by Frost, E J
“I like that idea very much.” The woman nods and turns to the naked, collared woman waiting a step behind her, “Julia, I think you’ll be unrestrained for our scene this evening. You can show me how much your submission means to you by holding your position.”
The sub swallows hard. “Yes, Goddess.”
I smile down at Emily and whisper, “Someone’s going to have a rough night.”
She grins back at me.
“That was a light cane you used,” says a man wearing only red spandex shorts. His upper lip curls as he speaks. He’s one of the perfect tan, hard-body crowd, and he has the unfinished look of a baby Dom. But I try not to be dismissive as I answer him. Everyone starts somewhere.
“It’s a junior rattan cane,” I tell him while I open a bottle of water from my bag, take a sip, and hold it for Emily. “There’s a lot less padding on the thighs than there is on the ass, so I used a lighter cane. Also, I wanted to leave marks that Emily will feel for a day or two, but I didn’t want to split her skin or leave her unable to sit down while we’re on vacation, so the junior cane was the tool for the job.”
Red Spandex grimaces. “A slave shouldn’t sit.”
Julia’s Goddess shakes her head at him. “Logan was quite clear at the beginning that Emily’s not a slave. It’s pleasant to see a scene so nuanced,” she says to me. “Thank you both. I’m training Julia at eight tonight in the kennels. It would be lovely to see you there.”
I enjoy watching furry play and have done it myself on occasion. If Emily’s not engaged by it, I know a cock that’s happy to keep my horny little girl busy. “We’ll look forward to it.”
Julia’s Goddess smiles before walking away, leading Julia on a bejeweled leash.
I give Emily a kiss on the forehead. “Ready to shower, sweetheart?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
I nod my thanks to Niall and Paul, before helping Emily to her feet. Taking her binkie from her, I fold it up and tuck it in my bag.
As Emily bends over to pick up her shirt, Red Spandex reaches out to touch the backs of her thighs.
I catch his wrist and tug slightly to pull him off balance. “Not okay,” I growl at him.
Paul’s there a second later, putting a firm hand in the middle of Red Spandex’s chest. “Back up. Scene rules were clear.”
Emily straightens, clutching her shirt to her breasts. “What’s going on?”
“Scene’s over.” Red Spandex holds up his hands. “I just wanted to see if her skin’s broken.”
“I’m perfectly capable of answering your question,” Emily says with the same cool self-possession she used to decimate the Doms who approached her at the expo where we met. She’s never used that tone with me. I wonder if it only comes out when she feels threatened. “It’s not. I would have felt the tea tree oil sting.” She touches my forearm. When I release Red Spandex’s wrist, she hands me her tee. “Daddy, could you help me, please? I don’t want to be naked anymore.”
I almost roar at Red Spandex for making her self-conscious but the look on Paul’s face says he’s going to do it for me. That leaves me free to deal with my little girl, who just asked for help from her daddy.
I hear the snap of my cape.
“Of course, baby doll.” I drop the shirt over her head, then slide her panties up her legs, under the oversized tee, without giving anyone another look at her ass, since I’m suddenly feeling very territorial about it. When we sit on the bench to lace up her sneakers, Niall sits on Emily’s far side. He doesn’t touch her, but his big body creates a barrier between us and the rest of the room.
When Emily’s dressed, I sling my bag over one shoulder and tuck her to my side before offering Niall my hand.
“Same time on the bench tomorrow?” he asks as we shake.
“See you then.” Looks like I have a weightlifting buddy for the cruise, and maybe more, since Niall seems like not just a good guy but a good Dom, which counts for more in my book.
We leave Paul talking to Red Spandex in increasingly gruff tones.
* * *
Despite Red Spandex’s interference, Emily seems perfectly happy with the scene as we recap in the shower. She examines the marks on her thighs under the spray, testing them with her fingertips, before grinning up at me. “Good spacing, Daddy.”
After making my own inspection, I smile back at her. Other than the broken blood vessel on her thigh, the cuts look really good. No broken skin. No stippled bruises. Just straight red marks that will fade in a day or two.
