7. Chapter 5
FRANKIE
S he shook her head. “No, I’m not.”
“No talking with your mouth full,” he lightly scolded her. “I don’t want you to choke.”
Frankie quickly swallowed. “No, I’m not homeless.”
Not yet. Any day now, she could be, though.
Her landlord could find someone better for her one-room apartment and kick her out.
Most of her things were packed in case she needed to leave quickly.
It wasn’t ideal, but she didn’t want to take any chances of getting kicked out and not being given time to gather her belongings. So everything stayed packed.
“Then you have an address to give me,” he told her. “No one else will know but us. Unless I am busy and you need someone to come check on you or pick you up.”
There was no way anyone was going to pick her up. She would take the bus until she got out of that apartment, that side of town, and had somewhere safer to live. She didn’t want Noah taking pity on her and asking her to move in with him, or offering to rent her a place.
Frankie didn’t know if Noah would do that, but she had a feeling he would.
He insisted several times on getting her dinner.
She knew if he found out, he would insist on her staying somewhere else, and she didn’t want pity.
She’d gotten herself in this situation, and she was going to get herself out of it.
“I just really don’t want people to know,” she whispered, looking down at her nuggies.
Frankie wasn’t hungry anymore. The anxiety over him finding out she lived in a bad part of town was overwhelming.
“Are you living somewhere unsafe?” he asked.
She placed her food on his desk and looked away. He knew . She should have just made up an address before so it would get him off her back. But her mind didn’t work well in situations like this. So Frankie had told him her address, not daring to look up at him, fearful that he would do something.
“I’m getting out of it. I’m just saving up money,” she rushed to add. “I got myself in this situation, and I’m going to get out of it. I just need a job, but me living there won’t hinder me from doing my job. I’ll be great at it. It’s never stopped me before.”
Frankie didn’t spend much time there anyway. She tried not to, so she didn’t get caught up in anything.
“Frankie.” His voice was gentle.
“I promise. I haven’t lived there long, and it’s just temporary. I don’t even really like it, but it’s what I can afford right now since I didn’t have a job before. Well, that is if I still have a job here.” She peeked a look at him.
His face wasn’t angry. He looked concerned and horrified. “Frankie, I’m not worried you won’t be able to do your job.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Good. Then there really isn’t anything else to discuss. I’ll just be on my way then and show up tomorrow for work. Promise I’ll be here on time.”
Frankie got up from her chair and looked at her nuggies. She wanted to take them with her as a snack for later on, but she didn’t want to be rude. Noah had mentioned she could take them home, but had things changed now? Would she look too desperate if she took them?
“Freeze!” he commanded.
She froze, her eyes wide as she looked at him. She hated when people used that tone with her, the one that meant they were business. The one that meant if she didn’t stop or did what they said, there would be consequences.
“You are not leaving yet. Sit down and eat some more,” he told her, his voice holding no room for argument.
Frankie plopped down in the chair and picked up her plate of food.
“Good girl,” he praised her. “Now I want you to eat slowly while I talk to you about something.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She knew where he was going to go with this, and she didn’t want it.
“I’m not going to tell you to move in with me,” Noah said, and her eyes went round. What did he just say? “As much as I want to, I can see how much it bothers you that I know where you live and that it isn’t in the best part of town. So we are going to do something about that.”
Her eyebrows rose. They were going to do something about it?
“Like?” she asked.
“Someone is going to pick you up and drop you off. I don’t want to hear it. They will pick you up and drop you off every day you have work. Next, I am going to come by and we will install some other cameras and place a lock on your door,” he told her.
“How did you know?” she whispered.
“I had a friend who lived there. I know what it looks like. Now, take a bite of your food.” He raised an eyebrow.
Frankie dunked one of the nuggies into the ketchup before bringing it to her mouth. Yummy. Her legs kicked back and forth as she happily munched on her food.
“You will earn five dollars an hour more than what was on the flyer. I’m not doing this out of pity. I meant to tell you before that we had changed the hourly rate,” Noah explained.
“Really?” she looked at him skeptically.
“Yes, really. I can call our finance guy if you want me to so you can hear him say it. Better yet, let me call Mac.” Noah got his phone out and swiped around on it. “Mac, you’re on speaker.”
“Yes?” Mac grumbled over the phone.
“I have the new hire here, Frankie. I’ve just told her instead of earning twenty dollars an hour, it will to be twenty-five since we decided to raise it,” Noah explained for Frankie’s benefit.
“Why are you calling me when we agreed this last week? Are you having second thoughts? We can bump it up another two dollars if we need to.” Mac sighed. “If you think it needs to be another two, we can do that. It’s within the budget.”
Frankie gasped as she stared at his phone. Noah was telling the truth. They had decided that they were going to raise the pay before she’d got here.
“I will bump it up another two to make it twenty-seven dollars an hour. Thank you,” Noah replied before hanging up.
“I,” she whispered, not knowing what to say.
“Twenty-seven dollars an hour. Is that okay with you?” Noah asked.
She nodded. Frankie needed to keep this job for as long as she could. It was her highest-paying job yet, and it came with insurance. She would be able to move out of her apartment sooner than she thought if she kept to a strict budget.
