His visit to the tearoom on Thursday had been an enlightening trip. Tyler had never been in Marguerite's place. He supposed he'd been honoring an unspoken code not to come without invitation into the territory of a Zone Domme. He'd expected it to be a well-run establishment. He hadn't expected the experience to include art, culture, spiritualism. A return to a time romanticized in memory that she'd made fact with the environment she provided, the knowledge she demonstrated, the offerings she had collected and shared. A complex and very intelligent woman.

He smiled at himself, at his infatuation with Marguerite Perruquet which had only increased the more aloof she made herself toward him. At times he thought she was doing it deliberately to goad his interest and perhaps she was, even if unconsciously.

For he knew without a doubt he had an effect on Marguerite, no matter her usual coolness toward him. He wouldn't classify yesterday's attempt to spear him to her table as dispassionate. Or her body's reaction to his lips on her soft throat.

As he drove into The Zone parking lot on Tuesday, Tyler didn't have to see her black BMW to know she was here. When he got inside, he didn't even have to see the crowd of club attendees clustered around one portion of the glass floor. He felt her.

Marguerite had become his obsession. She couldn't draw breath without him feeling the loss of oxygen in his own lungs.

He didn't know how or when it had happened. He'd known her for some time, admired her techniques at The Zone. What had intrigued him first was the way she never met anyone's eyes. Not as though she was avoiding confrontation. It was as if she perceived people with a sense other than sight, so sight was unnecessary to her to establish a connection, communication or acknowledgement.

Certainly the man in the room with her tonight, restrained in such a complex layer of straps that Tyler doubted there was any muscle capable of free movement, was not feeling neglected. Brendan had waited months for the pleasure of serving the Ice Queen for the second time, because she almost never took a sub to a private room twice.

Tyler fully expected she would break Brendan down until each cell of his body was attuned to her every movement, every blink or shift of her weight, every aspect of her existence. She was right, what she had said at her tearoom. In two hours she achieved more than most people might in a relationship in which they'd invested two years. For her subjects, he suspected she was the trip of a lifetime. They planned, hoped and dreamed for this short moment.

She would take them to a point where they would die for her, for the simple touch of her hand. When she was done with them, she would walk away without even a glance over her shoulder. He could count on one hand the number of times she'd allowed her subjects to believe they'd brought her to climax, one of the many reasons she'd earned her title. Never with their hands, definitely never with their cocks. Fully underscoring the slave's status. Only with his mouth could a sub serve her. As he took a seat, Tyler recalled one of those rare times, when he'd considered himself fortunate to be present.

It had been about six months ago. She'd been straddling the chosen man's face while he was restrained on a bench that had been tilted at a forty-five degree angle, his head toward the floor, his feet in the air to increase the sense of helplessness. She hadn't removed her clothes; she rarely ever did. However the tight lace bodysuit in a shimmering black had allowed the sub ample ability to feel the soft lips of her pussy rubbing in slow circles against his mouth.

When she'd lifted her head, apparently in the throes of the climax, her gaze had locked with Tyler's through the glass ceiling, where he sat in the upper mezzanine watching. She'd shuddered, fighting something, her head bowing back down so her face was in shadow. He'd watched a flush spread across her neck, the line of her cheek.

Something shattered, so distinctly he was surprised to still find his drink dangling loose in his fingers. The shattering was within himself. He couldn't describe what he felt. He just knew something had happened between them in that brief eye contact. As surely as he knew that she'd been faking that orgasm until she looked up at him. Somehow that had pushed her into a place she hadn't intended to go.

Look at me.

He wanted to see it, wanted to see her lose control. She gave her subs mind-blowing orgasms, so totally focused on their pleasure they seemed to overlook that she herself remained cool and unflappable through the process. Like she was a guru guiding them to spiritual enlightenment. For spectators, it increased the sensual mystery, but he had sensed the heat beneath it, as if it were stifled and unable to find expression.

A compulsion he could only thank God for had made her look up at him again. As she fought to stay fully in control of the situation, of herself, barely moving, he'd formed the words with his lips, not thinking, just acting.

Come for me.

A gasp broke from her lips. Despite the obvious struggles of her mind, so vibrant he could see the swords clashing in her eyes, her moist lips parted and a sound escaped.

The audio was not on but he guessed that sound would have been small, plaintive, like the cry of a dove cut short.

Triumph filled him, and more. Sudden, raging desire, so primitive that he did not have the rationality to question the fury that rose in him, wanting the sub's lips off her cunt. He wanted his lips, hand or cock there.

Yes. His lips moved again, his eyes burning.

