ONE HUNDRED  

Speechless

“What? Now you don’t want to see me try? How typically female not to be able to make up your mind, not to mention being defiant without the power to back it up,” the confronted master snaps at his weekend submissive after Tristan has handed him a tool from his kit bag that could be used to carry out the master’s threat against her, against her tongue, a tool that most definitely does not belong in any designing kit.

Catherine’s eyes have not ceased pleading with her master, and continue to do so even now, even with the tool already transferred to the other master’s hand.

Why has Tristan been carrying that thing with him all weekend, and how did it find its way into a kit bag that was handed to him by an attendant and that should’ve been the same as every other master’s? But if every master had one, then Tristan wouldn’t have had to give that man his, since the man has his kit bag with him. Plus, the master wouldn’t have been so pleased to see it.

“’Love cuts just like a knife. You make the kn-fe feel good,’” Tristan sings to his female as his reply to her non-verbal pleading. His eyes are firmly into hers.

Stop being stupid. Stop him. Isn’t he going to tell on you? You broke an important rule, surely, having that thing with you. What else do you have in that bag? In a compartment that I didn’t know was there, she nervously adds. She is anxious not for her master getting caught, however, but for the non-refundable, of course. 

“You’re truly insane!” The weekend plaything roars at the man before her, as she backs away, all defiance gone from her now, and so small indeed, so utterly without power, when measured against the spectre of male aggression that is threatening her.

When another master grabs the non-refundable from behind her, her art no consideration at all, both the woman and Catherine are startled, since neither noticed this master’s arrival. As the non-refundable’s gasp at being unexpectedly seized echoes in the corridor, Catherine desperately attempts to once more make contact with her own master.

I can’t remain silent! I have to talk, to plead for her, to talk sense into them!

If you do, Tristan’s designs on your face will be ruined. They’re important designs, Catherine. He’ll be furious. You’ll be punished. Severely.

I can’t let them do this!

You don’t have the power to stop them, even if you talk. You have no power, Catherine, healer returns.

No power to talk sense into the utterly, unreservedly senseless! My conscience, if I don’t at least try . . .

What will you tell him? “Please don’t hurt her? This is insane?” Pretend that you’ve told him, and that he ignored you. There. Save yourself.

How cold!

Catherine, there are three of them, and they want what they want.

Which is what? Her pain, her . . .

Don’t say a word, healer interrupts. There’s no point.

With the woman now restrained, it is easy for her weekend master to advance towards her, tool in hand.

“Stop! Please!” The woman begs, as she continues to struggle. “Sir! I’m sorry I said such awful things, sir! Please!”

“You won’t be able to wag that tongue anymore. We’re doing the whole world a huge favour” her master replies, deliciously.

It’s like we’ve gone back in time and women are once again just . . . Catherine begins, before she halts her mere thinking and steps towards her master, taking action to get his attention, but not ruining his designs by speaking this demand.

“Step back,” Tristan firmly warns her. Even though he is not looking in her direction and is wrapped up in the scene unfolding before him, he has nevertheless detected his female’s movement. Her intent. “You heard what she said: she dared her master. She asked for it. If he didn’t accept that dare, then what kind of man would he be?”

A human one! Catherine screams at them all.

“Lovely, your breathing’s making your chest rise and fall quickly, with too much movement. You wouldn’t want to ruin my designs,” her master evenly adds, when he senses that his first warning had little effect on the nervous reaction of his female’s body to what is about to unfold.

No! She screams, as the master positions himself to go through with the horror.

“Wise, not to say a word,” Tristan sends her way, without looking at her still. “So wise, Lovely.”

I’m just as insane as they are, not to scream out! What’s wrong with me? I care so much about Tristan’s designs, about a man’s designs on me, that I remain silent? I really am “crazy” glued, then! I’m insane!

You’re sane and smart not to, because it would accomplish nothing but get you punished, healer insists.

If this is what every woman tells herself and does when . . . This is so wrong! I can speak. Nothing’s stopping me, physically, but . . .

But your voice, your words can’t and won’t change a thing about what is about to happen. Only a master perhaps could. But it’s not in your power.

Why isn’t it? And why isn’t the host turning the corner? She’s so loud, and he doesn’t come?

Because he doesn’t want to know or doesn’t care, healer returns. In the end, he works for the masters, as do all the attendants, everyone who enforces the rules, and who punishes.

