The Choices of Evelyn Ch. 19-21

Chapter Nineteen – Mina.

There is no bay as beautiful as the Gulf of Naples. No sea is as transparent yet sparkling with all imaginable shades of blue and green. No coastline has been shaped as elegantly, nor wrapped as graciously in robes of emerald pines and soaring cypresses. They form a sea of green, capped by the hazy pyramid of dormant Vesuvius.

Far off, where the blue sea turns darker, islands shine like jewelry: Capri, Ischia, their feet eternally kissed by the whitest surf. The ancient towns and villages hang like birds' nests from the rocks. Their tiled roofscape is yet another sea in itself, with waves of faded orange.

Autumn had not yet reached the south. The air was balmy, spiced with the perfume of pines and the sweet scent of blossoming roses and oleander.

Two women knelt in exhausted surrender. They were on a high roof overlooking the bay, only blue sky around them, clear as sapphire. And as there were no fences or railings to define the edge of the marble-tiled roof, they felt as if they were floating in a boundless universe.

They drifted in sapphire.

Both women were entirely naked, one just a girl, really. They both wore narrow metal collars. And on the girl's round buttock was the dark brand of a French lily. All they wore otherwise, were the angry pink stripes crisscrossing the paleness of their skin.

They didn't look at each other. They only stared with unseeing eyes, their hands resting on spread knees. Their backs were straight. They even arched a bit to present their chests. The blond woman's breasts were large and pointy, the red-haired girl's firm and round.

They were a woman called M and a girl called Eva. They'd arrived here straight from the airport, eyes wrapped in blindfolds. After being stripped and washed in darkness, they'd been carried up by strong arms and deposited on this lofty roof. Their scarves were removed, and their eyes had been blinded by the overwhelming daylight. When their sight returned, they were alone, floating in blue.

"Mistress, what will happen?" Eva's voice was hardly more than a shivering breath.

"Sssshhh..." M answered. "Don't call me that; I'm not your Mistress anymore. Call me Mina."

Eva watched her in silence. Then she realized something that had never occurred to her. She'd always called this woman Mistress because she had to: she'd be punished if she didn't. So, being handed over to the Countess should not have mattered, should it? One fearsome Mistress for another; one madhouse of indifferent abuse for another. But it mattered. She'd felt abandoned, hurt. And she'd felt elated when M returned, shielding her, saving her. Mina.

Watching the woman kneeling in front of her, naked and collared like her, she didn't cause fear. She caused warmth. Why? Only save, sweet surrender pulsed through her body. No stress, no choice. It opened her like a flower. When panic should abound, only mindless sensuality invaded each and every cell of her body. She sat absolutely still, while inside her slow wave after wave of sweetness crashed on the beaches of her consciousness. They drowned the fragile sandcastles of her thoughts even before she could shape them. They left her washed clean, and she felt utterly satisfied.

"Mistress, why are we here?"

"Don't ask me. And don't call me that, call me Mina. I'm a nobody, just like you." Eva stared at the woman, and the save calmness was gone. A sudden wave of emotion choked her – a shock of abandon. A sob struggled its way out, making her chest heave. It was crisscrossed with the cruel reminders of the night before. M, Mina, frowned.

"Stop it now," she said. "Our new Mistress will be displeased." A gasp put an end to Eva's sobbing. Our new Mistress. Absorbing the definitive terms that described their future put her in shock. A moan rose from the well of her throat. She sagged, her straight back bending until her face touched the marble between her open knees.

"Sit up, slave!" M hissed. Her words lashed out like a whip. But Eva remained as she was, her face hidden.

"Noooo" she groaned into the sunbaked tiles. "No new Mistress for Eva. Pleeeease."

M stretched her right arm. She put her hand on the girl's soft shoulder, trying to drag her up to make her kneel in the proper position. But Eva cried out. She grabbed the arm to pull M over to her, hugging her. She smothered her with her shivering flesh. The tightness of the desperate embrace emptied M's lungs. It left her gasping under a thousand kisses.

M wrestled breathlessly to free herself. Then she scrambled to her feet and pushed the girl away, making her slide over the slick marble slabs, where she rolled into a tight fetal ball.

M stood panting and coughing. Then she growled: "Stop that. You're a disgrace to our new Mistress."

