The Deadly Discretion of Mistress Aurora and Her Silent Following
Where need and power spawn insanity
It was happening again. Another grave disappointment knocked the pins out and skittered my mental stability across the tile like so many Lego pieces.
I dragged the tip of the blade over his golden skin hard enough to leave a narrow white line but not hard enough to draw blood. Experience permitted me to commit fully to the sensuality of the act, sans concerns. The undetectable infliction of pain was a priceless skill for someone in my field — a highly coveted commodity. As a professional, I could no more send a judge home with traces of our play on his buttocks than a chef could poison his patrons with a poorly prepared blowfish.
Such clumsiness would ruin the chances of a repeat performance and negatively impact my seven-figure salary. I’m insane, not stupid, so I understand these things. Wives seldom appreciated the evidence of their husband’s indiscretions displayed in red welts across their backs and buttocks. Of course, there were the few who didn’t care and paid my fees themselves. Even then, once liberated of the ball gag, the expectation was no evidence.
It was that skill set that earned me privileges and freedoms in a world that came to feel like home. A little insanity was of no concern providing His Lordship’s lily-white skin remained unblemished, with no signs of flagellation to hint at his proclivities toward the irregular.
There was only one hiccup in my otherwise perfect life — I longed for more. I was haunted by the relentless thirst for the same trust, release, and freedom I so skillfully dispensed. However, I wanted it in real life.
He lay still beneath the razor-sharp steel, peaceful in his slumber. I thought I’d found it, but alas, I was wrong.
Flirting with recklessness, I gave in to temptation, and the carving knife continued its journey across his chest on a northbound trajectory toward his exposed throat. I risked waking him but went ahead and rested the cool steel on his throat at the exact spot where his pulse thumped, thumped, thumped under his warm skin, just a hair north of his Adam’s apple. So vulnerable in his sleep, so beautiful and peaceful — so unlikely to wake. I suppressed a giggle and carried on. My hand was steady as I pressed just enough to create a deep ‘V’ in the tissue.
If he woke now, he might jump or move and could drive the knife into his carotid artery. So much for the Egyptian cotton bedding. I pulled the knife away. That would be a dreadful nuisance. The sheets were cotton sateen, luxurious yet practical. I picked up my phone from the bedside table and brought up Amazon.
I straddled his sleeping form and considered my options. The first consideration was the easiest to dismiss. That being, I could let it all go. Perhaps I was being too sensitive or dramatic. I tossed that notion aside without recourse.
His words floated through my mind as they had been since the moment he uttered them. “The bleach-blonde in the corner,” he had said.
I brought up ‘your orders’ on Amazon.
My hand cramped painfully on the handle of the knife. The ergonomic design could only do so much, after all. I switched hands and rested my phone upon his sculpted belly.
Too often I observed his dismissive and misogynistic descriptions of women. He never listened.
“You never listen,” I whispered into the darkness.
The sheets had cost me $168.45 from Amazon. I added them to my cart, and my mind drifted back to the ball.
We had stood apart from the mingling guests, away from the murmur of cultured voices as I chose to confirm my fear, and I repeated the words. They felt disgusting in my mouth. The same feeling one might experience upon realizing they had ingested a hair along with their spoonful of crème brulee.
I had sunk my teeth into my bottom lip to hide the disgust in my expression.
Across the room stood a young woman wearing a blue dress. She had positioned herself next to an exquisite 18th-century buffet, which would distinguish her from anyone else in the room. I repeated his words and allowed my distaste to saturate my tone. “The blonde in the corner.” My tone had a dreamy quality to it.
“Yes, the one with the big — .”
“Don’t even,” I said. Despite my outer calm, rage clipped my words.
“Are you jealous?” he asked. “I wasn’t checking her out.”
At that point, the hand that held my glass of Pinot Noir trembled. I steadied my hand and pinned him with a glare. One eyebrow crept up. “This is not the first time I’ve raised the topic of your limiting and dehumanizing descriptors for women.”
“Here we go,” he said. He turned his face away but not before I witnessed the eye roll. At once I knew his fate was sealed and icy calm washed over me.
