SIXTY-SEVEN

Dinner With the Girls

“You three look so very beautiful,” Catherine and the other two true submissives in the buffet room hear the host’s voice compliment them, from behind them, seconds after Catherine has joined her peers. “The most nurtured are always the best behaved.”

Tristan’s female joined the women after they firmly requested that she return her attention to the room, following a succession of yawns possessing her that they could not help but notice. Because of those yawns, Catherine now decisively believes that, if the double dose of the stay-up drug had any effect on her, it has faded. “If,” because when she reflects upon the effect not lasting long -- since she is not one of the fortunate women present this weekend whom the drug helps much -- a part of her believes that the timing of those yawns returning almost as soon as she entered the buffet room like they did was too perfect, and that, therefore, perhaps it really was as she first believed, that is, that the women, that words, kept away those yawns, and not the medicine.

Eating would not lessen the effects of a drug, of course. It would not help me process and eliminate the double dose’s effects more quickly. How ridiculous. As if drinking coffee sobers up someone, makes the alcohol leave their system any faster. I know better. So why did I think that it would? Just something to hold on to, that you whispered? She accuses healer. I’ll be okay, when I get back to Tristan. And when weekend play resumes. I’ll push through. Just do it all.  Pause. Do the stay-up pills work at all on any true submissive, I wonder? It must be the same drug, what non-refundables get and what we do, she considers, when she sees one true, and then the other, yawn as well, and realizes that she has seen more true yawn than non. So, they came in here for something to do as well, I bet, in the hopes that food energy would counter their desire for sleep.

“Just so lovely,” the host stresses.

Do you not sleep? Catherine focuses upon him. Guess you do during master/canvas hours, and combos. No, you probably want to walk around and see the combos, don’t you?

When she turns her head towards the man, a strand of her hair pulls away from its sticky contract with Tristan’s creative material, one that it signed promising to remain in a certain pose. Oops.

“We’re hungry. Or perhaps we fear that we’ll fall asleep, fall to the floor, and ruin our master’s designs, if we don’t do something to stay awake,” Catherine softly tells him, assuming the leadership role, after a moment of silence in the room.

Since the host does not reply, she wonders if the other two women did not speak to him because of some rule that she is unaware of, after she instead wrote off their silence to personal shyness, to personality. Well, he did address me, by commenting the way that he did. He addressed the three of us that way, didn’t he?

“It’s a health hazard for you to approach the food,” he reminds the women.

Catherine is very well aware that submissives are not to approach the tables, and that is why she and the other two women stopped well away from them. She is also aware that submissives are not supposed to feed themselves, but that does not stop her from allowing her eyes to return to hopping here and there along the tables, registering this or that food that her stomach more or less enthusiastically roots for, depending on its likes and its mood. When another yawn sneaks up on her, she sends a hand to contain it, and then almost allows this hand to fall to her upper chest, before the words “art” and “Tristan” flash brightly in her mind to stop her.

I really am tired, she realizes, after coming so close to thoughtlessly allowing this hand to tend to an itch.

“Couldn’t someone serve us a plate, perhaps?” She politely inquires. “Are we held in such low esteem that . . .” She stops, ordering her stubborn lips to cease.

“You are actually held in the highest of esteem, for being true. You should know that and embrace it. My reply to your request would’ve made a non-refundable scream something about herself, all insulted and petty. But not you,” he adds, just as two more true submissives enter the room, ever so lady-like in demeanour -- perhaps even in presence as well -- despite being nude, and covered in creative material.

Oh, there’s nothing wrong with any of this, Catherine thinks to herself, lightly sarcastically, before returning her eyes to the host. Being oh-so tired is like the old, comfortable pair of shoes of the weekend for her, and much of her therefore feels better, in a way, to have slipped them back on, despite the return of the mighty weight of her eyelids, and the related anxiety concerning not ruining Tristan’s art.

“I think that we’re more tired than usual, this weekend,” one of the other two true delicately adds to the host. Her eyes do not remain long in his, just as they should not, especially when her master is not present.

“That’s still lunch laid out, right?” The host asks an attendant, after looking into each of the women’s eyes.

You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Something about being surrounded by other masters’ submissives, while they sleep?

“Yes, sir,” one of the kitchen attendants replies. “But even if we remove all the serving dishes after . . . well, they cannot serve themselves. Masters would complain.”

“My master does not nourish me in one way, and starve me in the other,” a newly arrived true submissive softly points out. She and Catherine helped each other during a body-part guessing round.

“Please ask attendants to make plates for us,” Catherine adds, once more joining together with this woman, for a common goal.

