Burn for You (18 page)

Molly cradled the violin beneath her chin, painstakingly tuning the instrument. All around her, granite tombstones stood at attention, her captive audience, but she was playing for one man and one man only. Clayton Copeland, resting under the ground.

Other than the tombstones, the cemetery was empty. There was only Master Mephisto, sitting a few rows away on a scrolled iron bench. He always let her and Clayton have their privacy, but he wouldn’t let her come alone. The cemetery was too isolated, he said. Maybe, in the beginning, he’d worried that she wouldn’t come home, that she’d do something drastic here. She’d thought about it many times the first few weeks. She’d spent hours sobbing her eyes out and clawing at the ground like she could get at the man who’d deserted her, the man she’d loved and hated at once.

“This is from a Bach sonata in C-minor,” she said in the silence. “I’ve been practicing it for a while.”

She stood in front of his headstone and played the pretty, somewhat mournful melody. She played it because it was beautiful, and because she’d worked a long time to get to a point where she was proud to play for him, even though he couldn’t hear it. The tone of her violin was almost perfect, post-repair, but not quite. That was okay with her. In one thoughtful moment it had occurred to her that the violin was like her and her old Master’s relationship. Almost perfect, but not quite. It didn’t make it any less worthwhile to her. Someone could come pry her imperfect violin away from her cold dead hands if they wanted to try it. She wouldn’t let it go, and she’d never let Clayton go either, not while she drew breath.

Luckily Master Mephisto was okay with that. From her peripheral vision she could see him sitting, watching, waiting for her. This wasn’t the first time she’d played at her former Master’s gravesite. She’d started doing it several weeks ago, back when she and Mephisto were living together but not yet as Master and slave. Back when she’d been seeing Eliot and feeling conflicted about her needs. Clayton hadn’t had any answers for her then, and he didn’t now, but it brought her a great sense of connection to play for him here.

When she finished the short sonata she stretched her fingers and looked up at the sky. It was a bright, sunny blue even though winter was approaching. It had been cold when Clayton died, and it had upset her, thinking of him lying in the cold ground. It would grow cold again, and again, and again, year after year. She knew he couldn’t feel it but the idea of it still chilled her.

“This is the second half of Bach’s Chaconne. I’m not that good at it yet but I’ll try for you. Bach wrote it for his wife after she died.” She lifted her bow, then stopped. “It’s not maudlin though. Just beautiful. I think you’ll like it. And I’ll keep practicing, and I’ll come here and play it again for you in a year and you’ll see how much better I am.”

She began to play. After a few bars she glanced over to find Master Mephisto watching her directly now. If he thought she was crazy for talking to ghosts and gravestones he kept it to himself. Chaconne was a lengthy piece, but wonderful to play. She liked the second half especially. While Molly made a few mistakes, she enjoyed filling the quiet cemetery with music on this clear, blue-sky day. When she finished, she knelt to place her violin in its case.

She crept closer to his headstone then, tracing the letters of his name, the dates of his birth and death.
Husband and friend
, it read, a simple epitaph for a very rich and powerful man. They were his own words, laid out in his explicitly framed funeral plans. In Molly’s mind, it should have been
Husband, Master, and friend
, but she understood why that wouldn’t have worked. Below there was a small etched heart—a space, she was told, for her own name and dates if she chose to be buried here. That at least was appropriate, that her heart would reside there forever beneath his name, even if, for some reason, she didn’t sleep here someday.

She raised her eyes to Master Mephisto, then lowered them again.

“Master, you should know...” She reached out and ran her fingers over the grass at the base of the stone, over the fresh, dewy flowers she always brought to decorate his grave. “You should know that your friend Mephisto is going to collar me. Soon. Tomorrow I think.”

Last night she’d crept into the closet in the guest room, huddled against her Master’s pillow and grasped his eternity collar against her chest and sobbed for him. Sobbed for the end of them. Mephisto had come to her and told her what she already knew, that there were no endings. That going to Master Mephisto didn’t mean losing Master Clayton, or betraying him, or losing faith. Later, her old Master visited her in her dreams. He’d come before, but this time it felt so real. He’d come to her warm and naked, and pressed his body to hers. He’d worn that smile she used to live for, his light blue eyes twinkling, communicating desperately needed approval. The familiar girth and length of his cock had pressed against her belly as he kissed her. “My darling girl,” he’d said. “I’ll always love you. Always, always, your whole life. I want you to be happy. Are you happy?”

