When Mistress Mercy darted out of the dungeon like room, a deadly silence descended to cast a gloomy ambience that momentarily halted the proceedings. Everyone was totally stunned. Fortunately, Mistress Denna in her inimitable way was able to regain control of the stressful situation. She took to the center stage and said, "Well now was that not an unexpected dénouement to 'der Hun's initiation? Luckily, Caligula seems to have taken the matter into his own hands to take care of Mistress Mercy, who appears not to have been of herself lately."
Once the resultant laughter died down, Mistress Denna continued, "In any case, it's time to test out our last but by no means the least candidate for initiation into der Höllenfeuer Verein. She chose the name Messalina. Please come up here my dear. Don't be shy. Actually, that prompting is really not necessary as it applies to Messalina as you shall soon discover."
Once Ingrid joined Mistress Denna to stand next to her, the latter continued, "Wow isn't Messalina simply stunning? Come on Messalina strip right now so the audience can see for themselves what a magnificent female body you have."
Complying to Mistress Denna's command, Ingrid removed her halter top and thong. As Ingrid opted for absolute total nudity, she discarded her stiletto heels as well. Mistress Denna quickly gathered up Ingrid's costume, and arranged the same to be dispatched to the dressing room. She addressed the audience, "See I told you she's not shy. Twirl around honey and let your beauty shine!"
The audience cheered and there were wolf whistles heard aplenty. There's no denying that Ingrid had a magnificent body to complement her beautiful face. Mistress Denna observed, "I don't believe we've ever had for an initiation ceremony, such a trio of exceptionally gorgeous ladies as we've been blessed with tonight. Now, I hope none of you ladies in the audience take umbrage at my exuberance in describing tonight's female candidates. Rest assured that every one of you is a lovely lady. Even moi!"
Surprisingly, this last remark was greeted with some heavy groans albeit almost exclusively from the female contingent in the audience. Undaunted, Mistress Denna continued, "Messalina is an American, and also a university student but she attends MDW instead. Now we Austrians know that our University of Music and Performing Arts is the finest school of its kind in the world, boasting amongst its students and faculty, both past and present, some of the finest musicians in the world.
"I'm happy to report that our Melissa is not a fish out of water in amongst such an illustrious company of musicians. She won first prize in the piano discipline category at the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition held in Moscow and St Petersburg. In addition, she was awarded the grand prize as the overall outstanding competitor in the festival. She achieved this spectacular triumph just three years ago, when she was a mere sixteen years of age. Interestingly enough, she is the first American pianist to win the piano competition of this event since Van Cliburn won way back in the ancient times of 1958.
"I personally had the pleasure of hearing Melissa play the piano just two weeks ago at a special concert given at the Concert hall of MDW. She performed the same piano concertos that won her the prize in Moscow, plus another piece by Rachmaninoff. She was accompanied by the very best student musicians of MDW as chosen by Austria's greatest pianist in our lifetime, Otto Hellmesberger, who also conducted this concert.
"I can honestly attest that Melissa's playing was the very finest piano performance I've ever had the privilege of hearing in my life. And despite my busy schedule as a professional Dominatrix, I can assure you that I've attended many magnificent concerts at Musikverein's Golden Hall. However, you need not take my word for it. Deutsches Grammophon recorded this concert, and Messalina will be going to Berlin next month to record some more solo piano pieces to accompany the recording of the MDW concert. Accordingly, DGG plans to release a four disc CD set this fall so you can adjudge for yourself as to Messalina's expertise. For such purpose you must know that Messalina's actual and her professional artist's name is Ingrid Losnedahl."
The audience at this point erupted into spontaneous lengthy applause, obviously impressed by Ingrid's résumé as recounted by Mistress Denna. Once the cheering died down, she continued her introduction of Ingrid, "Now despite such an outstanding impressive professional life, that would awe anyone, our Messalina has a dark side to her character. Those who don't understand the appeal of BDSM might aver that every member of der Höllenfeuer Verein must de facto possess a dark side solely based on membership.
"However, our Melissa's dark side is emphasized by her choice of nom de plume for our club activities. As I was unaware of this historical figure, I did some research. I can report that the historical Messalina was a teenager when she married Claudius, who was some thirty years her senior and the emperor of Rome. Now given the age disparity she presumably wasn't getting much, if any. Mind you she did give birth to two children presumably sired by her husband, but after the passage of time of some two thousand years who knows?
"In any case, the historical reputation of Messalina pictured her as a ruthless, predatory and a sexually insatiable woman. The apex of her wantonness and promiscuity, climaxed in a contest between her and the most prolific prostitute in Rome, to determine who could have sex with the most different partners. The empress outlasted the prostitute by servicing twenty-five men during the night of the contest. No report on how many did the prostitute manage. Anyway, that incident apparently did not endear herself to her husband, and she was subsequently executed before seeing her thirty-second birthday. Oh dear!"
The audience tittered in reaction to the last superfluous exclamation, as Mistress Denna continued, "But that is not all concerning our Messalina's dark side. Her path to get here is certainly the culmination of the weirdest set of occurrences that I can recall as to how our club has acquired members. You see one day last April, Messalina was sipping a cup of tea in a café near the DC Towers building. When all of a sudden, a man enters the café, settles at a table in her plain view, and orders a cup of tea while immersed in a phone conversation on his iphone. The man turned out to be our very own member Caligula. Talk about name coincidences!"
Again, the audience tittered at this point, as Mistress Denna continued, "The next part of this story. I must confess I find totally incomprehensible. Now of course Caligula is somewhat attractive in his own right, quite capable of garnering some notice from those of the female persuasion. And certainly, he's quite a favorite in our club. But surely his sex appeal cannot be so overpowering so as to induce a pretty young thing, such as our Messalina, to become instantaneously smitten with him. So smitten that she would believe in her mind that only sexual intercourse with him as soon as possible could put out the instantly lit fires of her desires, and that she must act upon it. And this belief was instilled in her by his physical appearance alone and fully clothed at that! Why she didn't even know at the time that he was a respected senior member of our national government. If she had known that, then perhaps her subsequent behavior would be a little more understandable."
Ingrid was now blushing in reaction to this exposé of her day at the DC elevators. Mistress Denna pressed on, "Well apparently those were the strange feelings overwhelming our Messalina as soon as she first set eyes on him as he sat down before her. The only reasonable explanation I can offer to account for Messalina's instant infatuation and her subsequent actions on that day is to suggest, that the mythical love god, Cupid, does indeed exist albeit possibly in another dimension. He is able to penetrate our dimension with invisible arrows to pierce the heart of his victim to cause him or her to turn to the direction of the intended love interest."
Not surprisingly, the audience guffawed and laughed uproariously at such a preposterous assertion. Mistress Denna was not deterred as she continued her narrative, "You may laugh, but can you come up with a better explanation of Messalina's truly bizarre behavior? You see while our Caligula was minding his own business, concentrating on his telephone conversation no doubt concerning important affairs of the state, Messalina was surreptitiously undoing her bra and removing it to stuff it into her purse.
"Finishing his phone call and oblivious to Messalina's presence, Caligula left the café, after partaking only one sip of the tea, that he had ordered. I hope at least that his tab was not charged to his government expense account, even if that damn telephone conversation was focused on urgent government business. As a taxpayer I have no objection to reimbursing government officials their entertainment and food expenses so long as it is incidental to government business. However, if they insist on taking advantage of this perk, it behooves them not to waste the taxpayers' largess. So, if Caligula did charge the tea to his expense account, he should have damn well drunk all of the tea he had ordered."
