The Choices of Evelyn Ch. 19-21

Eva now humped the horse's head with abandon. Her voice mixed with the pulsing music. It once more rose to a heart throbbing volume. Then the boy made the crop arch through the air. It landed with a crack on the naked flesh painting a new mark among the many he had dealt out already. Eva stiffened, standing like a statue. A blood-curdling scream rang through the hall and the girl crumpled into a heap of shivering jelly-flesh.

***

The thud of the girl's falling body punctuated a sudden silence. Twitches and spasms kept running through her body as the horse touched her with its silken nose, breathing on her tortured skin. The silence kept hanging in the air. Then a gasp left the audience and a confused murmur preceded a hesitant, self-conscious applause.

The sheer, brutal reality of what they just saw numbed the responses of an audience that usually boasted an attitude of blasé arrogance. This had just been too barbaric, too primitive for their refined tastes.

M looked around and grinned, mumbling: "Refined, my ass." She took in the faces of her guests – some deadly pale, others flushed with, what? Excitement? Embarrassment? In a world of ceremonial cruelty, her little show had splattered the whitewashed walls of good taste with the crimson smears of real pain, real humiliation, and real blood. They won't forgive me for this, M thought. But they won't ever forget my soiree. A new time arrives – a troublesome time full of shock and incomprehension.

She noticed the slaves and subs – the subdued girls and cute toy boys, the hung stallions, the abused dwarves and all the other unloved creatures.

Then her eyes fell on the Countess and her entourage.

On the stage, Sandi stood panting after the last blow. His narrow chest heaved, sweat sparkled on his bare, bloody shoulders. Tears streamed down his face. Kneeling beside the collapsed girl, he started to caress her head, her lips and throat. He slid lower, licking the length of each swollen bruise, murmuring words of love and pity. His sister groaned, wrapping her arms around her cruel little lover.

"It... it's all right, sweet honey," she mumbled. "Thank you. I love you." Again, they started kissing with a passion that spread a wave of murmurings through the audience. People in front heard the once powerful amazon thank her boy-lover for degrading her. Again, their mouths locked and the whole scene drowned in the pulsing beat of the music.

The room was dead silent when the last sounds subsided. Then a sudden rustle of garments and shuffling feet arose as people parted to let a woman pass. She was naked, but for steel cuffs on wrists and ankles, and a black choker around her throat. Heavy, clattering chains encumbered her progress. Another slave, or was she? She must be, with her bare feet, the remnant shadows of a long-past flogging on the skin of her back; oiled limbs gleamed in the living light of the torches. But what about the tall, proud stance; even as the chains weighed her down? What about the steel blue eyes, the arrogant smile?

M struggled up the ramp, leaving a wave of confused voices behind.

"Who are you?" the blooded amazon asked, rising to her feet. The naked woman sank to her knees in front of her, the lump of chains thudding on the wooden stage. She arched her back and pushed her pale tits out.

"I am your Mistress," she said in a clear, calm voice. A high, whistling sound slashed through the air as an arched line ended at the tip of her right breast. From the audience rose a surprised cry.

"Liar." It was the amazon's voice and her hand wielded the whip that punished the kneeling woman.

"But I am," M went on. "You are my slaves." A second whip flew from the other side, finding the exposed left tit.

"Liar," Sandi said, retracting his whip. There was no cry, no sob from the kneeling woman, not even a twitch of the body.

"I need to be punished," M insisted.

"Why?"

Now the masked amazon lashed out again – hard and accurate. The blond woman cringed, cradling her breasts before rising again and answering.

"Because I let you down," she said. "I gambled with your life." Swoosh! Once again, the boy's whip found the woman's unprotected chest.

"Why we need punish you for that?" he asked, leaning over the shivering woman.

"Because... because I was jealous of you," she finally said. Two more cracks sounded.

"Bullshit," Eva cried out. "You are our Mistress. How could you be jealous of us? We are slaves, we are nothing!" M cradled her tortured tits, her face almost touching the straw on the floor. Then she shook her body and rose to her knees again, pushing her chest out. It shone with angry bruises and sweat.

"I was jealous of your love," she said. The audience had moved closer until it crowded the stage. Recognizing who the whipped slave was, they now started commenting; some protested.

"What's this?" a male voice asked.

"This is ridiculous!" a woman cried out. "Stop this charade!" The punished woman straightened her back.

"Gustav!" she said.

Three muscle-bound men in spiked leather entered from the back, growling at the audience as they started patrolling the stage's edge. The voices fell silent, and the first line of watchers retreated. Into the new silence another slash whistled.

"What do you know about love?" Eva said, lacing the word with sarcasm.

"Nothing," M admitted. Two whips simultaneously hit her chest.

"That silly," Sandi said. "Everybody know love." The whips flew again.

"You must be a monster," Eva said. M didn't respond and was whipped twice. By now she was bent to the floor, hugging her chest again, so the lashes hit her back. Eva kicked her in the side with the tip of her heavy boot.

'Yes, I am a monster," M groaned, rising to her knees again. Turning around, she confronted the audience. "I am the kind of monster you are," she said, addressing her appalled club-members. "The kind that thinks their slaves are objects. The kind that never felt the cruel pain of being whipped. And the kind that believes that things like love and loyalty don't concern them." Mutterings and protests rose up from the retreating audience.

"Countess!" M cried out, fixing her gaze on the woman's face. "I know I annoy you with love, a thing you despise, but have no idea what it is. Never mind, neither did I, but I have to thank you for helping me finding out." The Countess looked around for help, but she found herself standing alone.

"Yes," M went on. "Back there, on the roof of your mansion on the amazing Gulf of Naples my Eva showed me what love is. I gambled with her life as if it was worth nothing, and you won, Contessa. But she'd rather take her own life.

"I know how we all play with this thing we call ultimate sacrifice, but in the end, it is a thing we only expect from our slaves. To us it's nothing, is it, just a game like everything else.

"Eva really stepped off that roof."

Even through the pain of her chest, and the pain of her memories, M had to chuckle as she watched the people she'd admired so much. All she saw was discomfort and shocked embarrassment.

"You are hypocrites, all of you," she went on, rising to her feet and exposing her wounded breasts. New protests sounded. M spread her arms. "You're not? Okay, then come up here and take your whipping, so you finally know what you fucking talk about." She stepped back until she felt the arms of her slaves around her. It almost made her sink through her wobbly knees.

In a matter of minutes, the room was empty, but for a group around Alfred Lord Huntington. In the growing silence the slow clap of his hands sounded like gunshots. Others took up his example and the applause grew into a splattering shower of soothing encouragement.

"Brava," the Lord called out, always proud of his correct Italian. "Great opera." He walked forward with his entourage but kept a respectful distance from where Gustav's blocked bikers lingered. M stepped forward, walking down the ramp as the chains clattered around her. Sir Alfred embraced her, apologizing as she winced.

"Today you liquidated my little club, I guess," he said. "Can I become part of yours?" Laughing hurt, M discovered, but nevertheless she pressed her tortured chest into the tightest of hugs.

The End