament and feels much thrilled, much stimulated, until the sight of her face being as cold and as callous as he knows his own to often be then returns to mind, and he cannot help but consider that, even though she had just struck, just killed someone, no terror, no dread, no panic, no shock, no such expected emotion at all had been upon her.

Was that good or bad? He ponders, thinking a step ahead, multitasking despite his current enjoyment, since so little time remains, before the end of the weekend. There’s no airiness to her now. No odd feel to her, and no talk of a kiss. Should I tell her that she killed that female? He further considers.

He’s so very in control, Catherine, and I don’t mean the kind of control that has you tied up. Why is he so very in control, after learning of your betrayal?

Because he gets to do what he’s been wanting to do. Because he has the reason, now, to rid himself of me. And he didn’t figure it out, not from me, so, I succeeded in lying to him, Catherine reiterates to healer, before hating that that recent kiss and that re-labelled scene dare to once more flash through her mind. I felt better, after that race, and it would’ve been heartbreaking to lose it all again, to be that stupid again, but there are no worries about that now. So, Tristan, you just . . . you just . . . Fury, however, does not quite have the power to allow her to wish for her master to just kill her and get it over with, as terror is much practised, proficient at returning a hand to the wheel.

 “I think I better heat it up again,” Tristan decides, before returning to the back of the room and reintroducing the letter to the flame that only ever comes to enjoy brief moments of existence when it is needed to heat up items. It is its only purpose. To be an accomplice in such a way.

Rolling into the fire . . . Where will he put that second T? Catherine worries, before a list of possibilities has her imagining being attacked all at once, at every single site recorded as one of her master’s options, as well as feeling vividly horrific pain in accompaniment, since every single attack conceived of is envisioned as being designed to be a spectacular “failure,” due to her master’s objective of ending her.

Catherine, quit it.

I don’t believe that he truly wants to make it to the show, not when he has me in this room, and when he therefore has his own show, right here, to produce, to direct and to star in. One that was a year in the making, Catherine returns to healer.

This really isn’t pushing you too much, Tristan, for his part, concludes, once he has returned to his female’s side. So, what the hell’s wrong with you, Catherine? You broke a rule, and you have to be punished. I’ve no doubt that being branded is painful, when it’s happening, but your eyes, right now, are beyond . . .

Tristan stops, clears his mind, takes a deep breath, and, since he will not be denied enjoying the moment, commands that only anticipation possess him, with no other consideration. Thus, since it is easy for him to close the door on everything else once he has made a decision, Catherine’s utter panic when his free hand then makes quite the production out of reaching out to manipulate one of her nether lips -- thus announcing to her in this manner where the second T will mark her -- thrills him indeed. As his digits then pull out the slip of skin to its full length from its furled position, Catherine’s perceptible trembling furthermore satisfies him.

Terror means obedience. Obedience means safety, he, however, then oddly finds himself thinking. Briefly.

For her part, Catherine tries to stop her body’s quivering, but the dreadful thought of the pain that she just endured being transferred to, being inflicted upon the tender, pinkish-reddish-brownish skin that has been chosen by her master makes it impossible. As successful air-intake consequently takes another hit, her eyes momentarily close, and, when they open again, Tristan’s female forgets that there is no point in ever pleading with her master.

“Please, no!” She therefore implores, after spitting out what Tristan gave her to bite on.

Her master’s eyes find the discarded object on the floor. “I don’t want your mouth to become a bloody mess,” he calmly informs her. “If I return it to you to bite on and remind you that cuts in your mouth will make it easier for viruses or cooties to enter your system from the dicks that I can still force you to orally entertain this weekend, despite your face being designed, then will you bite and not become a horror-movie, bloody-mouth thing?”

“I can’t . . . breathe!”

“Take smaller breaths. I don’t want you to scream either, Lovely. So, if I return it to your mouth . . . ”

“The pain will . . .” She interrupts, vocalizing yet again.

“You broke a rule,” Tristan cuts her off with in turn. “I chose punishment and reward. Be thankful. And shut up.”

“Jerk.”

“Fine. Suffer then.”

Silence.

“F--k. I really don’t want blood all over you,” Tristan, however, then gives in, as he retrieves the object from the floor.

When her master first slipped it into her mouth after choosing it from the many items in the room, only vague disgust went through Catherine’s mind, and not much more than that goes through it now either, since her master’s eyes and fingers being focused on her nether lip, and since knowing what he plans to do to it, to her, currently matter much more than what the dirty floor might have introduced to the object. Once it is reinserted, she therefore does not spit it out again. She remembers that her words will do no good.

Catherine looks up into her master’s eyes instead, and, even though there is no hope to be found there, small noises from her throat that she cannot control as they accompany her laboured, insufficient breathing nevertheless next dare to plead her fate.

“Enough,” Tristan, however, powerfully warns her.

Sensing herself utterly defeated, Tristan’s female closes her eyes in preparation for  the pain. A snap of her master’s fingers, however, commands her to open them again, and she does. She obeys.

“I considered branding you a cheat, Lovely. Literally. That would’ve been five letters. You get only two. So, you really should thank me,” her master then remarks. In reality, however, although Tristan did entertain the thought briefly, he never seriously considered going through with that marking. “This is much better,” he concludes, before his face swiftly hardens, a mere second before he commands his hand to strike again.

