Owning Wednesday (4 page)

Goddamn it.

“Look,” Vincent said. “Let’s not make this complicated. I’m going to break up with her, and you’re going to gather up the pieces.”

“Gather up the pieces, huh? Just like that? What makes you so sure she’s going to fall swooning into my arms?”

“Because I know her. I know her like I know myself. I know she shouldn’t be alone, and I know what she needs to be happy.” He paused, glaring viciously at some spot on the floor. “She thinks she’d be happy with me forever, but she won’t be. She shouldn’t be…”

Daniel took a hard look at him.

“So the whole time—this whole thing…last week—you were planning this. When you invited me to your house.”

“Yes. I had a feeling you were the one for her. I needed to see you together to be certain. And yes, you are.”

“Why? Why me? How did you know?”

“Because I watched you at the clubs. I talked to girls you’d been with, and I talked to you. I’ve known you a long time. I used to be your teacher.”

“Yes, I remember. You were a good teacher,” he said grudgingly.

“Look, Daniel. I chose you mainly because I trust you. More than anything else I don’t want her to get hurt. You’ll understand what I mean when you’re with her. She won’t be safe until she’s with someone like you.”

“Someone like me? What does that mean?”

“Someone who loves to give pleasure and affection as much as pain. She’s a hard masochist, you see. Physically and emotionally. She’ll want you to push her up to a line, then she’ll want you to shove her over it.” He fixed Daniel with a warning look. “You shouldn’t shove her too far. She’s had enough hardship in her life. Daddy issues, broken family, the self-esteem mess.” He waved a hand. “You know, like so many of them have. Only in her case probably worse.”

“What are you talking about? How much worse?”

He sighed. “Don’t bring it up with her. It only makes her morbid. She lost her mother when she was young, and her father was a real—how shall I say this?—asshole. Suffice it to say, she’s a vulnerable spirit. She needs a trustworthy person, you understand? I think she needs you. And I know you want her.” Vincent leaned back and cleared his throat, looking around as if their conversation was over, as if everything that needed to be said had been said.

Daniel scratched the back of his neck, still not quite believing this conversation. “Sometimes you’re really fucked-up, Vincent.”

“I’m no such thing. Anyway, I’ll break up with her shortly. In a month or two. I don’t want to be rash. After five years, there’s a process.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “If she’s smart, she’ll break up with you first.”

“She won’t break up with me. That’s the whole point. God, it can be such a burden for the dominant, caring for these hapless submissives.”

“Hmm.” Daniel was hard-pressed not to laugh out loud at Vincent’s posturing. In fact, if he hadn’t understood exactly how much Vincent loved Wednesday, he would have walked out of the office five minutes ago. As it was, Daniel was inclined to take him up on his profane game of pass-the-submissive.

And really, his motives weren’t exactly selfless. He hoped Vincent broke up with her quickly. He couldn’t wait to touch her again. He couldn’t wait to own her. He hoped she wanted him too. In his exhilarated mood, he tried not to think too hard about the weight of Vincent’s loss and the way he tried to hide it. He tried not to think about the old man’s forced smile, fixed and grim.

* * *

It was six thirty on Friday night, and Wednesday was preparing to see her master. She’d plucked, waxed, soaked, showered, and perfumed her body to his standing specifications. Then she put on the sheer, sleek lingerie. The black bustier, the matching silk panties. She put on her makeup last, when her tears had mostly been shed, but still, one or two managed to escape. Tonight she and Vincent were meeting to say good-bye. Like everything between them, this good-bye had been planned and agreed upon with thoughtful negotiation. It didn’t make it any easier to bear.

Oh God
. She was already falling apart, and he hadn’t even arrived yet.
Pull it together, Wed. Don’t be pathetic
. She busied herself with dusting nonexistent dust, straightening things that were already straight and picking invisible lint off the floor. Her studio apartment was generally clean all the time, but with Vincent coming over, it seemed appropriate to make it absolutely pristine. She’d spent so many years trying to be flawless for him, and her apartment could be nothing less. She moved a picture frame one millionth of a degree to the right.
Is it straight? Is it perfect?

Then he knocked at the door and—silly girl that she was—that knock of Vincent’s brought tears to her eyes. So perfectly modulated, not too loud or too soft. Two sharp knocks, not too long or short or staccato. Those two knocks were
Vincent
, and she knew, like everything else that night, that she would never forget them.

She opened the door with her head bowed, partly to hide her tears, but mostly out of long-developed respect. He was her master after all, and she his girl, and nights like these called for the consummate playing of roles. He stroked her cheek softly, just for a second, then tilted her face up to his. She gazed into dark, familiar eyes.

“Wednesday.”

She swallowed hard, steeling herself against weeping. He had already brushed past. She closed and locked the door before turning and dropping to her knees.

Vincent looked around her apartment, his face betraying nothing. She waited on her knees, watching to be told what to do. He had brought nothing with him, and she felt a strange disappointment in that. She’d secretly hoped he’d tote everything over here, all the instruments of torture he’d ever used on her. She’d imagined him using them all on her one last time, one big conflagration of pain to mark the end of them, like the huge, jaw-dropping display that ended every fireworks show. But no, he most definitely had brought nothing, unless he had some nipple clamps stowed in his pocket.

She knelt, wishing she could go to him, wishing he would put his hands on her. But he did nothing, and she started to fear he might only say good-bye and walk out the door. She bit her tongue to keep from pleading with him.
Please take me. Please hold me close before you go
. But he wasn’t leaving and he wasn’t moving. She tried to read him, to read if he felt anger or sadness or perhaps relief. But as usual she could read nothing. She never could unless he wanted her to. But her—he could read her like a book. Surely he knew exactly how hard she was fighting tears, how desperate she was to pour out her heart. He knew she wanted him to come to her. She was sure he even knew she was trying to read him and how frustrated she was at her usual lack of success.

