by Frost, E J
Because he said no instead of yes, and because I know all about hating yourself.
“A monster doesn’t worry about being a monster, Sir. The fact that you felt bad about it shows you’re a good person.” I rub my sticky eyes. “And it’s natural for a Dom to want to punish and protect his sub. I mean, that’s what she was, right? Your first sub?”
He nuzzles the soft spot behind my ear, his lips buzzing against my skin as he speaks. “I never thought of it that way, but, yes, she was.”
“Have you always known you were a Dom?” I ask hesitantly. Not all of my Doms have wanted to talk about their Dom-ness.
“You mean, have I always been a bossy asshole?” That would make me giggle if I wasn’t still sniffling. “My sister would probably say yes, but I only figured out my kink in my twenties.”
But it was always in him. Just like mine was always in me.
“I felt really, really bad about my kink at first, too, Sir. I thought it was wrong and degrading and made me a bad person. Just like you. You just felt it a lot earlier. It must have been even harder to deal with those feelings when you were so young.”
“Emmy.” He blows out a warm breath across my ear. “Are you really okay with this? Are you okay with me?”
Am I? I let the questions settle for a heartbeat, two. Nothing in me rejects it. I nod. “Yes, Sir.”
He rubs his hand up and down my back. “Will you let me take care of you, sweetheart? It’s okay to say no. I’d understand if you didn’t trust me after this and wanted me to leave you alone. But, please, baby, let me take care of you.”
I still trust him. Maybe I trust him more now than I did when I got off the plane. No one is perfect, but other than a bad moment in New York when I thought he was going to hit me in anger, I hadn’t seen any of Logan’s flaws until today. That he has some, and that they only illustrate what a decent person he is, make me trust him more.
“Yes, Sir, I’d like you to take care of me. Please, can we go back to the way it was in New York?”
He leans over to kiss my cheek, trail his lips down my neck, and the erection that’s been a steel bar against my hip while he’s been spanking me throbs so hard I can feel it through his jeans. “Yes, little girl, of course we can.”
He makes me come twice, first with his fingers and then with his cock and that amazing hip action. But it’s more than just giving me orgasms. He cups my face, holds my throat, envelops me in his body, while he fucks me. He masters me, controls me, with every thrust, in each position, creating that intense intimacy he created in New York. I’m overwhelmed the first time, and cry during the aftershocks while he holds me and calls me his good girl.
The second time, I grey-out under him, both from the overstimulation of every nerve and from the pain of his thighs hitting my ravaged ass cheeks. His orgasm seems to go on for a full minute, and he collapses on me afterwards, crushing me down into the thick rug where we’ve ended up.
I wrap my arms around him and stare up at the ceiling. Floating, even though I’m pinned under his weight. Feeling nothing but bliss despite the burning, itching pain in my ass and thighs. I float, and feel, until Logan rolls off me and bumps his elbow into the wooden base of the couch with a muttered curse. Thinking of what he’d do to me if I said that word makes me giggle. I grab the edge of the table and the lip of the couch and begin to pull myself up off the floor unsteadily.
Logan’s hand on my shoulder presses me back. “Wait there, baby. You need cream and painkillers. Do you want a blanket?”
I haven’t been cold while we’ve been fucking. Now the air-conditioning is chilling the sweat on my skin and it’s as good a time as any for Logan to find out about my fuzzy. “Sir, in my big yellow case, there’s a blue blanket. Can I have that?”
“Sure.” He bends over to kiss the top of my head. “Give me a tick.”
He pads across the living room and into the bedroom. I watch his ass, which really is spectacular, while pulling myself into a slump against the couch. Under the haze of sex chemicals I’m still riding, there’s a pretty sharp bite in my butt. That’s going to hurt so much once the endorphins wear off.
He returns, carrying my fuzzy folded in his arms. He lays the blanket on the couch and spreads it out, then lifts me onto it. I love how easily he handles me and tell him so as he turns me over and positions me with my arms folded under my head.
He smiles down at me, and now it does reach his eyes. I start to smile back when he frowns at something out of my line of sight.
