by Aya DeAniege
Nicole winked at me as I stood, then looked down at Nathaniel.
“Mr. Wrightworth tends to prefer males. Most Dommes, females who dominate men, prefer a man to sit up. Nath—Nate, show Darling how you would sit for her if she were a domme.”
Nathaniel sat up, but there was something arrogant about how he did it. The man seemed to stare past Nicole as he straightened and shifted his legs. His weight went onto his heels, knees apart with his hands on his legs, palms facing upward.
His face was blank, no mask in place, but no readable emotion.
“And there,” Nicole said, pointing at Nathaniel’s face, “there is the good sub. You see the readied expression. No anger, no hesitance. That is the face of a man who would be willing to do whatever you asked of him, just to please you.”
But he’ll never be mine.
A panic welled up inside my chest. I felt as if air wasn’t getting into my lungs. I must have gone pale, because Nicole was there in a moment, leading me out of the room. The door closing behind us seemed far too loud.
“Why are you panicking?” she asked.
I dropped to my knees, to keep the floor from jumping up to meet me. I got in several breaths as the door opened.
“Get back inside,” Nicole snapped.
“Is she all right?” Nathaniel asked.
“It’s not your concern, get back inside!” Nicole all but shouted.
The door closed quickly. Nicole knelt as a door across the church opened. A voice called out, asking what was going on. Nicole called back, but I didn’t hear her answer. The whole world was narrowing down to pinpricks. I heard footsteps, then felt a hot hand against my back.
Mr. Wrightworth wrapped an arm around me, pulling me close as he pushed my face against his suit. The scent of the man brought me back. Tears spilled from my eyes as I pressed against him.
“It’s okay, Darling, you’re okay,” he said, pity colouring his voice.
It had been so long since I had heard pity in Mr. Wrightworth’s voice. His arms tightened around me. The throbbing pain from my still bruised back was what brought me back the most.
The panic, however, had taken everything out of me. I curled closer to Mr. Wrightworth but no longer tried to get away.
“What happened?” he asked Nicole raggedly.
“I just did what you told me to do, tested him to see if he’d behave. We were going through some positions. I mean, I’ve never seen him look like that before, but I don’t know why seeing someone else look like that would make her react like that.”
“Look like what?” Mr. Wrightworth demanded.
“Well, you know, the waiting sub face,” Nicole said.
“He... he did that for you?” Mr. Wrightworth asked.
“Technically I told him to show her how he would sit if she were his domme,” Nicole said. Mr. Wrightworth made a choking sound, to which Nicole responded with, “Right? Anyways, I have to get back in there. He’s not that good.”
“Good enough?” Mr. Wrightworth asked.
“He’s breaking her rules, not yours, Mr. Wrightworth,” Nicole said before she slipped back into the sub room.
Mr. Wrightworth was silent for a while before he lifted my face off his suit jacket.
“I’m going to hurt him, for making you cry.”
“It’s not his fault,” I said. “I’m just stupid, and I don’t even know why that happened.”
“You melted down when you saw him go full submissive,” Mr. Wrightworth said.
“I know, and it’s stupid because he is a sub.”
Mr. Wrightworth’s hand slid from my chin to my throat, tightening until I whimpered out. He had my full attention, and he knew it as his hazel eyes narrowed just slightly.
“It took his master six months to make him submit like that,” Mr. Wrightworth murmured, then shook his head. “And he just slipped into it.”
“Once you know it—”
“Once you know, it’s hard to deny,” Mr. Wrightworth said sternly. “Nate hasn’t submitted to her. He’s obeying my rules, not hers and just then? In there? He submitted to you, not Nicole.”
“No, he did what she said, to do your thing,” I said, shaking my head.
Mr. Wrighworth sighed and pulled me to my feet.
“We’ll just have to figure out if you want to be a domme, but that’s still at least six months away before you’re ready to pout and stomp your feet and be bratty. Domme is a year or more.”
“I can be bratty,” I grumbled.
