ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN

Dangerous Page

When Tristan’s hands once again reach for the collar’s tail, Catherine, who is unaware of her master’s resolve to loosen the collar, give her a moment to recover, and then lead her to the show, prepares for the worse, believing firmly that Tristan is incapable of dismissing any behaviour that he considers a betrayal, and hence, that she will never be freed. However, when her master’s hands are slow to act, this conviction does not prevent a part of her from imagining the collar being loosened indeed, as well as imagining the pleasurable sharp, deeper breath that would naturally ensue, as her body’s first order of business. Other pleasant sensations that then seek to be imagine-enjoyed as well, though, to accompany the reverie of oxygen returning to her system and of saturation levels returning to normal through delightful breaths that would soon draw her out and return her to the world, are quickly rejected as nothing but ridiculous, pathetic fantasy.

Even if he loosens the collar now, that just means that he’ll take pleasure in bringing me to the brink and then back again, in whatever way, before he finally pushes me over that threshold and into the abyss, Catherine weakly, gloomily envisages. Her eyes remain closed, as they are not only difficult to keep opened, now, but to open to begin with.

Your punishment is over, Catherine. Keep taking the small breaths that the collar allows, and don’t lose consciousness, healer reassures her, before a knock at the door demands her master’s attention.    

Tristan’s eyes look up and then towards the sound, before making themselves slightly smaller, as he considers possible reasons for this intrusion. Perhaps the same attendant who walked in before, believing that he must apologize some more. Or, our ‘brilliant’ host, but in his case, probably not to do the right thing and apologize. Probably to lay something else on me instead, and annoy me some more. Or, maybe another master drawn to Catherine, even here, so very out of bounds. That would be impressive, he concludes, before walking to the door, rather than answering the knock verbally. As always, part of him is ready to immediately leap into action if necessary.

“Don’t you go anywhere,” he lightly sends back to Catherine, before he reaches the door. The ease and lightness of his tone, however, suggest nothing different, nothing contrary to Catherine, as far as her analysis of her predicament is concerned.

See? He didn’t loosen it, she points out to healer instead, and I’m so weakened that the words that come to mind to condemn him and his behaviour can only be slipped into a file, as I just can’t put them together, much less express them out loud.

“I was told I could find you out of bounds. Got a minute? This is important,” Donovan, Tristan’s top guy, inquires, once the door is opened for him by his boss. His voice is most sombre.

My nerves just can’t take this anymore! Catherine agonizes, having of course recognized the voice, and not missed its gravity, grimness. I can’t even struggle against Tristan in any way, now. And even if I weren’t restrained, his powerful hands would quickly control me, as they always do. I lost consciousness in the corridor because I felt overwhelmed, but what I feel now reaches so far beyond that. I really don’t know how much longer I can succeed in remaining aware. How much longer am I expected to be able to cope with all of this?

“You’re certain of this?” Tristan inquires, once Donovan’s report has been conveyed to him. The two men stand just a few feet from the playroom door, far enough for beyond-anxiety-filled Catherine not to hear a word of their conversation.

When Donovan nods his head, Tristan lowers his eyes from his henchman’s and allows his mind to fully process what he has just learned. As the predicted change in his entire demeanour then sweeps over him, Tristan’s anger with the news just as expectedly takes the lead.

