by Rebel Wild
We stay lying this way for what seems like hours until she finally cries herself to sleep. I stay still, fearful that any attempt to reclaim my arm would wake her. I lie beside her. The place where I have longed to be since I first watched her sleeping like an angel in Carmel-by-the-Sea. The notion of it didn’t do it justice as feeling her soft warm body next to me pales in comparison to anything my mind conjured up. Guiltily, I allow my body to relax next to her as the scent of her hair invades my senses and calms me. Unable to hold out any longer, I close my eyes and let sleep take me.
I wake up with the weight of an arm around my waist and turn my head just enough to see Mr. Garrett sleeping behind me. When I opened my eyes, I prayed that last night had all been a bad dream but being here in his bed with him holding me, says it’s all very real.
The night was so perfect before I got the phone call. Mr. Garrett had just put me to bed after giving me aftercare and I was feeling so relaxed when he left me to sleep. I was sleeping so well. I almost didn’t answer my phone until I remembered it could be the hospital.
“Hello?” I cleared the raspiness of sleep from my voice.
“How could you do this to me, Foxy?” Daddy’s voice came on the line. He sounded groggy, but I could tell he was crying. “You let them take my leg. I already told them no.”
“But I had no choice. You had an infection. If they didn’t operate, you’d be dead. I couldn’t let that happen. I love you too much.”
“You love me? You love me, but you went against what I wanted. You don’t love me enough to respect me.”
“That’s not true. I do respect you, but I couldn’t just let you die, Daddy. Don’t you get it? You’re all I have.”
“Selfish,” he spat the word at me. “You’ve always been so damned selfish.”
“No,” I said. “Everything I’ve done since you were arrested was for you.”
“What have you done but take my right to make decisions away from me?”
“I made sure you got the best lawyer that money can buy.”
“With whose money? We lost everything when I lost my job.”
“I’m getting paid more than enough money and I used it to help you.”
“What the hell are you doing for it and don’t lie and tell me you’re helping Mona around the office for that asshole Garrett. I can only think of one thing he’d have you doing for that much money and it’s sure as hell not helping Mona. I pray to God it’s not true.”
“No.”
“Then what the hell are you doing with him?”
“I’m just working.”
“You’re a whore?”
“No!”
“You are whoring yourself out. I didn’t raise you that way,” he cried. “I just want to die. Why didn’t you just let me die in peace, Foxy?”
“Daddy, please listen to me.”
“My daughter is a whore to the man I hate most in the world.”
I heard who I thought was a nurse when the monitors went off.
“Daddy?” I called for him, but there was no answer.
I heard people talking, and I strained to hear if one of them was him, but I never heard his voice again.
“We’re losing him,” I heard a male voice say right before the line went dead.
“No!”
I dialed the number back and was transferred to the ICU, but a nurse put me on hold. I waited for what seemed like a lifetime for her to get back on the line and tell me what happened.
“Miss Warren,” someone finally came on.
“Is my father okay?”
Deep down, I never doubted he would be. He was Roger Warren, the strongest man I ever knew. He wouldn’t die. He couldn’t.
“Miss Warren, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Mr. Warren’s heart stopped beating and unfortunately we weren’t able to save him.”
“No,” I said.
I dropped the phone somewhere on my way out the door. I ran down the stairs. All I could think was that I wasn’t supposed to be alone when I got this type of news. I found myself in front of Mr. Garrett’s bedroom door. It’s the one place I’m not allowed to be, but my need for him to comfort me outweighed everything else and I pounded on the door.
The next thing I remember is putting my arms around his neck and him lifting me and carrying me to his bed. I don’t even remember him leaving to get my rabbit or me even falling asleep, but I must have. Mr. Garrett is sleeping hard behind me so I carefully untangle myself from the hold he has me in and sneak out of his room to go to my own.
“Sydney,” Joe says to me as I make my way toward the stairs. “Is everything okay, hun?”
Who would have thought when I first met him that he would care at all about me?
“Fine,” I tell him a lie to ease his concern. “I’m fine. I just didn’t want to wake Mr. Garrett. I’m going to my room.”
“Let us know if you need anything, okay?”
I nod my head and go up the stairs. I enter my room and see my phone is right where I dropped it by the door. I pick it up to check it and the conversation I had with Daddy before he died comes rushing back to my mind again full force. I can’t believe he said those things to me. He called me a whore.
The pain of his last words to me takes hold and refuses to let me go as realization hits. I will never get a chance to make this right with him. I will never get a chance to change his opinion of me. I will never get the chance to earn his forgiveness for going against his wishes.