As indescribable pain immediately rushes through Catherine, she instantly believes that the letter will burn right through, since her suffering is so unbearable, so agonizing. She bites down hard and knows that her mouth would have indeed been bloodied much, had it possessed no other option but to attack itself, to turn upon itself top against bottom, with teeth finding something other than teeth, when facing such monstrous, excruciating pain.

“I don’t want such a severe burn that . . . ” Tristan begins to explain, as his female struggles from head to boot. He ceases, however, in order to concentrate on counting instead.

To Catherine, as the sensitive skin of her long nether-area lip continues to burn, as her pain continues to be most unbearable, this counting, this unaffected calling out of numbers so very evenly and steadily, is most annoying. I can’t breathe! She once again screams out from within, astonished once more that respiratory-breakdown escalation still even has leeway to occur, but not at all surprised that this distress manages to compete with the terrible pain of being mutilated by the letter. She does not believe that she can endure this dreadful combination for long.

When a scream manages to escape her in support of that conclusion, it and Catherine’s surprise at the forbidden noise almost allow what she is biting on to once more slip out of her mouth. Although she successfully prevents that occurrence, her momentarily misplaced attention as she does so, however, allows all of the air within her lungs to rapidly exit them, which causes her to audibly gasp for breath. Just as she does, she notices her master’s shivering and appreciative reaction to her distress, to a most awful moment in time for her, one that is so very brief in reality, but that yet again feels so very much longer. She loathes that sight, as well as the registering of Tristan’s eyes as they once more eagerly travel up her anguished body, to her tormented face.

This horror surely could be over with more quickly, and so, this technique, then, is designed to make the moment last longer, is designed to allow it to be enjoyed by the person who is not suffering it. Either that, or Tristan will allow the letter to burn right through, Catherine continues to fear, as she feels herself slipping away.

Images of a hospital room fade in and out of her mind, as do the feel of more excruciating pain and the sound of a voice counting then as well.

End this, end my pain! Stop watching, and enjoying, and just counting, ever so calmly, as if you’re contributing anything at all, while I suffer and  feel as if I will be torn  . . .  in two! You don’t own me, because of this! You . . .

When Tristan ends the letter’s vile embrace -- which he does sooner this time, due to location -- one of his fingers immediately traces Catherine’s lips, which still contour the shape of what she continues to bite upon, despite the removal of the letter. That digit, that part of Tristan on her, is most offensive to Catherine, who consequently finds herself very much wishing to make it the replacement for what is currently within her mouth. Her master, however, clearly sees that very desire in his female’s wild and fiery eyes, and thus removes his finger before she gets the chance to set that wish in motion.     

Fine. Take this, then, Catherine subsequently sends Tristan’s way, before she spits out the object and manages not to miss his face.

Her master immediately sends a finger to stoically soothe the eye that took most of the force from the unexpected blow, and, as this digit does so, the eye that was not attacked looks sternly into its counterpart’s. Despite that look and the pain that continues to echo throughout her body, Catherine’s contorted face, however, does not back down: it instead manages a smile at her unexpected success.

In response, her master’s face changes instantly, reacts to that smile in a strikingly more pronounced way than it did after it was hit by the object. Tristan’s female, however, rather than playing it smart and safe seeing this reaction, once again presses on by now making the whole of her face boldly and most defiantly back up her smile, even as a few tears stream down her cheeks, and even as her master’s continuing eerie calm threatens to erode the feel-good of that smile.

Despite the absence of surprise at what happens next, Catherine is nonetheless shaken when all of her mate’s physical energy soon rises to the surface as a result of her behaviour and then possesses him wildly, as revealed through his tossing the rod and letter hard towards the back of the room. However, even though she usually knows better than to add fuel to any intense fire, even though she recognizes the clear significance and implication of that toss, and even though she is furthermore aware that the cleansing breath that her master took after this exertion might have actually brought about something in her favour, Catherine nevertheless finds her lips now pressing on.

“Maybe . . . you’ll have a . . . red mark in your face now . . .  as well,” she hears them dare to whisper to Tristan, once the noise of the crash has died out.

“So what? We’ll match, then, and how romantic?” Her master sarcastically returns, teeth clenched, before lowering his eyes to study his work, his art, his design. “How did you get those ridges, Catherine?” He then adds, eyes still away from hers. “Can you better imagine, now, the pain that you went through when whatever it was that created them in your pussy was forced on you? Maybe you were knocked out cold, when it happened. Otherwise, how could you not recall?”

Despite the threat laced within her master’s words and despite his obvious lasting rage at the expression upon her face not leaving it, not exiting her eyes, this provocative face does not shift a centimetre even now, as the echoes of Catherine’s physical pain, added to other incarnations of aching, of smarting, simply do not allow the erasure.    

What are you doing? Healer inquires.

Shut up. I’m not done annoying him, irritating him, right to my end, Catherine returns. Just a little something for me. I deserve it. I’ve earned it. My true reward.

Infuriating him is what you’re doing, healer corrects her. And stupidly so, as I’ve pointed out before. There can only be more pain in it for you, Catherine, choosing this path.

Oh, I’m the stupid one, really? He branded me twice! Once was horrible; twice was . . . I hate being tied up! Everything he’s done; everything he is!

What he is, is completely in control.