“So, she forgot to be wholly and unreservedly terrified of me, and betrayed me. The mere thought of my anger didn’t do its usual thing, what it’s meant to do,” Tristan, despite having processed everything to its necessary and unavoidable conclusion, despite having already recorded the sum total of Catherine’s betrayal at the bottom, beneath the line of the addition of all the facts of her treacherous behaviour, nevertheless finds himself processing out loud. One of his hands closes as he speaks, as if tightening the collar. “I was nice, so, of course, in typical female fashion, she betrayed me. And she obviously thought me stupid, as well as my men, to dare to believe, in that little harebrained female head of hers, that she could get away with it, that no one would find out.” Pause. “That little b-tch manipulated me into believing that what I sensed when I woke up was about what happened in the buffet room, when she was there while I slept. And when we walked by the secret room, she cleared her throat and I noticed, but I let that go as well. She certainly didn’t deserve being let off the hook when she couldn’t handle those apricots, because traitors deserve nothing, and have I not said many times before that I hate female nature as much as I hate traitors? I . . . I warned her so many times that feeling bad for others is stupid. For her to risk her life for someone that she doesn’t even know . . . I know that this weekend wasn’t the best thing for her, but . . . Well, she hasn’t run out of entertainment, but I can’t trust her now,” Tristan concludes, as Scheherazade fades in and out of his mind, and before a deep breath becomes necessary, if he is to maintain conversational abilities, if he is to restrain the considerable part of him that wants to return to the playroom, announce “you’re dead” end of conversation and story, and then use one of the “toys” in the room to bring about that ending. The flex, perhaps. The part of him that advises, that warns him to think things through, however, manages to retain control. “She’s going to tell me that she didn’t run, that she chose not to, but that’s worth nothing, means nothing at all, because it was just her terror that stopped her, since it required assurance of success. All that matters is that, right when she entered that room, she was actively looking for a way out. She . . .  She understands how traitors must be dealt with, doesn’t she? So that no one else get the idea of chancing non-punishment as well, and causing problems? I . . . Maybe a skilled taxidermist can stuff that great pussy of hers, so I can keep enjoying it. I’ll just keep it in an equipment case,” Tristan oddly adds, his reference to Nora not missed by Donovan, nor the swing in subject matter and tone.

When Logan turns the corner, Tristan’s eyes acknowledge him before they look towards the doorway to the playroom.

“So far, someone lost an ear,” his raised voice then sends into the room to Catherine. “And someone lost their tongue. So, what do you imagine I’ll do to you for lying to me about something so, so huge? What will you lose, Lovely? Can you imagine how much willpower I’m drawing on, right now, not to just . . . ” He stops abruptly, to process whether or not it matters if attendants perhaps within earshot in the adjoining hallway can hear his words.

Her master’s tone of pure ice cuts straight through Catherine, and if she could see the coldness in his eyes that accompanies that audible frost, it might very well finally knock her breath away from her completely, as it is unlike anything that she has ever seen within them.

“Do you not reply, Lovely, because you don’t know what betrayal I’m referring to? Are there so many things that you’re lying to me about that you just don’t know what I’m talking about? Here’s a clue: I’m no longer angry with you because you collaborated with a true so you could correctly guess which was your master’s body part in a game. That’s what the branding was for. That breaking of a rule. And let me add that I’m certainly not angry with you now because you broke a TV. So, if I eliminate those two for you, then do you know what I’m furious about, Lovely, or do so many other hidden offences remain that your confusion persists?”

As Catherine is petrified by this turn of events, by the acquired knowledge that this moment is now without a doubt at hand, pure instincts formulate her initial response, and thus, not one spoken word leaves her lips.

The futility of being flooded with fight or flight options, when neither are feasible . . .  There’s no feeling that is more frightful than facing that irrefutable fact, failure.

“Lovely, I expect an answer. You have my permission to speak, even though it’ll make a mess of my art yet again. But that really doesn’t matter anymore, and you know that. There won’t be a need for repairs, nor for a third dose of fixative to be applied.”

Punishment will be fully worthy of my terror, this time. He’ll make me suffer, and, considering all the objects that are in this room, within his reach, I . . . I probably agreed with you before, deep down, healer, since I dared both in thought and in words to defy him, even in this room, but I nevertheless felt just as awful then, when I only believed that my last punishment was at hand. And my fear of dying was genuine as well, since he allowed so much of me to slip away, which just made me feel so . . . So much of me has slipped away.

Say something to him, Catherine. Reply, healer recommends.

I can barely breathe. Speaking would just . . .

Try.

I hate all cheaters, and yet, I cheated, during that contest. I saw it as teamwork, though, as something different than . . . Well, it was a stupid master game of body parts, after all, for God’s sake.

That was on the page before. It’s been turned. Stick to the one opened now. Try.

“Lovely, all that crap on your face can be softened right up with burning hot water. Will you answer me then?”

He doesn’t mean just what’s on the outside, that he put there. He hasn’t forgotten that smile, healer points out.

The one that’s on the page before this one?

Catherine.

