The Brand Ch. 03

"Well," said Victria; clearing her throat, "Now that you've taken a fairly large glimpse into me, let's get back to our regular programming, shall we?"

"Yes Mistress." Said Melody as she fell to her knees at her domme's side.

"Now; tell me the truth about your scar."

"I told you the truth about my scar Mistress."

"Hmm. I don't believe you have. Tell me the truth, and I will grant you three nights off."

Melody said nothing. Victria regarded her for a moment, and then began to gently unfasten the hair bound at the back of her head. That done, she gently loosened the tresses with her fingers and draped it around Melody's beautiful white neck. Taking her by the chin, Victria considered the green depth in her slave's eyes. Then she said:

"Tell me; and I will set you up in your own apartment nearby. You will continue to work for me eight hours a day and you will take your marketing courses at the local community college."

Victria watched wounded clouds roll into Melody's eyes, dimming their emerald light to a sweet shade of pain. Then, as the anger and grief brought stubborn tears to her lashes, Victria knew she had her answer.

"Fine then." She said as she left her slave to wipe her own tears, "I think I'll paint you."

Melody had perked back up almost instantly as she watched Victria leap from her chair and go about clearing a work space by the patio doors and collecting materials. She'd happily assisted in the spreading of the drop cloth and the arranging of the artist's paints, palette and brushes. But, when it came time to settle into the pose, Melody became somewhat dismayed that it was to be her very body, her sore ass in particular, that would actually serve as Victria's canvas.

"And you're video taping this." Melody remarked; laying face down against a pillow on the floor, knees bent and ass up.

"Definitely." Said Victria as she set the camera on its tripod, "I happen to be very patriotic."

Melody wasn't able to see the grand old flag Victria was painting across her buttocks, but the coolness of the body paint and the gentle strokes of Victria's brush were certainly soothing. Melody did her best to relax however else she could, given her position, head to one side, cradled in the lap of her folded arms.

She'd fixed her gaze on a landscape that was leaned against the far left wall. It depicted a sun spotted and shade dappled winding country road, bordered with lush green thickets of crab grass beyond which was flanked by stands of mountain laurel that were guarded by an army of high oak, maple and spruce. The road, beautifully detailed with a few rugged edged pot holes filled with shimmering puddle remains of some hard rain that had fallen during the night before, meandered off into the distance.

Standing along the rear edge of the central pot hole was a little girl, staring down into the puddle at her feet. She wore bright yellow rain boots, white tights and an incongruously pink party dress, her hair in pig tails, her expression revealing a poignant union of joy and regret. This is my very own puddle to jump in, but I might catch a switching for it later, was what it said.

Melody's perception of the image turned celluloid inside her open mind. She saw herself wander down the road, her back to the child poised at the edge of her puddle. Also to her back, unseen in the foreground, was a small town, full of families and schools and churches. Melody had walked away from one of the churches and the families gathered there. She walked home, to the house of her parents, a little place with clean surfaces, old quilts covering the living room furniture and old white lace curtains blocking the windows. She crossed the room and went up the stairs. Inside her room, it too quilted and curtained, had a desk with library books upon it she'd never return. Melody sat out the rest of the day, and then through dinner, and listened to the dark. Gentle knocks on her bedroom door came and went, as she told her mom and dad that she'd feel more like talking in the morning.

That next morning, Melody got up with the neighbor's roosters, packed her back pack and slipped silently out of the house. She rode her bike to the Wells Fargo in town, withdrew four hundred dollars, thinking that she would get a bus or train ticket, but then she started to cry. Drying her eyes, Melody left her bike leaning against the back wall of the bank, and then walked to the Pigly Wigly by the school. Taking one last look, she stepped into the convenience store to buy a road atlas, a few bags of trail mix and some bottled water.

Melody remembered thinking of her favorite alternative band's front man then, and how he used to keep his money inside his socks, so she'd put the better part of her three hundred and eighty -five remaining dollars inside her socks after she'd made her purchases at the convenience store. And, as Mr. Super Star decided that even though he could just walk right out the front door of Betty Ford, he chose to climb over the high brick wall in the back, Melody decided to leave her bike, forget about any bus or train ride, and just start walking all the way across as many states as it took to feel better, to forget or to get killed trying to feel better or to forget.

