ONE HUNDRED AND TWO 

Later Is Now

As Tristan speaks privately with the man who requested a one on one, Catherine’s ears, despite their greatest efforts, cannot pick up his voice from their position in the hallway perpendicular to the one where her master accompanied the suit. She is not surprised that the men are speaking in hushed tones, but also considers that they are perhaps not just around the corner at all, but away.

What’s going on? Tristan’s female nervously wonders once more, before angrily menacing her ears to hear. To just hear. Seconds more, however, and she has no choice but to accept their inability, their failure, and a part of her bitterly criticizes them for it.

Catherine then takes the deepest breath that her frenzied lungs will allow, before apprehensively refocusing her attention on listening for any sound that will warn her of her master’s imminent return. She hears not a thing, however, before Tristan turns the corner and her eyes register him before her ears do. No time now, though, to condemn them once again, as her master’s demeanour and countenance are immediate cause for alarm, and thus take precedence. Everything about Tristan’s advance, in fact, does, and what washes over Catherine due to what is powerfully and resolutely pressing forward towards her so weakens her from head to toe that her knees threaten to give way.

Although this turn of events had obviously not been unexpected, another false alarm had of course been desperately hoped for. Since that wish did not come to pass, however, Catherine now finds herself slipping into the abyss, as there is no doubt in her mind that this is it, that this is what her master has warned her about for a year now. Much more than a mere thought of Tristan’s anger and fury therefore suffocatingly thrives within her, as she falls, although she nevertheless manages to also be most resentful that her attendance at this “stupid” weekend play is what will seal her end.

Feeling so utterly small and inconsequential, Tristan’s female lowers her eyes and sees one of her master’s hands wave away her temporary bodyguard. As the man takes his leave, her own hand closes upon the small bag that she still holds, the one that this man gave her when she felt that she might throw up, a sensation that has now vastly increased.

Catherine’s mind now entertains no thoughts of the maimed non-refundable, nor thoughts of the tongue that still lies on the floor in the corridor, that is most unnaturally no longer in the possession of the one who was born with it, and who is now away. Neither is there guilt anymore at the absence of such thoughts, since all that now fully possesses Tristan’s female are thoughts of the wicked, wicked storm that is coming her way. The wind rising from it, as well as from Catherine’s fall, press hard upon her chest.

“Why won’t you look at me, Lovely?” Tristan inquires, much too calmly for the calm to be real, as Catherine sees it, and so, just the calm before the storm. “Lovely, why won’t you look at me?” Her master repeats.

Look up! Healer warns.

Snowball’s chance, at the bottom of that hill, Catherine sends back, her spirit, crushed, and her head therefore without the strength to obey healer.  

“Answer me,” Tristan demands.

He wants me to answer him, which means that he doesn't care anymore what my answering will do to my art, to his designs in my face. So, it’s a certainty, then, that he’s no longer interested in the come-totem contest, and that it’s all over. It truly is, Catherine continues to process. How quickly he’s forgotten his designs. How quickly preferring me dead has become his priority. Because he doesn’t want a treacherous mind, of course. Because he knows, now, that I betrayed him. I believe firmly that there’s nothing that he’s incapable of, and since we’re currently outside the official bounds of play, and alone, then what he’ll do to me . . .

I warned you. I warned you not to lie to him, and . . .

Catherine begins to tremble, blocks healer out, and instinctively backs away from her master, which only adds to his fury.

“Have you thrown out the rule book altogether, Lovely?” Tristan snarls at her.

As Catherine nervously shakes her head no, she once more feels the reaction of some of the art upon her neck, but resolves that concern about designs cracking, or peeling or snapping, must now be downgraded to minimal priority, since Tristan is now physically and verbally in her face, and since there is consequently so much more at play. And yet, a part of her then vetoes that resolve, and her head ends its shaking.

“Even though you know how much I hate you altering my art and designs, I can see that you’ve spoken already, Lovely, since some of you isn’t as it should be, isn’t as I designed it. As I designed you. So then, you didn’t plead for that woman’s tongue -- perhaps even for her very life since she may yet bleed to death -- but when it came to your own a--, then d--n my art, uh? Did you try to use those loathsome female manipulative wiles on your guard? Answer me, Lovely, even though you’ll damage my art some more.”

“I . . .” Catherine attempts. Words, however, are difficult to form in this tempest. “I . . .” She tries again.

