The Brand Ch. 03

There was a jauntiness in Melody's step as she walked proudly naked from the house. Her brazen exposure to the early morning sun was a baptism, her easy breathing a soft heralding to the world that she was on her way to becoming a very proper slave. Her Mistress stood in the doorway, commemorating the event, proud of her girl's first steps; snapping shots of Melody as she bent over to gather up the Saturday morning paper. Rising back to her full height, her brown hair spun with strands of golden sun, Melody paused to admire the scenery around her.

Still wincing from the lingering pain across her buttocks, she tried to massage more of the tenderness out as she regarded the sprawling fauna around Victria's farm house. The property was hidden from the road, the view blocked with thick flowering patches of sun soaked brush, dense clusters of embraced red maples and the tall army of oaks and firs who's shade had their growth under their control.

Having spent the last two years living on the capitol city's streets, Melody saw only concrete and asphalt roll away from her feet. Now, as a gentle breeze touched her bare skin and sent the stray hairs at the edges of her bound hair a frollick, she stared down at the lush carpet of bright green grass, each and every blade crowned with its very own glistening jewel of dew. What is freedom; really? Melody pondered the question as she regarded Victria; still snapping away with her camera. I suppose it's flattering to some degree, though Melody as she padded back to the house, but what does she intend to do with all those pictures. And anyway; when will it be my turn to take in your naked body long enough to take pictures of it, Ms. Charpentier?

"Might I inquire Mistress," asked Melody as she followed Victria back into the house, "What do you intend to do with all of those nude photos of me?"

"Oh splatter them all over the Web, of course." Said Victria; as she strode toward the kitchen; dressed in white crew socks, a pair of red bicycle shorts and a loose black T-shirt, "That is what you're thinking, right?"

"Seriously Ma'am?" Melody shouted as she closed the door behind her.

Melody stopped by the stair landing and held the paper over her breasts as she shot her employer a look of surprised indignance.

Victria turned suddenly to face her girl. Oh crap, thought Melody, as she lowered the paper to obscure her sex, don't tell me I just earned myself another flogging. Then, eyes leveled, Victria stepped back toward her slave. As she nervously tapped the ends of the folded news paper, Melody's eyes darted in every direction but her domme's face. In the next instant, Victria snatched the paper away, leaving her slave to nervously twiddle her thumbs before her bared sex.

"Chillax Cowboy." Laughed Victria as she carried the paper back toward the kitchen, "That would be so incredibly unprofessional of me."

"Unprofessional?" Melody repeated as she marched after her, "As if your brand of behavioral habituation is anything but? If my world hadn't fallen apart, I wouldn't be here, letting you-"

Melody cut herself off and looked away. Victria studied her during the resulting silence; a mystery of guarded emotion passing unseen by the lost naked woman before her.

"And where would you be Ms. Melody May?" asked Victria in a measured, patient tone, "Did I have a plan for you? Yes. Can I help that we were caught up in a robbery; the experience of which has apparently affected you profoundly? No."

Melody had suddenly begun to sniffle as she began to gesture, as if to prepare to speak, but still not looking directly at Victria nor taking the opportunity to speak.

"Have I exploited your fear? No; I have not. Am I guilty of exploiting you? Yes. Am I enjoying exploiting you? Yes; very much."

"If I walk out of here," Melody whimpered; arms folded across her breasts, "I will lose everything."

"Yes." Victria affirmed, "And by sticking it out with me, through what I'm certain you believe is my sick little game, you will stand to gain everything, and you will have a brand spanking new life you can be proud of, and you can go back home to tell everyone about it or you can share your success with only those you care to. Hell, Cowboy; you will become the queen of your own world and I will have the satisfaction of enjoying you, as I choose, while I help you create that world. Face it gorgeous; it's a win win."

Melody stepped to the kitchen table to withdraw a napkin. Quickly, she wiped her tears and blew her nose as she pondered the logical insanity of it, the truth of her circumstances and the word Victria used: gorgeous. She then went to the sink, tucked the soiled napkin into the trash and washed her face before stepping back toward her benefactor.

Seriously Mistress! What's so worth preserving for posterity about; me?" asked Melody as she rubbed the raised skin of her scar.