"Girl?"

Victria's face gradually materialized, rising into the scene, looming as if pushed through a window pane of still water. Her hair was dangling vertical as her head was tilted somewhat horizontally; her eyes shining with concern.

"Are you among the living or what Cowboy?" she asked.

Melody seemed to stare right through her as she took in a long slow breath. Victria swung her head around to see what Melody might have been mesmerized by.

"I walked away from my mother and father on a warm day in early March." Uttered Melody; drawing Victria's attention back to her, "I took only a few things in my back pack. I stepped out of the house, walked out of the neighborhood, trudged onto the highway and I never stopped once for the offers of rides, of most help. The old black couple and the librarian showed up at just the right times; when I; well..."

Victria laid down beside Melody, and rested her head against her arm as she waited out her model's pause.

"I slept under trash bags and news papers behind buildings." Continued Melody; staring blankly into Victria's face, "I got rained and snowed on, city after city and town after town until my money ran out in Raleigh. From that point on to Connecticut, I lived on a bottle return funded diet of snack chips, nutty candy bars and bottles of water, as well as strung along soup kitchen meals from shelter to shelter. Finally in Hartford; it turned out to not have been exactly the safest, but it seemed the most far enough away."

As a silence followed, the two young women stared into each other's eyes, neither blinking or letting their watchfulness drift. Again, Victria waited Melody out; giving her the chance to say more, to shed more light concerning the secret source of the scar. It was redefined now; a lie, a glaringly peachy pink fact shrouded in fabrication. You are mine, my mystery, for now, mused Victria. The longer you keep the truth from me, the more I want you and so the harder I will be. But, I will not push, not for the truth. I will play. I will push you; my sweet slave.

"Well;" Victria intoned; breaking the silence, "Thank you for sharing that little snap shot of your past. But now you can get up on your hands. It's time to put the final touch on this piece."

Victria rose to her feet, and then stepped back behind Melody, who was now poised hands and knees, her back straight, her head held high. Peering over her shoulder, Melody watched as Victria adjusted the height and vantage of the video camera. Next, she rummaged through her toolbox and withdrew a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She then pulled one from the pack, set its filter against a sticky spot on her bottom lip, and then tossed the rest of the pack onto the drafting table.

"It was my impression you didn't smoke." Remarked Melody as she watched her artist ignite the cigarette.

"I don't., not really" answered Victria, "I lit it for you."

"For me? But I-"

With the cigarette still hanging loosely between her lips, Victria kneeled behind her slave. She pushed the insides of Melody's knees with her own, and then carefully tucked the smoldering cigarette at a height between her buttocks that made the best aesthetic sense. With one last little push, Victria set the cigarette so that it's white shaft pointed slightly upward, and then scooted back to take in the sight.

"You have to be fucking kidding me?" said Melody as she felt the slight sensation of the cigarette tucked inside her ass.

"Shush!" Victria commanded as she brought a strong hand around her slave's ankle, holding it fast, "Quiet! Concentrate."

The next thing Melody knew after Victria's grip was gradually loosen and withdrawn, was that the burning cigarette's warmth was suddenly palpable, and seemed to feel as if it was drying the paint around its most immediate circumference.

"Now give me your rendition of the Star Spangled Banner." Ordered Victria, "Try not to sing it too fast. You should have plenty of time before you start to feel the burn.

No, really, this is okay, thought Melody. I'm committed anyway. We're all here in the loony bin, committed, committed to each other, each one to the other; enslaved by our animal hearts.

"Oh say can you see," sang Melody between frightened laughter.

"Ah! No laughing slave! We're saluting our nation here.

"By the dawn's early light."

"Beautiful. That's it; sing it baby."

By the time Melody arrived at the song's climax, the top of her lip became sweaty and her eyes were wide as the heat of the smoldering tobacco started to bake the inner walls of her ass.

"Nicely done Slave!" praised Victria, offering Melody a small round of applause.

"Oh my God!" Melody cried, "Take it out please!"

A long cylinder of ash suddenly fell to the canvased floor while Victria tried to nagotiate the filter from Melody's ass. It was Victria then that began to laugh as Melody started to whimper.