“I am happy,” she answered him now. “If you’re somewhere listening to me, or in some spirit world somewhere, just know that I’m happy and that you were right all along. Master Mephisto is caring and wonderful, and I feel like he’s just right for me. Not that we’re very much like you and I used to be.”

She bit her lip and sniffled a little, tears coming to her eyes.

“Sometimes I wonder at some of the stuff you did. But I’m not mad. I was different then. I know you really cared for me and loved me in your way. I think maybe you were what I needed then, but Master Mephisto is who I need now, so I hope you’re happy for us.” She smiled, touching his name again. “I know you meant all along for me to be his if anything happened to you. Anyway...”

She stood up and brushed at her knees. “I’ll come again soon. Next time I’ll show you my collar. He says it’s a chain this time, and it’s pretty, although yours was pretty too. I still have it. I’ll always keep it.” She paused, crouching and reaching down to touch the heart, her heart. “I miss you so much, Master. I love you. I always will.”

She straightened and looked over at Mephisto. He stood from his shady bench and came to join her. “You okay?”

He always asked that, and she always did feel surprisingly okay. She nodded and picked self-consciously at her violin case.

“How’s Clayton these days? Did you tell him about the collar?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “He said he approves. He wants me to be happy.”

“He always wanted you to be happy. Want me to carry that for you?”

She shook her head and clasped her violin case close as they started back to the car.

“Those songs you played were really beautiful, kitten. You’ve come a long way. I’m proud of you. He would have been too.”

“Thank you, Master,” she said softly. She didn’t know if she was thanking Mephisto, or Clayton, or both of them. In the end, it probably didn’t matter. Both of them had her heart.

*** *** ***

Mephisto didn’t want some big ceremony for his slave’s collaring. Some rite or ritual, a lot of formal words. None of that was necessary.

No. On Sunday morning, after she took care of her personal needs, he simply tied her to his bed and started playing with her. He left some slack for her hands so she could struggle a little, but he tied her ankles more tightly. He didn’t want her to have any sense of being able to close her legs.
Mine. All mine.

He teased her mercilessly for an hour to begin. He clamped her nipples so her face grew tight with pain, then set a vibrator against her clit until her hips started to jerk. Just when her breathing reached a certain point, he’d shut the vibrator off. Clamps off. Breathe. Tease. Different clamps on again. Riding crop to the clit, tawse to the nipples. Vibrator, crying, pleading for mercy, for release.

But no, not yet. They stopped for breakfast, which for Molly consisted of a throat full of semen. Mephisto enjoyed toast and eggs, feeding Molly now and again once she was done sucking his cock. She squirmed in her place at his feet—he told her she was too horny to sit at the table. When he ordered her to sit still, the fun really began. She was clearly ready to jump out of her skin, but she controlled herself, clasping her hands tightly in her lap. The only indication of her need was the fierce lust in her gaze.

After breakfast he put her to work cleaning up the dishes while he prepped a generously sized ass plug and returned to where she stood at the sink. “Bend over.”

She barely glanced back, just obeyed. Even the pain of the large intrusion in her asshole didn’t seem to take the edge off her horniness. She pressed her hips against the edge of the countertop as he drove it home, sighing when it was fully seated. He lifted her, signaling her to finish the dishes. She moved gingerly now, her ass cheeks clenched as he shadowed her around the kitchen.

“Does that hurt, Molly? Having that big plug in your ass?” he asked.

She swallowed hard, placing the last dish in the dish rack. “It hurt going in, Master. Very much. It only hurts a little now.”

“If you want my collar, you’ll have to let me hurt you whenever I want to. That’s something I require.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Do you want my collar, Molly?”

She turned to him, her eyes wide, her body open to him. “Oh, yes, Master. I want it more than anything on earth.”