“Lotta practice on sandbags, sweetheart,” I tell her.
“Really?” Her little brow furrows. I’m coming to know that look. Concentration. She wears it whenever she focuses on something that interests her. “Why sandbags?”
“The resistance is similar to striking flesh and the bag indents after the stroke so I can see where it landed,” I explain as I wash her hair. “Sometimes I chalk the cane, too, so I can see exactly where it hit.”
“I heard you tell Master Niall that you trained in Bangkok. I didn’t realize there was formal training for Doms. Did you take classes or something?”
I tip her head back into the spray to rinse out the shampoo, keeping one hand pressed to her forehead to prevent the soap from running into her eyes. I have a fuzzy, warm memory of my mother washing my hair that way when she gave me baths as a kid.
Smiling down at Emily, I say, “No classes. Most tops either learn along the way like Niall, or they have a mentor. I had a mentor, Lady Suda. She was—” There are no words for what Suda was. “A great teacher. She only trained one top at a time. The training lasted six months. It cost me everything I’d saved up in the Navy, but I wouldn’t trade my time in Thailand for anything. It sounds corny, but I found myself there.”
“It’s not corny, Daddy,” Emily breathes, looking up at me. “It’s super-cool. And you were trained by a woman?”
“Uh-huh. Equipment doesn’t matter. Suda taught me domination is all in the mind.” I smooth conditioner over her wet curls. Another thing I learned at Jasmine House: how to care for my bottom’s body.
“Wow. Would you—can I know the things she taught you, or are they, like, Dom secrets?”
That makes me chuckle; Emily’s exuberance would have tickled Suda, too. I can picture Suda’s wicked black eyes disappearing in wrinkles as she laughed. She had a great laugh, deep and throaty, given that she was only five feet tall and skinny as a switch.
“There are a few Dom secrets, sweetheart, but mostly she just taught me to pay attention to what my submissive needs. She taught me this.” I lather up a loofah with one of the cruise’s girly soaps and wash Emily, lifting her hair so I can lather the back of her neck. “I know some Doms don’t go for personal care, but Suda showed me it’s not about who is doing what to whom. It’s about the mindset. I can still control you even when I’m bathing you or feeding you or tying your shoes.”
Wide-eyed, Emily nods.
“Do you feel my control?”
“Always.” She shivers and grins. “I wasn’t sure if I’d like it. I haven’t done this full-time before. But I love it. When you plan out my whole day and do things like tying my shoes for me, I feel so little.” Another shiver, a delicious one that makes her wrap her arms around her wet body. “Ta very much, Daddy.”
I kiss her clean forehead. “You’re welcome, baby doll.”
“Did Suda teach you about caning and all the other domly stuff, too?”
Her terminology gets another chuckle out of me. I turn her around so I can scrub her back. “Uh-huh. Suda was an absolute master with a flogger. She could turn a bottom into jelly in ten minutes. She taught me all about impact play. She had a rigger who came in twice a week. He taught me rope work and suspension bondage. And then Malee, my såao-chái, taught me sensation play.”
“What’s a såao-chái? Is that a submissive in Thai?”
“Malee was my housekeeper. She cleaned my room, took care of my clothes, made sure I was fed when I wasn’t eating
with the family.”
“Oh.” Emily ponders this for a moment, her big eyes filled with wonder, as I turn her under the spray to rinse her off. “But she’s the one who taught you sensation play?”
“Yup. Suda was a hardcore sadist. Even hot wax was too tame for her, but Malee loved wax and feathers and silk scarves. She filled my room with candles and scarves before one of the girls explained what was going on.” I give Emily a sheepish grin. “In my defense, it’s a different culture.”
She giggles. “Was she making a subtle, subbie play for you, Daddy?”
“Uh-huh. She was also twenty years older, had a hundred lifetimes more experience and taught me everything I needed to know about how to flip a woman’s switches.” I run my hands over her hair to get rid of the excess water, rinse myself off and turn off the spray. I help her out, onto the bath mat, before I rub her dry. “We’re going to have to skip the lotion ritual, baby doll, or we’ll be late for lunch.”
