When Demons Are Redeemed: The Dominant's Muse

Sixty-Nine - Just a Few Steps Away?

SIXTY-NINE

Just a Few Steps Away?

Once the true submissives have left the corridor that connects the ballroom and the buffet room, Catherine walks to the area of it where she knows that the wall will give in to her and become a door, if her fingers figure out how to stroke it just right, in just the right place. She sees no cameras recording activity in the hallway, but cannot be certain that there are none at all, since one or more could be cleverly camouflaged in the artistic designs that embellish this channel between rooms.

It takes her fingers mere seconds to locate a ridge in the wall’s sculpting that, when pressed, offers that ensuing small click that her ears happily report back to her mind. Once she enters the room, she quickly scans it, and, seeing no one there, closes the door all the way behind her, making sure that it does not refuse to embrace the latch this time, since perhaps that failure was what stopped it from closing, earlier on. She then turns her face towards the television, which is once again offering its entertainment in vain.

I couldn’t have heard my name called out, she soon realizes, due to the absence of anyone in the room who might have called it out, and also to the absence of anyone currently on the screen sharing her name, for it to have been called out from there.

After considering what might happen to her were she not to return to weekend play, were she to remain in this room, she shakes the silly thought away and appreciatively runs her fingers along the raised artwork of an area of sculpting and carving on the thin sheet of wood that she saw before, the one that offers its designs all around the room from floor to mid-length height, most befitting the mansion’s style of adornment.

When she hears a muffled cry that her ears inform her came from the direction of another wall, she turns her face towards it, but moves no other muscles otherwise.

Could there be another functional ridge hidden within the design on that wall, offering another way out of the room? She wonders.

Just go back to Tristan, healer advises.

 Catherine, however, ignores healer, and walks to the wall in question instead, where she puts her fingers to work once more. When a familiar click once again whispers to her ears, she sends her eyes to report back on wall and door now being defined, since the two are now slightly parted from their previous perfect embrace.

I have to go back. If Tristan awakens and I’m not there, what will my punishment be? But what . . . what if I could make it out of here?  She finds herself considering.  

Away from Tristan? Successfully navigating the vast area that surrounds the mansion without getting caught by the guards that are patrolling it, including Tristan’s men? Catherine, the grounds are as secured as those of a prison.

I want out of my prison.

They shoot prisoners who try to climb over the wall.

Do they? Who could be hiding in a secret passageway? Considering what the owner of this mansion allows to take place in his home, I supposed that I should consider  the presence of a Blue Beard room . . .

Taliano soldiers follow orders very well, which equals being very organized, which equals success in endeavours. And what would Tristan be like, what would he do to you, once you were returned to him, harshly shoved down to your knees, before him?

He’d kill me.

And you don’t want to die.

I’m afraid to die. If only you’d tell me why, Catherine replies, before walking to the television and turning it off. It just attracts attention. Or, is it that it makes noises coming from the tunnel harder to distinguish? She considers, before turning the television back on. There’s a woman, somewhere in there, behind there. Who? Who would know this house so well that . . .  And did she return to turn on the TV, after I turned it off, and then saw that the door was opened, and shut it all the way, that time?

Walk away, healer repeats.

What if . . . What if I could finally have my own life, and make all of my own decisions, and be the grown up, with all the power, and with never having to please a man again, which means never having do things that I hate, ever again? To be free would just be so amazing . . .

What if Tristan killed you? Healer forces reality in.

How many more weekends like this one? And how do things change, when we’re back out in the world? What will my days be like? And there’s no chance to escape, then, because there are always so many of Tristan’s men around, including two who have no other charge but to watch me.

To keep you safe.

To keep me prisoner. What if . . .

What if you were caught on the grounds, and brought right back to Tristan, in front of all the other masters, embarrassing and bruising his ego, before all of them? What then?

I suppose that his art and designs would be ruined, after I ran, and after I were captured following a struggle.

Enough nonsense. Turn back. Go back to Tristan. Stop being ridiculous.

Soft Curls likes her master. That’s ridiculous. For any of the weekend submissives to like their master is ridiculous. And yet, I’ve seen some of them stand very close to their master. I’ve seen . . . ridiculous women.

There’s nothing Tristan wouldn’t do, to find you again. You know that. Every Taliano branch, in every city, with their bribed or blackmailed law enforcement sources helping out. Go back to Tristan and take . . .

Drugged enough, thanks, she cuts in, before yawning.

Please, just go back to Tristan.

Why? He’s not a hero. He doesn’t make anything better.

Just a few hours left. Just two cycles. Two of everything, and that’s easy to count: once one is done, then there’s just one left. That’s what you say, about other things. How you see things.

There’s ventilation, in the tunnel. Hear those two edges slipping by each other, ever-so-slightly touching, as they do? A small clicking, or creaking sound. I . . . I don’t want people touching me, and I know that I don’t want to be naked, so . . . She ends her thoughts and commands her hands to push the door open.

A creaking sound, however, makes them jump back. It is not a loud noise, but in the silence of the room, and due to the secretive nature of an escape, it seems much louder to Catherine.

 “All fall down . . . ” She whispers, recalling the creaking in the coatroom.

Catherine!

Her eyes barely see down the hidden passageway, as only some of the room’s light manages to find a way within it, and on a very short leash at that. What light there is gently disperses some of the tunnel’s closest darkness, but leaves the rest, the bulk beyond, untouched.

After hesitating a moment longer, when she hears what she believes to be attendants walking by the hidden entrance of the room -- a situation that could mean discovery, if the men were to be attracted to the television’s sounds and were aware of how to enter the room -- she quickly enters the tunnel, before commanding its door to shut behind her.