When her lips drew back from her teeth, her throat contracting, he had a sudden uneasy moment, thinking her fight to deny the natural reaction of her body would cause her to go into a seizure. A hard convulsion jerked her on the man's mouth, taking her to an almost painful culmination, everything in her resisting the pleasure, the inevitable.

As he returned to the present, Tyler acknowledged that it was problematic. The Ice Queen was a Dominant. No. THE Dominant, the Domme of all Dommes. She didn't belong to anyone, though her lovers, temporary though they were, belonged to her for all time. He suspected that like a sorceress, after leaving her emotional mark on them, she could summon them back to her with a spell as an army to do her bidding.

Even more ironic to him was that the women who had always drawn him, intrigued him, were acknowledged submissives. But that one look, that one connection and he knew that he wanted Marguerite Perruquet with a hunger that couldn't be called anything else or explained away.

He knew there was a whole spectrum of psychological analyses on the BDSM

culture and its adherents. Much of it judgmental, colored by the moral biases of the researchers and some abhorrent excesses of their complicated lifestyle. He had understood a long time ago that BDSM was a faith you had to feel to understand. Many of those who felt it even then denied its pull on their senses because it was so counter to what was considered normal sexuality and political correctness. He took pleasure in unexpected responses in himself but watching her climax had exceeded pleasure. It was pure, predatory need and it was growing stronger, telling him he had to have her.

He settled into his favored spot in the mezzanine where he would have the best view of the room she had reserved for the night and ordered a drink.

* * * * *

Marguerite stood in the corner, motionless. She was to Brendan's right. He could see her with some eyestrain. For the moment she was letting him struggle for it, though she kept her own gaze forward, focused on the air, focused on her own breathing.

Nothing existed outside her and Brendan, just the heat and life of their two bodies. The glass above displayed Brendan well to a couple hundred attentive people, clustered around the opening. The Doms would watch from the upper mezzanine. Jeremy was in the room with her, The Zone employee and trained paramedic who was here to assist.

But all of that was just a buzz of blurry sensation around the sharp clarity of Brendan's naked body, bound securely on his stomach on the spanking bench. His knees and calves were strapped to the floor so he couldn't move, his muscular ass tense. The bare back gleamed, the canvas she would mark. A permanent reminder of her presence in his life for all time.

She wondered how many people carried similar brands inside where no one could see. At least this was a brand that would not be susceptible to infection forever, as some internal brands were. Wounds that never healed, that could always be torn by something as simple as the persuasion of a man with amber eyes. When he'd arrived she'd felt his presence through the glass as easily as if she could see him the way she saw Brendan now.

She didn't freeze up. Accepting that her clarity would include three rather than two tonight, she let the thoughts of him pass through and out her consciousness.

When she moved at last, she stepped out of the shadows in supple thigh-high white boots with lacings up the back and four-inch heels. She'd perfected the art of sauntering in them, heel, toe, heel, toe, pause, one heel digging into the floor as she idly let the toe rock back and forth in the air. She ran her hands over the grips of the three irons, resting at the moment in a bed of glowing briquettes. Lifting one iron, she noted the hue of the metal, set it back down. Not hot enough yet. The safest brands were ironically third-degree burns, because they cauterized the wound, deadened the nerves forever.

She would be doing a trio of brandings across the small of Brendan's back, just above the rise of his buttocks, using strike irons not cautery pens for the maximum amount of pain. The design would be a fleur de lis with two decorative elements on either side of it.

"Not quite ready yet, Brendan." She dipped her knees to trail her fingertips up the back of one of his thighs, felt his shudder. From talking to other Dommes who sought more real-life information from their subs than she did, she knew that he was an amateur swimmer who removed all his body hair when preparing to compete. Tonight he'd done it for her as well. It felt odd, the way his leg was smooth like a woman's but so much harder from the lean muscle tone. She wondered what threading her fingers through the hair on Tyler's leg would feel like, combing through the coarse strands, feeling his muscles shift under the heat of her palm.

Turning abruptly on her heel, she paced away. Became motionless once again just outside Brendan's view. Breathed. Closed her eyes. Breathed. Yes, there it was. The center. And it again told her that the thoughts of Tyler must be accepted, allowed to flow and mingle with this moment's impressions. By actively trying to shut them out, she would drain the energy she intended to provide to Brendan tonight, to make him capable of attaining a level of focused devotion that would cause any Domme to crave him for her own.

Of course any Domme would count herself fortunate for that privilege now.