“It’s okay, Daddy. Should I go get dressed?”
“No, sweetie, I have a dress for you, and you’re going to wear Morris for lunch as well. Bend over the sink for me.”
Without another word, she folds over the sink, resting on her forearms. So trusting. So obedient. I praise her as I ready Morris and slide it into her without any trouble. She’s adjusted to the plug. Hopefully, she’ll like the next size up as well, which I plan to give her this afternoon as part of our game.
After I smooth T-Relief over her backside, I dress her in one of the baby doll dresses I brought. This one is a soft pink with white lace and ribbons at the neck, sleeves, and hem. Even with her hair falling in damp tangles around her shoulders, she’s gorgeous. Just like a little doll. Cheeks rosy and eyes bright, her lips are parted as she looks up at me. I lean in to take that soft mouth and kiss and nip it until her lips are as red as her thighs.
“You’re stunning, sweetheart. Put on some knickers and shoes and do your hair and we’ll go.”
“Do you want my hair up or down?”
She wants me to pick her hairstyle? Definitely not something any of my subs have offered before. What a doll. “I like it down so I can run my fingers through it.”
She grins at me before skipping off to her own cabin. I watch her go. She’s skipping with a plug in. It’s definitely time to bump up a size. Grinning to myself, I pull on my own clothes: a white button-down, black cargo shorts and sandals. Hopefully the look is sufficiently “headmaster on holiday” to turn Emily on.
She’s back a few minutes later with her dark, damp curls bouncing around her shoulders, topped by a white sunhat with daisies embroidered around the crown. What a cutie. Over her shoulder, she’s carrying a straw bag containing her tablet and a towel.
“I thought I’d go straight to the pool to meet Vashi after lunch,” she says.
“Good thinking.” I tap the tip of her nose. “You’ll stay in the shade, right? Daddy’s the only one who gets to make you red and stingy.”
She grins. “I brought sunblock, but I’ll stay in the shade. Promise.”
“Good girl.” I take her hand and lead her out of my cabin. To reward her for doing so well with the plug, rather than making her struggle down the stairs, I steer her to the elevator.
In the sunlit restaurant, Michael and Teresa are already seated. Michael rises and shakes my hand while Teresa and Emily trade cheek kisses. They’re at a four-seater table, so it’s just us for lunch, which should put Emily at ease. She doesn’t even look at the menu once we’re seated; she just smiles at me.
“Feel like seafood for lunch?” I ask her.
“Always.” She nods. “Five hundred calories, Daddy.”
“Good girl.” I run my hand up and down her back. A small reward for giving me such trust.
There are quite a few choices on the menu, which helpfully lists the calories for each dish. The salmon and mango ceviche looks good and leaves a hundred calories for something sweet to finish.
“How was the DJ last night?” Emily asks Teresa.
I smile to hear her chatting so easily.
Once the waiter comes and the ordering is out of the way, I turn to Michael. “I met with Dan Reyes this morning. Something he said got me thinking.”
Michael lifts his eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Dan mentioned that large quantities of liquids are brought aboard. Any chance that our subject of interest could be stored in liquid form?”
Michael shrugs. “It’s a salt, so it could be dissolved, but it would be foul-tasting, hard to swallow, and have a strong, fishy smell. In liquid form, it would be like gammahydroxybutrate—GHB. That’s known as liquid ecstasy and is sometimes used as a date rape drug. One of the reasons GHB is so dangerous is that it’s hard to calculate dosage accurately in liquid form. Drinking this stuff would be just as likely to make you nauseous or sleepy or cause a seizure as it would be to create arousal and euphoria. It’d be easy to overdose.”
“Could that be what happened to our unfortunate friend? He drank too much and overdosed?”
Michael shakes his head and takes a sip of what looks like an amber beer. I haven’t been drinking much while I’ve been with Emily, both because she doesn’t drink and because I want my head clear to top her. But there’s no reason I can’t have a beer with lunch. I flag down a waiter and order a lager with lime.