“Sir, what’s wrong?”
“How does this feel?” he asks, running his fingertips very lightly over my left ass cheek.
At the moment, it just feels hot, but I can tell it’s bruised. “Not as bad as the times I’ve had the soles of my feet caned.” Which is the truth. “How does it look?”
“Worse than I thought it would. You didn’t bruise anything like this from my belt or the paddle. I’m going to rub this before I put the cream on it. Remind me to do it again before we go to bed.”
“Yes, Sir.” I’m sure I’ll remember, because it’s going to be really sore by then.
“I also want you to take some painkillers. There wasn’t anything in your medical history about allergies to aspirin. Are you allergic?”
“No, but it does a number on my stomach. I have Advil and Aleve with me. Could I have one of those instead?”
“Uh-huh, I have Advil, too. Let’s get the cream on and get you wrapped up, then I’ll get you a bottle of water and the pills.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
I rest my cheek on my wrists as he begins rubbing. At first, the pressure on my very sore skin makes me wince, but as he works deeper into the muscle, the burn fades and a soothing heat works up into the muscles of my back and down into my legs.
“I’m glad we’re getting sushi. Some Omega-Three won’t do you any harm, either.” He squirts the cream on and smooths it in with his palms.
Ah. I close my eyes and enjoy the numbness.
“Emmy, what’s on your binkie?” he asks as he rubs.
“What’s a binkie, Sir?”
“Your blanket.”
Binkie. Cute. Very British. He told me he was born and lived in England until he was ten; British words still pepper his speech. I wonder if that’s ever a problem for him, although I suppose with his British sub it wouldn’t have been. He’s asked me not to think about her anymore, though. Which is good, because I already kind of hate her, and hating her is a buzz-kill.
“It’s the Ravenclaw house badge, Sir.”
Logan chuckles. “Are you a Ravenclaw?”
“Uh-huh. What house are you, Sir?” I don’t have any doubt that he has a house, or that he’s watched the Harry Potter movies, or maybe even read the books, not since he sent me that text about ElfQuest while I was checking in at the airport.
“Slytherin,” he says, reaching up to stroke my head.
No, he’s not. He’s Gryffindor through and through. “Sure, Sir.”
I nod under his warm hand. With the relief from the burning in my ass, and the orgasms, I’m getting very sleepy.
Logan notices. He notices everything, which is both wonderful and a little scary, because I’m never going to be able to get anything by him. “You want a nap? Food won’t be here for another forty minutes.”
“Would you nap with me, please, Sir?”
“Sure, that sounds good. Come on, burrito baby.” He flips both sides of the fuzzy over my back, then rolls me up into his arms. He carries me to the bed and sets me on top of the covers. “We’ll do the painkillers after the nap, with some food, unless you need them now?”
I shake my head, blinking up at him sleepily. “I’m good, Sir.”
He smiles down at me, and it’s a real smile. Affectionate and heartfelt. None of the strain he was carrying earlier. None of the weirdness or soul-scourging. My own heart leaps. I worm my arms out from inside the Ravenclaw roll he’s made of me and hold them out to him. He slides onto the bed an
d stretches against me, giving me more of his weight than he did the night we slept together in New York. I couldn’t sleep all night like this, but for a nap, it’s perfect. I sigh happily and snuggle into him.
3
What kind of fucking nutter tells the woman they’ve been dating for less than a week they were consumed by lust for their own sister for most of their adolescence? I wouldn’t blame Emily if she slapped me across the face for real and walked out. What the fuck must she think of me?
I watch her for some sign of rejection, of disgust, anything, while she falls asleep in my arms, and after she wakes, while we eat the sushi boat and sashimi platter I’ve had smuggled into the hotel. Any sign. A side-eye. An unconscious lip-curl. A flinch when I brush against her.