Brendan was bisexual and beautiful, living with a male lover who was also into the submissive scene, was likely part of those in the audience tonight. With glossy dark hair that fell to tanned shoulders, Brendan had an ancient Greek athlete's physique and green eyes so pure in color they were like smooth jade stones. His body was unmarked, not a single piercing or tattoo. But he wanted her mark. Had begged for it.

* * * * *

She'd had her night with him and she never went with a sub twice. Regardless, two months ago, he'd knelt before her, where she sat at a table at The Zone with two other Dommes.

He'd waited, kneeling at her side for a good ten minutes until she'd given him permission to address her. Brendan never crossed lines. His pleasure was in absolute service, not rebellion, so his manners were impeccable. She'd heard that he taught drama at the community college, which she suspected explained how effectively he adopted a courtly demeanor in all his interactions with Mistresses at The Zone.

"Please, Mistress Marguerite. I know your rules and I would never offer any disrespect to you, but I've thought about this long and hard since our night together."

"And gotten long and hard while thinking, I'm sure," one of the women said, observing the crotch of the gray dancer's tights he wore. It was his only article of clothing except for a collar with several hooks in it to accommodate the tethers of a Dom or Domme who chose to seek him out this night. He was popular, so he'd come to her early, apparently to put in his plea before he was chosen for the evening's games.

The Dommes watched him, their hungry gazes recognizing the precious treasure of devotion like pirates with a pleasure yacht in their sights. Marguerite knew that when he was done with his entreaty, one would likely choose him for her games that night.

"It's difficult not to get hard when thinking about Mistress Marguerite." He bowed his head. "I ask, if ever you would consider it... Please, I wish to be branded by you.

With the fleur de lis, the mark of a prisoner, for though I know I'm not your chosen, I would declare myself as yours whenever you desire me, even if that should be never.

Even if I'm just a worshipper at your temple who never gets to touch the Goddess or hear her sweet voice anywhere other than in my own mind again."

"Goodness, Marguerite, you do make an impression," the other Domme commented, the amusement in her voice not quite able to obliterate the not unpleasant expression of envy.

When Marguerite continued to say nothing, simply sipping her drink, he bowed his head even lower. "Why should you honor me with your mark when I'm undeserving even of putting my lips on the sole of your shoe? I've taken up enough of your time, Mistress, Mistresses. Forgive my presumption. I ask your leave to depart your company."

"You don't have it." Marguerite made a noise in her throat as his surprised gaze almost lifted. He dropped it immediately. "I'll determine if you're deserving or undeserving, presumptuous or unpresumptuous." Straightening her knee, she extended her foot gracefully. She left it in the shoe, no intentions of giving him the excessive liberty of touching her flesh.

Bending, he pressed his lips hard to the bottom of the black heel. His eyes raised briefly to take a hungry snapshot of her face, showing her those clear, pleading eyes she could not find it in her to resist.

It twisted things inside her, his words, his expression, the beautiful power of his body, so eager to please, to rut, to fuck if a woman commanded it of him.

No teasing came from the other Dommes now. There were moments a sub could humble his Mistress with his devotion. While Brendan did not belong to her, he was offering her that exceptional level of loyalty based on their one session together. She knew what they said about her, that her reputation deserved such responses, the things she was able to pull out of a sub in such a short time, like this. It didn't mean that the gift did not affect her.

"I'll think on what you said. In the meantime, prove how much you want my mark.

Until I tell you to cease, every Friday you will submit to a session with Master Tiberius."

Master Tiberius was a pain administrator the Inquisition would have envied, bringing subs to orgasms so interlaced with agonizing physical strain that they did not know how to separate pain from pleasure. And she knew Brendan was deathly afraid of him, of having the walls shattered that pain could destroy.

"Yes, Mistress. Gladly."

The lack of disagreement or hesitation startled her. She lifted his chin, allowing herself to stroke his smooth cheek with her fingers. His lips were soft, pale pink, but then all the subs she chose had that quality, innocence still preserved in their features despite the transition to full, fine manhood.

"You're not afraid."

"I fear Tiberius but I fear your displeasure more, Mistress."

"Go then and do my bidding this week. And the next, and the next, until I'm satisfied and tell you to stop."

She'd stopped over Tiberius' favored room at times during the next couple months, breaking her pattern to come to The Zone on several Fridays. Not to play, just to see Brendan and how he was doing. Gagged, nipples and scrotum clamped, his anus stretched with plugs of impressive size, balls forced through cruel stiff straps, Tiberius' flogger leaving red marks on his flesh until Brendan screamed and came, again and again. And he would risk the Master's wrath to look up, find her and bow his head to show he would endure anything for the chance to bear the mark of her servant. Even though he would be a servant that he knew and she knew would never be called to serve her.

