We Were One Once Book 1 Read online

  we were one once

  book 1

  BY

  WILLOW MADISON

  ©2015 WILLOW C MADISON

  All rights reserved.

  No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Madison, Willow

  we were one once (one, book 1)

  Cover Design by David Colon (www.colonfilm.com)

  Edit by Q (www.editingbyq.com)

  This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in the book should be interpreted as advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.

  San Francisco: Simon Lamb

  Watching. It’s the first thrill I get. I like this part—the beginning, watching. Sometimes it’s from afar, but usually I’m up close. I try to get as close as I can. I like to smell. To hear. For me, it’s all about the senses. I’m a product of my environment, and I need to have constant stimulation. I chuckle to myself with this thought.

  I touched this one once. In a store, I reached for the same can of soup on purpose. Her hand sprang away like I’d grabbed it instead.

  That was a good day, the day I first laid eyes on her. She dropped the can. I thought it landed on her foot, but it only rolled away. She didn’t even look at it or me, just walked away. She left her cart and walked away.

  I like this one. She’s special. They’re all special to me; but this one, she’s different. And it’s not just because she’s plain. Everything about her is plain. Kinky brown hair that hasn’t seen a brush in a long time hides large brown eyes that only dart around occasionally before they shoot down to the ground again. No makeup, and she’s so tiny, not even taking up half the seat she’s in. This one's not my usual object of sexual desire and definitely not what anyone would call an ideal candidate for sex slave of the year.

  I chuckle again but manage to cover this with a cough. The crazy Chinese bitch next to me keeps eyeballing me. I glare at her, and she finally gets up from her window seat just as the bus starts to enter the tunnel that bisects the streets lined with downtown storefronts from those fringed with pallets of food in Chinatown.

  I glance back at my girl. Plain as she is, there’s something about her. Something I saw right away. Something I smelled right away. This one smells like heaven. When she talks, her voice is almost musical, not lyrical but like a tempo beat that she stops and starts at the oddest points. It’s a rhythm all her own. And I like that she doesn’t talk much. It’s a relief from all the fucking chatty bitches in the world, all on their phones non-stop with their non-stop chatter. It drives me fucking nuts.

  I stand as the bus rocks to a stop and shove past a couple of suits and a hot fuck in leggings standing in the aisle. My height and build give me an advantage over the throng of passengers trying to get on or off. I make my way onto the street easily, past all of their pink plastic bags stuffed with bok choy, frogs, and an assortment of nasty smelling dried foods.

  I don’t turn around and say bye to my girl. This isn’t goodbye; she’ll get off at the next stop. She hasn’t looked up anyway, not for the last few blocks.

  I didn’t try to get close to her this time, just kept watching her from three seats away. I grin knowing that our time for getting real close is fast approaching now.

  What the fuck?!

  Where is she going?

  Alarm bells go off in my head and chest. I don’t like this. I don’t like anything besides the routine. I know her pattern by now. She should’ve gotten off the bus at the next stop.

  I always get off two blocks before her. Then she gets off. She walks the two blocks uphill to her scummy little apartment above the tea store. I walk by her as she goes up the three steps.

  That is our routine, not her fucking staying on the bus!

  So why is she fucking with me today and not getting off now?

  I jog to catch up with her at the next stop but have to slow myself to a walk when I get close. A tall, strongly built, blond man in Chinatown stands out. It’s been her one flaw, living here. I’ve not been able to hang out around her apartment as quietly as I’d like.

  She’s still on the bus. I stop. I turn around.

  I have discipline. I can wait for her to come back. Whatever she’s up to now, it won’t matter soon enough.

  I look at my watch. It’s 5:56 p.m. She hasn’t been out later than 7:49 p.m. before. I won’t have to wait long. She’s a hermit.

  I head towards the Szechuan restaurant located diagonally across from her steps. I can keep an eye out for her through the window, eat some noodles, and wait.

  I smile at the sweet little hostess as she shows me to a table. She’s not my type, but I know a buyer who’d pay to play with her. And she smells like cinnamon.

  I don’t make it obvious that I’m watching the building across the street. I push my body against the cold window but keep my face out of the fluorescent lighting and pull the brim of my cap down more.

  This one’s never looked up at me, never acknowledged that she’s seen me. I don’t want to take any chances though, not this close.

  For now, I’ll stay in the shadows. Watching.

  This one will be mine soon enough. Won’t be long now, Grace. I hide a grin, trying to imagine what surprise will look like on her normally blank face.

  Seattle: Miles Vanderson

  Facing away from my office door, I take a moment to center my thoughts. From my lofty vantage point, the snaking boardwalk lights of Bell Harbor are starting to brighten against the darkening sky. The cacophony of clinking from sailboat riggings is barely audible through glass thickened to withstand the harsh Northwestern weather. I take a deep, calming breath in and wish for the salt in my lungs. If only these windows could open.

