This story was first submitted as part of a novel-length story
MARIA
Katya showed Maria into her office and, taking a long-neglected key, locked the door behind them. Maria was an advocate of some distinction, about Katya’s own age, tall and slim with an oval face framed by waves of chestnut hair. They had worked together in the past, but it had been a surprise to be asked for a private meeting after working hours and Katya was intrigued.
“May I use your computer?” Maria asked, and they sat together at the desk while her elegant fingertips played over the keys. “I’m sure you have happened across this footage during your investigations, Katya” she said, as the screen began to stream a pornographic film. Katya recognised it at once.
“Of course,” she replied. “It’s been analysed and we’re sure it is not a genuine death. But I do think the woman on the bed perhaps came closer than she expected” she added, with a brittle laugh. In the film a naked, oiled woman wearing nothing but a gag and a hood like a falcon’s was being led on a leash by a blonde dominatrix to a bed where another woman waited with four loops of rope. The mistresses were rather hard-faced and severe in their leather outfits but had an undeniable erotic power. Maria’s eyes never left the screen.
“I agree” she said. “But this is a lead to something darker. I just need to capture the image at the right moment. Do you see the tablet by the bed? I’m watching for when it changes”. The film continued in silence. The hooded woman was tied face down, spread-eagled, and the two dominatrices started the cruel and relentless whipping which excited rumour insisted she would not survive. A few minutes after the blood began to flow Maria leant forward intently and deftly made a grab of a small corner of the picture. She expanded it, and Katya put a hand on her shoulder as she drew closer to see.
“It’s a King in Yellow address” Katya said, excitedly.
“Yes” Maria nodded. “And it only appears for a second on the device in the background”. She loaded a new screen. “I don’t think any of you have seen this film” she said, her voice suddenly unsteady.
The new scene opened in a baroque bed chamber, furnished in the imperial manner. A beautiful, long-haired woman reclined on the bed, wearing a yellow satin nightdress, gently stroking herself and slowly allowing her fingers to creep closer towards her moist cleft. Her almond eyes ranged around the candle-lit room and over to the undraped window. A man’s grim face stared back at her out of the darkness, hungrily eyeing her lewdly exposed form. Katya gave an involuntary start. It was Andrei.
The woman rose gracefully, opened the window and backed slowly away to the bed. He clambered over the sill and stood for a moment - tall and muscular in black jeans, sweater and woollen cap - and pulled a length of fresh, yellow cord from his pocket. She sprawled on the silk sheets; her flimsy nightdress had fallen from her heaving breasts and had ridden up her hips. Andrei stood silently over her and looped the cord between his fists. The woman looked up into his eyes and rose to run her hand over his broad chest and behind his head, pressing her lips to his urgently in a deep and lingering kiss. He responded with equal passion, seizing a fistful of hair in his free hand and plundering her mouth fiercely, then grabbed her soft shoulder and pushed her back onto the bed. A drop of blood ran down her chin as she reached up to spread her mass of brown curls away from her neck and shoulders and tilted her head back to bare her tanned throat. She closed her eyes and sighed. Suddenly her eyes opened wide again and she drew a sharp breath – Andrei had swung the cord down briskly across her left nipple. She raised her gym-toned body up from the bed to invite another blow and he grinned wolfishly. The next blow landed across her taut stomach and left a faint pink stripe. She moaned and wriggled her bunched-up negligee past her knees, to be completely open and exposed to him. He whipped her pubic mound brutally and then let the cord drop onto her writhing body while he hurriedly ripped off his clothes. After catching her breath, she broke the mutual silence.
“Do you want to fuck me first?” she whispered, wantonly fingering her open cunt.
“No,” Andrei growled “afterwards”, and he took up the cord again to slash it hard into the fleshy orb of her right breast. She moaned. She tilted her head back and smiled when he reached down to take her throat in a firm grip. He swung the rope to and fro over her bosom and belly, now smacking it viciously into her soft flesh, now trailing it teasingly over her aching nipples, and she rubbed harder at her clit, sliding two fingers deep into the wet folds of her cunt. He tapped her hand lightly and she moved it to grasp the wrist that pinned her, opening her legs even wider and lifting her slim hips up from the mattress to welcome the stinging bite of the rope. For a long minute Andrei whipped the soft skin of her inner thighs, then he turned his attentions to her crotch. She bared her white teeth, panting furiously, and her sweat-soaked body undulated from the neck down at every blow.