* * * * *

She hadn't made an idle choice. After two months of Fridays, Brendan was ready for what she would do to him tonight. He could not only bear the pain; she intended that he would find pleasure in it.

She knelt at his face, cupped it in her hand and touched those soft lips. She'd let him kiss her pussy in that first and only session, she remembered. It had been through her clothes and just the press of his lips. She'd made him remain completely still with his mouth on her clit for several minutes, his nostrils flaring to take in her scent, his jaw tense to keep him from moving as ordered, though it was obvious he wanted to disobey with his whole body. Even that still touch was a liberty she didn't often allow those she took into the private rooms. Once, she'd allowed a sub to fuck her with a dildo strapped around his jaw while he serviced her clit with his mouth but she hadn't repeated the experience. It had done too many strange things to her, things that had kept her from coming back to The Zone for a month. Intimacy was too dangerous for her.

Taking down the front zipper of her snug bodysuit one set of teeth at a time, she revealed what she had cradled between her breasts. A lifelike phallus, warm with the heat of her skin. She put it into her mouth to lubricate it with her own saliva. It was not particularly large. After the sessions with Master T, she knew Brendan could easily take it.

"Shall I put this in you, Brendan? Up that sweet, fine ass of yours?"

"Yes, Mistress. Please."

"Did you clean yourself for me?"

"Yes, Mistress. Thoroughly. Tim helped me." He referred to his roommate and live-in lover. "But I mean, we didn't... I saved myself for you tonight, Mistress." She nodded, rose, this time walking the length of his body so closely that her thigh brushed his side. She noted that just that brief contact raised fine gooseflesh on him.

Stepping over his anchored calves, she positioned the dildo in both her hands before her hips as if it was attached to her in the way it was attached to a man and guided it in.

She'd had Jeremy grease him up further, so even with her saliva, it was a smooth glide.

She put her pubic bone against the base once she had it started down the passageway and let go. Gripping either side of his buttocks, she used her carefully balanced forward weight to push it slowly inward, her hips brushing the inside of his quivering thighs.

She made a mental note to thank Master T for his thorough work, though he'd already sent her a dozen long-stemmed pink roses for the gift of Brendan these many weeks.

Brendan moaned his pleasure.

Running her nails down his cheeks, she watched the red marks rise up on his flesh, then slid one finger in the crevice and caressed the stretched rim of him around the plug. When he gasped, she saw his testicles tighten between his spread legs.

"Are you hard for me, Brendan?"

"As steel, my lady."

She liked the improvisational title. "But you won't come."

"Never without your permission, Mistress."

She reached down, cupped his balls, found the rigid line of his cock up against his belly with one straightened finger. Rubbing her fingertip idly over the pulsing vein in its center, she watched his ass clench in reaction, his tiny jerks as he involuntarily tried to thrust into her touch.

"My apologies, Mistress."

"You don't displease me, Brendan. I want you to hold nothing back but your seed.

When I put the iron to your flesh, you will not make a sound or movement. Do you understand?"

"I...I understand. I can do that."

"I know you can." Tiberius would have been sure to train him that screams could command greater degrees of pain. She would use the lesson to show him how euphoric the internalizing of intense sensation could be.

She savored the feel of him in her hand another moment. The hard length, its heat, the pulsing want it conveyed. She wondered how Tyler would feel, his size and thickness, how his heat would taste in her mouth.

She stopped a moment. That was an unusual thought. She'd certainly tasted a sub's cock before, usually when he was strapped and turned upside down on a wheel so he could stare at her pussy while she enjoyed taunting his erect member at her eye level.

But that wasn't what she imagined with Tyler. In her mind, she moved down his body to her knees, taking him in her mouth while his hand came to rest on her head, tightening in her hair, driving her down on him.

Good Goddess... She straightened abruptly, stepped back, paced away to collect her thoughts. Did another circle of the room. Deep breaths again. Accept. Analyze later.

"Are you all right, Mistress?" It was Jeremy who spoke in a low murmur, but she could tell from the flick of his lashes that Brendan had heard.

"Nothing that Brendan can't fix for me," she said softly. A pleased flush rose in her captive's cheeks. She moved back to him, slowly. Heel, toe, heel, toe.

Tyler watched her from above, his brow furrowed. He'd picked up on her agitation as well, a mere ripple in the normal pond of tranquility surrounding her, though she seemed to refocus herself now. She was stunning tonight. The white bodysuit fit her like skin. A ripple of reaction had gone through the crowd when she stepped from the shadows for she'd decorated herself with diamonds. A choker at her throat, teardrop clip-ons at her ears and an ankle bracelet on the left boot. His lips curved as he imagined asking her what man had given her those. Imagined her tart reply that she didn't need a man to give her diamonds.

