by Ava Sinclair
I ask him how he is. He looks at his plate, then up at me. “I’ve been awful,” he says.
“I know,” I say softly. “Mina told me.”
“I was furious with her, you know, for telling you. But she set me straight and told me if I didn’t face up to what I’d done, she’d quit, which was ironic. She’s the one who put that locket in the coat pocket for you to find, you know. She said you were clever, that she figured you’d figure it all out and be the one to break through, well, either that or leave.”
I shake my head. “Wait. She planted it there?”
“Yes.” He winces. “I didn’t even know she had it. The recipient—J, well, her name was Janet—tossed it in the waste bin on her way out. I didn’t realize it, and Mina didn’t tell me. She said she regretted that, that it would have helped me to know that I couldn’t just give a woman a locket commemorating a failed relationship and expect her to like it…” He covers his face with his hands. “God, what a klutz I am.”
“No,” I say. “You’re not. You’re just… tone-deaf on some things. Other things, though… you hit the perfect note.”
“You’re too sweet, Lindsay.”
“I’m not sweet,” I say. “But I’m getting better. I’ve thought long and hard about the way I came into this. In the taxi on the way home, I had to admit that I came into this with the worst possible motivation. But I came out of it wanting to be a better person, Silas. A stronger person. You did that. For all your problems, you were the daddy I always needed.”
“And you were the little girl I always wanted, both in and out of the bedroom,” he says. “But I misused you, Lindsay, and I accused you of the very same thing I’m guilty of myself—self-sabotage. I only realized it after you’d gotten in the taxi. I was so afraid of losing you that I drove you away.”
“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, swirling the wine in his glass. “It appears we are.”
“So now what?”
He rubs his chin thoughtfully. “In a perfect world, we’d find out way back to one another. But I’m… different. My sexual tastes—what you saw? That’s who I am.”
“I loved it,” I say. “It’s what I want.”
“My relationship dynamic… I feel the need to… mentor, to…”
“To be a daddy figure…” I finish. “I want that, too.”
“But the real world…”
“Will always be here,” I say. “And we can’t withdraw. We can’t hide. But maybe you sabotaged your relationships because you knew you hadn’t found a woman who could live with you as you are. And maybe I sabotaged my independence because I flourish in the framework of an authority figure. Why can’t two people function in the outside world while having that setup for themselves?”
“But how can you respect me after I’ve hurt you? How can you trust me, Lindsay?”
“It’s a matter of taking the chance,” I say. “If you can trust someone who planned to trick you out of your money to have changed, I can trust you to change, too.”
“So you’ll come back to me?” he asks.
I lean back in my chair. I want to say yes, but I say no. I tell him we need to see each other for a while first, work back into things, take it slow. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy one another until we are both sure.
After dinner we go back to my place.
“Charming,” he says. “You have a lot of plants.”
I giggle, thinking of the atrium and look over at him.
“Well, for such a small space,” he clarifies.
“Would you like to see the rest of the house?”
“Sure.”
I show him my small kitchen and the living room separated by a counter. I show him the tiny balcony where I have two bird feeders. I point to a hook where I hang a huge Boston fern in the summer. I tell him how wrens nest in it. I show him my bathroom, my hall closet that holds my washer and dryer. I show him the family photos that line my hallway, pictures of me with my parents, me as a high schooler with my swimming medals, me with my father.
“And this is my bedroom,” I say.
“Lots of pink,” he says.
“It’s my favorite color,” I say.
Silas walks around, looking at everything, touching everything. He seems fascinated, and it occurs to me that he’s never been in the home of an average person, with average things.
“I love it,” he says.
“That’s a weird thing to say. Why would you love my bedroom?”
He walks over and smooths the hair away from my face with his hand. “Because,” he says, “it’s you. It’s full of your character. Because there are stuffed animals on the bed.”
I flush. “Well, sometimes I get lonely, and I have an allergy to real pets. When I was little I was convinced they were alive, that they could see. When my favorite one lost an eye, I made my mother sew a button in its place.”
Silas leads me to the bed. He picks up the stuffed animals, lingering a moment on the oldest teddy with its one regular eye and one button. “You kept it,” he says.
“Yes.”
I watch as Silas takes all the stuffed animals to a chair and sits them down in a row so that they’re facing away from the bed.
“Why did you do that?” I ask.
He turns to me and flashes a slow smile that makes me weak in the knees. “They seem so innocent. I wouldn’t want them to see what we’re about to do.”
My feet are rooted to the spot as he walks over. “And what are we about to do?]”
“We,” he says, “are about to make love on your pink duvet. Unless you object.”
He’s already unbuttoning my blouse. I shake my head. No, I don’t object. Just the sight of him in my bedroom is making my pussy wet. I feel like a naughty teenager who just brought home the high school quarterback. We giggle as we strip, scattering our clothes and shoes and underwear on the floor.
Silas kisses me, his tongue sweeping through my mouth, teasing mine. His hard chest presses against my breasts. His hands trace a leisurely path down my shoulders and arms then down my waist to my buttocks. He cups them.
