Chapter 22. Kit
The therapy appointment was at two o'clock.
Her office was on the fourth floor of a building that smelled like carpet cleaner.
I sat in the parking structure for twenty minutes, made it as far as the elevator lobby, and then left before the doors opened.
I told myself the session was going to be a waste of time.
I told myself I'd reschedule. I told myself a lot of things on the drive back, and none of them fit quite right.
I knew Soren was going to have my ass for it.
Wednesday morning, I'm crouched beside a Triumph Sprint that needs a new rear caliper.
Soren is at the front counter doing intake paperwork on a customer's Ducati, his reading glasses pushed up on his forehead, his pen moving steadily across the form.
My bike is still being fixed, but I'm not rushing it anymore.
Then his phone buzzes.
I look up from the caliper. Soren is holding the phone at an angle I can't read from here, his glasses now down on his nose, making him look dangerously hot. The expression on his face shifts by some fraction. Then he looks directly at me.
Fuck. My stomach drops.
He sets the phone facedown on the counter. "Finish the caliper," he says. "We'll talk when I'm done with this intake." Then he picks up his pen and finishes the form.
I go back to the caliper bolt. I turn it. Try not to freak out.
It takes him eleven minutes. I know because I time it. The difference is that I know what the eleven minutes mean. He told me. He's finishing his work, and then we're talking. There is an endpoint.
I still hate every second.
I'm washing my hands at the utility sink when Soren appears beside me.
"How was your appointment yesterday?"
Fuck.
His voice is level. Conversational. But he can already read the answer on my face. My hands keep moving beneath the water. Soap foams between my fingers and runs toward the drain.
"Therapist was running behind," I say. "I ended up having to cut it short."
"How short?"
I stare into the sink. "Didn't make it in."
The water keeps running.
"I see."
I shut off the tap and reach for the paper towels. My reflection in the metal dispenser shows me a man who looks approximately twelve years old, which tracks.
"Allie texted you."
"She did."
"She told me she would. She got your number basically for that purpose. Tattle tale."
Soren waits.
"I was going to tell you."
"Were you?" Still level. Still plain.
I look down at the paper towel in my hands.
"I'm sorry, Daddy." The words come out smaller than I intended.
"I got scared." That changes something in his face.
Not the seriousness. Something underneath it.
"I got all the way there," I say. "I sat in the garage forever.
I made it to the elevator, and then I started thinking about what she was going to ask me. "
Soren doesn't interrupt.
"Charles. The Little stuff. All of it." I twist the paper towel between my fingers. "I wasn't ready for it to become something official. With a professional and a file and somebody writing it down like it's a thing that happened to me instead of just something I keep in my own head."
Soren looks at me for a long moment. "That's something I actually needed to hear."
My eyes lift.
"The fear is real. We can work with fear." He pauses. "But you were supposed to tell me you were scared. Not skip the appointment and say nothing."
"I know."
"Rule One."
I look down again.
"You remember it?" he asks.
"Therapy," I murmur. "Show up. Be honest with the therapist. Be honest with you."
"You broke two parts of it."
I wince. He still doesn't raise his voice.
"Tomorrow, we'll call and reschedule together. When the appointment comes, I'm taking you. I'll sit in the waiting room until you come back out."
My heel starts tapping against the concrete.
"You do not have to walk into that office pretending you're not afraid. You can tell me you're scared. You can tell her you're scared. You can sit in my truck for twenty minutes first if that's what it takes." His eyes hold mine. "But going dark about it isn't something I'm letting slide."
"I'm sorry, Daddy."
"I know you are, baby boy." His voice softens slightly. "But tonight we're going to deal with it properly."
My stomach drops. "Okay."
I'm shivering a little. Not from fear exactly. Not entirely.
The shop closes at six. Once everything is locked up and the last customer is gone, Soren holds open the door at the back of the shop that leads upstairs. I go through first, my skin strange with anticipation.
Upstairs, the apartment catches the last hour of daylight through the west-facing windows, gold light stretching across the orderly living room. Soren leaves the overhead light off and switches on the floor lamp instead, amber and steady.
I stand in the middle of the room with my jacket still on, hands shoved into the pockets, staring at the floor.
"Go change," he says. "Sweatpants. The gray ones."
I go.
The gray sweatpants are in the second drawer of the dresser. His dresser. His bedroom. But the drawer has been reorganized around the things I leave here now, which is still a fact capable of doing weird, vulnerable things to my chest if I think about it for too long.