"This skin..." She was passing her fingers over every bump of Brendan's spine now. "Is mine. As is the muscle and sinew, every dark corner inside you, any disease or infection, every thing. I accept all of it. It is my skin I'm touching." Hypnotic. Her voice filled the air as some enterprising staff person bumped up the sound system so it reached every corner of The Zone.

"She's like a priestess, isn't she?"

Tyler pulled his attention away from them to see Lisbeth, another Zone Domme, take a seat next to him. Lisbeth was in her fifties, beautifully maintained and wealthy and a very good Mistress to her subs.

"Her acolytes are trained and prepared under the tutelage of the other ordained priests and priestesses, like Tiberius, while she watches from afar." Lisbeth considered the tableau beneath them, her expression absorbed by it. "Then, when they've earned it, when they're ready mentally and physically for the punishment she'll put them through, she takes them to enlightenment." She took a sip of her vodka and tonic.

"You sound reverent."

"And a bit intimidated by her. When she turns those pale eyes on a sub, he wants to give her everything and yet he's petrified, wondering if she'll ask for more than he can give. And then she plunges a hand into areas he doesn't know he has and wrests it out anyway."

He turned his attention back to Marguerite thoughtfully. It was another piece of the puzzle. Perhaps Marguerite provided her subs a transcendental experience because her goal was not her own sexual pleasure but to see them reach spiritual bliss through physical release. And that's what she did, every time.

"We judge one another all the time, don't we?" That sensual voice came through the speakers. Marguerite was pacing around Brendan. "But when we do that, we're just projecting our perspective on someone and not really seeing them." She crouched, so close to Brendan their noses almost touched. He looked dazed by his lust, mesmerized by her. "When I look into your eyes now, I see beneath the surface, everything you've built or constructed. Minds don't know each other. Only souls. That's where I'm going, Brendan. Straight to your soul. I see who you are and you see me. We know each other."

"Yes, Mistress. God, yes."

She studied him another moment, then rose. Marguerite went to the metal container holding the briquettes, lifted the first iron. Taking two steps to him, she laid her hand precisely on the center of the small of his back. "Not a sound, Brendan," she reminded him.

She laid the brand on his skin with the deliberate precision of an aristocrat putting her seal into wax and held it. Jeremy's nostrils flared, emphasizing that the most uncomfortable aspect for bystanders was the unfamiliar smell of burning human flesh.

Every muscle in Brendan's face contorted, his jawline frozen in rigid agony, his shoulders trembling with the effort not to do anything to anchor himself. Marguerite's countenance was a study of focus, her full concentration on what she was doing and how she was doing it.

"Feel the pain, Brendan. Accept it." She lifted the iron, handed it to Jeremy.

Reaching down, she worked the plug in slight movements, her fingertips whispering against the sensitive bulge of his sac as he breathed hard through his mouth. There was a light sheen of sweat on his skin. When she held out one hand, she was handed a soft cloth which she patted in the dip of his spine on either side of the fleur de lis brand.

"It hurts now, almost more than when I did it, doesn't it? That will go away, because the nerve endings will die. But the nerves around it will compensate every time you move for a while, bringing you pain. Reminding you of your gift to me."

"My...pleasure, Mistress."

There was a soft murmur among the watching audience at the devotion in the trembling male voice, even though he knew he had two more coming. Two that would hurt worse because of their proximity to the first brand.

Tyler could only shake his head in amazement. Even Marguerite for once displayed a less than perfectly controlled reaction. Laying her cheek in the middle of Brendan's back, she swept her ponytail to the side so the strands of her hair spilled over his shoulders, the line of his cheek, across his mouth. Pursing her full lips, she blew soft, cool air along the brand. He shook in response. She cupped his buttock again, twitching the plug with her thumb and forefinger, her head moving as he writhed at the stimulation. "Two more to go, Brendan. I could do them at the same time but I won't.

Do you know why?"

"Because my pain is your pleasure, Mistress."

"Yes. Yes, it is. And I like to savor gifts." She rose, one lithe movement from the erotic squat where her knees had been splayed, the white material straining over her ass, the dark shadow of the cleft visible, showing Tyler, showing them all that she wore nothing underneath it.

As she turned, Tyler's eyes narrowed.

"What?" Lisbeth asked, apparently catching his reaction.

"She's not wet."

Lisbeth lifted a brow. "With that pristine white, she could be wearing something inside to keep from staining. For some Mistresses, part of the turn-on is completely controlling their external reaction to the slave. Keeping them guessing, not giving them the advantage of thinking they've aroused you, though of course they know you wouldn't be doing it if it didn't."

