Chapter 15 #3
He hums thoughtfully while his fingers focus on a stubborn knot on my shoulder.
“Let’s look at the facts. You’re here, safe and sound, where I can keep hold of you while you get through your emotions.
You’re going to stand here while you’re safe, and you’re going to think about what you’ll do differently the next time you start feeling like you’re suffocating, next time you can’t sleep, next time you want to go somewhere that’s not on Kira’s schedule, so that you have a plan of action and won’t get into trouble.
Lastly; this isn’t supposed to hurt you, Tommy. Does that sound like punishment?”
I sniffle and cough to try and keep in my tears, because I’m not crying. I’m not. “I guess not.”
“That’s right.” He sounds like he’s praising me and fuck him for knowing that would make me relax even more. I almost melt in his hands.
“If it’s not punishment, what is it?” I ask breathlessly.
“Time-out is,” he seems to search for the words, “a chance to make sure you’ve got the facts straight.
Because I think you’ve got a lot of things in your head that aren’t necessarily true.
Some of them are outright lies. Noise. Bad impulses, hm?
Violence. Anger. You keep telling me that you’re not good, and I think you believe that. Corner time is where I’ll correct you.”
Correct me, Daddy, a wicked voice in my head says, and I bite back a groan that has nothing to do with his massage. Well, maybe a little to do with it.
“I-I don’t– I’m not…” Worth it.
He slides his hands down my back, soothing me like I’m a horse or some shit. “Breathe. I’m going to back away now, but I’m not leaving. You’re going to stay here. Focus on the facts.”
He backs up and it takes all of my willpower–I mean everything inside me–not to whimper and grab his hands back, not to ask him to stay with me.
Because now I’m alone here, on a stage, and his eyes are the spotlights on my embarrassment and submission.
Since when do I do this? Since when do I do this shit for anyone?
I definitely wouldn’t have done this shit with Bruce, and he was a real fucking Daddy. Then again, corner time was never our thing. Correction in general wasn’t something he enjoyed. He wanted a good boy.
And I’m not good. No matter what Young-gi says.
I swallow hard and fist my hands to keep them from shaking.
I waver between anger at Young-gi and hatred at myself, fear of him and fear of not being here with him.
Between shame and rage. But in between the bad feelings, there are sparks of good ones.
I marvel at how… small I feel, but not in a bad way.
I’m humiliated, acutely aware of his eyes and the way I’m just standing here in the corner like a schmuck, like a child, but I feel…
good small? And I never, in a million years, would have guessed that feeling small would make me feel good. But it does.
All those big emotions shrink down with me, getting smaller until they all fit in their places again and aren’t boiling over.
And, just like the first time he stared at me, in that library days ago, the feeling of his gaze levels out after a while, going from nails on a chalkboard to something more tolerable, if no less intense.
I try to control my breathing but I end up panting, my mouth dry and then not, my dick hard and then soft again, my head spinning and yet I don’t think I’ve ever been so dialed in and crystal clear in my entire life.
And I’m not… totally hating it.
I don’t like it. But I don’t hate it.
Not being able to look at him, knowing he’s hovering behind me and he can look at me all he wants but I can’t look at him because I’ve been bad and need to think about what I’ve done; shit, that does something to me. Something dark, something dirty. Something I maybe kinda like.
“Do you want me to tell you that you’re a good boy? Would you like that?”
Shit. I hiss out all the air in my lungs and curl forward like I just suffered a blow to the chest.
“What the fuck kind of question is that?” I snarl, heart pounding in my ears.
“One I expect you to answer.” Goddamn, he’s a natural. Yes, Daddy.
It’s infuriating how good he is at flipping all my switches without even trying.
Fear, anger and desire prickle up the back of my neck like needles.
So of course, I play it off, and I scoff.
“Why are you asking me that? You start watching Daddy porn or something? Get into some kinks? I know I told you I had a Daddy friend I’d call up–did that make you curious? ”
“You’re stalling. It’s a yes or no.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him of course not, stupid freak, fuck you. But he’s told me not to lie and I’m already standing in the fucking corner like a toddler, put in time out because I’ve been bad. I feel this pressure in my head to just… be honest.
