Weekend (8 page)

“Have you?”

“I need you to spank me.” And this time, in a surge of desire, Ajax meant it. She really, really fucking meant it. Desire thumped, a beat inside her.

“It's going to hurt,” said Logan leaning forward to grip
Ajax's hips. “It will be for punishment. Do you understand that?”

What had she fucking done wrong? Nothing. Insignificant shit.
Nothing nothing nothing.
As if that mattered one whit. Ajax took a breath. “Hurt me then. Hurt me so good.” Giving permission to be hurt made her groan. So often in her life—in her marriage—she'd been hurt without consent. This was better. This was so much better. This took nasty kinks and ironed them.

She wasn't naïve about this, its pleasures and utilities. Neither was she well-practiced, as she assumed Logan was.

“You have to be corrected,” said Logan. “In your fantasy, how did I fuck your ass?”

Big breath. Working to stabilize herself. Heat thumping irregularly—a constant accompaniment for Ajax during sex. “Me on my stomach, ass in the air.”

Logan put the chain of the nipple clamps in Ajax's mouth. “Tug,” they said.

And Ajax obediently did. The clamps pulled, sending out shocks. Her own pain, her personally caused pain. Which fucked her mind.

Logan stroked themself. “With this cock?”

“Too big,” said Ajax, gasping not at the impossibility but at the realization that sodomy was certainly on tonight's menu.

“Have you taken cocks up your ass before, Ajax? Other than mine?”

“Yes.”

“Smaller ones?”

“Yes.”

“You like it up the ass.”

“Yes.” It was true. She always had; her ass gave her more pleasures than her cunt, which themselves were not insignificant.

“Does it hurt to have a cock up your ass?” Logan lubed their hand, ran it around the tip of their cock, moved it down and up.

“It does hurt,” said Ajax. “It makes me come.”

“So you like pain, Ajax?”

“I like the edges of pain. I like domination more. I like surprises during sex. I like voice.” Ajax was about to say that the nipple clamps were too much—but they were only
almost
too much, the knife-edge where pain nearly morphed into pleasure. She dealt with pain all the time because of her bad heart; decades of angina, months of unstable angina, two heart attacks. She knew more than most people about how to absorb and transform agony.

Logan looked at her sternly. “Bend over my knee.”

Ajax stood there. There it was. The order. Could she? Could she allow herself to do it? Even her
desire
to obey, to be this raggy-boneyard of anti-feminist compliance, humiliated her. Which was the point, surely.
Subjugate, McIntyre.

Logan released their cock. “Jesus, you're disobedient. You need training. Turn around, right now, hands over your head.” A tone brooking no opposition, though Ajax had to wonder what would happen if she refused—if she used her safe word or just said,
Um, hey, sorry, not into it after all
. What would
Logan do to her if she
didn't
bend? Logan's voice low, growly: “Do what I say right now.”

Ajax spit out the chain, turned and lifted her arms, which caused the nipple clamps to pull differently. She waited, but Logan didn't do anything. Ajax tried not to mutter. Logan could guess every goddamned puke-wheeling button she had—even while doing new things. They made her stand there wondering. After minutes—three, five? too many—she felt Logan's breath mist across her buttocks.

Here was how it was supposed to play out: Logan insisted, Ajax obeyed—those were the rules. Top, bottom. How tops got off; how bottoms got off.

Ajax wished the window was closed, that the drapes were pulled. Not that she imagined Elliot or god knows Joe prowling around the cottage in this weather. She wished—what?
Oh, turdballs from hell
. She didn't know what she wished. That they were back in her beloved Bahamas fucking on a private beach with surf galloping toward them?

“Such a bad, bad girl,” said Logan. “Will anything make you good again?”

I could write an essay,
thought Ajax cheekily. It was the punishment she'd usually meted out to her children.
Write 100 words on why what you did was wrong; include a sincere apology.

“I'm sorry,” said Ajax, feeling precipitously, actually, contrite—more for leaving the scene in her mind, again, than for any imaginary crime. “I'm
really
sorry.” Should she say
Go easy on me
when she didn't want that? A good quarter of her
wanted to say that, wanted to run to her childhood bedroom, slam the door, and fling herself onto a flouncy bedspread. Power dynamics were fun (except when they weren't).

“Bend over my knee, Ajax. No more bullshit. Do what I say, and do it right now. I've been letting you off easy.”

“Okay.”

“And what do you say?”

“I said okay,” said Ajax, half resentfully. Toby lifted his head, whined, shook his muzzle, and settled back down.

“You say, ‘Yes, sir.'”

