When the show was over, Mistress sat with me while her companions broke down the set and packed it away. She had allowed one of them to take off his mask. He had pleased her during the show. The other had not and so he worked in the heat of the thing. Neither complained.

“This was your first time?” Mistress had a foreign accent, vaguely romantic but not quite French. I had never been anywhere so I had no frame of reference. “I have never seen a beginner so…enthusiastic. I watched you work and it was beautiful. I did not think you had the strength to beat him, then I did not think you had the strength to stop. I still do not know how your submissive got his arm free of the restraints. He broke my rig. It must have been weakened at some point.” She looked at me. She smiled at what she saw on my face. “Tell me…how did that make you feel?”

“It was wonderful. I feel satisfied.” The session had cleared away all my anxiety.

“Aroused?” she asked with a knowing look.

I furrowed my brow and shook my head. It was not sexual for me. I wanted to hurt Julian as he had hurt me. If I could have found a way out of my body into his, he would have suffered as I had…at the hand of as many men as would bugger him.

“You have a talent. And, I think, the desire for this. Very few women do, which makes me quite sought after. There are more shows to do than there are days in the year. If you wanted, you could be just as successful as I have become. I could train you. You are quite striking and I think the fair hair and skin would work a wonderful contrast with being a Mistress. Many would enjoy being dominated by one so strong who looks so frail.”

“Why? Why would anyone enjoy being hurt?”

She smiled and I saw kindness in her eyes. “You enjoyed it, no? Hurting those men. They enjoy it also. I do much work for wealthy, well-connected men. Men who are in control of all aspects of their lives. They benefit from a few hours of being under someone else’s control. The pain tells them they are alive. It makes the rest of their lives better, like the shadows in a painting make the details more beautiful.”

She stood to go. “I will be here for a week.” One of her men held a skirt for her to step into. It went under her bustle. That, with a buttoned bodice and jacket, made her outfit acceptable to society. “I hope to hear from you.” Her other man wrapped a cloak around her shoulders.

“Wait. To what inn should I send to you?”

Mistress bent down and put a kiss on my gloved hand, just as a gentleman would. “My dear, a Mistress of my level, the kind I could teach you to be, does not stay in an inn. I have taken residence at Milway Manor.”

 

Mistress did come to the house every day for a week after breakfast. We had one of the bedrooms on the top floor emptied of its furniture. Mistress commissioned my very own birching pony and an “X” that I learned was called a saltire or Saint Andrew’s Cross. She bought me my own set of tools and showed me how to use each one most efficiently. She taught me how to judge how far a submissive needed to be driven.

Of course she was training me for human submissives, which I had no desire to take under my cane. Julian was the only one I needed to hurt. I was free to enjoy his pain. It was justified. Violence was only horrifying when done to those who didn’t deserve it. Julian deserved it.

Julian could take, and indeed needed, a higher level of pain. We made adjustments to my instruments. One of my canes was split many times along three-quarters the length on one end. This change meant that when I brought it down on Julian’s flesh, it not only stung, but the sections pinched and cut his skin. He called it exquisite pain.

We only used the restraints occasionally. He found it more pleasurable if he was forced to hold position on his own will power. He stood bent or erect with his hands wherever I wanted because I wanted them there, not because he was strapped in. We both knew he could break free anytime. He enjoyed being beaten, not controlled. He needed pain, not the power exchange that Mistress kept describing.

We spoke about things no respectable couple would think of discussing. He bought antique torture devices and insisted I use them on him. There was the rack where I stretched him slowly over many hours until his joints popped. Sometimes I used the metal-tipped whip when his skin was pulled taut and it caused the cuts to burst open. I applied hot pokers to his skin and removed his fingernails with pliers. And, because Julian thought no one knew torture like the Romans, he had me crucify him for a few of his beatings. The large iron nails through his feet and wrists were more effective at holding him than any straps would ever be.

Julian healed overnight each time, awaking the next morning ready for more. Our sessions were good for me too. I no longer felt the desire to destroy something beautiful as Julian did. We took it farther than anyone else would and I was not uncomfortable because I knew that Julian would live.

 

It was a few weeks before Julian wanted to ride me again. I had foolishly thought that experiencing pain on that level might relieve his need. I had sensed he was building up to it but did not know how to proceed. He was the head of this household, a master to his Carriers, and he didn’t want to start a precedent of asking me permission to take what he thought was his. Our new dynamic did not help matters. I was dominant in our new playroom, not in the rest of the world. He would have what he wanted when he wanted it, no matter how deft I was at swinging the whip.

