by Aya DeAniege
“Darling, I meant what I said,” Mr. Wrightworth murmured as he leaned forward just slightly.
“What in particular are you talking about?” I asked.
“That I will hurt him for making you cry.”
Chapter Eighteen
The next night I arrived at Mr. Wrightworth’s before Nathaniel did. He had just enough time to touch the side of my face, fingers grazing over my cheekbone as he seemed to take me in. Even as I looked up at Mr. Wrightworth, I had to wonder how much I had changed since the last time Nathaniel and I were alone.
Even my features had changed, the scars were still marring my skin, though they were not as vivid then as they had been to start. My hair was slowly growing back but was still barely longer than the original pixie cut.
Our eyes locked as there was a second knock on the door. We stood like that for a moment. His hand on my cheek, the other hand settling on my hip as we stood in silence.
He pulled away without a sound and opened the door.
We greeted Nathaniel as one, then Mr. Wrightworth asked the question just as he had always asked me:
“Have you eaten?”
“No,” Nathaniel responded as he closed the door and shrugged out of his suit jacket, which he handed to me.
“Tie as well, Nate,” Mr. Wrightworth said sternly.
“Sorry, habit,” he said, then removed the blue tie and handed that to me as well.
I took both and hung them up where Mr. Wrightworth put his outerwear, behind the door. Then I followed them both through the kitchen, into the dining room and sat. The food was already on the table, waiting for us. Salad, I’m not certain what kind. I doubt it was a ‘kind’ of salad besides something that Mr. Wrightworth threw together with items he had in his fridge.
We ate in awkward silence.
Nathaniel focused on the food, paying close attention to how much food was left on Mr. Wrightworth’s plate. Once we were finished eating, Mr. Wrightworth set down his fork. We followed suit. My plate was almost empty, Nathaniel’s about half-full.
Nathaniel stood and took my plate then his, then walked around the table and took Mr. Wrightworth’s plate without comment. I frowned at him as he walked into the kitchen. I turned that frown to Mr. Wrightworth, who frowned back at me as if to ask why I was confused.
Mr. Wrightworth typically cleaned the table. He had also basically inhaled his food, which was abnormal for him. Generally he took his time and idled his way through dinner.
Nathaniel returned and knelt by the dining table. His face was lowered, hands placed on his legs, palms upward. Seeing him like that made me bite my bottom lip. I knew what that position meant. As much as I knew that Mr. Wrightworth had plans with Nathaniel, I wanted to be there, kneeling and ready to serve.
Though, Mr. Wrightworth had never asked me to be kneeling at the start of play. That seemed more of something a slave would do instead of a sub.
Masters have slaves. Doms have subs.
Mr. Wrightworth stood and tugged at his tie. He walked around the table and motioned to me as I stared at Nathaniel, wondering why he had done that and how he knew that he should have done it.
Mr. Wrightworth pulled me into the living room, sat me down and put something on the television. Then he walked back into the dining room. I kept my eyes carefully on the television as the video played.
It was ten minutes long.
What in the fuck is he playing at?
I had taken to keeping my journal at Mr. Wrightworth’s because I trusted that he wouldn’t pry. After finding several of my items moved, I knew someone was going through my belongings in the apartment. That had been when I shifted my journal to Mr. Wrightworth’s place.
The journal sat in the living room on the coffee table at all times. While the first video played through, I filled out a few pages in frustration. The television automatically played through several more videos as I added to the journal.
Then I got bored. I cocked my head between videos and swore I heard something. Ever so slightly, I turned towards the playroom. I listened to the sound again and fully turned.
It was an indescribable sound. It took hearing it several more times before I registered what that noise was.
The strike of leather on flesh, and the small moan of need.
If he wanted me to stay put, why was the video only ten minutes long?
I stood and edged down the hallway.
The light from the playroom lit up the wall as I dared to move a little closer. Mr. Wrightworth had left the door open, something he had never done while playing with me.