She searched Logan's pale spooky eyes for a hint of indecision, but didn't find it, so she said it: “Yes, sir.” And then bent. She felt silly, clod-hopperish; she was not the smallest woman, and she felt too big for the thighs that meant to hold her. But Logan clamped her in, one of their legs over one of Ajax's. The temperature was dropping. Logan's cock pronged into her stomach.

“This is going to hurt a lot. I'm going to give you thirty-six with my hand, and then I'm switching to a paddle.”

“Thirty-six?!” Ajax tried to get up.
Ouch.
Lamely, she said, “But you'll hurt your hand!”

“You want this. Tell me again that you want this.”

Was it always a question of this, of saying
yes yes yes
? Of relenting over and over? Control and powerlessness. The power of powerlessness. She said it again.

There was a long moment when nothing happened.

“Do it,” Ajax said, gritting her teeth, caught between excitement and nerves. “Go ahead. Do it. I want you to hit me.”

Logan's hand came down hard.

The second the pain registered, the slap heard and absorbed, Ajax's eyes bugged. She jerked, gulped, consciously held her position, bracing palms on the floor.

The dog let out a single yip.

Don't think about Logan's carpet,
she warned herself, eyeing it, noticing its colours.

Logan's fingertips trickled softly across the skin they'd hit. Wonder in their voice, they said, “I can see exactly the shape of my hand. In red.”

“Against my brown ass? Nah,” said Ajax. “No, sir.”

Logan said they were taking a photograph.

“Um,” said Ajax. “Consent for kinky sex and consent for images are two different things and that would be a no, sir, no, thank you.”

Logan said, “You have no say in what I do to you.” The camera apparently was already easily accessible. Logan stroked her ass. There was no sound of a shutter.

As soon as Ajax's flutter against Logan's invasion had been sweetened into complacency, when she finally expected the tender touch to continue and the next slap not to come, thought that maybe Logan had relented, Logan spanked her again. Ajax yelped. And loved it loved it
loved it
.

Logan spanked Ajax five times on each cheek. Every swat was a ladder rung Ajax had to climb, the stakes rising.

Logan dipped their hand. “Why are you so wet? Did I say you could get wet?

“You make me wet.” Ajax pushed her ass higher. “This spanking makes me wet.”

More slaps, brisk and unyielding.

Logan hit stung flesh. “Wait, wait, Logan, it's enough. I've had enough.”

Logan ignored her, continued. What was Logan experiencing from their side? Were they horny? Near to orgasm?

Ajax said, “No!” and put up a hand to protect her ass.

Logan pressed Ajax's wrist to her lower back, the restraint serving to ignite Ajax's capitulation. “Honey, there are dozens more just like those ones, and they're coming your way now. What do you think a punishment spanking is? When I'm finished all of that, I'm paddling you for getting wet, and when I finish that, I'm taking your ass.”

“Oh, for fuck's sake,” said Ajax, partly wounded, completely aroused. “Jesus.”

“And if you come without permission, believe me, you'll be getting extra. And leaving the scene? For that, you also get extra.”

Ajax could feel the slide into orgasm. “Please,” said Ajax again, lifting her ass, moving it. “Spank me. Please hurt me good. Hurt me more.”

“Does it hurt, baby? It ought to hurt. I hope it hurts.” Logan rubbed her ass, then touched her clit so softly that Ajax nearly burst. “You're deeply maroon.”

Ajax repeated that it hurt. Her voice sounded disembodied, but she was anything but—for the moment, she was all body; nipples, ass, and cunt. She began to weep from the pain.

“You are not going to be able to sit down,” said Logan, spanking her, not waiting between slaps.

Even after Ajax rose and Logan caught sight of her tear-streaked face, they harboured no mercy. They ordered her to bend over the arm of the couch. Ajax balked—out of instinct more than objection; she could not seem to force herself to fold for more. Whatever she had meant by asking to be punished, it was not
this
.

But, of course, it was exactly this. And it was also pain, for once, with a positive outcome. Pain with the O of exclamatory bliss.

Logan sighed, cranky. “Tell me again why we're doing this? Why I bother?”

Ajax folded her hands. “I was bad.”

“You were bad, what?”

“I was bad,
sir
,” said Ajax.

“You were bad what?”

And it came instinctively from her mouth. “I was bad,
Daddy
.” She thought she would try this terrible word.

“What happens to naughty girls who anger their fathers?”

She reached around to gingerly touch her ass; she could feel it swollen and burner-hot. Was the pain soon to become worse? Where would worse pain take her? “They need a lesson, sir. They need to be taught manners and correct behaviours.”

During early childhood, in her one-room schoolroom in the Bahamas, kids had been strapped at the principal's desk under photographs of Queen Elizabeth.

