Chapter 16 #3
“You said, and I quote,” he holds up a finger and I finally read something in his expression, in his mannerisms. He’s not angry, but it’s anger-adjacent.
He’s… displeased. “That you don’t deserve my trust, that you belong on the street, and that I can’t, or don’t, give a damn about you.
Correct yourself. You now have twenty-five seconds. ”
I huff, stand back up. My emotional numbness is being blasted away, and I hate, hate, hate that the feeling coming to replace it is… a sick kind of excitement. A fearful thrill, a terrified elation. “Or what?”
“Twenty seconds,” he warns. “Or I’ll help you.
You can pretend you don’t want it, but if you choose not to obey me, I’ll know.
I’ll know that you’re asking for something a little extra.
Something a little more. More attention, more correction, more of that embarrassment I gave you last night. I’ll know, Tommy. Fifteen seconds.”
No, I can’t be that transparent, can I?
I try to deny it. “That’s not what this means–”
“Ten seconds.”
Wait–! “I don’t have to listen to you!”
He actually smiles a little at that, and it makes me want to pace around because I’m feeling way too much right now. I’m angry with him, hate him, but this–is this… did I want this? Why am I so… thrilled? Was I hoping for this? Was I manipulating him into this? Did I wake up needing it?
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” I whisper, grabbing my head like I’m suffering a migraine, feeling like my reality is splintering apart. “Why am I like this?”
“You’re testing me. That’s fine. Either way, whether you correct yourself or not, you’ll be getting what you want; attention. But one choice will be significantly more unpleasant and memorable than the other. Five seconds.”
Shit… why are his threats making it even better? I’m so fucked in the head.
“Four.” His eyes start to shine, and even though his expression is as flat as ever, I get the sense that he’s getting excited, too. That maybe we’re both fucked in the head and into this.
“Three.” We’re locked in a staring contest, now. I can’t catch my breath, I’m starting to lose feeling in my extremities. I think I might vomit. I want this so bad.
“Two.” He takes a step forward, and closes the bathroom door, locking us in. The click of the knob makes my knees wobble, and my cock perks up a little like this is sexual when it clearly isn’t, and fuck me, I’m so confused.
“One.”
Silence. My mouth is hanging open, I’m poised to run but I’m not going anywhere. I don’t think I’ve blinked since he started counting from thirty. Neither has he.
“Alright, Tommy.” His voice is so smooth, so infuriatingly, humiliatingly calm. “Go to that cabinet under the sink, and pull out a new bar of soap.”
My stomach flip-flops and I think I lose a few seconds of time in a full-on blackout caused by an emotional reaction I’m not even going to try to unpack. “What if–” I lick my lips, my voice a weak whisper. “What if I don’t?”
His smile is lopsided, almost boyishly charming, like he’s genuinely amused with me. He doesn’t even bother telling me a consequence. We both know I will. He already said it, loud and clear–he and I both know I wanted this.
I wanted this proof.
Proof that he isn’t just bullshitting me, that he’s honest, that he means what he says. That this isn’t about taking anything from me, but giving something back.
I swallow hard, and do as I’m told.
There’s a basket under the sink filled with unopened products. Shampoo bottles, tightly wrapped hand towels, facial masks, but the stack of unopened boxes of soap catches my eye. My fingers tremble as I grab the top one.
Standing again makes me so dizzy I almost sway, like my blood is moving so fast that the pressure is off in my head, and I might just pass out.
I turn to him, but he stays where he is, leaning against the door. He holds out his palm. Still not moving, at least ten feet away. Silently ordering me to go to him with the object he’s about to use to correct my bad behavior.
My cheeks are burning hot, and I think even my back is sweating.
I’ve never been into humiliation, and this feels an awful lot like that, but shit…
I… I hate it, but I don’t. Hate it so, so much, but I don’t.
I can’t stop an audible, trembling groan that slips out with a particularly heavy breath, right before my first step in his direction.
I thought the first step would break the barrier, so to speak, and make the rest easier, but that isn’t true.
