Contract Broken (Contracted #2)

by Aya DeAniege

  “Then when he finally does take notice and we...” I fell silent, suddenly struggling for words. “I was finally starting to feel normal, and someone called the police on him. It was like being violated all over again.”

  “That was Michael,” Mr. Wrightworth said, motioning to a man down the line who looked up suddenly and then around the room as if looking for an escape route. “The police were just doing their jobs. Your state of dress didn’t help matters. If they had gawked much longer, I would have had to assault them. I’ve already suggested more sensitivity training for the officers in the building. As much as they are men, they cannot gawk at an almost naked woman. They need to be more respectful.”

  “They were gawking?” one of the others asked.

  “And making excuses to stay and speak with Isabella. They tried to tell me she was distraught, but it was obvious that they wanted to get a closer look at the woman. As a man, I don’t blame them. Our officers, however, need to be above that when they are on the job.

  “She was distraught because of them, not because of me.”

  “But a relationship with you of all people, Mr. Wrightworth?” Michael asked. “I think you’re taking advantage of her position and that the relationship should be prohibited.”

  I shook my head as Mr. Wrightworth snarled.

  “I finally take an interest in someone, and of course you attempt to get in the way,” Mr. Wrightworth said.

  “Everyone knows you’re gay,” Michael said boldly back. “The women might ignore that fact because of your face and your mystique, but you are still gay. There’s only one other thing you’re interested in, and Miss Marten was recovered from just such a contract.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked.

  “Mr. Wrightworth is interested in the same things as Nathaniel. He’s taken you on a, what do you people call them? Submissive? Mr. Wrightworth is taking advantage of your fragile state to manipulate you into being his submissive. You have absolutely no obligation to submit to the man.”

  I stared back at Michael. For a very long moment, I struggled with what to say.

  “Fuck you,” I said finally.

  “Excuse me?” Michael responded.

  “Fuck you, for trying to over complicate things. Yes, Mr. Wrightworth is mainly gay. Sexuality is a fluid thing, he wants to explore sex with a woman and...it is a safe bet for me, I suppose because it can hardly be serious, but my needs are seen to.

  “As to Mr. Wrightworth’s other proclivities, also fuck you. What we do behind closed doors is none of your business. If he were fucking me with vegetables or beating me until I cried, it doesn’t matter as long as we are both consenting adults. The moment I withdraw consent, and he doesn’t listen, Michael, is the moment I will come to you and tell you so that you can finally have your wish and burn him to the ground. But until then? Fuck you.

  “My sex life is none of your fucking business.”

  There was an extremely long silence as I glowered at Michael.

  Then Mr. Wrightworth said, “All right, Michael, I will agree that she has recovered at least a bit.”

  “I agree with Michael,” another man said. “But only in that this could be viewed as you taking advantage of her. She’s not speaking to her therapist, she has no other friends, the only person she’s spoken to is Kathy, which I think we all agree isn’t speaking to someone.”

  “Nathaniel took me to church; I want to go back there, but Mr. Wrightworth says I can’t yet. People there were kind to me, I talked to them, and they talked to me.”

  “Leaving the building is a bad idea,” the man said in response. “Not yet, anyhow. But you haven’t even gone to the rooftop gardens. The lights in here are made to help with the fact that we live mainly indoors, but being from a slum, surely you crave the outdoors.”

  “There’s a rooftop garden?” I demanded.

  “I’ll take you there,” Mr. Wrightworth muttered.

  “I think at the very least, as part of us not protesting too loudly about the relationship, you should give her a proper tour. Another crack she fell through, no doubt.”

  “I can agree to that,” Mr. Wrightworth said.

  “But Miss Martin also needs to speak to her therapist and deal with what happened to her. Albert is proceeding with his civil suit against us to take her back.”

  “He won’t win,” Mr. Wrightworth purred out with a small smile. “But I see your point, she needs to be as stable as possible because they will, no doubt, demand she attend. They might even call her to the stand.”

