Chapter 12
Twelve
When I arrive at the opera house on Wednesday, I'm wearing one of the charcoal-colored leotards, my hair in a neat bun. I feel the weight of the collar around my throat—the only jewelry he allows me now on this stage. The metal cage that ensnares his firebird.
I warm up at the barre in silence, the bright spotlight shining on me.
“Hello?” I call out when I finish, my voice echoing off the walls. He usually greets me when I arrive. “Master?”
I will never get used to this title he's demanded of me. It thrills and upsets me in equal measure. It elates and shames me all at the same time.
“Take off your clothes. Go to the table. Put on the blindfold, then bend over and rest your hands on the table and wait for me.”
I let out a slow breath. I do as my Master commands. Moments after I'm nude with my hands flat on the table, I feel his approach. He strokes my throat, my breast, the flank of my hip.
A moment later, I whimper as cold lubed metal slides into my ass.
It's tapered at the top and then flares out at the base so that it fits snugly inside my body.
The plug isn't too large. He's penetrated my ass with larger toys before; still, it's so unexpected this early in the night that it takes my body a moment to adjust. He strokes my ass for a few moments.
“Comfortable?” he asks.
“Yes, Master.” I'm not sure I would call it that, but I know it pleases him to hear me say these words, so I say them. My arousal is already climbing. Why won't he fuck me?
“Stay,” he says. I feel his retreat. Several minutes pass before I hear his voice again over the sound system.
“You can take off the blindfold. Put on the costume and the shoes.”
I remove the blindfold to find a gorgeous flaming red costume with layers and layers of wispy material, lying across the table along with a pair of red pointe shoes resting on top of the pile of fabric.
I'm about to protest that I need more time because you can't just put on a new pair of pointe shoes straight out of the box.
As a dancer, he must know that. But as I pick up the shoes from the pile of red material, I see he's already done the requisite ripping of the satin at the toes, the scraping, the beating of the boxes.
I'm sure he's had these made for me in my exact specifications. All this information is on file with the company after all. With every other string he's pulled, getting that information would be nothing.
“You can test them to see if they're how you like them,” he says.
The ribbons and elastics aren't sewn in yet. Dancers always sew these in ourselves. We are very particular about exactly where to put them for our particular feet and comfort.
I slip into the costume even more aware of the plug in my ass, blushing at the thought of dancing this way. The fairy-like costume fits me like a glove. I twirl in it. “It's beautiful. Is this for the show?”
“No, cupcake. It's simply a gift. I'm not in charge of costuming. I don't have that much power.”
I actually laugh at this.
I try the shoes and test them, surprised that I'm happy with how he's broken them in. I try to imagine him sitting on the stage before I got here, beating the toe boxes against the floor. The image in my mind is comical.
I sit on the stage and sew the elastics and ribbons in. Then I put the shoes on and do a few experimental tendus, jumps, and pirouettes. Everything is as it should be.
“Good girl. Now go to the barre and put the blindfold on.”
I obey his orders, trying to calm the excitement rising within me.
A few minutes later, he's beside me again, his hand kneading the back of my neck. I lean into him, a soft moan leaving my mouth.
“We're going to do the pas de deux you learned this week for Firebird,” he says.
“Do you know it?” I ask, shocked that he would.
He laughs. “Know it? Of course I know it. I choreographed it.”
I stiffen even though I know the choreographer's voice was different. It wasn't him. I know it wasn't him.
“He doesn't have the same voice as you.” I can't help voicing my small doubt.
“No, I'm not the man you met Monday. I taught the choreography to someone who is now teaching it to you.”
“Are you ever going to let me see you?” There is a kind of comfort behind the blindfold. But still, I want to see him. “I-I won't tell anyone.”
He has to know we are well beyond the possibility that the revelation of his identity to me could pose any threat to him. But he doesn't respond to my question.
We dance. Almost every movement creates greater awareness of the toy he pushed inside my ass.
I try to imagine what I must look like on this stage in this swirling fire costume and red shoes, and the black blindfold. When the music stops, we're breathing hard. I want to reach out and touch him so badly, but I know he'll never let me see his face even with only my hands.
