by Maren Smith
He towered over them. Hoping to make himself less intimidating, he lowered to one knee, coming down to their level, and quietly took the first book offered to him. Britney provided him with a pen; he was so not prepared for this.
“Stay in school,” he told the eleven-year-old. To the nine-year-old, his sage advice was, “Don’t do drugs,” and he mentally cringed as he said it, because literally the last time he’d talked to a child (apart from the first who’d asked for his autograph on the bus), he’d been one.
“Can I touch your cheek?” the younger girl asked. Her dark hair done up in pigtails, and the way her big brown eyes stared up at him was strongly reminiscent of Britney, for some reason.
He allowed it, turning his face so both could stroke him with their fingers.
“It’s smooth,” the older said, looking up at her father.
“I need saltwater to change,” Ommin told her.
“There’s sea salt in the breakroom,” Britney suggested, and it was hard to tell who brightened up at the prospect more. Her, or the two little girls. “Would that work?”
He’d never tried it, so he had no idea. But while he probably could have said no to the little girls, when Britney beamed that hopeful smile, there was no saying no to that. Which was how he found himself standing in the breakroom while she mixed water and sea salt in a paper cup.
“How do we do this?” she asked once she was done. Uncertain, she offered it to him. “Do you need it all over, or…”
Ommin didn’t take the cup. Instead, he dipped the tips of two fingers into the water. The change came over him like a ripple on a still pond, moving from the point of contact to roughen the back of his hand, spreading up his burly arm and across his shoulders, into his face and down across the rest of his body to the accompanying rasp of his scales scuffing the inside of his clothes.
“Cool,” the little girls breathed in awe-filled unison.
Taking his hand from the cup, he once more got down on one knee and offered his cheek. The little girls took turns, running their fingers on his sandpaper skin before, thanking him, and promising ice cream on the way home, the executive (officially now Dad of the Hour) took his girls and left. Leaving Ommin and Britney alone together in the station’s breakroom.
“May I?” she all but whispered in her excitement.
Rising to his feet, Ommin towered over her. Don’t get a woody again, he told himself, over and over as he offered her his cheek. One might just as well have commanded the sun not to rise, the earth not to turn, or the sea not to lap against the shore for all the good his self-censorship did him.
From the moment her small hand cupped the side of his face, he was lost. The sensation was every bit as seductive as the ocean. It filled him, invigorated him; he closed his eyes, marveling at the caress of her fingers every bit as much as she seemed to marvel at the roughness of his sharkskin. As consumed as she was by her own full-body shiver when she took her hand away, she probably didn’t notice his.
“It’s very different,” she said diplomatically, but she was smiling and he didn’t for a second think she was repulsed by him. Or scared. Or horrified. Her eyes stayed locked on his and she looked at him just as if he were like everyone else. Just a perfectly normal guy.
Albeit with Daddy shark-y bits.
“Thank you again,” she said. “For the interview.”
“Thank you, again, for having me,” he replied, and because he didn’t want things to get awkward, he went ahead and left. He took two buses and walked four blocks, but the whole way home all he kept thinking about was Britney—how sweet she smelled, how good she felt, the caress of her hand as she explored his skin, and, of course, Daddy’s Little.
There was a camp of three reporters, their accompanying cameramen, and what felt like thirty paparazzi but which was probably more like thirteen, waiting for him when he got home. Halfway to his third-floor apartment, he developed a special sympathy for every celebrity who’d ever slapped a camera out of some overzealous asshole’s hand. He was mobbed the entire way to his front door, and the only reason he didn’t join the ranks of those like Britney Spears, Adam Lambert and Woody Harrelson, was because sure as shit, for every one he swatted, there’d be fourteen others snapping pictures of it. He’d probably be the only person in history who made the ten o’clock news twice in the same night, but for vastly different reasons.
Our top stories in the news tonight: New details surface in our investigation of Ommin Jones, the Sharkman who saved the lives of two suicidal jumpers off the Golden Gate Bridge. Immediately followed by: Sharkman Ommin Jones slapped the shit out of several pushy photographers outside his San Francisco apartment today.