“I . . . I . . . didn’t leave,” she breathlessly half-whispers, after preparing her body as best that she could for the consequences of the exertion, and now feeling indeed, as she speaks, the fine fracturing of some of the art on her face, the predicted decomposition, decay of the creative material and fixative blended upon it, and thicker with dual design. “I didn’t go with  . . . Vivian. I didn’t run . . . away . . . I  . . . stayed with you, master . . . Sir,” Catherine’s tone unreservedly pleads with Tristan, her voice, so very small, but above a whisper now.  “I was just . . . curious. The room . . . ” She adds, before the limited resources that her body most resentfully allowed her for speech are depleted, and her plea, thus abruptly ended.

“Stupid and dangerous, your curiosity. But what a relief it is that you know what this is about,” Tristan sends into the room, which spins for Catherine, as her master’s tone and words continue to assail her.  “We weren’t on the same page before: I had the body-part guessing game page out, and maybe the one with your defiant, daring defence of that tongue as well, but you had this great, huge betrayal in mind. No wonder you were terrified beyond what I’d ever seen in you before. No wonder you lost it and clobbered that wh-re when you believed that I was being told about your huge, huge betrayal. After a contest judge told me about your collaboration with that true, I decided that I had to protect your reputation, so you had to be punished, but as for betraying me . . . Vivian is a traitor of immense measure, but because you betrayed me, Lovely, me, you hold the top spot,” Tristan informs her, without entering the room, still, as he is no doubt concerned, on some level, that fury has such a hold of him that he cannot trust himself to enter. “So, what did your ‘best friend’ Vivian tell you?” He then decides to go with, as a return, as a swing to business-appropriate, to power-appropriate, but not without the usual hint as well of just how much he despises the mere thought of Catherine having friends.

“I couldn’t . . . betray myself . . .  by telling you,” Catherine softly informs him, rather than answering his question. Sensing that her master’s fingers, even from their current distance, are itching to tighten the collar past the point of no return, she is careful with her words, as a part of her, despite everything, still stubbornly maintains survival hopes, while most of her just hopes for less pain when Tristan ends her. “It would’ve been . . .  heartless to turn . . . her in, after she was . . . demoted and when her master surely wanted her . . . dead. Telling you or anyone about her . . . escape was like killing her . . . myself. She didn’t . . . want to . . .  die, so she . . . had to . . . get away, and I . . . understand . . . that. To turn her in meant that . . . I was her . . . executioner,” Tristan’s female adds, despite the laborious, agonizing effort needed to form every word, and the sharp scolding from her body, which once more resents the loss of what should be utilized to just survive, rather than used up to allow Catherine to express herself.

Betraying each other is not what women should do to each other. Ever, Catherine adds to herself.

Tristan closes both hands into tight fists, as if what his submissive just said epitomizes awful traits that should be eradicated from the world, from all of humanity.

“Betraying me was so much worse. What did she tell you?” Tristan repeats.

“I’m your only friend,” Catherine recalls him warning her, after he awakened from the second sleep cycle.

His question then echoes in her mind, but since repeating in her current condition what Vivian told her seems like an impossible undertaking, Catherine does not even attempt it. She wishes instead to repeat to Tristan that she did not run, but knowing that he would no doubt reply why that means nothing to him , she does not attempt that either. Squandering more precious energy on saying what will not be heard makes no sense, after all, and, moreover, since she remains well aware that some of her words might end up increasing her master’s annoyance and fury rather than lessening them through their cooperation, through their obedient return, her lips remain firmly pressed against each other.

There’s certainly no need to remove any silliness from his mind to save my reputation there, for my own sake, since he correctly thinks nothing more of why I stayed, because, as always, he makes no mistakes. I wonder where Vivian is. Will she make it to thirty, or has that dream already been quashed? Two months away. I won’t see two days away.

Living another day means another chance at escaping. That’s what you’ve been hanging on to for a year, now. So, living another half hour, this weekend, and another, and another has to mean the same, healer attempts. Answer him.

No, it’s not the same, because, even if I were given more time, this weekend, it would be lived with such desperation that the anguish in living it knowing that what is surely to come will come so very soon would make it not worth living. There’s no way, after all, to escape Tristan here, during that half hour, nor the next. And, well, what if it’s just right that my bad luck is finally killed off, because then nothing bad will happen to people anymore?