“You won’t just go for it? None of you? The food’s right there, and we wouldn’t dare stop you, restrain you. How could we, without ruining your art? We can drag out noisy non-refundables, when masters are to rest, but you . . . ” He pauses. The women do nothing. “You make up such a small percentage of the females here this weekend, and yet, your presence is so impressive,” he then continues to praise them, as three more true submissives enter. “And you all managed to convince my doorman to grant you egress from the ballroom,” he adds, smiling.

“Passage out,” Catherine whispers to a submissive’s slight frown at the word. She is certain that, if not tired and hungry, the woman would have made sense of the word by way of the sentence. Catherine herself, however, did not even have to think, to know the meaning of the formal word.

When the host looks into her eyes, Tristan’s female wishes that he would stop talking and stroking his ego, which she believes he is doing by continuing to make himself the center of the women’s attention, and allow them food. She then finds herself having to control her face in order to stop a frown and a question from appearing upon it, since, now that the host stands right before her with his attention completely on her in the absence of all masters’, she feels that he perhaps looks familiar.

You’re just tired. Déjà vu is a break in consciousness, a brief glitch in the brain, and when the mind returns online afterwards, it senses that glitch as seeing something that it’s seen before, and it has, but it was in reality just a nanosecond ago that it did, before that brief break, and not some memory ago, healer tells her.

“Serve them,” the host finally commands attendants, after another brief stay in Catherine’s eyes.

“More flies with honey . . .” The submissive who previously collaborated with Tristan’s female whispers to her, as the host walks away.

“Did I use honey?” Catherine whispers back, unsure if she successfully stopped that questioning look, and any and all other inappropriate ones.   

“Honey-sweet softness in tone. You know how that works.”

Within a minute of the host’s command,  attendants are walking along the tables, loading up plates, and thus fulfilling their humanitarian project of feeding the poor, sleepy true submissives. They use serving utensils and take much care in the process, just as if they were serving the wealthy masters themselves.

When the men arrive before the women with heaped plates in hand, each of the females takes one without judging its contents, before thanking its particular handler, server. Once the men are away, however, the women’s eyes then assess the contents of each other’s plates, and quickly and easily come to an agreement of exchange, according to who prefers what food. Once the dishes have changed hands, eating then begins.

“Is that not a thing of beauty?” The host points out to the attendants. He now stands at the other end of the room. “The mind so very much agrees with the eyes,” he further compliments the submissives.

When six more of the true variety enter the room -- six more well-behaved females, as this association sees it -- attendants serve them in the same way, without waiting for the host to command them to do so.             

The women do not speak, as they eat, but once plates are emptied as much as their user will allow them to be, a conversation of sorts resumes. Catherine, however, stays out of the verbal exchange, and soon takes advantage of another opportunity to study her hair, by looking at her faint reflection in a highly polished silver tray that was dropped and left on the floor, for now. When she raises her eyes from it, she sees that the other women are looking at her.

“Should I even inquire?” She ask those eyes, before rolling her own.

“Should we ask you about ours?” One of them replies.

“Good point,” Catherine returns, having no idea how she would describe their designed hair to each owner of a “hairdo,” if she had to.

“Oh, let me take that one,” a woman’s voice from behind half of the gathered true, and whose approach is therefore seen by the other half standing before the first, offers. She is a non-refundable, winged by two others, who have just entered the buffet room.

“It looks better than ours,” a true submissive quickly attempts to hearten Catherine.

“And now listen to a petty, jealous female’s spewing,” another true quietly adds, prepares Catherine with.

“Did you just tell her that her hair can, in any way imaginable, look good, with come all over it?” The non-refundable picks up on. “Just how f---in’ brain damaged are you true play toys?” She adds, stepping closer to the true women, who now instinctively position themselves in one group, all facing the same way, and in no way looking afraid as they do. “You’re standing around, naked, covered in come, eating. Has the reality of that fact been lost on you?” The woman adds to all of them, before looking at Catherine once again. “Just how many times a day does he slap you, that your brain’s hemorrhaging smarts? Oh, I saw him hit you. Tristan Maller. Tsk. Tsk. What would his fans think? Guess he doesn’t make you come a lot, does he? So, are those red marks in your face a part of his winning design, this weekend? And that medical attention, that whole scene when he didn’t let you die, if you were stupid enough to let that get to your head, then you’ve proven my point about that hemorrhaging. It was all about him.”

Dancing “sirs” return to Catherine’s mind, the very worst ones, since they were  spoken voluntarily, after Tristan helped her to breathe again.

“They don’t even butter you up, do they? And you just obey them. ‘Yes, sir.’ An army of one serving the mighty master’s dick with body and mind.”

Let it go. You spoke to Tristan normally, after those “sirs.” And he was himself, healer points out.