Who knew, maybe Britney would want another interview for that.
Probably not. So Ommin held on to his temper, squeezed past everyone and made it into his apartment. He had to shove everyone back to get the door closed, but after a few minutes of leaning against it, the question-shouting and door-pounding finally stopped. He liked the quiet. It let him think, and of course, the first thing that popped into his head was the puzzle of Britney’s tattoo.
Well, God invented Google for a reason, didn’t He?
Ommin headed to his laptop by way of the kitchen, where he got a bottle of water from the fridge and made himself a sandwich. He then sat down to see if he couldn’t figure out what Daddy’s Little might be short for. He surfed through the first few pages, munching on bites of sandwich and scrolling ever downward. Somehow, he didn’t think her tattoo had anything to do with the movies or books (or Harley Quinn) that Google suggested first. By the third page, they became a little more sexualized. Slightly pornographic, even. He began pulling up books from authors like Allysa Hart, Rayanna Jamison, Maggie Ryan, and Maren Smith. He even found a book by the exact title as her tattoo, and that’s when he put down his sandwich and began to take careful notes.
‘Daddy’s Little’ wasn’t short for something so much as it seemed to be a kind of subtle code. He pulled up book after book with Daddy in the title. In every one, Daddy was short for Daddy Dom and the Little was his submissive.
Sandwich forgotten, Ommin stared at his laptop, reading one story description after another about Daddies who were loving, caring, nurturing, and mentoring. Daddies who fixed meals, provided toys and things called ‘stuffies,’ braided hair, picked out what clothes their Littles would wear, and who, basically, took care of their submissive’s every intimate need on a day-to-day basis. Daddies who said things like ‘good girl’ and ‘young lady, what did I just tell you’ and who grabbed hold of nipples, butt cheeks, and sometimes the ‘princess parts’ right between their Little’s legs before growling, ‘Who owns this?’ The answer in every sample he read was always ‘You do, Daddy.’
Daddies who comforted. Daddies who caressed. Daddies who took away cell phones, washed out mouths with soap, gave corner time and spankings, and who dispensed sexualized punishments that included oral, vaginal, and even anal penetration. These were some of the most educating stories he’d ever read in his life. So much so that by the time he got to the out-and-out porn, all he could see in his mind was Britney coming home from work, with that shy blush stealing up into her cheeks as she took off her coffee-stained blouse and handed it over to Daddy to be cleaned.
He could see her sitting on the edge of her bed in nothing but a pair of bikini panties, hugging one of those so-called stuffies and chatting about her day while Daddy picked out pajamas—no, not pajamas. Those covered too much and were too hard to get into. Any Daddy of Britney’s would definitely put her in a nightshirt. Something that didn’t quite come down far enough to hide her panties from view and which, with very little difficulty, could be divested of entirely.
Like if she spilled something on herself, or if she misbehaved. Nothing too serious. He honestly couldn’t picture Britney being a major misbehaver. But she might sass a little, or pout, or maybe she’d say no when Daddy told her it was time for all sleepy Littles who worked the third shift
to get their sexy butts to bed. In which case, Daddy would have to do what all Daddies did when their authority was being tested—he would take her by the arm, put her across his knee and, with a deaf ear tuned to her fussing and pleading, he’d apply the flat of his hand to the seat of her panties until it wasn’t just her face stained that beguiling shade of pink.
“I could do that,” Ommin said out loud, startling himself. He could do every part of that. Hell, he could all but feel Britney fussing and pleading as he pinned her across his lap right now. As little as she was, it would be no hardship at all to hold her down, capturing her legs in the vise of his own. Because when this Daddy was given reason to spank, there would be no holding still for it. She’d know it too, and back her little hand would dash in a vain attempt to ward off what was coming. Which would not only result in his having to pin her arm now too, but add to her punishment. He could damn near feel the elastic stretch as he hooked her panties and skimmed them down to her ankles, providing Ommin with an unobstructed view to everything that would be his. His to love, his to cherish, his to punish whenever and however he deemed it necessary.
