I had my legs stretched out under the desk and my head tipped back, balls pulsing deep and cock throbbing hard when the distinct trill of my phone sounded out loud and clear.
Maya.
I knew it would be Maya.
I cursed as I grabbed the phone from the desk top, panties still tight around my dick.
Millie needs picking up from school on Wednesday, she has swimming club after. And don’t even think about letting her around those dogs again. She said they were jumping all over her last time. I could smell them on her coat.
My gut did its usual lurch as I checked the team diary and found a presentation meeting with the rest of the management team on Wednesday afternoon.
I’d usually panic over the fallout of refusing Maya anything, but not this time.
I’m busy at work on Wednesday. Can you rearrange what you have planned?
I could already imagine what she had planned. A bitching session with her friend Dawn over a coffee, in the guise of a therapy afternoon.
I was right.
Dawn and I are working through our self-development plan. She can only do Wednesday.
I shoved the panties back in my pocket and gave the phone my full attention. Usually I’d be scrabbling around trying to rearrange my own itinerary, dropping everything of mine to keep Maya amicable. But not the fuck today.
I can’t rearrange my meeting, Maya, sorry. I’m sure my mother will pick up Millie from school.
I held my breath at the impending punishment. Sure enough, it came.
Fine. Put your work before your daughter. You can put your work before her next weekend too.
I cursed out loud.
What do you mean I can put my work before her next weekend too?
I knew the answer before it came.
She can stay with me next weekend. I’ll make plans to see Dawn then. Millie can play with Phoebe to keep them entertained.
My reply was pointless, but I sent it anyway.
I already have plans for Millie next weekend. We’re going to Sea Centre to see the sharks.
And so it came.
I already had plans for Wednesday. I guess we both lose out, don’t we?
I threw the phone on the desk, gut twisting. All these months since Maya upped and dragged Millie away from me, she’d been nothing short of dangling puppet strings. I was a pathetic piece of shit, dancing to her tune, bending over at every whim of hers for the sake of seeing my daughter.
Fuck, how she’d made me fucking bend.
I didn’t even know why she was so determined to kick me in the gut at every opportunity. I didn’t know why she still wanted to hold our little girl as a chess piece in her game of fucking me over into submission.
Even then, sitting at my desk with my whole work week mapped out in front of me, I was tempted to get on the case of bailing out of my Wednesday responsibilities, but I didn’t.
I knew what was coming next before it arrived.
Mother. And once again, I was the asshole.
Will you get your priorities right for once? Maya needs your support.
My fingers were hovering over the screen as a flash of fuck you zipped up my spine. Because that’s what it deserved. One big fuck you.
A fuck you for Maya holding our little girl as a weapon for every time she didn’t get her own bastard way.
A fuck you for my mother always taking that self-righteous cow’s side of every stupid battle.
A fuck you for the whole sorry spectacle of having to jump through hoops every time I wanted to spend time with Millie.
I was done with justifying myself for every breath I took without their seal of approval. So, I didn’t. I forced aside the pain of losing Millie over the weekend, because I’d already stomached plenty of that pain over the past few months. I dug down deep and finally accepted that this situation wasn’t ever going to be resolved by jumping through higher and higher hoops until I was nothing but a show pony, parading around with that spiteful bitch on my back and my mother whooping her cheers from the sidelines.
And finally, with one glimpse of my real self shining up at me from the swampland of Maya demands, I decided that both she and Mother could go fuck themselves. I called up Maya’s message and typed out my response.
Millie is coming with me to Sea Centre this weekend. We’re seeing the sharks. Rearrange Dawn for next week. Self-development afternoon can go fuck itself, Maya.
I tossed the phone amongst the meeting minutes and calmed my breathing until my twisting gut opted to untwist itself.
No. Fucking. More.
I forced the fear, and the hurt, and the self-doubt behind me into the shadows where it belonged. I resolved to sort my fucking life out and find my spine again in the jelly of what I’d become for that bitch.