The old building had been decorated for the event. Madison had draped the beams laced across the high ceiling in shimmering fabrics and hung erotic artwork on the cracked plaster walls. Some pieces Sam recognized from the Naughty Bits store. Heavier drapes had been hung in key places to dampen the white noise in the foyer gathering space and increase the sense of an intimate party, no matter that over two hundred people were present.
"Why don't you go change before the show starts?" Geoff said to Chris then. "You have ten minutes."
"I can do it afterward."
Since one of Chris's hands was on her other shoulder, she tilted her head in that direction, rubbing the smooth feathered front of the bird mask against Chris's knuckles and finding them with her mouth, caressing flesh with tongue and lips. He let out a muttered, amused oath as she lifted her eyes to him. "May I speak freely again, Master?" she asked.
"You may." It was Geoff who answered, probably because she'd never called Chris Master directly that way, and even more likely because he knew what she was going to do.
"Please," she said to Chris. "I would love to see you wear Geoff's gift. I know he would, too. Please?"
He ran his thumb over her lips, sighed and shouldered the tote. "Back in a minute," he told Geoff. "And for the record, you're both pains in my ass."
"Glad to serve a purpose," Geoff rejoined, grinning.
As she'd noted when Geoff first removed the eye coverings, the foyer was open to the performance area, where the graduated seating arranged in a crescent shape around the stage down front ensured no one's view would be blocked. Since the seating was already filling up, Geoff directed her to an aisle spot. Many of those seated nearby looked in their direction, studying Sam and her Master. In an environment like this, everyone would be curious about everyone else, and since she was looking just as intently, she couldn't feel self-conscious. Plus, Geoff's hand never left her elbow. She was sure he was gauging everything about her state of mind through that grip. Whether she was cold, afraid, nervous.
Nervous, yes, but she wasn't afraid or cold. Heat shimmered off her skin and she felt like a wild creature, ready to fly and play under his and Chris's control.
Geoff took the aisle seat, leaving one seat between them to hold a place for Chris, but he kept her hand firmly in his grip, his thumb sliding along her pulse. She could feel his eyes upon her and she lifted her own. What she saw in his face made her wet her lips. "What are you thinking?" she asked, bemused to hear that little break in her voice again.
He leaned over the empty seat to caress her masked cheek. His face was very close, and what was in his eyes infused his quiet words with a power that made her shudder. "Nothing proper. Nothing sane or civilized."
"Say it anyway," she whispered.
"I want to put collars on you both and stamp them with my name. I want to have you both kneeling at my feet, so I can just put my hands on your faces, like I'm doing with yours now, have you looking up at me and know . . . that you willingly belong to me. That you're as fully mine . . ."
She'd never seen his expression so open and raw, so savage and vulnerable at once. There was a heartbreaking beauty to it that stole her breath, stopped her heart. He paused, as if collecting himself. She tangled her fingers with his, and gave him the words that emotions had taken from him.
"As you are ours," she finished. "We are, Master. Always."
He put his mouth on hers, all demand and need. She surrendered all of herself to him through that kiss, so he'd know it wasn't the heat of the moment. It was simply truth.
He lifted his head, stared at her. "I love you so fucking much," he said. "I should have told you that the first second I met you, because I bet somewhere in my heart I already knew it was true."
"That might have been a little scary," she said with a tremulous smile. "You know, stalker stuff."
His lips curved. A smattering of applause broke into their absorption with each other. Glancing toward the stage, Geoff reluctantly drew back, though he kept her hand as if he had no intention of ever relinquishing it back to her. "They must have some pre-main performance stuff. I didn't know. Hopefully Chris will get back soon."
"Hopefully Chris will leave the bathroom before the end of the evening," she teased him. "He's probably even now standing in front of the mirror, saying, No fucking way."
Geoff chuckled and squeezed her hand. Then they both turned their attention to the stage.
Two Dommes, one in a sequined white sheath and black boots, the other her mirror image in black sheath and white boots, were executing a performance with a single-tail whip. As one Domme held up a board target with balloons shaped like a flower mounted on it, the other Domme burst all the balloons, one by one, with the throws of her whip. Letting her whip coil at her side, she produced another balloon, this one held up in her bare hand for the other Domme. That Mistress had a longer whip than the first Domme's, yet she was just as proficient. She broke the balloon with a sharp, dramatic pop.
They bowed and exited the stage to applause. More people wandered in from the foyer. Sam thought it had been a smart tactic on Madison's part, to offer a couple of mini-offerings onstage to bring in the foyer stragglers, getting everyone seated and quiet before the main performance.
The next to take the stage was a large man with mustache, shoulder-length brown hair and broad, handsome features that reminded her of Lee Horsley in The Sword and the Sorcerer. The movie was one of Geoff's classic "geek" DVD collection, as Chris called it.
This man wore a vest over his bare upper torso and pantaloons. He twirled and tossed knives with firelit blades in an impressive display. As he did the traditional fire-eating trick, an Indian woman wearing no clothing at all, her head shaved to a pearlescent gleam, came and knelt before him. She put her forehead and elbows to the ground so the brown curve of her spine created a delicate bridge. Another woman, pale and also naked except for a glittering copper collar, stood at his side with further props.
He gave the knives to the helper, and Sam drew in a breath as the fire seemed to leap to his hands. He stroked the bowing woman in swift, graceful movements with the flame as she stayed docile and trusting under his touch. Over the curve of her back, to her nape, over her bare scalp, lingering over her raised buttocks. When he spoke a one-word command in a language Sam didn't recognize, she stretched out on h
er back, gazing up at him.
Going to his knees beside her, he drizzled a fluid on her flesh that shaped the flame into a bluish zigzag pattern on her breasts, mons and thighs. When he stretched out on her as if he was going to take her right there onstage, the fire rippled in the space between their bodies. He quenched it by closing that gap, pressing tightly against her from breasts to hips. The crowd oohed and gasped; then, just as quickly and smoothly, he was next to her again, once more applying the flickering gold-and-blue heat to her skin with the bare palms of his hands.
He finished his performance with the woman coming up on her knees and pressing a kiss to either of his now doused hands, which he curved over her bare skull before kissing her forehead.