Naughty Wishes 4: Soul (20 page)

The Mistress who came onto the stage from the side wing had lithe, athletic movements and vibrated with sexual power. She was wearing what Sam might expect a sexy biker female fantasy to wear: chaps over jeans, a tight T-shirt, riding boots. She carried a single-tail whip like the other two Dommes, only Sam was pretty sure her target wasn’t going to be balloons.

The woman walked around her sub, trailing the whip over his shoulders, tipping his chin up to her with the handle, holding his gaze with a still expression. Then she strode behind him and squared off, whip in hand. Sam thought she heard the crowd take in a collective breath.

Cognizant of the performance aspects of what she was doing, the woman warmed up with a few stylish swirls around herself. Sam had learned enough about using a single-tail to know that it could be painful and dangerous if the user hadn’t practiced enough or didn’t focus as they should during a scene. She didn’t think the woman would fall short in either regard. When she stopped the twirls and settled on her actual intent, Sam could almost feel her concentration narrow, cutting out the audience, the stage, everything but the connection between her and the man on his knees.

She began. The first whip throw landed high on his shoulders, the fall caressing his flesh before it came back to the Mistress, fluid as a snake’s movements. It went back out again, quickly and efficiently. Her technique was smooth and rhythmic, the whip singing through the air, touching down, coming back, then returning again.

The spotlight on his back showed the faint red marks there. When the Mistress paused, speaking a low order, the man turned his face toward his shoulder. Sam recognized him, with a thrill of surprise. It was Troy, Logan’s employee from the hardware store. His Mistress moved forward as another stage hand brought a wooden frame out and set it up in front of Troy. She locked his hands in the cuffs hanging from it and clamped them so his hands were spread past shoulder width, emphasizing the play of muscles across his broad back.

She slid her hand down inside the thin shorts, rubbing his buttocks with blatant familiarity before she pulled the fabric down to his thighs, revealing a beautiful, tight male ass to the appreciative response of the audience. His fingers flexed in the bonds. He turned his face up to her and she stroked it with her other hand, which was gloved. Bending down, she let him taste her lips before stepping back.

“Do you want me to touch you with my bare hand?”

“Yes, Mistress. Please. Though I don’t deserve such an honor.” His voice was throaty and thick, and Sam’s toes curled. She understood how he felt, even though she didn’t think she could put it in words, how his response resonated with her and made her feel it, too. The mirror of it was that raw moment where Geoff had showed her how much he wanted to take, to possess . . . there was a matching hunger for the same level of surrender, submission and giving inside her.

The Mistress’s lips tightened. “Who decides what you deserve?” she said sharply.

He hung his head, realizing his mistake. “You do, Mistress.”

“Lift your face toward me.”

He did. She drew off the right glove, pulling the fingers free with unhurried precision. She slapped his cheek sharply with it. He didn’t flinch or try to protect his face, even when she did it twice more, the same cheek, so redness bloomed on it. When she put her bare palm over the spot, Troy swayed toward her in his bonds, his body language conveying his devotion.

This might be a performance relationship only, but Sam doubted it. She was pretty sure this was Troy’s actual Mistress.

She put the glove back on and paced away again, turning and taking up the same stance. As the whip flew once more, she concentrated on his exposed ass. His buttocks tightened and released in a delicious way as she popped the whip over them. One time, though, she pulled up at the last moment, winking at the crowd as Troy automatically flexed his ass in preparation.

Whistles and chuckles swept the audience. The Mistress tossed back her red mane of hair and offered a little bow. Moving toward Troy again, she reached around him where the audience couldn’t see, but it was obvious that she’d clasped his cock. His head dropped back on his shoulders. “Let’s make it a bit challenging, shall we?” she said in a purr, the words enunciated so all could hear.

She extended her arm and another stage hand brought her a short thick wooden dowel. She placed the piece vertically between his buttocks. “Now, you hold that tight for me,” she said. “You drop it, I’ll be very displeased. Will you drop it?”

“Never, Mistress,” Troy said, his voice strained.