I try not to let it bother me, this fuzzy layer between us, the guard he always keeps up.
I want him to trust me. I need him to let me in.
His mouth is on mine suddenly in a feverish demanding kiss that takes my breath from me.
I gasp into his mouth. He rips the costume off me, and I can't stop the tears.
“I... I loved that...”
“I'll buy you a new one,” he snarls, impatiently shoving my tights down past my hips. He picks me up and carries me a distance away. I shriek when he drops me, but the soft mattress catches my fall, and I didn't fall far anyway.
And then he is on me, his teeth biting and scraping at the sensitive flesh of my throat just above my collar. He grips the platinum band and pulls me closer to him, his mouth again finding mine, then he shoves me away, and I fall on my back on the mattress.
He curses as he struggles to untie the knots of the ribbons helping to bind the red shoes to my feet. “Goddammit,” he says again. I think he'll destroy my shoes too, but he finally gets one off, then the other. I hear them crash against the stage far away where he tosses them.
He violently rips the tights off me. His own clothes follow in a flurry of zipper and pulling of fabric and tossing of clothing away. A blissful sigh leaves my mouth as he sheathes himself inside me.
I knew he was big, but the feel of him this way is the most exquisite burn of pleasure and fullness. As he moves inside me, the toy in my ass shifts as well.
“Who do you belong to?” he growls as he fucks me. His arms are wrapped around me, completely enveloping me. I feel like his firebird, trapped, helpless and hopeless with no choice but to dance to his tune.
“You, Master.”
I wonder if he knows about the choreographer asking me out and what happened after. I wonder if he put him up to it to test me and see what I would do—just another spy. Just another camera lens watching me and reporting back to my master.
Will he become like Conall? Possessive and trapping?
I struggle in his arms, feeling smothered, afraid that he is my new Conall.
Will I have to kill him, too? How could I ever?
He plans everything so carefully, his guard is never down.
And I need him. I want him. The things he makes me feel. .. I could never...
His mouth kisses and sucks against my throat, and I come undone in his arms, my pleasure flowing out of me in a long wave. He thrusts one final time inside me, the movement so harsh, it's like a brand on my flesh, like he's trying to permanently mark me with his cock.
He takes the toy out of my ass then falls on top of me, holding me, and I start to cry.
He rolls off of me but doesn't leave. He strokes my hair. “What's wrong, cupcake?”
“Are you going to get jealous and possessive if another man looks at me? Are you going to make threats and... like Conall... please... I can't do it again. Please...”
“Shhh,” his fingertips trail over my cheek, wiping my tears, then he moves down, fingering my collar, then stroking small circles over my breasts.
“I'm not threatened,” he says. “I know you'll always fly back to your cage to me. You're such a very good girl.”
“The choreographer asked me out for lunch,” I say.
He doesn't stop his gentle caresses. His fingers don't pause or stutter over my skin. “Did you go?” he asks.
“N-no. Frederick told him I was married.”
He chuckles. “Frederick makes a good guard dog. Would you have gone?”
I shake my head. He doesn't comment on this. He doesn't call me a liar or make threats or shout about how he'll fucking kill the choreographer. He just stands and pulls me up with him. Then he carries me back in the direction from which we came.
He sits me down on the chair at the table.
“Stay. Leave the blindfold on,” he orders.
He returns a few moments later, and I hear a large cap unscrew, and then a liquid being poured. A spoon prods at my lips.
“Open, cupcake. You sounded like you were getting sick yesterday. I need you healthy for rehearsals. I can't let you come down with anything.”
It's warm, soothing chicken soup. It tastes homemade, like the other things he's fed me.
“Did you make this?” I ask.
“I make everything,” he says. And there are so many layers of meaning in this simple statement.
As he's feeding me, I wonder how he knows I sounded like I was getting sick yesterday. Is the choreographer reporting back to him? Does he have recording devices? Another spy? I don't know, and it takes too much energy to care.
So I just let him take care of me.