“Y-yeah.”
“Good boy.” His absolute lack of hesitation, the way it isn’t said smugly or in a demeaning, sarcastic way, makes it feel almost alright.
If he’d been using that to make fun of me, using it to make me feel small in a bad way, I’d have probably run away and never come back.
He’d have never seen me again. That’s how close I am to snapping. But he didn’t. So… I stay.
I shiver hard, but shake my head. “I’m–I’m not.”
“You told me the truth. That’s good.” He comes closer again, giving me a break from the pressure of his eyes to pressure me with his body heat instead, looming right behind me.
His fingers graze my knuckles and my breath catches as he traces the sticky, dried residue of blood left behind.
Oscar’s blood. His fingers follow the flaky trails to the ring he picked out for me, tracing it, and then back up to my knuckles.
“And this was good, Tommy. You made some poor choices beforehand, but this? That violence? That was good. Good boy.”
I get so unbearably hot all over, so hyper-aware of my whole body, that it takes me a few seconds to even realize I’m rock hard in my pants, all the way up and more ready than I’ve been in a long time.
And it maybe wilts a little now that I’m thinking about it, but it doesn’t go away completely.
“You–you–” I shift on my feet, and he keeps touching my split knuckles, like he wants to remember the shape of them. “You can’t mean that. No one would mean that. I wanted to kill him.”
“I’m not just anyone, now am I?”
Ain’t that the truth? Young-gi is a dangerous fucker with a shady reputation. And even though that should make me doubt everything he says to me, instead it makes me feel strangely understood. Like I’ve finally met someone who could wrap their head around my fucked up priorities.
“Wha-what did I do bad?” I whisper.
“You tell me. I’ll let you know if you’re off base.”
Ugh. I hate that. But I don’t hate it that much. Makes my tummy squirrely and my nerves trip around, feels like a test and I’ve never liked those, but the opportunity to get it right is too tempting to pass up. I want to be right.
“I… I convinced Kira to lie to her security team.”
“Good,” he steps back. “I’m not leaving, just getting something from the desk. Continue.”
“I, um,” I swallow hard when cold air hits me after he’s gone, not liking that one bit. “I took the girls to a secondary location without telling you or anyone where we would be.”
I hear a drawer slide open, and some rummaging around. “Good.”
“I attacked someone.”
“No.”
His disapproval makes me scowl and fist my hands, like I can punch the wall and change what he said.
“What do you mean, no?” I sound like a brat again, but I guess that’s just who I am now.
“I already told you that was good. Try again.” I hear a familiar sound–a plastic lid twisting off. I turn my head and see a jar in his hands; it’s bruise cream.
Something in my chest goes thump-thump and I realize it’s my heart freaking the fuck out, kicking so hard I almost didn’t recognize it.
I face the wall again when he raises his eyebrows at me pointedly, and his presence at my back suddenly feels even heavier and more significant than before.
Like sure, he was paying attention to me, but now it’s like he’s paying extra attention.
Not just to me talking and being a little shit, but to everything about me.
“Um… I…”
He starts applying the cream to the parts of my neck and back that the tank top doesn’t cover, to the old bruises and the new ones, even the one on my jaw, and I just sigh, and my mind finally just…
shuts up. For a little while, it’s just quiet.
And all I focus on is the way he gently doctors me up, putting cream on my minor hurts like I’m worth that kind of treatment. And I stare at the corner.
It feels…
It feels nice.
I sigh heavily and sway a little. He puts the lid back on the jar. “What are you going to do the next time you feel like you can’t sleep, can’t breathe, can’t think? Hm?”
“I’ll… tell you?” I guess, thinking that he’s a control freak so he’ll probably like that.
“Good boy.” I guessed right. “Come here.”
He turns me around and for some weird reason, the room almost seems too big now.
Like I got shrunk while I was standing there in time-out, and now everything else is too far away.
I’ve got too much space, too much room to think.
