19. Kristoff Gets To See Sue
19
Kristoff Gets To See Sue
I can’t help but compare the child I was to the children in the Field museum today. They wiggle and laugh and shout. When they’re tired they just give up and lie down on the hard marble floor. Some of them are clearly here with school groups but others have been liberated from school by the adults with them. Playing hooky, as Peter had said. They all look happy and well-cared for and loved.
The kids I grew up with weren’t all like this. Some were, yes, but there are reasons why people send their children to boarding school and most of them aren’t good. At the very least you have a parent or parents who can’t be with their child to supervise them properly. At worst, the children are nascent psychopaths always on the lookout for a new victim. The vast majority of the kids I went to school with were either bullies or bullied.
You could make a case that I was sent to a bad school, but there were so many of them. I met so many other children that I can barely remember what a handful looked like and what their names were. The rest just fall into a backdrop of misery, either causing or receiving.
I wandered through all the schools trying to be invisible. A small ghost who avoided conflict and harmed no one. I couldn’t afford to get into trouble because there was never anyone to take my side or back me up. I had a runaway mother, a father who couldn’t stand the sight of me, and no friends. I stopped trying to make friends after the third school. By then, I realized there was no point.
Peter kicks my foot, startling me out of my thoughts. “What are you thinking so hard about over there? I can practically see smoke coming out of your ears.”
The truth is so depressing that I don’t bother with it. Instead, I veer off in another direction. “Fun fact about me: this is the first time I’ve ever skived off work or school.”
After wandering about the museum, looking at everything that caught my interest, I’m as tired as one of those children on the floor. When Peter suggested coffee at the bistro in the main hall of the museum, I was grateful. My sandwich was eaten long ago, and my coffee is nearly gone, but I don’t want to get up because then our day will be over. I’m not ready for that yet.
“Your facts aren’t fun,” Peter remarks, but any bite to his words is absent.
Still, I feel the need to defend myself. “I have this crazy immune system. I never get sick, not even as a child, but you wouldn’t have known it by my appearance. I was the poster child for looking perpetually ill and underfed. I was small for my age and didn’t start to get any height until I was fifteen or sixteen. I was also pale and serious. I didn’t like sports. I didn’t even like sunny days because bright light hurts my eyes. The only thing I liked was reading books.”
“Shocker,” Peter says with a smirk. “I’m now picturing one of those creepy children illustrated by Edward Gorey. You know. K is for Kit, who fell onto a knife.”
“The Gashlycrumb Tinies!” I exclaim. “I loved that one. I had all the Amphigorey books.”
Peter leans forward with a salacious grin. “Did you ever read The Curious Sofa?”
“The one with all the implied kinky sex? Yes. Several times. I didn’t understand everything going on until I was older, though.”
“I still don’t understand everything in that book, but I’d be willing to give any of it a try.” Peter does that eye brow waggling thing that should be stupid and unattractive but somehow on him, is charming. “Do you have a red sofa with seven legs and nine arms? Or was it nine legs and seven arms? Whichever. Either. It must have a huge-ass lever in the back.”
“I do not,” I say, doing my best to keep a straight face. “No one does.”
“That’s a shame. I want to know what made Alice start to scream.”
“Anyway,” I say, attempting to get this conversation back on track.
“We could play a game where you’re Alice and I’m the sofa. I already know I can make you scream.”
“Anyway,” I try again, hoping there aren’t any children listening to us. Or any adults, either. “I might have looked like I was constantly at death’s door when I was young, but I never got sick. Not even once. Certainly nothing bad enough to allow me to stay in my bed and not go to school. I still am rarely sick. A cold here and there. That’s all.”
“You make good health sound like a moral failing,” Peter points out, as if I weren’t already aware of that.
“I never got Covid, either.”
“Seriously?” Peter asks. “That seems unlikely.”
I shake my head. “Not really. I got all my vaccines when I was supposed to and if it’s one thing in life I’m good at, it’s social distancing. I worked from home for most of that time. I started getting my meals and other groceries delivered. When I needed new clothing I had it shipped to my tailor, who made the necessary alterations based on my measurements and then had them delivered to my home. Nearly everything you could ever want can be ordered online. I went months without talking to another human being in person.”
“The King of Social Distancing.”
“The story of my life,” I say, and I’m not able to keep all the bitterness out of my voice.
“I envy you,” Peter says. “I had to social distance with my parents and do grad school online. Mom isn’t so bad. But my stepfather…” he trails off.
“Is awful,” I say, then regret it. Peter probably looks at my sperm donor and sees a father figure. He might even, god help him, love the man. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Peter gives me a long, curious look then says, “Why?”
Now I feel as squirmy as the small child at the table next to ours. He’s being ordered to finish his sandwich by his parents and having none of it. The threat of no ice cream is put out there but doesn’t seem to help.
“Just because he was a crappy father doesn’t mean you had the same experience,” I say. There. That’s diplomatic.
Peter shakes his head. “Nah. He was a crappy stepdad, too. My mom loves him though. No idea why, but she does.”
I want to ask why he’s acting on my father’s behalf if he dislikes him so much, but I keep that back. Things are too nice today and I don’t want to keep talking about the man who point-blank refused to love or raise me. I think, if it hadn’t been for my grandparents, I would’ve been given up for adoption. Boarding school was the compromise, but adoption might have been kinder. I shake my head as if that will shake the thoughts loose and let them blow away.
“We’ve seen the titanosaur, of course.” Our table is nearly under its tail. “And that scary pterosaur thing.”
