Chapter 6 #4
He goes slowly. Each swat is preceded by a breath of stillness that means I'm never braced for it and never surprised by it either. He's not trying to break me down. He's trying to hold me together, somehow, which sounds like a contradiction.
It is the strangest thing being completely present in something, incapable of being anywhere else, all the noise and motion and forward momentum of my usual brain just stopped. There's only the warmth and the sting and his hand and the sound of my own breathing.
I've never been this still in my own head.
I didn't know this was something I needed until it happened.
He continues this pace until the warmth has turned into a burn and I’m really feeling it.
I start to squirm and cry out. Where did the pain come from?
It’s not unbearable. It’s almost welcoming.
I feel the emotions bubbling to the surface and silent tears fall.
I collapse over his knee and just allow myself to be fully present in the experience.
Like the characters in my books, I’m finding a release I didn’t know was possible.
"Last three," he says, low and even. "Count them."
I don't trust my voice, but I use it anyway.
"One." The swat is low, landing on the top of my right upper thigh and I cry out. He means business with these three.
"Two." This one alternates to my left thigh. Then the last and hardest swat lands.
"Three."
His hand comes to rest on the small of my back where he rubs slow circles and I breathe out and my whole body does something I can only describe as releasing a tension I've been carrying since Tuesday morning, since the email, since the cider, since the particular accumulated weight of being someone who runs a little fast and a little ragged and doesn't always notice until she stops.
I notice now.
"Up," he says, gently.
He brings me up and settles me sideways across his lap in one easy motion, and his arms are around me and my face is against his neck and for a moment I don't say anything because I'm too busy being held.
His hand moves in slow, steady strokes up and down my back.
"How are you doing, baby girl?" he asks.
I have to think about how to answer that. "Quiet," I say, finally. "I'm very quiet."
"Good," he says. "Stay there a minute."
I stay there considerably longer than a minute and he doesn't say anything about it.
This is what it feels like. This is the thing the books were describing.
Not the sting, not the over-the-knee choreography of it but this.
Being held afterward by someone who isn't performing.
Being completely known by someone who looked at the most unguarded part of you and decided to take care of it and take care of you in the process.
I've been waiting for this. I just didn't have the words for what I was waiting for.
He leaves at ten. He has early rounds at the ranch.
At the door of the library he stops.
"The grand opening is next weekend," he says.
"I know. I'm writing about it."
"I know you are. I want to talk to you beforehand. About some things."
"Some things?" I ask.
"Things I don't want to wait on."
My heart pounds loudly in the quiet library.
"Okay," I say.
"Tomorrow evening. After the ski demonstration. Come find me."
"I'll find you."
He holds the door open and I step past him into the corridor, and for one moment we are very close.
We’re close enough that I can feel the warmth of him, close enough that if I turned my head the geometry of it would mean our lips would touch, and he looks down at me and I look up at him and the held thing between us is almost its own sound in the air.
"Goodnight, Maya."
Just my first name this time. Not Maya Daniels. Something about that is more intimate, not less.
"Goodnight."
I watch him go down the corridor and I stand there for a moment in the warm light and I think: tomorrow evening.
Things he doesn't want to wait on.
I don't want to wait on them either.
MAYA: He held my hand.
LILY: WHAT!
MAYA: After the tree lighting. We went to the library and talked and he held my hand for like half an hour.
EMILY: The LIbrARY?
MADISON: She got to the hand holding. Girl, you are moving impossibly slow.
HOLLY: What did you talk about?
MAYA: The cider thing. The thing where I don't pay attention to myself and act recklessly. He said I was unguarded, not reckless.
CHLOE: ...That's extremely a Daddy Dom thing to say.
AMBER: Extremely.
LILY: I like the way he framed that.
HOLLY: Maya, he's telling you who he is.
MAYA: I know.
MADISON: Do you KNOW know?
MAYA: He said he wants to talk to me tomorrow about things he doesn't want to wait on.
EMILY: Okay I need everyone to remain calm.
EMILY: I am not remaining calm!
LILY: THINGS HE DOESN'T WANT TO WAIT ON? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?
CHLOE: She's going to have a whole conversation tomorrow.
HOLLY: A very specific kind of conversation…
MAYA: Yes.
MAYA: I think so.
MAYA: I think I know exactly what kind of conversation.
MADISON: And?
MAYA: And I'm not scared.
HOLLY: I know you're not.
EMILY: Get some sleep.
MAYA: I'm going to try…
LILY: Dream about the hand holding. But help me God, if you two don’t at least kiss soon…
MAYA: Goodnight.
AMBER: She's going to dream about him.
HOLLY: Obviously.