Walking property

Content warning: I wasn't sure if I should put this warning here or not, but here it is. This chapter contains depictions of an abusive boyfriend being aggressive and violent, though he doesn't hit his girlfriend. Since he only appears on the back half, I've marked his appearance with a line of asterixis (like this ********) so you can read up until then and be fine.

Aly and I moved on down the beach, away from all the ruckus and the people. There was a very obvious window for us to relieve ourselves of our mutual pent up tensions, but we had promised Bi we wouldn’t, so we both decided against it.

We walked silently for a bit, hand in hand. We both had smiles in the corner of our mouths, threatening to spill out any second, but we had to keep them up there for as long as possible. When we thought the others couldn’t hear us anymore, we broke down laughing.

“I almost had you! I almost had you owner, admit it!”

“Yeah right! If by ‘had me’ you mean ‘was wordlessly moaning and almost cumming from thinking about a three-way, or whatever-way, with everyone on that court’ then yeah, I’d say you’re pretty close!”

Aly punched me in the shoulder with her free hand.

“Don’t start, you were pretty close too! You were loving me grinding on your dick. You give me a couple more minutes and I’d have had you.” She sultry moved her hips for emphasis.

“You see, you doomed yourself when you tried to turn me on with what turns you on. You love some dirty talking, so you couldn’t help yourself from getting hot under the hood too.” She shot me an incredulous look, like she couldn’t believe dirty talk wasn’t at the top of my turn ons list. “Look, I love some dirty talking as much as the next person, but when you tried to sell me a whatever-many-way with the hot, sweaty, fit, alluring people playing the game…” both of us shuddered when thinking of that visual again, “you were fighting a losing battle against yourself.” I shrugged, tried to make my point across.

She gave me a saddened look.

“Not everything needs to be about winning or losing, you know?”

I sighed.

“I know, I know.” After a pause, I picked up my explanation. “But I sure wasn’t about to cum in front of all those people in public, so you get that I used whatever tools I had, right? Sorry if that was too much.”

“No, yeah, sorry if I got carried away with trying to make you feel good, owner. My plan was just to tease you, but I think it may have gotten out of hand a little bit.”

“Oh, just a little bit?” I asked, raising my brow exaggeratedly.

“Just a tiny bit.” she answered, holding her hand up with a minuscule space between her two fingers.

With tranquil smiles back on our faces, we walked in silence for a bit again. We reached the ice cream cart after a little while and each got ourselves a different flavor. Mine was chocolate and hers was strawberry.

We then decided to keep walking away from everyone, keep talking to each other with nothing but the winds and the waves for company. After a couple more moments of silence, Aly piped up,

“I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“I mean…” her face was slowly taking the same color as her ice cream. “The… picture you painted back there. Most guys wouldn’t even want to imagine their girl with another guy, but you went full throttle with that description.”

She stared intently at the cone in her hand.

“Well,” I couldn’t say I managed to hold my gaze up either. “You are just discovering your bisexuality, so I thought I’d lean into that. Appeal to you as much as you were appealing to me, you know?”

She smiled but didn’t say anything. The silence was threatening to grow awkward when she spoke up again.

“I gotta say, I feel very welcome in this new… community we are building.”

“Oh, you mean the harem?”

She spit her ice cream on the sand from laughing so hard.

“Is that what you’re calling it, owner? A little old school, isn’t it?” She doubled over from laughter, the highest point of her body being the hand holding the ice cream up.

“Do you have a problem with that? Perhaps some better suggestions?” I feigned some incredulity.

“Sorry, sorry.” She didn’t look sorry. “I just wasn’t expecting something so cliché to come out of your mouth.”

“Well, as I was saying before I got very rudely interrupted… ahm… actually, I think you were the one that was talking.”

“Right, right.” She managed to recover herself enough to speak coherently again. “I was just saying I’m feeling welcome by you guys. I mean, Barbie can be quite intense sometimes, but even then.”

“Oh you can say that again! That girl has been intense since the day I met her.” I exclaimed at the mention of my friend’s antics, but I softened soon after. “Welcomed, huh? But weren’t you the first to join me?”

“I mean even after everyone joined, I feel, like, I don’t know, it feels good to be a part of it.”

“Of the harem?” I joked, cheekily.

