The Red-Haired Woman

Prologue

Darkness enveloped her in warmth and comfort, a quilt drawn deep about her, where the demons she fought and sometimes surrendered to could not reach her...demons he drew from her soul to torment and humiliate her even as the feelings they roused within her captive and captivated body released such heights of ecstasy that she shuddered even to remember them.

The shiver ran through the warmth that surrounded her, like a finger of ice, drawing memories over the open palette of her mind. They first touched on how they had met and how she had succumbed that very first night. Then, how she'd watched the ship of her soul slip into the maelstrom of his possession, how she knew she'd die drowning in that whirlpool.

She knew she could fight against the storms of his passions; the searing lightning strikes of rapture he visited upon her flesh but at her core she knew she would not. The love that burned there would not allow it. She might die at his hands, but she would never run.

Chapter One

Strip

She had batted her long lashes and vamped at him, letting the smoke rings emerge from her painted lips in slow perfect circles...he could see she wanted him to respond, to grasp her coquettishness and shake it until she was dizzy...but he merely stared at her until her cheeks reddened and the next ring was an irregular scrawl in the air. She brought the cigarette to her mouth to cover her unsettledness; there was darkness in those eyes, a darkness to fall into and be unable to ever again see the light...but a darkness that might also wrap and protect. She turned away from those eyes and noticed that her fingers trembled and the lit end of her cigarette traced wobbly circles that made the smoke stream dance and waver.

She sensed he was near and then felt the touch of his fingertips on her bare shoulder, placed there with infinite care, a command that demanded her surrender. Just like that; without knowing her name or what game she had attempted to play, he demanded that she be his, no words, no gestures, not even the dragging of her off her stool and into some dank alley to be used and discarded. Just his fingertips; they seemed to burn into her skin. She shuddered, he felt it, and they both knew that from that moment on she would belong to him. She looked down as her hand moved unsteadily to put the useless cigarette into a nearby ashtray, unable to turn and look at him for fear that her soul would get sucked into that darkness and she might never re-emerge.

He leaned closer and whispered a single word into her ear...one that made her freeze and blink...even as she knew she would heed the command in that word...she still could not look at him as she braced her hands along the edge of the bar to push off the stool, terror creeping into her eyes as she realized that her actions were completely out of her control. She moved away from the stool as people unknowing milled about her and suddenly there was space and the light of one of the wall mounted lamps seemed to bathe her in a spot of soft glow...somewhere far off she heard music, rhythmic and sensual, causing her hips to sway almost imperceptibly as she shifted her weight from one high heeled red sandal to the other.

Her hips began to increase their rolling from side to side, to exaggerate their slow pushes into the air around her as though seeking something to press into, to grind against, and a few men at the bar turned to watch her as the way she was moving touched something primal in their reptile brains. She felt their eyes on her and she knew her skin flushed at the thought of their gazes caressing her swaying body...still, she did not look at Him...and was startled to realize that she had already begun to accept Him in that sense. Her hands moved to slide down her sides, over the shiny flash of her short dress to the sleek feel of the black stockings that encased her legs, her motion in that moment taking on the unmistakeable beginnings of the offering of her body.

She felt the hem of her dress under her fingertips and could hear the widening of the eyes of those who now riveted their gazes upon her as the dress crumpled and lifted, revealing all the smooth perfection of her thighs, the band of lace at the tops of the nylon, the creamy flesh above even those, and the impossibly brief triangle of thong as they came into view. There were gasps from those watching and the baffled outrage of the bartender as he moved to interfere...and was himself stopped by a look from Him. She raised the dress higher, letting her smooth belly become the next feast and then higher, the lace cups of her bra letting the chill of excitement that grasped her spine reveal itself in the pebbling of the cleavage that the lace revealed more than hid.

She couldn't see then, as her arms and head were tangled in the satin sheen of her dress, the garment almost off, her raising of it paused for a moment as her hips and legs continued their slow gyration of invitation. She knew she was facing Him, and she knew the others knew the dance was for Him and yet for them too. Then the dress was off her head and she shook her hair free so that it swirled about her as she deposited the dress on the stool with a fingertip...how did she know to do that? It was as if he were guiding her, in a choreography that played her body like she was an ode to whoredom. She cupped her breasts in offering, her eyes lidded as conversations dwindled into awestruck silence around her.