Victria took in the sight; her expression the picture of impassivity until what seemed to Melody like playfulness came into her eyes. Sstepping backward to the edge of the kitchen counter, she slid her seat upon it, and then scooted back.

"Well gee slave," she said, "If it's that important to you that you receive a compliment-"

"It is not important that I receive a compliment," Melody interrupted; arms folded across her chest again, "And; you are not just taking pictures of my eyes.

Fine." Said Victria, "If you must know, after I've fondly gaze upon them, I save those that best exemplify your beauty. Then, I will venture to reproduce them in another medium."

"Another medium?" asked Melody; genuinely surprised, "You're an artist too?"

"No." said Victria as she pulled the paper out of its blue plastic bag and shook out the front page, "I like to pretend I'm an artist. I admire the process of celebrating beautiful things and crafting beauty through photographed, pencil rendered or painted depiction. It's the only true way to extend the beauty of things, of us; taking materials at our disposal that last longer than the elasticity of our skin, the supple sculpture of the flesh on our bones and the brief span of our lives, and turning them into enduring monuments and artifacts."

A brightness came into Melody's eyes as a tingling warmth trailed down her spine and triggered the not altogether unpleasant sensation of pins and needles across her buttocks. Victria turned her attention to the paper. Melody realized a phantom of a memory streaking across the back of her mind, as she, in spite of the strange turmoil in her heart, looked favorably upon her young, beneficent dome. Seeing that she was thoroughly engaged in the morning news, Melody finally stepped back to the stove.

Her gaze went to the pancake batter she'd prepared just before having been instructed to fetch her mistress's paper. Distractedly reaching for the ladle in the mixture, she began to ponder over how her dome might allow her to please her later that evening. Melody couldn't deny it. The nature and dynamic of the relationship had become very unnegotiably complicated and very confrontationally stimulating, all very much accelerated by the robbery's trauma, as if the very world itself had manipulated Melody into circumstances she was not meant to escape.

So why not make the most of it then? Why not exploit Victria for herself. There was the warmth and safety of her home. There was the bounty of her food. Her power made her very alluring as did her sharp beauty; narrow hipped and fine lined with small, perky breasts. Melody had begun to hunger for a taste of her devil's details, her mistress's secret textures and flavors. I suppose I will bide my time, like a good slave, earn my chance.

It had been between the unanticipatedly arousing effects of having been flogged, Victria's gentle after care and Melody's suspicion that the little vibe was left behind as a test, when Melody realized that she desired to find a way to return the favor, to violate her dome through as many methods as it would take to satisfy her own enslaved hart.

It had been the first thing that morning, as Victria unshackled Melody from the foot of her bed, when she'd requested banana slices and chocolate chips in her pancakes. Melody would be opting for a handful of butter scotch morsels left over from the ridiculously sweet dessert they'd shared the night before. It had been around two in the morning when Victria stumbled up the stairs, thoroughly drunk on whiskey, carrying the entire dish of the super chocolate chunk cookie dough, brownie and butterscotch toffee thing, and a fork. Melody, of course, was quietly sobbing, secured in her punishment place, manacled and chained to the frame of Victria's bed.

"Mistress? May I be permitted to call you a miserable fucking twat?"

"Absolutely not. Did you get anything out of the book I gave you to pass your time?"

"I don't really like the genre myself, but it certainly works as a slave's handbook, that's for sure."

"Would you like to join me in some this divine piece of confection you so lovingly prepared?"

Melody sighed then, content with her defeat.

"Yes Mistress. If it pleases you."

So Melody sat up and was fed her wickedly sweet dessert, and Victria gently wiped her lips with the hem of her shirt, and then she told Melody that she was a very good slave for not using the vibe without permission. It was at that moment that Melody realized that she wanted to smackthe the woman across the mouth, almost as much as she wanted to kiss her there.

"Why are you staring?"

"Huh? What?"

Oh my God, thought Melody, I am! When did I- Melody's eyes flitted from Victria, to the ladle in her hand and to the puddle of batter in the center of a cold frying pan.

"I'm sorry Mistress." She said; turning to Victria, "I guess I'm really surprised that you; make art. May I see your work?"

Neither said a word as they stared. Then, without giving her an answer, it was Victria who looked away first, which Melody found out of character; out of what little she knew of her employer's character anyway.