Julian knew that I could push him out if I wished. He was unaware that I did not fully understand how to evict him just yet.

He tried to set up his time within me as benignly as possible. It was to be in the daytime when it was more difficult to get away with anything. He wished to experience the world of an English lady: the park, the club, the people, the city; he would see them all through my eyes. I told him to experience the world of a proper woman he needed only to wear restrictive clothing and be confined to the house. Yes, I was given inordinate freedom but that was not the life of my counterparts.

We fought.

We fought in an English genteel manner. It lasted for days. There was no yelling. There was no name calling. There were only stinging quips, cutting comments, and raw silences.

“Is it so much to ask, a sharing of this body, after all I have done for you? I give you everything you could want. I even offer my own body in return. Any husband would simply use his wife’s body as he saw fit. Would you force me to resort to locking you away, mistreating you? Why do you resist my will?” He finally lost his temper.

I told him the truth. “I am afraid.” His anger melted. He tried to hold me. I shied away. “The touch may soothe me here but as soon as I am there, my peace is destroyed.”

“Where is there? Where do you go?”

“I am forced into a place of nightmare. Every excruciating moment, I am conscious feeling the pain. I cannot go again. I cannot see it again.”

Julian seemed to soften. He had not known what it was like for me. “That is not what the other Carriers have described their experiences are like. They say it is as peaceful and comforting as my touch. Like a rejuvenating slumber, they wake from the dark weak at first and then quickly grow stronger than before. They say there are dreams, fragments of their lives, nothing they can remember clearly after I am done. Certainly none of them report nightmares.”

“They are not literally nightmares. I meant my time there was nightmarish. I have spoken to you of the blank spots in my memory. They are what I live every time you take over. My consciousness is relegated to the dark days of my childhood. I do not like it. It is…horrifying. I feel terror every second you are riding.”

He offered me his handkerchief. I must have been crying. “Maybe it is good. You are regaining your memories, albeit the uncomfortable ones. Isn’t knowing better than the blank spots? Perhaps once you have them all back, you will be free to experience the happiness of other Carriers with an experienced Incola. Perhaps they are what is keeping you from switching bodies. Maybe you must finish before you will be free.”

I did not tell him about the girl there, the one experiencing all my pains. I did not tell him how she frightened me. I did not tell him about the words she had spoken in Paetus’ mews. I did not tell him how horrific she had looked with my flesh rotting off her bones. I only nodded. Maybe he was right. I did seem to be working through them in order. There were only a few left now.

He wasted no time getting us into the secret room. If I couldn’t ride his body, it needed to be locked away. It must be protected in its weakened state. I gulped down the wine, hoping that being drunk might help with my fear. Julian took it from me before I could finish the bottle. “I don’t think you want me with impaired judgment inside your body.” I let him take it and felt a little foolish for not realizing the drunken state would go with the body.

I jumped awake to find myself not in my childhood home, but on a forty-five-degree angle in bed inside my first room in the asylum. I looked down at my hands and feet. They were strapped down. Just as before, my body was incorporeal and I just pulled through the restraints and stepped away. I went to the door and looked out of the opening. The view was odd. I could see out into the hall just outside the door. To the right and left was only darkness. Only the ceilings had any detail other than shadow.

“You can only see what I have seen.”

I spun around to face what should have been a vacated bed. The girl who looked like me was as trapped as I had appeared to be upon arrival. She was thirteen or fourteen, about the age I had woken up in the asylum, confused by location and the loss of nearly a year of my life to the darkness. Something was different about her though. She was heavy with child.

“They take me from this room only when I am on my back and so I have only seen the ceilings of the hallways and the part I can view from here when the doctor comes inside.” She smiled at me. “I am glad you are here. This has always been my favorite. They mostly leave me alone now that my pregnancy is so advanced. We have plenty of time and that’s good because we have a lot to discuss. You know where you are, correct?”

Of course I knew. I had spent years in the asylum.

“No.” She had heard my thoughts.

“In my memories? The ones I blocked out.”

“Not exactly. You are in my memories, Ramillia. I am sorry I have not introduced myself before, but the other memories are too intense, too painful for me to think clearly when we are there. When you showed up in the early ones, I was unable to behave properly. I am Sally.”

