Atherine's Cost

"I'm really glad you decided to go along with this, Katherine," Andrew whispered with a feigned smile.

Murmurs in the great room on the other side of the double doors had grown significantly louder in the last few minutes which meant members were beginning to finish their meal and make their way out of the dining room in numbers, and the last thing Andrew Madison needed was to be overheard by his father in front of other members. He and Katherine weren't supposed to even be in the anteroom for another five minutes; he was defying his stepfather's instructions only because Katherine had barged out of the dressing room forcing him to follow.

"Mrs. Livingston," Katherine barked.

"Yes, Ma'am. I'm sorry Mrs. Livingston." He paused awkwardly not knowing whether to speak his mind or let it rest. Eventually, he inhaled deeply and started, "I never imagined what I said in front of him would lead to any of this. It was an honest mistake. I really am sorry, Kath...er...Mrs. Livingston. And I want you to know I argued against being...you know...the one up there with you tonight. He insisted. I'd have gone to my mother to overrule him, but I doubt either of us would want her to know anything about this place or anything that goes on here tonight."

Again Andrew paused as if hoping that, if he waited long enough, Katherine would exonerate him of all wrongdoing. When she stared straight ahead in silent defiance he decided to go on.

"Anything I say or do in there tonight is not of my own choosing. They aren't my words, ok? It's important to me that you know that. It's all in that goddamned book he kept waving around the other night when the three of us were in his study. It's like some kind of script that I follow to the letter with the exception of plugging in your personal description." Katherine's eyes were closed now, but her mouth remained closed. He went on, "This isn't my idea of a good time. It's barbaric. Anyway...I just wanted you to know that I think what you're doing for your family is admirable."

Admirable. With that word, Katherine dropped her chin to her chest in defeat and fought to hold back tears of rage and humiliation. Nothing about what was going to go on in that room was going to be admirable. It was, as she saw it, her only option, but there was little solace in that now. The tenor of her voice had a distinct tremble to it as she whispered, "Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate you saying that."

The two stood in silence for a long while. The young man fidgeted with the pages of the book as though he was doing some last-minute cramming before a final exam. Katherine, nearly thirty years his senior, kept her chin on her chest and her eyes closed, but she reached toward the rustling pages and placed her hand atop his. "We went over this plenty. You know what you need to do. Breathe. It's not like I'm some cow you've been saddled with, you know. I still have it- at least a little."

"A lot," Andrew spat the words out before he could bite his tongue. He garbled some incomprehensible fragments that showed his embarrassment at being so forward.

Katherine smiled at the compliment and the boy's embarrassed response to making it. "It's fine, Andrew. Glad to know you'll enjoy the view in there."

Andrew blushed and shrugged a bit. She wasn't wrong. Katherine Livingston was a beautiful woman for any age, but particularly at fifty. For the first time since they'd arrived together, Andrew admired just how striking she was in the outfit they'd chosen for her. His attention was torn away from her curves when three loud thumps echoed in the next room and the room fell silent. A lone voice rang out that they both could both clearly identify as belonging to the Senator. The mahogany doors between him and the two of them muffled Andrew's stepfather's words, but he was clearly giving some quick introduction or explanation as to what has to come next. A roar of applause burst out causing Katherine's handled to begin trembling. Andrew reached over and held it and offered a silent, somber nod of encouragement. They broke hands just in time, for the next moment both doors swung wide and they were faced with the full force of the reality before them.

Neither Andrew nor Katherine had ever seen anything quite like it- except maybe in movies. It was like something out of Camelot. The entire room, from the floor to the ceiling, and the walls between were chiseled from limestone. Ornate carvings lined the tops of the walls- also made from limestone. The only light in the room was provided by torches that hung from iron rings on the walls every few feet all the way around. On the far end of the room, where the Senator had been speaking, an elevated limestone platform rose three feet above the remainder of the floor. Each man in the room- and there were only men- wore a black cloak over his white shirt and black tie, and a black mask made from the same material as the cloak veiled his eyes and the bridge of his nose. Who the fuck are these people? Katherine whispered just loud enough for Andrew to hear.

