Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
Charlie
“ D -didn’t you say you didn’t want to see me again!”
Lottie struggles noisily in her constraints and questions me as soon as she sees me, but it doesn’t really sound like a question. Coming from her, it’s a near-hysterical utterance. By the look on her face, I can tell she didn’t mean to say it like that.
I don’t respond.
I run the tail of the rubber flogger through my hand and think.
This Lottie is different from the one I used to know. I must have met her for the first time at that fundraiser, when she was speaking too loudly, practically on the verge of causing a scene. The trigger for this new Lottie was Lillian, a new girl by my side, someone to remain there.
Poor Lottie. She wants to be the only girl by my side.
“You said that, right? What changed your mind?” she presses.
The old Lottie would never question me like this.
Or threaten to sabotage me.
“I wanted to see you,” I reply simply.
“Wh-what?” She’s so surprised that her head jerks back and hits the wall. She winces.
I have her in the room beneath my bedroom, secured to the X at the far end of the room. I pass the leather platform in the center and stop before her.
Lottie is naked, her pale skin almost glowing in the dark room. She’s grown out her pubic hair, another slight against me.
Lottie wants to be punished.
“Y-you did? Why?” she asks suspiciously, eyeing the flogger in my hand.
“I’ve been stressed,” I admit, raising my eyebrows. Fatigue makes my eyes heavy, but I’m alert enough, hard inside for the task ahead.
Lottie’s been misbehaving because I’ve neglected her.
I’ll give her everything and more.
I’ve kept her waiting a long time. It’s just past 3 in the morning. But she’s as spirited as ever, her green eyes shining with that crazed energy.
Yeah, it’s been too long.
What else was she expected to do with this pent up feeling?
“C-can’t you get relief from Lillian?” Smug triumph flickers across her face, then she schools her expression into curiosity.
It makes me grin.
“I wanted to use my Lottie, not Lillian.”
Her face colors, and she tucks her chin toward her chest, regarding me beneath her heavy black bangs. Those huge glasses slip down her nose.
“Y-you’re teasing me!” she accuses.
“There’s another side to Lillian,” I continue. “I didn’t see it before, but I can see it clearly now.”
“Oh?” Lottie perks up and tosses the hair out of her eyes with a flick of her head. “Y-you don’t like her anymore?”
“Did I say I liked her?” I start pacing before Lottie, examining the flogger’s tail.
“She doesn’t satisfy you!”
“Everyone loves her. She does what I tell her to, and she does it well. I’m leading in the polls thanks to Lillian.”
Lottie screws up her face, thinking hard, and shakes her head.
“But you can’t be happy with her. She doesn’t satisfy you!”
“Hmm.”
“Charlie, I can. I can if you give me a chance, it can be like old times again!” She wriggles on the X, trying to get to me. I glance at her.
“What about my campaign?” I ask mildly.
She pauses to blink and look around, groping for an answer.
“All this hard work, all these long nights. All for nothing?” I continue.
“I can make it up to you—aii!!”
Lottie screeches as the flogger connects sharply with her stomach.
“But you can’t get me into Congress, can you?” I strike again, and she dances on the X for me, rattling her restraints. “Lillian can get me there, and she does what I say. She’s a good girl, Lottie. Are you a good girl?”
Lottie watches me fearfully.
“I can be—haii!!”
“Are you a good girl?”
“Yes, yes!”
I strike again, the same spot on her stomach growing redder.
“You’re lying, Lottie.”
“No, I’m good!” she argues.
I strike at her little tits, drawing color there, too.
“When Lillian goes to prison, what will happen to my campaign?”
“What she did isn’t your fault! Maybe… maybe you can still—” Lottie gasps, realizing what she’s saying and flinches beneath the blows I relentlessly rain down on her chest and stomach.
“You fucking tried to sabotage me, Lottie!” I yell, letting my anger pour into my strikes.
“Charlie!!” she cries, yelping in time with my blows.
“You’re a bad girl.” I take a moment to collect myself. Lottie is red and pink all over, her body heavily drooping on the X.
“Charlie,” she pleads. “Y-you forgot about me and got someone new!”
“I’ve had many girls since you.”