"I can't seem to get a grip on it." Said Victria after sticking a burned finger tip in her mouth.

"Jesus Victria; splash some water on it; do something!"

Breathing hard with laughter, Victria scrambled to the sink in the basement's bath, dampened a folded up square of paper towel, and then ran back to Melody. The sight of her, on her hands and knees, seemingly helpless to swat the burning thing away from her ass, her face tear stained and wide eyed, Victria found perfectly priceless. In the next instant, in one deft motion, the artist simultaneously put out the cigarette and plucked it from between her model's unmarred, broad striped and bright starred, buttocks.

"That; was awesome!" Victria exclaimed as she began to spray the bright tempera colors from Melody's graphitized glutiai.

They'd begun to laugh together when Victria pointed out her duck waddle tip toe walk as she led her model to the basement bath. Helping her into the tub, Victria tenderly wiped Melody's tears away and whispered her gratitude for how good a slave she was. Close enough to kiss, their eyes lingered, searching for more depth than there was between innocent skin and a whip or burning cigarette. But still, no kiss came. Instead, Victria hunkered down along the outer wall of the tub and proceeded to spray soft, warm jets of water, guiding the extendable shower head in slow vertical patterns across Melody's illustrated bottom.

"I feel incredibly stupid Mistress." Melody pouted, "Do I have tobacco stains around my ass hole?"

"You're not incredibly stupid." Laughed Victria as she took a soft sponge from the edge of the tub, "You're just beautifully mine. Uh; as for any marred flesh, I'm not sure yet." "I'll let you know when I've cleared the paint from there. Now spread your legs a bit more."

Melody's chest was against the shower's wall, her fore arms above her breasts, her nipples hard against the cold tiles. Victria's after care was gentle; a careful spraying and dabbing away at various patches of red, white and blue. Gradually, the beautiful creamy white of Melody's buttocks came to be fully exposed, and Victria rose to her knees to better admire it. Presently, she adjusted her spray's angle of approach and return so that it might stimulate her slave. It obviously had; causing Melody to spread her legs further apart and raise her ass higher. Victria continued to spray Melody's warming sex and lovely perineum as she'd done for herself after a hard day's work. Then the whimpering began; interspersed among Melody's soft moans of pleasure.

"Am I marked Mistress?" asked Melody after she'd reached her hands down to grip and part the clef of her ass, exposing the bright pink of her diminutive anus, "Does my ass still please you?"

"You are just a bit red in two spots." Victria intoned; spraying down straggling trickles of paint along Melody's thighs and calves, "But I'll take care of that soon enough. Otherwise, your bottom is as divine as when we started. Now; turn around and show me the rest of my property."

"Yes Mistress."

Melody turned, and quickly steadied her legs, setting them apart, reaching eager fingers down to pet the hair of her mons, to part the curtain of her vulva as she stared hungrily at her dome. Victria glanced up to meet her girl's wicked gaze to watch her reaction as she brought the spray from the shower head slowly up from between her perineum. First there was wide eyed delighted shock. Then, Melody closed her eyes and slowly rolled her head back. Victria looked down at her girl's mons and watched as her lips swelled and parted to let loose the small red glistening beckoning beacon.

More and more she sprayed, keeping her slow back to front pattern, coaxing the bright red genie from Melody's lamp. The clitoris shown proudly, like a doted on queen, her head held high, poised to accept her crown. Melody's moans evolved into shudders of pleasure; her hips shaking, her thighs quaking, her fingers daring to touch her bold little empress of a clit. Then, just as Victria saw Melody's eyes close again and her mouth go wide, she took the spray away. As her girl took gradually shallowing breaths, the dome studied the woman's sex. Her honey suddenly began to drip from her inside; welling in her gorgeous nooks and crannies, and then seeping along the edges of her vulva's clef, oozing thick like a tapped maple's sap.

"Please Mistress," she sighed, "Let me come. Have I not been good to you?"

"You have."

"Then please Mistress; permit me to show you how I masturbate. Or would you prefer to taste me, and bring me there yourself?"

Victria reached a probing finger, the finger she'd burned with the cigarette, and dipped it into Melody's thick juices. Then Melody watched her dome lik it clean.