Where in the hell had this pervy bone come from?
He looked down at his lap. Yeah, his Daddy shark-y bit was standing at full attention, straining hard to break free of its truly uncomfortable denim prison.
For all the good it would do him. It wasn’t like he could call Britney at the radio station to ask if that tattoo on her wrist meant what Google said it did. Worse than that, she probably already had a Daddy because, of course she did. Women like Britney always had a guy. She was too damn hot, cute, sweet, fun and funny not to. His fantasies were just exactly that. Fantasies.
He was about to close out his search thread when a forum advertisement on the side caught his eye. FetLife—the new Facebook for the kinky and BDSM-inclined. What would be the chances, he wondered, that Britney might actually have an account on there?
The thought was too tantalizing. He couldn’t resist clicking that link, but once in, he found he couldn’t do anything until he made an account. Should he, or shouldn’t he? What was he even going to say? He stared at the header for a long time, but the only thing that popped into his head was Britney’s sunny voice saying ‘Daddy Shark’ over and over again, followed by ‘New details just in: Superhero Ommin Jones is a super-big perv!’
Daddy S became his FetLife handle. In all the other fields, he put the bare minimum of information required to gain access to the search engine. And there he came up against his next obstacle. There were 2000 kinky people in the San Francisco area, of which Britney may or may not have been one.
Ommin almost closed out the browser. He was still stifling a sigh when, of its own accord, his hand found the mouse and his fingers started clicking. Picking up his sandwich, he scrolled through profile pictures, eyeing and discarding one potential possibility after another, all the while mentally scolding himself because seriously, this all ran in the ass-opposite direction of the person he had been all his life.
Two days ago, he’d been a pleasantly comfortable nobody, lost in the California crowds. Now look at him—he was a superhero (complete with moniker, no less), a half-ass radio celebrity (giving out autographs like a movie star), and the newest member of the world’s biggest kinky (practically porn) site on the inter—holy shit, he found her. Little Britney, sandwiched in between a domme using a man as a chair and an ass that had been so thoroughly whipped that there wasn’t an inch of unbruised flesh left on it.
Her profile picture didn’t include her face. Only her wrist, but he’d know that blue-ink tattoo anywhere.
His heart leapt and his stomach dropped, but he still clicked on her profile. Little seeking her Daddy Dom. Don’t jump the gun, he told himself, but when he saw she’d last updated her profile only four days ago, he dropped his sandwich and positively devoured his way through her info page. Unlike his, she’d provided all kinds of details on herself, her kinks, her likes and dislikes, and most importantly, the type of Daddy she was looking for.
And oh, was that an education. She had an extensive paragraph devoted to FetLife fetishes that ran the gamut from ‘toys’ and ‘flirting’ to ‘the sound of him unbuckling his belt’ and ‘baby, I know it hurts, just take it for Daddy.’ He read through every single one of her fetish phrases.
“I can totally do that,” he marveled out loud, but first there were things he had to do. Popping his last bite of discarded sandwich into his mouth, he brushed off his hands, cracked his knuckles, and got down to the very serious business of crafting himself into a Daddy Dom. He filled out his profile in its entirety with the title of Daddy Dom seeks one special Little, and it wasn’t a lie. He was looking for one Little, one in particular, and it was her alone that he was most interested in getting to know.
Filling out his profile was only half the battle, however. When he was done, he sat in front of his laptop for almost forty minutes, tweaking his likes and dislikes, searching through fetishes that appealed to him, re-reading Britney’s profile, and finally, he bit the bullet and sent her a private message. He kept it short and to the point: I enjoyed our time at the station today. Would you like to meet me for coffee? And then he sent it before he could chicken out.