I stood on the precipice and came to a halt.
Despite hearing the sounds, I knew that if I looked, I would be crossing into something else entirely.
As I stood there, I wondered if I would be breaching the trust between myself and Nathaniel. I didn’t know what to think of the idea. After all, I had no idea where Nathaniel and I stood. He hadn’t exactly spoken to me at church, and Mr. Wrightworth’s so called hints had only confused me more.
I knew that Mr. Wrightworth had wanted this, he had wanted to have Nate at his disposal. He wanted Nathaniel to kneel to him and wanted it enough to arrange this little get-together, and I didn’t know why. Perhaps I wanted to watch to see if what happened in that room explained why Mr. Wrightworth had wanted Nathaniel so badly.
Taking in a small breath, I stepped into the light that escaped the playroom’s partially opened door.
I peered into the room and immediately bit my bottom lip.
Nathaniel was tied to the spanking bench, but not the way that Mr. Wrightworth had ever tied me. I had been tied and knelt on the step with my body over the uppermost portion. Nathaniel was bent over the other side of the bench. His feet touched the floor, his wrists bound to the step, which stretched him out over the upper level of the spanking bench. His left side and back were towards the door and utterly naked.
Anything that is uncovered is a target.
As I thought that very thing, Mr. Wrightworth struck Nathaniel’s back with a cane. The cane broke on contact, causing Mr. Wrightworth to swear and throw it across the playroom, away from the door. I flinched at the swear.
“Well, I thought I taught you the value of a proper cane,” Mr. Wrightworth snapped at Nathaniel.
“I’m sorry, Master.”
“Did you want it to break?” Mr. Wrightworth demanded, walking to the wall that his toys hung off on.
“No, Master,” Nathaniel said.
There was no fight to his tone, but there also wasn’t the distance of someone too far gone to understand what he was saying. Nathaniel had served as a sub. He would know where the line was and know not to cross it. Being too distant was disrespectful, being too in the moment led to being bitter or snarky and resulted in discipline.
“I’ll just have to use my own items, tried and tested, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Nate?”
“No, Master,” Nathaniel said, almost pleading.
Mr. Wrightworth almost moaned.
“Say that again.”
“No, Master,” Nathaniel said, in almost the same tone he had said it in before.
Mr. Wrightworth selected the flogger and walked back towards Nathaniel.
“And one more time.”
Nathaniel repeated it, once more almost the same as he had before. Mr. Wrightworth responded by smacking Nathaniel gently with the flogger, then dragged it up his back.
“Consent,” Mr. Wrightworth crooned.
“No,” Nathaniel said with a shudder.
Mr. Wrightworth struck him, then said, “Consent.”
I should be clear.
This was not Mr. Wrightworth torturing Nathaniel. It was a scene between the two of them. Mr. Wrightworth would strike and beat Nathaniel, commanding throughout for Nathaniel to give consent. It culminated in Mr. Wrightworth spanking Nathaniel quite hard with a paddle and demanding consent.
Nathaniel’s response was: “Never.” instead of ‘no.’
; Mr. Wrightworth made a sound and walked towards the door, causing me to shrink away and hide to the side of the doorway, where he couldn’t see me. I all but held my breath as he fumbled with something and then walked away from the door.
Daring to look again, I watched as Mr. Wrightworth growled as he approached Nathaniel. He tore something open with his teeth.
I was confused as he pulled the item from the package. He took the item and seemed to roll it out.
Before that moment, I had never seen a condom before. The slums didn’t use condoms, as contraceptives tended to be drug based, not latex in nature. I was so baffled that I missed two things.
The first was the shape of Mr. Wrightworth when he wasn’t directly in my view so to speak.
The second was that first thrust.
It was Nathaniel crying out, the yank and twist of chains that drew me back to myself. Mr. Wrightworth took a long moment, his hands on Nathaniel’s hips, digging in tight. As Mr. Wrightworth hesitated, Nathaniel trembled under him. It was not the struggle of a man unused to what was being done to him.
