I took a deep breath. I needed to remember why I was here and it wasn’t to get into a hair-pulling, name calling, cat-fight with this little blonde bitch.
“You’re right,” I said, looking down at my new sandals. “I…I do have issues. But one of the reasons my Daddy, uh, Papa brought me here was because we heard they have medicine to help girls like me. Littles who have a hard time letting…letting their Bigs do what they want to do to them.”
“God, you can’t even say it, can you? You can’t let your Daddy fuck you.” Mandy gave me a mean glance. “You’re pathetic.”
I was holding on to my temper with both hands.
“Okay, maybe I am,” I said. “But is it true? About the medicine?”
“Maybe.” She gave me a mysterious smile. “You certainly need something, I can tell that.”
“But who can give it to me?” I pressed. “Should I make an appointment to go see the Nurse?”
“Nurse Nancy?” She laughed incredulously. “That old bat is only here to make sure some clueless Daddy doesn’t try to fit a King Kong-sized plug in a Babygirl with a Tinkerbell-sized hole. She’s useless.”
“Well then who—”
“I’m tired of talking to you.” Mandy turned pointedly and went back to admiring her reflection in the oval mirror. “Come see me again when you’re not such a boring goody-two-shoes.”
I tried speaking to her two or three more times but she pointedly ignored me. At last, I had no choice but to go back to Salt, who was just finishing a conversation with Patty’s Daddy. They were shaking hands when I got there and then the other man stood and began calling for his Little.
“Patty? Patty, come on now, it’s time to go.”
Patty looked up from the clay animal she’d been building in the art corner.
“But Daddy, I don’t want to go yet. I’m having fun.”
“Patty…” His voice got stern. “Come on now, we don’t have time for this nonsense.”
“But I don’t want to go.” She stood up and stomped her foot, a childish pout on her pretty face.
“Patty, do I have to spank you? Is that the only way you’ll learn your lesson?”
“I’m not scared of you!” she yelled at him. Taking the lump of wet clay she’d been working with, she threw it at him. It landed with a splat on his conservative blue suit, making a big gray, smeary stain.
Her Daddy’s face darkened. “That’s it, young lady! You deserve a spanking and you’re getting one right now.”
He grabbed her by the arm, sat down in one of the wooden chairs, and dragged her over his lap.
“No, Daddy! No, no, no!” Patty wailed. She kicked and struggled but he secured her firmly with one arm around her waist and raised the little pleated skirt she had on to bare her innocent blue cotton panties.
Every eye in the playroom was on them now, including mine and Salt’s, and I had an idea that was exactly how Patty wanted it. She continued to cry and thrash as loudly as possible as her Daddy pulled down her panties and began spanking her with a small, black leather paddle he’d apparently had in his pocket the whole time.
“Quite a show,” Salt remarked in a low voice as we watched Patty’s ass get redder and redder. She was still wearing the pink, rhinestone-studded plug which stuck out from between her plump cheeks prominently.
“Probably one they repeat a lot,” I remarked. “Why else would he carry a paddle with him everywhere he goes?”
“Do you think she is in real pain…or enjoying it as she did last night?” he murmured softly.
“I…I don’t know.” I glanced up at him uncertainly and saw that he was looking at me again, the same way he had been the night before when Patty was moaning and coming as her Daddy put her new plug in. What was he thinking?
I knew what I was thinking—I was wondering what it would be like to be in that position. To be helpless over someone’s knee taking a spanking I knew I deserved…Then I pushed the idea away. It was just too weird.
At last the scene between Patty and her stern Daddy seemed to be winding down.
“Have you learned your lesson, kitten?” he was crooning, rubbing her glowing red ass cheeks gently.
“Y-yes, Daddy,” Patty was sobbing, her red hair hanging in her face. “I’m sorry I was bad.”
“It’s all right, kitten—I forgive you,” he said soothingly. “Now come up to the room so Daddy can put some special cooling gel on your poor little bottom.”
“Ooo, Daddy…” She fluttered her wet eyelashes at him flirtatiously. “And will you spread some on my other parts too and will you rub it in really good? “ She sat up and ran one fingernail down his tie. “You know how much I love it when you pet my little kitty, Daddy.”
He frowned sternly. “I don’t know, kitten. You’ve been a very naughty girl—I don’t know if you deserve to have your kitty petted.”
“But please?” she begged shamelessly. “You know how fast I can come after you spank me. Please, Daddy?”
“Well…we’ll see,” he said, smiling indulgently as though she was asking for an ice cream cone instead of his fingers between her legs. “For now, just come up to the room and we can decide there.”
“Well,” I muttered as they finally left. “I guess that answers our question about whether she was getting any pleasure from being spanked or not.”
“What kind of pleasure, do you think?” Salt asked thoughtfully as we left the playroom and headed back to our suite to get ready for dinner. “The pleasure of a masochist, do you think? She wants to be hurt sexually?”