"What's wrong Mistress?" Melody asked.

"My picture's in the fucking paper is what's wrong! Oh I'm going to ruin the prick that allowed this to happen. Did anyone ask me!?! I don't remember anyone with a camera asking me if I wanted my fucking picture taken!"

Melody set the ladle down, and then slowly walked to Victria's side. Angling her head, she saw the picture; Victria kneeling beside the little old lady cashier. The quality of its grain looked like a cell phone shot. Someone from the store must have showed it to a reporter and a copy was e-mailed just like that. Melody read the byline: Heroic woman risks her life to protect store customers and staff. Skimming the article, Melody saw that the store manager was quoted in his description of Victria's method of distracting the thieves. "I think she was either very crazy or extremely confident. Either way, she must have realized that the cops were going to need some kind of evidence to catch those guys."

"Try to understand Mistress that everyone in that store was grateful for your standing up to those men," Melody explained; each word spoken in velvety morsels of awed esteem, "Even if you helped to scare the shit out of them."

Victria shot a suspicious glance at her, drew a frustrated breath, and then flipped to world affairs. Melody lingered there, still skimming the articles and moving in closer. Again, Victria quickly glanced at Melody, her mild annoyance going unseen.

"In the basement," Melody probed, "Is that where you do your work?"

"Yes Girl, in the basement. " Victria sighed, "You've found me out. Please attend to my breakfast now. You can have the paper when I'm finished with it. Go on."

Melody immediately complied with her dismissal and went about attending to their breakfast. Before long, the smell of frying batter filled the kitchen, and the sound of pancakes being flipped and flipped again drew Victria, her nose still in the paper, wandering to her seat at the table. Presently, Melody had two heaping platefuls made. It was something she'd recalled the enjoyment of doing on a Saturday morning; making enough pancakes to last throughout the weekend so that she didn't have to make anything else, and just doze away the rest of her free time between snacks.

They each sat quietly engrossed in their meals; Victria's feet propped up on the seat of the chair to her right as Melody knelt on the floor by her side. Victria had folded the paper over so that she could read it with one hand and eat with the other. Melody was fishing small forkfuls of pancake through small puddles of melted butter and syrup; her mind working out what she might say next and how to say it. Then suddenly, she laughed; an all be it brief titter, but enough to get Victria's attention.

"You're amused by something; girl?" inquired Victria.

"I am, Mistress." Answered Melody as she set her dish upon her lap and met her benefactor's gaze, "You have an art studio in the basement! I'm quite astounded and proud that you've unveiled your first layer of psychological intimacy to me.

Glowering suddenly, Victria pushed her empty dish further onto the table, opened up the section of the paper she was reading to its fullest extent, and then proceeded to hide her face behind it. .

"Please forgive me Mistress," Melody pleaded; her eyes fixed on the front and back pages of the financial section, "But can we have a little time out from the mistress and slave thing, for a bit? Can I just be Melody, for a while; please?"

"Fine." Came a mildly irritated voice from behind the paper, "What is it that Melody wishes to say?"

"Well I mean; without me here, you wouldn't have been able to put your fingers or that big glass thing up my ass. You wouldn't have me to cook these nice meals I've made so far or all the nice cleaning I've done and you wouldn't have had me to humiliate for your own pleasure. And considering how psychologically intimate I've been with you, I think I deserve some important details about who you really are!"

As Melody spoke, Victria came to gradually lower the paper and stare at her until she slowly raised it to cover her entire head again.

"Come on Victria! I'm serious. I mean, I thought doms or domme's had vanilla intimacy with their partners, employees, and maids, whatever, long before they ever brought up the subject of their kink. And; it's my impression that in some very darkly circumlocuitous way, we're also nurturing some level of friendship here also, I like to think, and-"

Victria's paper came crumpling down then.

"Okay!" she said, "You want to see my work? Fine. I hate to share my work, but fine!"

"Victria! Art is the artist's gift to the world. You shouldn't not share it!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah; just give me a minute to clean up down there first, okay?"

"Okay!" sang Melody; beaming.

"And after you get your little show; we're right back to being domme and sub, understand?"

"Yes Victria." Said Melody; not altogether seeming saddened by the prospect, "But may I put a robe or something on for a bit?"

"Absolutely not, Cowboy. You ask for an inch; I give you an inch."