Logan released the clamps on Ajax's nipples. The pain was momentarily so dense that Ajax squashed her breasts hard. She'd been brain-stabbed. Logan said, “That they do. So bend, McIntyre. Do what you're told, and soon this will all be over. I'm sure you want my cock up your ass sooner than later, don't you?”

Probably Logan knew that Ajax would go over. Sooner or later, Ajax would submit. Ajax gritted her teeth and bent. The arm of the couch offered better security than Logan's lap had, was padded and more rounded to fit her body, but that quickly became little reassurance when she considered why she was there. She felt even more humiliated than she had when she'd been over Logan's lap. Because of Logan's vantage point?

But she noticed a difference. She was finally letting go, moving toward where the sensations controlled her as much as did Logan.

Her nipples sharply hurt.

“Legs apart,” they said sternly. When Ajax didn't obey, Logan jammed their knee between Ajax's legs, forcing the issue. “You're wet down to your knees, I swear. It's unbecoming.” Knowing Logan was looking at her privates nearly sent Ajax spilling over some edge. Logan pushed Ajax's shoulders to the seat cushion. “Put your face in your hands and think about why you're here. Think about how bad you were and what's coming.”
Logan dripped lube onto her bum crack. Pretended they were going to penetrate her. Moved their fingers near Ajax's asshole but didn't enter. Moved away. Teased more. Penetrated just through the sphincter. Pulled back. Widened the sphincter, let it close. Repeated until Ajax pushed her ass into it. Showed Ajax the paddle with which she would be hit—rectangular, blonde wood—and ran it cold across her body, up and down her arms and legs, chilling her ass. It lulled her, too, into the false sense of security that Logan was seeking.

When the wood first hit Ajax, she jumped and sobbed.

“Don't,” said Logan. “Don't jump. I can't allow that.”

Twelve fast impacts hurtled Ajax out of summer into some winter darkness, some cold isolation, some icy rejection—and at the same time, built for her a snow palace. Logan slipped fingers into Ajax's ass. “Do it, Ajax. Come now. Squeeze my fingers, honey.”

Ajax sobbed outright while she came, a long chain of orgasms that followed one after the other in kaleidoscopic outburst. Her toes shrilled pleasure.

Logan pushed the head of their cock against her asshole.

“Say you want it,” said Logan. “Tell me you want me up your ass, Ajax.”

“Fuck my ass. Please fuck my ass. Please, Logan. Please. Now. Don't make me wait any longer, baby.”

“I'm gonna fuck your ass.”

Logan gripped her hips and ground in, the head of their cock achieving a tantalizing slow entry, pausing before the rest
followed, like pushing down a French press. They were fucking Ajax's orgasms. As they went deep, their pelvis was cool against Ajax's inflamed ass cheeks.

Logan reached around to twist her nipples, and Ajax yelled from the stupendousness.

Logan came yelling, “Deep in your ass, baby,” grunting and pushing, their pubic hair prickling against Ajax's damaged skin.

       
AJAX

That night, Ajax dreamed of Logan colouring her, only in the dream, Ajax didn't have a body; she was two-dimensional, flat. Logan had crayons, a box of thirty-six Crayolas—Atomic Tangerine, Blue Violet, Inchworm, Jazzberry Jam, Mauvelous, Tickle Me Pink—and was hard at work, but they coloured outside the lines, and every time they spread wax where Ajax ended, Ajax expanded. Scritch of crayon against paper. Ajax could feel the crayon stick, the thick paper, see the name Razzmatazz in black on pink. Fingertips so close Ajax could see whorls of a Fibonnaci spiral. She could see the orange dunes of Namibia, the blue holes of the Bahamas, the Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone. She saw bison, polar bears, cassowaries, sloths hanging from Cecropia trees. Longitudinal stretching, icebergs calving into blue growlers. She saw Logan like she'd never seen a person before. Logan's chin, Logan's throat, where Ajax could track the hot pulse of their jugular vein, the sinewy ropes of their sternothyroid muscles. Logan's hands seemed, somehow, to be creating her, to be actualizing her from a crude charcoal sketch until she was animating, moving in place, then free and fluid. Logan's fingers were stained with colour, a smudge of green across their cheek. Logan's earlobes, Logan's reckless lock of hair slipping past an eyebrow. Logan an artist, pinning Ajax in place then moving her out, making her spill over, a northern glacial waterfall, moss on slippery banks, rivulets of sugar. Making Ajax's eyes skate off the sides of the page, desire
fogging out her edges like steam, like geysers, the whole room turning to cloud mist.

