The Right Thing Read online

  And, despite the initial awkwardness, McKenzie’s willingness to learn and not become discouraged or give up impressed Mr. and Mrs. Lee. She owed those abilities to him too. He had enhanced those qualities or trained them into her. The other employees were willing to give her a hand, and months without what many people would deem as normal human contact, she found herself ever so carefully enjoying the camaraderie. Donna absolutely lit up when ’Kenzie accepted the invitation to go for that drink.

  “We’ll go to the Silver Stud, if that’s okay.”

  She shrugged, not knowing the area personally, so Donna led on.

  It was a short walk to the small, dimly lit bar. ’Kenzie looked around once her eyes had accustomed to the poor lighting and saw working folk, much like herself, mostly nursing beers. There was no wine glass in sight, although that was probably rye and cola in front of some of the drinkers. Beer was gross, but not wanting to trust a mixed drink, she ordered the same thing as Donna, which turned out to be a beer with a name quite unknown. Donna pushed a small dish of nuts over, but she declined. Even after all the things she’d done with her mouth, avoiding anything that could harbor diseases was habit, and she was certain many unwashed hands had pawed through those nuts.

  That was probably why she liked working at Mr. Lee’s. The place was clean and she helped to get things clean, even if she’d never again be clean herself. McKenzie hadn’t felt dirty during the entirety of her service, but now could barely bring herself to consider what she had done in the name of love. Because she’d come to recognize the truth of what she was. A sex toy. A fuck bunny. A whore. Didn’t matter if it had all been in the name of love. These people would never understand, and she would be a pariah.

  Catching herself drifting again, she turned her thoughts to the simple matter of reaching up to tighten the elastic band on her hair, trying to hold herself in the present with the little sting. Glad now she’d decided not to shave her head, investing in some decent conditioner instead. She called less attention to herself this way, tying her mane back and tucking the tail under her collars. Donna pulled the dish toward her and sorted through the contents with the intensity of a gourmet chef searching for just the right ingredients for a special meal. She looked up and gave ’Kenzie a crooked smile.

  “Didn’t get this size by not putting shit in my face, ’Kenzie. And I didn’t get this size by being happy. What’s your story?”

  McKenzie managed not to flinch away from the question. Donna didn’t appear deep at work, not interested or insightful, let alone observant, but then the other woman rarely spoke and was always focused on her job. Donna’s affect was usually flat and she seemed so introverted. ’Kenzie herself had been extremely observant, alert to his every nuance and need, but that was necessary, part of being in service. And in truth, he’d been as in tune and aware of her as she’d been of him, for the most part. Which was why giving her to the twins didn’t make sense, other than as a desperate attempt to push her away. She sighed. What was done was done and there would be no more regrets. She’d given him one final, last part of herself, saved him from regret and self-hatred. ’Kenzie had begun to work on convincing herself she didn’t want to be in service ever again and knew there wouldn’t likely be anyone to serve in any event. Now she needed to take him off his pedestal and accept he was only a man.

  The best she could manage was a cool, “I don’t know what you mean?”

  Donna saw right through her. “Yeah, you do. I just thought maybe you’d like to talk about it. I could use someone to talk to, and share things with, but that’s okay. I open my mouth sometimes and stuff falls out. Forget it.”

  The pain in Donna’s voice was well camouflaged, but McKenzie heard it. Maybe it would be okay to listen and maybe she could share a little of the vanilla stuff. Maybe. Hurrying to reply before the silence dragged on too long and the opportunity lost, she answered. “I haven’t talked to anyone about this. Ever, Donna. I don’t know how. But I’ll listen and maybe you could teach me.”

  Donna’s big brown eyes misted over and a faint flush spread over round cheeks. ’Kenzie looked past the protective pounds and saw a lonely woman who suffered too. Impulsively reaching out and to lay a hand on Donna’s forearm McKenzie then snatched it back as though burned. Donna composed herself at the move and managed a smile.

  “Looks like we’re a fine pair, girl. Let’s just have the beer and try again some other time.”

  Feeling both relieved and rejected in that moment Mckenzie nodded and played with the brew until Donna finished. The other woman grabbed hers away to swallow it down in a few long swigs, throat working against the liquid.

  “We can get a coffee or something next time. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Donna shoved up from the seat and nodded, then took her leave.

  McKenzie found herself staring dumbly after Donna’s lumbering form before standing to walk back to her present residence. At least her mind had been taken off her own stuff, even for a few minutes. Maybe she would survive after all, and not just mark time. Probably just needed to keep her head down and keep busy and think about the fact other people had tough times too. After all, that’s what she’d been studying for, studying to become and do before all this. To help others with their tough times as a social worker. After this realization, she decided she liked herself a bit better and that he existed in another time and place in a universe far, far away. She’d also been in school long enough to know what denial was, and how powerful it could be. But if denial saved her she would savor it like a drug.