There’s nothing. She seems wholly relaxed, and, fuck me, happy. How can she be happy after I wounded her, using her like she was less than a Fleshlight? No, that’s not right. She wasn’t at all happy while I was doing it. She got more and more tense under me as it went on, to the point where I was sure she was about to use her safe word and if I hadn’t been a second away from coming, I’d have stopped even without it. It was more awful doing it than I expected. But it should have been, since I was imagining Lizbeth under me the whole damn time. Maybe that’ll purge me of that ghost. I fucking hope so, because I don’t think Emily can endure anything like that again.
Even if she could, I don’t think I can do it to her again. That wasn’t domination. It wasn’t sadism. It was abuse.
I’ve abused my submissive.
And she accepted it. Somehow, to help me heal. Maybe she’s freaking out inside, but I don’t think so. Emily’s a little reserved, a little shy and introverted, but she doesn’t have much of a poker face. I can pretty much tell what she’s feeling minute-by-minute just by watching her expressions and body language. I watch her as she gobbles down what must be her tenth piece of salmon sashimi; the calorie-counting she was doing during our first dinner together evidently doesn’t extend to sushi. I can’t see even a twitch of tension. She’s sitting on the floor by my side, with her back against the couch, one leg drawn up and her right elbow propped on her knee. She’s wearing my black tee, which she swims in, and those hot, red-and-white-striped thigh-highs that make me want to eat her like a peppermint, and nothing else. Her nipples poking against the cloth are almost as tempting as the sushi. She uses chopsticks like she was born with a pair in her hand, lithe snatch-and-grab-raids from the mountain of fish spread on the coffee table in front of us. She keeps taking pieces from under my nose, and I can see the sly smile she hides in each bite.
She’s playing with me. This is her little peeping back out from the very adult mask I’ve made her wear for the last several hours playing with me. She’s playing with me after I pinned her to the bed and made sure she didn’t enjoy it as I used her. After I spanked her so hard that her left ass cheek is covered with white blisters, damage I’ve never done to any of my bottoms, even when I was just learning. She’s playing with me after I admitted the darkest, ugliest secret I carry. Beyond the Hell I saw in the Navy, beyond the shitty things I’ve done when I was drunk or stupid, beyond the loss of my parents, wanting to beat and fuck my own sister is the thing that’s made me feel the worst in my entire life. I’ve never admitted it to anyone, but after knowing Emily for less than a week, I’ve admitted it to her.
I slide my arm around her shoulders. She snuggles into my side. No hesitation. No flinching.
“Communication, baby doll,” I say.
“Yes, Sir?”
The honorific makes me flinch. After hearing it from my bottoms for more than a decade, suddenly I don’t like it. I want her to call me Daddy and know we’re okay.
“I want to talk about what happened earlier.” I scratch my chin with the handles of my chopsticks. “Actually, I want to apologize.”
She lays her soft head against my shoulder. “You don’t need to apologize. I asked you to take it out on me. You did. Did it help?”
“Yes.” I released everything, all the awful tension that had built inside me. I’d be as relaxed as she is, if I wasn’t worried that I’d damaged things between us. “The thing is, I’m the daddy.” I’ve been a piss-fucking-poor daddy today. “I shouldn’t need to take out anything on you.”
She looks up at me, considering. “Wow,” she says, then she grabs another piece of salmon, swishes it in the plastic tub of wasabi-infused soy sauce, and pops it in her mouth.
“Wow?”
She chews carefully, ten times, remembering my rule, and swallows, before she says. “I didn’t realize you were Superman.”
“Superman,” I repeat. Is she fucking with me?
“Sure. Superman’s perfect, right? He never has bad days. He never messes up and feels awful about it afterwards. He can fix everything, even if he has to do something contrary to the laws of physics like make the world spin backwards to do it.”
She snakes her chopsticks toward another piece of salmon. I put mine in the way. I’ve had one piece and I’m not going to get a second if I don’t stake my claim.
She pouts. “You know, I’ve never liked Superman. He’s a dork.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. I’m trying to be serious and apologize for what I put her through, but she clearly doesn’t want either my gravity or my remorse. I move my chopsticks and take a piece of eel instead, while she dives for the unprotected sashimi. I survey the sushi boat, which is wholly bare of salmon. Has she eaten every piece? Little minx. At least I don’t have to worry about her getting enough Omega-3.