  “And no one’s told me anything about that,” I said. “What’s the review of Nathaniel, how’s that going, what’s going on outside the building, why am I in limbo?”

  “You aren’t supposed to know about that,” Michael said.

  “Why not?” I asked. “It’s about me, and it’s about my future and what will end up happening to me. So why can’t I know about it?”

  “As you may have surmised from us speaking, Nathaniel’s father is trying to get you back,” Mr. Wrightworth said. “If he sees you out of the Program building, he will assume you are strong enough to stand trial, and he will force the issue before you are ready. He might even use that information to get you back. If you are caught going to church, he will tell the court you were an active participant. He is already arguing that you consented and then withdrew consent when you grew bored and decided to play the victim to explain your absence.”

  “That’s not true,” I said, panic lacing my voice.

  It uncurled in the pit of my stomach, threatening to spill the contents of my breakfast even as it seemed to clench so tightly that I couldn’t seem to breathe. I didn’t want to go back to Nathaniel’s father.

  “If we were to tell you what was going on in the review, his father might use that information as well. You may not be aware, but Nathaniel signed a contract with his father which allows Albert to use anything Nathaniel owns, or any contractee under him, to the extent of the contract. The blank contract was meant to protect you from that, without the terms written out, there would be no way to hold anything to you besides what Nathaniel told his father was going on.”

  “You told me that there’d be no rape and no torture, you made me say it to a camera.”

  “I know, why do you think I did that?” Mr. Wrightworth asked.

  “Why is it still being reviewed then?” I demanded.

  “It’s not what the terms of your contract were that he is arguing,” Michael said. “What Albert Edwards claims is that there was no rape and no torture. Simply rough sex and participation in what is referred to as ‘the lifestyle.’ BDSM often results in scrapes, cuts, beatings, and all the rest.”

  “But I didn’t consent to be with Nathaniel’s father.”

  “Any interest shown in Nathaniel could be construed as you being interested in the contract,” Mr. Wrightworth said. “It’s for your protection that we keep you in the dark. If you show interest in the contract, Albert will use that information to prove his consent theory.”

  “Right, like we just had drunken sex, and I decided in the morning that I didn’t want it,” I snarled back.

  “That’s why we’re telling you nothing about the process,” Mr. Wrightworth said.

  “It’s not right, I’m stuck in limbo and known nothing about anything because the man who raped and tortured me is trying to get me back and no one seems to be outraged about this except me.”

  “Trust me,” Mr. Wrightworth said.

  “He’s outraged,” Michael said. “We are outraged, but we aren’t going to let that blur our rational thought. If we allowed that, we would lose you, and we are not willing to lose a single contractee, not if we can help it.”

  The panic returned tenfold. It wasn’t just from fear. It was also from not knowing what was going on. It’s impossible to make plans, to make an escape route if you don’t know what might happen. When there are too many loose possibilities, I become overwhelmed.

  “I can’t do this
right now,” I said.

  And then I bolted from the room. In the hallway I stopped, one hand on the wall. I only stopped because I didn’t know which way to go or where I could hide. The whole world did a sickening spin as the door to the review room opened and closed.

  Mr. Wrightworth slipped his arms around me and pulled me away from the wall. He pulled me against his chest, arms tightening reassuringly as I buried my face in his suit jacket. I wanted to clench my hands, but instead found them clenched against his lapels already.

  “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, leading me down the hallway.

  “What?” I asked.

  My voice sounded thick like I had been crying. Confused, I wiped tears from my eyes and looked at Mr. Wrightworth’s suit. I had wept on him without realizing it, creating a splotch of wet right in the middle of his suit jacket but he didn’t seem to care as he pulled me into a room.

  A bathroom.

  The door swung shut, and he pulled me to the sinks, turning on the water before he moved to the towel dispenser.

