THIRTY 

Play Must Go On

During the master/canvas hour, Tristan observes the masters around him as they first contribute to, and then work on, their canvas. He is once again lying on the cot, while Catherine stands behind her pedestal, which is in front of the table in her master’s station. She is most certainly off this pedestal, and in more ways than one. As her eyes also find sex scenes and climax scenes everywhere around her, her own art, however, remains untouched. She remains untouched, because of the mini-contest tie-breaker at the top of the hour, because of her wiping Tristan, her master, off herself.

After some minutes of awkwardness for Catherine, since Tristan continues, on the one hand, to calmly observe -- as in making a point to ignore  his submissive -- but also, on the other, to happily scrutinize activities around him as if sitting with a remote control and flipping through adult channels, the submissive from the station behind Tristan’s takes the few steps necessary to reach Catherine.

“Please tell your master that something is very wrong with mine,” she nervously tells Tristan’s female, since everyone else around her work station is very much unavailable at the moment, busy in a way that should not be interrupted.

Catherine takes two steps towards Tristan, certain, however, that he heard. “Tr . . . Master,“ she corrects herself, remembering where she is, “something is wrong with the master in the station behind ours. Yours.”

“Don’t care,” he replies, without turning his face to look at her.

“If it were you . . . May I leave the station to advise a contest attendant?”

“If it were me, would you waste time asking a female to advise her master, or would you run for an attendant yourself, to help me, to save me perhaps, and just take the punishment afterwards, if it were to come your way? True submissive doesn’t mean stupid,” Tristan snaps at her. “Tell me, Lovely, would you allow me to be wiped off the face of the Earth as easily as you wiped me off you, during the contest?” He quickly adds. “Which was most certainly not lovely . . . ”

He’s not “even.” He’s . . . Catherine sees.

Why would he ever need to be?  Healer interrupts. He can freely swing from one extreme to another, without repercussion. He can do what he wants when caught up in extreme anger, and then swing to being purely sexual and then demand whatever he wants from you, and, after that, he can choose to sulk to the extreme, to wrap himself around needing something from you, even if petty. And nothing will change between you two because you can’t call him out on any of those swings. He can just enjoy the ride, and you have to take it. It’s not that he’s different than most men. It’s that you can’t refuse to accept what he does. And, being a master hushes any whisper that another man might hear in his head about being reasonable.

Catherine takes a few steps towards the edge of the station.

“Don’t,” Tristan warns her.

“This is a weekend of fun and games for masters. Not one of death,” she replies.

Tristan is quickly on his feet. If it were not for his art upon her, he would send her flying back towards her pedestal, but since she might hit the table there, trip on it, and fall, he instead grabs her by her hair, which is a necessity, if he wishes to restrain her now, since her arms are mostly designed. “I said no,” he barks at her.

A contest attendant happens upon the master in distress, which Catherine and Tristan both realize when they hear a male voice call for medical attention. The submissive rushes back to her master’s station, but Tristan does not release his right away.

“I’m sorry,” Catherine softly says.

“What for?”

“For . . . For hating the redhead.”

Tristan did not expect such an answer. He releases Catherine, but keeps his lips next to one of her ears. “Well, I like the redhead,” he counters.

“Go where you please, and do as you please,” she dutifully replies.

“I do. And that you would forget that for even a second makes me think that that old-timer master must have you all wrong.”

“It’s the pills,” they hear an attendant say, from the station behind Tristan’s.

When Tristan takes the steps necessary in order to investigate by sight, Catherine cautiously, hesitantly, does so as well, and when her master’s eyes find her, they do not order her to retreat. They then return to the scene now before them. The contest attendant is speaking to two other masters there, and not to the submissive.

A medical attendant arrives to examine the master lying on the cot. When he draws back the sheet, everyone sees that the man’s appendage and lower abdomen are very much misshapen. This swollen malformation causes male onlookers pain just to look at. Since this is a sexually-themed weekend, no care is taken to hide the man’s genitals from anyone’s view, but his submissive had nevertheless instinctively thrown the sheet over him before seeking help.

