The Right Thing (2 page)

Holding her face impassive with every ounce of control she could
muster, McKenzie kept her eyes emotionless. Master looked at her searchingly,
then wheeled around to stomp away again, slowing just outside of the doorway to
call the
p
ièce
de résistance
over his shoulder. “We’re going to
stay with Andrew and Joyce for a month. I find myself in need of some variety
and they want another crack at you. Maybe you can pick up some pointers.”

The front door slammed with such force the whole place vibrated.
Bile surged from her diaphragm to scald her throat. The birds were one real,
solitary pleasure, aside from him, and he was within his sadistic rights to
dispose of them. The loss hurt, but McKenzie knew Master would have arranged
for them to be cared for properly. He would never take his angst out on the
vulnerable. Believing herself to be
invulnerable
because she knew he
loved her even if he couldn’t admit it. But he’d promised not to give her away.
Share on some level, sure, but not give her away. It was the one final hard
limit she had left.

McKenzie had done everything he wanted, taken everything he dished out,
but there’d been two hard limits in the contract when she signed up to be his
submissive. He took the first one away early on because she allowed it in a
true power exchange. But she couldn’t allow this one to slide. Andrew and Joyce
would actually do harm. They truly frightened her. They were a pair of
sociopaths. A sadistic team. Master wasn’t like them. Oh, he was a sadist, but
any pain he inflicted was something McKenzie craved and needed, and he’d always
had her best interest at heart. If he planned to give her to them, even for one
scene as part of his efforts to drive her away, then he was never going to
admit his love. But worst of all, throwing her to those dogs would destroy
him
.

Something tore in her chest, agonizingly painful, and McKenzie
couldn’t catch a breath against it. The pain caused her to slump forward to the
floor and wait the sensation out. In time, the agony eased enough to drag some
precious oxygen into her lungs.
All right
then.
She’d fought the good fight, but ultimately lost. Time to retreat. A
refrain from a children’s poem ran inanely through her head.
He who fights and runs away, lives to fight
another day.
Right now she wasn’t so certain she’d survive the effort, but
would try.

Struggling to her feet, she realized Master hadn’t even physically
punished her, although her body bore the recent marks of every implement at his
disposal, and ached dully in concert with an inner agony. It was a break in his
routine, this lack of physical punishment, but failed to give her hope after
his oh-so-final announcement. She needed to get gone before he returned and
talked her into turning herself over to the not-so-tender mercies of the psycho
twins.

McKenzie trod gingerly to the door of the little bedroom, the place
where she slept when Master was angry. The place where she actually had some
personal space, although a few days ago he’d taken that away too.

Closing the heavy wooden panel as if the effort would actually give
some privacy, she looked at the raw wood where the deadbolt had been. Legs
going out from under her at the finality of giving up, she crawled to the
closet. Bypassing all the things Master bought her, the designer clothes, the
incredible shoes, the amazing purses. The things she wore when he took her out
with him. The tastiest arm candy in the world, he called her. McKenzie looked
for the clothes worn when she came to him, before accepting his lifestyle and
abdicating her own, becoming willing to make the commitment to him. Pulling out
the little suitcase stuffed with jeans, tee shirt and hoodie, locating the sneakers
and small purse with ID and money, she fished them out, tucking the case back
into the depths of the closet. Possessing the strength to carry the luggage
herself was questionable.

Perhaps she’d known the situation would come to this, and therefore
had subconsciously kept a little escape package secreted away. Perhaps she’d
known not to trust him after all. Master held her passport, but it wasn’t like she
had enough money to flee the country anyway. She would be lucky to make it out
of downtown. The idea he was so damaged even her love couldn’t cure him nearly
killed her.

Ruffling through dresser drawer, she fumbled amongst the fine, silky
lingerie but couldn’t find the cotton panties and bra, so picked the least
revealing and plainest set of lace and satin. Getting dressed was a difficult
exercise, as she was having trouble breathing again and her whole body seemed
weak, as if it didn’t really belong to her. McKenzie knew her heart was broken
and wondered if one could actually die from such a thing. The throbbing
emptiness caused her to think she might.