“You diminished her — robbed her of an identity. Reduced to merely a female with blonde hair in one dismissive exchange. Automatically one assumes the creature in question is a woman because men are rarely if ever described by their hair color.” I paused for effect. “Are they?”
“I don’t know; don’t care. You’re being weird.”
“Bill Murray said weird is a side effect of awesome. I’m siding with Bill.”
“Whatever.”
“So once you reduced her down to a blonde, of which there are no less than ten in this very room, you added ‘corner’ as a locator.” I sipped my wine. “You may have noticed she is the only woman wearing a tea-length dress. She is the only person standing next to an 18-century cherry-wood buffet, and notably, she is the only person in the room wearing baby blue in an otherwise undisturbed landscape of black and white. Any scene from March of the Penguins flaunted a more varied color palette, yet you described her as the blond in the corner.”
“Yeah, why would you wear baby blue to a black and white dance?”
“Dance?”
“Soiree. Whatever you and your snobby friends call it.”
“Perhaps she’s color blind,” I said.
“I could have said, check out the color-blind chick standing by the wooden table. My bad. Can you let it go now?”
“That’s ridiculous. How could you know she was color blind?”
“You just said.”
“You are outdoing yourself this evening,” I said, ignoring the glances from several clients in the room.
“I could care less about dresses or bookcases.”
“You couldn’t.”
“I couldn’t what?”
“You couldn’t care less,” I said.
“I know. That’s what I’m fucking saying.”
“Don’t be crass.” I sipped my wine. “What about the woman in the blue dress? I gather you were about to make a point?”
His head swung in my direction. “I lost track of what I was going to say after you lost your shit over my description.”
“It’s a simple request to avoid categorizing and describing women by their hair colour.”
“It’s harmless.”
“I beg to differ.”
At that point, he mimicked my tone but as his fate was already sealed, I didn’t respond. He was a pathetic man-child.
Now the memory of the ball faded and I focused on the matter at hand.
I twirled the knife in my fingers and leaned closer to inspect the faint twitch in his throat. Such a beguiling twitch. How easily I could make it stop. So easily.
“How easily I can make it stop,” I whispered into the darkness.
In the dim light filtering in through the blinds, I rested the cold steel once more against his throat, blocking the visual of his pulse and stilling the imagined sound of his life force swooshing through his veins. It was deafening in the blessed silence.
The blade rested over his beautiful neck, painting an erotic and delightfully disturbing vision. He was physical perfection — while he slept. Such perfection would impassion poets and sculptors alike. Once his eyes opened, the light would dim. It would blink out entirely once he flapped his gums. I pressed against the handle.
There was none as repellant as the terminally brainless, and ridding the world of another would be a service of the highest order. It would bring my count to three — an odd number. A spiritual number. A scientific number. Three was a significant number.
Nicola Tesla would approve.
A faint gasp shattered the silence in the room and drew my eyes from the spot of blood to savor the blind terror in his expression. Rage mingled with fear, and I thrilled at the idea of an internal battle waging war with his sanity. The poor, beautiful ignoramus lacked the mental acuity to think his way free. The usual dullness, exacerbated by the traces of the Rohypnol, turned to torpor.
There was but one of two paths to take. One quick flick of the knife, and he’d bleed out in seconds, albeit all over my snowy white sheets. The other warranted I make up some story about sleepwalking or some such nonsense.
He was stupid and egotistical enough to fall for it.
I tightened my grip on the knife and looked at my phone. “Proceed to checkout,” I said, aloud.
I could smell the fear on him now along with something else — urine.
The soiled mattress and bedding made my decision easier. I completed the transaction on Amazon. The replacement bedding would be here in six business days with my Prime account.
“Why,” he whispered.
“Three is a lucky number. I wonder if Nikola reduced women to mere hair color.”
“You’re insane.”
“My goodness. Do you think it wise to poke the bear?” His anger slipped, and his eyes welled up. “Before you spoke to me, did you refer to me as the redhead to your friends?”
“This is madness.”
He was sloppy and compliant within the grips of the Rohypnol. His bonds held fast.
“The blonde in the corner,” I whispered.
“That’s why you’re doing this?”
“And because the redhead in the story is always a little bit insane, yes?”
Then I leaned into the knife.
“There’s always that, you see.”