  Chapter Three

  The days ground past and the nights somehow brightened with the rising sun and turned into more days, but Michael was impervious. He found McKenzie on the security tape leaving the building in jeans and that hoodie, his last sight of her. The guard hadn’t even protested when he yanked the tape from the machine and took the precious thing with him. A quick sweep of the apartment determined she took nothing not belonging to her when she’d come to him. In fact, she took less than nothing, because he found the suitcase in the back of the closet, mockingly empty. Michael flirted with the idea of reporting a theft to the police in the hope they could find his woman, but what would he tell them she’d stolen? His selfish heart? His soul? His life?

  In the end he put a few more holes in the sheetrock and broke any number of decorative items before calling everyone McKenzie knew, being totally honest in his desperation to find her. They all denied any knowledge and not a few of them told him to fuck off and die. Fair game. He then called the head of the private detective agency providing security for his company. Giving them the tape tore his soul, letting that last visual of his sub out of his sight, because he had absolutely no pictures of McKenzie, not a video, not one. Nothing. Not even of her looking beautiful in bondage or being tormented to gorgeous orgasm or doing his bidding with other players, accepting their lust and their correction for his pride and pleasure. He called all his colleagues and asked them if anyone had taken a picture with their phones, begging them to look, to no avail. How was it possible he had nothing to look at except for a grainy surveillance tape now out of his hands?

  The memories in his head fucking well hurt too much to examine and he didn’t let himself go there. Not at first. Then he called in an artist and had the man draw McKenzie like one of those police sketches, only in color. Describing her treasured features was an exercise in anticipation and excruciating emotional pain. Michael slept with the picture that first night before having copies made and distributed in poster form to every place in the city that would hang them.

  REWARD! MISSING PERSON! CALL!

  Michael made the advertisement look as attractive and obvious as possible to all the mercenary creatures in the city and assigned dedicated phone lines to the cause, staffed twenty-four seven. He came home each night to nothing and no one. Dozens of calls rolled in but none came to fruition. He wondered if McKenzie had left the city. He even called her mother. The woman sounded like she didn’t even know she had a
daughter and only the hint of money elicited any interest, although with no results. He drove the streets at all hours looking for his sub, hoping against hope he’d catch a glimpse. He prayed, for the first time in forever, making promises to reform and do good works. Michael wanted to be that better man, that man worthy of McKenzie’s love. He castigated himself every fucking moment of every fucking day.

  The business chugged along under the watchful eyes of the directors and talented employees. In truth, Michael wasn’t needed there in his present state of mind, and it freed him up to look for McKenzie. If only he knew where to start amongst the teeming millions. The weather would soon change and if McKenzie had nowhere to live she might die along with the others who didn’t survive a winter in the harsh city. He had a designer come in and do the little room over in McKenzie colors—warm earth tones and pale sages and blues. Then he slept in the new queen sized bed every night, holding the pillow that still held her scent. He sat in the aviary and tried to take heart from her feathered friends, those jewel-like winged creatures she cared for so diligently when she had actually been the bird in the gilded cage. The bird he had almost inadvertently set free without any kind of preparation. The feeling of powerlessness and utter fear took its toll. Michael didn’t realize how bad things were until Jenifer confronted him.

  “You need to pull yourself together, Michael. And don’t look at me like that. I’m not one of your terrorized women. Have you looked at yourself lately?”

  Michael muttered at his cousin and tried to ignore the terrorized women part when he really wanted to slap Jenifer for speaking the truth. How could he have been so absolutely fucking stupid? Jenifer followed him as he tried to escape to McKenzie’s room.

  “Michael! Attend to the problem like you’ve done with any other problem! Get a grip and fix this.”

  Michael put his head in his hands as he sank onto the bed, shoulders no longer capable of carrying the burden. Jenifer’s voice kept thumping in his ears and he listened because he was too tired to tune her out.

  “You either find McKenzie or you bury her and move on. And to do either you need to be well to get it done.”

  “I can’t bury her. I can’t. I’m so fucked up, Jen.” Was that really him? That plaintive, childish voice? He tipped his head up with a concerted effort and stared at his cousin. Jenifer was the most ruthless person he knew, and if she wanted to be a Domme, had those kinds of interests, she’d excel at it. His cousin glared back at him, dark eyes flashing, blue black hair fairly bristling with indignation.

  “Well?”

  “I did this. I drove McKenzie away. She could be anywhere. Or dead.”

  “Not interested, Michael. It’s done. Figure it out like you’ve figured everything else out in life challenging you. You can’t grieve and let her go until you actually accept she’s gone. If she isn’t, then find her. I know what I’m talking about.”

  Michael heard something in Jenifer’s voice at that moment, something poking through his maudlin state of mind, but still he whined. “I’ve been trying.”

  “Then try harder. Expand the search. Hire more people. Throw money at the problem. Ride it until it won’t carry you anymore and then decide. But you’re a mess, in pieces and you aren’t coordinating things. It’s your job. You fucked up. Fix it.”

  Fuck it. Trust Jenifer to lay it all out for him. Everyone else close to him had been kind but kept their distance, probably because this was a side of him they’d never seen and it scared the shit out of them. He didn’t need people like that. He needed McKenzie. But he also realized if the same effort had been made looking for McKenzie as had been made in driving her away his sub would be home by now. Tied to the bed, plugged in every orifice, marked to his satisfaction and pleasured to madness. That was where she should be. He stood, catching his balance against the weakness brought on by eating nothing, drinking too much and allowing himself to be less than a man. Jenifer smiled narrowly and accompanied him to the kitchen. Michael hoped she would offer to cook him something, but clearly her job was done. Punching him hard in the shoulder, Jenifer wished him luck and left. He picked up the phone and ordered in then sat at the granite counter making notes and outlining his new plan of attack.

