Chapter 16 #2
Not that he’s actually my Daddy or anything. Last night was just… temporary insanity.
“What time is it?” I finally ask.
“Almost noon. You were tired.”
Shit, noon? I shift my weight like I’m about to spring out of bed, only to realize I’ve got nowhere to go, no plans, nothing that needs me. “Oh.”
We sit in silence for a moment, and that’s when all those feelings from last night–from corner time–come roaring back to the forefront of my thoughts.
Without exhaustion to distract me, I can really suffer under the cringey embarrassment of what I did, what I allowed him to do.
I squirm, my face so hot I might have a fever.
My gut churns and I think I might throw up, but the worst of it is that it’s not totally in a bad way…
which makes no sense. Because I don’t like feeling embarrassed and small and vulnerable at all.
Hate it, even. So why is it different just because he’s the one making me feel that way?
I have a hunch, but it’s almost the worst part of everything.
I think I liked it because… because he wasn’t just Daddying me to be a bossy son of a bitch or to be kinky or get something out of me, not just to flex his power or make me feel like shit, not to punish me, or hurt me.
I think–and this is the part I hate the most, the painful part like someone is prying old scabs off my heart, ripping open old wounds that should’ve been fucking healed by now–but I think his Daddying was mostly about… me.
About actually helping me.
Well, fuck him for thinking I want his help. I’m fine on my own, and it’s better if he and I both know that. I won’t forget it. I won’t let him make me forget it.
“Is there anything you’d like to do today?” he asks. His flat, emotionless tone makes what should be a ridiculous question sound almost serious.
“What the fuck are you going on about?” I almost hiss, feeling hurt and sad, like I’m crying but only on the inside, angry on the outside. “What do I want to do today? Seriously? What am I, five? You my mom or some shit?”
“It’s not a complicated question.”
The warning edge in his words brings me right back to corner time, right back to the way his voice seemed to heat me up inside, the way he had me feeling small and embarrassed and safe.
Kill me now.
“A ride to the nearest tall bridge would be great,” I snark. “Bonus points if there aren’t guardrails.”
“Tommy.”
“What?!” I demand, aggressive and pushy.
“What’s wrong? You don’t like my sense of humor?
Well, too bad. You’re not actually in charge of me, dude.
If you don’t like me, then fire me, and I’ll walk.
I don’t fucking need this mess. The only reason I’m still here is because you’re stupid enough to keep paying me to stick around. ”
He pauses, then sips his coffee, slow and deliberate, and it feels like rage bait. Like he’s daring me. And fuck him! I don’t back away from dares.
“Nothing to say?” I ask, saccharinely sweet, falsely helpful. “Don’t you want to tell me what I can or can’t do? Don’t you want to boss me around? Come on, tell me something, give me an order, so I can tell you to fuck off.”
He looks me up and down. “You’re too old to be acting like such a child, Tommy.”
Such a child. Such a child…
“My child. My perfect baby doll. I saved you, I’m the only one that loves you. You love me too, and this is how people in love touch each other.”
Just like when he said it to Brian in the boxing ring, the word punches me right in the gut harder than Leonard or Gregory ever could.
Drags filth from the back of my mind, where it should stay.
Pulls all this dirty, dark shame right into the open so I have to look at it all over again.
A ragged, disgusting beast inside me that wasn’t supposed to even be born, let alone still be haunting me.
“I hate that fucking word.” I don’t even recognize the gruff whisper that scrapes past my raw throat. “Don’t fucking call me that.”
Young-gi looks like he’s about to speak, but he sees something in me that gives him pause.
So instead, he watches, and he waits. Always waiting.
Patient where I’m not, and I hate him for it.
Hate him so much. Hate everything about him; hate the way he makes me feel, hate being in his big stupid house, hate that I slept here, hate that he’s seen me be such a mess, hate that he’s seen me at all.
For a second, I’m so full of this poison inside me that if I had a knife, I’d cut his fucking eyes out just so he never looks at me again. I can’t fucking think straight.
“Stop fucking looking at me!” I throw a pillow at his stupid face and launch myself out of the bed. I’m too vulnerable here, I don’t want to be in the sheets with that word ringing around in my brain. “Leave me the fuck alone!”
He doesn’t even bother to stand up, and lets the pillow bounce off his shoulder; like I’m a non-threat.