It’s the opposite. Getting closer to him feels like we’re two of the same kind of magnet trying to push each other back.
Everything in my body resists me, and also spurs me on.
I’ve never been so confused. But I want this.
I put the box on his palm and swallow hard again because I’m salivating already. The knowledge that soap is about to be in my mouth is making my spit glands hyperactive, and I know that’ll only make it worse as the soap dissolves on my tongue.
It’s gonna be nasty, and humiliating. I’m pretty sure I’ll drool.
So why is my cock half-hard, and not getting soft the way it always does?
And why am I standing right in front of him, not fighting, or punching, or escaping, as he slowly opens the little cardboard box?
Why do I let him guide me to the mirror, where he stands behind me?
And why, when I realize that he’s about to make me stare at myself while I do this, does that make me want it even more?
Daddy stuff is so much more complicated than I thought. And this isn’t even real Daddy stuff, we aren’t having sex or anything. It’s just Young-gi being… himself, I guess.
“You lied.” The rumble of his voice sends a shiver down my spine and I grip the counter in front of my hips, grateful that I can lean forward against it and hide my half-hard cock.
“I think you woke up a little off-center this morning. I think you needed some help getting right again, and you didn’t know how to ask for it. ”
“I don’t need anything.” I can’t not say that. It’s the truth. It has to be true.
He ignores my lame interjection. “You got put in the corner last night like a ch–like a little boy.” He pauses.
He was about to say child, but changed it when I flinched.
He waits, watching and assessing my reaction to the replacement.
I nod tightly, and he gives me a hum of approval. “Good boy. Where was I?”
“Corner time,” I choke out.
“Oh, right,” he smiles, and he’s such an evil bastard but I think I might like it.
“So you woke up feeling metaphorically spanked and needed to see if I still meant all that, hm? I don’t mind you testing me, Tommy.
But if you’re going to keep pushing and asking me for more attention like this, I’ll need a word that tells me if I get it wrong. A safe word. Open your mouth.”
I’m trembling all the way down to my lungs as I part my lips.
First only a tiny bit, then a little more.
Seeing myself do it, watching myself submit to this, makes it so much worse and better.
He’s watching me, but not in the mirror.
He’s looking down on me for real, and leans over my shoulder so he can watch as he slides the dry bar of bright pink soap into my mouth.
“Hold that,” he says, and his breath brushes my neck, raising goosebumps.
I close my lips around it, put my teeth gently against it, and immediately taste the stringent flavor.
I wrinkle my nose, then straighten it out.
Something in my nature demands that I try to get through this without showing how it’s affecting me, so I’m gonna try, even though I already have a feeling that Young-gi will make sure that I fail.
“Red means stop. Yellow means slow down or check in. Green means go. Tap the counter once if you understand.”
I tap the marble once. “Good boy. Tap once for green, two for anything else. You’ll be keeping this soap in your mouth for sixty seconds. Starting after you tell me if you’re green or not.”
I tap once.
“Good boy,” he says again, and I close my eyes against it, but his hand suddenly appearing on my chin surprises me into opening them again.
“That’s right, keep them open. We’re going to wash those lies out of your mouth together, and every time you think those things, I want you to remember this taste. Understand?”
He waits, and I finally tap the counter once. He gives me another approving ‘good boy’ and I almost tap out, because he can’t be saying it that easy, can’t be giving me these small wins, I don’t deserve them–
Shit, this soap tastes nasty. And I was right, my saliva is making it a hundred times worse. A line of milky-pink drool drips from the corner of my lips, since no way in hell am I swallowing that shit, and I think I might spontaneously combust from the embarrassed heat simmering under my skin.
“You said you couldn’t be trusted,” he says, all hypnotizing and low.
“But you saved my niece’s life, and avenged her.
Protected your friend at the bar last night, searched for them when no one else noticed they were missing.
Stayed with Kira the entire week I was gone, even though you wanted to run away, because you know she’d worry if you disappeared.
