by Aya DeAniege
I slipped off the underwear, kicking them to the side. The only reason I had left them on was to make her feel like I didn’t want them off.
After baring myself to Mr. Wrightworth and Nicole, I had brazenly walked around Mr. Wrightworth’s apartment completely naked. There was something so freeing about being bereft of clothing and then denying Mr. Wrightworth the ability to touch me. I knew the man wanted to. I saw the way his thumb grazed over his fingers, the way he eyed my legs.
I also knew that he granted me the ability to stop him. His rules stated that anything not covered could be struck. He was my Master, which meant that I was breaking the rules by denying him.
Taking control from him was exhilarating.
Which meant that standing naked before Mayfair wearing nothing more than a plug, I felt strong. I could see the judgment in her eyes, but at my core, I was still solid as a rock. While I may have been playing the part of Darling, Isabella was fully aware, at the back of my mind.
Making snarky comments about how she would have used a female sub properly.
Mayfair walked around me, humming and hawing and even scoffing at what she saw.
I knew I was supposed to feel little, being judged by this plastic doll of a woman. Her disgust was evident as she grimaced at me.
“You’re too fat,” Mayfair growled out, flicking my back with a crop. It didn’t hurt. It just irritated me because it wasn’t what I had come to expect during play. “Look at that fat layer under your skin. Who could be attracted to that? Wrinkles already on your face, scars on your back. Nate, what do you think?”
“She needs to work out more, Mistress,” Nathaniel responded reverently from the door.
“Honesty, Nate, we’ve talked about this.”
He moved away from the door, stripping off his shirt as he did so. The shirt was tossed to the side as Nathaniel stopped in front of me, his hands clasping behind his back.
When I dared to glance up at him, there was pity in his eyes.
I got it, I did. She wanted to tell me all about how I sucked. She wanted to point out all my flaws to make herself feel better.
Nathaniel had to participate in the ritual to hurt me and to show his loyalty to her.
“Calling her fat would be kind,” he said, his voice cold. Suddenly he was no longer my Nathaniel. He was Mayfair’s Nate, and I didn’t like the man she had made him into. “The cellulose in her legs alone is disgusting. Veiny. Blotchy. Slum scum, really.”
I told myself that it wasn’t what he believed. There wasn’t anything wrong with my body, damn it. My strength from moments before withered under Nathaniel’s words.
“Hit her,” Mayfair said.
Nathaniel reached out and struck me in the face. It hurt, it made my whole face hurt, not just where he hit. The strike would leave my face reddened, but wasn’t hard enough to bruise.
Bruising the face was on the no list, it was one of the only things that Mr. Wrightworth had reiterated in front of Mayfair. Nothing had been said beyond that for damage and repeating several times that sexual activities were off limits.
While Nathaniel might have broken Mr. Wrightworth’s rules, the sub that was Nate would never disobey his master.
“Again.”
The next strike was to the stomach.
I bent over and almost hit the floor as my stomach threatened to empty its contents. Mr. Wrightworth insisted I eat before playing with Mayfair, despite the fact that I hadn’t been hungry. Getting air in was difficult. He grabbed a fistful of hair and dragged me back to my feet.
Over the next twenty minutes, I took one of the most brutal beatings of my life. That was why I was there, though, to be used as Mayfair saw fit and this was how she wanted to see me treated. It hurt, I hadn’t been struck with a closed fist since puberty.
Even Nathaniel’s father hadn’t used his actual fists.
After the second strike, I no longer heard Mayfair’s commands, but I knew she was giving them. I’d be pulled to my feet every time I tried to stay down.
“Hold,” Mayfair barked as Nathaniel’s hand wrapped around my neck.
The woman approached us, her violet eyes flashing as she smiled.
“You cost me tens of thousands of dollars in reconstruction.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have abused your face so much that a punch or two needed reconstructive surgery.”
Mayfair’s smile grew wider.
“Be snarky. But by the end of this hour, you’re going to be broken. You will kiss my feet and beg me for forgiveness.”
“I tend only to kiss the feet of the one who gives me the pain I crave,” I snarled back.
She struck me on the face with an open hand. Her fingers each had heavy rings on them, one of the rings broke the skin on my cheek. I felt the fiery pain and revelled in it. Finally, she managed to do something I liked. The delightful fog was setting in.
She had just broken Mr. Wrightworth’s rules. But breaking his rules didn’t mean she broke the law. It did mean that I’d get to see Mayfair under Mr. Wrightworth’s foot, literally. He had been very clear as to what would happen if there was any damage to my face.
“Why don’t you give consent?” Mayfair asked, her hand locking onto my chin, yanking my face upward. “He said no non-consent, he said nothing about you consenting. Consent to my sub fucking you.”
“Not a hope in hell.”
“Hit her again,” Mayfair snapped, pulling away from us. Nathaniel obliged. “Now grab the belt.”
I was released, my legs going out from under me as Nathaniel walked towards the door. He opened a box by the door and pulled out a leather belt, the kind that a man from the slums might wear. It was wide and thick, unlike the things rich folk tended to wear.
“And the whip,” Mayfair said.