“Enough. Just one word out of your mouth and I want to clobber you,” her master cuts her off with, his face accentuating his words, not that Catherine sees. But she feels the effect fully.

Tristan’s female therefore steps further away from her master, since his tone, his bearing, and his words have now made her survival instincts fall in line like soldiers in order to defend her against the very one that healer previously referred to as her own military man. Unfamiliar with this region, however, her guards back her up against a wall, literally, and, after Tristan swiftly reaches for one of her wrists to stop her from hitting this wall, his rough capture instantly expands just as she expected it to, since he applies much pressure to what he has just secured.

“Look at me,” he then repeats, his body almost against hers and unrelenting in its dark menace, as the wrist that it grabbed to stop her from ramming her master’s designs into the wall behind her continues to be its cruelly ill-treated captive, squeezed and much pained.

Catherine’s breathing remains rapid and audible, her chest, painful across the whole of its territory, and they, along with all of the parts of her that have been forced into such reactions all weekend, that have been pained and aggrieved over the last two days, now all consider going on strike, right here and right now, fully, no matter what the final outcome. Her glistening eyes, however, squelch that uprising as they assume control and finally make the trek up to her master’s, demanding that all of her stand behind them. Their exchange with Tristan’s is brief, since the man in the suit who guarded Catherine a moment ago returns.

“Tristan, a word?” He asks, just as another master and his weekend submissive arrive on scene.

Tristan glares into his female’s eyes before stepping away, before leaving her without a guard, this time, which is not lost on her. “If you’re not here when I come back, I’ll find you and squeeze the life out of you,” he warns her, without turning to look back at her.

What more could there possibly be? What do I do?

You don’t run, that’s for sure, healer advises.

I don’t? I don’t take advantage of my last chance? Catherine returns, as she spins upon herself, as a part of her explores the possibility of escape, the possibility of an attempt.

It’s no chance at all, healer firmly reminds her.

He doesn’t care now, leaving me here all alone. He doesn’t care what happens to me. 

Maybe he knows the master who just arrived, healer attempts. Maybe he trusts him.

No. He’s decided what he’s going to do to me, so nothing else matters anymore.

As Catherine spins around again, her eyes find the master and his plaything not because she is interested in either one of them, but because her mind’s request for the information for information’s sake has finally gone through. When she sees that the non-refundable is the woman whom she became upset with merely because the submissive was looking at her, the woman whose stare burned through her when she looked away, the woman whom she threatened to take care of later -- before she took the words back, of course --  different emotions wash over her. Speak of the devil, also comes to her mind, since this very woman was recently referred to when healer mistook the maimed non-refundable who was previously in the corridor and who taunted Catherine with having been intimate with Tristan, for the woman currently in the hallway.

“Time,” she hears screamed out in her head, as she looks into the non-refundable’s eyes. An ear then becomes bodiless, a tongue, before blood red briefly veils her mind. “Time,” she then hears once more, before the word echoes over and over again.

Timeless! Catherine soon returns to it, screaming the word out as loud as she can within her mind, to drown out the echo. Timeless . . . She then repeats, considering the word some more.

Catherine, enough! Pay attention! Now! Healer powerfully warns.

Sensing urgency, Tristan’s female quickly withdraws from within herself just in time to see the non-refundable rush by her master -- who is completely taken off guard by his weekend submissive’s behaviour because he is so very intensely interested in Catherine --  and proceed madly towards her. As shaken as she currently is, Catherine nevertheless instinctively reaches for a foot-high statue off a decorative table close to the wall that she backed herself against, and swings it powerfully at the woman’s head, when the latter aims to butt it into her. Tristan’s female is then quick to get out of the woman’s way, first when the non-refundable briefly remains in forward motion following the hit, and then again when the weekend submissive drops to the floor, knocked out cold.

Eyes on the woman, Catherine then freezes, as the gravity of what she just did is processed. The sight of blood exiting the non-refundable’s head and pooling upon the floor then renders Tristan’s female’s hand powerless, and its weakened fingers consequently allow the statue to slip out of it, obliging it to follow the woman down. The object’s forced introduction to the floor creates a loud, echoey sound, and, just as the fallen submissive’s master is about to speak, Tristan swiftly turns the corner to investigate what he just heard.

Catherine’s master immediately observes the physical trauma that the weekend plaything suffered, and is then surprised to see upon his female’s face not the terror that owned it a moment ago, but a demeanour just as powerful, just as cold, and just as callous as he knows his own face to often disclose to the world. His eyes are therefore drawn to remain there, as his mind now processes as well.