Catherine . . .

Is that not doing the right thing, saving them all?

Not if you die.

Laura said that I would be the one to turn her in, to mess up. Which wouldn’t be the right thing to do. But Vivian didn’t seem afraid at all that Laura would talk. She didn’t beg her not to tell. So, Laura probably wasn’t real. I . . . Vivian said that Tristan’s not the same, with me, but he is. Just listen to him now. And how would she know, anyway? Just by seeing him in the past, during this and that weekend play, and then seeing us during this one? There’s nothing here, nothing in any of this to begin with. Nothing of any worth.

Maybe she saw you elsewhere, but you didn’t notice her. Listen to him.

Just a voice.

Exactly.  Why isn’t he coming in? Healer points out.

What I felt before had more sensations to it, but now that Tristan and I are definitely on the same page, there’s just too much, so no sensation at all can be processed, and that utter failure leaves me feeling numb. Is this how  people feel, when they’re about to die? One visits a person in hospital who is facing their end and then one leaves it all behind, as that building is shed, because one can, when that person cannot, when that person must remain within its walls until every ounce of their life has been sucked out. But surely one has to be smart enough, human enough to know that, someday, someone will be visiting one when one oneself is that dying person who can’t leave, and then, the harshness of leaving that dying person, or persons over the years, will be fully understood, and it will be agonizing, that recall of when one could leave and live and escape death, especially when one is left without any other emotion than dread and emptiness, and when one is left without even fresh air, at that point, because of stupid air-conditioning and windows that don’t open. This room could use some fresh air . . . Do people who are dying not think of what is going on outside the walls of their hospital room because they’re too numb or because it hurts too much that there’s nothing in the world for them now, even though it goes on for others, even though all of its wonderful moments do? Maybe it depends on age. Well, one’s visitors will exit and go to dinner, and make plans, and live, while one will just be waiting to die, to next be seen in a coffin by those same visitors, who will then attend a pleasant luncheon afterwards and joke and live on. All the funerals attended by one in one’s life, and to know, at that point, that one will be the one in the coffin soon . . . It’s a line that no one’s in a hurry to reach the front of, the one to death, to that fall. Oh, how wonderful it felt to be able to leave and live. I don’t want to die, Catherine adds, before her eyes open, vaguely register the assortment of equipment in the room as an array of medical devices, and then close again. I can’t keep them open. Darkness will soon be mine forever, and my stupid eyes can’t stay open and enjoy the light while they still can.

“You saw Vivian’s master, when we walked in. What’s his name, Lovely?”

Catherine, say something. Try.

I don’t know his name and I don’t remember what he looked like. I was concentrated on her. On the one who mattered. Who was being kicked, shoved down.

“I know that there’s no need to know what Vivian told her since she won’t be around to tell anyone anyway,” Tristan reasons out loud, looking at Donovan and then at Logan as he speaks, his voice lowered now, since it does not currently need to reach across a room to connect with its intended audience. “But . . . ”

Neither Donovan nor Logan say a word to this current manifestation of their boss. They are themselves still processing.

“Vivian turned off security cameras and ran loop programs that allowed her sabotage to go unnoticed. Because of the nature of this weekend, cameras in certain areas are in reactive mode, which means that they wait for rapid movement, like fighting or struggling, to send back images to central security,” Tristan informs Catherine next, his voice raised once more. “Those cameras allow for more privacy, since no constant feed is being sent from them, but if nothing’s sent when there’s danger either . . . ” He pauses. “Vivian turned off cameras completely,” he then emphasizes. “So, she caused the whole system, mansion-wide, to be unreliable, which put everyone here at risk, and since you didn’t tell me, you therefore put us all at risk as well. Most of the men here have enemies, Lovely. And plus, because of Vivian’s hacking and reprogramming, no one knew where you were, but they believed that they did.” He pauses again.  “We all rely first and foremost on central security and not on our individual details, during these weekend events, and anything could’ve happened before we fixed what she broke. Do you understand what you did?”

Catherine, try to answer him.

I can barely breathe.

Answer him.

“It . . .  shouldn’t be such a  . . . big deal for a woman to . . . leave a man, and a man . . . should leave a . . . woman without . . . killing her . . . in any way,” Catherine struggles to send out of herself. Her voice is not loud at all, but she nevertheless continues to be heard.