Locating the tiny key in her jewellery box, she fitted it into the
wide, platinum wrist cuffs, opening them, first left hand and then right. They
fell onto the little narrow bed when she flexed her wrists and laid there, the
side openings no less than gaping, accusing mouths against the pink
counterpane. Tearing her eyes away, she examined the skin where the cuffs had
left long pale marks. They would disappear with a few days in the sun, although
she wondered how quickly she would come to hide the evidence of service, or if
she would protect it, like those people who didn’t wash when someone famous
shook their hand. Master had been her celebrity.

Easing the nipple and labial rings out of her skin, she took them
into the bathroom to sterilize before carefully tucking them into the velvet
folds in the box. She couldn’t make herself remove the one in her clit hood,
although in truth it had hurt the least to pierce. Master insisted on the
piercing but held her hand throughout the process, kissing her sweetly when she
whimpered. McKenzie avoided the mirror, catching her long, dark hair back into
a makeshift ponytail, tucking the mass into the hoodie, and grabbed the little
purse holding the small amount of money she possessed. She was ready.

The walk to the front door was a funeral march, something resembling
slogging through ankle deep sand, but she traversed the distance without
looking at anything other than the immediate destination. Once through the
doorway, she let the weight of the door close the latch, finalizing her
decision. Master had never given her a key because she was never allowed to
leave without him or someone he chose to supervise. She made the distance to
the elevators without incident, not bothering to shield her face from the
cameras. Master would know she’d left the moment he got home and she wasn’t at
the door, happily waiting to provide for his needs. He would understand he’d
succeeded in driving her away. There would be another woman to replace her,
just as she replaced the one before, and he would convince himself it was what
he wanted. He would file her away in that same place he locked up his ability
to recognize and accept love. The painful acceptance of the future made Mckenzie
so profoundly sad she wished to die.

Crossing the lobby of the high-end hotel without looking around, she
skirted the concierge who, if the disparaging glance he gave was any
indication, obviously didn’t recognize her in the nondescript clothing. That
pretty much summed up the lost creature she’d become. Leaving the shelter of
the building housing the only home she’d known for the past eleven months—in
truth the only real home she’d
ever
known—Mckenzie
merged with the pedestrian traffic, deciding to walk until she couldn’t walk
any further.

* * *
*

Michael punched the wall of the elevator, and the stainless steel
bowed and bounced right back, just as McKenzie did whether he punished or
corrected her. Either way made his sub fucking hot in his eyes and he shuddered
a little in remembering. Only this time it was him,
his
knuckles hurting. McKenzie convinced him of dedication and
total commitment by accepting the loss of her precious birds without protest or
even a vaguely accusing look in those amazing sapphire blue eyes. That was a
totally shitty, rotten thing to do, even for a sadist like Michael. He’d call
the aviary back later to tell them about changing his mind. He wouldn’t tell McKenzie,
though. For now he’d let her wonder, fuck with her some more because he could. She
belonged to him after all. His to do whatever he wanted with. She always said
so, because she trusted him to know what she needed, what they both needed, and
not to push further than she could go.

Michael punched the wall again. It was time he was honest with
himself. He’d been convinced he loved her weeks ago. Shit, months ago. Probably
from the first day he met the beautiful sub. But of late he’d run away from the
truth, a scared rabbit, returning time and time again like the wolf he was, trying
everything, every punishment, and every perversion he could come up with to
make it not so. Trying to drive McKenzie away. Trying not to love her. He
wasn’t good enough for her, but neither could he let her go. What did that make
him? Selfish? Greedy? Didn’t matter. He loved her more than himself, although
that was a misnomer because he’d never even
liked
himself. But that too had changed. He was taking more frequent, if cautious,
looks at himself, thinking maybe he was becoming a better man, someone to like
and perhaps even someone worthy of McKenzie’s love.