One man stepped forward with a red pillow that held two long gold chains and a matching golden collar. Andrew took the collar from the pillow and turned back to face Katherine. "Turn," he ordered as the instructions required. She turned her back to Andrew as ordered so that he could lift the collar over her head and clasp it behind her neck. Again he ordered coldly, "Turn." Katherine did as instructed. Next, with the first chain, he attached the final link to the o-shaped ring that. With that completed, he turned to face the Senator where he stood atop the platform and gave him a pronounced nod.

"Shields," he bellowed, raising both hands, palms down above his head, "tonight the tradition continues. This year's prospective candidates have sent their class president, Andrew here, to extend their offering to the membership. Sword & Shield has passed the offering tradition down through the generations and that takes on even more meaning for me tonight as this offering is brought to us by my own next generation- my son Andrew. Stepson, Andrew seethed. You are not my father. "Andrew!" the Senator barked with more than a twinge of annoyance in his tone. Shit. Andrew had been cursing the man to the point that he didn't hear his cue. "Again," the Senator glared at his stepson with a look that said, you will not embarrass me you little bastard, "...again I'll say, 'you may begin.'"

He nodded to the remainder of the members in his pledge class who waited in the wings. His signal brought them scurrying into the room with black folding crammed four wide in each hand. The young men laid out the chairs in semi-circular rows facing the platform. Once the members were seated the real challenge would begin. Andrew knew it, too. If the journey of a thousand steps begins with the first step, he couldn't imagine the length of journey that would justify the difficulty he felt as he tried to lift his left foot off the ground to move forward. The pause was imperceptible to anyone in the room other than Katherine and the Senator but lasted an eternity in his mind. When the step finally came the tension of the chain caught Katherine off guard. She did her best not to stumble forward. Dignity would be in short supply tonight so she had no intention of surrendering more by falling at the outset.

Row by row, member by member, Andrew led the middle-aged woman along to be leered at by some of the country's top political, economic, and, yes, spiritual leaders. Katherine kept her eyes fixed on the walls above the men's heads as best she could as she was paraded like livestock before these best and brightest. She felt their gaze seer into every inch of her frame, and though uncomfortable in this setting and state of dress, it wasn't the worst part of the parade- she was accustomed to turning heads her entire life. The worst part was the little notebooks emblazoned with the seal of the secret order in which many of the members made notes as they craned their necks to get every possible angle. They weren't just sizing her up with their eyes, she realized; that part was perversely almost flattering. The members were also sizing her up with their business acumen. They were placing a value on her. Katherine wanted to die.

Andrew led her through the final row and then yanked the chain firmly, as the book demanded, toward the platform. This time Katherine couldn't maintain her balance in the five-inch patent leather high heels, which glowed in the torchlight, the two of them had settled on the week before. She tumbled forward onto her hands and knees on the unsympathetic rigidity of the limestone floor. The crowd of men roared with laughter. Andrew looked down with eyes as sympathetic as he could be seen to show and ordered her back to her feet. Katherine realized as she rose that her left breast had poured out of her designer lingerie and was on display. She fumbled with the C-cup but was stopped by Andrew's firm, "No. Leave it." What's the point of modesty at this point, she reasoned, not that she had a choice in complying with his command. So she marched on, one breast in, one out, up onto the platform. For the first time in twenty-seven years, more than one man at a time had seen her exposed. This time, it wasn't at a music festival, but in a den full of wolves.