“You cannot be serious. That is what you wanna call us?!”

“I ask again: do you have any better suggestions?”

“The best I can come up with right now is ‘Property Pals’ but nothing could be worse than just calling our bunch a harem.” It was my turn to barely hold it together at the mention of ‘Property Pals’. “Sounds super cheeky, I know.”

“We can agree to workshop it, then.”

We giggled at those silly group names and threw a couple ideas around. We enjoyed the sound of each other’s laughs and the waves in the distance.

*********************************************************

I felt the pain before I knew what was going on. A hard knock on my chin, it destroyed my sense of balance and threw me to the ground. The sharp sting of the grains of sand on my face and the throbbing pain on my jaw were all I could feel. And all I could hear was her screams.

“Stop it! Get away from him!”

I pushed myself up from the sand. My head hurt, the world was spinning, but I had to focus. There was another man here with us. He was screaming too.

“You get away from her! She’s mine, you hear?”

He had slicked back hair that was shaved on the sides, a sharp, square jaw, and intense eyes, with a fire within them. And this guy was strong, I could see the muscles on his bare arms and under his tank top. He must have come from behind a dune, a hill, or something similar to sneak up on us like that. I didn’t know what he wanted, but he came out of nowhere and knocked me to the ground, so it couldn’t be anything good.

Aly interposed herself between him and me.

“Do not lay another finger on him, Luke, please!”

She called him by name. My head was still a bit woozy, but I managed to pick up on that detail.

“Wait, do you two know each other?”

“Well…” she looked back at me and her nervous stance was mixed with awkwardness as she answered, “owner, meet Luke, my boyfriend.” She turned back to the strong men in front of us to finish her introductions. “Luke, meet Alex.”

“Like hell he’s your owner! You’re not his, you’re my girlfriend.” The man named Luke stood his ground.

Oh no…

I knew it, I knew this Certificate of Ownership business was going to bite me in the ass sooner or later. Whatever lie the contract told people, whatever veil it threw over their eyes to justify me owning these women as the most normal thing in the world, this Luke guy seemed able to see past it. And he was not happy about it. No matter what came next, I had to stop him from getting any more aggressive, so I kept my hands down and approached him.

“There’s no need to get worked up, let’s resolve this issue like adults, alright? Let’s talk.”

“I don’t know what you did, but you stole my girlfriend from me, you piece of shit!” This guy had zero chill. Although, I guess if I was in his position, I would be angry too if I found out my girlfriend was fucking another guy, and this guy was treating her like an object.

Though, in my defense, I was still doing my best to not give in and **** these girls every chance that I got. Despite their very insistence.

“He didn’t steal me from anyone!” Aly came to my defense. “We’re out here enjoying a sunny day, having a good time, and you come out of nowhere and punch my owner in the face, what’s wrong with you?”

Ok, from what I could see the magic of the contract wasn’t gone completely. It was still doing its work in making Aly believe all that stuff, so why was big guy here seemingly not affected? Was it because he had a close connection with Aly? Maybe their bond would’ve allowed him to see through the illusion, but I can’t know for sure. I know I’ll have some serious words for that devil the next time I see him, but for now my focus should be completely on de-escalating this situation.

“A good time?!” Luke bellowed in anger. Some people on the beach began to take notice. “You shouldn’t ditch your long term boyfriend to hang out with some rando you just met. You should be with me, back home.”

“I already told you I’m not going.” Aly raised her voice as well. “You can’t keep dragging me anywhere you go just because you don’t want me out of your sight.”

The way this was going, I was less worried about us making a scene and more that this guy may get violent again. I tried to say something to calm them down, but he cut me off like I wasn’t even there.

“Yes I can, you’re my girlfriend. You’ve been mine since we were young, I have to take care of you so you don’t get yourself mixed up with a piece of shit like him!” Now he remembered I existed and got right in my face.

“He is no piece of shit,” Aly came to my defense. “I am here because I want to! I signed the Certificate of Ownership and gave it to Alex so I would become his.”

It occurred to me just then that I had never asked Aly why she had done that. Maybe because she was the first girl to show up and I didn’t know what was going on back then. Both of the others had told me why they were doing this, why they signed the certificate and gave themselves away. But not Aly.