Which surprised me.
It also wasn’t the reaction that I expected from someone being made to submit to a man of Mr. Wrightworth’s caliber. After the shudder, Nathaniel seemed to push backward, against Mr. Wrightworth.
I slapped a hand over my mouth and pulled away from the door. With my back pressed against the wall, I stared at the other side of the hallway, where a bunny picture was hung.
It was the oddest thing and something that I hadn’t noticed until that moment. I stared at the picture as the sounds from the playroom tugged at me.
The first contractee will serve the second for a term of two years.
Nathaniel cried out, begging but not voicing what in particular he was pleading for.
After a term of six months, the second contractee will serve the first.
Mr. Wrightworth had been Nathaniel’s master. That was how Mr. Wrightworth had access to the videos of Nathaniel’s time as a sub. That was how he knew so many intimate details about Nathaniel, what bound the two of them.
I thought the contract had been about Mr. Wrightworth working as an aide. That was what they had said.
It had been Mr. Wrightworth’s ring.
Purple was Mr. Wrightworth’s colour, not Mayfair’s. Her violet eyes were just a freak of nature, not something she had selected for her colour. Mr. Wrightworth had been the one Nathaniel had been concerned might claim me. He was also the same man that Nathaniel had all but delivered me to.
His Master, the man who had seduced him.
What had Mr. Wrightworth said of his sub? That he had seduced a straight man, and that he had trained his sub into responding and begging for homosexual activities. Taught his sub in a similar way that he had begun training me.
The trust between the two of them, the hesitance, the slight pauses when Nathaniel had answered anything regarding Mr. Wrightworth. It hadn’t just been long-term friendship. It hadn’t been the contract.
It had been this.
This indescribable thing that was a Master-slave relationship.
Nathaniel trusted one person in the whole world because that person had laid him bare and not used that information to his advantage.
In terms set forward by the contractor at the time of the start of the second period.
Nathaniel hadn’t served as Mr. Wrightworth’s sub because Mr. Wrightworth had wanted a sub.
Mr. Wrightworth was the first contractee, Albert, the contractor. By the time Nathaniel had to submit to Mr. Wrightworth, Albert had visited him at least five times. He had, no doubt, laid out in very clear terms what was to happen to Nathaniel and when.
Their entire relationship revolved around that damnable contract.
Did Nathaniel know that Mr. Wrightworth had encouraged me to press charges against his father? Did he know what was going on in the Program building? What would he say when he found out?
Nathaniel shouting out a sound, then begging drew my attention. It was a different sort of begging, something I almost recognized as I refocused on that bunny image across the hallway from myself.
Mr. Wrightworth, for his part, had been all but silent.
How long had it been since I had actual sex?
Four months and counting since penetrative sex with a man. The thought of that made me burn with need as I bit my bottom lip.
Nathaniel used to make me sound like that.
Which didn’t help matters in the least. The proper upbringing in me demanded that I walk away and pretend that I had seen nothing at all. You didn’t spy on one another on purpose, and if you were caught peeping the punishment was a day in the stocks.
But Mr. Wrightworth had all but invited me to watch. Just so long as Nathaniel didn’t find me. And why?
Because the idea of tying a man down and being in control of him was so very, very appealing. Maybe it was the victim in me. Maybe that desire had always been there and had just grown keener over the past months, but I wasn’t just interested in the sexual act.
I wanted to watch Nathaniel pull at the bonds and know for certain he couldn’t get out. I wanted him under me as I gave the orders and he eagerly did my every bidding.
Pushing off the wall, I dared to look again. Nathaniel was begging for nothing in particular, at least nothing that I knew of as an outside observer. Mr. Wrightworth had his hand at the small of Nathaniel’s back, pressing down in an attempt to control Nathaniel’s movements somewhat.
“Please...”