Michael hadn’t stopped to soak up McKenzie’s response to the
proposed trip to Andrew and Joyce’s, although hoped she was properly horrified
and cowed. They would tear her up between them if they got their hands on her
without him to intervene. The last woman they’d taken, albeit with signed
consent, apparently required reconstructive surgery afterword, although the
money they handed over was adequate compensation, according to Andrew. If they
told the truth about it. Even Andrew and Joyce weren’t above the law. But the
story added to their cachet for hard core and they preened before the story. Regardless,
Michael would never allow them to touch McKenzie again, with or without him
being present. Although she would probably do it for her Master, just as she
had done everything else for him, because she served him and had total trust
and faith in him to do right. He was never, ever, going to let her down again as
he did the other time with them.

The threat was his last sadistic hurrah before he went back up and
got down on one knee, such a fucking role reversal, and asked McKenzie to marry
him. He was pissed about it, absolutely furious, having done his fucking best
to talk himself out of the idea, to beat and sexually torment it out of
her
, to convince himself what he was
feeling was impossible. That McKenzie was just another beautiful sub in the
long line of beautiful subs he had been working through by way of totally
hedonistic and sometimes sadistic pleasure, just because he wanted to and just
because he could. But she was different from the rest and didn’t want to leave
him no matter what he did. Even when he started falling in love with her then
tried to make her go away and take it with her.

Fuck.
He didn’t want this. He. Did. Not. He didn’t know how to do this
and was scared shitless. Time to man up and face the truth. He’d do anything
for McKenzie, no matter how hard. But what if she changed her mind or something
happened to her that took her away from him now he’d committed his heart? His
black, black heart. McKenzie was his shining light and he knew it. His hope.

Michael didn’t want something to happen to her. She could get sick
or get hurt in an accident. She could die. He couldn’t stand those thoughts,
but the alternative, life without McKenzie by her choice, was far worse. She
could end up leaving him in the end. He could lose her. Michael had a very real
appreciation for the pain masochists craved and endured, even if he didn’t
crave or want it at all. Not one fucking bit.

The door slid back and he exited the elevator car to head to the bar
for a drink. One beer should give her just the right amount of time to get
worked up over the proposed jaunt to those wicked perverts and she would be
back to quivering jelly in his sadistic hands. And then he would propose. He
hadn’t even paddled her ass today, or clamped those amazing nipples, or used
the violet wand on her pink parts. Goddamn it. He loved her so much he hurt and
she was going to pay for that too. Harvey, the bartender, had his imported long
neck on the coaster before his ass was even settled on the stool. And from the
look
Harvey
gave him, Michael probably appeared as unsettled as he felt. He didn’t glance
at the mirrored wall behind all those fancy bottles, fearing what he’d see.
Instead, he paced himself, taking sips against the burgeoning excitement of how
McKenzie would respond when he slid the perfect blue diamond solitaire on her
finger and then slid his cock up her ass. Without lube. Well, maybe not without
lube. It was to be a celebratory engagement fuck, after all.

    
His heart soared right
along with the elevator as the car rose to the designated floor. He touched the
little box in his left pants pocket—he dressed to the right—his cock taking up
all available space as it joined him in the excitement and anticipation. He
swallowed a hint of nervousness. McKenzie deserved this to be done just so. He
wanted to set the proper scene but all he could think about was that old
clichéd down on one knee, clasping her hand and popping the question. McKenzie
would probably weep and maybe jump around a little. Maybe even squeal like she
did when he laced her pussy lips shut over a butterfly attached to her clit,
then had his sub serve coffee to his business colleagues wearing cuffs, a cute
little maid’s hat, fish net stockings and stilettos. Nothing else. If she came
when he turned on the remote at any time that day she knew she’d be on the
table and used as an ink well or a coaster or paper clip holder or anything
else he and his boys could come up with.