4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
T wo weeks later…
Laying in bed, the morning sun peeking through the crack in the window curtains, Cole folded his hands behind his head and studied the ceiling.
For the last few weeks, Cole had pulled out all the stops. It didn’t take him long to figure out the more she was left with nothing to do but sink into her own head and unhappy thoughts, the more trouble she tried to get into. He couldn’t even say she was doing it on purpose. He doubted she was. It was her, on cranky autopilot, trying to do everything she could so she wouldn’t have to ask for help.
Although these were all actions he could and would have spanked her for in an instant any other time in his life, right now, he couldn’t justify it. He knew what she was doing, even if she didn’t, because she’d been this way for as long as he’d known her. The worse her day was going, the worse she felt inside, the more she tended to internalize it, twisting reality on reflection until she’d convinced herself it was all her fault. That she was a bad girl, and the only thing that could possibly make it all right again was if Daddy took her across his knee and made her good again one hard swat at a time.
None of that fit in this situation. She wasn’t bad, she was injured. A spanking might make her feel good again, but the risk of her hurting herself even more in the struggles and throes caused by a really good spanking, were too high. So, he did the next best thing he could think of. He took her out of the house, and together they did “all the things,” as Kelly was apt to say when her Little side reared its sweet head.
The first day they went to the zoo, where he ended up signing her up three times for camel rides. And boy, did her Little come out! The poor zookeeper must have spent twenty minutes kindly and patiently explaining why it wasn’t a good idea to have camels in the big city and, when that failed, explaining why the zoo would not be selling her one of theirs. He was pretty sure ten years from now–when he knew she was secure enough for him to pop the question without too high of a risk she might say no–there was going to be a pet camel in his living room, spitting on the carpet and eating his couch.
That was something “future him” could deal with because his hands were full enough as it was, what with working remotely from home, taking care of her, and now the daily excursions out to have fun. He took her out for ice cream, for picnics in the park where she spent a happy hour feeding the ducks and geese. He only turned his back once, to take their garbage to the nearest trash can. When he turned back, she had captured one of the birds and was approaching with that Daddy-do-you-love-me look on her face and the world’s most laidback wild duck in her arms.
“No,” he told her before she could even open her mouth. He never should have gone to the public restroom after that, but fortunately, once they were in the car, he managed to detect a soft muffled quack before he took the highway exit for home. He turned around in record time, returning the duck to the park before taking Kelly straight home for twenty minutes of corner time with her hands on her head and her bare bottom on full display.
“How many times does Daddy have to tell you no?” he asked.
Head bowed, Kelly had answered, “Once.”
“Apparently, not today.”
Marching her into the bathroom, he gave her an ice water enema to help her remember what happened when she ignored his nos. She cried, hugging her tummy while he used her naughty girl butt plug to make her hold it for a good twenty minutes. Afterwards, he rocked and cradled her, with a cup of hot cocoa and extra marshmallows to comfort her now that discipline was done. He also pulled her collar out of his playbag, hoping just wearing it would ease her into a more submissive mindset. Sometimes that worked; sometimes he had to grab her by her collar, hauling her up onto her tiptoes before yanking her in close, nose-to-nose, close enough to kiss. Close enough to watch her submissive self melt as he growled “no”.
The days seemed to pass in a dizzying whirlwind of punishments as Kelly fought her body’s need to rest and heal, along with near-daily outings to keep her overthinking mind distracted.
They killed three hours at the arcade once the swelling and bruising in her fingers faded back to almost normal. He took her for dinner at Pizza and Pipes, where an old organ played theatrical music to the enthusiastic dancing of animatronic puppets on a theater stage, complete with a red velvet curtain that came up and down between each show. He spent two hundred dollars online at the Lego Shop, plus expedited shipping in the hopes the packages would arrive within days rather than weeks. He even took her to their local dungeon, a place they’d been to before although not recently and never regularly. In fact, it had probably been a year since last they’d attended. But they were welcomed back as if they’d never left, and Kelly spent several hours crawling on the floor with the other Littles, sharing their coloring books and drawing media, playing Jenga and board games until it was time to go. And just yesterday, he went to the store for pizza and enough candy and ice cream to put together a fairly professional-looking sundae bar. She sugared out completely, and it was 1 A.M. before he got her to sleep.
And one time–one time–he spanked her. It was gentle and fun, with several swats finding their way between her legs for stinging spanks that didn't take anything more than a flick of his wrist to bring her crying up onto her toes. He loved that she could orgasm from that alone, and he made sure between spanks and busy fingers and his cock that she came over and over, until he'd exhausted her. She slept like an angel all night long.
Unfortunately, the fun and relaxation she gained rarely lasted beyond the day and never more than two, but then bratty Kelly always returned and it was as if they were back on Day One. She needed spanking, if for no other reason than because she'd convinced herself in her mind that was the only thing that would chase away the bad feelings relentlessly chewing her up inside. And this morning was definitely no exception.
