"Very good," Antin murmured, and I shivered, wanting to turn and lean into the words. "Beautiful. Stand for us, sweet creature."
I let out a gusting laugh as Con's gleaming, elegant hand appeared in my periphery. I sat back on my heels, wetting my lips, and turned to look at Antin. There was sympathy in his smile, his head tipped down to face me, as if he had the eyes to see my hesitance.
My hand trembled as it lifted from the floor, and I couldn't watch the moment my fingers landed in Con's palm. My body stiffened at the slam of contact, the beating drum of pain. Con was strong, hauling me up from the floor, but he couldn't force my legs to work while I writhed in the onslaught of his touch.
Antin stepped forward, his hands stroking down my sides, drawing the gown down my waist, over my hips, and I fell back into Con's chest, sobbing and shaking, screaming when I could catch my breath.
"Beautiful," Antin murmured. "Such a good girl for us. There now."
His hand petted between my legs as the silk dripped down to the floor, and the audience gasped with me as I howled and thrashed and came against his fingers, my legs spreading wide to invite more.
They lifted me between them, and I twisted in their hold, my body entirely free of any thought, wholly consumed by the crash of agony and ecstasy meeting inside of me.
Like flying, I managed, a wisp of a thought, before I was released, draped over the velvet bench, my back bowed and limbs splayed to expose myself for the audience's view.
"Breathe," Antin whispered in my ear, his cheek brushing against mine and forcing me to gasp, to breathe again, to recall my own mind and body. "That's it. You're doing so well."
"Please," I whispered, not sure what I was begging for.
"It's a relief, isn't it?" Antin asked, kneeling behind my head. I tried to stretch, to reach his skin, wanting a taste of him. "To be released from your own head?"
Con was so gentle, but there was no escaping the scratch and burn of his touch as he dragged down one stocking from my thigh. My leg kicked, and I yelled curses as I tried to regain control of my own muscles.
"Don't fight. You won't hurt him," Antin said, and he bent his head, brushing a kiss over my forehead, a confusing current stretching between his lips and Con's knuckle stroking the sole of my foot.
"Kiss," I whined, reaching back for Antin. His lips, so full and rosy, stretched in a smile even as he skirted out of reach.
Con's grip was more direct on the next stocking, and I screamed and thrashed and bucked through the torment, forgetting my need for Antin until I was limp and gasping and the pair of them both stood out of reach.
"You're bare to us now, sweet creature," Antin said, and it wasn't a whisper for my ear, but a declaration to the entire room.
I was sweating, boneless, stretched and arranged to bare everything, hundreds of eyes staring back at me through the shadows and the blinding spotlight.
"What do you want?" Antin asked.
There'd been no discussion of this in rehearsal, no prompt for me to follow. No script to provide me with the words. The audience held its breath, waiting for my response.
"The truth, sweet creature," Antin said, and I believed him.
Mr. Reddy would write this scene with me moaning and begging, or screaming and trying to escape. And what would he, or even Antin, say if I pleaded for respite, crawled on my shaking limbs back to the wings, retreated from the stares? I knew what I would say as Hazel, the practiced, obedient, professional actress of the Company of Fiends.
But that woman was still standing center stage in finery and jewels. I had no cue, and my answer to the question was unwritten.
"Touch me," I said softly.
I pressed my feet to the bracing boards at either side of the bench, arched my back even deeper, pressing my breasts into the open air in invitation, and tipped my head back to find Antin. He was upside-down in my vision, smiling gently as he walked slowly closer. I lifted my head up and sucked in a breath at Con's slow approach, the intent metallic stare fixed to my cunt.
Antin's knees thumped softly on the cushion behind my head, and I sighed and shivered as he grazed my jaw and throat.
"I want to be erased," I breathed, blinking up at him.
"Never," Antin murmured back. "But you can be remade."
He bent as I stretched, and our lips met in a simple press that created a frenzy inside of me. Con's hips brushed the inside of my thighs, a duller pounding pain, and then his cock stroked against the lips of my sex. Both men gripped me, Antin stealing my hands in his, Con's wrapping around my hips, pinning me in the whirlwind of their touches, blotting out the room, my thoughts.
Con's deep plunge inside of me was the blade cutting me free of the edges of my own skin, Antin's teasing tongue licking at my lips the breeze that swept me loose in the air. I moved, rocked and writhed, because they were two opposing forces battering me between them.
Antin's kisses drifted to my throat, behind my ear, and his hands guided mine to my breasts.
"Share it all with them," Antin whispered. "Breathe, sweet creature."
I breathed so I could scream and cry and babble pleading nonsense. Con's touch was careful, but his fucking was ruthless, steady and rough, deep and electric. Antin grew gentle, grazing, and it threw their balance in Con's favor, my voice hoarse with howls and whines.
Explosive color burst inside of me, in my vision, and I was vaguely aware of my own mess of arousal slipping down my thighs, slicking Con's hips in their rocking. I clutched at Antin's wrists as he pinched and plucked my nipples, long pulses of heady pleasure meeting the bone-rattling shock of Con's driving thrusts.
"You are exquisite," Antin praised in my ear. "Our pretty gift. See how unruly you make him."
I let out a ragged moan, my throat already hoarse from shouting, and Antin lifted my head for me so I could watch Con. His head was thrown back, chest heaving, the silvery blue of his horns shimmering under the spotlight, sweat glittering on the carved planes of his chest, more like armor than muscle. He dropped his chin and that bright, dangerous gaze met mine, flashing and stealing my breath with its focus.
Con leaned forward, and Antin traced patterns on my breasts as I panted for air I couldn't catch. The knife's edge gaze held mine as Con bent forward, lowering his face to my breasts, Antin's touch retreating to my throat, my pulse drumming so hard, I thought the whole room must be booming with my heartbeat.
Con's nose traced gently between my breasts, his body churning on top of me, hips working in a hypnotizing circular pattern that stroked inside of me.
And if there was pain, it was blurred now. I'd been carved open, gutted, rinsed clean, a pure vessel to be filled. Pain was pleasure, a shock, a kiss, and a pound, the gentle stroke of a hand up and down my thigh.
"Closer," I whispered.
Antin was gone and Con stretched above me, his hands wrapping my legs around his back. My skin crackled everywhere we touched, my blood sizzling in my veins, and still I rolled myself into him, found his horns in my grip, and screamed my determination to drive this demon into the same hurricane of need I was drowning in.
He had no lips to kiss me with, but he stroked his face against my skin, somehow sweeter and more desperate than Antin's tender presses.
I'd forgotten the audience, forgotten the stage, and in the final moment I forgot Con too. I came with a scream, with an explosion I was certain would shatter my own bones, with my nails raking down Con's back, trying to escape the crash of destruction.