Free Master of the Opera, Act 5: A Haunting Duet by Jeffe Kennedy Page B

their hands, they cut away his clothing. He rolled his head to the side, watching her, waiting for her reaction, she knew.
    It had been this way for her, before, back when she carelessly let someone see her scars. The instinctive revulsion on their faces, the horrified curiosity and the sympathy that nearly broke you. Sympathy worked like an acid, corroding the locks you kept over the festering, secret wounds.
    So she didn’t wince when they cut away the gloves and the ruin of his hands became apparent. The one leg, muscular to the knee, then withered, as if it had been gnawed to the bone by wild dogs. They stripped him naked and vulnerable, carefully cutting around the blade buried in his lean abdomen, revealing the shining white hair and quiescent cock at his groin. They took everything from him. All except for the knife and the mask, leaving that as a stark black reminder, his blue eyes shards of glacier, burning through the holes.
    A shadowy figure approached her, covered more in hair than skin. Armbands, thigh bands, and a chest plate of worked gold shone brightly, the glow obscuring its features. It stood before her and held up a length of leather, just under her chin. She frowned, uncertain, and the creature lashed her on the thigh with it, a sting that turned her suspended body in a slight circle. It held up the strap again. The Master watched, his body tense with the strain of his position.
    A question then.
    Eyes on his, she bent her head and kissed the strap. Agreeing to what he asked of her. The creature smiled, a glitter of fang in the hairy countenance, unfolding the leather strap to a long length. With a whistle through the air, it landed again on her thigh. The drumbeats quickened at her cry of pain, and an echo of it ran through the assembly. She found the Master’s burning gaze, full of love and desire.
    The lash fell again on her tender skin, sending her spinning. Again and again, the leather found her sensitive flesh, landing now on her bottom, there on her calf, then across her breasts. The last made her scream and fight the bonds, the crowd yelling with her—in encouragement or anger, she couldn’t tell. But it became a symphony, a concert of agony. The whoosh and slap of the whipping, her cries and the reverberations of her pain from those watching. Sweat ran down her body and melded with the tears pouring from her eyes.
    Whenever she could, she locked her gaze with the Master’s, like a ballerina finding her steady point as she pirouettes. Gradually, it seemed his body transformed. Sometimes she saw the great white bear, pinned to the altar of the black slab. Other times he seemed radiantly masculine, his limbs perfect and untwisted. His cock grew, unfurling with lust until it thrust high and hard against his belly.
    Transported by the pain and egged on by the crowd, her own desire exploded, each sting of the lash a spur to drive her up higher and harder. The strap of leather crashed against the closed triangle of her mound and she nearly came from it, panting and pleading with inarticulate noises.
    The Master, too, longed for her with his body, straining against the ropes. He pumped his hips with the throbbing of the drums, going faster and faster now, along with the speed of the lash and the ululating wail of her cries for relief.
    With a final, sonic boom of a beat, the drums and the crowd and the lash all ceased.
    Only her panting sobs broke the silence. Her tenders rushed forward, supporting her and cutting the ropes on her ankles and wrists. They carried her to the slab and set her on it, so she knelt between the Master’s spread legs. His scrotum hung heavy and she, at last free to touch him, cupped it, rolling his heavy balls in her hand. He groaned, almost more of an ursine growl, his glittering gaze fixed on her.
    Tears drying on her face, her flesh alive and singing with the extreme stimulation, she leaned over and licked the length of his cock, careful not to bump the knife still