"Of course." But his gaze drifted up as Marguerite straightened, caressing Brendan's hair, allowing him to place a fervent kiss on her palm. Her nipples, clearly visible in the bra that had to be open-cupped or thin beneath the outfit, were not drawn to taut points that arousal indicated. In fact... He leaned forward, studied her skin. She wasn't even perspiring.

But he wouldn't say she wasn't aroused. He sensed the still explosiveness of her, the total attention that was possible with intense sexual sessions with a submissive. It was as if her physical response was hidden somewhere that no one else could see or find it. He wondered if even she could feel it, or if it was somewhere contained inside her like a bomb she had no idea she was carrying. When he kissed her neck, he'd had a clear view down the front of her blouse, the full curve tucked into white lace. He'd seen gooseflesh rise on her skin then. If he'd commanded her to be still, if he had inserted his finger into that neckline, down the column of a perfect throat, would he have felt her nipples harden beneath his fingertips, her body tremble? And if he'd pressed the heel of his palm in between those elegant thighs, would he have discovered damp heat?

Somehow, he knew he would have. Even as he knew he wouldn't now, despite the sexually charged atmosphere.

He suspected either he was losing his grip on reality or the pathway to Marguerite's soul was a truth like the law of gravity, something so obvious that it took really looking at it to see it.

Down below, Marguerite ran her fingers down Brendan's bare spine, watched his quivering increase. Sometimes she knew she could stay nearly motionless like this by a sub, watching and feeling as he succumbed, entering a peaceful trance while she merely trailed a line up and down his spine, along the sweep of ribs, the curve of buttock, the straining thigh. The tranquility would enter her as well. She could absorb its emanations and take it home as nourishment until the next week.

The ceiling being open for public viewing did not disturb her. The more she needed those emanations, the deeper she could go into the scene. She reflected she had been in need of an exceptional catharsis tonight. While she was the only Mistress approved to do scarification at The Zone, she did not doubt Brendan's honesty or his devotion in asking her specifically to do it. It added to the power of this moment.

"Watch her," Lisbeth whispered to Tyler. "She's there, but she's not there. She neither loves nor hates him. Simply accepts him. She's inhuman." Tyler's fingers caressed the stem of his glass but he didn't respond. He kept his gaze fixed on every nuance of the tableau below. Myriad emotional and physical reactions boiled through his system as he watched her build to her finale.

Marguerite positioned one mirror before Brendan, one behind, angling them so he could see the affected area of his back, the first brand and the smooth expanse of skin where the other two would go.

"It looks beautiful on you, Brendan." She picked up the next brand. One step, two steps. "Keep watching this time. Don't take your eyes off of it. And again, no sound, no movement."

"Yes, Mistress," he said hoarsely.

Tyler noticed that this time some of the audience had to look away as the brand came down. Jeremy actually covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief out of Brendan's view range. Though she held no watch or timer, Marguerite appeared to know exactly when to lift the brand. Tyler suspected the temperature gauge he'd seen her check on the teakettle the other night was only for her staff or if she got interrupted.

While concentrating like this, she probably could calculate milliseconds in her head.

Brendan's eyes watered with the effort to keep them open. A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth where he'd apparently bitten down on his tongue to keep from screaming. When his breath came like a rasping bellows, Marguerite nodded to Jeremy, assuring him that the young man was fine, that his response was normal. She handed him the iron and went back to the head of the bench.

Stroking Brendan's sweaty hair off his brow, her hand descended and covered his mouth and nose, cutting off his air and causing a surprised exclamation from the audience.

His body jerked in shock but Marguerite kept her face close, her voice a whisper that nevertheless carried well over the speakers.

"Take the pain into yourself, Brendan. Make it one with everything you are. Breathe in and out of your soul. If you want my brand there, you have to let it reach deep down into you, past the flesh. Burn the deepest part of who you are." As she spoke the words, Brendan's eyes started to roll, the precursor to a faint.

Marguerite took her hand away, a smooth move without hurry. She spoke in the imperious voice of a Mistress. "Your deepest breath, Brendan. Now." His chest expanded. He gasped, his eyes blinking, focusing again. Tyler noted without amusement that there was a rush of air as the audience around him and on the main floor below drew in almost at the same moment Brendan did, not realizing until then that they were holding a collective breath.

Miraculously he did look more tranquil, even as his body continued to make convulsive jerks from the pain and the near-orgasmic state of his body.

