by Frost, E J
He kisses my forehead. “Go wash your face and brush your hair while I get the cream.”
He dresses me in a blue and white striped T-shirt dress so soft it’s like being wrapped in a cloud and rubs cream into my thighs and bottom. As we go through the buffet line, he keeps his arm around me. I’m snuggled in my daddy’s warmth again. His teddy-bear comfort. I don’t even pay attention to the calories of the crab cakes and green bean salad that he picks for my dinner, because I know he’ll take care of me.
While we eat, he tells me stories. About his sister and her twin daughters, who he calls the Dynamite Duo. About his time in the Navy. About scenes that went wrong in funny ways. I know he’s distracting me to keep me from thinking too much. If Gracie or one of my other friends tried this, I’d withdraw. With Logan, it works. I laugh at the funny parts, shake my head at the silly parts, and find my spirits lifting, lightening, until I can just smile back at my daddy with my whole heart.
He runs his knuckles down my cheek. “There’s my little girl. I’ve been waiting for that smile. How’re you doing?
I nod. “Better, Daddy.”
“How do you feel about watching scenes tonight? Or would you rather it was just us? I don’t want you to miss out. This is your holiday.”
I look into his eyes for a long moment, trying to figure out what he wants. Somewhere between those dark, serious eyes, the little lines still creasing his forehead, and his half-smile, I get it. He wants me to be happy and that frees me to tell him the truth of what I want, rather than trying to figure out what he wants me to say.
“I’d rather it was just us.”
His smile widens. “Sounds good.”
I slide across the bench seat so I can wrap my arms around him. “I’m not missing out on anything when I’m with you. Thank you for understanding. Thank you for being the best daddy in the whole world. Ta very much.”
He hugs me, strokes his hand over my hair, and kisses the top of my head. “You’re welcome, sweetheart. Should we try the Knee Time I mentioned after dinner? It’s supposed to be your free time but I really don’t want to leave you alone. How about we watch a movie afterwards and I’ll make the time up to you tomorrow afternoon? We can come back early from Cabo.”
“You don’t need to make up the time.” I’ve been this way with a new Dom before. The constant itch to write fades for a few days while my attention is focused on him. It will come back, and I’ll have lots of fresh inspiration. “I promise I’m okay with it. Will you pick the movie, please?”
“Absolutely. I can’t promise it will be a Bruce Willis movie, though.”
I giggle. “That’s okay.”
“All right, beanie. Finish your tea.”
He tests the temperature with his pinkie before handing the cup to me. I drink it down as instructed, enjoying the sweet tingle of mint. Everything tastes better when I’m with my daddy.
Chapter Nine
Logan
The Last Jedi is the obvious choice of movie, since Emily’s got a Kylo Ren fixation. The movie also feeds in well to the rest of my plans for the evening. Before the Princess Amber scene tomorrow, we need to do a trial run. I’ll keep it low-key, because God knows today has been hard enough on both of us, but I need to know how she performs in a rape scene before we do it in public. I also need to know how it affects me, since just the thought has me ready to blow. Could make for a very short scene.
Before we can play, though, I need to understand what the hell happened today. I’ve had subs lose their shit before. Luisa went so far into fight-or-flight mode once that she punched me in the face. But it’s never happened during what I considered fairly light discipline. And most of my subs have used their safe word before they hit the panic point. Emily didn’t seem close to safe wording; then she was hyperventilating on the bathroom floor. Clearly, we hit a trigger but fuck if I know what it was.
We set up in Emily’s cabin, where it looks like we’ll be spending the rest of the cruise, since my cabin’s still a deep freeze. Moreover, if whomever tossed my cabin returns, I want another set of doors between them and us.