You pay your rent when you aren’t even living there, give extra money to someone you aren’t even sure will follow through just because you empathize with him.
You made sure I got up and down those dangerous stairs safely, and hid your true self from Kira this week because you don’t want to scare her.
What’s not to trust, Tommy? Thirty more seconds. ”
Goddamn. Thirty seconds went by a lot faster when he was counting down before this.
I’ve got pink soap-drool all over my lower lip and I’m breathing through my nose hard, because I can’t get enough oxygen into my brain with all the swirling panic and hope and want and fear and anger and bitterness that Young-gi is stirring up in me.
“You said that you belong on the street, but you’ve been honorable and honest. You haven’t taken anything that wasn’t given to you, haven’t asked for more than your share, haven’t cheated or stolen or lied.
You’re here because, from the very first moment my niece met you, she could tell, I can tell, that you’re worth more than you think.
And I’ve already told you, Tommy; I don’t throw away valuable things.
You’re not going back on the street, back to that shithole you lived in.
Not now, probably not ever. Fifteen seconds. ”
He can’t mean this. He can’t. He doesn’t.
I close my eyes but he gives my shoulder a little shake to remind me that I’m supposed to be watching my own humiliation.
The taste is so pervasive I think it will last for hours.
The scent of the soap is probably soaked into my nose forever. I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.
I want him to tell me more.
And he does.
“Lastly, you said I don’t give a damn about you. That I can’t. Does that feel true, Tommy?”
He pulls my head to the side so I have to look at him, not the mirror.
I stare up at him, soap in my mouth, and feel so watery and small and unsure that an honest-to-god tear falls from my eye before I have a chance to blink it away.
He watches it track down my cheek, allowing the silence to simmer between us as I suffer the consequences of my own actions.
Or, more aptly put, as I get exactly what I wanted.
“Good boy,” he says, plucking the bar from my mouth.
I spit into the sink immediately, shaking like a leaf, feeling like he scooped something out of me and left me hollow.
Like that beast inside me just got blasted back to the hellscape far in the back of my mind, like all my ugly emotions are getting spit out with the leftover globs of soapy saliva.
Young-gi turns the sink on for me, giving me silent permission to cup my hands under the stream and wash my mouth out with water.
It helps a lot more than just spitting does, but the taste lingers.
I feel clear. Quiet.
My head is finally quiet. Like last night, after corner time.
Young-gi steps out of the bathroom, but before I can get too mired in confusion, he returns with his mug.
“Here.”
I straighten up and stare at the offering, blinking at it. “That’s your coffee.”
“I’ll make more. But you were very good, Tommy. So let’s get the last of that taste out of your mouth, along with those things you said. Hm?”
His words sound so comforting, so therapeutic, but holy shit does he manage to make it sound threatening. And, honestly? I like that he sounds like he’ll stick that bar right back into my mouth if I don’t agree with him.
Consistency is an important part of… of trust, I guess. If that’s what this is.
“Thanks,” I whisper, taking the warm mug into my hands. He watches me sip it, and we stand in the silence for a while. My head is so empty, everything so quiet and fuzzy, that I have no thoughts and no words.
Holy shit, I’m like, basking. Shit.
“Do you have anything you want to do today?” he suddenly asks, when I’m almost done with his coffee. It’s the same question he asked me earlier, but I’m in an entirely different headspace now.
“No,” I murmur, inhaling the coffee steam to get the soap smell out of my nose.
“Good. Then you’re coming with me today.”
I don’t have the emotional energy to whip my head up in shock, but I do actually look at him then, instead of the cup in my hands. “Where?”
“You’re going with me to a meeting today. Kira’s busy, so I’m not dropping you off unattended at her apartment.”
“Oh.” And maybe a small part of me deep inside is insisting that I tell him no, that I create some distance to protect myself from him. But that small part of me is so far away, so quiet, and I feel… goddamn peaceful. So instead, I nod. “Alright.”
His smile is my reward, and I soak up his approval as I finish his coffee, washing the last of the aftertaste–from the soap and from the lies–out of my mouth.