Logan wasn't in bed when Ajax woke; Ajax could hear them in the kitchen, smelled pancakes. She stretched in the mussed white sheets. Pretty bedroom—taupe with coral. Comfortable bed, memory foam.

Do you remember what you did last night? the mattress asked.

She found a vase of poppies on the beside table, a card saying happy birthday. She'd forgotten! She was fifty today—a half century. She felt a blur of love, wondered what else Logan had planned.

“Hey,” she said at the door of the kitchen, tying up her robe. “I dreamed you coloured me into existence or something.”

Logan wrangled bacon in a spitting cast-iron frying pan and lifted their cheek for a kiss.

“It was kinda romantic,” said Ajax, smiling. “Kinda spiritual, too, for an atheist.”

“Happy birthday, gorgeous,” said Logan. “Mind feeding Toby? Just open that can and dump it in his bowl and freshen up his water.”

“Remember that other dream I had when we first started going out?” said Ajax, turning the can of dog food in her hands. “That dream where everything felt right instead of traumatic? It was like that, sort of. Same affect, right? Saying I'm safe with you. I'm bigger with you than without you. More me.”

After feeding Toby, Ajax set the porch table, helped carry
plates. Tiny vases of flowers and scattered confetti dotted the tabletop. Red floor, green/blue table with peeling paint. Toy boat in the corner, sail faded pink. Wicker furniture. “I'm touched,” she told Logan, swimming her finger through confetti. “I like this place. Very shabby chic.”

Logan buttered their pancakes. “Different than my condo, right?” Their condo was stainless and leather mixed with antiques. Here, there were five double beds on the second storey plus a raft of bunk beds—country at its most relaxed. “Accommodates twenty, actually, pretty comfortably.”

“Wow,” said Ajax. She sat, rearranging herself gingerly on what she thought was a feathered seat cushion. Pain was not a memory—she carried it with her. “Tell me how you came to build it. You broke up with Elliot …”

They could hear the scrape of Toby's collar on the food dish. “Elliot turfed me out on my ear,” said Logan. “I'm an old battle axe; I handled it.” Logan shrugged, dotted their mouth with the napkin. “Ell and I wanted a place where people could gather. I think we were thinking dishevelled weekends, music, booze, campfires, s'mores on the barbie, orgies. You know. We did some of that, or I did, and Ell joined in when she felt like it. She was—busy elsewhere most of the time.” Logan sounded wistful. “So … How's it feel to turn fifty?”

Ajax picked up the maple syrup bottle with its log cabin graphic. “Not as sweet as maple syrup.”

Logan laughed. “Consider the alternative.”

As if Ajax ever forgot the alternative. Fifty or death.
Excellent on the choices, world
, she thought. She wondered whether she was glad to be fifty—glad to be in what people called her second half century. Which in her case was more likely to be five years or ten or fifteen—fifteen if she was exceedingly fortunate. At what point did one's physical ailments win? Not just the body-battle, but the battle for one's mind? When did being in continual un-chosen pain cease to be worth it? She could imagine a time when she would be ready to stop. She was not sure why Logan—why anyone, really—would love her at her age and general state of decrepitude. Inside her, nothing worked well. Cranky kidneys, cranky heart, brain addled from TIAs—transient ischemic attacks, or mini-strokes. Angina—the squeezing of the de-oxygenated heart. Heart failure; an organ that could not pump well enough. Hypertrophic heart, enlarged past common sense. Peripheral vascular disease giving her de-oxygenated limbs. Arrythmias. Her body was bad on the outside, too: Crappy ankles, knees, hips, lower back, rotator cuffs. Osteoarthritis. Generally in bad shape. She heaved a sigh. Getting old was not for the meek. Hell,
living
was not.

“Thanks for cooking again.”

“You can cook anytime,” said Logan.

“I will.” Ajax reached over for Logan's hand. How could she tell them that when they'd drawn her off the page, they had, in some crazy way, set her free? How could a fifty-year-old woman with a very sore bum even say that? At some age, didn't getting drawn off the page make you redundant?

Fifty!

“Not this weekend, though. This is my weekend to coddle you.” Crinkly smile.

Ajax grinned back. Maybe to other people this would seem like a big birthday; to her, it seemed like a life crisis. To her, it was hardly something to celebrate. “My ass really hurts, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

Logan grinned. “I can see that. To be expected. I can't really say it breaks my heart. Perhaps the next time, you won't be naughty. Perhaps you'll mind your p's and q's.”

“Fuck right off.” Ajax laughed.

“Indeed,” said Logan picking up a piece of bacon. “Indeed, I will do just that, as soon as I get that robe off you.”