  “I’ll have to change, but afterwards maybe after a nap as well, I’ll come get you for that tour,” he said, dabbing at his jacket with a towel as he grabbed several more. With a sigh, he dropped the one towel in the garbage and approached me with the other ones. “I know this is difficult for you, but it’s not just you on the line. Going into the civil suit early is a gamble, but I’m fairly sure I could win. It’s also about the community.”

  “What?”

  “Nathaniel signed a contract with his father—”

  “I know that. They mentioned it before. And a man or two.”

  “One other person is involved in the contract. The second man is likely Nathaniel’s cousin, a young man of twenty who Nathaniel removed from his father’s reach and placed into my care to make the boy disappear. Disappear he did, Albert will never find him.”

  The second man was mentioned very quickly, as if the entire sentence was just one big word.

  “Nathaniel told his father to take the man instead of me.”

  “That was stupid, Nathaniel should have known there was no choice,” Mr. Wrightworth muttered, wetting a towel.

  He wrung the towel out and used it to dab at my cheeks and face, wiping away the tears.

  “He didn’t even hesitate before throwing the other man under the bus,” I said.

  “For you,” Mr. Wrightworth murmured comfortingly. “He threw someone else under the bus for you. Even if he has known the other one for some time. Then again, this other one could probably have survived better than you. It wouldn’t be a new sensation for him, let’s just leave it at that.”

  If Nathaniel had saved a cousin from his father, hiding a victim from his abuser, then why would he have thrown the other man under the bus like that? One didn’t save a victim to toss them back to their abuser to save a person they barely knew.

  “I survived.”

  “You did, you did remarkably better than I thought you would. Then again, I also thought Albert would take Nathaniel and ship you back here. Never did I consider the fact that his father would be prowling so close to home. That shows escalation and probably insanity.

  “I just need you to hang on until the end. Once the civil suit is thrown out, we can proceed with legal charges. The only reason they’ve put that off is because they haven’t quite decided whether or not the contract was broken. If I can prove that, I can have him charged with assault and sexual assault, kidnapping, detaining against the will and numerous other things. You need to hold on.”

  “I don’t like not knowing.”

  “I know,” he said quietly, throwing out the damp towel. “I know you like to know what is going to happen. You like having rules and then following those rules.”

  “I mean, what’s going on with Nathaniel? Why hasn’t he called or done anything? Was it me, did I do something wrong? Does he not want me back?”

  “Oh, Darling,” Mr. Wrightworth said, pulling me into his arms. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “And you still won’t tell me!” I shouted, smacking Mr. Wrightworth’s chest.

  “No, I will not,” Mr. Wrightworth said, capturing my hand when I tried to slap him again. His other hand darted out, wrapping around my throat as he twisted my arm until I cried out. “How I wish I could tie you up and beat you until you submitted.”

  “You’re hurting me,” I cried.

  Mr. Wrightworth released my arm, then my throat. I held my arm to my chest, running my hand over the spot where things had been pulled.

  “You’re tense, is why that hurt in that way,” Mr. Wrightworth said. “When you relax your body can move in such a way without damage. You need a hot bath and a massage, both of which I can help with tonight after our session.”

  “I’m not tense,” I said, pulling away from Mr. Wrightworth.

  “Does your back hurt?” Mr. Wrightworth asked.

  “Well, yes, but I got used to sleeping on the mattress from heaven that Nathaniel gave me. Sleeping on that cot in the room is like a rock now.”

  “You’re tense,” Mr. Wrightworth said. “Did you want something to help you settle?”

  “Settle?” I asked.

  Mr. Wrightworth went to the door and locked it. He returned to me as he worked at his belt. For a moment I thought he was going to ask me to kneel.

  I wanted him to ask me to kneel.

  Blame Nathaniel or a hundred other things, but the possibility of being that close to a man was almost too much. It was one of those things that Albert hadn’t done to me. I had thought it was because he was afraid of being bitten—because I would have bitten it off—but there were toys for that. Special gags which kept the mouth open and he chose not to use them.

