“Okay, go ahead.”
I’m kinda mad he has to remove a hand from my thigh, but I suppose I’ll live. He reaches out, and sort of taps the top of my head.
“Yep, see, that was patting for sure. Not as good.”
“Not as good as…”
“Petting. Try it.”
“Bossy britches,” he mutters, but I forgive him almost immediately because his fingers delve into my hair as he smooths a hand over my head, making me a puddle.
I tilt my head, close my eyes, and enjoy the calming motion, how safe and loved it makes me feel. Cherished, if you want to be sappy about it, and when I’m being petted, I do.
* * *
Lowry
I’ve seen Starla happy before, many times. Except for when things were at their very worst, she could still smile. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look as peaceful as she does right now. Straddling me in the most adorable outfit imaginable, with her hair down to make it easier for me to pet her. Yes, pet her. She’s practically purring.
“You really do like this, don’t you?”
“Mmm.” There’s a nod, but she doesn’t bother to open her eyes.
“You’re like a wee cat. If I do this for long enough, are you going to roll over and show me your vulnerable underbelly?”
That does make her crack an eye open.
“I think we both know you’ve seen plenty of my vulnerable underbelly.”
True enough.
“Do you only like having your hair stroked or do you like this other places as well?”
“You think I’m going to give you all the answers? I think you’ll have to conduct an experiment. For science.”
“Ah yes, science. Very important.”
On the next pass of my hand over her head, I keep going, gently rubbing her neck, her shoulder that’s bared by her sweatshirt, and then her arms. The dreamy look hasn’t left her face; more than her head, then. Good to know.
“Shall we do this for the rest of the evening, then?”
Truth be told, I probably could. Not that this would top the list of things I’d like to do to Starla, but making her feel this way is something I enjoy very much. Fills me with pride, pleasure, and some other things I can’t identify. Good, I suppose, is the bottom line. Making her feel good, happy, makes me feel good. That’s not magic. What it is, is good fortune.
“No, I guess not. Don’t get me wrong, this is really nice and I like it a lot, but pet play isn’t really my kink.”
My stomach flips, hearing her talk about kink. She’s said it lightly, perhaps as a joke, but I have to swallow to keep my voice from coming out all strangled. “No? What is your kink, then?”
For the first time since I’ve started petting her, Starla’s muscles tense. It’s not as though she jerks or does anything so obvious, but there’s tension in her body where there wasn’t any before. Her throat works, that delicate jaw of hers tightens. I don’t think this is a joke to her.
I don’t want to prod or pry—that’s never worked well for me with her in the past and I doubt very much it would go any better now—but I do want to encourage her, make her feel that it’s okay to tell me. I want to know.
So I continue to pet her, go back to her hair because she did—according to my extremely rigorous research—seem to like that best. After a minute of silence during which her eyes stay closed—not, I think, because she’s relaxed but because she doesn’t want to or can’t look at me right now—I speak.
“It’s okay, Star. You can tell me. I promise I won’t judge you harshly. I want to know because I want to make you happy. At the worst I’ll simply say it’s not exactly to my taste, and we’ll figure out something we both like. That’s the absolute worst. I promise you.”
She does that thing where she rolls her lips between her teeth and God, she looks scared. Hurts my heart. What have other people said or done to her to make her so afraid? Course it doesn’t have to be a personal thing. Society at large can be pretty crap about kink.
After minutes during which my thoughts run away with me in all sorts of directions, she finally blinks her eyes open and her gaze is pleading.
“I promise,” I say again. “And you know I don’t make promises lightly.”
I’ve only made her a promise once before and it’s in that moment that I realize she may feel that I broke that vow and that my promise isn’t worth jack shit to her. That possibly, I couldn’t have said anything worse.
“I’m not going anywhere, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I really want to believe that.”
Oof. That is a punch to the gut I might never recover from, and worse, I don’t know how to reassure her it’s not going to happen again. Not without explaining why I left in the first place, which carries its own risks. For me. Because what if she thinks the very thing I’ve always been the most afraid of? Though I suppose I don’t need to disclose the entire story. Just the bit that has to do with her, which is bad enough. Seems only fair, though, that I should take a risk when she will also.
“Shall we make a bargain, then?”
“A bargain?”
“Yes. Seems as though we’ve both got some things we’re not keen to talk about, so we’ll trade.”
“The old ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’?”
“Aye, well, I thought we might be able to play that later.”
That got her to crack a smile at least, and I chafe her shoulders. “I can go first if you like.”
Her mouth—Christ, her mouth, now that I know what it’s like to kiss that mouth, I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at her ever again without thinking about that—wrenches to the side.
“No. It’s okay. I can go first. You just have to…you have to promise not to make me sorry about it later.”
I could make a joke about some outlandish thing to try to make her laugh again, but there’s something I’ve learned from talking to hundreds of patients rather intimately over my career: if you shit on something they can draw parallels to their own experience from, they’re never going to trust you. So, though I love to make her laugh, I value her trust far more, and I’m not going to risk something so precious on a throwaway line.
“I promise.”