Andrew and Katherine had rehearsed this next part, so she knew exactly what to expect. They'd spent an entire afternoon in Manhattan traipsing from one designer lingerie boutique to the next before they found a set they agreed upon. Intricate black lace- not the mall-style she'd grown up wearing- formed firmly around her bust and held tight to her abdomen for three inches further down. It was highlighted by a tasteful sapphire pattern, the same as on the high-waisted garter below that highlighted her bottomless blue eyes and drew a stark contrast to the creaminess of her skin. Matte nylon stockings that cost more than her first car completed the look. Andrew paid for it all of course, but the trust fund baby caught her off guard by purchasing a duplicate of each item. Later, inside the privacy of his mother's inexplicable second apartment on the island, he explained the extravagance. The ritual required that he tear the lingerie from her body as crudely as he could manage. To make that look as brutal as possible, he explained, they would need a dry run. He had taken a pair of safety scissors to make nearly imperceptible cuts in the fabric of the bustier and garter to make tearing the garments more feasible. The tactic had succeeded and so, once Katherine was dressed an hour earlier, Andrew made the same preparations with the same pair of scissors.

Now, in the torchlight, he grabbed between the cups of the bustier and rent with all his might. The garment tore as planned and the young man tossed it into the now raucous crowd before repeating the act with the garter. A thin string of silk was no match for the collegiate athlete, so they'd made no preparation for her thong or stockings. He tore them from her trembling frame and tossed them just the same. Katherine feigned surprise at the brutality, though her involuntary reaction was far from rehearsed. She could not have possibly prepared for the reality of standing before a group of ravenous men cloaked only in stilettos and the small strip of hair that rose from between her thighs. Her heartbeat was like the drums of an ancient warship and her breath was ragged. It was as though she could feel each pair of eyes peering beneath her skin and directly into the signs of arousal she was so desperately trying to conceal.

The man with the pillow reappeared and offered Andrew the final, much longer chain, which he weaved into a harness across her bare flesh. Cold metal wasn't something she'd ever conceived as an erotic sensation. Instantly she knew that conceit was incorrect. It was a combination rather than a single factor. There was the harsh temperature, which caused every small hair on her body to stand at attention. Then there was the sound of link after link of chain unwound from its coil only to constrict back against her pale flesh as it wound behind her neck, crossed across her chest just beneath her bare breasts, wrapped between her legs, pressing against her outer lips with a precise amount of pressure, crossing again at her navel and was finally tethered to the chains already in place at her sternum. It was a surreal feeling. These were not gold-plated chains like they had practiced with- the weight made that clear. She was bound, like the slave of some pharaoh of old, in solid gold bindings, and displayed for all his court to gaze upon. It was utterly humiliating, and yet, the thinnest sheen of moisture was beginning to glisten against the chain between her legs.

When the room died down Andrew began to speak, "We the 2021 pledge class of Sword & Shield, bring to you this offering for your bidding. May it please the membership." The members stomped one foot on the ground in unison as a sign of approval. He glanced toward his stepfather who nodded approvingly. He decided to lay it on thick by adding, "While it is outside protocol, I would be remiss to not state publicly how much pride I take in being chosen to represent my potential future brothers here tonight, and do so under the direction of my esteemed father." The crowd ate it up. So did the Senator. Andrew cursed himself internally.

He continued, "We offer up what we have been told is a break from recent trends. This woman is clearly not a coed. She is not a girl from some sorority paid to be here or guilted into being here due to some schoolgirl crush. She is not a girl at all." He paused for dramatic effect. Palpable tension in the room confirmed that his attempts at showmanship were working. When he felt the moment was right he resumed his rehearsed oration.

"What we have for you this evening is all woman, and she has volunteered, unsolicited, to be here this evening. Katarina is her name. Her husband's neglect is your potential gain." Andrew let the words linger in the smoky air. None of what he'd just said was true and he knew it. She'd have rather been anywhere else in the world tonight- most of all with her doting husband. But the narrative was irresistible. A married woman, tired of her drab family and life, sleeps with an undergrad, hears about the ritual of the secret society he's trying to join, and enthusiastically volunteers to be the offering. It was too good to be true. It was too good to be true. Yet the outsized egos of his audience allowed such an absurd tale.

