Chapter Nineteen – Mina.
There is no bay as beautiful as the Gulf of Naples. No sea is as transparent yet sparkling with all imaginable shades of blue and green. No coastline has been shaped as elegantly, nor wrapped as graciously in robes of emerald pines and soaring cypresses. They form a sea of green, capped by the hazy pyramid of dormant Vesuvius.
Far off, where the blue sea turns darker, islands shine like jewelry: Capri, Ischia, their feet eternally kissed by the whitest surf. The ancient towns and villages hang like birds' nests from the rocks. Their tiled roofscape is yet another sea in itself, with waves of faded orange.
Autumn had not yet reached the south. The air was balmy, spiced with the perfume of pines and the sweet scent of blossoming roses and oleander.
Two women knelt in exhausted surrender. They were on a high roof overlooking the bay, only blue sky around them, clear as sapphire. And as there were no fences or railings to define the edge of the marble-tiled roof, they felt as if they were floating in a boundless universe.
They drifted in sapphire.
Both women were entirely naked, one just a girl, really. They both wore narrow metal collars. And on the girl's round buttock was the dark brand of a French lily. All they wore otherwise, were the angry pink stripes crisscrossing the paleness of their skin.
They didn't look at each other. They only stared with unseeing eyes, their hands resting on spread knees. Their backs were straight. They even arched a bit to present their chests. The blond woman's breasts were large and pointy, the red-haired girl's firm and round.
They were a woman called M and a girl called Eva. They'd arrived here straight from the airport, eyes wrapped in blindfolds. After being stripped and washed in darkness, they'd been carried up by strong arms and deposited on this lofty roof. Their scarves were removed, and their eyes had been blinded by the overwhelming daylight. When their sight returned, they were alone, floating in blue.
"Mistress, what will happen?" Eva's voice was hardly more than a shivering breath.
"Sssshhh..." M answered. "Don't call me that; I'm not your Mistress anymore. Call me Mina."
Eva watched her in silence. Then she realized something that had never occurred to her. She'd always called this woman Mistress because she had to: she'd be punished if she didn't. So, being handed over to the Countess should not have mattered, should it? One fearsome Mistress for another; one madhouse of indifferent abuse for another. But it mattered. She'd felt abandoned, hurt. And she'd felt elated when M returned, shielding her, saving her. Mina.
Watching the woman kneeling in front of her, naked and collared like her, she didn't cause fear. She caused warmth. Why? Only save, sweet surrender pulsed through her body. No stress, no choice. It opened her like a flower. When panic should abound, only mindless sensuality invaded each and every cell of her body. She sat absolutely still, while inside her slow wave after wave of sweetness crashed on the beaches of her consciousness. They drowned the fragile sandcastles of her thoughts even before she could shape them. They left her washed clean, and she felt utterly satisfied.
"Mistress, why are we here?"
"Don't ask me. And don't call me that, call me Mina. I'm a nobody, just like you." Eva stared at the woman, and the save calmness was gone. A sudden wave of emotion choked her – a shock of abandon. A sob struggled its way out, making her chest heave. It was crisscrossed with the cruel reminders of the night before. M, Mina, frowned.
"Stop it now," she said. "Our new Mistress will be displeased." A gasp put an end to Eva's sobbing.
Our new Mistress.
Absorbing the definitive terms that described their future put her in shock. A moan rose from the well of her throat. She sagged, her straight back bending until her face touched the marble between her open knees.
"Sit up, slave!" M hissed. Her words lashed out like a whip. But Eva remained as she was, her face hidden.
"Noooo" she groaned into the sunbaked tiles. "No new Mistress for Eva. Pleeeease."
M stretched her right arm. She put her hand on the girl's soft shoulder, trying to drag her up to make her kneel in the proper position. But Eva cried out. She grabbed the arm to pull M over to her, hugging her. She smothered her with her shivering flesh. The tightness of the desperate embrace emptied M's lungs. It left her gasping under a thousand kisses.
M wrestled breathlessly to free herself. Then she scrambled to her feet and pushed the girl away, making her slide over the slick marble slabs, where she rolled into a tight fetal ball.
M stood panting and coughing. Then she growled: "Stop that. You're a disgrace to our new Mistress."
Eva looked back over her crouching shoulder. Her eyes were a pool of tears and misery. She slid further away from M and scrambled to her feet until she stood upright, shaking in the soft sweet breeze. Her mouth worked to shape inaudible words. Her arms were stretched forward, her hands waving in trembling denial. M took a step forward. She opened her arms, but Eva kept her distance by stepping back.
"Come," M said. She softened her voice. "Don't be afraid. Come to Mina, have no fear, little girl. Believe me, honey. Our new Mistress will treat you so much better than I ever did. We'll be her children. Come kneel with me so we can please our new Mistress." Fear flared in Eva's green, bleary eyes. She looked around. Then she peered over her shoulder to the edge of the roof and the endless fall beyond. She was only a few feet away from the unprotected edge. Her bare feet kept shuffling towards it. M reached out, but she stopped.
"Don't," she whispered. Eva now touched the edge with her toes. 'Choice,' she thought, the word tumbling through her darkening mind. She stretched her arms sideways, like a diver. Her naked, bruised body was etched against the clear blue sky and the darker sea below.