“That might be part of it,” I said doubtfully. “But it could also be the pleasure of submission—the idea that he can do anything he wants and she can’t stop him.”
“The pleasure of submission, eh? I have never heard you speak of such a thing before.” Salt was looking at me speculatively again. I made myself look away.
“Well, did you learn anything from the other Daddies?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
Salt used the old fashioned key that opened the door to our suite and ushered me inside.
“A lot and then again, not nearly enough,” he said, frowning. “What about you? Was talk with Berkley’s brat productive?”
I sighed and went to sit on the couch. There was no fire in the grate but I could see the maid must have been in because there were fresh logs laid all ready to go.
“She seems to know something but she won’t tell me,” I said, reaching down to unbuckle my new sandals. They were more comfortable than the awful patent leather shoes I’d worn the night before but the straps still rubbed me. I couldn’t wait to get them off.
“Why not?” Salt asked, sitting down beside me. “Here, allow me.”
He brushed my hands away and pulled my feet into his lap. This time I didn’t even try to fight it. His hands seemed like they would be too big to handle the little shoes but he managed the dainty straps with ease and then began rubbing one of my feet.
“Ahhh…” I melted back against the arm of the couch with a happy groan. “God, Salt, if I’d known you were so good at this I would have been begging for foot massages every spare minute of our entire partnership.”
“No you wouldn’t,” he said quietly. “Before we came here, to this place, you would not have been comfortable to let me touch you so…intimately. You were uncomfortable with massage last night at first. Only now you begin to get used to it.”
“I…guess so.” I shifted uncomfortably on the couch. “But I mean, it’s just a foot massage. How intimate can that be?”
“Feet are very delicate…can be very sensitive.” He tra
iled one long finger up the tender arch of my foot.
“Salt!” I gasped, jumping a little. “That’s ticklish!”
“My point,” he said, giving me a little smile. “I have wished to give you foot massage before this but how could I? You would never have agreed.”
“Well, I’m agreeing now,” I said, passing over his statement that he’d wanted to do this for me before. I moaned appreciatively as he started kneading the arch of my other foot. “As long as you’re not trying to tell me you have a foot fetish.” I lifted my head from the arm of the couch for a moment and raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re not, are you?”
Salt snorted laughter. “In a place like this you think such a thing is worst problem?”
“Well, no,” I conceded. “You’ve got a point. But still…”
“I do not have foot fetish,” my partner assured me. “Although I will admit to liking your little feet. They are…how do you say? Cute.” He lifted the foot he was massaging and pressed a soft kiss to the inside of my arch. “Adorable.”
“Salt…” My breath was coming faster for some reason and my heart was pounding. Which was ridiculous—he was just being playful and he’d only kissed my foot. It wasn’t like he’d lifted my skirt to give me “special kisses” or anything like that.
Just the thought of that brought all kinds of mental images with it and I found that my pulse was suddenly racing. God, what was wrong with me? I had to stop imagining that—stop picturing my partner splitting my thighs with his broad shoulders to go down on me. I didn’t want him to do that to me, did I? Of course not. But still, the images wouldn’t leave my brain…
“So you said that Berkley’s brat had information but she would not share?” Salt asked, breaking into my erotic and forbidden thoughts. “Why would she not talk to you?”
“She called me a ‘scared little virgin’, among other things, I think because of what you told Berkley about how we weren’t, uh, sexual together.” I could feel my cheeks getting hot as I spoke.
“Hmmm…” Salt frowned. “I am sorry about that but I was afraid if we pretended to be experienced in this kind of thing we would be required to do things…things we were not ready to do.”
“We may have to do something anyway,” I said, frowning. “We’re getting nowhere on this case so far.”
“We did do something,” he pointed out. “In the office of Dr. Lucy.”
I shifted again, thinking of the scorchingly hot kiss we’d shared. If I wasn’t careful we were going to get into dangerous territory here.
“Well…but all that was just for show. I mean, we were giving Dr. Lucy what she wanted, right?”
“What she wanted…or what we wanted?” His pale blue eyes seemed to burn into me.
“What she wanted,” I said firmly, lifting my chin. “I mean, come on Salt, you know I wouldn’t act that way unless I had a reason, right?”
“You mean you would not bare your soul to me and weep for the pain of your past, as you did?” he asked softly. “Or wrap your arms around my neck and kiss me until neither of us could breathe?”
“Well, I mean…” I could feel my cheeks getting hotter and hotter. God, I was going to explode soon if he didn’t back off!
Salt seemed to know it.
“Never mind.” He shook his head. “Tell me what exactly did you have in mind for us to do, mishka? And when are we to do it?”
“At dinner tonight,” I said, feeling immensely relieved to be back to the case and off the messy subject of our emotions. “We have to prove I’m not a goody-two-shoes’.”
“A…what?” Salt looked confused. “Forgive me, a few American idioms still escape me.”