"Mistress," he said, just gazing into her face. "Mistress." She brushed her knuckles against his cheek, rose. Stopped and let him press his lips with passionate adoration to her thigh, just above the knee, continuing his quiet chant.

Not her name but the one word that represented all she was to him at that moment.

Marguerite turned, bringing her other leg to the opposite side of the low bench so she was straddling his head, facing toward his buttocks. Sinuously she laid her body down along the length of his, her elbows on either side of his hips. Taking hold of the plug, she seated it more deeply, beginning slow thrusts in and out which inspired his buttocks to clench, his hips to rise to meet her, the little amount of movement that his bonds permitted. Tyler could see Brendan's eyes, his brow and the bridge of his nose as he continued to work kisses along the inside of her thigh, covered with the thin white barrier. In her position, her pussy was pressed against the back of his neck out of the range of his mouth but Tyler was sure the young man could smell her scent. He would be hyperaware of where she touched him, the crevice of her buttocks brushing the hair on his skull, her belly pressed between his shoulder blades, her breasts just above the brands.

She raised up, putting pressure on his skull as she effectively sat on the back of his head. Taking the zipper of the one-piece bodysuit down to her waist, she spread it open. The lace bra she wore was for support, not coverage, the cups open as he'd suspected. She held out the edges of the suit to keep the zipper from touching him as she lay back down on him, using the strength of her upper body alone to hold herself.

Just barely putting her bare breasts against the raw wounds, she dragged her soft nipples over the area, tracing the skin outside of the brands.

He stiffened from the pain but even as he did, the shuddering desire on his face registered that he knew what she was doing. She lowered her head, using her mouth to deftly move the plug. Despite the obvious torment he was feeling, Brendan writhed at the stimulus, whimpering between lust and pleading. The angle at which Tyler sat showed Brendan's erection was enormous, ready for release.

"Astounding." Lisbeth shook her head. "Brendan's never been into large amounts of pain. This threshold... I've never seen anything like it."

"I know the lightest touch brings pain, Brendan." Marguerite's voice came through the speakers. "Do you wish me to continue?"

"Ah... God, yes, Mistress. You feel so good to me." Brendan's face was contorted with the conflict between torture and pleasure.

Tyler was sure that the touch of the Ice Queen's bare breasts meant that the fires of hell could have been consuming Brendan right now and his cock would have been hard, straining to spew for her. To one of her submissives, it was like getting the best parts of heaven and hell together.

"That's enough now. I've no intention of causing you infection. And it's time for the last one."

Marguerite rose. As if rewinding, she took her leg back over his face with the same graceful movement and posed there at his side. Elegant, haughty and bare-breasted.

The restrained man nuzzled her thigh, tears of pain running down his face even as his body shook uncontrollably from head to toe.

"He's in the zone now." Tyler heard another Domme near them comment.

"Zone, hell." Lisbeth snorted. "That poor baby is gone. Up in the tornado, hell and gone from Kansas."

Putting her hand down, Marguerite cupped his jaw and broke the contact. She circled him, let him watch her as she picked up a rigid rubber phallus, a jaw-stretching size.

"Are you close to coming?" Marguerite asked her captive.

"Yes... Yes, Mistress."

"I thought so. You're very hard." She reached down, gripped him. He groaned.

"That's when I'm going to lay the last one down, when come is shooting out of you."

"Mistress..."

"Yes, Brendan?"

"I...you're giving me such a gift. I know you'll think I'm selfish. But when it's over, if you'll consider it, I want...I wish..." His gaze flicked up to her, Whatever it was he wanted, he mouthed it, for it didn't come through the speakers. Her body was positioned where Tyler could not see his lips. But whatever he said, she reacted to it.

Something like pain crossed her face for just a moment before it was gone and she was the Ice Queen once again.

"You've asked a great deal of me, Brendan. Sshhh. Just let this happen. Open up." He obeyed and she inserted it. "Bite down. You'll hold that cock in your mouth through this last one because I won't have you going through your tongue." His eyes looked down, ashamed of his weakness. "No, you've nothing to feel guilty about.

You've given me a great deal tonight." When she turned, Tyler saw the faint gleam on her abdomen from Brendan's perspiration. For some reason, where nothing else had, seeing that dampness made his loins stir with territorial need.

"She's being more intimate with him." Lisbeth put a name to what his fogged brain could not. "I've never seen her interact to this level with a sub before." Jeremy had the last brand handle in his grip but she gestured to him to hold it in the fire a bit longer. Instead, she came back behind Brendan. Out of his line of sight, she picked up a strap-on cock as big as what was currently protecting his tongue and stretching his lips. She ran the straps around her hips, between her legs, her hands smoothing, molding her curves as she did so, testing the fit of the crotch strap with one finger to make sure it wasn't pinching her labia. The caressing motion made several of the audience groan in reaction. Tyler shifted, crossing his leg back the other way while Lisbeth hid a smile.