Her eyes still bright, Melody watched as Victria set the paper down, left her seat, and then marched from the room.

"So I'll be able to wash this all off; when you're finished, right Mistress?"

"Yes Girl. It's water based."

"Good. And; how much longer until, you know, you're finished?"

"Not too much longer. Maybe you can pass the time by telling me what this great country of ours means to you; something that, oh I don't know, to help foster our psychological intimacy?"

Finished with the breakfast clean up, Melody descended the stairs toward Victria's studio, imagining that the woman's work perhaps would be primarily abstract in nature, linear and geometric with cleanly crisp edges and everything rendered in the same stark opposing black and white the artist perceived the world through. But, as she stepped into the space and took her first cursory look around, Melody recalled Victria's lounging clothes from the night before. They were actually work clothes; stained and marked with ribbons and stains and drips of a wide range of color , and that range was reflected in the studio from floor to ceiling.

Though still seeming somewhat amateurish, which Melody could attribute only to Victria lacking the time necessary to hone her craft, her work was vital, visceral; her colors varying from straight out of the tube to exquisitely subtle shade arrangements and presentations, her theme and scope ranging from impressionist, realist, art deco and surreal.

There were landscapes behind amazon women at war; fighting dragons and slaying their masters. There was a tableau of the midsections of two naked women; the vulva of one blended into the head of a brown mouse, the other blended into the face of a cat that hungrily eyed the former. There were a number of female nudes, either viewed from the front, rear or in profile; each posed with mostly horses, but a number of other animals as well: a lion, gorilla, deer, cow or elephant. There was a murky underwater scene, what Melody assumed was some post apocalyptic impression, depicting a great cathedral around which lay rows and rows of human skeletal remains.

As she slowly paced around, taking in the dozens and dozens of huge canvases leaning against the walls, Melody saw that Victria painted very few male figures. Then, when she arrived at the corner of the nine hundred square foot space, she'd found perhaps nearly a hundred sculptures. Among them were a variety of baby animals; bear cubs, lions, wolves, lambs and a number of seated, prone or crawling human infants and toddlers.

Against the very corner stood the tallest figure, a solitary male nude. Standing at thirteen or so inches, the figure's body was sculpted with obvious care, even reverence, but his head and sex told another story. His hair was a massive tangle, a lion's mane; his face a brutal, jagged mask of wide, glaring eyes and a gaping mouth of teeth. His sex was fully erect, a dissymmetrical set of testicles hanging from the shaft and what was clearly a very detailed death mask over its head.

"It's an incongruity, I know." Said Victria from the seat of her drafting table, "But because it came out pretty nice, I keep it.

Melody glanced briefly at Victria as she carefully took up one then another sculpture of the infant series. In awed silence, she studied the finer details in each piece. Out of everything in the room, Melody realized, the figurines were the most painstakingly crafted and she came to believe had to be the subject the artist herself most devotedly revered. Glancing once more over the table, and then across the collection behind her, Melody was unable to get her head around the sheer intensity, the intellectual depth and the extent of psychological implication she'd just been allowed to see the surface of.

"Their faces," Melody sang softly; her heart touched, "They're so real. Everything Victria; everything is so beautiful."

Victria said nothing from her seat at the draft table as she touched up a pencil drawing, the bright morning light shining in from the wall of patio doors behind her. Melody quietly walked to her side, and then peered down at what the artist was working on. Taped to the upper right corner of the drafting table was a glossy print out of the photo Victria had taken of her the night before; her body prone, her bare, diminutive toes pointing inward, leaning on her elbows, her wrists in gleaming chains, her head in profile, her expression that of contented defeat. Victria's piece was a perfect black and white photograph of the exact image. All it lacked was the sheen inherent in the original's photo print stock.

Melody drew closer still. As she remained riveted to the drawing, she breathed deeply of the room's air, having acquired an appreciation for the scents of drying oil paint, turpentine fumes and linseed oil. Suddenly, she felt the gentle creeping of the artist's free hand along the graceful elliptic split of her buttocks. Again, the pleasurable pins and needles pain across her ass and the backs of her thighs rose; this time to meet the tingling affected by Victria's soft and powerful fingers. No one's stopping us from making mutually gratifying love but you; Empress.