“That makes it even more fun for me.”
She giggled softly, and then he thwacked the switch hard against the trunk just beside her. She jumped out of her skin. “Oh God, Daniel!”
“Are we having fun yet?” He tapped her ass cheeks with it a couple of times. “Stick your ass out, Wednesday. So I can aim better.”
“Hell no!”
“Do it.” With a sigh, she arched her back for him and thrust her bottom out.
Thwack
! The sizzle of fire burned in a stripe across her ass.
Oh God, freaking
…
God
… It fucking hurt. He rested the switch against his hand and sighed. “You’re so beautiful, Wednesday. I could do this for hours. I really could.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
Thwack! Ow!
“Sarcasm, darling. Watch it.”
Another cut of the switch lashed across her backside. She twisted sideways and tried fruitlessly to pull her hands away so she could cover herself. He only turned her back around and began again. Another stroke as she pulled and sobbed for respite. The pain was so brutal yet so fulfilling.
She could see the hint of him in her peripheral vision. A whine rose in her throat, dread for the next blow, which fell without mercy, crisscrossing the other four strokes so her ass felt outlined in pain. She pressed her cheek to the scratchy bark, bracing for more, but not sure she could take more. Instead she felt the touch of warm fingertips, a soothing contrast to the fire of the lash. He tossed the switch to the floor and pressed against the back of her, burying his head against her hair.
“God, you get to me, Wednesday.”
He turned her and kissed her deeply, twisting her nipples with a ruthless, painful tug. He lifted her hips in a bruising grip and thrust inside. She was pinned and powerless, subjugated by hot, rigid flesh. He slid out and in again, driving her thighs apart. She felt the drag of the restraints on her wrists, her shoulders. Her ass cheeks still stung from the switch; each stroke pressed her back against the tree, so she felt deliciously sore and fidgety.
“You like it? You like to feel my big cock splitting you?”
“Yes, Daniel! God, yes.”
“Pounding into you? I should have birched you harder, but I couldn’t wait to get inside your pussy, you hot little slut.”
Dirty talk, but the words were like a caress. Sick, sexy stimulation applied directly to her brain stem via her naughtier parts. She ground her clit against his front.
Don’t come. Don’t come
. She didn’t want the switch again, or maybe she did. She wanted whatever he gave her. She felt his mouth against her ear, a hot, wicked bite on her lobe. He slid his hands up to squeeze her breasts and pinch her nipples, sending craving tingles sliding into outright fire.
“I want to mark you, and I want to own you. I want to fucking live inside you.” His words were a brand, resonating in her pussy as he drove her closer and closer to release and ecstasy. She clenched her thighs with longing, heat flaring through her entire center and up to her belly and breasts.
“Oh God, Daniel! Please, please, may I come, Sir?”
“Yes, girl. I want to feel it. I really want you to move.”
The flame flared to a frightening crescendo. When the release came, it rolled in waves across her shuddering body. She kicked and bucked as sparks exploded in her pussy and clit, and her whole being seemed to contract around his cock. Her hair fell around her face in the midst of the wildness; she went positively feral. She was held fast by his body and by the bonds, by the towering tree, but at the same time she felt like she was flying. She threw her head back with a groan as the fire lulled to a shimmer, then sated exhaustion and ache. Her ass cheeks throbbed, and her pussy contracted around him in intermittent aftershocks. He came then, jerking up hard against her. She shivered as he traced his fingers over her straining arms.
“Untie me, Daniel,” she said weakly.
“It’s a little late now for safe words.” He reached up and released her wrists with two
rrrrips
. She slumped down into his arms. He gathered her up and carried her over to his massive couch. He was a solid wall, supporting her. She was loose like a rag doll, too tranquil to do anything but breathe in time to his steady breaths. When he left to take off the condom, she felt bereft, abandoned. He returned in seconds, and they snuggled together on the velvet upholstery. He nibbled at her shoulder, slow, mild bites that soothed her. Every so often he ran his fingertips reverently across the rising welts on her ass.
“Wednesday,” he said after a moment. “Why do you like it? Why do you like when I hurt you?”
She turned to him and reached her arms around his neck. She pressed her face to his damp skin, smelling aftershave and the scent of sex lingering. “You know, the hardest part of being in bondage is not being able to touch you.”
“Don’t change the subject. I’m curious. Why do you like when I hurt you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, drifting on the wonderful, manly smell of him. “I guess because I’m a masochist. And because afterward you’re so awfully nice and you hold me and cuddle me and stuff.”
“I would hold you and cuddle you without the other, you know.”
She looked at him thoughtfully. “Why do
you
like to hurt
me
?” She wasn’t sure how he would react to her turning the question back on him, but he shrugged and answered her quickly.
“Because it’s beautiful how you submit to me. Because I love the way you react.”
Wednesday trailed one finger down the side of his pensive face, feeling drowsier by the moment. “I like the way you react too. I like the way you pounce on me like you can’t stand to wait another minute. I like everything about you. It’s kind of amazing really. Hey, can I sleep here tonight?”
“I would be disappointed if you didn’t,” he said. “But before you fall asleep on me, let’s get you up into my bed.”