“Yes, but she’s different. You didn’t even ask me!”
I scoff despite myself.
“This again? You’re making your delusion my problem. Wake up, Lottie. You’re so weak, you can barely even form proper sentences.” She flinches again like I’ve struck her. “Can you imagine talking to the press? How about socializing and making nice? Presenting yourself like a normal person? You’re a creep, and you don’t even try to hide it. You’re rotten from the inside out, and everyone can tell at a glance. How is that supposed to help me?”
Lottie is whimpering and shaking her head.
“You’re… you’re w-worse than I am!” she says, stung. “You made me this way!”
“Sure, I’m worse. And I do a better job of hiding it. I keep that shit away from prying eyes. You can’t see yourself clearly enough to know what’s right and wrong. Answer me, how could you help my campaign?”
She bites into her lip, screwing up her face again, racking her brain for an answer.
“You can’t, Lottie. Don’t you realize that? You can’t.”
“But I want to!” she cries tearfully.
“I know,” I concede quietly, and I do. Lottie’s pitiful state is my fault. I molded her into a toy for my personal use, taught her how to like being used by me, to take joy in letting others use her. Thanks to me, pain and punishment are pleasures to her. I crushed her, built her into something new, and when I got Lillian, I crushed her again.
But this time, she built herself into something new.
And no matter how I look at her, there’s no part of me that wants her. I don’t want the reminder. I don’t want to take care of the glutton she’s become, satiating her with my cruelty.
I want Lillian.
But even so.
I’ve been cruel to Lottie. Crueler than I needed to be.
“You disobeyed me?—”
“No, Charlie!”
“Because you wanted my attention. And now you have it, but you really fucked it up, Lottie.”
“No,” she shakes her head hard.
“You need to be punished, don’t you?”
“Charlie—”
“Don’t you?”
“Yes, Charlie!!” she cries, finally breaking down. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
“That’s not enough, is it?” I take a deep breath. I step toward her, extend my hand, and cup her wet cheek. Lottie doesn’t look at me, but she rests her head heavily in my palm. “You’re your own master right now. You’ll act out to get my attention when it’s not enough.”
“But—”
“No,” I interrupt firmly. “You will. You already have. You threatened Lillian, and that’s a threat against me. I can’t have you meddling, making threats, acting out for attention. Who knows what you’ll do next?”
“I’ll be good, Charlie, I’ll be good!” she promises, squeezing her eyes shut tighter. Tears continue to leak out.
“Will you?”
She nods heavily.
I drag a light touch over her inflamed skin, appreciating its heat. I used to turn Lottie red regularly. I know she loves it.
She’s not crying from the pain.
“You want some more, don’t you?”
Lottie hesitates, then nods.
So I give her everything I’ve got, turning her into a red, glowing, shivering mess, giving her what she wanted all along. I berate her, beat her, give Lottie her fill.
Then I keep going, pushing beyond what she’s been scheming for.
I let out the frustration, the panic, the disappointment, in her and in myself.
Lottie’s like every girl I threw away, every girl I got hooked on me and callously tossed aside. Looking at her now, a ruined thing, I realize it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
I’ve been so careless.
And I can’t afford that anymore, not with so much to lose now.
I can’t risk losing Lillian.
By the time my arms are sore and she’s well past her limit, voice hoarse from screaming, I’ve released it all.
And it’s still not over.
I can’t leave her like this. A beating will tide her over only for so long.
I need a final solution, one with no loose ends.
I leave Lottie sagging in her restraints for a while, body trembling. When I return, she can barely hold her head up. I revive her with a kiss to the top of her head.
“Huh?!” she exclaims, like I’ve offended her somehow.
“You’re so broken, Lottie.” I free her left hand.
“You broke me.”
“I know. You were a good girl. You’ll keep being a good girl, won’t you?”
“Yes, Charlie,” she murmurs, spent. Her head sags again to her chest.
I push the needle to the vein in her inner elbow without hesitation and send the plunger home.
“Huh?” she stirs.
“Be good,” I whisper.
“Charlie, what?—”
“Good night, little Lottie.”
I know this is my fault , I don’t say.
I’m sorry.