"Katarina is forty-three years old." Andrew hadn't told her that wrinkle in his sales pitch. Katherine had to hide the broad grin of pride she felt at his thinking she could pass for seven years her junior. "She is five foot six and one hundred sixty-five pounds. These," he called out as he yanked her backward toward him and mauled at her breasts, "are 34Cs. The sensitivity of her nipples is beyond any that I've encountered thus far in the hidden recess of boarding school and college dormitories." The members chuckled knowingly at the remark. To accentuate his point, he pinched the right nipple and twisted the left. Katherine let out a guttural moan that even the dullest boarding school chap could decipher as arousal. "Do you see what I mean?" the boy asked to whistles and crude suggestions.

By this time, Katherine was on another planet. The lust behind the dozens of eyes upon her was enough to arouse the former wild child from the plains of Middle America. There was an exhibitionist at heart buried beneath the pearls and patterns of upper-class motherhood, and this absurd setting seemed to be reviving that part of her. Her nipples, the same ones her children had fed at years before, protruded with wanton lust even before Andrew had mauled them. Now, they felt as though they might burst.

Andrew scrolled through a list of her finest physical attributes, paying particular attention to her full lips and expansive ass. He tugged at the tuft of hair he called her landing strip with a wide grin across his face and assured his audience the reward below was sweeter and tighter than any they would find in a woman half "Katarina's" age.

Though they sat row after row clearly engaged, he followed the script to the letter. "You seem not to believe me," he said incredulously, "I am not in a position to lie. Let me prove it. Katarina, you will bury two of your fingers in your cunt and choose a member to verify my claim." Katherine did as she was obligated to do and then searched the crowd with a twinge of hunger in her eyes. She locked onto a man with broad shoulders and wild red hair and beckoned him with her two coated digits. The man obliged, tongued her fingers, and then let out a Rebel Yell that rattled the room. "We'll take that as a yes, sir," Andrew added with a wink. Then, as though seriously pondering his next words, Andrew paused before saying, "You know, given the esteem of my family- we are not family- I wouldn't want to make such claims without first-hand inspection by any potential bidders." He let the words linger for just a moment before commanding toward the shadows, "Bring out the stakes."

The crowd erupted as though the Crimson had just won the Ivy League. The Senator had mentioned in passing that no member had made contact with an offering in nearly a decade before the auction, and Andrew had filed the factoid away. The booklet made clear that the only way an offering could be touched was if they agreed to place their feet between, and grip their hands onto "the stakes." The Vice President of the class inserted a wooden peg into each of the six indentions in the circular limestone platform's surface. Andrew strode behind Katherine and produced and red silk blindfold from his pocket, which he fastened across her eyes. "Katarina" then lowered herself onto the stone floor. She fumbled blindly until she found two stakes, ankle width apart to her left. She slid her ankle between them and pulled to show that her foot could go no higher. Katherine did the same on the right before lying flat and reaching up to wrap each of her hands around the wooden pegs above her. Her body, wrapped in chains, now laid on the ground as though bound to a St. Andrews cross. "Well..." Andrew said through a convincing smile, "see for yourselves, gentleman."

The boardroom at Goldman Sachs is little more than a modern Viking raiding party in Armani suits as it was, but as multiple masked members of that board and dozens of their society brethren moved toward the woman on the dais, they moved like the warriors of old. In an instant what felt like five hundred hands were on Katherine's body. She tensed at the sensation and clinched onto the pegs in her hand. Weak hands, strong hands, callous, soft, and every kind in between mauled at her flesh. Decorum and self-respect required she show no response to the onslaught, and she tried her damnedest to adhere to the self-governance she had laid out in advance. A finger and then another plunged into her sex. She bit her painted lip until the faint taste of blood filled her mouth, but she remained silent. Hands and lips and teeth worked on her nipples until she became convinced she would pass out from the sensation. Still, she refused to surrender. A faceless figure stuffed two-finger between her lips and commanded that she "show him what these big things can do." She complied without a sound. Katherine was proud of her resilience. She had taken their objectification in stride and resisted the involuntary responses they elicited.

Then a man whispered in her ear and all was lost. "This is all going to be mine in a few hours. None of them could outbid me, even if they wanted to. You'll break the all-time record if need be. You will be mine. You will be used. You will scream yourself hoarse. And there's nothing you can do about it, Katherine."