“Who’s your favorite?” I ask.
“From Justice League, or comic book character?”
Sweet little geek. “Comic book character.”
“Oh, I was a huge X-Men fan, so, naturally, Wolverine.” She elbows me. Is she comparing me to Wolverine? The comparison stops at the name, thank you very much. “But Gambit was probably my all-time favorite. He was so cool.”
Can’t fault her taste in superheroes.
“He was,” I agree. “How’d you end up knowing so much about comics, baby doll? I thought your thing was English history.”
She lifts her eyebrows at me. “Why, because that’s what I write? I love heroic fantasy. Comics are the Illiad and Odyssey of our age. These are the stories of gods and monsters, heroes and villains, through which we pass our values to the next generation. Western society’s just forgotten how important those stories are and left them for radical subversives like Stan Lee and the Pinis and Matt Wagner to tell.”
“Radical subversives?”
“Yes,” she says forcefully, and I realize this is something my little girl has a strong opinion on. “ ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ Do you think anyone in Washington wants young people believing that? If a politician actually cracked the cover of a comic book and realized what those stories were about, they’d faint. Individual responsibility, self-sacrifice for the greater good, loyalty to your tribe, acceptance and equality for people who are different? They’re everything politics should be about but isn’t.”
“Wow.”
She snorts and makes a lightning jab for a piece of tuna. “Who was your favorite?”
“Elektra.”
“Elektra Assassin? Awesome series. Did you have the individual comics? I only read the graphic novel. And did you like Miller’s Rōnin? I had trouble getting into that.”
I chuckle. Fuck, she’s such a geek. Such an adorable little geek. Who’d have guessed what lay behind the white silk bows and French poetry she wore like armor when we first met?
“Okay, I bow to your superior nerd credentials. Do you really have a signed set of ElfQuest comics?”
She flushes redder than the tuna. “Maybe.”
She does. “I have the original run of Elektra Assassin. I’ll bust them out for you when we get home. That always impresses the chicks.” At her renewed grin, I continue, “But I want to see these EQs, because if they really are signed, I’m trading my unsig
ned set for yours. Daddy’s privilege.”
She giggles. “I only have the Original Quest signed, but they’re the ones by Wendy and Richard Pini, not the crappy Marvel ones with the oversaturated colors.” She looks up and gives me huge, puppy-dog eyes. “Daddy, can I have the last piece of tuna?”
Hearing her call me Daddy again is such a profound fucking relief. Funny that what felt strange just a few days ago now feels like the world’s been set to rights. Grinning, I survey the wreckage. She’s eaten every piece of tuna except one forlorn piece of sashimi.
“Yes, since you asked, monkey.”
She pounces on it, spears it with her chopsticks and, grinning, pops it in her mouth.
“So, you read comics for the heroic storylines, huh?”
She shrugs and suddenly draws into herself.
What the fuck? My twisted obsession with my sister didn’t phase her, making her role-play a widow while I beat the shit out of her gave her a huge catharsis, but asking her about her motivation for reading comic books makes her recoil?
I try to restore the light atmosphere before my stupid question. “I read them for the hot chicks.”
She smiles, but it’s not the grin she was wearing a minute ago. Did she read them for masturbatory material, too? Is she ashamed of that? Or is it something else?
“I read them because they were cheap,” she admits after a long silence. “I only had ten dollars a week from babysitting. There was a used book and comic store near where we lived. I’d cycle there every day after school. They’d let me stay all afternoon and read anything I wanted as long as I bought something. The comics were the cheapest. I could go every day after school if I bought one comic a day.”
“You must have a huge collection,” I say, watching her. She’s drawn into a ball. Everything about her body language is projecting pain. Is she ashamed of being poor? Of not having enough money to buy books? Or is it something else?
She shakes her head. “Just the EQ. I had more, but, um, my mother got rid of them. I took the EQ with me to college, so she missed those.”