Moving back, she lifted the single-tail again. Troy groaned as she landed a harder pop on his ass this time, because the noise was more muffled from the impact and he flinched, but his buttocks constricted, demonstrating his conscious effort to hold on to the dowel. And he kept holding it, though Sam wondered if it made the flogging more painful, keeping the muscles rigid beneath the lash.

At last, his Mistress came back to him, kissing his damp neck in reward, feathering her lips over his cheek, his mouth.

Sam’s fingers were doing a slow, curling dance on the chair arms. Turning her hand over, Geoff loosely manacled her wrist again, fingertips flirting with hers as he restrained her anew. Chris kept moving along the back of her hand from knuckle to nail, tracing the bones and veins of her hand to her wrist and back again. She was aware of the movements of all the bodies around them, how the aisle lights and dim overheads made hair gleam like bird wings and glitter-painted skin sparkle. She felt as close to Geoff and Chris as if she’d been wrapped up against them in silken ropes. It was the perfect meshing of reality and a dream.

Troy and his Mistress left the stage to enthusiastic applause. The next two demos were equally provocative and amazing. If Madison had intended to emphasize the performance artistry that could accompany BDSM practice, she’d lined up some excellent examples of it. Three rope artists coordinated their efforts to form a breathtaking web upon which they suspended their submissives. After that, the fire artist returned, demonstrating more arousing ways to use fire, including a dramatic flogging.

Then came a nonconsensual consent performance, in which a woman was caned to the point she was begging for mercy. Sam was a little unsettled by it, but each time the Dom approached his sub and murmured to her, Sam was captivated by how the woman ended up kissing his fingertips and agreeing to do a little more. As the submissive gazed up at him with a tear-streaked face, her expression so raw and open, Sam understood what was happening. Relinquishing her right to call a stop to the session was an act of ultimate trust, building the bond between them. She wasn’t sure she could be that brave, but it worked for these two.

However, she didn’t think she needed to worry about it. The way Chris put an arm around her and Geoff increased the pressure of his hand on hers, the expressions on their faces, said they would never think of causing her that level of pain. It wasn’t their thing, either, though she admitted it was pretty stimulating to watch people for whom it was.

With each subsequent performance, that lovely mix of dream and reality kept her engaged, spinning, alert and flushed, off balance. She could feel her Masters watching her, gauging her reaction and feeding off it. When she stole glances at their intent faces, felt their aroused reaction through the pressure of their fingers on hers, she did the same.

The next performer took that arousal and twisted it into an even tighter center, just from his appearance on the stage. Since the crowd quieted even more than courtesy dictated, she expected she wasn’t alone in that feeling.

Logan wore black jeans, boots and a black shirt with several buttons undone. The last time Sam had seen him, his brown hair had been thick and long, like a pirate captain’s or Viking’s. Now it was short. Her first reaction was dismay, because the longer hair coupled with his rugged looks had conjured fantasies of pirate captains or Viking raiders. Yet as she studied him center stage, she found she liked how the short-cropped hair accented the strong planes of his jaw and forehead. The style also made his piercing brown eyes, intent on the quiet crowd, even more compelling.

“There are those who believe that the feelings Dominants and submissives have are unnatural.” He had a presentation voice, deep and melodious. “The opposite is true. It’s been a natural part of who we are since creation began, and we’ve found many ways to explore it. You’ve already seen some tonight, and will continue to see more. Fire, whip, rope. Wax, electricity. The methods are endless, but there is a root from which all of it grows.”

He stepped back to the middle of the stage, and the spotlight sharpened on him. The other house lights came down further, putting the audience in full darkness. Logan turned with military precision toward the left side of the stage. He stood utterly still, taking his time looking at what was there. His singular focus on that something was a palpable energy, building the audience’s anticipation. As he spoke at last, that deep voice rolled through Sam.

“Come to me.”

Madison walked out of the wings. Her hair was pulled up at the sides, braided with tiny purple flowers that fell in ropes against the sable strands. She wore a filmy lavender chemise over black leggings, and her feet were bare. On her ankles and wrists were slim silver chains strung with clusters of chimes that made a faint music as she walked. Her eyes never wavered from Logan’s face, until she reached him.