The numbers didn’t change. They didn’t change, so every group had twenty-five masters, during the mini-contest, even if a master died during the second sleep cycle, and even if a true escaped, and her master is no doubt away after her. Performing professionals stepped in, blended in, not just so the racing would be fair, but so women wouldn’t notice that something happened, so they wouldn’t need to be told why they were racing in a group of 24, for example. So they wouldn’t know to ask questions, to demand answers. Masters could’ve made up an excuse, like a master suffering from heartburn, but . . . While there were still replacements, smudged canvases weren’t redirected to the abstract competition, which maintained the illusion that every woman had to be so very careful with her art and designs in order not to be punished, and in order to get her reward, whether pay or something else, but after the pool of extra non-refundables dried up, that’s when women learned about the abstract competition, that’s when, little by little, they learned about the real rules.

Enough, healer warns.

When masters still had a choice and didn’t have to go to the abstract competition with their smudged canvas, with their altered art and designs, where did all the disqualified non-refundables, the ones out of the big contest before the pool of extras dried up, go?

Catherine, it’s too dangerous for you to slip away right now, healer warns. So snap out of it

The woman who died because of the fixative, she was replaced, Catherine, however, persists. Just replaced. Just like that.

Catherine.

Just like I’ll be. Not here, but once he’s out there again.

Your face, Catherine.

What about my face?

It’s not yours. Be yourself again, and return your attention to the room, healer replies.

Of course it’s not mine: he’s all over it now. And . . .  I’m angry. With all of it. With everything. I’m furious. So . . .

That woman attacked you. You had to defend yourself. You weren’t being cold, careless, cruel. That’s not the nature of your power.

What power? What power do I have? That supposed, so-called feminine power? Catherine mockingly returns.

Tristan . . .

The power of bouncy fat? Catherine cuts him off. Toys have no power

Tristan has returned and is demanding your attention.

So much demands my attention and doesn’t get it. Let him take a number, wait in line. I’m fine right here. In here.

Catherine, your master demands your attention.

Whatever.

Catherine, he’s more powerful than you.

He fell and I came tumbling after him. Yep, that’s male power all right. And the foolishness, the folly, the outright stupidity that we all live in because of it . . .

Catherine, out!

“Hey, Lovely. Lovely, look at me,” Tristan continues to attempt to draw his female to him, to pull her out, away, sensing the possible magnitude, significance of what just happened, and therefore now very much wanting Catherine’s eyes off the woman she just clobbered. “Drawing blood’s not a big deal. Especially not this blood. Hers. Hey, Lovely. Catherine. Let it go.”

Catherine. Catherine, healer attempts the same.

A moment more and Tristan’s female returns her attention to the fallen, to the scene before her. Her face is instantly her own again as she does, and, therefore, it is much aggrieved, much distressed.

Was she a . . . a jealous b-t-h, like you said you might release on me, Tristan? But did you even have time to send for one to punish me? I struck without thinking. I . . .

You defended yourself and Tristan’s designs, healer interrupts.

Why did she do that? All the women were calmer, Catherine considers.

Pay attention to your master.

No, he wouldn’t use one of them to harm me, because he wouldn’t deprive himself of punishing me. He’s been looking forward to this moment for a year now, after all, hasn’t he? No doubt fantasizing about it. My “accident.” How many husbands fantasize the same? They go to wh-res, to mistresses and strike in that way, if in no other physical one, killing their spouse inside, and knowing very well that they do. Enjoying it so, that betrayal. That demeaning, that degrading, that belittling. Just loving all the lying to and the manipulation of the idiotic woman who loves them. And men’s own children are never, ever a reason for men to make sacrifices of the dick kind, of the male ego kind.

No files. Stop it.

If the words I’ve heard fit, then . . .  And if the ballroom is the world, then where are we now, in this corridor? In this place of my end. And . . . why did she do that? Why did she attack? All the women were calmer, Catherine repeats to herself. I should’ve let her take me down. She’d still be alive.

You might not be.

“Catherine, look at me.”

“I . . . I saved one woman, but then I did this,” Tristan’s female carefully whispers, before shaking her head and paying no attention to the telltale pulls as she does. Her eyes glisten.

“How did you ever come to think that you were saving that female?” Tristan is quick to pick up on.

“I . . .  I believed that I could, if I just . . . if I just . . .” She stops.