“Ugly hair. If you could see clearly just how stupid you look,” the woman adds. “We all look stupid, but the difference is that we -- my side -- we know that it’s stupid, but you don’t. And we get paid and walk away and put all this madness behind us, but you don’t. Your minds are just . . . ”

“Young women are more inclined to want to be submissive because they’re in their prime, and it’s in their nature to be overtaken in order to produce offspring,” one of the true submissives calmly replies. “It’s therefore acceptable to them, by nature, if the male’s worth it. Older women, on the other hand, are meant to be the caregivers, meant to be that very village that it takes to raise the offspring of young women, and so, those women are no longer inclined to submit. They have work to do. You whores, however, would never be mistaken for submissively young, or for someone wise with purpose,” the submissive concludes, jabbing. “And so, no man wants you for anything real. And never will. We’re where we want to be. Most of the time. You’re not. Ever.”

“What world are you from that any of this here is real?!” The non-refundable snaps at her. “And what would your master do to you, if he woke up and your art was ruined?” She then threatens.

“Kill you,” the true female replies, without skipping a beat.

Catherine’s eyes find hers and then return to the non-refundable’s. Are there others like Tristan, then?

“Good masters are hard to come by, especially in young men, who usually care not a thing about another person’s wellbeing, emotionally and physically. You’ve never met men like our masters,” another true adds.

“Being a submissive takes all choices and decisions off a woman’s shoulders, since she’s told how to do everything, and that’s because she’s so stupid that she can’t do anything on her own, for herself,” a non-refundable counters.

“Our way is so much smarter than your way,” a true submissive once more challenges.

Some true want to be exactly where they are, and as they are. Well, maybe not at a weekend like this in particular, but overall . . . Catherine reminds herself.

“No, stupid.”

“You screw how many men a day? So who’s stupid there?” The true retorts.

“You’re taught and trained how to do everything exactly just as your master likes it!” The non-refundable taunts back.

“And how many men taught you, to please all men? So, again, who’s stupid?”

“Unlike you, we’ve never felt stress due to society expecting us to allow an endless succession of men at our orifices, and due to society expecting us to be the unpaid whores that all teen girls and young women are now expected to be,” another true joins in. ‘We have just one master to please, a possessive master. Just one set of rules. One set of lessons. One way of doing things. And that’s actually a pleasant feeling, for most women, but one that’s impossible to get, now, through traditional marriage, because there are no rules anymore for husbands, and that’s what makes it impossible. But there are rules for Dominants, however. And a collective of Dominants that keeps an eye on one another. So, if the master is serious about this life . . . ”

“God, there’s blood everywhere, the hemorrhaging of your minds is so severe, critical! All that your masters do and expect is always for themselves! They’re the most selfish men I’ve ever met, gathered here in numbers to make it look like it’s all okay, what they want and do! But what are you really getting out of this? Saw little miss thing here come at her master’s hand and she almost had a heart attack, because it just never happens, does it, that it’s about you? For you? You’re nothing!” The non-refundable nastily adds to Catherine. “And he feels even more that he dominates you when he makes you suffer, when he makes you do something that you don’t want to be doing, like everything this weekend! Your masters are huge toddlers, and so, it always has to be about them! They never grew up! Seriously, what do you get out of all this! Or, is it that that master at the wall outside was right, when he told you that he knew that you actually liked going down that line of men, no matter what you said, no matter what was on your face?”

Catherine abruptly steps towards the speaker. She was one of the whores with Tristan, while I was . . . She overheard? Did he? There’s no way that I liked it, she adds to herself, knowing those words to be the truth. She then gets a hold of herself and halts any further action to her initial quick advance.

“Yeah, thought so. Don’t you dare stand up for yourself and end up scraping that come off your body. Him. And don’t think too hard either, because you might lose that last little piece of your mind that cowers somewhere in that head of yours, cringing, trembling, so afraid to be sucked out, crushed. It would be so great if none of the masters ever woke up again. But they will, and then they’ll be back to behaving as if their come is the greatest thing ever. More screwing everywhere, more orders to please your master’s dick, or else. More money shots on all the screens, all over the place. Come totems are the ultimate monument to male selfishness and ego, to their pride of screwing and screwing, and you know that it’s all about them, even if they want you idiots to believe that it’s about you in any way.”

“You have so many masters -- if only briefly -- ones that you yourself please in exactly the way that they want, in exchange for money. And you want us to believe that that makes you better, smarter?” Another true counters, reiterates.

“He screwed me, your master, while you were at work on my master. I felt him long and hard inside me, on top of me,” the non-refundable continues, attacks Catherine with.

“A lie,” Tristan’s female is quick to reply. 

“Up the ass wasn’t allowed yet, and he screwed me. You wouldn’t know, because you were too busy being upset turning tricks. He was in and out of pussies, actually, like men like. Pussy to mouth, to pussy, to pussy, to mouth. And again. Now, that’s a combination indeed, for a man.”