“If our friend had overdosed, he’d have shown symptoms immediately and probably needed emergency medical attention. Drugs in solution hit fast, five to fifteen minutes, depending on the stomach contents. I’ve checked the health center records. None of the five sought medical attention while they were on board.”
“If they all took a liquid dose, what’s the chance one of them would have overdosed?”
“Hard to say because we don’t know how or by whom the subject of interest, good phrase, by the way, is being administered. If it were a medical professional giving them the dose, I’d say the chances are low. We’re trained in measurement and dilution. Assuming it wasn’t, and they got minimal directions as to dosage and use, then pretty high. Undiluted, this stuff would be extremely potent. As little as thirty milliliters could be fatal. That’s a shot glass, by way of comparison.” He lifts his beer for emphasis.
“Small quantities. A lot could be brought on board in something as small as a water bottle.”
“True,” Michael admits. “But if it was so easy to bring quantities like that aboard, we’d be seeing a lot more cases, I suspect.”
I lift the beer the waiter’s just brought to acknowledge his point. “Also, ‘little pink friend’ sounds more like a pill.”
Michael nods. “Certainly does.”
I rub my hand over my mouth as I think and feel the bristle there. My beard grows faster in hot weather; I’m going to have to shave again before I play with Emily tonight. No accidental abrasion of that baby soft skin.
“Did Dan offer any other insights?” Michael asks.
“He suggested the subject of interest could have been delivered by drone.”
Michael’s snort is echoed by Emily; I realize she’s listening to our conversation even though she’s talking with Teresa. I like the way she can multitask, but more, I like that she’s constantly aware of me. It’s a kind of telepathy I’ve developed with several of my subs. It’s happening fast with Emily, but everything is happening fast with Emily, and I’m surprisingly okay with that.
“Dan wasn’t particularly forthcoming.” I pause while the waiter sets down our plates. Michael’s gotten the ceviche as well, so that looks like a solid choice. Teresa’s having a César salad. I feel like the lone carnivore in the group, but my bacon burger smells damn good and is exactly what my body wants after a run, a paddling, a workout, and a caning. And coming like a freight train. Twice.
Once Emily’s asked for permission to eat, such a good girl, and everyone starts eating, I continue, “I also interviewed the staffer who cleaned our unfortunate friend’s room. He helped me with a timeline. I’m pretty sure our unfortun
ate friend took the subject of interest on Friday night, possibly while he was doing a scene with another couple he met on the cruise.”
“If that’s the case, he didn’t develop symptoms for forty-eight hours. Definitely not an overdose. This stuff just does a number on the organs.”
“Anything more on that?” I ask. I haven’t caught up with Michael since boarding, but I’d hope he’d circulate an email if there were any developments.
Michael nods. “Unfortunately, one of the others was admitted to the hospital yesterday. I got the word this morning. Kidney failure. They’ve got him stabilized, but I’m afraid we’re looking at organ damage for all four, and who knows how many others?”
Not good. “Have any of them admitted taking the subject of interest?”
“Not that I’ve heard. We’ve agreed to cover their medical bills and have them on placebo antibiotics on the pretense they may have E-coli, so I’m hoping they’ll come to us if they have further symptoms, but if they go to their own doctors, we don’t have any way of knowing.”
That’s a double-edged sword. If one of them would admit taking the brick, we might be able to get them to reveal the distribution route. But it’s also a one-way ticket to Lawsuit City if a Pink Pearl employee is dealing. Ed Isaak’s said we’ll put hard questions to the four as a last resort if the insurance company revokes coverage for the cruise. I know he fears that’s going to happen at the end of this trip.
No pressure or anything.
To divert myself, I check in with Emily. “How’s the ceviche, baby doll?”
“Excellent, Sir.” She takes a forkful. Everything in the dish is already diced so Daddy’s cutting services aren’t required, which is a shame because I’m really enjoying providing those. She chews the required number of times before she asks, “How’s your burger?”
“Mmm, this is a tasty burger,” I tell her, and I know she gets the Pulp Fiction reference by the way she grins. Busted. “Now, what’s a little girl doing watching such a grown-up movie?”
Emily turns crimson and becomes very involved in her lunch.