“You’ll both be punished now, because rules must be obeyed. Breaking them during the last mini-contest was an exception that I know you clearly understood, so don’t . . . ”

“She said that her master would kill her,” Catherine softly interrupts.

“That seems excessive, but a master is a master.”

Silence.

“What did I tell you about caring, Lovely?” Tristan then reminds her. “Now you’ve displeased me, again, and I have to punish you, again. Why do you keep doing things that make me have to punish you? The only silver lining here is that your guard just told me that, as soon as I walked away, you asked if I was being told something about you, so, it’s weighed heavily on your mind, then, having broken that rule.”

“Of course it has.”

Silence.

“She’s not dead,” the other master in the corridor then declares, referring to his weekend plaything.

“Uh, have someone fetch a medical attendant,” Tristan soon offers in turn, addressing the words to the man who was briefly Catherine’s guard, and who also looked around the corner when Tristan did to investigate the loud sound.

One of this man’s eyebrows replies in one way, but he nevertheless looks down the other hallway and calls out for such an attendant.

“It’s not like she needs much of a brain anyway, to do what she does day in and day out,” the other master points out, his eyes on Catherine, whose own remain on the fallen woman.

“Lovely, eyes on me. Now,” Tristan commands her.

Seconds tick by.

“Catherine, look at me.”

When his female’s eyes finally do leave the figure on the floor, Tristan immediately observes yet another change within them. She’s escaped. The female on the floor is out of mind, he is unhappy to realize. He also soon realizes by the noticeable struggle of Catherine’s eyes that her vision is blurring.

“I may not have another kiss, sir, because . . . because my face is now . . . It’s now . . . ” Catherine whispers, in an airy tone that Tristan has never heard from her before.           

“Hey, how many sirs do you see?” He tests her.

“My face is now . . .”

“Catherine, how many sirs do you see?” Tristan interrupts.

“I . . . I have only one sir, sir,” she softly replies, her eyes still within his no matter if they see him well or not.

“I have to get back, unless you need me,” the returned suit reminds Tristan. 

“Stay on it,” Catherine’s master orders him. The man nods his head and leaves. “Lovely. Hey, stay with me,” Tristan then adds to the mush before him. 

Is this state of hers more likely to get me what I want or less likely? He then contemplates. I have to punish her, because she shouldn’t have broken that rule, but if clobbering that female keeps her mind in a blur of sorts, then what will that punishment add? Desirable or not? The unforeseen this weekend has been most irritating, not just annoying.

Two medical attendants turn the corner to treat the woman on the floor, but they are immediately made to focus their attention on Tristan’s female instead. Thus, as Catherine falls, after imagining from deep within herself the pressure of a syringe piercing through skin and muscle in a most uncomfortable place upon her body and then feeling the unpleasant warmth of a foreign substance entering her body, these attendants stop her from hitting the floor, protecting her art as best as they can as they grab her after she has lost consciousness. They then look at her master for instructions.

“Lie her down somewhere,” he instructs.

“Her art?” One of the attendants inquires.

After Tristan shrugs a shoulder, the men begin to walk away, and he and the master who remains in the corridor then exchange a look that makes it clear that they both know that the non-refundable whom Catherine hit is dead. They both knew instantly, in fact, right off, with just one look at the blood.

“Good riddance,” the master comments. “And your submissive did react in self-defence, Tristan, since she was rushed by mine. Just so you know.”

Catherine’s master nods his head. Since, after hurrying back into the corridor to investigate the crashing sound, he saw that Catherine was still close to the wall, he instantly deduced as much, that is, that the non-refundable had been the one to approach his female, and not the other way around.

“I’ll inform the host, so you can keep playing,” the master adds.

Silence.

“I’ll take it from here,” Tristan must then inform the man, since he senses that the master might want to follow Catherine. However, just as he wonders if the man will indeed go that far, the master takes one last look at the woman on the floor and shrugs a shoulder. “Buy me a few drinks next weekend and we’ll call it even,” he then takes his leave with.

Tristan frowns as he watches him take his first few steps away.

Was that too easy? He briefly wonders, before hurrying to Catherine.

When Tristan turns the corner into the corridor that leads to the grand hallway, he sees that the attendants are carrying his female into a certain room.

“No. Not in there,” he instructs the men, before his eyes point to another door instead.

Catherine is soon deposited within the room behind that door, where she is carefully positioned.

“Do you want us to give her something to rouse her?” One of the attendants asks.

“No. No more injections.”