Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Jack
After dinner, we headed downstairs because she wanted to see the Dungeon and we were going to take a swim. There was a couple playing in the Dungeon, a flogging scene, and several other couples watching them play.
The woman wore leather cuffs on her wrists and ankles and nothing else, and panic snaps held her immobile against a large St. Andrew’s cross with her back to the room.
The man had several pairs of floggers hanging from a rack and when he started using an intricate Florentine pattern, I watched Emmy more than I did the man.
Her eyes widened as the woman playfully stuck her ass out at her Top, making him laugh and strike her harder, faster, the slaps of the leather falls striking flesh audible even from where we stood.
Emmy motioned for me to lean in and whispered, “She looks like that doesn’t hurt.”
“It probably doesn’t hurt. The floggers he’s using are specially made for that, the handles. The falls are probably stiffer leather than my flogger, but a lot of people assume floggers are cat o’ nine tails or flails, when usually they’re not. They just sound and look scary.”
She nodded and continued watching. She wore a dark blue Hello Kitty robe over her swimsuit. I bought the robe for her after dinner because I saw how much she’d liked it. When the couple finished, she turned to me. “Do they have video classes about that? About what he did?”
“Probably. Do you want to go back to the room?”
“Not yet. I want to swim.”
“Okay.” I held her hand and led her out of the Dungeon and toward the indoor pool, but then she caught sight of the arcade and playground area.
“What’s that?”
I led her over and she stopped in the doorway, staring at the adult-sized playground equipment, complete with a ball pit. There wasn’t anyone else in there at that moment and she didn’t even realize it when I took her towel from her.
“Go play, sweetheart.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Leave your sandals here.”
And like that she bolted, taking a flying cannonball into the ball pit with a happy squeal and making my heart swell with joy.
Oooh, yeah, we’d be making frequent trips back here.
I put our towels and shoes in one of the storage cubbies by the door and walked over, pointing at the top of the swinging bridge near the peak of the enormous structure, which you had to climb to reach.
“Beat you to the top.” I started climbing as she squealed in outrage and floundered her way out of the ball pit.
Yes, I sandbagged a little, to give her time to catch up, but by the time we reached the top of the structure, she was laughing in a way I knew would also remain etched in my memory.
When we reached the bridge, she sat cross-legged in the middle of it while I watched her.
It was like a dark curtain dropped over her and her smile faded.
“We always wanted to play like this,” she said.
“But there were never fun playgrounds like this at the shelters. None of the foster houses we were at, either. When we were older, we’d walk past playgrounds and watch the kids playing on the really cool slides and stuff that we didn’t get to use.
” She looked up at me. “And of course, when you’re older, if you try to play on them you get weird looks from grownups, or you get run out of the park because you’re ‘too old’. I don’t know how to label myself.”
I sat next to her. “That’s what’s so great about this place.
You don’t have to be a Little to enjoy doing stuff like this.
I was right there with you climbing. One time I was here and they were having a water balloon fight at the outside pool.
I was out there having fun with them, and I’m definitely not a Little.
If you decide you are a Little? Then that’s okay, too.
Little, submissive, slave—like I said, the only label I insist on is ‘Mine’. ”
That earned me a smile. “We’d probably get in trouble if I fucked you right here, wouldn’t we?”
I laughed. “I’m not sure what the rules are about doing that in this space, but since it’s Littles-centric I have a feeling it would be frowned upon.”
When she leaned against me, I draped my arm around her.
“Thank you for bringing me here, Sir,” she said. “And thank you for being patient with me. I know I’m a mess.”
“We’re all a mess in our own way, baby. I get what you mean about playing, too. I missed out on a lot even though I was older when everything happened.”
“You don’t talk about them much.”
“Well, the past few weeks have been sort of scrambled,” I said.
“It’s not that I don’t want to talk about them, and I would never try to equate my circumstances with what you and Lilah went through, but I was fortunate enough to have resources available to me back then.
I was in high school, and our school’s counselor was really good. ”
“Who’d you live with after it happened?”
“One of my friends’ parents suggested I file for emancipated minor status and I got it.
That meant I could deal with the house and their estate and everything.
I sold it and ended up moving in with another of my friends and his family, living in their mother-in-law apartment with the stipulation I’d move out after graduation.
They were nice people, but they had problems of their own, including financial problems because the father had been laid off and ended up doing gig work.
I paid rent to them, and they pretty much left me alone to do my thing.
“But that’s how I met my ex because she was friends with my friend’s sister.
She had a big family, and the more time I spent with her and them, I sort of…
settled. I was eighteen, stupid, alone in the world, and the only thing I knew for certain was that I wanted to be a firefighter.
Didn’t hurt that I knew it’d be job security.
Her family felt sorry for me because of what happened, and before I knew it, I was proposing because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do and we got married and lived with them for the first two years while she went to school to be a hairstylist.”
“What happened?”
“Well, like I said, she wanted kids and I didn’t.
And it wasn’t just her pressuring me, but her family and friends, too.
I also started realizing that our relationship wasn’t working for me the way it should.
She was a very take-charge kind of person, and we started butting heads all the time, even over little things.
She read a lot of romance books and one day I was home and off-duty and for the hell of it started reading one of her books.