Do you agree with what is happening, healer?

I have no opinion. I just want you safe. If you plead for her, you will change a  great deal about what will happen to you, but not a thing about what will happen to her.

That’s just that easy, cold and stupid, typically male “better him than me” crap!

You don’t even like her, Catherine.

That doesn’t mean that I want her hurt! Has the world really gotten to the point where, if one doesn’t like someone, then one doesn’t care for them in the bigger sense, in the bigger picture? There have to be limits to what not liking someone, or even hating someone, allows us to justify happening to them! But do I actually expect such sense, such a promise from the cold, empty, superficial male world that’s all around me?!

Her voice will be literally taken away, and you will keeps yours in check.

Catherine’s anger overflows and she consequently takes one more step towards Tristan.

Stop this, please! I . . .  I truly can’t get more from you, because you truly don’t have it to give! Every hint of . . . Every small sighting or sense of . . . It’s just not there! Nothing is! Just all in my mind, all imagined! You . . .

“Stand back, Lovely,” Tristan warns her, her determination not undetected.

Not that I want it from you! “More” doesn’t even still exist, does it? When men’s poetry was felt, when what they wrote of love was true and not hypocrisy, not hatred, then . . . Those great poets of the past, I . . . I remember. I . . . I remember feeling the power of human passion and love and care . . . I nurtured it. But then the fakes took over, just playing and using women, hating, and having lost all sense of humanity because the absence of empathy, healer, makes it impossible for anyone to be human! Now there is no such poetry anymore, and so much worse in its place! Women “ensnared,” like that master said, but in no way “secured.” Not in the good way. Not anymore. Find me true, human, male poets, healer, in this day and age, please! Heterosexual ones. Can I be proven wrong? Is there a chance in hell? The pain is so very harsh, cruel to me!

You remember what? Catherine, calm down.

Catherine, however, takes another step towards her master, most defiantly.

“Enough,” Tristan snaps at her, his emotions rising sharply as well, in reaction to hers.

His female, however, takes one more step.

When Tristan finally turns his face towards her and glares at her, she glares right back.

“Have you lost your mind? I warned you.”

Catherine’s eyes remain in his.

“Punishment, then,” he declares, most menacingly.

Since the appalling, horrendous moment is imminent and since keeping her eyes in her master’s will allow her to see it happen behind him, Catherine looks away. Punishment does not register on her mind at all, but her failure to stop what is about to happen  overwhelms it.

That was stupid. You respected his designs, didn’t use your literal voice, but your body’s was just as loud. You . . .

Shut up, Catherine hushes healer.

Tristan does not force his female to watch, so there is no need for him to tell her to keep her eyes opened. As he watches, however, he does not blink even once.

Feeding darkness, Catherine thinks to herself a second before a bloodcurdling scream makes her jump, as it possesses the hallway from top to bottom, near and afar, through its echoes.

The vocalized horror of this suffering, of this act, pushes anger away from the steering wheel, in Catherine’s mind, since she is thoroughly shaken, shocked, which delegates leadership to different emotions.

When her master steps before her to prevent blood from the non-refundable from reaching her, that shock, however, still manages to at least call for a shoving of this shield, but anger and fury, and not numbing, paralyzing shock, would still have to be in the driver’s seat for that wish to even have a chance at being carried out against Tristan. The blood lands on Catherine’s master’s shirt instead of on her, of on his canvas, and neither does he flinch, blink then.

He’s protecting you, not just his designs, healer asserts.

The sound of the non-refundable hitting the floor after being allowed to slip from her captor’s grip makes Catherine feel even worse, and then, just when she believes that she cannot feel any sicker over what just happened, the noises that begin to reach her ears, the awful aura that their continuity soon creates around the woman as she lies so small, so insignificant on the floor, make her skin crawl and her chest ache. The non-refundable’s tongue lies beside her.

Where will she be taken now? Where will she be relocated to, when this weekend ends, if she survives? No medical attendant will come to her, of course. None will be called for. It’s one thing for women used by a master to have to move on and to have to leave so much of themselves behind, including their children -- all so those masters can move on to their next plaything and pleasure, and so their ego can be certain of their everlasting complete power and control -- but for the women to be physically and therefore psychologically maimed, to be forever thus changed as well is . . . Is there no limit to what can be taken from these women?