Then she stepped forward at last, removed the plug and slid her strapped-on cock into the greased opening. She eased in, her thighs pressing against his, leaning over him, her body arched over the branded area, breasts hanging loose, wobbling with her movements.

Jesus Christ. Tyler was hard as a rock. He wanted to put his hands on either side of that slender rib cage to lift her onto him, impale her inch by inch on his rigid cock, which felt as enormous and stiff as what she was taking to the hilt into Brendan now.

Brendan's breath rasped around the gag as she seated herself home and began to stroke him, in and out, her hands gripping his buttocks, spreading them, thumbs playing around the rim, nails digging in. Brendan's face conveyed the intensity of it, the agony of the pull near the burn wound warring with the incredible pleasure she was causing him. Reaching down, she wrapped a fist loosely around his organ. Coming away with some of his cream, she brought it to her lips.

Tyler was on his feet before he realized it. Up to the railing as others gave way before him. As if she knew, her gaze rose, met his. Putting the fingers in her mouth, she sucked. Let them slide out, down. Using her damp fingers, she wet her nipple, played with it as she rocked in and out of Brendan, whose breath was beginning to rasp with the same rhythm. As Tyler's burning gaze fastened on her fingers, the nipple elongated, tightened. She jerked her attention from him, back to Brendan.

"Mistress..." It was a muffled cry around the gag but Brendan's distress was clear.

"Come for me, Brendan," she said, her voice even, cool, caressing, as if the raw moment had never happened. "I want to hear you this time." His body stiffened and she gave a quick nod to Jeremy. Never breaking her rhythmic thrusts in and out of Brendan's backside, she took the handle of the brand.

Lifting it above her head, her lower body changed its pattern, undulating in the S-movements of a belly dancer. She swept her gaze over the crowd above her, ignoring Tyler this time. Slowly she brought the iron down, pressing it to Brendan's skin.

He screamed, a scream of torment and pleasure mixed. Like an animal, without understanding of what he was experiencing, if it was pleasure or pain, or beyond comprehension of either. His cock began to spurt, his orgasm sweeping over him, drowning him in all the mixed sensations.

Still thrusting, she handed the brand back to Jeremy. Loosening her hair from the ponytail so waves of white silk cascaded down her back, she dipped her head like a beautiful, coquettish mare. The strands rippled over the raw area. Tyler knew the touch of silk would be like the scrape of razors against skin throbbing from the simple touch of the air. Brendan bucked, the muscles rippling along his back, his thighs, his shoulders arched as he kept spurting, groaning, crying her name.

"Mistress. Mistress..."

And then Tyler heard it taken up, echoed, whispered among the faithful clustered around the expanse of glass.

Mistress. Mistress. An acknowledgement of her absolute Dominance, her ability to command total capitulation from the soul of another. A remarkable gift that had been offered by a sub whose body she likely would never touch again. Maybe never even exchange a greeting with him, for subs were not supposed to address Masters or Mistresses unless they were addressed first.

She pulled out slowly at last, twisting, bending at the waist so her hair rippled down his back, over the brands, over his buttocks and thighs. When she straightened, tossed it back, she had her eyes closed. When she opened them, she stared straight at Tyler.

The look in her eyes said it all. This was her swan song here. She was snubbing her nose at him and The Zone requirement, leaving them the memory of a Mistress who was a force of nature to herself. A Goddess laughing at man's pitiful attempts to teach her what she already knew, possibly had created herself. The message was clear.

Fuck you.

His jaw tight, Tyler turned to find Lisbeth looking at him peculiarly.

"What?"

"I think I'm losing my mind."

"And why is that?"

She tapped her manicured nails on the side table. "I believe I just saw one of our strongest Mistresses bratting for one of our most powerful Masters, throwing down a gauntlet and daring him to do something about it. And him standing there looking at her as if he was going to pick it up, turn her over his knee and use it on her. What's going on, Tyler?"

Tyler turned back to the glass floor. "You're losing your mind," he said.

Or I'm losing mine.

But Lisbeth's words suggested another theory to him, despite his moment of frustration.

Perhaps Marguerite was throwing what she knew in his face, in a desperate attempt to cover what she didn't. What she knew she should face but perhaps could not. Maybe he had pushed too hard at Tea Leaves. Maybe he should have chosen a different way to approach it. And maybe he could choose a different way.