“Ok, guys, there’s no need for screaming. Let’s just sit down and talk this through, what do you say?” I said in what I hoped was a soothing voice, trying to placate them one more time.

“I did not come here to talk with you, man. I came here to take back what’s mine.” He was not interested in calming down.

But something he said caught my attention. “Take back what’s mine.” “You’ve been mine.” “My girlfriend.” It made me wonder if the enchantment of the contract wasn’t working on him because he saw Aly in a different light. Not because of their supposed emotional connection, which wasn’t very positive from what I could see. Not because of his position as boyfriend, nor his proximity to her. And certainly not because he cared deeply enough to remember. In the end it made me wonder, did he… did he see Aly as his property?

“Hang on, when you say ‘what’s mine’, you mean…” I let my curiosity get the better of me, and that may have been a mistake.

“I mean I’m going to take back what’s mine, no matter what.” Luke grabbed Aly by the wrist and began to drag her away, inland.

“Let go of me, you fucker!” She dug her nails into the flesh of his palm. The strong man howled in pain and surprise, but he let her go.

Luke was done with this shit. He raised his hurt hand to slap Aly into submission. I moved with all the speed I could muster to stand in the way. I would take any blow from this monster for Aly to stay safe, every single time. But I wasn’t the fastest person on this shore.

And neither was Luke. Aly grabbed his wrist as his arm was coming down and, using his momentum, and her own body as leverage, she dropped him to the ground mighty fast. She twisted his arm over his back and pinned him down with her knee.

“What the fuck?! Let me go, you crazy bitch!” He yelled.

“Doesn’t feel good to be manhandled now, does it?” Her voice dripped with contempt.

“Aly, are you ok?!” I rushed to her side.

It took her a second to realize I was speaking to her, and another to move away from her contempted state of mind, but she managed to flash me a reassuring smile,

“Yes Alex, I’m alright.”

I smiled back. It then occurred to me:

“Wait, since when did you know how to pull off a maneuver like that?”

Before she could answer, a crowd of voices came running in our direction. The people from the volleyball court saw our altercation and was rushing to our aid, chief among them was Bi. Luke saw them too, however, and he was not going to take this lying down. He shook his body just enough to leave Aly out of balance, then pushed himself up and bolted.

“No way I'm gonna be grabbed for this shit.” were his parting words.

I tried to tackle him, but he shoved me hard to the ground and ran off.

“Owner! Aly! Are you ok? Who was that asshole?” Bi reached us and was immediately checking us for injuries. “Damn it, he got you good, owner. I wish I could’ve been here in time.”

“It’s ok Bi, Aly is safe and that’s what matters.” I tried to sound reassuring as I winced from her touching my injuries. “That’s nothing. You should see the other guy.”

Bi chuckled, but all Aly could muster was a small corner-of-the-mouth smile.

The other people who came to our aid were catching up. Most of them checked in on us to make sure we were ok, a couple of the guys ran off to try and catch Luke, but that ended up not amounting to much.

Aly hadn’t said a word since Luke ran away, so I tried to catch her attention and cheer her up.

“Damn girl, those were some awesome moves! Where did you learn to do stuff like that?”

She gave us a light smile as she gestured to our cop friend.

“It was actually Bi who showed me a couple self defense moves earlier this morning. Remember when you asked what we were doing, I said she was showing me some moves, and then you made it weird because you thought it was a sexual thing? It was that.”

“Oh…”

Even though she answered, her voice was quiet and she was clutching one arm. It was true that I was a little embarrassed from the mistake I made this morning, but I also wanted to be careful with what I said to her next. She didn’t give me time, though.

“I guess… I have some things to explain to you, owner. To you all, really.”

“Not here.” Bi prompted. “Let’s go somewhere more private, more comfortable.” Our eyes met, she could see my worry for Aly and she reciprocated the feeling.

“Say, why don’t we look for another ice cream shop so I can make up for the spilled ones? My treat!”

“The last ones were also your treat, owner.” Aly gave me a sly smile.

“And who’s gonna stop me from doing it again?”

“Not me, that’s for sure!” Barbie piped up, catching up to our intentions, and helping us get going faster. “I know just the place, and it’s not far from here.”

“Lead the way.”

And there we went, towards some ice creams, and some hard conversations.