I change into the sweatpants and a soft white T-shirt, then carry my jeans and jacket back into the living room and fold them over the armchair.
Soren is in the kitchen. I hear a drawer open, then close. When he comes back, he's holding a wooden spoon.
I gulp.
Oh. Yes. I am fucked.
And, because there is apparently something deeply wrong with me, immediately turned on.
"Sit down."
I sit in the armchair across from him, hands wrapping around the armrests. My eyes keep going to the spoon.
"Tell me why we're here."
"I skipped therapy."
"And?"
"I didn't tell you."
His expression doesn't change.
"And then I lied when you asked."
"And the rule?"
"Rule One. Therapy. Don't disappear from appointments. Don't lie about going."
Soren nods once. "Good."
My stomach twists.
Then he holds up the wooden spoon. "This is different from what I've used before."
I swallow. "Yeah."
"Do you consent to me using it?"
My face gets hot. "Yes." His eyebrow lifts. "Yes, Daddy."
"Safewords."
I know this part. "Yellow means slow down and check in. Red means stop immediately. Three taps means Red if I can't talk."
"If you say Red?"
"Everything stops," I murmur.
"No argument?"
"No argument."
"Good boy."
My entire body responds to that. Of course it does.
"And the restraint agreement is still the same?"
"Yes, Daddy. You can hold me in place if I'm squirming or kicking because it hurts. Red overrides it."
"Good."
He sets the spoon beside him. "Tell me why the fear didn't excuse the rule."
I stare at my hands. "Because I could've told you."
"Yes."
"And I could've called the therapist."
"Yes."
"And because being scared wasn't the part I did wrong."
Soren's face softens. "There you go."
My throat tightens.
"The fear wasn't wrong, baby boy."
I nod.
"Hiding it was."
"Yes, Daddy."
"Come here."
I stand, cross the room, and lower myself over his lap. Soren adjusts me until I'm steady, one hand settling against my back. Then he picks up the wooden spoon.
The first strike is nothing like his hand. Pain shoots straight through me, sharp enough that my entire body contracts at once.
"Fuck!"
The second lands somewhere else before I've fully processed the first. My hips jerk.
Then another.
"Oh my God."
Another.
"Ouch!"
Soren's pace stays controlled. The spoon moves methodically instead of landing on the same patch over and over, but that does very little to improve my opinion of wooden kitchen utensils.
It hurts. It hurts so fucking much.
My sweatpants are still between me and the spoon for the first several strikes, and I'm already dancing in place, panting, swearing, making increasingly pathetic noises that I would deny under oath.
Then Soren stops briefly. His palm settles warm against my back. "Still with me?"
"Yes."
"Yellow?"
I actually check. My breathing. My head. The pain.
"No."
"Still want to continue?"
My face burns. "Yes, Daddy."
"Good boy."
Then he lowers my sweatpants and underwear.
No surprise. No question required. We agreed to this.
The next strike lands on bare skin.
I yelp. Actually yelp. Like a fucking puppy.
"Fuck, Daddy!"
The next one follows, then another.
"Ouchie—Daddy, fuck, that really hurts."
"It is a punishment, silly boy." The spoon lands again. "That's the point."
He's relentless. Not angry. Not erratic.
Just strict. Consistent. Every strike arrives with the same awful certainty, and my body starts trying to escape even though my brain has no intention of stopping the scene.
My legs kick. My hips twist. Soren hooks his leg securely over mine, holding me in place exactly the way I asked him to.
The realization makes something low in my stomach clench. I know how to get out. One word. Red. Three taps. Either one and his leg moves. Either one and the spoon stops. That certainty sits underneath everything. Safe. Solid. Which apparently leaves the rest of me free to be completely pathetic.
"Ow, ow, ow, Daddy, I'm sorry."
Another strike.
"Please."
Another.
"Fuck."
My face is wet now. I don't even know exactly when I started crying. The pain fills all the available space in my head. My backside feels like it's on fire. My body is impossibly aroused by the whole thing, which is humiliating and unfair, but underneath all of it there is a strange quiet.
No wondering. No guessing.
I know why I'm here. I know what I did. I know what happens when this ends.
Soren pauses again, his palm replacing the spoon.
"Kit."
I drag in a shaky breath.
"Yellow?"
I check again. "No."
"Can you keep going?"
I bury my face against my arm. "Yes, Daddy."
"Good boy."
The spoon comes back.
I sob, whine, swear into the cushion beneath me. I try to stay still and fail miserably. Soren keeps me steady, his rhythm controlled. Fuck, but it really hurts.