Chapter 4: Total Ownership
The concrete floor of the back room was a cold, unyielding ache against her knees. The chain clicked softly as Becky shifted, the collar a familiar weight now, a second skin of worn leather. She focused on the sound of the waves, trying to let the rhythm smooth out the jagged edges in her mind. It almost worked.
Then the smell hit her.
It wasn’t the usual brine and old wood. It was acrid, foreign. A ghost of smoke clung to her skin, her hair, woven into the very air she breathed in the closed room. It was the smell of everything she used to be, gone.
The lock turned in the morning. Claire entered, her face pale under her freckles, holding two mugs of coffee. She didn’t speak, just unfastened the chain from the wall ring with a quiet efficiency, her fingers brushing Becky’s shoulder.
“Here,” Claire said, her voice unusually soft. She handed Becky a mug. “Black. Two sugars.”
Becky took it, the heat seeping into her palms. She stood slowly, her joints protesting. “You went to the unit.”
Claire nodded, looking away. “The whole block’s a shell. They’re calling it an electrical fault. I’m so sorry, Becks.”
The words hung there. Sorry. Sorry for the photos of her mom, smiling in her graduation robe. Sorry for the box of letters from her first girlfriend. Sorry for the stupid, silly t-shirt from a concert they’d gone to together, faded and soft. All of it, now just charcoal and memory. Becky sipped the coffee. It tasted of nothing.
“I have nothing,” Becky said, not as a plea, just a fact. The words were hollow, a shell washed up on a beach.
“You have here,” Claire said, her tone firming, finding its familiar ground. “You have me. And I have you.” She reached out, her thumb tracing the line of the leather collar around Becky’s throat. It wasn’t a caress, not exactly. It was a reminder. “Legally, for now, that’s how it is. This is your home. I’m what you have.”
The silence stretched, filled only by the distant crash of a wave.
“Come on,” Claire said, turning toward the main bar. “My back is a solid block of tension from dealing with the insurance people all morning. And my feet are killing me.”
Becky followed, the bare soles of her feet silent on the warm floorboards. The bar was empty, afternoon light slicing through the shutters in dusty bars.
Claire sank into a worn armchair in the corner, the one her grandfather had loved. She toed off her sandals and let out a long, tired sigh. She looked at Becky, her green eyes unreadable. “Kneel. Right here.”
Becky knelt on the rug beside the chair. The posture was becoming routine, a punctuation mark to her days.
“Start with my shoulders,” Claire instructed, leaning her head back. “You used to be good at this.”
Becky’s hands lifted. She placed her palms on Claire’s shoulders, feeling the tight knots of muscle through the thin cotton of her tank top. She began to knead, applying pressure. Claire groaned, a low sound of relief.
“That’s it,” Claire murmured. “Harder.”
Becky worked in silence, her own mind a numb blank. She focused on the physical task, the feel of warm skin and tense flesh under her hands. The scent of Claire’s shampoo, something coconut, cut through the phantom smell of smoke.
After a while, Claire shifted. “My feet now.”
Becky moved lower, settling cross-legged on the floor. She took Claire’s left foot in her lap. It was strong, the arch high, a few calluses on the heel from always being in shoes or sandals. Becky began to rub the sole with her thumbs, working in slow circles.
Claire watched her, sipping her now-cold coffee. “You know,” she said, her voice casual, conversational, “without that storage unit, there’s literally no paperwork tying you to an old address. No rental agreement. No utility bills. It’s like Rebecca Diaz got erased. It’s just Becky now. My Becky.”
The words ‘my Becky’ settled in the room, heavier than the chain had been.
“Yes,” Becky whispered, not looking up, concentrating on the ball of Claire’s foot.
“Yes, what?”
Becky’s hands stilled for a second. She knew what was wanted. It had been hinted at, danced around. The fire had burned away the buffers, the excuses. She felt a flush creep up her neck, warm and confusing. “Yes, Mistress,” she said, the title strange and thick on her tongue.
“Good,” Claire said, and there was a new lightness in her voice, a satisfaction. “Now the other one.”
Becky switched feet. As she massaged, her mind fractured. One part grieved, a hollow echo for a life in ashes. Another part was purely, simply afraid of this new reliance, this absolute ownership.
And then there was a third part, a secret coil of heat low in her belly that tightened every time Claire said “my Becky,” every time she issued a soft command. It flared now, as Becky’s fingers worked over Claire’s instep, as she felt Claire relax completely above her, a sigh of pleasure escaping her lips. This was service. This was belonging of a different, terrifying kind. It was surrender, and the part of her she didn’t want to acknowledge thrilled at it.
She hated that part. She feared it. But her hands didn’t stop moving.
When Claire’s breathing deepened, nearing sleep, Becky finally let her own hands fall still. She remained on the floor, Claire’s foot resting in her lap, watching the afternoon light crawl across the dusty floorboards.
The smoke was finally gone from her nostrils. All she could smell was salt, coconut, and the faint, clean scent of Claire’s skin. She had nothing. No past, no belongings. Just this bar, this chair, this woman who owned her.
And the terrifying, undeniable spark of arousal that refused to be extinguished, burning brighter in the emptiness.