Chapter 19
nineteen
After Cynnie leaves the next morning, I settle into my rig, slide in through my backdoor, and download the notes the lawyer for Scum, Scummier, and Scummiest has now entered into their client dbase on Rick.
Lindy’s uploaded an “extra credit” assignment to the class’s digital whiteboard. I don’t need the extra credit, but the lines of code he’s posted intrigue me. I spend a happy hour playing around with different solutions.
My mind’s always made strange connections. Things that seem unrelated to anyone but me. Reading through Lindy’s code sparks a memory. There’s a certain, spare elegance to the expressions and their order. I’ve seen it before.
I scratch my head. I’m probably remembering something Lindy’s published. I’ll have to give him shit about his self-plagiarism.
With fifteen minutes to spare, I toss a change of clothes and a towel into my backpack along with my school things. I shoot Mac a text to let him know I’m setting off to Logan’s.
Mac: Sorry. Family emergency. Catch up with you next week.
I frown at the phone as I walk towards Logan’s.
That better not be Mac’s bitch of an ex making trouble for him.
I thought he’d finally disentangled himself from her.
I hacked into the courthouse database and pushed their divorce application up the docket so the usual three-month delay was only one month.
If I have to meddle again, I will.
Logan’s waiting for me when I get to his townhouse, even though I’m a few minutes early.
He leads me straight through to the basement door.
There are still a few blankets remaining from what I can see was the Taj Mahal of blanket forts.
I don’t say anything until Logan’s closed the door behind us and we’re heading down the stairs.
“Mac’s had a family emergency. Is Emmy still in the fort?”
“Uh-huh,” Logan says. “She’s napping. Yesterday was intense for her, and I gave her a big reward this morning. I doubt she’ll wake while we’re lifting. Mac still having trouble with his ex?”
“He didn’t say, but I’d guess so.”
“Could be his daughter.” Logan sighs. “She’s been at Queens for a couple of weeks.”
“I thought she’d kicked the uppers,” I say, referring to Mac’s daughter’s addiction.
His ex-wife got their daughter hooked on diet pills when she was still in middle school and she’s been on and off uppers ever since.
Fucking crime. The kid’s scary bright. She’s studying to being a physicist. The next Stephen Hawking, the way Mac tells it.
“I’m not sure you ever really kick that kind of addiction,” Logan says. “Taking drugs like that, so young, it rewires your brain.”
I rub my hand over my mouth. Fuck, I hope not. If his kid’s going to be battling an amphetamine addiction the rest of her life, it’ll kill Mac. His sun rises and sets on Naomi.
We’re both pensive over thoughts of Mac as we stretch and start to lift.
“How long d’you think it’ll be before Mac can move to the City full time?” Logan asks me as we’re switching on the bench.
“He said a couple of weeks. I was going to help him look at apartments if he needed a second pair of eyes.”
“Good. Let him know Emmy and I can help with that, too.”
“I will. She mentioned she was going to see a home for her mother. You want me to run a background check on it?”
“Yeah. That’d be good. I’ve checked the references, but if you could trawl the internet the way you do, that’d help.
Emily’s brother is an ass and a half and he’s giving her a ton of grief about moving their mum from Syracuse, despite the fact he can’t ever be bothered to visit her when he only lives ten minutes away.
I think we’re only going to get one shot at his consent.
If you can make sure this place is clean, that’d help my peace of mind. ”
“You got it.” I grunt through my set.
“How’d things go with Cynnie after the park?” Logan asks as we’re switching places again.
“Good. Really good. And some not so good. I gave her a real punishment. It was utter hell. But the make-up was worthwhile. We talked things out. I understand why she ghosted me.”
Logan makes an incredulous noise in his throat.
“Yeah,” I say. “But it makes sense to me now. Jack helped explain it, too. Her previous daddies conditioned her to seek negative attention. I think I know how to break that cycle. I know you punish Emily often, but I think Cynnie might do better with minimal punishments and lots of positive reinforcement. I started working on an app today that might give her constant reinforcement even when we’re not together. ”
“I punish Emmy because she needs boundaries and needs to know that I’ll hold firm when she tests them. Cynnie may not need any of that. She might be absolutely fine just knowing her daddy’s there for her. There’s no one-size fits all.”
“I’m beginning to understand what you mean by that.
You’ve said it before, but I dunnow. I thought there were rules and ways that all littles behaved.