Nathaniel pulled out a whip. He moved to Mayfair and handed her the whip handle first.
The belt remained in his hand as he turned towards me.
“Face down position,” Mayfair commanded of me.
I was a little surprised that she hadn’t commanded me not to speak, or hadn’t chosen to pull out a gag. Easing to my knees, I leaned forward and assumed the face down position.
“Beat her, if I don’t hear her whining in five minutes, you’ll be bleeding.”
Unlike the hour he had with me at Mr. Wrightworth’s apartment, Nathaniel did not hold back. The first bite of the belt’s leather across my back drew out the barest sound, but it was so low that neither Nathaniel or Mayfair heard.
I gritted my teeth, trying to make no sound at all as the belt felt four more times.
There was a pause as Nathaniel walked around me to the other side. He brought the belt down with all his might. It struck a spot that he had bruised during our play session four days before. When the belt came down on the same spot, I knew he was desperate.
My making sound versus his bleeding.
He had given something he loved to Mayfair in order to make her think that she was in control. I didn’t want to do that, I didn’t think I could do that, and I think he knew it.
Which was why he used those carefully honed skills to cause me actual pain, real pain.
I cried out through my gritted teeth, and the belt hesitated.
“Keep it up.”
The belt continued to fall, across my back and then my backside, which remained in the air. That belt on my backside was the only thing that kept me going. He layered his strikes just so and managed to catch both sides as one. It was a kind of relief as if the words of earlier were being washed away by the pain.
“Stop,” Mayfair said in a disgusted tone. “She’s enjoying it too much now.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Nathaniel said.
He sounded out of breath.
I would have looked up, but I was more than a little worried that she would tell him to use the belt to strike my face or head.
“She hardly seems phased, what the fuck is wrong with her?” Mayfair snarled.
“Mr. Wrightworth
says she’s a masochist waking to her nature, Mistress,” Nathaniel said reverently.
“A masochist? There are no true masochists. But if he’s training her to accept pain, then this isn’t going to work, now is it?”
“No, Mistress, the pain will not work,” Nathaniel said.
“Take her by the throat,” Mayfair said.
That worried me, but I didn’t dare speak out as Nathaniel reached down and took me by the throat. Kneeling down, he turned his attention to Mayfair.
“Tighten,” she commanded him.
Fuck.
Nathaniel’s hand tightened around my throat, closing off my air. Instinct kicked in after only a few seconds. I grabbed his wrist and tried to get my fingers on his hand. There was no way for me to get a hold of his hand. Darkness clouded my vision. The strength went from my limbs.
“Release,” Mayfair said.
He released me, and I dropped to the floor, gasping for breath. The darkness receded as I struggled to regain control over my body.
“Again.”
Fuck.
Which, in all honesty, was something a great deal cleaner and friendlier than what ended up in my journal about the event.
Again he took me by the throat and squeezed. Again the darkness encroached on my vision. Still, I fought to grasp his hand as if that would make any difference. She held it longer the second time.
I was out of it, but not so out of it that I couldn’t tell that I was held for a longer period.
“Release.”
I dropped to the floor and gasped in several breaths. Daring to look up, I made eye contact with Mayfair, and I knew.
“Again,” she said, smiling slowly.
I dragged in another breath as Nathaniel’s hand wrapped around my throat. I struggled against him, not understanding what I could do to break through to him.
Mayfair would see me dead, and she would blame Nathaniel being in that place where subs went during play.
I tried to get my tongue to work, but it felt thick.
To call out, to beg for release.
There was only one word that came out: “Banana.”
Nathaniel’s grip loosened. He leaned in close to me, hand remaining around my neck, but loose enough for me to drag in a breath of air.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Banana,” I said, then laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea.
That a word, that a banana might save me.
It made me laugh, which didn’t help my breathing problem. There were tears in my eyes, and I must have laughed for a full thirty seconds before I realized what had happened.
Nathaniel had released me and retreated.
“What are you doing?” Mayfair shouted at him. “Continue!”
“She withdrew consent, Mistress,” Nathaniel protested.
The whip cracked. Nathaniel cried out as I struggled to my knees. He was between Mayfair and me. She had struck him in her attempt to strike me.
“Get out of the way!” she bellowed.
Nathaniel obeyed. No, Nate obeyed.
Nathaniel wasn’t present.
Nate retreated from his angry Mistress because he was in that place. He was a sub, and he was serving her, his mind wasn’t present, he wasn’t thinking rationally because Mr. Wrightworth had trained Nathaniel to shut that part of his mind off.
Mayfair cracked the whip, bringing down on my shoulder.
I had given my safe word, and still been struck.
The pain that flooded me was beyond compare to anything I could recall. Every bit of me sung out in agony as she snapped that whip back.
“You will obey!” she shouted, cracking the whip again.
I couldn’t get my feet to work. I couldn’t get my body to move.
The whip came down three more times in rapid succession. She may have been rich and weak, but Mayfair knew how to handle a whip. The force of a whip isn’t always about strength. It’s also physics.