When Catherine does not reply because she cannot absolutely be certain that Tristan did not break his usual rule of not connecting in that way -- since he does break it on occasion, and since she did not have her eyes on him much when she was indeed busy with the other masters, during the midnight special that this non-refundable is referring to -- the paid woman is quite happy with herself. 

“Come on. Say it. How he always does as he wants,” she further taunts. “And you obviously don’t like that he does. It’s certainly not something in it for you, that he does. I know that he was up your ass before the ban was lifted, before the host pulled that last trick out of the bag, so I wonder if he ever f--ks your pussy.”

Catherine does not reply, as her punishment for not undressing quickly as Tristan commanded fades in and out of her mind.

“Did he use a wipe, when he went from ass to your mouth?” The woman adds.

“Oh, he does screw her, because someone heard that being in her pussy is like entering many mouths, one after the other, like smug rings felt all along a man’s shaft, like pursed lips all along it. And as for the threshold, in and out . . . ” Another non-refundable begins.

“Shut up,” a true submissive snaps at her.

“Now ask me how I know,” the non-refundable nevertheless directs at Catherine.

“Wouldn’t you love that,” Tristan’s female replies, her eyes falling firmly into the woman’s.

“What did you get for Christmas? Anything?”

Catherine frowns.

“Nothing, uh? Wow, that’s love. He didn’t even let you go shopping for an outfit, or something? Oh, I guess that he always dresses you, uh? You’re just too stupid to do it yourself.”

“She’s so lost. Too bitter now,” a true submissive reassures Catherine.

“Is your master like God, to you? And this god can kick you, beat you down, screw you up royally, and never listen to your prayers -- which he sees as whining -- never give a damn about what you want and need while he demands and does exactly what he wants and likes, and then expects you to absolutely adore him for it? Wow, men made in His image indeed, uh, your masters?”

“All men,” a true female points out. “And the men out there, they’re much worse. I’m not the religious kind, so I clearly see that men wrote God and His attributes to be like their own. They didn’t know how to reach beyond themselves, so they couldn’t compose it better. It couldn’t be bigger than control and power, and obedience and worship.”

“Your master never lets you have you want. He doesn’t care. He lets you suffer. He makes you suffer. Your tears don’t matter to him, don’t affect him. You speak up, and he kicks you down and is in a mood for days. Do you hear how stupid that sounds? It sounds stupid when it’s God doing it, and you still have to thank Him and worship Him no matter what, in church every week, and so, when it’s a man doing it, it’s even more stupid,” the non-refundable insists, before pausing. “He f----d me, stupid,” she then repeats, since none of her words are getting a reaction from Catherine.

“If a master were to have bottles of come hidden on him to cheat, that would be so bad, because the contest has to be fair, and nothing can be done in the dark or in private, but cheating on a woman, that’s fine. Just don’t cheat in a come contest,” another of the non-refundables adds, making Catherine frown, since Tristan did say something like the first part of the woman’s words. “Yeah. I know him too,” she then adds, sneering.

“So you overheard. So what?” A true sticks up for Catherine, for her peer, after putting two and two together. “Stop fishing for a reaction.”

“A young woman screws men and it doesn’t feel right until the right man comes along. And then, the hang-ups and the disgust all go away, with him. But sex is the same. It’s the man who makes the difference:  it’s more, then, and that’s what makes it great. But you wouldn’t know. And if you ever did know, long ago, once upon a time, you’ve forgotten, whore,” a true submissive further adds, to the big mouth.

“You must’ve been abused, as a child. Well, take a f---in’ number and wait with your violin,” the non-refundable returns.

“F--k you.”

“You just give, but we take, as in men’s money. So who’s the obvious winner here? We get something. And some of us will get more, so much more, because Tristan dropped his persona, this weekend, and we all saw . . .  ”

“So, what’s your theme?” Another non-refundable asks Catherine, after taking a step towards her. Having a woman’s eyes look at her art does not usually bother Catherine in the way that it does when masters do, but in this very moment, however, it enrages her “Oh, as if it’s a private thing between Tristan and you  . . .”

“Her theme is obviously things that she did last year. We should take notes. More info to sell to magazines, when we leave here. ‘A year as Tristan Maller’s submissive whore,’” another non-true suggests.

When true submissives either smirk at those words, or allow a muted, short spurt of laughter to be born in their throat and then to die just as quickly, Catherine feels somewhat betrayed by the women, until one of the true attaches words to their reaction, and reminds her of what she herself already gave some thought to, this weekend.

“Oh, who’s hemorrhaged herself all the way to brain death now, to believe that anything from this weekend will ever get leaked out there,” this true snaps back at the non-refundables.