“The drug pools water, fluid, in that area of the body in order to create that abundant creative material. There isn’t enough room in the stretched out scrotum, so the lower abdomen retains the fluid as well, and when that fluid isn’t spread out evenly, then a swelling like this occurs, and the painkiller included in the pills that masters take helps with sac pain, but not with this kind of swelling,” the medical attendant explains to the masters.

“So, he’s bloated? Like women are when they’re about to have their period? Water retention, but not done right?” A non-refundable asks.

“Back to your station,” an attendant warns her.

“Does it go away?” A master asks. “What’s the damage?”

“You should stop competing,” the attendant tells the master on the cot, as he retrieves a large syringe from his medical bag. The master does not reply. Perhaps acquiesces by his silence. Men want to look away as the procedure to help the man is undertaken, but there are several female eyes upon them, daring them to be brave.

Once the fluid has been removed, the master dismisses the extreme pain that he was experiencing just moments ago, and no longer wants to leave the weekend party. All that is happening everywhere around him, and now on the screens as well -- which are once again playing adult material to help masters with their competitive task as the weekend wears on -- remind him of what he will be missing if he leaves. A reaction something like women forgetting the trials of pregnancy as well as the excruciating pain of labour and delivery when they decide to have more kids. Basic natures at play, going against all reason.

The contest attendant does not mention that the man would receive a full refund on the costly fee that all masters paid to participate in this weekend’s event since he knows that money is not on the man’s mind at this moment.

“If this happens again, it’ll be worse,” the medical attendant, however, warns the master.

“Can it make me impotent?” The man asks.

“Probably not. The pain will be more severe, however, and you could damage your abdominal wall, and bowel.”

“But it won’t make me impotent.”

“Probably not, but the risk is that . . .” The medical attendant stops. He has to adjust logic here, reason, since this man will not put his health first. He will put his manhood’s happiness first. Without those pills, no man would be up to this unnatural behaviour. But since they do exist . . .

“Ooh. Rimming. In the mood for some of that,” one of the masters who was watching announces, after observing the couple at a work station close by. What he has just witnessed a master suffer is no reason for him to consider not taking his next blue pill either, since most men’s priorities about health and their very life itself take a backseat to experiencing anything that involves their organic staff.

“How many children would a man have, if his wife could not learn to control her basic nature, learn to be societal and money-oriented, and, therefore, take birth control after the birth of two, three kids?” Catherine recalls the street-philosopher saying. “How many women reach menopause and feel as if they were cheated and manipulated by society into not having more children? How many are depressed and don’t know why, and certainly never give a thought to ‘basic nature?’ As if women’s is so wrong, but men’s, so right, and to be adopted by every woman. But women are not men. The fulfilment of men’s basic nature throughout men’s lives is never made by society to be ignored by men. They even have pills now, so that they can continue to fuck even when nature has said ‘enough,’ even when nature has said ‘be more than your dick now.’ Instead, many men pay women like me, or find other takers, and then the emotional, financial, and health consequences of their behaviour fall upon both them and their older spouse. Women no longer escape all that shit like they used to when their mate aged and became impotent. Human. No nice hand-in-hand walk into the sunset.”

“Why don’t we have showers for the masters?” The other master who was watching enquires.

“Because the scents of bodies repeatedly at sexual play are to be experienced as well, this weekend. True enjoyment is not just about sight and feel,” the contest attendant replies. “The rule that allows deodorant  was just narrowly passed, when all the rules of competition were written up, a few years ago. Sweat is sexual, so many felt that fabricated scents should not cover it up and cancel it out. Deodorant in, showers out,” he adds, before walking away.

“Categories of body odour,” the master who posed the question thinks out loud, shaking his head.

Tristan turns away and steps back towards the furnishings of his own work station. Catherine soon does the same, tentatively.

She knows, however, that she must of course face her master, that it is impossible to hide from him in any way.   

She looks away when his eyes burn through her.