Eva looked back over her crouching shoulder. Her eyes were a pool of tears and misery. She slid further away from M and scrambled to her feet until she stood upright, shaking in the soft sweet breeze. Her mouth worked to shape inaudible words. Her arms were stretched forward, her hands waving in trembling denial. M took a step forward. She opened her arms, but Eva kept her distance by stepping back.

"Come," M said. She softened her voice. "Don't be afraid. Come to Mina, have no fear, little girl. Believe me, honey. Our new Mistress will treat you so much better than I ever did. We'll be her children. Come kneel with me so we can please our new Mistress." Fear flared in Eva's green, bleary eyes. She looked around. Then she peered over her shoulder to the edge of the roof and the endless fall beyond. She was only a few feet away from the unprotected edge. Her bare feet kept shuffling towards it. M reached out, but she stopped.

"Don't," she whispered. Eva now touched the edge with her toes. 'Choice,' she thought, the word tumbling through her darkening mind. She stretched her arms sideways, like a diver. Her naked, bruised body was etched against the clear blue sky and the darker sea below.

M stood as frozen as the girl. She watched in silence, her arms still reaching out, almost touching. Time froze; all sounds seemed to die. Then a seagull screamed a blood-curdling cry, and Eva stepped out into the void.

Without thinking, M dived forward like an American football-player, tackling the already falling body. The impact on the unyielding marble sent flashes of pain through their bodies. They rolled together until they came to a halt at a safe distance from the fateful edge. M panted. She rose over the girl's face, looking down hard.

"Cunt," she hissed. "You, stupid cunt. You can't take your life. It isn't yours, it belongs to your Mistress."

Eva opened her eyes. They were sparkling now. Her pale face was streaked with tears, but her eyes were dry and clear. She smiled, her smile radiated. It touched the ice between them and melted it down until it cracked with a bang. A myriad of sparkling splinters flew into the morning air.

"Yes, Mistress," she whispered. "It belongs to you." She grabbed M's head, pulling it down to her face. Her full, moist lips opened and closed around the mouth of her Mistress. Her tongue dashed into it.

A fire flared inside Eva. A thousand mouths breathed on a bed of embers. The smoldering heat spread into every niche and corner of her body. The mouth that sucked hers seemed to pull out waves of energy. How could her flimsy skin contain this fire? Maelstroms of lava swirled around the pivots of her existence, her screaming nipples; the pulsing center of her crotch.

Both, woman and girl, started to squirm in their tight embrace, sweating profusely. Their limbs shone, their skin glistened and they gasped whenever they came up from the never-ending kiss. They were like dolphins breaking the surface of a bottomless ocean. Then, at long last their lips broke contact. Their mouths travelled the length of their bodies. Tongues and lips slurped the salty sweat until they reached the hot pit of their crotches. Tongues slid into swollen slits, moans and whimpers resounded. Arching their bodies, they pushed their crotches into the face of their lover, painting it with sweat and juices. Sweet names danced like butterflies on waves of sighs and breathless gasps. Soon, articulate words morphed into scrambled nonsense. High-pitched cries of unbearable passion rang out. And they both came with crashing climaxes, their bodies shaking – never stopping. Together they moved across the slippery marble like a crazed crab. Then they screamed with the seagulls as the first ugly lashes bit into their skin. Strokes rained down on them, ah, but the leather whip could as well have tried to make an impact on the boiling lava of nearby Mount Vesuvius. All pain it caused burned away in the heat. It only added to the endless string of sparkling orgasms.

For the two lovers, the outside world ceased to exist – it wasn't even a bad dream anymore. Their consciousness completely evaporated, used up like oxygen by a blazing fire. Humping and arching in silence now, their eyes were shut, their faces contorted with ecstasy. Pain fed their orgasms. By the time their passion died, their tormentor's arm ached with exhaustion.

Ugly new wealds had been added to purple bruises, turning M's back into a landscape of horror. She'd by now slid off Eva's body; her chest and thighs pressed into the marble. She'd fainted, Eva saw, but her limbs kept twitching in a senseless stupor.

Eva's thighs had taking the brunt of the punishment. They were covered with innumerable bruises and fiery stripes, but her eyes were open – shining. The celestial smile on her face still held. And she sang. She sang a soft little song with the sweet innocence of her childhood. Grass was there, the scent of wild flowers in endless meadows – the sound of the wind and whinnying horses.

It sent cold shivers up the spine of her tormentor.

***

When Eva woke, a pinkish darkness enclosed her. It had soft, woolly fingers. She must have been sedated, for she had to fight her way up from unconscious depths. All she knew was that she still existed, and she found that her existence was a very painful reality.