  With a measure of control that I don’t truly feel, I turn in time to see my door opening. “Spencer, glad you could check in before I have to take off tonight. You have news about Gillian?” I direct the man to sit on a sofa, choosing the chair to his right for myself.

  Spencer puts his bag on the coffee table and pulls out a large laptop, old-school to a fault. I wave off my assistant, indicating that the door should be closed behind her. She leaves in silence, quickly.

  My irritation has been evident all day. Spencer is only the latest in a long line of investigators I’ve hired over the past three years to search for Gillian. Each one has disappointed me. In this age of information and technology, you would think finding one small girl would be easy! With my vast fortune, you would think it would be even easier.

  Our family has always garnered the attention of the press, but never more so than when my stepsister went missing three years ago. Every detective for hire in the country knew the names Gillian Starck and Miles Vanderson then. In the beginning, they resembled salmon forcing their way up hatchery ladders, churning up every square inch of Seattle in an attempt to look busy and useful. They all wanted a chance at the large reward I offered.

  I ended up hiring the agency with the best track record, both for finding missing women and for keeping quiet about any details. I paid a premium price to keep my family’s name out of any potentially sordid stories. And still, every detective has failed to provide me with any useful information, leaving me with only a cold trail.

  “Mr. Vanderson, I’m afraid I don’t really have much to report.” Spencer responds to my arched brows, “Yet, Sir. I’m following a few new leads though. Let me show you…”

  “I fired your former boss, Spencer, because his agency fa
iled to produce any concrete news on Gillian. He exhausted all of my patience.” I sit forward to look at his computer but keep my fingers steepled in front of me, a copy of a look my father employed often; he used it to intimidate and exude calm, controlled anger. I think I do a better job with it.

  “Of course, Sir.” He pulls up copies of documents, old emails, stubs from ATMs, and transcripts from interviews. “But I think I may have found where Miss Starck went after she left Seattle.”

  I lower my chin onto my fingers and rest my eyes on a far wall to conceal the excitement this news generates in me. “Go on.” My voice only betrays my longing by a slight ratchet in its depth.

  San Francisco: Simon Lamb

  Another look at my watch, it’s 9:03 p.m. Grace still isn’t here. My hands are sledgehammers at the ends of my corded arms.

  I have to loosen up. I’m in public. The dragon-embraced streetlights only provide a sickening glow, but it’s enough for anyone to see that I don’t belong in this quiet neighborhood now.

  I had to leave the restaurant; I couldn’t sit there any longer and go unnoticed. I smell like Dim Sum. This whole fucking block smells like it. I won’t leave until she’s home, but I can’t stay on the street. I wish I’d driven over here.

  I make a decision. It’s early, but I’m ready for her. I’ll have to get my car and come back. But tonight, Grace, you’re mine.

  I smile, relaxing now that I have a plan.

  I take the three steps up Grace’s shitty building with the smell of the closed tea shop filling my nose. I already have a key. This is the easiest part. Money buys a way in every time. Doors, locks, alarms—they never matter to me.

  I’m in and out, never noticed, never stopped.

  Her apartment is just as I remember it. Three weeks ago I was in here, checking her out. There’s no roommate and no pictures. It’s just a furnished SRO with nothing personal added except a few childish drawings on the table and in the trash.

  I wondered if she had a kid at first, but I never saw one. No one comes here. No other kid stuff lying around either—so no kid, so not off limits.

  I decided that it must be a neighbor’s kid. I’ve seen a few of them hanging around her by the bus stop in the mornings. It’s the only time she smiles. It’s a tentative, secretive smile even then, hidden behind her dark hair or under her hand. Grace’s eyes always remain unreadable, even with that tiny smile.

  Walking around her apartment, I can see it’s the same as when I was here before. Her underwear is the four-pack variety, no frills. No thrills for me imagining her in them either, but they smell nice. Bleached and neatly folded, they’re nondescript just like all her other clothes.

  Grace is a clean girl. She smells like bleach and soap, never perfume, never makeup. It’s my idea of heaven. This place smells old and musty, yet there’s still a hint of her here.

  Her clothes are like her too—plain, colorless, brown or black, oversized. She layers so many pieces together she looks like a homeless chick afraid to leave anything behind. She’s small, like a child, but I don’t even know what her body looks like under all that. I’ll find out soon enough though. A grin spreads my face wider.

  I satisfy myself that everything is exactly the same, neat and tidy. Dishes are left out to dry next to the small sink. Fridge has milk, OJ, lunchmeat and bread in it. She keeps her sugary cereal in here too. Smart. This building probably has rats.

  I lie down on her small bed to wait for her. The springs creak and roll in protest of my greater weight. I idly wonder if they’ll break when we’re on it together.

  Seattle: Miles Vanderson

  Stuck in traffic, tail lights expand with endless tendrils of rain along the windshield. My driver leans into the steering wheel to focus more intently on the rush hour jam of vehicles. The constant drum of raindrops on the roof is almost soothing, and I’m grateful for the time to think about what Spencer was able to uncover.