"It is yours Mistress." Melody whispered, "Take it. Take it; please."

Again, their eyes were riveted, one to the other's. Presently, Victria resumed stimulating her slave with the shower head. Again, the ecstatic shock of joy shot through Melody's body; rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. Finally just as she was making a down stroke with the shower head, Victria saw the sudden jettisoning of Melody's come. It made a high arc, followed by another, and then landed on Victria's chin and then bottom lip. Meanwhile, her body twitching, reaching a hand to brace herself against her domme's shoulder, Melody cried in frenzied delight.

"Do you have; many friends Mistress?"

A comfortable silence had preceded Melody's question and, as the question hung there in the air over Victria's bed, the silence gained the weight of supposition. The dome had begun the second phase of her after care, drying her girl off, leading her to the bed room and inviting her to lay down. Leaning beside Melody's bare slightly yellow bruised bottom, Victria smoothed creamy aloe over the small stretches of buttock burned by the cigarette.

"I have what you can call friends Girl;" said Victria, "Though I treat them all as if the enemy within any single one of them might come out to show their true face."

Victria trusted no one; men and women equally. There were the ladies among their group, trustworthy within the loose lipped exchange of big business small talk. Otherwise, they were imperfect strangers; walking, talking family theme park characters without the disguises of mouse, dog or duck.

"I limit my participation in the world to work and to my meeting with the professional women's group I belong to. Otherwise, I generally prefer to stay away from the masses of sheep out there. Besides, what are friends for anyway?"

Melody turned to face her mistress; a look of pained concern.

"Are you not a friend to me, Mistress?" she asked, "As much as I slave for you and let you humiliate me; isn't it the bond of friendship that fills in the cracks of what you wish and how I please?"

Victria met her slave's lingering stare. In the next instant Melody realized that her dome was once again pushing a slick finger inside her ass, smiling devilishly as she thrust.

"Then please accept this friendly; gesture." Said Victria as she drove her come hither finger deep inside Melody's rump.

A frown soured Melody's face, though she firmly clenched her Keegle's around her domme's digit.

"You don't have to be mean about it." Said Melody before bringing her head to rest on Victria's pillow.

Melody had gradually become less sore at Victria; realizing that holding a grudge in their relationship just wouldn't do. So she'd perked up, and cleaned, and made her mistress a fine lunch, and then cleaned some more. But, when Victria announced that she would be out for the night, her slave appeared once again thoroughly displeased. Even when Victria told her she could have the night off, order any take-out she wanted, and could wait for her in the master bed, Melody still looked sullenly about; her gait slow, her effort lax.

"She's right you know." Remarked one of Victria's dinner guests for that evening, "Establishing a foundation through the honest exchange of psychological intimacy was the better way to start things off."

The restaurant where they'd met was one of Victria's favorites, dark, heavy wood furniture, plush seats, her usual table set far from the main room, and the back rest of her chair against the far wall, her vantage over the whole scene and through the entrance beyond. Pamela Serrano, of the premier vegan restaurant chain in the northeast, sat to Victria's right, while Geralynne Tucker, the second vice president of Hartford Metro Special Care, was seated on her left. They were the only two from their business women's collective that truly met eye to eye with Victria, and though they didn't have any of her faith, they had her ear. Beyond that, they were bound by their respective kinks, and could scene together as easily as they could blackmail each other with the evidence.

"I couldn't stop myself Pam!" Said Victria, "It's like everything fell into place. I knew it when I watched her dealing with the black chick, and then during the robbery. I mean, all those sheep in the store, I think they just trusted that it was going to turn out well enough. They just did what they were told. But Melody, she just went down before the guy told them to."

"And you?" asked Gerylynne; pushing her stylishly shaggy hair away from her eyes to gain better vantage of Victria's face.

"I wasn't laying down for that bitch."

"Oh my God!" hissed Pamela; her blue eyes narrowed at Victria, "That was you in the fucking paper this morning!?! No shit! You could have been shot!"

"Well sure I could have been shot, but I would have been shot standing up and facing the despicable mother fucker! Anyway, I knew she was ripe, so I just; took a chance."