The Brand Ch. 06

"I'll bid eight hundred for the wench!"

"Eight hundred and fifty; right here!"

"I bid eight seventy!"

While Melody's wide green eyes darted from bidder to bidder, fluttering wings of excitement beat down the anxiety that had been churning in the pit of her stomach. She was the third slave of the evening to stand naked on Victria's living room auction block; the burgundy colored silk shift she'd been instructed to put on now gathered around her feet.

There were twenty men and women, all Victria's guests, staring covetously at her servant lover's finer features. She'd informed Melody months before of her desire to host a Christmas charity fund raising soiree. Now, the party in full swing, after all her preparation and hard work, Melody would have to also be auctioned off to the highest bidder, and for a period of forty-eight hours, serve at that stranger's pleasure.

"I don't think so my dears. "called a confident voice from across the room, I bid "Eleven hundred."

The sudden jump in bid hushed the crowd. From her perch atop the heavy wooden chest Victria had set at the foot of the living room's west wall, Melody appraised the woman that had called out the bid. She was older, yet appealing, perhaps in her early sixties, her body slim with the effort of regular workouts, her olive skin smooth and tight, her modeled shoulders and legs exposed, dressed in a lavender, frilled edged torso hugging cocktail dress, her white blonde hair bound in a tail that flowed from the back of her head.

Victria hadn't gone into detail as to how she'd come to know most of her guests, but Melody had a good idea. People who were comfortable with public scrutinizing a domme's naked sub, and then pay good money to keep her to themselves for a couple of evenings, didn't exactly come out of the wood work. Surely, there were upscale LGTBQ clubs Victria likely frequented, but there were surely other places she went to find other likeminded scene heads that fancied bondage, whips and humiliation play. Otherwise, as Melody carried trays of hors d'oeuvres around to each guest, she learned that there were also present a few prominent business women Victria had befriended and consulted with over the last few years.

"Eleven fifty." bid the woman Victria introduced as Pam; she, with her stylish bob cut black hair and steel blue eyes, who had kissed Melody on both cheeks as she'd entered the house.

"Thirteen hundred." raised the older woman; feasting her eyes on Melody's subtle curves.

Melody reddened, but not because she was self-conscious about her nudity. Her embarrassment at having stripped before the crowd had faded shortly after the first bid. Now, she was flushed with pride; flattered by the assemblage's obvious admiration and the highest bidders' steady raising of her value. It was a week before Christmas, and the proceeds would be going toward Victria's chosen charity; The Healthy Children Project. The slaves would not be getting a percentage of the money generated, but they would have the honor of fulfilling their temporary master's or mistress's every wish over the course of a fort night.

Through her conversation with the two women that had mounted the block before her, Melody learned that they were no strangers to being shared among their master's or mistress's friends. It was, after all, a slave's honor and duty, and, moreover, the surest sign of a very secure, equally gratifying, relationship. For Melody, the concept, though the prospect of its becoming reality still made her uneasy, had lost its original outlandishness in her mind. Between the training and her intimacy with Victria, Melody was certain that she'd become a proper slave. She'd become happy enough to serve without recompense and she no longer felt in the least demeaned by being thrust into the most humiliating experiences she could have imagined.

It had taken much more sweetly spoken enticement and persuasion than Victria had anticipated it would. But, through their relations over the last few months, slave to mistress, model to artist and as lover to lover, Victria had ultimately convinced Melody that she was indeed a singularly impressive piece of living art, a perfectly sumptuous luxury and a slave of remarkable distinction who was likely to bring the prettiest penny at the auction.

Melody had, of course, winced at the original proposition. She'd opposed Victria's entire plan; from having to prepare for such a large party, do all the cooking and then having to be rented for a perfect stranger's pleasure. Melody had once believed that it was one thing, to work, indentured, in your beneficent lover's home and give your entire self for the sake of her every whim, and entirely another to surrender oneself to be sold, your mind and body commodities, to another. But, that was then.