No! Healer quickly scolds her.

“When I . . . told Vivian that I . . .  wouldn’t . . . go with her . . . she said that she . . . knew that I wouldn’t, and that . . . you knew that as well,” Catherine wills herself to add, sensing, like healer, that her words might have just added fuel to the fire, meaning that, if left untouched, her master would burn her with them, hurt her even more, once he finally ceased being just a voice, just a furious voice hiding behind a small measure of control.

More silence.

“Blaring, deafening alarm bells should’ve gone off in your head, when you decided not to tell me. You were where you shouldn’t have been, with someone you shouldn’t have been with.”

Like a man with his mistress, or wh-res, paid kind or not.

“You should’ve told me, because it was against the rules,” Tristan adds.

Like breaking vows, including a promise of faithfulness, and not only that, but a promise of caring, which means at least not taking the chance of infecting one’s mate with diseases, with death.

“Everyone here was in danger, the whole ballroom, because of your secret.”

Like an entire family, due to an unfaithful man’s secrets and the danger of a crazed, demented mistress. But I, however, put Vivian first, not myself, not my bratty pant-child and egotistical and selfish pleasure. So, the danger was worth it, whereas it never is, when it’s there because of male me-myself-and-I. And dick.

Close that file. Now. Perhaps if you told him . . .

You’re so truly afraid for me now. I feel it, Catherine interrupts. When he was branding me, you weren’t. Because you called it right, when you said that if the man in the suit was interrupting to tell Tristan about the tunnel and Vivian, he wouldn’t describe his information as something that Tristan “might” want to know. You fear my death, now. Finally. I shouldn’t be relieved that you do, since . . .

I couldn’t stop you from lying to him, healer interrupts.

Why not? Couldn’t jolt me then?

I do fear for you, healer admits, ignoring her question. He should not have jolted her, of course.

No one will look for me. It doesn’t even have to be an accident, since no one will look for me anyway. I don’t matter. In any way.

He looked for you . . . Try something, before he loses it. Give him back all control, so he can then regain control of himself, and before he walks in here.

What am I supposed to try? Tristan is many things, but he’s not a stupid man.

“When you were in that room and then in that tunnel, you had your first moments of privacy since you became mine, because there were always eyes on you before then, which means that everything of interest that you did, I read reports about or watched video of. I hope that it was really, really good for you, that last moment of privacy in the tunnel, because . . . ”

Cameras are put up at venues for physical and legal protection, Catherine nervously wraps her mind around, when her master abruptly stops. The ones that belong to the venue backstage are taken down and replaced by the tour’s. The ones in this mansion are set to privacy mode. And the ones in my suite were there for Tristan’s amusement and control, of course. Because men have control and power needs over everyone who lives in their home. I . . . That box and envelope, she then finds herself considering.

After you stuffed them into that false compartment that you created right off, you never touched them again. They’re safe.

Shouldn’t I be interested in knowing what they contain? Shouldn’t I be curious? Why do I sometimes forget that they even exist? Catherine returns. Well, they wouldn’t save me now, would they? When I’m gone, will he find them? Will anyone? I didn’t leave a sign to mark where they are . . .

“Bubble baths, showers, dressing, undressing, self-pleasuring, and replays of our entanglements. I’ll miss watching, Lovely.” Pause. “How could you . . . How could you not know, not have any idea, not even an inkling, a small feeling or something, anything, that the big picture isn’t a game,  isn’t mine? I thought that you were smarter than that.”

“I . . . I don’t play . . . games with you, Tristan. I’ve . . . learned that . . . you . . . always find a . . . way to . . . win.”

More. More praise, healer pushes her on.

He’s too smart. And his dick works for him, not the other way around. Not like most men. He always knows, when he gives in to it.

“Shut up. Just shut up,” Tristan snaps at her. “What do I always say about traitors, Lovely?”

See? The truth that I just spoke pi-sed him off, so now he threatens me directly. So, lying now would just equal more pain, like you said. Like I know.

There’s a difference between pi-sing him off needlessly by stupidly choosing to lie to him like you did about the tunnel, or perhaps soothing him when he’s already furious: one’s worth it, and the other isn’t.

