Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Lola
All day every day, Zeke ran our arrangement like a drill instructor who expected fast and unquestioning obedience. But at dinner and after, he always softened. He’d cook nice meals, and always find little ways to pamper me. He still expected compliance, but the drill instructor seemed to fall away when the sun went down.
Today had been no different, though it had been unexpected. I was still sitting at the table reeling from our discussion when he came back, walked straight up to me and put out his hand. When I took it, instead of leading me into the living room like he usually would, he stole the chair I’d been sitting in, turned it away from the table and plopped down, pulling me between his knees.
“Oh!” I gasped before I could stop myself. Then my eyes narrowed because I knew this dance well.
He chuckled. “That’s right, babygirl. You've earned yourself a spanking.”
“What?” I hollered as I scanned my brain for some clue as to what I'd done wrong. I’d been punished before dinner and nothing naughty had happened since then. But it must have, because while Zeke was very strict and had a ton of rules, he didn’t go looking for reasons to spank me. He didn’t have to. I gave him enough. Feeling defeated, I looked down at the floor. “Okay, Daddy,” I whispered, my eyes already filling with tears. I was still feeling raw from our earlier conversation, so it wouldn’t be hard to make me cry.
“Lola.” Zeke’s tone was sharp as he reached up and brushed a tear away. “Crying already, babygirl? That’s unusual.”
“I don’t know why I’m being punished,” I whispered. “But whatever it is, I’m already sorry.” Another tear fell, landing on the thick denim of his jeans.
“Oh, baby.” Zeke’s voice was softer now, the one he usually used during aftercare, or at night when he tucked me into bed. “You aren’t being punished. Not really. You’re getting a spanking, but that doesn’t always mean a punishment.”
“It doesn’t?” I narrowed my eyes and regarded him with cautious skepticism. Our conversation, the one we’d just had, wasn't supposed to change anything, but if I hadn’t done anything wrong and I wasn’t being punished, yet I was still getting spanked, hadn’t it?
“Think of it as an alternate form of therapy,” he said. “I told you on day one that if I ever heard you questioning your worth in any way, you’d get spanked for it.”
“Oh.” I did remember that, but I was still lost. “Did I do that?”
“You did.” He nodded gravely. “When you insinuated that I wasn’t getting anything out of this because I wasn’t getting sex. When you say that, it sounds like you think sex is all you have to offer, and when you start thinking like that again, we’re always going to have a talk. And that talk is going to involve my hand and your ass.”
I squirmed under his firm hold and scrutinous gaze, but I didn’t deny it, because that was exactly what I’d been feeling. I was still confused about one thing, though. “But… I’m not in trouble?”
“No, baby.”
“But I’m still getting a spanking?”
He nodded. “I’m a big believer in the power of therapy spankings. Sometimes when people say things, it’s not enough to hear it. Sometimes you need to hear it with a little pain behind it to drive the message home.”
“That sounds like a punishment,” I griped, then immediately felt guilty because I knew Zeke’s heart was in the right place, and he really was just trying to help.
“It does, a little, I suppose,” he agreed. “But it shouldn’t feel the same.” He looked up and into my eyes, and gave a hopeful smile. “I know you’re confused and unsure, but I really think this is important. Will you just trust Daddy? Please?”
Ugh. I didn’t want another spanking, not when I could still feel the first one, but when he put it that way, how could I say no? Besides, I couldn’t help but be curious about this whole ‘therapy spanking’ thing. “Okay, Daddy,” I said sweetly. “I trust you.”
The pain in my ass would be worth it for the look in his eyes when I submitted to him. Every time, and this time was no exception.
He nodded, then eyed me shrewdly before standing up, further confusing me, and led me to the living room.
“W-what?” I stuttered as he walked us over to the couch.
He sat down and drew me between his legs once more, before explaining, “If it’s not a punishment, then I shouldn’t conduct it like one. I want you to be more comfortable so you can relax and let go.”
“Oh. That makes sense. Thank you, Daddy.”
“You’re welcome, baby.” He placed his hands on my waist and tapped the band of my jeans. “These still need to come off, though.”
I sighed. This was still the worst part of a spanking. But he made me do it every time, and though I’d never admit it, I understood why. Sighing, I slid my jeans down and stepped out of them, then tugged my shirt over my head.
When I was standing there in just my panties and bra, Zeke took my hand and tipped me over his lap. I landed with an oomph across his hard thighs. And, as always happened, I had to remind myself to breathe because the nerves took over. This time, they were twofold. The usual nerves that I got from knowing it was going to hurt, and a new set because I was nervous about not knowing what to expect or how I’d react.
Fighting tears already, I scrunched my eyes shut when I felt Zeke’s large hand resting on my ass.
“Do you know why Daddy thinks you need this spanking, baby?”
I sucked in a breath, because I knew the routine by heart by now, and already things were different. Usually he’d ask “Why are you over Daddy’s lap getting your bare bottom spanked like a naughty girl?”
There was a fraction of humiliation in those words that always got me, but somehow, this was worse.
I swallowed hard, pushed out a breath, and forced myself to answer, recalling his explanation from earlier. “Because I said something that insinuated I didn't have worth aside from sex, and what I could give you that way.” My voice pitched up in a squeak and guilt filled me. He was right. That was exactly how I’d sounded, and I’d worked so hard on that reaction in therapy. But give me three weeks of close quarters contact with a sexy-as-sin man and apparently my thought processes reset.