“Not yet, you can’t,” Mr. Wrightworth muttered. “But if anything, Friday proved you still have that capability.” The man paused to smile, then motioned with his head to the sub room. “Get back in there. And if you’re feeling unstable, just stretch.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s chilly in here,” he said, that Cheshire cat smile appearing.
“I don’t get it,” I said, shaking my head before I walked back into the sub room.
Nicole had her crop in hand and an annoyed look on her face as she turned towards the door. I blinked at her, and she motioned with the crop to the seat she usually took.
“Sit there,” she demanded.
I rushed to the seat and sat. Over the next hour, Nicole lectured the room about being petty cunts—yes, that was the word she used to describe the mingled genders of the room—when someone else was feeling unstable. She ranted, raved a little bit, and delivered several whistling blows to anyone who shifted or adjusted their weight.
As her lecture ended, she allowed the subs to move. I stretched my arms upward, cracking my back as I did so. With my arms up in the air, I groaned and then opened my eyes slightly.
And found every man in the room staring at my chest.
Arms still up in the air, I frowned as Nicole turned around. The woman almost laughed, placing a hand over her mouth.
“Dismissed, get out,” she said to the others. “I just can’t stand to look at any of you.”
The other subs, Nathaniel included, left the room. Only the other subs seemed to flee from Nathaniel as the man almost stalked them. Nicole motioned to Mary, who also fled the room.
“Uh, are ya cold, Izzy?” Nicole asked.
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
“You’re used to having them bound, so it’s probably never come up before...” Nicole said as she approached me. “And you don’t need a bra with how perky those things are. But your nipples stand out when you’re cold.”
Frowning, I looked down, then gasped and slapped my hands over my breasts. Horrified, I gaped at Nicole, who giggled and waved a hand at me.
“You’ll see a great deal more here. They were gaping at you because of that whole sundress, girl next door look. And because some subs swear they get wet anytime a Dom is aroused, and that was definitely some hard Dom that walked out of this room.”
“What’s that even mean?” I asked.
“Oh, Darling, I always forget how silly you are, come on,” Nicole said, offering me her arm.
I took her arm more out of habit than because I wanted to. Nicole led me out of the room and then across the church to Mr. Wrightworth’s side. She handed me over to Mr. Wrightworth, then frowned slightly at him.
“They’re called nipples,” Nicole said.
“I know that,” Mr. Wrightworth growled, eyes on my chest for a moment before he jerked towards Nicole and glowered at her.
The woman laughed, laughed like they were sharing a good joke, then she turned and walked away. Her hips swayed back and forth as she went as if daring the man to come after her.
To my surprise, Mr. Wrightworth seemed to lurch forward, then caught himself and straightened, tugging at his jacket as he looked me up and down.
“My shoe needs to be tied,” he said. “Bend over and do it.”
“Bend?” I asked. “As in at the waist?”
“Yes, bend at the waist and tie my shoe.”
Weirdest request ever.
I bent at the waist and fo
und his shoes were both tied. “Uh, both are—”
“Retie them,” he said quickly.
“Oookay.”
I untied, then retied first one, then the other shoe. After having tied the shoes, I straightened and looked up at Mr. Wrightworth to see if I had done a good job. I found the man staring off across the church.
I turned to see what he was looking towards.
Nathaniel’s icy green eyes were on me, every line of him screaming a challenge. My body responded with a tremble, each muscle vibrating as I fought the instinct to run. As it was, I reached to Mr. Wrightworth for protection. He was the only Dom in the church who might have stopped Nathaniel from acting on his desires when he had that particular look on his face.
Did I want to run to him, or away from him?
I was caught up in Nathaniel’s eyes until Mayfair stepped in the way, her bleach blond hair swaying like straw in the wind. She looked up at him, and Nathaniel turned to her woodenly, a mask coming over his face as he responded to something she said. I turned away when I saw her turning towards me.
My eyes shifted to Mr. Wrightworth.
