When Demons Are Redeemed: The Dominant's Muse

Twenty-Two - Winning Praise

This race was the final one of this first cycle’s mini-contest, and every woman in the ballroom now has colour added to her face as well, since the explosion that happened in her mouth sent out colour that invaded it from the bursting, since it could not help but to escape her lips and then drip down to her neck and breasts. The pressure of the burst, after that faint warning sound, forced opened a woman’s mouth, creating a physical reaction that could be seen by the masters before the colour-ejection occurred. Some women choked on the colour spewed forth towards their throat.

Since every team must finish every race even when a winner has been declared, and since some women are slow at making the fake manhood before them burst, the winning line is not announced right away. The participants are responsible for this brief pause, and not contest attendants, since the latter are very well organized, with minimal time lost in between activities, but they certainly could not foresee that prostitutes would be so slow at doing what they do many times a day, every day. They believed that the fake organs demanded just a little adapting, both in process and in regards to the feel of them in one’s mouth.

When it is possible to move on, Catherine is clean again, except of Tristan’s creative material and art. Since her line was done quickly, contest attendants were able to remove colours and chocolate from her and the others while the other lines were allowed up to the time limit to finish. The removal was done most carefully by attendants with a solution that does not affect creative material on the canvases, due to the fixative’s protective properties once blended with it. An attendant nevertheless repeated that if smudges occur during a contest, they have no disqualifying effect. They do affect the art itself, however, which matters to certain true artists participating this weekend. All smudges are recorded in photo-form on a tablet computer, so that judges may refer to them when it is time to choose the winner and two runners-up. So serious.

Catherine has almost reached Tristan when he abruptly and viciously reaches towards her. She is startled by the move and in that very instant has the time to wonder what she did wrong.

His hand, however, catches something behind her, while his other one pushes Catherine out of the way. When she turns, she sees the big-mouth non-refundable, the one whose pride or ego or whatever was wounded by Catherine. Tristan’s eyes are now in the female’s, with all of their coldness, cruelty, and viciousness alive in them as he holds her captive. He makes his point, eye to eye, before yanking on the woman’s arm, twisting her about, and dislocating her shoulder. Catherine sees how calculated the move is: Tristan knows exactly what he is doing, exactly how. He releases the woman to her pain and his eyes find her master. They are somewhat apologetic to him, but also not, since the man’s non-refundable did attack Catherine. Attempted to.

“Popping that back in’s a bitch,” the master tells the prostitute.

Tristan reaches for one of Catherine’s hand and guides her away from the competition area. Once they have cleared it, he releases it. She then silently follows him back to their home base for the weekend.

“You did good,” he praises her, once they are within his work station.

She clears her throat. “Well, facing the possibility of your anger or of the anger of that great big hooker, from more than one of them, actually, screaming all those nasty threats . . .  “ She stops and wonders if she is out of line. “I think that, during that race, you actually had competition for holding my life in your hands,” she nevertheless softly adds.

A smile comes to her master’s lips, one that spreads to his eyes. A real Tristan smile. Catherine looks away too late, and therefore shivers. She trips over her own breath, but recovers quickly.

No, no, she just as quickly reminds herself. All those bodily fluids this weekend, and his threats all the time, and so, having death surround me either stealthily or openly . . . But I swallowed nothing, and I have no cuts in my mouth, and I will not think of the viruses that could just call my mouth itself home anyway. And you would still be responsible for murdering me, through any such biological weapon that you guided me to, this weekend, Tristan, that you forced upon me, or to handle. Like those masters murdered their submissives, didn’t they? What kind of mess happened then, at that event? And as for your very own weapon, one that you could so easily load up to be deadly without even knowing it, because of all that you do with it . . . I’m certain that you do much more with it than come to me sometimes four times a day, and then, when you’re away from the tour, from me, what do you do then, uh? You don’t know for sure that you’ve loaded it, but you certainly have the intelligence to know that it could happen. So, still your fault, your responsibility. Close, file, damn it. I wish that you would not open again. Go away, deep fear of dying, of death. You take control away from me because you force me to do things. Fear and what we do that replies to fear are obsessive traits. Stubborn traits.