“Now, someone will pick you up and drop you off. I’m going to come by and install some cameras and another lock.
If at any point, you feel unsafe and want to move somewhere else, let me know.
I own a couple of apartments around town that you can stay at.
And before you say you can’t, you’ll be paying rent.
It will be a little lower than what I normally charge, but you will be paying rent,” he explained before she could say anything.
Frankie opened and closed her mouth several times.
“I just want you to know that you have that option. And if I hear that anything dangerous happens in that part of town, your street, or your apartment I will be moving you out of there.” He looked directly into her eyes.
“I know I said I wasn’t going to move you right now, but if anything happens, I will be moving you out. ”
What he was saying was reasonable. Frankie didn’t want to live there.
She didn’t feel safe there. But she also didn’t have the money to move.
Noah had just offered her a place, but she’d feel bad if she took it.
What if someone else needed it more than she did?
What if he was just taking pity on her? She didn’t want that.
She’d got herself into this mess, not really herself but it was what it was, and she was going to get herself out of it.
“Do you understand?” he asked. “Do you consent to that?”
She nodded.
“Words, Frankie,” he reminded her. “I need you to say words.”
“Yes, I understand and consent to it.”
It wasn’t going to happen, though. If anything bad happened, she’d have to make sure he wouldn’t find out. He didn’t have to find out, and if anything happened, she wasn’t going to tell him unless he asked. Hopefully, he never asked.
“Do you have any questions about anything?” he asked.
Frankie thought about it for a second.
“You can ask questions at any point. So if you don’t think about anything right now, don’t worry,” Noah offered.
“Punishments,” she blurted out.
Dominic had said something about punishments and the people who worked there. Was that still a thing? She didn’t see anything on the paperwork she’d filled out.
“What about them?” he asked.
“Dominic said something about if I did something wrong here, I would get punished. Well, I would have to consent to it first on the form, but I didn’t see anything about it…” She trailed off at the end.
Did she really want to be asking this? No, she didn’t. Frankie didn’t want any type of punishment, but she knew it was important to ask. What if she did something wrong and got punished without giving her consent first?
“We do have that option. Some people who work here are Littles. The ones who are and don’t have a caregiver sometimes like to opt into getting punished by one of the vetted Doms or owners,” Noah explained.
“I didn’t want to overwhelm you, so I didn’t bring it up this time.
But if you want to do think about it, I can give you the paperwork. ”
“I guess?” She sounded so unsure.
Noah searched her face, and she quickly looked down at her plate, which still had nuggies on it. She really wanted to eat another one, but she didn’t want to stuff her mouth when they were still talking.
“How about you think about it and let me know when you are ready,” Noah suggested.
“No one will do anything until then. And if you aren’t comfortable with it being just anyone, you can say who you would like to deal with the punishment.
If you do decide you want to be punished, if you do something that is against the rules, then we will need your hard and soft limits. ”
“Lots of information,” she mumbled, feeling slightly overwhelmed.
Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything about it.
Now she was going to go home and think about it way more than she probably should, stressing about it until she gave him an answer.
“It is a lot to think about, but we pride ourselves on everyone being safe here. If we don’t ask all these questions and have the form filled out truthfully, someone could get hurt.
We don’t want that,” Noah explained. “All of this ensures everyone is informed and that we will be as safe as possible.”
“Right.” She nodded, kind of following what he was saying.
Frankie had only ever had one Daddy before, and he was long distance. Their dynamic was different since they’d never actually met up in person. Punishments were creative and harder on her. Corner time was the worst, and she couldn’t ever do those again.
“I can’t do corner time!” she rambled. “It’s a hard limit.” Frankie groaned, not believing she actually said that out loud. “I shouldn’t have just said. You didn’t ask.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Everything was going to be okay.
“May I ask why it’s a hard limit?” he asked. “Just so I know if anything else could trigger the same response.”
Looking up at Noah, she searched his face, but she didn’t see any anger. He was slightly concerned, making Frankie relax a little.
“I get into my head and start thinking. Then I can’t get out of it. I think about the punishment and how bad I was for a while after, even though I know the punishment is done and all is forgiven. I fidget and can’t stay still, which makes the time always restart,” she honestly said.
Her body would shake from the tremors sometimes, which resulted in her timer restarting.
Her other Daddy didn’t understand that she couldn’t help it, or he just didn’t care.
Frankie knew that was a red flag, and after he stopped listening to her and her reasoning, she broke it off with him, but it had stuck with her.
She was never good enough for corner time. Her previous Daddy would stick her in the corner randomly over the phone as practice because he knew she had to have done something naughty.
Another red flag she ignored in the beginning.
But Frankie was out of the relationship now, and she was healing.
“I’m glad you told me, Frankie. I’m proud of you.” Noah smiled.
“My old Daddy tried to help me get better at corner time, but with each time it just got worse.” she started to talk again.
“I got so stressed that at any point he would stick me in the corner. I wouldn’t be good enough to complete it without having to restart the timer several times.
Or that he would have to give up corner time for that day after an hour, since I couldn’t keep still. ”
Shit. Did she just say that out loud to her new boss?