Chapter 55 Elliot #3
Nothing has ever affected me the way those words did.
The way those words do. They feel big. Like something huge is approaching with the power to roll me.
I should’ve been outraged that he said it.
I should’ve been insulted and furious. I should think it’s funny.
That’s what I should do. I should laugh my ass off.
I don’t though. I feel paralyzed and electrified and scared shitless and so agitated that when I hand my card to the bartender, I can’t help noticing a slight tremor in my hand.
When I’m back at our table, I try to take my time with my drink.
I take a sip, then set it down and try to wait a full minute before taking the next one.
I’m not fucking well going to chug it just because of Stuart Wiseman.
I’m out with my friends, and I’m going to enjoy myself and take my good goddamn time finishing my drink.
I lose my nerve just before eleven.
“You know what,” I say to Wyn, “maybe we should head out. I’ve got an early morning.”
Bridget and Izzy decide to stay, but Wyn bundles me into his car before I change my mind.
He chatters about work for most of the drive.
He's one of those people who really loves his job. He's a PA and usually I get a little kick out of how seriously he takes his work, but tonight I’m so busy trying to ignore the pit in my stomach that I’m hardly able to answer.
It’s eleven twenty-six by the time we turn onto Stuart’s street.
“Just apologize,” says Wyn. “Don’t make a big deal out of it. Just say you’re sorry. You can blame me if you want.”
“Please. I don’t care. What’s he gonna do anyway? Ground me? Take my phone?”
Shit, he can’t take my phone, can he?
Wyn doesn’t answer, but as he puts his car into Park, his eye follows the path up to the front door. Stuart is standing on the porch with both fists resting firmly on his hips.
“Oh, shit,” giggles Wyn. “Your Daddy’s mad.”
“He’s not my Daddy, you dick.”
“Well, he might not be your Daddy, but believe me, that Daddy’s a Daddy. And he’s mad.”
I mumble my thanks for the ride and get out of the car.
Wyn waves at Stuart as he pulls away. “Sorry, we’re late, Mister, uh, Stuart.
It was my fault. I had car trouble.” He must realize his story isn’t especially believable given he’s driving his car because his voice trails off, he winds his window up, and he hits the gas.
Stuart holds the door open for me, one hand still firmly planted on his hip.
I sidle past him and head to the kitchen for a glass of water.
Even though I only had three drinks, I suddenly feel like I could do with some severe sobering up.
He watches me as I drink and waits until I’m done before drilling his gaze so far into the back of my skull that I find myself looking down at my feet to avoid it.
When I dare to look up, his face is dead serious. Set. Fine lines crease around his mouth and dip deep between his drawn brows. It’s horrific how good-looking he is. He's beautiful. Weathered and worn in.
“Your face is like a beautiful leather handbag.”
Oh shit.
Oh Jesus.
Did I just say that out loud?
Please no. No, no, no, no.
“What time do you call this?” he asks, mercifully choosing not to dignify my ridiculous comment with a response. His voice is quiet, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it down to my bones.
My Adam’s apple feels abnormally large, and despite the fact I just had a whole glass of water, I feel a little parched. It’s not that I’m scared. I’m not. I can handle myself.
“S-sorry,” I say.
Fine. Maybe I’m a little scared.
Sue me.
You’d be scared too.
“W-Wyn was late.” Stuart’s face is the picture of a man who is less than impressed. “Sorry,” I say again, and this time, I think I might mean it. “It won’t happen again.”
He glares at me for three beats and then gives me a curt nod.
I’m flooded with a quick burst of relief. This whole evening has been super weird, and I’ve built it up into something really strange in my mind. Of course I feel relieved. Anyone would. It’s entirely the appropriate emotion to feel in the circumstance.
What isn’t appropriate, or explicable in any way, is the fact that relief isn’t all I’m feeling.
Right below relief, right under my rib cage below my heart, I feel a complicated knot of rage and disappointment so profound it makes my whole body pulse as I walk past the dining table where Stuart stands.