“You know what you need to do,” Mr. Wrightworth purred out. His words sent a trembling reaction through Nathaniel, causing me to take a sharp breath. I had felt it so often I recognized the outward signs of being on that precipice. The cold tingle washed over me as I watched, anticipation making me writhe in my place at the door, “if you want to be good.”
Nathaniel cried out as I gasped, the sound of his voice covering my surprise.
Mr. Wrightworth had said that final word in that tone. The one that all the Doms seem to have mastered, the one that they kept using around me.
Except Mr. Wrightworth was the only one who used it around me, wasn’t he? The others used it whenever Nathaniel was present.
‘Good’ said just like that was Nathaniel’s trigger word.
His reaction, despite not serving as a sub for years, was instantaneous, eager even. He did as his master bid him and Mr. Wrightworth responded in kind, rubbing Nathaniel’s back affectionately.
“That’s very good,” he repeated in that tone, causing a shudder to roll through Nathaniel in response. Mr. Wrightworth chuckled and pulled away.
He half-turned in my direction, and I bolted. I rushed into the living room, grabbed my journal, then ran into Mr. Wrightworth’s bedroom and closed the door as quietly as I could. Another three pages were filled as I strained for outside sounds.
Someone went to the bathroom, quiet voices just outside the door. Then someone went into the bathroom again.
My pen hesitated just above the page as the door to the bedroom opened. Fear made me tremble, a cold gripping me as Mr. Wrightworth opened the bedroom door and stared at me with those hazel eyes. No judgment, no anger, he just studied me as he leaned on the door frame.
Looking over his shoulder towards the bathroom, Mr. Wrightworth stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind him.
“He heard you,” Mr. Wrightworth muttered.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking,” I babbled.
“You were thinking two attractive males would be engaging in a sexual act,” Mr. Wrightworth said steadily. “It was I who forgot how good his hearing is. No matter, he thinks you caught a peep at the beginning, and that was it. That was one reason the television is on autoplay, to help cover the noise in the apartment itself. Of course, I damned well forgot why I do that until after the fact.”
“Is he mad?” I asked.
“Goodness, no, Darling. The last person to catch him and I together
was a vanilla, Nicole. Now that pissed him off, but she had put her nose where it didn’t belong.”
“Are...” I glanced at the bed, then to Mr. Wrightworth. “Are you two going to bed now? I can sleep on the couch.”
Mr. Wrightworth smiled, lips curling up slightly. It wasn’t quite the smile he liked to use so much, but close enough that I wondered if it meant something specific and I just hadn’t learned its meaning yet.
“I have him for the entire night, neither he nor I will be sleeping.”
“Oh,” I managed to get out.
“Come help me clean the playroom while he showers,” Mr. Wrightworth said with a motion. “I used to make Nathaniel clean it for others I’d play with when I gave them a reprieve. I like having a clean playroom.”
“I’ll help,” I said, closing the journal.
I followed Mr. Wrightworth into the playroom and came to a sudden stop. There was the distinct smell of rubbing alcohol mixed with a floral sort of scent. Edging towards the spanking bench, I noticed that the bonds that had held Nathaniel had been changed. The chains on these others were longer, the manacles hadn’t been used before, the leather hadn’t even been creased.
With a shiver, I turned towards Mr. Wrightworth, who smiled at me and handed me a wet cloth.
“There’s blood on the floor,” he said gently, motioning towards my feet.
I went down on my knees immediately and wiped at a couple of drops of blood that were there. Mr. Wrightworth left the room and then returned with another caddy of items. This one was pink, the caddy that I had seen so many times before. The one he had removed had been purple.
That was my caddy.
My heart pounded in my chest as my hand paused mid-wipe. I turned my attention from the caddy to Mr. Wrightworth, who quirked an eyebrow at me.
I considered running, what with having been warned about being alone with the two of them, but I was pretty certain I’d be caught and then I’d be in trouble. Part of me was curious, however. Curious as to what the pair of them did to subs that sent such a quivering need through half of the community even while it repulsed them.