Sam had never attended a play so mesmerizing that she would follow the slightest facial shift on one of the actor’s faces, but when Madison lowered her eyes, Sam felt the emotional impact in her lower belly. She gave him everything, right there. Sam understood that feeling, and it was doubled when the woman sank to her knees, head bowing. Geoff’s fingers tightened on Sam’s wrist. She suspected he knew what Logan felt, as the man on stage gazed down at the bowed head of the woman on her knees before him.

Sam realized she’d clutched Chris’s fingers, which he’d shifted to rest between the spaces of hers.

Logan closed a hand on Madison’s shoulder. Approval, reinforcement. From his pocket, he produced a blindfold, letting it unfurl and dangle from his grasp. He slid it along her mostly bare shoulders, over the straps of the chemise. “Close your eyes and lift your face to me.”

When she did, he wrapped the blindfold over her eyes and tied it securely before stepping back. “Rise.”

He put his hand under her elbow to help her and directed his next words to the crowd. “What will happen in the next few moments has not been rehearsed,” he said. “I told Madison her only charge is obedience, immediate and absolute, to whatever I tell her to do.” He cleared his throat, a smile crossing his face. “Something I can’t get away with when it comes to our mutual business interests.”

The chuckles in the audience were a faint ripple. It fell quiet again, two hundred and fifty people transfixed. Logan made a gesture toward the wings. The other performers, including Troy and his Mistress, slipped silently from the curtains, following the stairs along either side of the stage down to the main floor. They spread out along the edge, forming a perimeter in front of the stage.

“Whatever I tell you to do, you do immediately and without question.” While it was a different version of what he’d just said, Logan’s emphasis had changed, clearly no longer addressing the audience. That steady, implacable tone was targeted for one woman alone. “Tell me you understand, Madison.”

“Yes. I do.”

When Sam came to the Naughty Bits store, she was used to Madison speaking in warm welcome, with amusement or thoughtful intelligence. The three syllables, broken by that nervous pause, matched Sam’s fluttering pulse, the anticipatory tautness of her body, leaning forward. She’d watched far more extreme things tonight. But this had her on the edge of her chair.

She could feel Geoff watching her every reaction. He liked seeing that submissive side of her come to full, yearning life, and the more she wanted, the more he would demand. The more he demanded, the more she’d want to give. Unconsciously, she realized she was straining against his hold on her wrist, not because she wanted to get away, but because she wanted to feel the power in his grip as he tightened it, refusing to free her.

Chris had released her hand so that he could slide his heated palm down the tense curve of her back, up to caress her bared nape. She shivered at the touch, turned and rubbed her jaw against his hand once again. She loved the bird mask, the sense of freedom it gave her to experience and react however she wished, but she also wanted it gone so her flesh could be against his.

Logan stepped behind Madison. “Turn to the right. Away from me, facing the audience.”

Madison obeyed. Even as she came to a halt, the chimes made their whispering music, and Sam realized the woman was trembling. Logan slid her hair off one shoulder, bent and kissed the line of her collarbone. His hands gripped her waist. “Who am I, Madison?”

“My Master.” She spoke it in a shaky voice, but there was love there, wonder, as if she was still exploring all that meant in her mind, heart, soul. Sam knew how she felt about that, too. Hell, she might as well have been standing where Madison was, with Geoff and Chris standing in Logan’s place.

Logan brushed his lips over the same spot, bit lightly. “I like the sound of that. Say it again.”

“My Master . . . Master.”

He curled his fingers around her wrist to draw her arm behind her, obviously to guide her palm in a slow rub over his fly, though his reaction was concealed behind her body. “See what that does to me?”

She moistened her lips. “Yes, Master.”

“Prove you mean it. Walk forward until I tell you to stop. Not as if you’re blindfolded, but as if you trust me as much as you trust your own eyes.”

She murmured something, and his expression shifted in a fascinating response. His grip slid around her waist, fingers spreading over her abdomen as he kissed her neck, a longer and harder contact. Madison tilted her head back against him, arching her throat, a breathy sigh escaping her.