Chapter 5 The Pacifier Test #2
"Twenty-eight—" I lost the words in a sob, had to start over. "Twenty-eight, thank you for correcting me. Because you were right about me and I couldn't stand it."
"About what specifically?"
"Thirty, thank you for correcting me. About—about self-sabotage. About armor. About—thirty-one, thank you for correcting me—about everything."
The admission broke something in me. The strikes continued but I barely felt them now, too lost in the realization that he'd seen through twenty-three years of carefully constructed walls in three days.
"Forty," I whispered. "Thank you for correcting me."
"Ten more. You're almost done."
Those last ten took forever. Each strike precise, measured, designed to leave marks that would last. But I counted. Thanked him. Submitted to this insane protocol because the alternative was starting over, and I couldn't survive another fifty.
"Fifty." The words came out broken. "Thank you for correcting me."
"All done." The belt disappeared, and his hand returned to my back, soothing. "You did beautifully. Took your punishment so well."
I should have moved. Rolled off his lap, created distance. Instead I lay there crying, overwhelmed by pain and something else. Something that felt dangerously close to relief.
"Up when you're ready," he said gently. "We have more work to do today."
It took several minutes before I could move. Everything hurt. Sitting would be impossible. But eventually I managed to stand, dress falling back into place, legs shaky.
He'd returned to the vanity, pulling items from his case with renewed focus. "Have you heard of regression therapy?"
"That's the repressed memory bullshit, right?"
"Different concept." He held up something that made my blood run cold. "This is about accessing emotional states that were interrupted or denied during development. Returning to points of trauma to process them properly."
The pacifier in his hand was adult-sized, pale pink silicone with a white shield. Medical grade, because of course it was. Everything here was precisely engineered for maximum psychological impact.
"Absolutely not." I backed away. "Whatever you're thinking, no. That's—that's sick."
"It's therapeutic." He set it on the vanity along with other items—a sippy cup, a small blanket, what looked like a children's book. "Many adults never learned to self-soothe properly. Never had the safety to be vulnerable. This provides that opportunity."
"I'm not a baby!"
"No. You're an adult whose development was interrupted by having to be too mature too young." He arranged the items like a display. "This isn't about infantilization, Lilah. It's about giving you permission to need things. To want comfort. To accept care without viewing it as weakness."
"By sucking on a pacifier?"
"Among other things." He picked up his tablet again. "The protocol includes specific trigger words designed to help you access that headspace. Would you like to hear them?"
"No."
"Little one. Sweet girl. Baby." He watched my face as he spoke. "Princess. Daddy's girl. Good baby."
Each word hit like a physical blow, making something in my chest tighten. My face burned with humiliation and something else, something worse than shame.
"Stop."
"Your pupils dilated on 'good baby.' Interesting." He made a note. "The body remembers what it needed and never received. Even if the mind rejects it."
"I don't need anything from you."
"Then this should be easy." He picked up the pacifier, holding it out. "Put this in your mouth for sixty seconds. That's all. One minute of allowing yourself to try something new."
"No."
"No?" He set it down, picking up something else. A small remote. "Then we'll do this differently."
I recognized the remote. Knew what it meant. My body remembered too, already tensing with sense memory from that first day.
"Don't you dare—"
"Edges, not orgasms," he clarified. "Each time you refuse a simple request, I'll bring you close and stop. Your body is already primed from punishment. This should be very effective."
"That's torture."
"That's motivation." He pointed to the bed. "Lie down, please. On your back."
I could refuse. But refusal meant consequences, and I was already drowning in those. So I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, hating him with every fiber of my being.
The vibration started gentle. Just a tease against oversensitized nerves. But he knew exactly what he was doing, finding the rhythm that made my body respond despite everything.
"All you have to do is try," he said conversationally. "Sixty seconds with the pacifier. Then this stops."
"Never."
The vibration increased, building toward a peak I could already feel approaching. My hands fisted in the sheets, thighs tensing.
Then it stopped.
"Fuck!" The frustration tore out of me.
"Language. But I'll allow it given the circumstances." He waited thirty seconds, then started again. "The pacifier, Lilah. Such a simple thing."
Again he built me up, expert in reading my body's responses. Again he stopped just before release.
"I hate you," I gasped.
"I know. The pacifier?"
"No!"
The third time was worse. My body was primed now, desperate for release after days of conditioning. Every nerve ending screamed for completion he wouldn't provide.
"Your choice," he said mildly. "We can do this all day. I cleared my schedule specifically for you."
By the sixth edge, I was sobbing. By the tenth, begging. But not for what he wanted. Not yet.
"Please," I gasped as he denied me again. "Please just—"
"You know what I want." He held up the pacifier again. "Sixty seconds. That's all."
My pride warred with my desperate body. But pride had already cost me so much. What was sixty seconds compared to this torture?
"Fine." The word ripped from my throat. "Fine, I'll do it."
"Ask nicely."
I wanted to scream. Instead: "May I please try the pacifier?"
"Good girl." He moved to sit beside me on the bed. "Open your mouth."
This was it. The moment I gave up another piece of myself. But my body hurt, everything throbbed with denied release, and sixty seconds seemed like such a small surrender.
I opened my mouth.
The pacifier slipped between my lips, heavier than expected. The shield pressed against my face, forcing my mouth into a specific shape. I wanted to bite down, to reject it, but something about the weight was... soothing?
"Suck," he instructed gently. "Like you would naturally. Don't think about it."
I tried not to. Tried to just get through sixty seconds. But the motion came instinctively, some deep muscle memory from infancy. The rhythmic action, the gentle pressure, the way it made me focus on just this one simple thing...
"Good baby," he murmured.
The words hit like lightning. Combined with the sucking motion, the vulnerability of the position, the days of conditioning—my body responded without permission.
The orgasm crashed through me like a tidal wave, unexpected and overwhelming.
I convulsed on the bed, pacifier still between my lips, crying and coming and completely destroyed.
"There we go." His hand stroked my hair as I shook through aftershocks. "See? Your body already knows what you are. What you need. We just have to teach your mind to accept it."
I spat out the pacifier, rolling away from him, curling into a ball. Everything hurt. Not just physically but deeper, in places I'd kept locked for decades.
"That was beautiful," he said softly. "A perfect demonstration of how the body holds what the mind denies."
"Shut up." The words came out muffled against my arms. "Just shut up."
"We'll work more with this over the coming weeks. The pacifier, the sippy cup, learning to accept comfort without shame." He stood, gathering his items. "You did wonderfully today, Lilah. Real breakthrough work."
I said nothing. Couldn't speak past the sob lodged in my throat.
"Rest now. Process what happened. Tomorrow we'll explore further." His footsteps moved toward the door. "Oh, and Lilah? You may touch yourself tonight if you need to. Consider it a reward for trying something difficult."
The door closed, leaving me alone with the echo of my destruction.
I'd come from words. From two words and a piece of silicone and the complete annihilation of my self-image. My body had betrayed me in a new, deeper way. Shown him truths I'd never wanted to acknowledge.
The pacifier lay on the bed where I'd spit it out, innocent-looking and devastating. Evidence of what I was becoming. What he was making me.
What I was letting him make me.
"Free time until lunch," the speaker announced. "Remember to ask nicely, little one."
Little one. The words made something clench in my chest now, charged with new meaning.
I pulled the blanket over my head and tried to pretend I couldn't still taste the pacifier. Couldn't still feel the ghost of that impossible orgasm. Couldn't still hear his voice saying "good baby" like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Tomorrow, he'd said. We'll explore further.
I pressed my face into the pillow and wondered how much further there was to fall.