  The belt came off, and Mr. Wrightworth bent it in half. My breath hitched in my throat as I realized what Mr. Wrighworth had meant. While the idea of oral enticed me, the idea of being bent over and struck by this firm Adonis of a man made me wet instantly.

  “You said you wouldn’t until I could be tied,” I said.

  The excitement that coursed through my veins was too much. How long had it been since I had a good, balanced strike to my backside? What wouldn’t I do for that? Every bit of me tingled with anticipation.

  “Come here,” Mr. Wrightworth said, motioning me forward with two fingers.

  Not quite believing what he was offering, I edged towards him. Mr. Wrightworth took me gently with his left hand, pushing me forward with his right. Supporting me with his left, he bent slightly.

  “Mainly, I just want to prove how tense you are,” he said. “I think I know the correct measure, but as we’ve not properly played, my aim may be off. You get one strike.”

  “No, you have to even it out,” I said.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It has to be even on both sides, or it gets worse very quickly,” I said.

  “Mm, you really do make that easy, don’t you?” Mr. Wrightworth said with a chuckle. “Two strikes then. Let me know if it’s too hard.”

  Mr. Wrightworth’s right hand ran over my backside. Not because he was interested in it, but because he knew how to play me. The hand roving over me made the anticipation coil in the pit of my stomach. When the hand left, leaving cold where there had once been heat, I shuddered out a breath.

  “Please,” I said when the belt didn’t fall.

  “Ohhh, you are so good at that tone, but it’s ‘please, Master’ or there will be trouble,” Mr. Wrightworth said.

  “Please, Master, strike me.”

  Mr. Wrightworth shuddered out a breath. He took a moment to steady himself, and then the belt fell. I pushed back into the swing, flinching forward as the sting bloomed across my backside.

  And then I writhed.

  Oh, how I wished it would go on all afternoon. How I wanted it. I thought back to the gym in Nathaniel’s estate and longed for that afternoon delight once more.

  The second strike fell, and I moaned. Mr. Wrightworth’s
hand moved down my backside and over the flesh he had just hit. Ever so slowly he helped me straighten, then tugged my dress down and smoothed out the sides as I trembled.

  “Did you like that?” Mr. Wrightworth asked.

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  “You need to thank me whenever I do that,” Mr. Wrightworth murmured.

  “Thank you, Master.”

  “Good, Darling,” Mr. Wrightworth said with a smile, sliding his belt back on. “Just think of that when I have you tied up. Maybe that will make it easier for you to get through it.”

  “Please, can I have some more?” I asked, biting my bottom lip and smiling slowly.

  Mr. Wrightworth went a funny sort of red colour. He frowned ever so slightly.

  “That should not have almost worked,” he grumbled, then jabbed a finger at me. “You do not get more until you can be tied for more than an hour without panicking.”

  Chapter Seven

  That night I had to go to Mr. Wrightworth’s place a little later than usual. I saw my therapist and talked to her a little bit. I don’t want to go over what we discussed. She has been kind enough to keep silent, even when the media pressed her for information. Suffice to say, I did end up opening up about my frustrations because they were on my mind when I walked into the room. The one bit I will mention was shown in court, but only after Mr. Wrightworth saw it during an audit of my interactions inside the Program and asked my permission.

  I don’t recall exactly how we reached that place. We had been talking about the review and she asked, probably for the millionth time:

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “Frustrated. Angry. I can’t even protest because if I protested, it might be construed as wanting to go back and then I’d just... I’d end up back there. I don’t want to end up back there. I want to fulfill my contract. No one will even tell me if I’ll be able to.”

  “It upsets you that you can’t do what you promised you would do?”

  “Yes! He didn’t break his word, his father did, and now it’s some sort of he said, she said. He says I gave consent then cried rape.”