Someone moaned. It might have been herself. It might have been someone else in this floating universe. Oh damn, the pain was everywhere. Her skin seemed aflame. A fire burned across her back and over the flesh of her ass and thighs. She started to tremble; she couldn't stop. The heat was captured inside her body while her skin tried to shake it out of her system. The rippling spread until it reached the crawling crest of her skull and the clawing toes on her feet.

All went black again.

***

When the lights returned, the pain had numbed to a slow, deep throb. Eva's brain seemed clearer than before. Golden light slanted through the slits of blinds. Its color and angle told her that afternoon must be turning into early evening. She lay on her belly, trying to look up from the clean cool linen of her bed. Then she met the smiling eyes of M – they were still blue, still absorbing, but the steel had gone.

"I slept so long, Mistress," she whispered. She touched the face with a careful finger. "Where are we; where did they take us?" She was surprised by the low croak of her voice.

"I don't know, I just woke too." Eva rose, wincing at the pain when she moved.

"Your bruises are less fiery now," she said, tracing the chaos on M's back, then leaning down to kiss it. M smiled.

"We must leave here at once," she said, grabbing Eva's hand. "We must get out of this place, away from this witch. She is evil." M tried to get up, she couldn't. Her arms and legs were tied down to the bed. "They fear me, I guess," M went on, giggling. "Matto, completamente matto. They must think I'm crazy."

Eva tried to undo the leather cuffs that fettered M, but they were locked with a key. At that moment a well-known voice cut through the room. The Countess was a statue of blackest arrogance on towering boots. From her hand dangled a riding crop.

"We are going nowhere, lovelies," she said, lacing her icy voice with a deadly syrup. Eva looked up past the cruelly pointed tits to see the red cut of a mouth. She knew she had to avoid the eyes.

"We're not yours, Countess," M said. Her voice was calm. "We never were, you'll have to kill us before we break." Eva wondered why it felt true. What secret, newfound source gave her this certainty? She knew there was truth in the statement. As did the Countess: a nervous twitching of her mouth betrayed her. She must sense the new bond between her prisoners, Eva guessed. She already must have felt it when her rage on the rooftop was utterly ignored. Or maybe she really felt that M had gone crazy? Ah well, she might be right. And she also might have this typical Italian fear of lunatics, who'd know?

Eva tried to imagine what had happened at that crazy dinner party – and before. What relationship had there been between her crazy Mistress and this evil she-devil? 'Unbroken,' Eva had been called, and somehow that had been a challenge, she imagined, especially for this old, spiteful broad. Had there been a deal, a sick wager? There must have been something.

Anyway, M obviously lost and now they were the Contessa's property – both of them. Eva wondered. Did the old hag really think she owned them? 'Unbroken,' M had said, waving the word like a red cloth in front of this woman. What had she meant? And had the game really ended? Eva tried to read sense in the frustrated woman's face. Yesterday should have been a triumph over M, Mina, the Swedish upstart. And today the woman would break them and re-brand them to be hers forever. That must have been the plan. She would dash all nonsense about silly modern ways and young intruders sawing at the legs of her chair.

Imagine the glorious entree she'd make at the next meeting, her giant Nubian pulling the chains that held both M and Eva at their throats. The Countess herself making up the rear, dressed to kill, glorying in the quenching of yet another rebellion. She'd show them how this former star talent slobbered at her boots, while being fucked in her ass by the largest cock alive. Broken she would be, M and her slave girl, broken like they should be, and finished.

In the woman's eyes, Eva saw the frustrated realization that it was all an impossible dream. On the roof there had been this incomprehensible thing between the two of them, hadn't there? This thing that had surprised them all. The Countess had tried to break it, but she couldn't, could she? Her flogging had increased the rebellion. They'd laughed at her, not caring at all, even ignoring her. There had been this diamond-hard kernel inside their soft, treacherous flesh. Unbroken.

In the end, the Countess might suspect that M had been playing her all along. The thought chilled Eva. Could it be? Taking all this humiliation and pain just to double cross a double crosser? Then the chill turned into a new, hot certainty that overwhelmed her, molding her body into a proud stance. She sighed and caught the obsidian gaze, unafraid, unbroken. And she smiled.