He died hating me, and I can’t bear it. It is killing me and I need to escape it. I don’t want to feel it. I want to feel anything but this. I notice the playroom key hanging from the wall at its place next to my door and I remember Mr. Garrett’s words. I was supposed to be studying while he sat next to me in the library finishing his work, but I couldn’t help but engage him.
“But why do people want to be in this type of lifestyle when it involves punishments?” I asked him.
“Most people accept it as part of the deal. The pleasure far outweighs the punishment,” he told me. “Some people are turned on by it. However, others use it as an escape from stress, a way to replace mental pain with something more tactile.”
“Replacing mental pain,” I repeat what he told me as I grab the key and hurry to the playroom.
I open the door and let the familiar lemon, leather, and wood scent envelop me. My body starts to tingle in anticipation as it always does when I first enter in here.
I strip myself of my pajamas and wait for Mr. Garrett to come and take my pain away.
“Sydney?” I call for her as I wake to find her missing.
Her rabbit is abandoned and the place where she was sleeping is cold. I go out in search of her.
“She went up to her room,” Joe tells me from where he’s perched in the great room.
“When?”
“Less than an hour ago.”
“Shit,” I say rushing up the stairs, taking them two by two with Joe right behind me, apparently sensing my urgency. “I don’t think she’s in the right frame of mind to be left alone,” I explain to him as we approach her end of the hall.
“Can you blame her?”
I see that the playroom door is ajar. I open it a crack to see her standing naked in the middle of the room. Seeing me, she kneels in her submissive position.
“Leave us alone,” I tell Joe before I open the door farther, not wanting to give him a glimpse of what he is nowhere near prepared to see.
“Tristan—”
“Leave, okay? I can handle her,” I tell him. I’m almost tempted to sic Brianna on him, but he reluctantly does as I ask.
“Sydney,” I call her name as I approach her. The sight of her disturbs me: naked and completely still on her knees. Any other time my cock would be painfully engorged at her perfect submission, but right now it just
looks wrong. I told Joe I can handle her, but looking at her as she silently cries, I’m not so sure I can. This is the first time in my life I’ve entered this room without feeling in complete and total control of what’s about to happen.
“Sir.” She says with a sniff of her nose.
“Let’s get you up and out of here.”
“But your submissive is requesting to be punished, sir.”
“Sydney, why would I punish you?”
“Because I’m asking you to, sir.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Fine,” she says, getting up. She goes over to the assortment of paddles that are hanging on the wall. They are the very same paddles that brought her so much fear the first time she entered this room. She unhooks the thickest one and brings it back with her. “Now you can punish me,” she says, kneeling again, but holding up the paddle so that I may take it from her.
She just topped from the bottom and disrespected me by touching things without permission, both as she well knows are punishable offenses. But does she truly think I would punish her now?
“Sydney, you’re not thinking clearly. Let me help you up.”
“No,” she says, dropping the paddle at my feet and running away from me. She collapses to the floor next to the couch. Placing her arms over her head and burying her face in the seat cushions, she begins to cry. “I just want the pain to go away,” she says, turning her face to speak to me. “I need to get it out of me. Isn’t that what this place is for? Isn’t that what it does for you?”
“Sydney, your reasons for being here and mine are nowhere near the same.”
“It’s Foxy when you fuck me in here.”
“I’m not going to fuck you.”
“Why are you denying me this little bit of reprieve? You get to work out your daddy issues, but you won’t let me work out mine? You like to see me suffer this way, don’t you? I bet it turns you on. You’re such a hypocrite and a sadist.”
“I won’t be goaded into punishing you,” I tell her, but my fingers twitch in anger.
She notices and the satisfaction from it makes her eyes dance.
“Maybe I’ll just call Matt over to do it. He’s just dying to get a taste of me, or maybe Joe. I won’t mind calling him daddy. He’s probably better at it than you are anyway. You’ve never even fucked me. It’s just too bad your dad’s not alive, I’m sure he’d man up and get the job done—”
“Enough! You want to be punished so damn bad that you throw that shit in my face, then you’re going to get your goddamn wish.” I pick the paddle up from where she dropped it. “Stand,” I demand of her, my voice reverberating around the room. She doesn’t move fast enough, so I yank her up and bend her over the bed so hard her hair fans out above her. “Foxy,” I spit her name out, my anger surging through my blood like poison as her words play in my head. Images of woman after woman on the witness stand, leaving in tears after telling the world how my father had violated them repeat in my mind. Work out my “daddy issues” she said. I can’t think of a better way than to make her scream in pain. “I want to hear you counting, understand?”
“Yes.”
Son of a bitch, she’s unfuckingbelieveable.
