Thursday Nights

"Kidou Senki Gundam Wing" is copyright Sunrise, Bandai, and other interested parties. If you think I have any rights to any of this, you are very, very wrong.

My dilemma is unique. I'm absolutely positive that nobody has had to face this before.

I am a wealthy businessman - perhaps too wealthy. I've been the CEO of a major conglomerate since my mid-teens - and we're doing very well, thank you. I'm the head of my extremely large family - and you haven't lived until you've had to keep order at an Arabian family reunion. I've always excelled at everything I set my hand to.

And I'm gay. More than that - I like games, and I like being the submissive. I got into the scene entirely by accident - I mistook a club for a nightclub, one white-hot, desperately wonderful night - but I've never looked back.

On reflection, I was extremely lucky. I had drifted into one of the most extreme clubs in the city, and was wandering around with neither slave nor collar, which made me fair game. The predators didn't miss it, and began to circle around. I was eying them uneasily when Master spotted me, and walked up to me. "There you are," he said, as though he had been expecting me. "You forgot it again," he continued, and quickly looped a band of metal about my throat. "Honestly, Brighteyes," he continued in a scolding tone, "you know you should always put it on! Now come over here."

The circling men and women, eyes flat with disappointment at being denied a new toy to break - and yes, I know the type very well - drifted away, and I took the opportunity to observe my new Master.

He was slender, with graceful movements. While he was really no more than average height, he towered over me because I'm so short. His chestnut hair fell heavily over his face. Were I any taller, it would hide his face and his clear, expressive green eyes from me - so there, at least, is one benefit to being small.

He led me over to the table, where a glass of mineral water was waiting. He looked at it suspiciously, then lifted a hand to signal the waitress. She sashayed over to us, her spike stilettoes making her flesh sway and quiver around her costume of slender black leather straps.

"Two mineral waters, sealed, with two straws," he specified in a soft, rich baritone.

She nodded, her sultry gaze passing over the glass Master was ignoring with the barest pause. "A flavour, Master?"

"No."

I knelt beside his chair, as I saw the other submissives in the club doing beside their dominants. His hand fell to my shoulder, so lightly I almost didn't feel it. "I'm sorry," he murmured softly, almost too faint for me to hear, staring off into the distance. His lips barely moved. "I shouldn't have claimed you like that, but you're obviously new to this scene and with the attention you were attracting, you needed a Master to scare the sharks off."

"I'm glad you did, Master," I told him, peeping up at the fine-boned face through my eyelashes. "Master, may I ask a question?"

He glanced down at me. "Are you so new? You have the etiquette down pat. Yes, you may ask."

"Yes, Master, but I've read a lot. I was going to ask, Master, why you are ordering a new drink."

"Because when I left this glass, Brighteyes, there was less in it."

"Oh," I replied.

The waitress returned at that point, with the the drinks Master had ordered. Her jaded eyes widened as Master opened a bottle and placed it in front of me. However, she was well-enough trained that she didn't say a word.

I drank my water greedily, as my throat had dried from apprehension - not only kind, but understanding! How had I gotten this lucky? - and was finished long before Master was.

When he finished, Master laid his hand down again, this time on top of my head. "At this stage of the night, I am expected to either retire to a private chamber and enjoy you, or enjoy you right here," he murmured.

I shifted under his hand, so it slid onto my face. I kissed his warm and salty palm, and then gently sucked on his index finger for a few seconds. "Whichever you prefer, Master," I replied breathlessly, when I let the finger go.

He stood up quickly. The waitress materialzed at his elbow. "Master?"

"The key to the Green Room, please," he said politely. As soon as she returned with it, we left the bar.

So now, this is my routine on Thursday afternoons. I slip out from the eyes of all my employees and family to a ratty one-room apartment they don't know anything about, comb wash-out brown dye through my blond hair and I dress in the tight leather jeans Master likes. I clasp a silver band set with tourmalines about my throat, and I make my way to a nondescript house in the suburbs. I greet the doorkeeper, and he directs me to whichever room Master has selected for the evening.

I know very well that Master has been shielding me from a great deal that goes on in this world. In an environment where the humiliation and pain of others is considered titilliating, Master has neither raised a hand to me nor initiated any act I found distasteful. In a world where having sex publicly is considered commonplace, Master has never asked me to display myself.

I think I love him for it - he recognises that my need to humble myself goes only so far, that I do have limits. Perhaps he could push me further, and across them, but if he did, I'd break. And I know he doesn't want a broken doll.

We have never spoken of what we really are. He knows I am a businessman, and he has told me that he is a security officer, with a degree in computer programming. We have never shared our names - he always calls me Brighteyes, and I always call him Master. In our Thursday nights, time stands still and we're in our own world made of pleasure.