That made me mad at myself, but it didn’t fill me with a hopeless despair like it would have at the start of my therapy journey. That was something, I supposed. My satisfaction at my progress only lasted a second, because the next one Zeke lifted his hand and delivered a swat that took my breath away. Then another, and another. He just kept going, each swat harder than the one before. There was no time to breathe or cry out between swats, and it felt more like a punishment than anything had.
Until finally, he stopped, his large hand resting on my now-warm bottom as I gasped for the air I hadn’t been able to get while he was spanking.
“You have worth.”
Three words. Spoken with a conviction that would have taken my breath away if I had any left. More profound than anything my therapist had said, or any self-help pearl of wisdom I’d consumed. Their simplicity delivered. He could have stopped right there, but he didn’t. His hands moved to my lower back and he rubbed slow circles as he spoke in firm, yet somehow soothing tones.
“You are worthy. Of love, of compassion. Of attention, of respect. Of everything. Period. There’s no ‘if’, there’s no ‘but’. There’s just that simple truth. You have so much more to offer than just your body and what you can do or be for men, in and out of a relationship. Honestly, when I see how much those teachings have hurt you, how much damage they’ve done, I want to hunt down every single person who perpetuated that belief and kick them in the balls.”
I couldn’t stifle my laugh when his tender, sweet declarations ended with threats of violence. “They don’t all have balls!” I cried, laughing.
“That’s honestly even worse,” he grumbled. “But you know what I mean.”
“Mmm-hmm,” I murmured, closing my eyes, letting the laughter fade, focusing on his hand on my ass, and his sweet words. Relishing the simple truths in them.
More than the words, the man they were coming from was vindicating. And though I knew now not to judge my worth on a man’s opinions of me, the fact that this man in particular cared for me, without the promise of sex, without being waited on hand and foot, with him caring for me more than I cared for him, that meant something.
I was marinating in those feelings when his hand came off my lower back and hovered just above my hot bottom.
“You are more than a warm body,” he told me a second before his hand exploded across my sit-spots. “You were not put on this earth to serve a man. Your purpose is not to keep them happy. It’s not to be seen and not heard, it’s not to stay in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant, or whatever lies you’ve been told.”
“Yes, Daddy.” The whisper was thick and breathy as my throat was clogged with emotion. My face felt hot, and my eyes were wet, though tears weren’t falling freely quite yet.
“Say it,” he commanded.
“I… What?” My body went stiff as I twisted back to look at him over my shoulder.
“I want you to say those things while I spank you. Until you really believe them down into the depths of your soul.”
He’d made me count a few times, and answer ‘yes, Daddy’ when he asked questions during a spanking, but this was different. It felt different. But then, he’d promised me that a therapy spanking would feel different than a punishment spanking. I hadn’t believed him at the time, but now I was starting to get it.
“Ready?” he asked.
I wasn’t. Not at all.
But his hand crashed hard against the fleshiest part of my bottom, anyway, and then he paused like he was waiting for something.
I swallowed hard, my cheeks heating, tears pricking the corners of my eyelids. I wasn’t sure what he wanted. A certain order and exact iteration? He hadn’t said anything like that, so I just said the first thing that popped into my head.
“I am more than just a warm body!”
“Good girl.” His soothing affirmation was more powerful than the statement itself. Not because it came from him, a man, but because I was being praised specifically for refuting those horrible self-beliefs. It made me want to do it again, and I got the chance because as soon as he spoke, his hand crashed down across the opposite cheek, hard and unforgiving. But there was something powerful in the pain. Something that hadn’t been there before. It wasn’t just absolution, it was… freedom.
“I am worthy of love!” That one rushed out on a gasp, like I had to get it out fast before someone could come up behind and tell me it wasn’t true.
“Yes, baby, you are.” He affirmed my declaration, then let his hand fall hard twice, once on each aching ass cheek.
“I have a purpose!” I didn’t add ‘aside from keeping men happy’ but it was implied. He knew it was there, just as I did, but the statement felt more impactful without it.
“A beautiful, wonderful purpose,” he agreed, a split second before spanking again.
We went on like that for a while, him spanking and me following with some iteration of the beautiful truths he’d spoken to me. After a dozen swats or so, I’d run out of things to repeat, but it didn’t matter. I came up with my own. Every awful lie, every stupid thing that had been spoken in order to keep me down and in my place fell from my lips. I was crying hard, with big, sloppy tears falling down my face, my body shaking with sobs, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.
The process was so cleansing, so affirming, so… therapeutic that I just kept going until finally, it was Zeke that stopped, rubbing my numb bottom, then pulling me onto his lap where he cuddled me against his massive chest, held me tightly, and wiped my tears. All the while he whispered what a good girl I was, what a strong and beautiful woman, how the people that had broken me down were the scum of the earth. I clung to him, crying harder with each beautiful, eye opening truth.
But no matter how wonderful the truths felt to speak out loud, or how much Zeke’s praise healed my broken heart, it was the next words he spoke that hit me right in the feels.
“I’m so lucky to know you, Lola,” he said as he snuggled me close and dropped a chaste kiss on my forehead. “And so thankful for this time with you. Thank you for letting me be your Daddy, baby.”
I’d been told my whole life to make myself into a person that a man would be lucky to have. To have . But Zeke felt lucky just to know me. And I wasn’t giving him any of the things I’d been told added to my value. Not sex, not my body. I wasn’t serving him in any way, and if anything, it was quite honestly the other way around. And still, he felt lucky just to know me.
That hit the hardest. Harder than any spanking or any of the spoken truths. Those were the words soothing my soul as I wrapped my arms around his neck, buried my head in his chest, and just wept.
It was right then that I knew this was the man I wanted in my life forever, and that I would do anything I could, anything it took, anything in my power to make it happen.