  It’s been three years since I’ve seen Gillian, and that means three long years of searching for her. I’ve given a lot of thought to her whereabouts, what she could have been doing all this time, and why she ran.

  I’d rather be heading home, thinking about her as usual. It’s about the time I’d normally be having a stiff drink and getting a blowjob at the end of a long day, but business must come first. Even four years after his death, I can’t go against the puritan work ethic my father instilled in me. Martin Vanderson ran a tight ship, and no one, certainly not his only son, was allowed to slack off for any reason. I’m still controlled by his drive to achieve. It’s my drive now.

  Four years ago, the old bastion died on his way to a meeting about acquiring a nagging competitor. It was on this very road. I think of this whenever I head to Sea-Tac airport; but now, with this news of Gillian, I’m thinking back to that night in more detail.

  Martin Vanderson, Chairman and CEO of Vanderson Industries, was dead before the ambulance arrived on scene. A heart attack did him in before his injuries. Gillian’s mother, Anya, died that night too, though not right away. Gillian and I waited through her surgery, waited through her recovery. We acted appropriately relieved when she woke up. I held Gillian, supported her through it all.

  To all observers, we were the portrait of the devoted family torn asunder by the whims of fate. But I knew it was karma. It was karma driving the bus that skidded on the bridge and slammed into the limo carrying our parents. I knew it when my father died. I knew it when her mother died later that night.

  “Complications,” the doctor said, “infection, internal bleeding, swelling.” Karma.

  I remember Gillian’s dark eyes never divulged the fear I knew she really felt. She was afraid of her mother waking up. I know she was silently praying that she’d die without ever opening her soulless eyes again, that she’d never utter another vile word to her. It was my prayer too, for her and for me, for us.

  Gillian’s thin legs trembled when the doctors said Anya had regained consciousness. I had to pull her off the waiting room’s worn chair and shake her out of her blank stare. I had to force her to act properly, make her walk towards the recovery room with me.

  I kept Gillian close to me and held her up; I was a constant physical reminder to stay calm and controlled. She showed no fear. Her wide-open eyes just took everything in like she always did.

  Anya did wake up but only briefly. It was only long enough to suffer a little with the pain before drifting off into never never hell where she belonged. Gillian kept the same vacant look upon hearing the news and the entire drive home. She never showed her relief through the wakes, the funerals, or while listening to the will. She stayed frozen long after their deaths. She didn’t even show me her true feelings.

  Our lives may have changed that night, but everything stayed the same with one main difference. As the sole link to any form of family and with a small financial nudge, at the young age of 22, I was authorized to become the guardian of my 16 year old stepsister fairly quickly. Gillian was allowed to stay in what is now my home, and I was able to continue providing for her well-being as I committed to learning the ropes of Vanderson Industries. I was able to keep Gillian safe and with me. My ultimate plan worked, and I was closer than ever to seeing it to completion.

  I lost my father that night, but I gained access to a world of control and power that would have taken me years to gain under his watchful glare. Martin Vanderson never would’ve let me have the reins so early. I would have withered waiting for my chance to have what I wanted. If given the choice, the old man would’ve lived forever, I’m sure.

  With him in the way, I never would’ve had what I really wanted, Gillian free from her Mother. He was never around enough to see what went on. He married Anya because she was young enough to give him more children. Anya Starck was only 31 when she became Mrs. Martin Vanderson, the beautiful vessel of his future child that she carried down the courthouse aisle. He craved Anya because her shining example of her own perfection, Gillian, was exactly what he wanted
to reproduce. And even though Anya lost that promised future after only three weeks of marriage, he believed he’d have his chance for more children with her.

  After two years of marriage, I knew the reason she failed to make due on her end. Still, my father kept Anya close, forcing her to accompany him on longer business trips so he’d have access to her. Despite his efforts, she failed to provide him with more heirs. He was a waning old man, holding out hope. My own mother was his third wife, and I was his sole child from that failed union. Anya didn’t stand a chance.

  His obsession with having more heirs was Gillian’s salvation, though, and mine. Her mother was forced to be in that limo with my father, accompanying him to meetings on the east coast. They died that night so Gillian and I could live on. In peace. That’s what I thought as I left the hospital with my stepsister pressed to my side that night.

  It’s what I still think, driving down this same road across the same bridges. Peaceful, content, fulfilled, happy: these are words I’ve not known for three long years because Gillian ran away. She left after only one year under my roof. She ran from the safety of being with me into the unknown, and I’ve been searching for her ever since.

  Spencer has a lead though. All my money, all my influence, and I’ve only ever been able to trace her to the nearest city, Seattle. There she drained a few bank accounts, an impressive sum. The bank manager still won’t admit what she must have done to convince him to withdraw those amounts. She had the access codes, the passwords, and the signatures; but she got him to transfer and withdraw the money without alerting anyone, without alerting me. He also helped to make it all untraceable, or nearly.

  I’ve never found any information on what happened to Gillian after she left Seattle. She ran with enough money to hide for a good length of time if she was smart, and Gillian’s smart.