“Go sit beside Nicole,” he said.
I went off towards the back of the church, where we had been sitting before. It was easy to spot Nicole. The subs hadn’t wanted to sit near her and so the pews were all but empty. All the other seats were stuffed full of people, leaving rows and rows empty.
Nicole smiled at me as I slid down the aisle and sat beside her.
“What’s going on?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head.
Mr. Wrightworth approached Mayfair and Nathaniel. He spoke to Mayfair, keeping his eyes firmly on the woman. With his hands in his pockets, Mr. Wrightworth nodded and even managed a smile. Finally, he and Mayfair shook hands, and he walked away without looking back. I kept my eyes on Mr. Wrightworth as he slid down the aisle and sat beside me. He draped an arm over my shoulders.
“Friday night,” he said, keeping his eyes front. “Don’t look that way, she’s smiling at you in a fucked up sort of fashion. Do you need any more proof?”
“Proof of what?” I asked.
Mr. Wrightworth looked around me, to Nicole.
“Apparently it hasn’t sunk in yet,” Mr. Wrightworth said.
“Well, proof of how dense she is is really in the answer the question no one dares to ask,” Nicole murmured. “Who was Nate’s original master?”
“Mayfair,” I said, catching myself as I tried to motion to the woman. “She’s wearing the ring, and it fits her.”
“Yes, she is,” Mr. Wrightworth said. “And I’m going to break the bitch’s fingers.”
I looked at Mr. Wrightworth, then focused on his purple tie. Frowning, I turned and looked at Nicole, who shook her head in response.
“Oh, hell no,” she said. “I’m not getting more involved in this.”
“What do I need more proof of?” I asked quietly, trying not to speak above a whisper because I figured that whatever I needed evidence of, the rest of the congregation didn’t need to know.
“She’s wearing the ring?” Nicole asked Mr. Wrightworth over my head.
“Yes,” Mr. Wrightworth said. “Wish I had a drink at least, to take the edge off.”
“Poor dear,” Nicole murmured. “Mary, give him your flask for a moment, would you?”
“Sure,” Mary said, fumbling with her purse.
She withdrew a flask, which she passed to Nicole who handed it to Mr. Wrightworth.
“Why does she have a flask?” I asked Nicole.
“She’s an alcoholic who can only drink when I tell her she can,” Nicole responded blandly.
The two facts didn’t quite link up in my mind. As it turned out, Mary’s previous master had started a dreadful habit. It would take several years for her to recover, but she would.
Mr. Wrightworth brought the flask to his lips, then resealed it as he continued to look forward. He handed the flask to me, and I gave it to Nicole.
She arched an eyebrow at me.
“I don’t want any,” I said, then looked forward.
Ezekiel stepped up to the pulpit and cleared his throat gently. “As we all know, there is a member of the congregation that is still recovering from a trying time. It’s been brought to our attention that several subs were saying inappropriate things when this person began to become unstable. For those who would like to know if your sub was one of those involved, please see Nicole after the meeting.”
“You worked faster than usual,” Mr. Wrightworth muttered.
“I only had to tell Ezekiel,” Nicole whispered in response. “He was represented first and foremost in the event. I thought he’d like to know. Maybe the next time she wants to disrespect me, she’ll think twice.”
“You and her fight like cats and dogs.”
“Bitch took my man.”
“You aren’t built to be a sub,” Mr. Wrightworth said as if it was a conversation they had had too often.
“For that man, I would be a sub,” Nicole growled out.
“For, like, a week,” Mr. Wrightworth responded.
Nicole bit her bottom lip. “But what a week it would be.”
Mr. Wrightworth was silent. Apparently, this was not part of the ritual, for Nicole shifted and frowned at him, then at me as if I had kept Mr. Wrightworth from talking.
“Darling will need to play at being a domme,” Mr. Wrighworth said, keeping his eyes carefully forward. “It was also brought to my attention that she might enjoy playing with another woman.”