“What do you think you’re doing?” There’s genuine interest in his voice.
“Uh, I thought I’d watch something. I’m amped from being out. Need to chill so I can fall asleep.”
“Absolutely not. Upstairs now.” His voice is still mild, but both hands are back on his hips. That little gesture takes the rage I’m feeling, pours gasoline on it, and sets it alight.
“You’re like everyone else, d’you know that?
” My voice is harsh and drenched in accusation.
His lips squeeze together and he eyes me with interest. “You act like you aren’t.
You act like you’re different, but you’re not.
You say you’re going to do things, and you don’t do them, just like everyone else. ”
I’d love it if I had some idea of what I’m doing. I really would. But I don’t. I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m up to. I only know that as I speak, I’m driven by a deep sense of urgency. A resolve. A mad doggedness that’s taken up residency in me and has me in a chokehold.
The lines around his eyes deepen. “I assure you. I am nothing like that.”
My mouth’s moving a lot faster than my brain, the urgency, the resolve, the doggedness, fuse, and spark, and I hear myself yelling, “You are! You’re exactly the same. You over-promise and under-deliver. That’s what you do.”
“Elliot.” Until this moment, I had no idea my name could be a full sentence, but it can be. You’ll have to take my word on that. His index finger is extended and pointed at me again. “This is a warning. The first and last one you’ll get from me.”
“A warning? A warning? See? You’re exactly like everyone else!”
From there, things go vague. I’m not entirely sure how it happens, but I suddenly find myself upended, bent at the waist, with an incredibly close-up view of the tabletop.
There’s a big, heavy hand on the scruff of my neck, pining me in place, and another on the waistband at the back of my jeans.
That hand, the one on my waistband, clenches into a fist, pulling the denim so snuggly against me that it wedges itself into my crack and drags me onto my toes.
My heart races and my Adam’s apple rides up and down.
“Is this what you want, Elliot?”
I don’t answer, mainly because I swear to God, I don’t know what to say. Maybe I am trying to make him mad. Maybe I am trying to provoke him. If the forceful rush of blood to my cock is anything to go by, maybe I’ve been trying to provoke people my entire life without realizing I’m doing it.
Maybe I’ve been hoping for this very reaction.
I suddenly start to feel all too aware of how close my lips are to the solid French oak table surface, and it throws me. The humiliation of my position hits me, and I do what I always do when I’m backed into a corner.
I lash out.
“Yes,” I hiss.
I’m onto him. I have his number. He doesn’t have what it takes to do what he’s threatening. I think this is his game. It must be. I think he gets a kick out of feeling like he’s a big man, but it’s an act. I’m calling his bluff.
He’s going to look like a real ass when he lets me up from the table and has to apologize for his actions. Can’t wait to see his face when it happens. Might call my dad and tell him about it. Let’s see if he still thinks Stuart is so fucking wonderful after this.
“All right.” His voice is soft and controlled, and as he says it, his grip on my waistband tightens, pulling the fly and seam of my jeans snuggly against my balls and shaft. “Since you can’t seem to behave like a responsible adult, I’m going to spank your bottom like a bad little boy.”
A terrible, terrible sound leaves me. It’s a thin, simpering squeak that would be very hard to explain if someone questioned me about it. Fortunately, I manage to get myself under control in time to change it into something a little more dignified. “Fiiiine!”
My heart slams against my ribcage and I feel like I can’t breathe. Every time I blink, my focus lands and blurs on a different hand-painted tile behind the sink.
I suck in a huge gulp of air and hold my breath until my lungs burn and I settle.
Chill, I tell myself. Just chill.
Honestly, I don’t know what I’m getting so worked up about. He’s not going to do it. The man is full of shit. He’s up to his eyeballs chock full of shit, that’s what he is.
He’s not going to do it.
Bet you ten dollars he won’t.
You know what. I’ll bet you a hundred.
Oof…shit!