“A goody-two-shoes is someone who always follows the rules…who never gets punished. Mandy told me to come back and talk to her when I wasn’t such a ‘boring goody-two-shoes’.”
“And how will you prove you are not this ‘goody-sweet-shoes?’” Salt asked.
“Goody—two-shoes,” I corrected him. “And I think the best way is…” I took a deep breath. God, I couldn’t believe I was about to say this. “I think the best way is for you to spank me.”
Salt frowned. “I thought that you did not wish for me to spank you.”
“I don’t want you to spank me for real,” I said hastily. “We’ll put on a show, just like Patty and her Daddy did in the playroom. I’ll throw a hissy fit at the dinner table, then you spank me right where everyone can see. That’ll show Mandy that I’m not such a good girl and maybe she’ll open up to me.”
“I do not know…” Salt still looked doubtful. “Are you certain you wish to do this? I know that I threatened to discipline you but I am…reluctant to strike you. To strike any woman, but especially you, Andi.”
“Is that because of your father?” I asked softly. “Because of…what you saw him do? To your mom, I mean?”
I knew from working at the PD that abused children often went one of two ways—either they might become abusers themselves or they would go in the complete opposite direction and refuse to lay a hand on anyone.
Salt had no problem doing our job but it occurred to me now that though he could get plenty rough with male suspects, I had never seen him treat a female with anything but gentle firmness, even if she was angry or abusive towards him. It was one of the things I liked about him—that innate gentlemanliness. Now I understood the root of it.
“I suppose this is why,” Salt said a bit stiffly.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“Is not easy to talk about,” he acknowledged. “But all the same, I am glad you know, Andi.”
“I guess…I’m glad too,” I said hesitantly. “It does explain some things. Although it raises a lot of questions too.”
“Such as?” He lifted one eyebrow quizzically. “Ask. I will not be angry.”
“Did you really kill your own father?” I asked in a low voice. “I mean, I can absolutely understand why if you did but I just never… never knew.”
“Of course you did not know,” he said simply. “I have never told anyone here.”
“How…why…” I shook my head. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”
“He was going after my sisters,” Salt said and his deep voice was a growl. “I was sixteen. Beating me was no fun for him anymore—I just stood there and took it.”
“Salt…” I whispered, but I couldn’t reach him. He had stopped massaging my feet and there was a far away look in his eyes, as though he were reliving the old horror all over again.
“He had already driven my oldest sister from home—Havela, only two years younger than me.” Salt’s big hands were clenched into fists now. “I could not stop this—I could not save her. But then he went after the other two—Tatyana and Liliya. They were so young—only twelve and eleven.”
“How did it happen?” I asked softly.
“We were at top of stairs. Very steep. My sisters’ door was there and they were hiding inside their room—I could hear them crying. They feared my father—we all did.” Salt’s accent had gotten even deeper—I thought it was a wonder he was still talking in English at all instead of slipping back into Russian.
“Were you between him and the door?” I asked.
He nodded. “Da—I was. He told me to get out of the way or he would kill me. He was screaming that my little sisters were nothing but shlukha—whores. He said he would beat the whoring out of them. My mother was crying and begging.” He paused for a moment and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I knew if he got past me, into my sisters’ room, he would beat them…and mos
t likely rape them as well.”
I sucked in a breath. “Oh, no!”
“Yes,” he said grimly. “This was real reason that Havela ran away. I had gone to find her that afternoon—she was hiding in a house where the girls were for sale. She told me…” He took a deep breath. “Told me that she might as well get paid for it. That it was better to give to strangers than to have her own father take. She would not come back with me.” He shook his head. “I did not blame her. I did not protect her as I should—but I could not let him hurt Tatyana and Liliya this way as well.”
“Oh, Salt…” I shook my head. “What happened? Did you, uh, push him down the stairs?”
“I beat him.” He looked at me unflinchingly. “My father was big man—as big as I am now. At sixteen at last I was getting my growth—finally big enough to fight him.” He shrugged. “And so…I did. He was still bigger than me but he was drunk—very drunk. I was quicker than he was. But once…” He took a deep breath. “Once I started beating…I could not stop. Even after my mother tried to pull me off, I could not stop.”
“You were angry,” I said quietly. “You had a right to be.”
“I lost control. But I was not sorry.” He shook his head. “Anyway, after he was dead—then we push him down the stairs to make look like accident. My sisters helped. They were crying—my mother too. But I could not.”
“You were probably in shock,” I said.
“Is possible.” Salt closed his eyes and pressed his thumb and index finger over his eyelids as though he was trying to banish the bad memories. “Forgive me,” he said thickly. “I have not thought of this for a long time. Is not something I like to remember.”
“Of course not.” Earlier, when we’d been in Dr. Lucy’s office, I’d had the impulse to hug him but I had stopped myself. This time I couldn’t. I sat up on my knees and reached for him, wrapping my arms around his neck.
For a moment Salt just sat there, then he hugged me back, crushing me to him and pressing his face into my neck.
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