Her fingers found the clasp at the front of her bra and fumbled there for a moment as her mind's eye showed her what she was about to do. She drew the flimsy garment open wide as her nipples spiked at him, growing into incredible rubies centered in pink aureole...freed to sway as her hips moved but pushing out to him in a yearning she felt to her core. He knew! She flicked her bra and it joined her dress. There were now rumblings of restless surprise from her eager audience underpinning her dance...low growling moans of "Jesus Fuckin' Christ...."

She turned to face those who had been behind her, to reward their patience with the gift He had bade her to give. She pulled her shoulders back so that her mounds jutted out more firmly, enticing the bar patrons with a long look before continuing her offering to Him. Slowly pirouetting on her high heels, she let her hands slide slowly from under her globes, her fingers and thumbs fastening about nipples wanting the caress of His gaze, the abuse of His fingers, the clamp of His teeth. Her eyelashes crept lower over her sultry stare into His eyes, writhing as she had seen those who danced for men writhed, lusting as she knew they didn't...or did they? Her fingers released her turgid nubs to a few groans of disappointment from the onlookers. Her lips curved wickedly as she felt their gazes follow them down her sides to the thin bands that encircled her hips.

"Goddamn, woman..." came a hoarse muttering from somewhere in the crowd as her thumbs hooked into the straps of her thong. She slowly swiveled down into a squat as her hands drew the undergarment into the crease behind her knees, thighs pressed together so that the eager ogling might wait a few moments longer. She looked up around her at the circle of her audience, men and women both, reading shock, disgust, but mostly awe in their eyes...but focusing on what she hoped for in His eyes. The darkness was still there, growing harder, and she blinked as a wisp of doubt touched chill to the base of her spine.

No! He could not find her wanting...unworthy. Quickly she swayed her buttocks up out of the crouch while pushing her thong to her ankles. Stepping carefully, she let them release from one shoe then the other, then bringing her gaze back to his face as she pushed them with a toe towards his feet. He had to accept her surrender! She swayed her hips more wantonly, trying to convey the sluttish yearning she felt, moving towards him so she might convince him by her nearness, her touch.

He shook his head almost imperceptibly as she reached her hands towards his chest and she felt as though an icy claw had reached into her breast to arrest her heart. She felt her eyes grow moist, her lust roiling into a despair she didn't want to bear. How could he command her then not accept her submission? Must she fall completely into that darkness? She blinked again, in desperation, hoping for any semblance of salvation he might offer, saw that His eyes answered,

"Yes. You must."

She nearly buckled then, her hands having to grasp her thighs to stop her from falling, her head thrown back, eyes closed, and her mouth ovalled open as though breathing might fail her and she would suffocate under the sudden crush of his demand. She could feel her arousal frozen in the desperate grasp of a terror she had never known...that the One who demanded her surrender might find her submission ... incomplete. That it would do no good to force her into degradation, if she would not accept the utterness of that humiliation. She clasped her arms about her bare torso in a sudden shiver of misery. How could all this be happening in this merest spanning of moments?

The crowd sensed the shift in her emotions and shuffled nervously not knowing whether to slink away in the sharing of her shame or to descend upon her howling as wolves caught up in bloodlust over the capture of her helplessness. She could still feel the heat of her skin, glowing in the dim light and she dared to open her eyes as a calm befell her. She would suffer any fate that would come now, impaled on his spear of possession or torn asunder on the lust of the crowd. She met his gaze again, her body still, the offering made without artifice or enticement. She could not suppress the welling of tears that threatened the steadiness of her gaze. The moment stretched further into the darkness and the murmurs grew louder. From very far away she thought she heard him, and then knew she did as the command swept her away from the brink of despair.

"Come with me." He said softly, then made his way through the crowd without looking back to see if she followed. Hurriedly she gathered her clothes and followed as the crowd allowed her to also pass; shaking their heads as they turned back to their drinks and conversation. They might mutter and marvel at her brief dance and even entertain fantasies about the nakedness they had witnessed. They might even wonder at her fate. Many would remember the last glimpse of her as she left the bar...creamy buttocks swaying as she hurried to catch her Master, touched only by the ends of her fiery red hair.