As it was, here and now, awaiting his words of farewell, she was barely keeping it together. Her breath was catchy, and her knees, if she hadn’t been on them, would probably have collapsed.

“Stand up, Wednesday,” Vincent said. “Let me look at you.”

One last time, her mind added. Let me look at you
one last time.

She rose with her arms at her sides the way he’d taught her, standing still and straight, her back slightly arched. He came over and stood behind her, yanking her panties down and letting them fall to the floor. He ran his hand over her ass, cupping each cheek. A subtle pressure on her hips, and she was down on her knees again, bending forward while he knelt behind her, unfastening his pants. She heard the faint rattle of a condom wrapper. She waited, open and ready to take him, and a moment later he slipped inside. He fucked her slow and deep, his back curved over hers. Any pleasure she might have felt was stifled by a smothering grief. His fingers slipped over her skin, there but not quite there, like him. He was so uncharacteristically tender that she started to cry again.

“Don’t.” He pulled her back against him, his lips beside her ear. “Enough. This is because of you.”

She shook her head, but if he said it, then it was true, and he was no longer gentle after that. He pulled out of her pussy and positioned the head of his cock at her ass. She tried to relax and let it happen, although there was always that moment of nervous dread. Despite the lube still on the condom, it hurt like a slow burn when he fell forward and slid in.

She felt punished by the way he used her, just as she wanted to feel. Vincent always knew what she needed when she needed it. He always knew just how to make her feel. When she’d first met him, her feelings had been fuzzy and unformed, as if cushioned in Bubble Wrap. Now they were sharp and deep, like the jab of a knife.

When Vincent finished with her ass, he pulled away silently with a light touch of fingertips. She stayed on her knees, her forehead to the floor. She was not aroused, although she always settled into a kind of serene satisfaction when he used her for his pleasure. She felt privileged to be used by him, to satisfy his urges. She hadn’t even thought about coming, hadn’t even begun the climb.

Now she listened and waited with trained alertness as Vincent sat on the bed. When he gave the word, she turned to take off his condom and toss it in the trash. Never in five years had he used her without one, although he’d done tests, blood work to prove he was clean. He was her only partner, but she was not his, so, in deference to that inequality, he protected her. He protected her in many ways actually, many of which she would probably never even know. Pain and pleasure, jeopardy and protection,
I love you…but not like that
. Complicated—but she understood, as did he. Would anyone else ever understand her? She couldn’t bear to think about that.

She resumed her previous position, her hands curled into fists beside her head. She felt the lack of cuffs, the lack of a collar, with devastating clarity. She hoped he might bring them and leave them with her, a souvenir of their time together. She had nothing, absolutely nothing of him, save her memories and a few, very few, ghostly pale stripes of scars across her ass. Even that she was sure he wished she didn’t have. When he was gone, he would be truly and utterly gone. There was no hope in her mind that they would reconcile. This was the most final good-bye she’d ever participated in. Even the good-bye to her father as she’d stared down into his casket had not felt so acute.

After a few moments—she had no idea how many—Vincent came and sat beside her and ran his fingers up and over her back. Lightly, so lightly. He’d taken off his clothes and come to her naked. She could feel the warmth emanating from his skin. She wanted to touch him, every inch of him. She wanted to throw her arms around him and plead with him—

“Wednesday,” he said. It was at that moment, when he breathed her name in something akin to reverence, that she realized he might have been in danger of falling apart too. But such an occurrence would have traumatized her, and fortunately he held himself together and took another quiet breath.

He unfastened her bustier and set it aside, then touched her for a long time as she knelt there. She was perfectly still, just taking in the soothing, familiar sensation of his caresses. He traced his fingertips over her ass, the curve of her hips, the round hollows of her shoulders, then he reached beneath her to fondle and squeeze her breasts. Eventually he worked his fingers into the back of her hair, and he pulled, hard enough to tell her what he wanted. She sat up and moved to him, and he guided her over his lap. He spanked her for a while, but he was never much of a straight spanker. He stopped after a few moments, when she had barely warmed up.

“Go and bring me your hairbrush.” She stood and went to fetch it, then handed it over with a sigh. She hated hairbrushes.

He held her hard as he paddled her with the rigid, stinging back of the brush. The numbness of grief was replaced by the searing, stinging torture of her ass cheeks. The cracks sounded loud in the silence of her apartment, coming one of top of the other, and her ass started to burn like hell. She jumped and fidgeted, trying to evade the raining blows. Even after all this time she couldn’t help it. Pain was still her enemy, because her mind wanted it as much as her body fought against it. He held her fast, taking all choice away from her. It was one of the reasons she needed him so much.

It was a hard spanking, one of the hardest ever, as she’d expected it to be.
Something to remember me by
, he told her wordlessly, each time he brought the hairbrush down on her ass. About halfway through she began to cry. It was no slow trickle of tears; it was a waterfall. A dam breaking, a storm spitting down rain. It was anguish and catharsis unwinding inside her, letting her breathe again. She drew in deep, shuddering gasps until he put down the brush. She relaxed over his hard thighs, the pain of good-bye forgotten, replaced with the torment of a hard, inescapable spanking. He stroked her hair, letting her calm herself. She shuddered as he traced the rising welts. He pulled her onto the bed then, and she lay on her stomach, but he stopped her and turned her over onto her back.