Like I really am just a child to him. He places his coffee cup on the nightstand so casually, so calmly, it’s like he doesn’t see me at all.
Like he doesn’t see how close I am to the edge, even though it’s so fucking obvious. Well I’ll show him!
“Tommy.”
“No! Fuck you!” I storm into the bathroom, looking for my shoes so I can just get the fuck away. So I can run off, the way I should have ages ago. “Fuck this whole thing! Fuck all this shit!”
I spin, eyes wild, but my shoes are nowhere to be seen.
They’re gone. My breath freezes in my lungs and my muscles lock up tight, like I just got paralyzed.
I grip my chest. My heart is going so fast, my blood is rushing so loud.
Fuck, my jaw hurts from the punch yesterday and the way I’m grinding me teeth right now isn’t helping.
“Tommy.” His voice behind me startles me and I whirl. He’s standing in the doorway, staring at me. “Take a deep breath.”
“Shut! Up!” I practically scream at him. “Where are my shoes?!”
“You need to calm down.”
“Oh, like that’s ever worked before! Just tell me to calm down, that will do the trick!” I jeer at him, mock him, backing up because I feel like the walls are closing in on me. “Get out!”
“I wasn’t telling you to calm down,” he comments idly, not getting out at all. “I was making an observation. It’s clear that you have no idea how to regulate yourself. Telling you to do so would be setting you up to fail. And I don’t do that to you, remember?”
Right, that bullshit about trust.
I scrub my fingers through my hair, pull at the strands until my scalp stings.
I think my brain might be melting, or splitting in half.
Something in there is reaching down into my guts and moving things around, setting off alarm bells in my body that I’m about to fucking die. I think I’m about to die.
“Shit–” I grip the counter top. “Fuck you. You don’t do anything for me.
You don’t mean anything to me. You’re nothing, I’m nothing.
We’re not- we’re not doing this, alright?
I don’t want to hear you go on about trust. We don’t have trust, okay?
I’m not interested in that bullshit with you.
I’m not one to trust or be trusted, alright, Young-gi?
I’ll fucking blow your shit up, tear your house apart, ruin your goddamn life.
Look at me! Huh? Look at me! What the fuck do you even want me for?
Trust? I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone!
And if you trust me, you’ll be making the biggest mistake of your life.
So set me up to fail, beat the shit out of me, stiff me on a paycheck, toss me back onto the street where I belong, I don’t give a fuck!
But stop acting like you give a damn when you can’t==don’t!
” I correct the ending, knowing that ‘can’t’ and ‘don’t’ mean two different things, say two different things about me.
I’m panting, my throat hurts from yelling and the bathroom echoes with my words. And he’s just watching me, waiting me out, his eyes like spotlights on the mess of me, the spilling of my emotional baggage out onto the shiny floor tiles.
I feel that beast inside me, the one he pulled out with that word–‘child’. It’s ugly and so hungry, so evil, so abused. I wish I could just kill it. Kill it and never see it or feel it again.
“Fuck you,” I mutter, pushing my palms against my eyes hard enough that I see stars. “Just… fuck you, Young-gi.”
The only sound for a long minute is my ragged breathing. I finally open my eyes and sit on the edge of the tub, staring at the floor between my feet. My emotions are going numb, sucking the storm back inside where I can tuck it away until next time.
He’s watching me, I can feel it.
“What?” I demand, tired and lost. “What do you want me to say, Young-gi? Huh? Just spit it out.”
“Look at me.”
I grip the tub on either side of my legs, and brace myself.
I damn near hold my breath as I force my head up to obey, to get this over with.
To have him just throw me out already. To have him treat me the way I deserve, with derision and anger, because I can’t keep living this fantasy. It’s not real.
His words, when they come, are slow and deliberate, everything clear and concise and full of finality. I’m so hypnotized by the way he stares at me that I almost miss it, because he watches me like he can pull me in with his eyes alone. Like he’s compelling me to submit to him.
“You have thirty seconds to correct the lies you just said about yourself.” He touches his bare wrist like he’s pointing at a watch. “If you do, you’ll just get corner-time to help you calm down, and I’ll tell you how good you are. If you don’t, you’ll be getting something else.”
Wait… what? I shake my head like something’s in my ear. “I don’t–what?”