The first mention of any auction was brought up back in early September. They were in the waiting room of Victria's primary care office, anticipating the last of the results of Melody's blood tests. A thorough physical and accompanying set of fluid analyses had been in order for Victria's own certainly legitimate reasons, but primarily for the simple fact that Melody had not been to a doctor over the more than two and a half years she'd been homeless. The domme's new slave had been given, at that point, a clean enough bill of health. Her heart, lungs and blood pressure were determined to have been fine. Her bloods too would all likely be at optimal levels, and because Victria had the connections she had to get all of Melody's examinations done in one afternoon, her gyno had affirmed that all was in deed safe and sound in the areas of her choicest, delectable bits.

As for her mental state, Melody wasn't confronted by any lengthy, probative, examination from a doctor of the discipline of psychology. However, each practitioner that saw her had as Melody perceived it, snooped appropriately enough with questions like: Were you ever verbally, physically or sexually abused as a child? Can you ever recall having had nonconsensual sex? Have you had more than one sex partner at a time? Has anyone ever complained to you that you drink too much? Have you had an abortion or multiple abortions and are you experiencing any decline in your sex drive? Melody's responses were always the same. Unnerved, though assured, Melody answered honestly by simply wagging her head to indicate the negative.

It would still do, she was certain, to have a private mental state, for both her own and Victria's good. Melody would continue to be generally fine with enslavement and humiliation, and okay enough inside her head, as long as her ghosts stayed right where she'd put them, and as long as there were no further upheavals like being caught in a robbery, with men shouting and guns shooting. The experience had certainly been harrowing, and it had made the ghosts crowd around the inside of her eyes, reaching and crawling, kicking and screaming to be let out, but Victria had stopped them. Her lovely, fearless, domme had forced their retreat and Melody's gratitude was so deep that it could not be expressed in words, but through her ambition to serve, to surrender as totally and to submit as completely as her soul could manage.

"Well hello there Geralynne!" said Victria as she watched the tall, lean, artfully cut shaggy blonde haired woman walk regally into the waiting room, "Good to see you."

Victria rose to her feet and walked to the woman.

"This is my friend," said Victria, gesturing toward her slave, "Melody May."

Melody tossed her magazine aside; stunned by the certainty that it was that very woman who had just conducted her gynecological examination. Uh hello, she thought, the hand that rocked my cradle? Blushing, Melody rose from the chair and watched the doctor withdraw the long fingers of her hand out from Victria's. How closely, exactly, do these two know each other anyway? Speechless, Melody nodded slightly at the woman, and then gave her a forced smile.

"Actually," said Dr. Tucker; smiling warmly, "We've already met."

Yes, we certainly have, Melody mused, feeling more than a little awkward as she slowly sidled back to her chair. She found herself suddenly imagining Victria, clad in a paper gown, her pretty bare feet held in the stirrups of an examination table, the good doctor preparing to test the taste and texture of her patient's naturally lubricated, gleaming pink vaginal topography.

"Ms. May is the picture of health." Dr. Tucker spoke discreetly into Victria's ear, "I just checked the last of her labs, and all is perfectly in order."

"Good. Thanks Geralynne."

"Anytime. Now tell me Victria; are we still on for the auction?"

"We are. In fact, Melody will be catering the entire affair herself."

Melody cleared her throat as she reached for the magazine she'd just been flipping through.

"Really?" said the doctor; glancing at Melody once more as she stepped toward the waiting room's exit, "Wonderful. I'll be looking forward to it. I'll see you soon Victria?"

"Absolutely." answered Victria, nodding.

It was nice meeting you Melody."

Tucker gave her a final smile as she pulled the door behind her. Melody, another forced smile raising her lips, gave the good doctor a quick wave good-bye.

"Auction?" said Melody after she and Victria had entered the empty elevator, "What; auction?"

"Oh," sighed Victria after the doors closed, "I'm just hosting an auction to raise money for the charity of my choice."

"What will you be auctioning at this; auction?" Melody probed, searching Victria's eyes as they watched the light descend through the numbers over the elevator's door.

"We'll be auctioning slaves, of course."

"And when were you going to tell me Mistress?"

Victria suddenly swung her head to face her slave.

"Watch yourself Girl!" she hissed, "I just informed you. You still have plenty of time to prepare."