But I get it now. This isn’t about Cynnie being little.
It’s about Cynnie being Cynnie.” I grab a towel and mop my face.
“And me figuring out how to be her daddy.”
Logan claps my shoulder before he drops back onto the bench. “That’s exactly right.”
“I gave her a pleasure spanking last night,” I tell him.
Logan lifts his eyebrows even while he puffs through a set. “And?”
I grin.
“Yeah.” Logan echoes my grin. “Fucking awesome, isn’t it?”
I nod. “I had no idea how much of a turn on it would be. It’s intimate, isn’t it? All that touching and the heat of her skin and my hand and the tension that ran through her right before each hit and then how her whole body relaxed afterwards. I had no idea.”
“Well done, Maxie. If you felt all that, you did it exactly right. How was she afterwards?”
My grin widens, thinking of it. “Cuddly. We both slept really well last night, too.”
“Yup, Emmy and I sleep like logs after a good scene.” He finishes his reps and we swap over. “You want to tell me about the punishment?”
Do I?
“I needed Jack to talk me through it,” I admit the part that still gives me a twinge of shame. The Navy drummed into me that asking for help isn’t weak and shared knowledge is power. But there’s still a small voice that says a real man handles his own shit.
“Good,” Logan says firmly. “Glad you had that support. What made it hell?”
I wipe my face and dust my hands with the chalk bag before I grip the bar. “Listening to her cry. I hated that part. I wanted to stop the punishment and comfort her.”
Logan nods. “That’s natural, Maxie. I’d be worried if you didn’t have those feelings.”
“You hate seeing Emily cry?” I ask, remembering what Brenna said about wanting scenes that left her screaming and bloody.
“I hate seeing Emmy in any kind of emotional pain. There are sadists who get pleasure that way, but I’m not one of them. It absolutely wrecks me to see Emmy suffer emotionally. I want her happy. Everything I do, the rules, being strict with her, it’s all to keep her safe and happy.”
I remember the elation I felt knowing I’d made Cynnie happy. “Yeah, that was the best part. Everything before that was hell, though. How do you stand giving her punishments all the time?”
“I don’t give Emmy punishments all the time. I rarely punish her. You’ve just seen us on the day after the biggest one. The worst one.” Logan sighs. “It’s not easy. I keep my eyes on the prize. I’m giving her what she needs the same way I do when I meet any of her other needs.”
I finish my reps and stand before I ask, “Do you hate it?”
Logan rubs his chin, considering my question.
“Yes and no. It’s hard for me to see her suffer.
I have to fight my instinct to stop what’s hurting her and comfort her.
But I know there’s a purpose to it. She needs the structure and I need the control.
It’s not selfless. It’s important for both of us.
Did you feel more in control once it was over? ”
“I—yeah, I did. I felt, eh, fuck, this is going to sound bad.”
“Maxie, c’mon, it’s me. I promise you I’ve been there. Probably really fucking recently.”
I take a deep breath before admitting something to my best friend that I’ve barely admitted to myself. “I felt vindicated. I felt like things were right between her and me again. That I was back on top.”
Logan grins. “That’s power exchange, mate.
She fucked up the power exchange between you by ghosting you.
You’ve punished her and corrected it. I’m not saying punishment fixes everything.
You gotta keep an eye on the underlying causes for her misbehavior.
But it sounds like you have a handle on that.
A punishment should clear the slate and set things right between you.
Did you give her aftercare? Did that feel good? ”
I nod.
“I don’t want to get into a cycle of punishment,” I tell him.
“I couldn’t do what Jack does with Sammi.
That’d drive me crazy. But comforting her afterwards, doing the aftercare with the bath and everything, like Jack told me to do, that was a high, man.
I felt like superman. I’m still riding that high, if I’m honest. Or I was until that fucking drone showed up. ”
Logan grunts and it’s not because of the weight he’s lifting. “Manny emailed me about that. You sure you don’t want to get some cameras on the outside of the building?”
“No, I’ve got some in the windows already. Catching the drone on camera’s not going to tell us much of anything we don’t already know, which is that Ness has found me and is watching.”
“You figure they’re watching because they’re planning a physical grab or because they’re looking for leverage or what?”
I shrug. “Either. Both. Ness is an opportunistic fucker.”
“How about putting a body man on you for a while?”