She kicked the table legs all through breakfast, poking at her eggs, bacon and toast with blackberry jam (her favorite) and eating very little.
"Eat your food," he told her in his Daddiest voice.
She bowed her head, as if that could hide the sullen side-eye she shot him.
When he put his fork down and stood, she quickly stuffed half an egg into her mouth and chewed, but it was a sulky obedience. Eventually he decided cutting her some slack was the best thing to do for now and sat back down again.
“Check that brattitude,” he warned. “You are treading on very thin ice.”
After several long minutes, filled with nothing but the sound of utensils clicking on dishes and their chewing, Kelly muttered an unsatisfactory, “Sorry.”
He noted the lack of “Daddy” tacked onto the end of that, and that more than her mutinous expression told him everything he needed to know about how today was going to go. And he hated– hated –how the only thing he could do was continue finding new ways to distract her before she wound herself up to an explosion. The pouting and grumbling were annoying, but he knew how to deal with it. The breakdowns, inconsolable sobbing and shouting—he had no idea what to do about that, and Kelly refused to acknowledge any consolation unless it came in the form of a spanking. And not just any spanking, she wanted real pain so she could feel normal again. Relaxed.
Then maybe he could relax too. For a little while, anyway.
He sighed, knowing there was nothing he'd have done differently even if he had known just how unraveled she'd become just for having to rely on someone for daily help. That was the hardest for him to understand. He wasn’t just ‘someone’… or was he?
He'd been her boyfriend for years, and he'd known right from the start that she was skittish when it came to trust. Over the span of their time together, she’d kept her past private, and what few pieces she had let fall formed a pretty bleak picture. And he knew full well that he had only scratched the surface of some deep, deep childhood trauma.
But that was life, wasn't it? Bad things happen. To everyone, not just Kelly. But God, what she had been through. He'd give anything he had, everything he was, if only he could somehow flash back in time so he could have put his arms around the little girl Kelly had been and protect her from what the world and her parents had done. But that wasn’t how time or good intentions worked, and all Cole could do to help her now was navigate the present.
Rolling his head, he looked to the bathroom door, behind which the soft rustles of movement told him Kelly was getting ready for the day. She'd been in there for, what? Twenty minutes now? He checked his watch, then tucked his hands behind his head again, content to wait while he pre-planned how to keep her mentally occupied and in a good mood.
A heavy thunk from the opposite side of the bathroom door caught his attention. He lifted his head, staring at the door. Too soft to signify she'd fallen… had she dropped something instead?
"Kelly?" he called, trying to place the sound. Everything went silent in the bathroom, and with every one of his Daddy Dom senses tingling, he sat up.
"I'm fine!" Kelly called back.
"What was that?" Tossing back the blankets, he stood. "Are you okay?"
"Fine!" she repeated, her voice rising as things clattered, clunked and dropped behind the sanctity of the closed door.
And that was all the grace he intended to give her. Dressed only in the bottoms of his red checkered pajamas, he rounded the bed, headed right for the bathroom door. One didn't have to be the Daddy of a child to know that Littles in a quiet room were Littles getting into as much trouble as possible. Except it was the bathroom. Seriously, how much trouble could she possibly find in there—
He gripped the knob only to find the door locked.
His eyes widened, at first astonished that she would even dare to put a locked door between them, and then his temper spiked. "Open this door. Right now."
"One minute, please!" she called, her singsong voice shaking. If it was any indication, the rest of her was probably shaking too. As far as he was concerned, she'd better be. Shaking was a good indication that she knew she'd just gone too far. The fact that she'd lock the door meant she knew she was doing something he'd object to, and in this moment, although he didn't know what exactly she was doing, he did know she'd just found his hard limit.
"Open this door now," he ordered, but he was already reaching above the threshold to grab the tiny emergency screwdriver to stick in the pin hole on the door knob. The lock popped and he flung the door open just in time to see Kelly knock an entire basket full of fingernail polish on the floor as she tried to wrap her arm in a concealing towel.
She whipped around, her eyes wide as she took in the sight of him, filling up the doorway, and he took in the sight of his tin-snips on the bathroom counter amid all the colorful plastic shards of her newly destroyed right cast. The left was in the garbage can, stuffed under a mountain of freshly unrolled toilet paper. The entire roll, by the looks of it.
"What. The. Hell," he said flatly, disbelief dying fast beneath a rising surge of anger so hot his whole body burned.
Mouth opening and closing, Kelly stared at him, her eyes huge as she hugged the towels concealing her arms to her chest. "Da-Daddy..." she squeaked.
"Oh no," he told her. "No, no. Don't you even 'Daddy' me. Kelly, what did you do ?!"