Seconds passed. Eva knew anything could happen. They might be tortured again, even killed. But her smile didn't waver. As did M's. Seconds became minutes as the woman's waxen face reddened. Steam might come out of her ears if she didn't speak now. She might rupture, explode. Then, with a groan, the woman threw down a set of keys, turned on screeching heels and left the room.

Eva threw herself at M, making her cry out with pain. But they laughed, they shrieked with laughter until they sobbed and kissed.

Deep down in the villa's darkness, three consecutive doors slammed shut.

***

The evening of the day M brought them back to the house on the lake, the three of them gathered around the hearth in the summer room – a pale, oiled and naked girl and a tanned, oiled and naked she-boy, kneeling on the rug; a woman on a sofa, dressed in leather jeans and a wide jersey woolen sweater. The sweater was dark gray, the woman's face pale with ghostly-blue eyes. Her blond hair had been done up in a loose bun.

"It's over," she said. It didn't seem to register with the naked creatures who were too busy touching each other and whispering, still flushed with the excitement of being back together. "Do you hear what I say?" M asked, sitting straighter in her club chair next to the fire. "You're free." Sandi turned his face to the woman in black. It seemed he had problems understanding the very word. "Go!" M said, illustrating what she meant by waving a hand. "Get your things, I'll inform Gustav." Eva stared, open-mouthed.

"But," she said, finding no better word to shape her confusion. "Go? Why? Where?" Sandi slowly shook his head in puzzled denial. M pulled her leather-clad legs under her, turning her body into a compact ball as if readying herself against attacks.

"No," Eva said. It wasn't a panicked 'no' or even a surprised 'no.' She felt calm. Her voice was level, sounding almost distracted. "You're wrong," she proceeded, maybe her first straight contradiction in months.

"Yes," M agreed. "I was wrong, very wrong – about you and about me. That's why you should go and regain your freedom." Eva felt her body respond, even before her mind grasped a plan. She rose to her knees, inhaling deeply.

"Freedom?" she said, almost breezing the word. "Bullshit." It wasn't a word Eva often used. She also didn't think she ever said it with such lack of emotion. Rising to her lean, oiled legs, looking down on the balled-up woman, she said: "So, that's it? You capture us, humiliate us, and torture us with words and whips. You brand us as property and rob us of our choices. You force us to love you; you almost make me kill myself. And after all this, you tell us to fuck off?" Towards the end, Eva almost whispered. "How?" she asked. "Where to?" Towering over M, she shook her head. Then she sank to her knees again, right at the edge of the sofa – and laid her head in M's cool, leather lap. "Why not just kill me?" she asked.

M seemed at a loss of words, her blue eyes out of focus. Eva saw images of a girl stepping off a roof; they must also flash through the woman's mind. M uncoiled her long body, and now her hand slowly stroked Eva's hair and face where it rested on her belly.

"You don't understand, Eva," she said. "I used you. I had this... thing with the Countess. I... I gambled with your life to get my..." Eva looked up, saying nothing. M looked away, not ending her sentence. "I... well, you know," she then said, "once I was the Countess's slave."

The word hung between them, surrounded at all sides by nothingness. 'Slave,' Eva repeated, at last, her lips shaping the word, but it came out mostly as a sigh. M stared without seeing, then nodded. Rubbing her hands together, she looked out of the window into the darkening evening.

"I was like you," she went on. "Being an au pair in Rome when I was seventeen, Hortense tricked me into imprisonment. I didn't want to leave the city after my time was up; she offered me a job, but my job was mostly to lick her and her sister's cunts, and some kinky modelling; porn, really. Later on, she introduced me to members of her club." M sighed, a cloud misting up her eyes. "I was so much like you, Eva, a victim of my body, lost in the sweet and so very new entanglements of, well, lust I guess." Her fingers reached for Eva's hands, holding them.

"I was so young," she sighed, and Hortense easily manipulated my parents in Stockholm into thinking I had it made in Italy, sending merry pictures, dazzling them with her title, her wealth and the glamour of High society life." Memories traveled past her face. "Then," she went on, "One day I happened upon a Swedish newspaper with the news that a prominent Swedish couple had been killed in a robbery. They were my parents, and the newspaper was over three months old." Pain pulled at her lips. "Hortense told me she knew, she'd had a phone call, but she'd decided not to tell me. 'To spare me the pain,' she said." Tears appeared at the corners of M's eyes. She rubbed them away with an irritated swipe of her hand. Eva tried to embrace her, but the woman refused the hug.