“I love your ass,” he says when he breaks the kiss.
“Just my ass?” I ask.
He raises up on one elbow, looking down at me. “I love all of you, Lindsay Sue. Your body, your quick mind, your tenacity.” He puts his mouth against my ear. “I love you.” He pauses. “I’m sorry I threw you against the wall, even though you are no frog. You were a princess all along. Can you ever forgive me?”
I nod and answer him with a kiss, winding my arms around his neck.
He’s tender when he takes me, but my forgiveness seems to renew his confidence, because he’s masterful, too. He takes the lead, moving his head between my legs and using his tongue to push me to the brink of orgasm, where he leaves me hanging. But I’m more confident, too, and turn the tables, pushing Silas down on his back and locking my eyes on his as I softly drag my nails down the center of his body as I move lower. When my head is positioned over his cock, I dart out my tongue, lapping away the drop of pre-cum that’s emerged at the slit on the flared head. It sends a jolt through him. “Baby,” he says as I grasp the base of his cock and lave the length with my tongue. And then I begin to tease him, taking him deep in my throat, suckling, flitting my tongue tip on that sensitive spot underneath his cock head, until he’s writhing under my ministrations. I keep him on edge.
“Don’t come, baby,” I say.
“Impertinent little thing,” he growls, and grasps me so that I’m straddling him. He lifts me to sitting and enters me with an up-thrust, causing me to gasp. Silas grips my hips, jogging his rapidly as I bounce and whimper on his cock. He reaches up, grasps my breasts, pinches the nipples before pulling me forward and capturing one in his mouth.
I come without permission, not that he could stop me. I’m as turned on as I’ve ever been in my life, even though our lovemaking is more egalitarian than it’s ever been. Th
Afterwards, he wraps me in his arms and looks into my eyes. “Hey,” he says, “would you think it too forward if I slept over?”
I pretend to consider it. “I guess it’s okay, although Barnaby might be mad at you.”
“Barnaby?”
“Barnaby Bear.”
He kisses me. “Well, my darling. Maybe I can make it up to him.”
Chapter Nine
We’ve been dating. Like, an actual couple. And it’s been fantastic until today. Silas has made me feel loved, sheltered, and protected. Behind closed doors, more often than not, he’s my daddy dom and I’m his little girl. But today is the first time I’m afraid that even he might be out of his depth.
It was my idea to confront my past. We are serious about each other. When Silas talks of the future, it’s always ‘we,’ and not ‘I.’ He tells me he loves me daily, that he wants to be with me. But he’s important in the community, and I won’t subject him to the shame of having the woman he’s publicly linked with arrested for writing bad checks.
He’s given me access to his lawyer. I was ready to take out a high interest loan to pay for it, but he insisted. He said the kind of trouble I may be in requires a lawyer way above my pay grade, so we head back to my former town to face the music.
Predictably, I am arrested and booked. It’s the worst feeling of my life, and when I’m taken into the room alone for my mug shot, a panic sets in. What if Silas decides he doesn’t want a woman with a criminal record? What if he decides to bail?
But he’s waiting when I get out, and posts bond. His lawyer is already down at the district attorney’s office, working a deal for restitution. By the end of the day, the business owner—a friend of the DA—has not only dropped the charges, but agreed to have my record expunged. Silas won’t give me details of how he made it all go away, but I suspect that he paid the business owner many times the value of the bad checks I wrote.
“You’re a free woman in all regards,” Silas says later that evening. “I have nothing to hold you to me.”
“You didn’t need it in the first place,” I say. “You just didn’t know it.”
He asks me to move in with him. I tell him we need to wait just a little longer. I’m grateful, but I don’t want him to think he’s bought a permanent spot in my life. I tell him I want to pay him back, even if we are together, and I plan to be in that position.
By spring, I have quit my job to become a fulltime student majoring in economics. We’re out as a couple now, and Silas doesn’t think it looks good for the owner of the Lindel’s to be dating an employee.
“You are so much more confident,” Mina tells me one afternoon when we’re having lunch together. I’ve expanded my friend circle beyond Kimberly and my former coworkers to some fellow students and my boyfriend’s maid.
“I feel more confident,” I say. “Silas has been good for me.”
“And you’ve been good for him.”
“Can I ask you a question?” We’re sitting at an outdoor café down the street from the university. “I feel awkward even raising the subject, but it’s been vexing me for a long time.”
“Let me guess,” she laughs. “Was I ever interested in Silas?”
“Sorry,” I say. “But you’re so pretty. And you know each other so well.”
“I’m also so gay,” she says. “And you’ve inspired me to hold out for the woman of my dreams.”
I feel a little embarrassed that this wouldn’t occur to me. We spend the afternoon talking about life and relationships and how things unfold. She’s happy, she says, to see us happy. The lunch is so much fun that I nearly forget the time, but then remember that Silas is picking me up for a drive after school.
I make it home in time to change. I’m excited when he picks me up. He’s bought a restored Brookville roadster, and we’re taking a drive to the coast. The forecast is calling for clear skies, and Silas wants me to see a meteor shower that’s supposed to take place.