Saving a life is worth it.

Save yours! There’s no doubt that he’s not an easy man to fool, but . . . you have an advantage.

What advantage?! And what big picture? His Taliano connections get things done for him: he didn’t end Nora himself.  It’s obvious that he has Taliano men in his fold, and not just tour people. But a production on the road does require tons of meetings . . .

“You wonder if we caught her, if she talked, if she betrayed you. You barely know  your ‘best pal,’ uh, the one you sacrificed everything for?” Tristan’s voice sends in.

“My eyes . . . hurt . . .” His female begins.

“Too bad,” her master cold-heartedly cuts her off.

Eyes that you usually want me to keep opened. Always opened. So, always awake, not passed out. But not anymore.

Silence.

Catherine.

“I . . . I had to leave . . . the room, while you . . .  slept, because I . . . kept thinking of . . . waking you up . . . in a way that . . . would’ve definitely . . . ruined my . . . art . . .”

That was pathetic, if an attempt. Don’t speak so robotically

I can’t breathe! Hardly breathe . . . And why I am listening to your nonsense? He knows what the fixative does, its side-effects, and he knows that I was more myself, after the race, so that means that what happened before I was more myself wasn’t real. So, talking to him like this will only get me more pain, because he can’t seriously believe that I desire, or, of all things, that I love any part of him!   

You perhaps protested too much, and so . . . Healer returns. So, maybe . . . Just use it to your advantage. Don’t think too much. More pain is bad, Catherine, but death is worse. So just . . .  stop protesting now. Close the files. Remove that filter. Do better. Survive. Give it a chance. A try.

It’s utterly ridiculous. He’s not like the men who lose it from just being around me. My bad luck doesn’t affect him. And . . .  just how awful, dreadful is what awaits me after death that you’re so desperate to . . . I’ve never heard you sound this way.

What. Who. Vile. Despicable. And you have heard, but you don’t remember. Just try, healer repeats. It’s better that you not die now.

Is there hope, then, if I die later?

Try, healer repeats. The near future is much more stone than a later future is, since it’s almost written, almost fully fashioned.

“I . . . looked at what was . . . hidden away, at what I . . . could make . . . tall and stiff, and I wanted to . . . feel you reaching far up . . .  inside me, shoving . . . yourself up . . . against my walls . . . all of them, and all the . . . way . . . around, because you’re just so . . .”

“Stop it.”

“I’m not lying. I’m . . . confused and I don’t know . . . why I feel some of the . . .  things that I do, but I’m not . . .  lying. Those women who are . . . enthralled with their masters . . .”

“Are idiots under the effects of a drug,” Tristan interrupts. “Just a side-effect. Shut up.”

See? Failed, Catherine declares. And I truly think that I’ve used up all that I can spare of myself to speak. The exertion is just not worth it. All that effort and . . . ­

So he doesn’t want it to be about his body, healer cuts in.

What? Are you crazy? I’m not sure all that that means, but . . . Okay, you have to be me, just a part of me, because you can’t be some entity in my head, because what you’re saying is just becoming more and more crazy ridiculous. Even if Tristan does want my mind, that’s just for his wall, just a trophy. What all men want is . . . God, why does it matter so much? At least if I’d cheated on him, then . . . But the betrayal that is bringing my downfall really shouldn’t be: I just protected Vivian. Her very life. How is it that that’s not understandable? Reasonable? Rational? How is it that life itself is not above EVERYTHING else?

“You’ve made my blood boil now, Lovely. Not smart. You returned to the ballroom alone and later than the other females, during the sleep cycle, and I was such an idiot to believe you, to ignore my own warning bells. I think that . . . that a part of me is in shock, because I was so wrong about you,” he adds, frowning, as his eyes look into thin air, perhaps in the hopes that an answer, that an antidote will be found there, if they look hard enough. “My blood’s boiling,” he then repeats, however, as the hint of the something that only briefly appeared in his eyes exits them, leaving them to return to being completely cold. “I had attendants bring you to the playroom because I knew that you could lie on the flex with minimal smudging to my designs, but I don’t care about that dumb contest anymore. And I don’t care about you,” he informs her, before he finally enters the room.