Chapter 16
Starla
Just as there is a distinction between patting and petting, so too is there a difference between being ashamed of being kinky and being shamed for being kinky. Hell, there is even kink-shaming in the kink community which is…table-flip-worthy. Sometimes I think about what it would be like if kink were discussed in sex ed like just another thing. Which has its own issues because kink isn’t always sexual, but I’ll take what I can get.
I would also take not feeling all tied up and twisted on the inside thinking about telling Lowry what I’m into, what I want from him. If only it could be as simple as he’s said: if my kinks are not his, we’ll keep talking and find something we both like. Anyone who thinks it’s that simple is willfully ignorant or their brain simply isn’t wired for self-consciousness.
To be fair, it’s not usually this brain-melting to tell partners what I want. If they don’t like it, they can shove off—it’s that simple. This thing with Lowry, though, is anything but simple. It will shred me in ways I can barely imagine if this goes sideways. But the potential for this to go well makes it worth the risk. Doesn’t stop my stomach from churning but it will get me to step off the cliff.
His hands are resting at my hips again and I lay my hands on his biceps, trying not to dig my fingertips into his muscles. Holding on for dear life isn’t going to help.
“Do…do you know anything about…” Oh god. I need to spit it out, otherwise my heart is going to beat out of my chest and it’ll fall on Lowry, and I really like the shirt he’s wearing. It’s blue and white plaid and the shade where the checks overlap is almost precisely the color of his eyes. Wouldn’t want to ruin it. “Daddy kink? DDLG stuff? That’s—”
“I know what that
is.”
His voice is soft, encouraging, and he squeezes my hips lightly. Not dumping me off his lap and running for the hills yet, so there’s that.
I shrug. “So, I’m a little. Sometimes. Not all the time, obviously. I like to wear cute things.”
I look down at my Hello Kitty sweatshirt, and back up at him. Lowry has the barest smile on his face and it’s…it’s not a big blown-out reaction, like drunk girls shrieking in a bar bathroom: “Oh my god, you like that too? Besties!” I don’t need that. His slightly warmer than neutral affect is encouraging.
“I like to color, especially when I’m feeling overwhelmed. I like spankings. Usually more for fun than discipline, but I’ve done those too, and if I’m in the right space, I can be into more pain. I like being coaxed into things, and when I’m feeling stubborn, I like to be sort of forced. It’s tricky, though. Like I want my top to prove they’re smarter or stronger or have more endurance than I do. I need to be convinced that I can rely on them even if it means making me fail. When I’m little, I get very cuddly, need a lot of affection. I want to feel safe, you know?”
He nods and I try to think of the other most salient details to share before my bravery runs out.
“When I’m little, I can get disoriented easily. Almost like my brain knows someone else is looking out for me, so it can take a break from some of its regular functions. But that also means my anxiety kicks up more easily. I like to be called little girl, other pet names like that, and I…” Here comes one that could be difficult for Lowry to swallow. It’s so typical, and this isn’t usually something I hesitate to share because even a lot of people who aren’t really into daddy kink can enjoy it. But for him? Eh… “I don’t have to, but I like calling my partner daddy.”
I can feel the way he sucks in a breath, and something in me starts to crumble. I’ve been holding it together pretty damn well, have also tried to steel myself, prepare for disappointment, but now that he might actually be not cool about this, it’s hitting me hard. Like my chest is a gong and he banged my heart with a big-ass mallet. Great. He won’t be mean, he won’t be, but I’d held out hope that he would want this too. My catastrophizing horse is out of the gate and galloping toward the finish line of way to fuck this up, you foolish girl, when he loosens his hold on my hips and sets his hands on my shoulders.
“Starla. Hey, where’d you go? What’s going on?”
Trying to breathe and formulate thoughts at the same time seems suddenly overwhelming, and things are kind of greying out. I’d climb off him, stand up, and get away from him if I didn’t feel dizzy.
“It’s fine if you don’t want to. It is. I mean, I have a partner I play with sometimes. Not recently, but that’s because…” I definitely don’t feel like spilling any more of my guts to Lowry right now, and that includes the painful and awkward matter of me having control of my father’s company and not really wanting it, but not knowing how to get rid of it without disappointing him. Yeah, without disappointing my dead father, okay? But I haven’t dared go to see Jade because if Tad found out, I’m sure he’d find some way to use that against me in his battle to control my father’s empire. “But I totally can. I could call her. So, it’s fine. Just, you know, say it. That it’s not to your taste. Because people’s most personal and private kinks are totally like not really enjoying olives. It’s fine. I’m totally fine.”
Clearly, from the word vomit exploding out of my mouth.
“Who said anything about it not being to my taste?”
Sometimes when I was his patient, we would talk about something someone had said to me. Could have been my father, someone at school, hell, sometimes it was Lowry himself. And he would want me to repeat very carefully what the person had said—The literal words that came out of her mouth. Tell me what they were.
Because like some shitty, useless hardwired translator, my brain can take what people say and turn it into something awful. Seriously, someone could ask me to pass them the salt and because of my goddamn depression, I would hear it as, “You worthless piece of shit. How the hell did you not realize I needed the salt? I’ve been waiting for like twenty minutes because you’ve got no sense in your head and you’re basically a waste of oxygen. Fuck off.”