"Prepare."

"The menu Slave, the menu. I'm certain you will prepare a fine spread for us."

The elevator arrived at the hospital's lobby and Victria briskly stepped out its opening doors. Melody scurried after her.

"But Mistress," hissed Melody; trying to keep her panicked voice down, "I've never prepared a; spread before. What if I can't?"

Victria walked on. Melody followed after her, weaving through lobby traffic and quickly stepping through the automatic doors at the hospital's entrance. Once street side, the domme stopped in her tracks and leveled a vicious stare at her servant lover.

"You can, and you will." she commanded, her voice silky, her words edged with scorn.

It was final. She knew enough not to challenge or argue with her domme any further, so Melody dropped the matter as she hurried to keep up. Once back at home, she'd prepared a quick meal for Victria, and then continued with her studies. As days passed, Melody continued to focus on her course work, met her mistress's needs as they came up and took occasional breaks to consult the Internet for all things related to executing a formal dinner party for between twenty and thirty people.

So life went on for Melody May as she completed the first semester of course work toward her Bachelor's in business administration while continuing to serve at her mistress's pleasure. Between her being pleased with Melody's excellent grades and seeming to enjoy discussing the marketing principles her indentured girl had learned, Victria's mood had warmed eventually, though she did still turn frostier than usual at times. She'd remained somewhat morose and distant for a few weeks after that strange Saturday she'd come home late, over two hours late, from her meeting. Melody had tried to ask what happened, but Victria either simply ignored her inquiry or venomously scolded her for being far too curious for a slave's good.

Over time, Melody came to realize that the key to Victria's working herself back out of the funk, initiated on that odd day, was evidenced by a steady increase in her domme's artistic productivity. From mid-September to late November, Melody had modeled for a staggering number of paintings, installations, short films and photographs, all of which she decided were totally brilliant.

Most of the work had been done in the barn behind the house. It was utilized as a second studio, its spaciousness allowing Victria to work on larger canvases and create enormous installations to photograph or film. Its structure, dating back to eighteen hundred and forty-nine, had an extremely weathered exterior, which both women admired. It also appeared from the outside that it always seemed on the verge of collapse. But, Victria had updated the old barn's interior to code, reinforced it for safety and wired it for power and light.

It had been primarily in that large, bright, space that Victria started her Pollock inspired experiments; what Victria referred to as adventures guided by the notion of psychic autotomotism. She'd had Melody apply four or more coats of gesso on a series of four by eight foot panels of Masonite, and then sand their surfaces smooth. Then Victria applied a base coat to establish a color theme. Once it was dry, Melody undressed, crawled onto a given panel and was then posed in a variety of ways; prone, supine, fetal or arms and legs spread wide.

Then the fun happened. Victria would mix gallons of body paint, gather a variety of brushes, spoons, ladles and spray bottles, set a step ladder along the edge of each side of each panel, and then dropped bucket after bucket of paint onto her slave's body. It was very messy business, but Melody began to get sexually charged by the process, particularly from the feeling of anticipation and then the ultimate sensations of cool paint being splashed upon her body.

Their admiration of each other had grown through the extended series of photographs Victria had taken of Melody in her varied colors and states. The artistic component to their relationship had become one of Victria's regular means of effecting Melody's mental and sexual conditioning. After each session, there occurred the loving enrichment of Victria's washing the paint from her slave's body, using the shower head to bring her close to orgasm, only to deny her, dry her off, rub her down with moisturizer, and then inform her that she was not allowed to come until three days later.

There were a few occasions when Victria would immediately spray Melody into an orgasmic frenzy or devour her pussy until she shook and whimpered with satisfaction. But, most times she didn't. Most times went according to Victria's plan and pleasure; making her slave wait so long for it that she started to also become sexually charged by eating her entire dinner from Victria's palm, answering the door naked for the parcel delivery man or when, out in public, she wore the shirt that had the words printed across her breasts: "I am a total slut."