“She read them as fantasy and pure escape, which was ironic. I realized that okay, this was fiction, but the hero in the book was me. The guy in charge. I saw it as a blueprint. But when I tried to be more dominant with her, it blew things up even more. I researched reality, started figuring out what was truly wrong, and understood there was no way we could be the partners to each other that we needed. And when I was honest with myself, I also realized I loved her, but I’d never been ‘in love’ with her.
The sex was okay, but she didn’t want anything but missionary. ”
“And she read romance books?” Emmy snarked.
“Yeah. Like I said, ironic. But that’s okay, it’s what she wanted and needed. Unfortunately, it wasn’t what I needed and wanted. She’s not a bad person and never was. We grew apart in ways too different to reconcile or work around. She was happy with the way things were, and I wasn’t.”
“So she wasn’t a psycho bitch, is what you’re saying.”
“No, sweetie, she wasn’t. She handled the divorce better than her family and friends, to be honest. They were guilt-tripping me that I wouldn’t give her a baby.
Sex grew less and less frequent because I didn’t want to get trapped.
Hell, I used condoms that I bought myself because I wasn’t sure if she was really on the pill or would sabotage condoms or what.
She really wanted a baby and the more she did, the more I did not.
“We were having a fight one night and she gave me an ultimatum that we have a kid or get divorced. I said okay, packed my stuff, and left. Which backfired on her because she didn’t realize how far out the door I already was emotionally.
After the shock wore off and we started the paperwork part of it, she admitted one day she was relieved.
“Some of her family assumed I was secretly gay, or that there was something wrong with me, and I didn’t bother justifying myself or my rationale to them.
Didn’t even tell my ex what I’d started figuring out.
Just said a baby was a deal-breaker, which I’d said from the beginning despite her and her family insisting I’d change my mind as I got older. ”
“You should have seen the look on Joe’s face when I stood up and walked out that night,” she said. “I told him when we first met and went out that I did not, would not, ever have kids. Full stop. Gawd, he was planning my whole future around having offspring for him.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Damned if I know, because I literally told him more than once when he ‘casually’ brought up the subject of kids that it wasn’t an issue for me because I wasn’t having them. Well, he turned out to be a stupid idiot. DDAF.”
“DDAF?”
She smiled. “Dumb Dick Ain’t Fuckable.”
I laughed. “I’m flattered you don’t think I’m dumb, but you haven’t seen me nearly fall over trying to put pants on when I’m half-asleep.”
A boisterous group of five Littles followed by an older woman wearing a Ranch uniform shirt entered the playroom at that point and Emmy motioned to me that she wanted to go.
“I want my swim,” she whispered. “And I want to be able to talk about ‘grown up’ subjects without worrying who overhears us.”
We had the indoor pool to ourselves and, yes, we did more talking than swimming. Mostly about her thoughts of what she’d seen and done so far there at the Ranch, and about subjects she was interested in learning more about.
Oh, yes. There would be many trips here in our future. Thankfully, we lived close enough we could easily drive over for mid-week classes even if our schedules didn’t allow for a sleepover.
By our third night there, Emmy had a growing wardrobe of Hello Kitty and Stitch clothes and other adorable accessories. Including several more packs of underwear.
No dresses, but a second robe, two bathing suits, a couple of shirts, a pair of denim shorts overalls, and three more PJ onesies. And three packages of hair scrunchies with various characters on them that she could wear in the office or during rounds at work.
When we finally curled up in bed that night, I sensed the changes in her.
“This has been eye-opening,” she said.
“In a good way, I hope?”
“Yes, Sir.” Her fingers drew abstract designs on my flesh. “Please tell me we’ll be sleeping together when we get home?”
“Probably not at first.”
Her head snapped back. “Why the fuck not?”
Yeah, she was definitely not a Little. “Because neither one of us have a bed large enough to comfortably stretch out on together. We need a queen-sized bed, at the very least. Your bed is a double. And while I am beyond grateful you moved me in with you, no offense? That guest-room bed is as hard as a fucking rock. I was not about to complain but I have been perusing mattress sale ads. I was just going to buy one and store the other one in the garage.”
It took her a second to process her righteous indignation and realize I wasn’t saying “no” because of any reason other than simple logistics. That’s when she started laughing, snorting, burying her head against me as I enjoyed watching her.
“Fair point, Sir,” she finally managed. “That was Lilah’s old mattress. She used it maybe a grand total of three months before she replaced it. I’d warned her to shop in person, but she wanted to save money and ordered it online.”
“And it’s also a moot point, because when we get home I will be turning around and heading to work for forty-eight,” I added. “The captain’s a great guy, but you sharing a bed with me at the station’s not going to happen.”
“Do you like this mattress?”
“Yeah. It’s comfortable, good mid-range between too soft and too hard, and it’s a king-size.”
“How about I do the preliminary footwork and you can sign off on the new one before I buy it?”
I kissed her. “See how easy that was, baby?”
“How easy what was?”
“To give Sir the final decision.”
She smiled, looking sneaky. “Can I pick out the new sheets and bedframe?”
“You can pick out whatever you want. I suspect I’ll be scandalizing poor Hello Kitty sheets, but that’s totally your guilt to bear, baby.”