Chapter 6 #3
The warmth of his hand over mine is doing something catastrophic to my ability to think clearly.
"What are we doing?" I finally ask, and my voice is quieter than I intended.
He's quiet for a moment. His thumb moves, slowly, across the back of my knuckles. Back and forth. Steady and unhurried in exactly the way he does everything.
"I’m paying attention to you," he says. "And I want you to pay attention to yourself. I guess some could say I am Daddying you."
He's been watching me all week. He's been cataloguing the same things I've been cataloguing about him.
He's been paying attention to me in that specific, complete way he pays attention to everything, and he's noticed the part of me that runs a little ragged at the edges, that gets so excited about the next thing that she forgets to eat lunch or read the sign or watch where her feet are.
He noticed. And he's not trying to fix it. He's just holding it. As if he’s saying, I see it. I'll help you with it.
"Anthony," I say, and I don't know what I was going to say after that.
"I know," he says, like he does know. Like he has known for longer than tonight.
He doesn't let go of my hand.
I don't move away.
“What do you want?” He asks me. “Do you want a weekend and then forget we ever met? Do you want to try a long distance relationship? Or?”
What do I want? This is moving so fast. Then I think about my friends in the Naughty Girl’s Book Club and how fast their relationships moved. I remember Holly telling me, “when you know, you know.” Deep inside, I know.
“I don’t want just a weekend.” I finally say. “Are you telling me you’re a Daddy?”
“What do you think?”
“I’ve thought you were a Daddy since you rescued the elk.”
“I am. That is something Justin and I bonded over a long while ago. You’re a little.” He’s not asking but I nod anyway. “Do you know what I think?”
“What’s that?”
“I think you’ve been testing me all day because you wanted me to show you what it would be like to be with a Daddy who cares about you and watches out for you. Am I wrong?”
Is he wrong? I mean, no. He’s not. I purposely carried around the half-drunk water bottle in order to see how he would respond.
“No, you aren’t wrong. Not exactly. I think I’ve known you were a Daddy but wanted to know what you would be like as my Daddy.” Phew. That took a lot of courage.
“If you will consent, I can show you exactly what today would have looked like if you’d been my little girl.”
We spend the next few minutes talking about consent and safe words. And wow, do I feel safe with him.
“Now that we’ve taken care of safety, let’s chat. I want you to tell me something you'll do differently in the future to prevent these issues from occurring again."
Not: Are you sorry? Not: Don't do it again. But, tell me something you'll do differently. He's asking me to think through it, not just agree.
"Read the whole sign," I say. "Before I act on what I think I know. Slow down the moment between seeing something and doing it."
"That's it." He says it quietly, the same way he said good girl at the ranch. "That's all I'm asking for."
"I'm sorry," I say. "About the cider. I genuinely…"
"I know." He reaches over and takes my hand.
"I'm not angry, Maya. I want you to understand that. This isn't about anger. And it’s not the cider or the impulsive acting that bothers me. What upset me was the lie, even if you found it to be a small one, and the obvious testing you’ve been doing since I handed you the water bottle. "
“I’m sorry. I wish I could say I’ll never test you again or I won’t be a brat, but…” I try to find the words to explain it. “I think my little likes to challenge sometimes.”
He's quiet for a moment after I finish. The fire pops inside the fireplace. Outside the library windows the resort has gone quiet and dark.
"Stand up," he says.
Two words that instantly register. I'm standing before I've actually decided with my brain to obey. Okay, it’s clear my body is going to do what my body wants.
He moves from the chair to the longer sofa, directly in front of the fire and sits.
He looks at me for a long moment as if he’s making a decision, and something in my chest is doing something I don't have language for yet, something that is equal parts nervous and equal parts certain in a way those two things don’t usually align.
"Do you know what I'm going to do?" he asks.
I know. I've read the books. I've been part of the group chats when the girls have confessed and shared intimate details about their relationships for years.
But understanding something abstractly and standing in a warm firelit room with Anthony Rossi looking at you like that are two different things entirely.
"Yes," I say.
"Tell me."
"You're going to spank me." I’m not sure I’ve ever spoken the word out loud. It sounds like a foreign language.
Something settles in his expression. "That's right." He pauses. "Do you want to tell me no?"
I check. I actually check, not performing the check but doing it, seeking deep down and looking for the no, giving it a fair chance to be there.
It isn't there.
"No," I say.
"No, you don't want to say no, or no as in your answer."
"Both."
He nods. "Come here, then."
Come here.
I go.
He guides me over his lap with the same matter-of-fact steadiness he brings to everything I’ve seen him do this week.
There’s no fumbling, no performance, just a calm certainty and I'm across his knees with my hands braced on the cushion and the fire warm on my face and my heart doing something it has never done in this specific way before. It’s beating fast and hard and I can hear each thud of it in my ears.
I thought I would feel more complicated about this. I thought there would be more negotiating with myself. I thought I’d have to talk myself into doing this or have some sort of mental struggle. I feel none of that.
I just feel…held and ready and… excited? How do I feel excited?
His hand rests on my back and he doesn't rush it.
"Why are we here?" he asks almost conversationally.
"Because I didn't read the sign," I say. "Because I made an assumption instead of checking and handed you something you didn't want. Because I didn’t drink the water before having more alcohol. I kept testing you."
"And before that?"
"The bear enclosure. Moving toward the calf too fast." I pause. "The pattern I have of acting before thinking and being impulsive."
"Yes." His hand moves to the small of my back. "Do you understand what is going to happen?"
"Yes," I say. "I understand."
"Good girl."
His hand lifts and comes down, it’s not soft, but measured. A single sharp crack that startles a sound out of me that I wasn't prepared for, and then his hand is resting on me again, warm and steady, and I'm breathing. It lands several more times.
"Still with me?"
"Yes."