The first slap lands solidly on my left cheek, followed almost immediately by one on my right. He slaps my ass this way and that. Right cheek, right cheek, and then left.
Oh Jesus Christ.
I was wrong.
I was really, really wrong.
Before I have time to react, the entire dining room is reverberating with the steady sound of a meaty palm dispensing no-nonsense discipline.
I find myself jostled forward, nose to the table, hands scrabbling for something to hold on to.
I clamp my lips shut as the crisp sting from each blow starts to last longer and merge into the next one.
The seat of my pants starts to feel decidedly warm.
It’s an unbearable warmth, completely unfamiliar, and at the same time, it feels like something I know.
Something I deserve. It feels like something I’ve been waiting for, something I’ve been expecting without realizing I was expecting it.
It burns me, making me feel hot and too tight all over.
My thoughts race, jumbled and incoherent, darting so fast and so wildly that I don’t have time to decipher them. Each swat is decisive and lands with the type of precision that’s earned. The type of precision that comes from having done this many, many times before.
Oh Jesus.
I’m not living with a psycho. I’m living with an old-school pervert.
That realization should upset me. It really should.
It doesn’t though. It sinks into my skin and my bones.
It makes my dick so hard that with every additional slap that lands, the friction of jeans against dick doesn’t feel like denim on skin.
It feels like a tongue fully extended and being used roughly against the head of my dick.
Pressure rips through my body. Heady, heavy tension that squeezes so hard I slam my eyes shut and clench everything I have to stave off the orgasm threatening to undo me.
Even with the clenching, it’s too close. I know myself, and I know my dick, and I’m too close.
It’s a fucking emergency.
My dick throbs, swelling and straining, readying itself for the first surge.
Pleasure and pain blend together as I take two shallow breaths.
My mouth drops open, and I narrowly manage to stop any sound from escaping.
Blood roars in my ears as I wait helplessly to come face-to-face with my miserable fate.
It doesn’t happen.
Everything stops. All sensation is completely removed with the abruptness of a Band-Aid being ripped off soft skin.
Stuart’s throaty voice finds me through the fog. “Up you get.”
I find myself vertical but still reeling.
I attempt to steady myself, looking up at him and instantly balking under his gaze.
I’m shaking from head to toe, and I can hardly think from the shock of stopping so close to blowing my load.
My cheeks are on fire, and I don’t only mean the ones in my pants.
My face is burning hot too. So hot that my vision is tinged with red.
“Now,” says Stuart, almost kindly, “what do you say?”
My mind goes blank. Totally empty. There’s not a thought in my brain, but my lips move of their own accord.
For the rest of my life, I won’t know if my response is a throwback to the hundreds of times adults used this exact tone to remind me of my manners when I was a kid or if Wyn’s dastardly words are to blame.
Either way, I’m even more surprised than Stuart to hear myself say, “Thank you, Daddy.”
His ice-blue eyes flare and take on a life of their own. His lips, which were pursed in somber displeasure, go lax.
I’d dearly love to look away, but my eyes are locked onto his, and there doesn’t seem to be any way for me to change that. The tension between us is so visceral and real that I can almost see it vibrating.
I stand helplessly, quivering and shivering, and just when I think I can’t bear it any longer, he reaches out and wraps a strong arm around me. He pulls me tightly against him. One arm is around the small of my back, and the other cradles my head to his chest.
I soften into his embrace with no conscious intent on my part.
I soften and soften until I’m no longer certain if I’m holding myself up or if he is.
My cheek is pressed firmly against him. The slight coarseness of his shirt scours my skin.
I inhale, and suddenly, everything falls away, and all that exists are hot summer days, freshly mowed grass, woody herbs, and a mystical place I’ve never been.
The fuck?
Did that just happen?
“Teeth then bed,” he says when I finally pluck up the courage to look up at him. “Lights out in five minutes.” His tone softens, and the hand on my back moves two or three inches up my spine and down again. “We’ll discuss this in the morning.”