I take a shaky breath and struggle against my sudden shyness–yeah, me, shy, what the fuck? --to look at him.
He’s staring at me, no surprise. And it settles me to have him watching me just as closely as before.
I clear my throat, rub the back of my neck, feel the lingering soft cream there and kind of want to die because it’s so good. “So, I guess… I’ll go now?”
“You’re not going back to Kira’s tonight,” he says matter-of-factly, like he’s in charge, and he is. “It’s late. I’ll show you the guest room. Shower. Change. Sleep. Got it?”
“Um… yeah.”
He pulls me through the dark house, up the stairs and into a spacious room with an ensuite.
It’s not too big, which I like, and the bed looks soft but without all the fluffy blankets and pillows that cover my bed at Kira’s place.
There’s a chair near a nightstand and a lamp, and a set of drawers, but I don’t get a lot of time to take it in before he’s pushing me into the bathroom.
He flicks the light on, and I blink against the sudden brightness.
“Shower,” he says. He points to a cabinet on the wall. “There are towels and some spare clothes in there.”
I nod, and he closes me in the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Alone with the stark reality of what just happened. What I just let happen.
Holy fuck.
“Shit,” I murmur, and shake my head at myself. “What the fuck am I doing…?”
It’s late, and I’m tired, and even if I was well rested I’d have no clue what to do, so I just do as I’m told.
I peel off the pink tank top and the pants, turn the shower to full blast, and soak in the heat for a little while.
The soaps here are different from Kira’s, too.
They smell like Young-gi. I use a lot of soap.
Once I’m scrubbed clean and dry, I pull on some soft clothes that, yes, I smell first because the laundry detergent smells like Young-gi, too.
I stumble tiredly out of the bathroom, hoping I’ll be able to sleep at least a little bit, only to freeze when I see him sitting in the chair near the bed, illuminated under a cone of yellow light from the lamp.
“Um…?”
“Come here.”
His command slips right past my ‘fuck you, you’re not my boss’ instinct, probably because he just had me in literal time-out and I’m not my usual bratty self right now, and I tiptoe over to him like I’m afraid of being too loud.
He grabs my hands, checks my knuckles, and hums with approval at how much better they look now that they’re clean.
“Good boy.”
“You don’t have to say it every time I do something–”
“Get into bed,” he interrupts me.
“Bossy motherfucker,” I sigh, too tired to put much bite into it. I flounce onto the bed dramatically and yank the covers over top of my legs. “There. In bed. You can go now.”
“Sleep.” He ignores my order to leave, and pulls his laptop off the nightstand, which he must have grabbed while I was in the shower, opening it like he’s about to start work in his pajamas at four in the morning.
In the guest room. While I sleep.
“Um…”
He spears me with a quelling stare, like he doesn’t want to hear my protests, but I can’t do this. He can’t just… just watch me sleep. I can’t get used to that kind of thing. He can’t just–just imply that he’s protecting me or some shit like that.
I can’t trust him to do that! Can I?
I start to sit up, instinctive panic clawing through me, but he leans forward and firmly presses me right back down. “I have work to do. Go to sleep, Tommy. I’ll stay.”
I shouldn’t. Shouldn’t sleep, shouldn’t trust him.
Young-gi is probably the most dangerous man I’ve been locked in a room with in a long time.
Maybe even my entire life. He’s deadly, he’s unpredictable.
He doesn’t care that I beat the shit out of someone today, all he cares about is that he gets to put medicine on my bruises afterward.
He’s a criminal, and he puts me in time-out like I’m a child and then tucks me in and it should make me feel like a fool but it doesn’t.
The turmoil should keep me awake. My own goddamn sense of self-preservation should keep me awake. But it doesn’t. If anyone asks, I’ll just say I was tired. But I think… I might feel… safe.
I forgot how being safe felt. So, this is what it’s like. Yeah, I think I remember now. I think I used to feel this way, so long ago that it’s locked behind that blank wall where all my earliest childhood memories hide away. I didn’t expect to ever feel this way again.