While I gather the things I want for the night, I send Emily to change into her pirate nighty and stockings. I’ve got an idea for our practice run and that outfit is perfect. Besides, I didn’t get to enjoy it nearly long enough while she was treasure hunting. The memory of her legs in those white stockings has me tenting my pajama pants as I load up a small duffel and carry it into Emily’s cabin. I lock the adjoining door behind me, prop the desk chair under the handle, and put my key cards on her dresser. Checking on her, I admire the rear view of her legs in the stiffy-inducing stockings while she brushes her teeth, before I take the duffel and a couple of pillows to the couch. I set one on the floor and settle on the couch behind it, so the cushion is between my feet.
Smelling of mint, her skin glowing, dark curls framing her shoulders, Emily drops gracefully onto the pillow without me having to direct her, the benefits of an experienced bottom.
Once she’s arranged herself on her knees with her hands resting on her thighs, she waits, eyes down, palms up. Such a good girl.
“Look at me, sweetheart.” I stroke a curl back from her face and tuck it behind her ear. Her cheek’s flushed pink. I rub the backs of my fingers up and down it, enjoying the warmth and softness of her skin, until she meets my eyes. Hers are bright and clear. Big difference from this afternoon. Now I need to find out why.
“Have you ever had Knee Time before?”
She shakes her head. “None of my Doms have offered it.”
I haven’t offered it to many of my subs, either. Mir would have gone icily mute if I’d told her to get to her knees and tell me what she was thinking. But I did it with Luisa, who had Knee Time every Sunday night without fail, even when Mir was in town. It allowed Luisa to relax in a way she didn’t otherwise and tell me things she said she’d never told anyone, even her therapist.
I’m hoping Emily will feel the same.
“My version of Knee Time is a little different. Some couples use Knee Time as quiet time. I’d rather we communicate, but if you find as we go along that you’d like some quiet, that’s fine, too. I want your mind to relax, whether we’re talking or quiet. I want your body to relax, so come forward to where you’re comfortable and put your head on my thigh.”
With a smile, she does. Once she’s settled, I begin stroking her hair. She melts as I touch her, her body softening into a curve against my leg. Her arms steal up to circle my hips; her eyes drift closed.
“That’s my good girl,” I praise her as I work my hands down her neck, and over her shoulders, circling with my palms, swirling with my fingertips. I’m not exerting any pressure, just giving her the comfort of touch from her Dom while I enjoy the satin of her skin. “I’m going to ask you some questions and we’re going to talk about what happened in the bathroom.” Her shoulders stiffen. “But not yet. First, I want us to communicate. We’re going to start by telling each other two things. One thing that we’re happy about or looking forward to and one thing that’s worrying us. Can you think of those two things?”
“Yes, Daddy,” she says without opening her eyes.
I gauge the pitch of her voice, aware that Knee Time could send her into littlespace. That might be useful another time, but for now, I want to keep her “thinking big.” From the low timber of her voice, she’s still in adult headspace.
“Would you like me to start, sweet girl?”
“Yes, please.”
I’ve thought about this all through dinner, while I was telling Emily stories designed to make her laugh and keep her mind off this afternoon. I want to share something important enough to set the tone for deep communication, but not so heavy that Emily fears Knee Time going forward. I thought hard about whether I wanted to share a worry first but decided that it would be better to set a positive tone.
“The good thing is how much I’m looking forward to you meeting my sister and her kids. I emailed Lizbeth while y
ou were napping and asked her to bring the girls up to visit the week after we get back. They’re crazy for dinosaurs and I thought we could all go to the Natural History Museum together. Have you been to the Museum?”
She looks up at me, that deep well of feeling opening in her eyes. “You did that while I was napping? Even after what happened?”
I stroke her hair until she puts her head back down on my thigh. “Nothing that happened today changed the way I feel about you, Emmy. It didn’t change me wanting you to meet my family. It didn’t change me wanting you to move in for the summer. I’m concerned about what happened, and we are going to talk about it. But it hasn’t changed how I feel.”
She softens further, pressing against my leg and giving a little sniffle. “Ta very much, Daddy.”
“Now the thing I’m worried about. It’s the Yankees. Sometimes after a big season like they had last year, they fall apart.”
Emily giggles. “Aren’t they like the richest team in the world?”