“You are an Incola.”

“No, dear. I am you; I live in your subconscious. That is why you come here when Julian rides you. If I were not already occupying this space, it would be empty.”

“You said before that ‘she’ would never let me out because if I got out, you did also.”

She snapped the restraints on her bed easily. She could do it at any time. She was stronger than I. “You gave me this strength. You shared it with me when I needed it the most.”

“To kill my parents. Is that why she won’t let us free, because she’s afraid of what you will do?” My voice shook as I asked.

Sally climbed down and did something to the bed. It lowered and she unlocked the wheels, pushing it up against one wall. She sat and gestured that I should join her. She must have seen the panic in my eyes. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I wouldn’t hurt you. I can’t. We share a body and mind. To hurt you would be to hurt myself.” She sighed when I made no move to join her.

“I saw you, the real you, not this girl who looks like me that you pretend to be. You are vile, disgusting, evil, and I won’t be tricked by you,” I ranted. “I’m going back. Julian will understand. He’ll get you out of my mind.”

“How do you expect to get out?” Sally asked calmly. “There is no window to jump from here. The door is bolted and you have no substance with which to affect things here.” She continued while I considered. “I am no Incola, Ramillia. The vile girl you saw while you were inside that machine, the one you think is me, was you. It is the representation of what your mind thinks your soul looks like. I am the 'she' you were talking about. I am the one who won’t let you out of your body.”

I shook my head, disbelieving. “You’re the murderer, the demon. I have seen what you’ve done, the people you’ve slain.”

Sally spoke softly. “I have never killed anyone who did not hurt us or threaten us. I kill only those whose behavior demands it. Can you say the same?”

I thought of the people I had killed. The footman had done nothing wrong. The steward had not been raping me. He had been having consensual sex with Julian while he controlled my body. The men I’d hurt when I went back to my childhood home had only been reacting to the me they thought I was because of Julian. The acrobat was certainly innocent. I could not say the same. I killed because I wanted to, because I could. I was the monster, not Sally.

I sat on the bed, leaving as much room between us as I could. Putting my head in my hands, I cried. Sally comforted me and I let her. “That never has to happen again, Ramillia. I am here to help. You must allow me to do so. Our unspoken agreement, to share this body, only allows me to take control when you are hurt or are about to be hurt. It does not have to be this way. You can surrender to me at any time. When next you feel the desire to destroy, succumb to the darkness. I will take the helm and steer you away from violence.”

“I felt you pushing, asking to come out each time before I killed but I…”

“You did not know. Now you do. Together we can overcome any obstacle.”

I nodded. I agreed. I would allow her to help me. “If you only take over in the pain, as you said before, why are you here now? In this place? You, or I, are not in any pain, are we?”

“Certainly not, though being with child is not comfortable by any means. I remained here because of the baby. At first I thought the baby had somehow locked me in the power position but I slowly came to understand. The baby meant that I could be hurt at any time. You were not free. Imprisoned, they could have had a midwife take our baby from us, root it out. You could have lost the baby naturally from the stress. I was better equipped and so I must be the one to birth our child. Now, I also know that you are not immune to Julian’s charms. You would have told him where our child was had you known about it.

“He is the enemy. He will use any means necessary to locate this one.” Sally rubbed her tummy. “It is already sold to Paetus if it can be located. We must keep this from happening. He cannot be allowed to sell our children like slaves, to be used, abused, and killed on a whim.”

“How can we stop him?”

“He has not been able to locate our baby thus far. It is one reason he wants to ride our body so badly. In it he can sense its whereabouts. He gets closer every time he uses our body. You must not allow him access again. When he gets in, push him out.”

“But if I cannot get back here, we cannot speak again.”

“That is the beauty of this moment, Ramillia. This is the dawn of a new era. You can come back here anytime. Just close your eyes and imagine this room, this moment, this conversation, and we will be together. We can talk in this way at any point. It may become so easy for us that the room itself is unnecessary. I will leave you things around the house, notes or objects, that will trigger a changeover if I need to come out. You can also surrender to me anytime you need. Julian will be ruled by us or destroyed resisting. That is his choice.”

That was when the labor pains started. I stayed to witness the birth of my child, a daughter, and Sally and I both wept. When the midwife asked what the girl’s name was to be, I replied, “Dawn. Her name is Dawn,” and I heard my words come from Sally’s mouth.