  * * * *

  Several weeks went by. Michael did some business but mostly rode the collective asses of the people responsible for keeping the search going, coming up with different and sometimes creative ideas for them to pursue in his pursuit of McKenzie. He refused to believe something had happened to his woman, although the trips to the morgue were horrific. After trip number four, Jenifer again intervened and insisted DNA testing be done using a profile gleaned from the hairs taken from McKenzie’s brush. The labs miraculously completed all testing in record time when properly compensated and if the public sector got fucked over and had to wait in line he didn’t care. He had the money and the contacts and used them without a qualm.

  The detective agency had a veritable army of people out combing the shelters and interviewing street people. All the churches and soup kitchens were posted and visited regularly. People tried hard, some for money, some because they had soft hearts. Again, he didn’t care. Everything was a means to an end. He didn’t stop to think about what he’d do when he found McKenzie. He was just going to find his sub. If she’d left the city then things would get tougher, but now, in Michael’s head, nothing was insurmountable. The search would be expanded at the end of the week to the areas surrounding the city and he was working on a contact at the FBI as to how to file a missing person’s report country wide. That was taking more finesse than anything. Seemed the Feds were less impressed with money and position.

  Michael kept returning to dissect his screw up, though, wishing he could turn the clock back, but it only served to remind him everyone had limits. He found the contract McKenzie signed, and burned the damn thing, flushing the ashes, appreciating that particular symbolism. Why he ever thought they needed a contract was just a measure of how much he feared his sub’s power and figured he could manage it with a piece of paper. And he fucking well broke it anyhow! McKenzie had two established limits. She refused erotic asphyxiation and being handed over to another, although consented to being shared as long as he was part of the action. Michael then convinced her to let him erotically choke her, to trust him with enhancing her pleasure and McKenzie gave over, terrified but willing and while he didn’t do it often, the act served to underscore his mastery over his sub.

  The fact he chipped away at one limit had stroked his enormous ego and now made him nauseous to consider that height of arrogance. Because it really hadn’t been just about his sub. McKenzie completed him and he didn’t need so many of the trappings. It was for his own sense of security she allowed it. He knew that now, hindsight being twenty-twenty and insight a lesson hard learned. At her expense. God.

  The sharing was limited to his stupid whims until he introduced his sub to Andrew and Joyce. For the first time McKenzie begged a private audience in the middle of an orgy. She knew what the twins were and sensed they wanted her, alone; that the sharks were circling. Michael remembered how miserable it made her to badmouth, however delicately, any of his friends or acquaintances, to hint he might not have good judgement. His first impulse had been to soothe McKenzie, reassure her. Instead, because he feared that softer side as it emerged and grew because of her influence, He brushed her off casually with a flippant reassurance, and she made herself accept the little he had given. He monitored the twins’ involvement that night, but they wheedled and manipulated him into letting them do some things that went past his better judgement. No wonder McKenzie thought he would turn her over to them. He had failed her then, but she’d forgiven him, given him another chance.

  They’d moved to a place in a corner of the terrace, one actually isolated from the rest of the group. Michael took on the role of the voyeur, watching as Andrew staked McKenzie out, hips elevated by a hard leather pallet beneath her little ass, legs bent and spread. Joyce used clover
clamps, compressing the little gold circlets he’d inserted when he’d had McKenzie pierced. His sub whimpered at the pressure and pain, and despite the fact her cunt glossed over with the juices of arousal, her eyes sought his and telegraphed anxiety. He hadn’t given much back. He simply expected McKenzie to gain strength from his presence, and she had done so. Andrew ate her pussy until she screamed in protest at the incessant orgasms and Michael jerked off to the sights and sounds. He wouldn’t let Andrew fuck her pussy or ass, but Joyce somehow convinced him that her using a strap on while McKenzie blew her brother wasn’t the same thing. He could now admit his prurient interests and attempt to resist McKenzie’s allure contributed to acquiescing. If Michael thought it would change things, he’d give McKenzie the crop he favored and bare his backside for her now. But he had to find her first.

  “Really, Michael. I had no idea that you were so attached, my dear.” Joyce’s upper crust British voice poked his very masculinity, pricked against his secret awareness of McKenzie’s power over him. He knew he wasn’t attached in that way to McKenzie; she was his sub and his possession and he got to make the decisions as to how she was used. He just didn’t want to share two of her orifices with anyone else. That’s what he tried to convince himself and others. But Joyce didn’t actually have a cock, although she clearly wished she did. More of a man than Andrew, in truth, Joyce wore the pants in that sibling relationship, probably bossing him while still in the womb. Joyce’s hard green eyes glittered with mirth and something else. Something that made the base of Michael’s neck tingle in atavistic warning. But the supercilious comment had the required effect, something he so regretted now.