“The Quetzalcoatlus ,” Peter supplies helpfully.
“But not Sue. According to the map she’s upstairs.”
“Will you throw a tantrum if I say we’ve been here long enough and it’s time to go home? Because that, young man, will earn you a spanking.”
I weigh seeing the world’s most complete T. rex skeleton against Peter giving me a spanking. It’s a difficult choice, but I’m good at negotiating. “How about we go and look at everything upstairs, especially Sue, I don’t have a tantrum, and then you can spank me anyway when we’re home.” I realize what I’ve said and nearly choke on a sip of coffee. “I mean back at my apartment. Unless you want to leave. You’re probably ready to go home by this point.” I can feel how red I must be from the prickling heat in my face.
Peter stands, grinning down at me unfazed. “I suppose we can stay a little longer if you promise to be good.” He takes my hand and draws me to my feet. In my ear, he adds “We can discuss any punishments you might have coming to you later.”
I want to burst with happiness, excitement, and pure lust. I haven’t felt like this since I was a teenager with my first boyfriend.
A cloud of bad memories blocks my sunny mood. I always want the wrong kinds of men. Nothing ever changes. Nevertheless I take Peter’s hand in mine as we climb the wide stairs.
Sue is absolutely worth the trip to see her massive skeleton. Some wound inside me I’ve been carrying since childhood begins to heal. With Peter’s hand in mine I feel full to the brim and like I could float away. It is, I realize, happiness.
Apparently not caring that we’re sitting in the backseat of a taxi, Peter grabs my thigh and squeezes it then says, “Do we need to make a stop at Walgreens, or do you have lube and condoms at your place?”
I want to sink into the seat and disappear, but physics hates me, and I remain solid.
“I asked you a question, Kitten.”
“Don’t call me Kitten,” I hiss back at him. “And it’s taken care of.”
“Taken care of how?”
I look out the window at traffic and don’t answer.
The hand on my thigh squeezes harder. “I guess we’ll see, but it’s your ass, not mine. Even if it’s not ‘taken care of’ as you claim, I am going to be inside you, even if I have to take you with nothing but spit and precum.”
In the front seat, the driver winces, and laughs. “You got some balls on you, man. Be careful your boyfriend doesn’t cut them off while you sleep.”
Peter grins unrepentantly. “I’m not worried. The last thing my kitten here wants is to castrate me. Isn’t that right, Boo?”
“Fuck off,” I grumble, but all that accomplishes is making both Peter and the driver laugh their asses off at me. I give Peter the silent treatment all the way back home.
Sitting in front of my door is a small gift bag in black and gold with the building’s logo on it. I pick it up then unlock the door, preparing, as always, to block the door with my body if my cats try to escape.
Minus any kind of feline greeting, I open the door wider and hope no one is under a kitchen chair, just looking for the right opportunity to bolt. None of my cats tries for a prison break, however, and we enter my condo without incident.
I put the small bag on the counter then look up when I hear Peter dragging out a kitchen stool. He moves it to the middle of the room then sits on it and looks at me.
Eventually, because apparently my will is as strong as cotton candy, I’m the one to break the silence. “What are you doing?”
“I’m waiting.”
Apparently we’re playing some sort of game now. “For what?”
Peter is silent, just staring at me. I do my best not to fidget while I wait. He’s doing this on purpose—that much is obvious—but I don’t know what his end game is.
Eventually he says, “Come over here, pull down your pants, and bend over my lap.”
“Excuse me?” My voice cracks like I’m thirteen again.
“You’ve earned ten spanks, Kristoff. Fight me on this and that number will keep going up.”
“Earned? Doing what?”
“You’re breathing, aren’t you? That’s reason enough.” Peter’s lips curve into an evil pirate’s smile.
I’ll admit that I’ve fantasized about this. A man who gives me the right sort of pain. One I can trust to hurt me, but not hurt me. That I do trust Peter is crazy in and of itself, but I do. I couldn’t tell you why, but I would trust him with my life.
This will both hurt and be incredibly uncomfortable. Humiliating as well. My cock is already hard thinking about it. I wish I knew why I was like this, but I’ve never been brave enough to bring it up with my therapist. It’s a door that, once open, can’t ever be closed again. I’m worried she’ll think of this every time she sees me.
Dreamily I drift toward Peter. Obediently I loosen my belt, undo my fly, then pull my pants down to mid-thigh. I’m reminded that the muscled legs I’m draping myself over are wearing my jeans. They’re a little tight on Peter and cup his ass in a way that should be illegal. The green cashmere sweater I can feel along my bare hip is also mine. Peter looks far better in it than I do. The color of the sweater makes everything about him a degree more attractive. His hotness has been dialed to eleven.
Part of me is screaming internally that I’m being foolish and reckless. The rest of my brain wants to get off and that’s the part that wins.
Time stretches out like taffy and it’s maddening. I’m going to scream if Peter doesn’t do something soon. Then his hand falls hard to the accompaniment of a meaty crack of sound and a sudden sharp burst of agony.
It's so, so sweet. I want another and another. Enough to shut my brain down and let things just happen to me.
In the end I do scream, but it’s as I come, grinding my cock along Peter’s denim-clad legs frantically while he caresses my sore, stinging ass and murmurs soft but filthy words of encouragement.
I’ve never been in love or been loved by anyone but my grandparents. It’s not an emotion I’m particularly familiar with or good at, but if it was possible for me to fall for anyone, I think that person might be Peter.
I’m in over my head so deep that I might never make it back to the surface.