He drives me up to a bluff overlooking the ocean. The sky is amazing once darkness falls. The only light is the far-off golden glow of a lighthouse.
He spreads a blanket on the ground and opens a bottle of wine and we put it between us as we lie on our backs and watch the sky.
“Make a wish,” he says when the first meteor blazes across the sky.
“That’s a superstition.”
“No, it’s not,” he says. “Make a wish.”
“Fine,” I say. “I wish to ace my test on Wednesday.”
“Good one,” he says, and we wait. Another meteor, a small one, shoots straight down. “This one’s mine,” he says. “I wish the new line of raincoats we’re launching next month will be a success, and that it rains the whole month.”
I punch him in the arm. “That’s not very nice.” I look back to the sky. Another meteor. “I wish Mina would find a girlfriend.”
“Good one,” he says. “She deserves it.”
We fall silent, and then the biggest meteor I’ve ever seen flies over, growing brilliant green for a split second before flaming out in spectacular fashion.
“Wow,” I say.
“Copper,” Silas says. “The ones that burn green are made of copper.”
“Well, it was beautiful,” I say. “So it must be powerful, wish-wise.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “And it’s mine. I’d better use it for something important.” He shifts to the side and when he turns back, he’s holding a small box. He opens it, and inside is the most dazzling diamond ring I have ever seen. Its shine is brilliant, even in the dark.
“I wish the love of my life would marry me and be my baby girl wife forever.”
I sit up slowly. “Silas,” I begin. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.” He pulls the ring out of the box, takes my hand, and slips it on my ring finger. I do not pull away. I already know the answer, which comes out with a sob.
“Oh, yes. Oh, god, yes…” I throw my arms around his neck, and I think we both know this is how it was meant to be. Terribly old-fashioned, he said he was, and he has courted me like a gentleman while treating me like a treasured little girl.
And now all that remains is for us to live happily ever after.
Chapter Ten
My father cries at the wedding, but they are tears of happiness.
“I couldn’t have pictured my princess with anyone more worthy,” he says to Silas at the reception. “Take care of her. It’s not every day a father hands off his baby to the care of another man.”
Silas shoots me a grin. I think he’s impressed, too, to find that my father is as old-fashioned as he is.
“Mr. Clement,” he says. “I will treat her as if she’s my little girl.”
My father smiles. I nearly giggle. My poor dad has no idea how literally my husband means those words.
The wedding is everything my father could have dreamed of for his little girl, and he enjoys himself once he gets over the hit to his pride. In typical fashion, Silas insists on paying for everything. He likes my father, and the feeling is mutual. I think the wedding details—in which my husband took a keen interest—were tailored to make this day as special for his future father-in-law as it would be for me.
Like everything else, it reaffirms that my instincts about Silas were right. Even when he tried to pull away, I could see something deeper in the man who first misled me, then quite literally held me captive in his house. I confided in him that in so many respects, I have lived my own fairy tale with him.
“Then a fairy tale wedding is only fitting for my special princess,” he told me.
And it is a fairy tale wedding, but pulled off in a way that’s still elegant and dignified, from the ceremony in the gothic family church to the reception in the rented ballroom of an old country manor let out for such occasions. My dress is beyond beautiful; the tiny tight bodice flaring into a wide skirt of ivory tulle glittering with thousands of tiny crystal beads. The ceremony is held at dusk, the church lit by hundreds of candles. Silas stands tall and straight as my father, sniffling slightly, walks me down the aisle.
I am transferred from one doting daddy to my daddy dom as we exchange vows that have special meaning to both of us. He promises to guide, to protect, to cherish, to never forget the incredible responsibility of my gift, which we both know is my submission. He promises to nurture that gift, to grow it. In turn, I promise to cherish and love him, to encourage his gifts—which we know to be his authority and protection—to honor, to obey.
We wondered how the last bit would be received, and ultimately decided we didn’t care. All that mattered were our promises to each other. We did a lot of talking before our big day, about life beyond the wedding, expectations, whether we could maintain the dynamic.
We agreed not only that we could, but that we should continue as daddy dom-little girl. Silas does not want kids. “You’re enough for me,” he says, and asks me if I can be happy with a lifetime of being doted on. His own experiences with his father have him doubting his capacity to be a good father; he’s terrified of repeating the patterns of his father, of being too jealous to love a child. I am too smitten to imagine anything beyond what we have. There are enough children in the world, I tell him.
He offered me any place in the world for a honeymoon destination—London, Paris, Milan. But I told him we had our whole lives to see the world, and that I only wanted to focus on him for now. Silas had smiled at this, so he rented the entire manor where the reception was held, and now here we are, man and wife, in a grand suite.
“Well, princess,” he says as we sit on the bed sipping impossibly expensive champagne. “Tonight marks the beginning of the next stage of our life. It’s been a fantastic day, so let’s keep it going. Is there some fantasy you’d like me to make come true between these four walls? Some dark desire you’ve not yet revealed?”
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