I’ve gotten better about that, partly through doing ECT so depression doesn’t hit me so hard, but also through therapy and having these conversations over and over and over. Turns out I can be taught. Sometimes. So, yeah, a lot of times I can replay the videotape all by myself and realize that no, she asked for the salt and that’s it. But sometimes? Especially when I’m stressed? It’s like I’m being dragged behind a runaway horse, and it’s crapping on my face as I’m tumbling through the dirt at great speed.
The point here, though, is that…
“No one?”
He nods slowly, seriously but encouragingly. “That’s right. No one said that. Can you take a guess why not?”
“Because you’re trying to figure out a nicer way to say it or maybe planning your escape route? I can tell you the sole means of egress is right there.”
Like a flight attendant, I two-finger point with both hands toward the door to the hallway. He squeezes my shoulders and then runs his hands up my neck to cup my face, forcing me to look him in the eyes.
I don’t want to. Makes me feel vulnerable in a way I’d really rather not, like offering him all of my fears and insecurities and deepest, darkest desires on a platter for him to do with what he likes. I feel my own frailty—which I fucking hate—down to my bones. But I do it anyway because he’s given me so much, allowed me the luxury of trusting someone with my most disturbing thoughts and urges without being judged, so I can at least give him the simple courtesy of listening while looking him in the eye.
“It’s actually because what you’ve said sounds absolutely brilliant. I mean that. Having that kind of relationship with you wouldn’t be something I would tolerate, it wouldn’t be something I’d gloss over and make you fulfill your needs with other people.”
His face is open, brows lifted—though not so far as to be surprised, he’s too sincere for that. Staid and impassioned at once, if a man can be such things at the same time. If anyone can, it’s Lowry.
“It’s… I…” He actually blushes, his pale skin turning ruddy and coloring all the way down to the collar of his shirt. Then he half smiles, shakes his head, not quite shrugs. “I don’t have any experience with it in real life, but I’d like very much if you were to be my little girl. I might not be very good at it at first since I haven’t done it before, but I’d like to think I could learn to be a very good daddy to you.”
I am clearly deceased because the only way this is happening is that I’ve died and was a good enough person in life that I’ve been escorted straight to my personal version of heaven.
Lowry blinks and draws in a deep breath. It’s possible I should offer up a response but I don’t have one yet. So, I let him exhale and stroke his thumbs over my cheeks while he looks at me gravely from under his heavy brows.
“Do you think you could be a bit patient with me?”
I’m finding it difficult to locate words, any words, which is probably why I come up with “how patient?” and he laughs.
* * *
Lowry
“I don’t mean that we’ll have to put this whole thing on pause while I study up and get some kind of daddy doctorate or anything, if such a thing even exists. I am, in fact, rather impatient to do these things with you, but I’m not going to be perfect. I won’t be perfect—ever—but especially not right out the gate. That’s all.”
How is this real, how is this possible, how is this happening? When she said she enjoyed being manhandled, I thought it might be my lucky day.
But to have her say she wants these things, that she is basically everything I could ever wish for and some things I wouldn’t have thought, wouldn’t have dreamed, to ask for? And the poor girl panicked because she thought I might not want those things too. I could see that simply tal
king about being little has had an effect on her. It’s as though saying the words had the effect of scraping away some of the enamel of adulthood and leaving her an exposed and painfully sensitive nerve.
And hell, do I understand that. I’m feeling raw myself. It’s one thing to have your mind conjure these things and give in to the sweet temptation in the privacy of your own thoughts, your own bed, your own home with no one else there as witness. It’s another to say them out loud. I’d like to think I could learn how to be a very good daddy to you. It’s dizzying in more ways than one.
“Okay,” she whispers, unbelieving, her gaze darting about my face, searching for signs. Signs of what I couldn’t say—perhaps signs that I can be trusted or that I’m indeed the worst sort of person and am fucking with her head. I wouldn’t.
It’s fair, though, that uncertainty. I’m not insulted. I feel the same kind of bewildered disbelief because what are the odds? I want to rush ahead, take a cannonball into this lake I never thought I’d even get to dip a toe into, but it also seems important to be cautious, careful. Because that’s something a good daddy would do. Makes me warm with pleasure to think of that, the possibility of being that for Starla. Also chokes me a bit, but I’m trying to focus on the positive, the good here.
“Can I ask…is being little, is that a sexual thing for you? Or do you enjoy it purely for the affection and the respite it gives you?”
Dammit, Campbell, why do you always leave it up to her to take the leap? On the whole, especially in my professional life, the ability to open doors and stand around pretending I have no stake in which ones people choose to walk through is a great skill to have. It’s served me well with many of my patients, and indeed, with people in general. Most often people don’t want advice, they just need someone to talk to until they figure it out on their own.
But with Starla, regarding this in particular, it’s unfair to make her volunteer all of these things, especially knowing how difficult it was for her to say them out loud in the first place. It might be nice if I instead showed her the door I wanted to walk through and asked her if she wanted to come with me.
For Her Own Good Page 17