He woke before her in the morning. She slept on beside him—a tired, cuddled-up girl in his bed. It didn’t help that he’d gotten her up before sunrise to fuck her again. He slid out of the bed, trying not to jostle her, and pulled the covers around her before he tiptoed out of the room.
He started to do some work in his art studio but found he couldn’t concentrate with her so far away. He went back up to the bedroom and crawled in beside her with his laptop. He did good work for an hour, then put his laptop aside to gaze at her some more. She was so pale. Her skin was so beautiful and soft. She was so terribly, frighteningly vulnerable in sleep.
He looked at her long black eyelashes, which rested against her pale skin. She had dark smudges under her eyes that concerned him. Had he really worn her out so much? He would have to let her sleep and not molest her so much. He would try anyway. He continued his silent perusal of her features. He was charmed to find a freckle or two on the bridge of her nose.
Those freckles, wow, so adorable. He just stared at them, picturing her as a child with that curly mop of black hair. It was always in the back of his mind that Wednesday had once been someone’s daughter, someone’s child. He felt he owed it to whoever had brought this beautiful Wednesday into the world to treat her fairly and responsibly, although it was difficult sometimes to picture a sex goddess like her as someone’s child. Someone, sometime had wrapped her in a blanket to keep her warm, had cut the crusts from her sandwiches, had braided her hair, someone who had the same hopes and dreams for her that all parents did.
Or perhaps not. Vincent had told him she’d had a less-than-nurturing childhood. No mother to speak of and a cold, emotionally distant father. It was easy to try to psychoanalyze, especially with the way she’d allowed Vincent to treat her. He couldn’t imagine growing up without the loving warmth of a mother. His own mother still babied him, thirtysomething man that he was. He’d been an only child, like Wednesday, but he’d been spoiled rotten by two doting parents.
A rhyme he’d loved long ago came unbidden to his mind. He remembered his mother chanting it to him from his favorite book while she hugged him close.
Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go.
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.
She’d been born on a Wednesday surely, to have the name she did. He imagined her as a sad and serious child, sitting in a home devoid of any warmth. It wasn’t difficult to see. “
I like to just think about things sometimes for hours
.” He wanted to squeeze her and hold her for a long, long time. He wanted to somehow make up for all that heartache.
Wednesday’s child is full of woe
. How do you take away a childhood like that? With no one to nurture you, to make you feel valued and loved?
Daniel had been born on a Friday. He had plenty of love to give.
He sighed and gathered her next to him. He couldn’t help it. If she woke, so be it. She stirred but didn’t wake completely, content to sleep in his arms. He felt her heart beating against his chest. As much as it chagrined him, he realized now that Vincent had been right to pass her on to him. To not chance her falling into the wrong person’s hands.
Anxiety seized him when he thought about losing her, thought of her being hurt in some circumstances beyond his control. “
In turn, you’ll keep me apprised of her well-being
,” Vincent had said.
Or else I might lose my mind
, he’d probably added to himself. Daniel got it now, and he found some peace in that, but still, he knew Wednesday would never understand if she found out he was informing on her to Vincent.
She sighed in her sleep and whimpered softly. He pulled her closer. His Wednesday, lost and adrift in dreams.
Wake up
. He wanted to shake her from her cold, cold dreams.
You’re with me now. Everything’s all right.
* * *
They soon began seeing each other more often, sometimes several days a week, and at least once or twice a week she slept over, although at least as often she made excuses to go home. Sometimes they went out and did things together, but more often they just stayed in and had sex, which they now did without condoms, since tests had been done and she was on the pill.
It pleased him inordinately to be her first—not the first one to have fucked her, but the first one to have fucked her skin to skin. The first time he’d slid inside her without the latex barrier between them, it seemed a metaphor for all the new closeness they felt. It was incredible, being able to feel her, really feel her, and she, who had never had sex without a condom, was absolutely dazzled. The entire time, she’d marveled at how different it felt.
To Daniel, it just felt very committed. That was the main reason he loved it so much. She wasn’t crazy about taking the pill, but the alternative, getting pregnant, seemed to terrify her. She had grilled the doctor when they’d gone to get them. “
Will these definitely work? You’re absolutely sure
?”
He’d given Daniel a strange look as she’d gone on and on.
Poor schmuck
, he’d probably thought, wondering why his woman was so dead set against having his child. Ah well, there were tons of things he didn’t understand about Wednesday, but the pleasure of going bareback was more than worth the hassle of getting her on the pill.
Now that they were more settled as a couple, they tried to do things other normal couples did too. Sometimes they went to art shows or parties. He introduced her to some work friends, and she introduced him to some friends of hers. They were your average loved-up couple with a secret fantasy life that thrilled them both.
Vincent, unfortunately, continued to badger Daniel with phone calls, hounding him for information on how Wednesday was. Several times Daniel considered simply explaining all the machinations to her and hoping for the best. But in the end it seemed too risky with the complicated way she felt about them both. He hoped eventually Vincent would get over her, and the whole secret deal would go away, but he was disabused of that notion soon enough.
Vincent became so persistent, Daniel began to worry she would be there with him sometime when he called. He finally agreed to meet with Vincent in person and sneaked over to Vincent’s house, looking over his shoulder. He knew Wednesday was at work, but still, he had an unreasonable fear of being caught. Daniel was only partly surprised to find a girl kneeling at Vincent’s feet.