Madame Cat unlocked the collar, then gently pulled it off, slipping it out through the bars of the cage.
Beth curled her fingers into fists. Without the weight and symbolism of the collar around her neck, the cage suddenly felt foreign and intimidating, as if she really were some captured creature rather than a willing participant in a dangerous but controlled game.
“I didn’t lie to you.” Madame Cat toyed with the collar as she spoke, the metal clanking softly. “This weekend really is about playing the overseers’ game, about exploring the letter C.” Madame Cat laughed. “It almost sounds like a children’s game if you say it like that.
“What you don’t know is that you and I were not the only ones assigned to this letter. We have another player.”
Though her gaze was focused on the floor, Beth saw Madame Cat check her watch. “I have to leave, so I’m going to turn it over to him.”
“Him” must refer to the other set of footsteps Beth had heard.
“I got to play for two of the items. Collar and cage.” Madame Cat gave the cage a gentle push. Beth quickly grabbed the bars and closed her eyes as she swung through the air. Her weight shifted along with the cage, alternately forcing her body weight painfully onto her knees and lower shins.
“The rest of the letter C I leave to him.” Mistress Cat grabbed the cage, holding it still just long enough to reach in with the other hand and give Beth’s left nipple a hard pinch. Still holding the tip of her breast, Mistress drew the cage forward and then let go. As it swung back, Beth’s nipple stretched then pulled from her Mistress’s grip. Beth let out a little hiss of pain, which seemed to be what her Mistress wanted. Madame Cat sighed regretfully, then stepped back and without another word walked out of the playroom. Leaving Beth with an ease that was anything but flattering.
Beth closed her eyes as the cage swung, quickly sorting through what had just happened, and trying to assign a feeling and conclusion to each thing, a technique she’d developed to help herself process events and conversations.
She was no longer collared. The timing was surprising, though the event was not. She felt…resigned, or was it relieved?
She was still a member of the club, and because of that was still subject to the rules of the game. This negated her plan to leave the club as soon as she was uncollared. She felt irritated at having her plan disrupted.
She was not alone in this room. The “him” Madame Cat had referred to had been assigned to the letter C by the checklist game. She felt excited.
Despite her resolution to end this part of her life, the idea of playing with a new Dom was thrilling. The unknown, the possibilities, the hope of experiencing the feelings and physical pleasures that other subs talked about, was enough to have Beth’s heartbeat speeding up and her skin tingling.
Her eyes were still closed when she heard the man move closer. A moment later the cage stopped swinging, then warm hands covered hers where she clenched the bars.
Please, oh please, she thought. Let this time be different.
*****
James stilled the swinging cage, which was suspended at shoulder level in one of the Iron Court playrooms. The sub kneeling awkwardly inside barely reacted, except for a slight relaxation of the tense muscles in her face.
He’d carefully watched her interaction with Madame Cat, warned by Master Mikael’s words. Beth was either one of the quietest, most obedient subs he’d ever seen, was so deep in subspace that all her reactions were muted under a thick layer of knee-jerk obedience, or she was just going through the motions of submission with no real emotional connection to what was happening.
He hoped, almost desperately, that it was one of the first two.
James put his hand over hers, realizing that she was white-knuckling the bars, not merely holding on. He hadn’t been able to tell exactly how tense she was in her body language.
She didn’t look up, didn’t open her eyes, leaving him staring at her glossy dark hair, which was parted in a perfectly straight line. She was naked, though in her contorted position he could see relatively little of her body. Tilting his head he caught sight of her reddened left nipple, the lingering mark of Madame Cat’s fingers a testament to how tight the grip had been, and how much self control it had taken for Beth not to cry out at something that was surely painful.
James had never enjoyed subs who were either naturally secretive with their responses or who had been trained to stifle their reactions. Not that demanding quiet couldn’t be a fun aspect of a scene, especially when it was a rule that couldn’t possibly be followed, but he wanted to interact with a woman, to know what she was feeling. That was much harder to do if she just lay or sat there stiff and mute.
He wondered if Beth had been trained to be this way, or if it was part of her personality.
“Hello, Beth.”
She shivered slightly when he spoke, and it was the first totally uncontrolled reaction he’d seen from her.