The whipping stopped suddenly and he took his hand from her throat. Her chest rose and fell as she watched him climb onto the bed beside her and loop the cord between his hands again to make a garrotte. Her fingers returned to her soaking cunt when he leaned over her to wrap the rope around her outstretched throat and draw it tight. Her mouth fell open and she pulled cruelly at her nipple, clawing at the flesh around it with blood-red nails, gasping drily. As the rope tightened she twisted and writhed under him, breasts bouncing and hips thrashing wildly. Her hands fell away from her groin to flutter uselessly at his strong wrists and slap weakly at the mattress until, at last, they dropped lifeless to her sides. Andrei used all of his strength and the muscles stood out tense in his powerful arms and shoulders; she quivered and twitched and her tongue lolled from her mouth. His face twisted with fury.
“I’m going to fuck you now” he grunted. When all life had left her, he let go of the cord and sat back, panting. His victim lay spread-eagled before him, moisture trickling from her open mouth and cunt. Kneeling upright he pulled the limp corpse up from the bed towards him. He stabbed his hard cock into her and fucked furiously so that her staring, vacant face rolled from side to side and her arms flapped like a doll shaken in the jaws of a dog. Then the screen went blank.
Katya ran her fingers through her hair and crossed her legs. “Yes, it’s new to us” she said, absently. She made an effort to collect herself. “It’s very professional - very convincing”. Maria fixed her with a stare and spoke steadily and quietly.
“Katya – that film shows a woman willingly giving herself to be killed. It’s a message to me, an invitation”. Katya looked back at her, confused.
“It has upset you” she began. Maria put a hand on hers.
“It most certainly has” she agreed. “My thoughts keep returning to the woman on the bed and now I feel…” she hesitated and looked lost, “I don’t know what I feel. As the poet says - a frightful craving tortures me incessantly, as if some serpent stung continually within”.
“There are desensitisation techniques” Katya offered, but Maria shook her head.
“They don’t work” she said dismissively. “You know that” she added clutching Katya’s hand. “Watch”!
Both turned back to the screen as it suddenly showed a different scene. Katya gasped when she recognised the sordid hotel room from the first film and saw that the woman sitting and talking with the two blondes was Maria herself.
“I will walk over to the bed and lie face down” Maria was saying as she applied scarlet nail polish “and you must tie me down tightly by the wrists and ankles. Just one of you should do this, because I want it to take a little time - for the tension to build”.
“Will you be wearing the hood from the start?” asked the older of the actresses, indicating the eyeless leather helmet which would preserve Maria’s anonymity “Because then she should lead you over to the bed, and I will tie you down. It will look wrong if you feel your way blindly - especially if you stumble”.
“Yes, I like that” Maria replied. She turned to address someone off-camera, “Would you cut some of the whipcord to be a halter, please? It can be threaded through the rings in my nipples and my navel. And I think my wrists should be tied behind my back, too.” She waved her hand in the air to dry the polish. “Which lipstick should I choose?” she asked, “This ball-gag is a very bright red, and I don’t want the colours to clash”.
“I’m not sure about that” the actress looked concerned. “You won’t have much room to move, so it will be difficult to give a signal. You should really be able to call out a safe word”.
“Absolutely not” Maria was firm. “We stick to the ***********; I am hooded and gagged, you both promise me one hundred strokes with the whip and then you give me one hundred each. If I break during the filming, it will only make the performance more credible”. Again, she spoke to someone off camera, “You’re filming us now, aren’t you”?
“Yes” a male voice replied, “I’m setting up, and checking the light and sound…”
“Good” Maria said “Keep this. Let it be a matter of record that I will take two hundred strokes, and that I don’t want to be able to call a halt.” Her voice faltered just a little as she spoke, the excitement almost getting the better of her. Both actresses regarded her knowingly.
Maria looked straight ahead, fighting back tears.
“I found release” she said, haltingly. “I was overwhelmed by the eroticism of being tortured beyond endurance by professionals - for an audience of perverts - and I lost all awareness of my surroundings. The cuts of the whip were just the gentlest kisses of a lover and I was transported. How can I know that release again? The company who filmed me has vanished into thin air”. Katya took Maria’s chin and turned her face to look into her eyes.
“You promised yourself that you would die” she told her. “That is what brings release. I know it, because we are the same".
"Will you force me to submit to the King in Yellow?" Maria begged, taking her hand.
"You have no choice" Katya breathed, brushing her lips over Maria's trembling mouth.
After filling out her submission Maria was like a besotted girl about to be married. She visited her sauna, hair salon and manicurist. In the evenings she would take long walks out of the city beside the riverbank, watching the sun set behind the hills.
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