Another of their psycho-sexual artistic ventures began with the checking of the weather to determine if they could get three days in a row of the same kind of sun light and climate. Victria would then take a photo of a sun rise or a sun set, print the shot and then paint Melody up so that she matched the scene for the very same time on the following day. The effect was to get her model to match as seamlessly as possible into the world. Victria had become so adept at mixing color that Melody was almost indistinguishable from the background. There was the sun lit series, magical in Melody's bright yellows, blues and greens, and the series done under the sky of an over cast day; beautifully somber in her subtle greys, browns and ambers.

The air had gradually come to hold the inexorable fragrance of dying summer, but those mid-September days passed warmly enough to continue modeling nude and be painted outside. Meanwhile, Victria punctuated the time between sessions with hours of contrasting extended caressing between the impact play of spanking and flogging, sensual oil massages, intermittent orgasm denial or forced multiple orgasm and forced squirting. Though it was all for the sake of pleasure, Victria had come to invest as much time and effort into her slave's training as her slave had in her course work and domestic responsibilities.

Ultimately, her sexual domination techniques and sadist impact play served to heighten Melody's sexual response; there by causing her to be more readily amenable, compliant and more disposed to Victria's most stimulating bad ideas.

In due course, it had been on a particularly balmy day, as Victria was tuned to shot after shot, under the threat of rain that Victria herself had finally succumbed to her own game. One drop after another, a shower began to fall, the warm fat droplets becoming more and more numerous, and then falling faster and faster, until she watched Melody's lovely brown hair wilt and her skin become washed free of paint, leaving Melody utterly joyful and Victria keenly aware of the sheer beauty of it. Taking a last few pictures of Melody dancing under the plummeting torrent, Victria set her camera down on the patio table, and then proceeded to undress.

By the time Melody had turned around again, she was stilled by the sight of her domme's naked body. They stood facing one another, laughing at each other and drinking the rain. Then Melody reached her hands and Victria took them. Locked in a tight, though slippery, embrace, the two women began to ravage each other with kisses until their passion took them toward the muddied earth, one wrapped upon the other, Victria almost immediately climaxing in her slave's mouth as she devoured Melody's sex, the fragrant earth in her nostrils, the taste of divinity and paint on her tongue.

"Fifteen hundred." called Victria; reclined on her chaise, hoisting a goblet of spiced wine to her lips, her ankles crossed, someone else's collared girl kneeling by her feet.

The collared girl, radiant, obviously of Puerto Rican descent, dressed in an elfin forest green cocktail dress with puffy shoulders and layers of lace under skirting, had dyed her long, luxurious hair a shimmering, Christmas red. Both she and Melody had turned to meet Victria's sullenly arrogant gaze, as had most of the rest of the crowd.

Her being their hostess, the guests agreed that Victria should also be designated as auctioneer. Over the holiday swing music whispering from the living room's surround sound, a soft throaty laugh came from somewhere within the back of the crowd. Melody turned in that direction, and though she saw Dr. Geralynne Tucker leaning against a space of wall just inside the hallway to the kitchen, she didn't know for certain whether it had been see that had uttered it.

"But she can't bid on her own slave; right?" spoke someone from the sofa, "I thought-"

"Quiet slut." came another voice.

"Sixteen hundred." answered the attractive white haired woman as she rose from her seat by the tree.

Melody watched the woman walk over, settle into a standing position by the entertainment center, and then begin to eye her body more closely. Someone among those crowded on the sofa across the room muttered something under their breath, though it had been spoken loud enough apparently to elicit riotous laughter from the tight gaggle of guests seated there. The white haired woman glanced gloweringly in their direction while Victria gently shook her glass and studied the rippling surface of her wine.

"Sixteen fifty." said Pam as she stepped out from the hallway and sidled through the crowd.

A very successful vegetarian specialty restauranteur, Pam had spent most of her time that evening in the kitchen, tasting and praising Melody's culinary delights and skills. Now, with a brandy in hand, she settled into a spot by the coffee table, and lingered her gaze between Victria and the white haired woman. Melody, as a result of the older woman's nearness and scrutiny, suddenly began to feel self-conscious again, particularly about the scar on her right outer thigh. Though she'd gone so far as to have forgotten its presence for the last month, Melody still crept timid fingers over its angry red sheen.