“I wasn’t playing with my boobs!” I protested louder than I meant to.
The entire church turned towards me, which made me sink lower in my seat. My face heated up as Nathaniel’s eyes locked with mine, then Mayfair’s. I wanted to melt into a puddle and ooze away.
Slowly, everyone turned back to face Ezekiel.
“That could be interesting,” Nicole murmured. “But I think she’d rather top a man and be topped by a woman. Not this woman, though, she’s not got that flavour of damaged that I like. You can keep her special kind of crazy to yourself.”
“What special kind of crazy is that?” Mr. Wrightworth asked before he turned his full attention to Nicole.
“The kind that makes you and everyone else who plays with her lose their fucking minds and think that she’s just the best sub ever. Because there are already two of you competing for her attention, I think three of us might be a bit too much for her tiny brain to handle. Let alone the community.
“You two are going to rip each other apart over a woman without any concern to the fact that she has a mind of her own and should use it to choose rather than have you spill blood.”
“What do you mean the two of them would tear each other apart?” I asked. “Obviously I don’t want Mayfair, so there’s nothing to fight about.”
“Oh, Darling,” Nicole said, patting me gently on the shoulder. “There’s no way in hell that Mayfair wants you because she wants you. She wants you because she wants to kill you but can’t, so play is the nearest she’ll ever come.”
“Then who’s the second Dom?” I asked.
“You were warned not to poke the sadists,” Mary muttered.
I had no idea what Mary meant at the time. I was a little naive at that age.
Nicole, however, found it hilariously funny.
Chapter Seventeen
Monday morning at ten, I was sitting before the review board. They gaped at me as if they couldn’t believe their ears when I made my demand. The only one who wasn’t surprised was Mr. Wrightworth, though technically he had talked me into it.
“You do realize that, if you go through with this, you will have to stand as a witness during his trial?” one of them managed asked.
“I do, yes,” I said. “What I don’t understand is why charges weren’t laid when I was taken from him. Clearly, I had been raped and tortured. Yet the Program did nothing to help me in that way. You allowed it to go unt
ended for months on end. Evidence could have been lost or altered in the meantime. You may have enabled my assailant to go free.”
“Did Mr. Wrightworth advise you to press charges against Albert Edwards?” another asked.
“Mr. Wrightworth told me that charges could not be laid unless I laid them against Mr. Edwards, but he in no way coerced me into pressing charges. I was assaulted, and you did nothing!”
“The civil suit meant that we couldn’t press charges,” Mr. Wrightworth said in a bored tone.
He hadn’t told me that before. It would be years and years later that I would learn that the civil suit was started almost immediately because Albert hoped that the evidence would be destroyed. The laws are not what they are now. They did not always protect the victim of an assault.
“You don’t get to talk to me like that,” I snapped at him. “You knew this entire time that charges hadn’t been laid, and you didn’t tell me. When it finally did come up, you said that after the civil suit completed, the criminal charges could be laid. At no point did anyone tell me that I had to do it. You’re fucking pathetic! This is the great Program?
“First you forget my orientation. Then I don’t get told about my job, then you forget to invite me to myown review, and now you’ve neglected to mention that I’m the one who had to lay charges against my assailant. If I were attacked in the slums like that, the police wouldn’t wait for me to say yes, they’d charge him. Yet here you are, just letting it all slide.
“Why haven’t you been building a case? Why haven’t you collected every scrap of evidence that you could? Why is it that the civil suit was thrown out last week yet none of you mentioned that I still had lay charges?
“How many of you has Albert paid off?”
There was an uncomfortable shifting down the whole table. The shifting made Mr. Wrightworth look livid.
The man’s lips, which a moment before had been curling upward in that smile of his, were suddenly pressed into a thin line. All other expression seemed to be gone, and yet that irritability was still there. It very much looked like the expression of a man who was about to start planning the detailed and excruciating murders of his coworkers.
Suspecting that I had just struck a cord, I stood and clenched my hands into fists at my sides.