“That’s the Dallas Cowboys, but I appreciate you taking my concerns seriously.” I flick the tip of her ear so she giggles again. “Your turn, sweetie.”
She rubs her cheek against my thigh. “My good thing is you ordering for me. I haven’t done that before with my Doms and some of them have, um, been critical of how I eat.” She pauses and tightens her arms around my waist. I keep stroking her, silently reassuring her while giving her space to continue. It takes her a minute to realize I’m not going to interrupt her while she’s sharing. “When you ordered for me tonight, I didn’t have to worry about how many calories it was or whether it was a healthy and balanced meal because I knew you were taking care of it for me. It made me feel—” Her breath hitches and I can feel wetness through my pajama pants. These tears are either happy or cathartic, so I let her cry without doing any more than stroking her. “Free, Daddy. I felt so free. Like I did before—you gave that to me.”
When her tears slow and she’s breathing easily again, I prompt, “And the thing that’s worrying you?”
“This!” She buries her face in my thigh, which makes my dick come to full attention. I grit my teeth against the pressure and continue gentling her. “I’m so emotional with you. You’re going to think I’m a basket case and I’m not. I’m not weepy. I don’t have meltdowns. Ash used to call me the Vault because he said I kept my feelings locked up. I don’t—” She waves her hands like she’s flicking water off them before she wraps her arms around my waist again. “Emote all over everyone all the time like I do with you.”
I bite my tongue to keep from laughing. My adorable little girl, worried about revealing the emotions I’d be using every weapon in my arsenal to wrench out of her if she hadn’t made a gift of them.
“Thank you for sharing. Here, baby.” I lift her head so I can brush the tears off her cheeks before licking them off my fingertips. “I love your tears. Tears mean I’ve moved you. I’ve broken into ‘the Vault’ and touched you at a level that you hide from everyone else. These are Daddy’s tears. I want each and every one of them. If you’re crying, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you come to me. Your tears belong to me. Are we clear?”
She nods against my thigh, sniffing. “Yes, Daddy.”
“Good girl. Your emotions don’t scare me, sweetie. And I’m not a baby Dom to be put off by tears. Let’s put that worry to rest. No hiding what you’re feeling. I want those beautiful smiles and I want those beautiful tears.”
That gets me a smile, her cheek rounding against my thigh. I curl over her, tucking her tightly against me and cuddling her. “I know being vulnerable is scary, Emmy. You’re being a very brave girl and Daddy’s proud of you.”
She reaches up, clasping her arms around my ribs, and hugs me. “I’m trying to be Wonder Woman brave for you.”
“You are Wonder Woman brave, sweetheart. Can you keep being brave while I ask you some questions about what happened in the bathroom?”
She nods and nestles in tighter. “I’m sorry—”
“Sh. You don’t need to apologize again. I just want to understand what happened. I want you to think about it but I want you to picture it like it’s on a little screen in your head. Like you’re watching it on your laptop. Can you do that for me?”
To avoid triggering another panic attack, I need her to have some distance from the trigger. Picturing a traumatic event on a screen is a technique I learned in Thailand to help deal with the things I’d seen in the Navy. I hope it will work for Emily.
“Like watching a movie?”
“That’s right. In the movie, we’re in the bathroom and I’m standing behind you with my fingers in your mouth. But you can’t feel it or taste it, because this is a movie, right?”
“Uh-huh. It looks scary to watch, though. Like the girl in the movie is going to choke.”
She’s really distanced; I go with it. “Why do you think the girl’s going to choke?”
“Because her daddy’s fingers are really big and her mouth is small and soap’s poisonous. It will make her be sick and she’ll choke.”
I kiss the top of her head. “Does it occur to the girl that her daddy has checked the soap to make sure it won’t hurt her?”
“Uh, no. She doesn’t think about that. She’s too scared.”
“Her daddy did check, so it’s not something to worry about. The soap is not going to harm her. Her daddy is not going to harm her. There’s a difference between hurt, like we do in a scene, and harm. Do you understand that?”