She was absolutely going to refuse, and he knew it. Because this whole scenario was too crazy to actually work in his favor. There was just no—
A sudden knock at his front door snapped him out of FetLife world and back into his paparazzi-swarmed reality. ‘Gentle giant,’ he’d just described himself. The irony of suddenly being this annoyed as he stalked across the living room wasn’t lost on him. But now he also had ‘not afraid to spank’ listed on his brand-new kinky profile page, and it was about time that flock of vultures outside found out exactly what that meant.
Unlocking the door, he ripped it open and stuck his most authoritative finger in the beak-nosed face of the badly sweating man in a soggy, brown three-piece suit standing where a welcome mat would have been, if only he’d had one.
The man was tall, although not as tall as Ommin. He was skinny too, his suit hanging on a frame so scrawny he seemed on the verge of malnourishment. His face shone with moisture as he stared first at Ommin’s finger and then up at Ommin himself.
His Adam’s apple bobbed in a convulsive swallow, right before his eyes lit up and he grinned. “You’re him,” he warbled, his watery voice cracking. “You’re really him. I am so pleased to finally get to meet you!”
Ommin jumped when the sweaty man grabbed his authoritative finger. For a moment, he thought the other might have been about to shake it. He wasn’t at all prepared to have the man erupt in a near girlish squeal of delight, right before he exploded in a gush of clear liquid that rained down all over the threshold and his feet.
“What the—” Ommin stared at the water dripping off his hand, at the wet empty clothes lying on the floor, and the viscous puddle that slowly began to ooze its way into his apartment.
A flash of light startled him. He leaned out far enough to see the group of stunned reporters and paparazzi huddled at the far end of the hallway, staring silently back at him. They recovered their wits first, and suddenly the air was alive with the snapping of cameras and the party-strobe effect of multiple flashes going off.
Yanking back inside, Ommin slammed his door.
“My… clothes,” gurgled the puddle. With all its scattered droplets slowly gravitating back to join the main body, the liquid oozed its way into his living room. “Please… get my… clothes.”
Closing his eyes, Ommin stifled a sigh. With ‘new details at ten’ singing through his brain, he opened the door long enough to snatch in the soggy suit. The paparazzi caught it all. With rapid-fire clicks of their cameras sounding like the angry chitin-clacks of many hungry insects, they surged forward. Ommin slammed the door again before anyone could get that highly coveted shot inside his apartment, and it was a good thing too. Because when Ommin turned around, there was a naked man gradually re-solidify
ing on his carpet.
Because of course there was. This was Ommin’s life.
Chapter 3
“I’m so terribly sorry,” the sweaty man said for the third time, as he pulled his pants up over his bony hips and buckled them tightly into place. “I just get so excited sometimes.”
“Who are you?” Ommin asked. And he wished he didn’t sound so irritated when he said it, but he could still hear the reporters talking in the hall and, frankly, this was one of the strangest things that had ever happened to him. And he could morph into a fish, for crying out loud.
“Oh, sorry.” Pausing with his button-up shirt half on, the other man stuck out a sweaty palm. “I’m Jim, or, uh… as you can call me, Liquidman!”
“Liquidman.” Ommin’s tone must have said everything he was thinking, because Jim’s smile faded.
“Yes, well… It’s one of those self-explanatory nicknames.” He brightened again. “Like Sharkman. Admittedly, your skills are much more awesome and… well, let’s face it, useful, than mine. But, hey! I can’t tell you how happy I was to see you on the news.”
Laughing and shaking his head, Jim buttoned up his shirt, and all Ommin could do was stand there wondering if this was going to be his new normal. Just, every few days someone new would fall into his path and it would either be someone like Britney, whom he couldn’t wait to get to know better, or it be someone who exploded into a watery mess the first time he touched them.
Baffled, Ommin finally just asked, “Why?”
Half in and half out of his brown jacket, Jim paused all over again. He looked surprised. “Because I thought I was the only one. I mean, I’ve gone my entire life afraid to be with people because at any given minute—”
He cupped an invisible bomb in the air, made a water exploding/splashing sound, and looked at Ommin again, fingers still raining invisible water and flicking off the occasional droplet that immediately trickled its way back to him the second it hit the floor.