The door was thrown open and men with weapons flooded into the room. I dropped back to the floor, having been in the middle of attempting to stand. I laid my hands on the floor where they could be seen and kept my eyes on the floor.
I wasn’t stupid. I had been raided before.
Some rival of my eldest brother had claimed we were dealing drugs. We had been raided by police four times before actual evidence had been found that showed the rival had been trying to frame my brother.
“Drop the weapon! Drop the weapon!” one of them shouted.
“I don’t have a weapon!” I sobbed in response.
A blanket fell over my back, warming me even as it hurt my tender back. Mr. Wrightworth knelt, an arm draping over my back as he shushed me gently.
“You’re all right,” he whispered.
“Elaina Mayfair, you are under arrest for assault with a weapon. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
“What?” she demanded as she was handcuffed. “You don’t understand this was—”
“Mr. Wrightworth told us all about what this was,” the arresting officer barked out. “Right before he explained what a safe word was, what hers was, and we took access to your systems, as per Marian Law.”
Marian Law has been altered a great deal and now goes by another name.
At the time it, at its very basic, stated that anyone who had signed a contract or was under the Program’s protection was protected by the law. This meant that any rich person who had a contractee with them gave up their right to privacy when it came to surveillance.
Mayfair’s security systems had been hijacked by the government at Mr. Wrightworth’s instruction. The moment she had struck me the first time with the whip, they rushed in to stop her.
That same law stated that if a rich person was found abusing a poor person, their records for up to the past year could be reviewed to search for other criminal activity. The idea being that, if causing damage to a human didn’t stop them, they were probably doing all sorts of other things wrong.
They had watched the entire thing, waiting for her to break the law.
If they found any evidence linking Mayfair to Albert, especially Mayfair to the events that led to my being taken, she could be charged with accessory to anything he was charged with in relation to me. They would then search everything she had ever done that was still on record.
Basically, Mayfair was fucked.
In Mr. Wrightworth’s arms, I watched as they physically dragged Mayfair out of the room.
“Nathaniel Edwards,” one of the remaining men said, producing a pair of cuffs.
“Whoa,” Mr. Wrightworth was on his feet in a moment. “No! He’s not—” the man stepped between Nathaniel and the officer. “He stepped back immediately.”
“Until the tapes are reviewed, we need to take him into custody as an accessory. You want to do this by the book?”
Mr. Wrightworth swore, then glanced back at Nathaniel, who was cringing away from the officer. Nathaniel was still in that place. Not all subs, but some who were trained in a certain way had to be released from sub space. He was one of those subs, and release from that place wasn’t as easy as a word.
Without that release, he would go through a bad drop.
“He’s a victim in this,” Mr. Wrightworth said quickly.
“He still needs to be in custody,” the officer insisted.
“Uh... uh...” Mr. Wrightworth actually seemed to struggle.
“He needs to be treated as a psychologically unstable person,” I managed to get out. “He’s dropping.”
Groaning, I stood, pulling the blanket with me. I wrapped it around myself and hissed out as I walked around Mr. Wrightworth, to Nathaniel.
With a small smile, I reached up and touched his cheek. I tried not to show the pain on my face as he looked down at me.
There was a cloud over his eyes, but I knew somewhere in there, my Nathaniel was still alive and well.
“You need to go with this man,” I said to him. �
�You need to do everything he tells you to do. And you cannot drop. Understand?”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“If you need to call a lawyer, do so,” I added.
Procedural shows didn’t make me an expert, but I understood that rich people probably wouldn’t want to speak to the police without a lawyer present.
“Yes...” he said with a small whine.
“Nate?” I asked.
He made a small sound.
“I feelings you,” I said.
For a moment I saw Nathaniel, and then he was gone again. He moved away from me awkwardly, holding out his wrists to the officer. Nathaniel was handcuffed and taken away.
Mr. Wrightworth slid an arm around me, then bent and plucked me off the floor. He carried me out of the estate and deposited me in a car, sliding in beside me.
“Will he be all right?” I asked.
“He’ll be fine,” Mr. Wrightworth said. “It may take a day or two, but he’ll get out once the tapes are reviewed. There’s no way Nathaniel agreed to do that to you, and I’m sorry for not letting you in on my plan. If you had known, you might not have done what was necessary.”
“I hurt all over,” I groaned, pushing against him.
He draped an arm over my shoulders, causing me to hiss out in pain. The man made an annoyed sound.
“And to think, all this time I could have been whipping you until you bled,” he grumbled.
“No,” I said stubbornly. Then thought about what had just happened. “What did just happen?”
“I took a meeting with the prosecution and told them who Mayfair was. When she asked for time with you, I told them that as well as my fears as to what she might have planned for you. They agreed to tap into Mayfair’s security, which took relatively little on their part to arrange.
“We watched what happened and when she struck you after breaking consent, they moved into place. We still needed a judge’s order, however, to interrupt anything. That was why there was the hesitance, but because I told them the exact time and place, and they had gone to a judge to get the right to touch the footage in the first place, they had the same judge waiting in case this did go wrong.
“On the one hand, I’m upset because it did go wrong. On the other hand, I’m happy that it did.”