She nods.
“Good girl. Daddy will never harm his little girl. Picture it again for me. Is she scared of other things? Can you see them? Like when a movie shows the person’s thoughts?”
“She’s remembering something bad that happened to her. It’s making her very scared. It’s making her feel like she can’t breathe.”
I bend over so I can kiss the top of her head and smooth my hands down her back. We did hit a trigger. Time to pull on my big, black, Dom wetsuit and take the plunge. “Like you’re watching a movie, can you describe the bad thing that happened to her?”
She sniffles and grinds her face against my thigh. “You’ll think the girl’s disgusting.”
“No, I won’t. There’s nothing about the girl that’s disgusting. She’s Daddy’s best girl, and Daddy’s best girl is not disgusting.” I give her a moment to process before I prompt, “Describe the bad thing she’s remembering, sweetheart.”
“She’s in the school bathroom and three girls are holding her head in the toilet while they flush it. The water’s swirling around her head and up her nose and she can’t breathe,” she says in a monotone.
There’s nothing monotone about her body language. Her face is screwed up tight, tears pooling in the bridge of her nose. Around my hips, her arms have turned into steel bands. She’s curled into a taut ball against my thigh and calf. My poor baby.
“When did this happen to the girl?” I ask gently.
“It’s, um, her freshman year of high school.”
“Did it happen a lot?”
She nods. “Every time the Monster Ms caught her in the bathroom. So, she didn’t go. She got really bad stomach pains and wet her pants because she was afraid to go. Everyone laughed at her and called her a baby who needed diapers, but at least she didn’t get her head flushed.”
Fuck, no wonder that bottom losing control of her bladder during a scene affected Emily so badly. “Sweet girl, it wasn’t her fault, just like it wasn’t the fault of the bottom who peed during the scene. Do you understand that?”
She shakes her head and screws her face deeper into my thigh. “Maman said it was her fault for being awkward and that she needed to stand up to the Monster Ms and not let people walk all over her.” Her voice quavers and rises, and I know I’m losing her to littlespace. “But, Daddy, the Monster Ms are really big.”
“Easy, Emmy, easy. Remember you’re watching a movie. No matter how big the monster seems, it’s really only tiny on the screen, ri
ght?”
She nods and eases a little against my leg.
“Were the Monster Ms older?” I ask.
“They were juniors already.” Her voice has dropped back into a normal register and I stifle my sigh of relief.
“Did the girl stop the Monster Ms in the end? Was she Wonder Woman brave, baby doll?”
“No, Daddy. Professor Haupman caught the Monster Ms locking the girl in a closet and made her tell him what was happening. After that, the girl stayed in his classroom during recess, lunch, and after school. She went to the teacher’s bathroom, so she didn’t wet herself anymore. Over the summer, she and her Maman had to go and meet with the principal and the governors. After that, the Monster Ms didn’t go to her school anymore.” She takes several deep breaths while I rub her back. “But Maman was still angry and said she’d made a lot of trouble for everyone when she should have solved her own problems.”
Fuck me, what can I say to that? Emily was bullied, horribly bullied, and her own mother didn’t support her. No wonder she escaped to a bookstore after school. And what kind of fucking nightmare was this mother of hers? A woman who threw Emily to the wolves when she was being bullied and burned her precious comic books and tried to force her back to the cheating husband and was so critical of my sweet sub that Emily’s internalized her mother’s voice as her most self-destructive thoughts? What the hell do I say to this?
I know what I don’t say and that’s anything judgmental about the mother who now has dementia. There might be a time in the future when I can work with Emily on this, but it’s not now.
“I think the girl was very brave to tell her teacher and the others.” I kiss the top of her head even though my back is beginning to complain about this hunched-over position. “That must have been scary. The girl was a very good girl for telling the truth. Did the Monster Ms do other things to the girl that hurt her?”
I need to know if there are any other landmines left over from the bullying before I find myself sitting on the bathroom floor with a hyperventilating sub again.