He took her to the dungeon space next, fixed her to a spanking trestle with her ass in the air, legs spread and secured at ankle and knee so she couldn’t move. More nipple clamps, the chain between them wrapped beneath the apparatus so any jerks upward would result in a vicious yank. She spent another hour here, suffering for his pleasure. He beat her until her tears were real, until her cries grew desperate, and then he’d take a break, remove the clamps, let her think her ordeal was over, only to begin again once she calmed down. The lesson here:
I’ll hurt you, sometimes very badly, but never beyond what you can take.

It fascinated Mephisto to watch her body process the pain, and to watch the processes of her mind as well. At the end, he added pleasure into the mix, removing the clamps for good and sliding a vibrating wand beneath her pussy. How quickly her misery transformed into bliss. He knew that for Molly misery and bliss were tethered together on a very short line. He picked up a cane and marked her with it, hitting her harder than she probably could have taken at the beginning of the hour. It was just hard enough to keep her burgeoning orgasm at bay. Every time she ground on the wand, he lashed her again. She’d howl and shudder, and seek the pleasure to help her endure the pain.

“Okay, enough,” he said, pulling the wand away mid-grind. Molly sobbed, her hips seeking solace that was no longer there. He gave her three more with the cane, accompanied by cries and yowls. By the last, she collapsed against the trestle, all pleasure fled from her body’s memory, chased out by burning agony. He put away the cane and stood back to study her nicely marked ass and thighs. Satisfied, he crossed to the front of her.

“Why does Master hurt you?” he whispered.

“Because you’re a sadist,” she answered shakily. “My pain brings you pleasure, Master.”

“That’s right. Anyone who wants my collar has to be a masochist. Are you a masochist, Molly?”

“Yes, Master.”

He slapped her fresh cane tracks. She threw her head back and made a desperate sound. “You want my collar?”

“Yes, Master. Please!”

Back to the bedroom. Unplugged, given a bathroom break. He put a swipe of tingling oil over her clit, ignoring her whispers for mercy, then tied her on her tummy with orders not to grind against the bed. He left her alone a while to struggle, to crave with her legs spread, her orifices open and needy. Surely she wished to grind her way to orgasm. Her body must want to take over at this point. It had to be a mind-over-matter thing for her. He could see the concentration on her face more than the tension in her body.

At last he approached again, knelt behind her and rolled on a condom. Even after the plug, her hole was a tight fit, but he pressed ahead nonetheless, slowly and firmly, and seated himself balls deep. Her fingers clenched the covers and a tear or two squeezed from her eyes as he fucked her roughly, mechanically. Another lesson.
You’re my toy, my fuck doll when I want you to be. It’s not about you, it’s about my needs.
She wasn’t crying from pain. She was crying from sexual frustration.

“I know,” he said as he drilled her. “I know you want to come, don’t you, baby?”

“Yes, Master.”

“If you want to wear my collar, you’ll only be allowed to come when I want you to. I might make you go weeks, months without orgasm. Do you still want to wear my collar, Molly?”

“Yes, Master.”

Mephisto chuckled inwardly. Her answer was a lot slower in coming that time. She was probably thinking,
months?
It was only an exaggeration on his part, but he was glad to know she believed him capable of such horrible depravity. A month, indeed. Five days had almost killed both of them last time he tried a denial regimen with her. Thinking back to those delicious scenes, to their erotic history, had him fucking hard and fast to a mind-splitting orgasm. Fireworks went off behind his eyes as he buried himself in her ass and pressed her sore cheeks together, savoring every inch of her tightness. He looked down at her, wondering how close she was to orgasm. One easy way to tell. He slid a finger down the front of her waist to her mons, almost to her clit, then stopped. She made a sound he didn’t think he’d ever heard a human make before. Yeah. Still pretty close.

He moved away to throw out his condom and untie her. She still looked hopeful, like now he might let her come, or give her the collar already, the collar she wanted so badly. Months without orgasm. Hm. He cleaned her up instead and led her to the cage in the corner, guided her in. “You know how this goes. On your back, legs spread. No touching, no coming.” He shut the door and locked it, holding her woebegone gaze. “Oh, and I expect you to think about one thing and one thing only until I return to you. Master’s cock filling your holes. Mouth, ass, pussy, whatever strikes your fancy, but that’s what I expect you to do. Do you understand me?”