I suppose it had to change eventually.

It was just this past Monday morning.

I was inspecting the latest reports, and there were discrepancies. Serious ones. If I wasn't mistaken, it looked like somebody had been embezzling.

I suppose another's first reaction would be to call in the accountants for an audit, but something made me glance at the accounting report next. It tallied with the two odd reports. Which meant that Accounting was also in on the fix.

Fate definitely took a hand, and the next report I picked up was from Security. I immediately placed a call.

A quarter of an hour later, Abdul, the head of Winner Inc.'s Internal Security department, was buzzed through to me. He'd brought two other men with him.

"Hi boss," he said cheerfully, his ever-present John Lennon sunglasses sliding down his nose. "Hear you've got a problem."

I grinned. What can I say? Abdul has that effect on everyone. "That I do, Abdul. Will you introduce me to your companions?"

"Sure. You weren't clear on what the situation required so I brought up our two most versatile men. Boys, this here is Quatre Winner, boss and general poohbah around the place."

It's a good thing I like Abdul. It would be very easy to become very annoyed with him if I didn't.

"This here is Hiiro Yui. He defines improvisation."

"A pleasure," the very handsome young man said.

"Likewise," I replied.

"And this quiet one here is Trowa Barton."

I looked at the soft fall of chestnut hair, and drank in the clear green eyes.

"It's good to meet you," Master said quietly, in his rich baritone.

"And you, too," I said briskly, to cover my singing nerve endings. I pointed out the reports, and the discrepancies.

"Accounting's in on this." Yui stated succinctly, halfway through my explanation.

"Almost certainly," Trowa agreed. "May I use your computer, Mr. Winner?"

"Certainly," I agreed, stepping back. "And please, call me Quatre."

Trowa began tapping into records and comparing them with the reports. Then he went and pulled some hard copies of reports from the previous quarter out of my filing cabinet, and began to compare them, too.

"Whoever it is has suddenly become impatient," he eventually murmured. "Small and steady amounts have been draining out for quite some time, if I'm right about these figures."

"Then why haven't I noticed them before?" I asked.

He flashed a small smile at me, and my knees went gooey. "Like I said, they were small. You budget for a small amount of overflow, don't you? To compensate for rising prices and unexpected costs?"

"Yes, of course," I responded.

"Whoever it is was keeping within that overflow budget. That's why you and your telltales didn't pick it up - you were paying for costs you expected to pay for. This time, for some reason, they went over it. And that's why you picked it up."

Yui bent over and inspected the records. "We'll need time. And more information. It'll take me a couple of hours to write a program to compare and trace the computer records."

"You're better at that than I am," Trowa agreed. "I'll go through the reports. And that will take time too."

"So - when?" Abdul asked.

"We'll be able to arrest them on - Friday?" Yui guessed. "No, more likely next Monday. If that's not too long?" This last was directed at me.

"No. That will be fine," I replied.

On Tuesday, Trowa called me to tell me that things were going well. On Wednesday, he came up to my office again to give me an interim report.

So now it's Thursday morning. If I follow my routine, in less than six hours I will be leaving, racing to my little apartment, combing in the concealing dye, dressing in the fuck-me clothes that make Master - Trowa - oh, I don't know what to call him any more - so hot that he can't keep those long, elegant hands off me, and putting on the collar. The collar that binds me to his whims. The collar that binds him to me.

If I don't do it - if Brighteyes doesn't turn up - Trowa will be disappointed. Heartbroken, maybe. And then Quatre will have a chance to move into his heart.

Or maybe I will go, and just never tell him he's been screwing his boss for the past six months. He'd probably be intimidated as hell if he ever found out that I'm Brighteyes, and it's not like his - our sex life has interfered with his work. He's got an exemplary record.

Still, would he be intimidated? What if I go - but without the dye? If I faced him as myself? If he stayed - if we managed to work it all out, it would be so great. I could even keep him beside me all the time - he's got that degree in security, and my sisters have been telling me I need a bodyguard. Who better than someone who's already a loyal employee?

But that's only if it works out. What if it doesn't? What if he feels betrayed, that I've been laughing at him behind his back? Trowa has a lot of pride, and I don't think he'd forgive me easily.

I probably shouldn't go. He might recognise me - hair dye isn't much of a disguise.

But I need it - I need him. My body is already relaxing, in anticipation of my lover.

So I'm sitting here, staring at the clock, caught in indecision, waiting for something to tell me whether to stay or go.

Author's Note:

I know Trowa is the tallest G-Wing boy, but he's actually only 5'6" (165 cm) tall, which is average-verging-on-short for a Westerner.