Anita glanced around the amphitheatre, absorbing the sights around her. She sat on the very inner edge of the raised seating section- in front of her the floor sank to form a lowered stage, with a podium at its center. The ballroom had a number of entrances, each a lavishly decorated archway, with two matched grand staircases leading to the balconies in the center. Each balcony was packed with chattering laughing people, watching the stage in the center of the ballroom.
Anitaâs friends were no different, hooting and squealing while watching the male revue, exchanging witty repartee about each stripperâs âassetsâ. Anita wasnât paying much attention- unlike her friends; the strippers werenât what she was here for. Anita wasnât here to hoot and goggle at orange tanned slick oiled strippers. She wasnât really sure why she was here, just that something about the elegant design and ivy and thorn motif of the poster sheâd seen had hinted that there was something more to this event than others. Even the name, âThe Ivy Ballâ had an elegant ring to it, so unlike itâs contemporaries- Desperate and Dateless, The Degenerates Ball, and any number of others. In observing the poster, Anita had had a sense of something bigger than just the Ball, a sense of something coherent and organized behind it. Perhaps it was just her overactive imagination, but sheâd felt that this had a different quality.
The number of limousines and luxury cars that had pulled up outside when the doors opened seemed to confirm that. A score of other clues (some subtle, some not so) hinted at something more than the usual sex party fare. Anita, in her moments of observance, had noticed that each of the waiters bore an identical tattoo, of a black ivy leaf crossed by a blood red thorn. Anyone who bothered to notice would have known that was more than coincidence.
They could have been fake of course, but for some reason she doubted it. She hoped she had reason to doubt. Other clues, the manner of some of the guests, the unusual deference of the waiters, all hinted at something more like what she hoped for.
While most of the event had passed like any other, with strip shows, product demonstrations and so on, Anita held onto her hope that something more would happen. The only reason she had this hope was because when sheâd purchased her ticket from the little boutique sex shop, the dark haired woman behind the counter had regarded her with a measuring eye, and said, âYouâll enjoy The Processional,â and refused to say anything more on the subject. Anita had hoped that was a sign, that somewhere there were people who could see what she was, what she desired more than anything, and respond to it.
Anita wanted to be owned.
Sheâd told people this, of course, and experimented (one doesnât end up at events like this without a little bit of experience), but it had all seemed rather pale and unfulfilling, and, dare she say it, tacky. Nothing like her fantasies, the reality was pushy jerks that called themselves Doms, and thought that her submissiveness meant that sheâd do anything they wanted, for nothing.
Anita had never met a man who could tame her. Not because she was particularly wild, it was just that no one had made her feel truly owned. Most were too tentative, too unskilled, men who had no understanding of how a womanâs body worked, and so couldnât tease her, couldnât reduce her to the begging whimpering thing that she so needed to be.
The way the man in the boutique had looked at her, a glimpse of a suspected ivy and thorn tattoo, the elegant invitations, had all suggested that there was something more here, something secret and hidden. Apparently the Ivy Ball was an annual event, held in a different city (and country) each year. It was only good fortune (or fate) that sheâd discovered it when it was happening here. Sheâd talked her friends along, telling them that she wanted to go ogle, and possibly pick up the latest sex toys. Theyâd be shocked if they knew the truth. Anita stroked the dark velvet of her corset anxiously, her chocolate eyes watching the clock as the hour approached midnight- the time of The Processional.
The strippers on stage finished up, and the lights dimmed, and the crowd hushed, as if by magic. Anita searched the ballroom, trying to determine which of the seven arches The Processional would enter through. When she noticed that, the one at the far end was decorated with ivy and thorns she was certain. Music started playing, something deep and rich, and Anitaâs eyes sparked with delight as she recognized the first creeping strains of Prokofievâs âMontagues and Capuletsâ. A nearby rustle of fabric startled her, and she turned her head, and noticed immediately that the archway behind her matched the one she had picked for the entrance of The Processional. She stared as men clad in designer suits began to gather under it, each with one or more nude and bejeweled slaves kneeling obediently at his feet. Anita filled with longing, thinking to herself that sheâd give anything to be part of that world. Her friends noticed the focus of her attention and stared with her, transfixed by the sight of so much naked flesh.
To Anita it was like a living fantasy: the setting, the clothes, the beauty of the slaves and their MastersâŚeverything spoke of an elegance she adored. The music started in earnest and the Masters began to walk, the slaves at their side, moving in a human wave around the oval of the sunken floor.
Anita saw that a group of Mistresses with slaves had entered through the opposite archway, as sheâd predicted, and were following a path that mirrored that of the Masters on the other side of the oval. The whole audience was awestruck, by these women in their lush ball gowns, with slaves at their feet- the vivid fabric contrasting with so much naked flesh.