“Yes, sir!”
“Ye… Yes, sir.”
I lift the paddle and bring the round, thick wood down on her ass. The loud smack, followed by the sizzle of her skin, goes right to my cock. She lurches forward from the impact of the strike. I watch as a spot on her ass where the paddle hit her turns bright pink and my anger begins to ebb.
“One,” she cries. I raise the paddle and bring it down with a snap on the same spot, causing her ass to turn an even deeper shade of pink. “Two!” Her hands are gripping the sheets so hard they come undone. “Three!” she cries out as I hit her harder.
I hit her repeatedly, alternating spots, my anger ebbs with each blow I give her. I drop the paddle on the floor, letting the weight of anger fall with it until I feel nothing but euphoria.
“Is that what you wanted, Miss Warren,” I ask her. My cock is hard and dripping with so much pre-cum it’s making a wet spot on my boxers. I’m ready to orgasm until she stands to look at me and I see the fear and devastation on her face. It sends my high crashing back down to earth. “Fuck! Sydney?” I try to approach her, but she backs away.
“Don’t touch me,” she says, leaving the room.
I stand repulsed at what I just allowed to happen. I was so caught up; I didn’t even realize she’d long since stopped counting. It only takes me a moment to pull myself together enough to follow her. I make it out of the playroom in time to see her enter her room and slam the door behind her. I try to open it, but it’s locked.
“Sydney, open the door.”
“Stay away. You’re not allowed in here anymore, so just stay away.”
“Open the goddamn door and talk to me.”
Chapter Twenty- Five
“Sydney,” I yell when I hear her rifling through drawers. I’m trying not to panic, thinking she may be packing up to leave. “What are you doing?” The room goes quiet. “Sydney,” I yell again, with my ear to the door.
“Tristan?” Joe calls from down the hall, no doubt alarmed by my yelling. Brianna is right behind him.
“What!”
“Leave her the hell alone.”
“Fuck you. I told you I would handle it.”
“Is that what you call handling it?” he says, pointing to Sydney’s locked door.
“Joe, let’s go,” Brianna tells him.
He looks at her and frowns in question. Last time I was upset with Sydney she wanted him to intervene. He had to drag her out of the kitchen. She stares him down until he’s had enough and storms off. She gives me a weak smile and follows behind him. I hear Sydney’s doorknob turn as she cracks the door open for me. I push it open and my eyes land on her across her bed crying, now dressed in pajamas.
“Sydney,” I say approaching her. I sit on her bed behind her. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” She sniffs.
I let out a relieved breath of air that I didn’t know I was holding.
“I shouldn’t have punished you,” I tell her.
“I wanted you to do it.”
“I knew you were trying to anger me. I’m the Dom, I should have had better control over my temper.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“When I entered the room, I wasn’t a Dom. I was just Tristan, and he’s more…” I stop when I can’t think of a word.
“Emotional?”
“I guess that will do.” I laugh. “Yes.”
“I thought I wanted my Dom,” she says. “I thought he could take away the pain inside, but it’s still there.”
“Nothing will take it away,” I tell her, remembering how hard I tried not to deal with it when my dad died. “Your only option is to allow yourself to feel it and grieve for your dad. Only then will it lessen.” I shake my head at myself. This is a case of doing as I say and not as I do.
“I know I can’t run away from it,” she says. “But I don’t want to deal with it alone. My dad’s gone and I just feel so alone.”
“You’re not alone,” I tell her. “I’m here. I know I just fucked up, but I am here.”
“You didn’t fuck up alone. We both did.”
“Why didn’t you safeword?”
“I didn’t think I could. I asked for it. I didn’t think I had a right to say stop.”
“You always have the right to say no, Sydney. At any point, no matter what’s going on, it’s your right to say no.”
Images of those women invade my mind again, each one turning into Sydney, crying about how they couldn’t say no. The man at the defense table that was my father turns into me. I’m him. In the pit of my stomach, I always knew who I was and Sydney’s paying the price for it.
“Jesus, I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
“Me too,” I tell him. “I’m sorry I made that crack about your dad. Don’t hate me for it.”
“I don’t hate you. I hope you don’t hate me.”
I wince as I sit on my sore behind to look at him. I try to hide that it hurts, but he notices.
“Why would I?” I ask him.
“Sydney, what I did was wrong. I lost control, and I scared you. I made you run.”
“I wasn’t scared. I was…” I shake my head trying to think of the right word. “I was confused.”
He goes into my bathroom and comes back with the arnica cream.
“Lie down,” he tells me.
I do as he asks, lying down and turning on my belly. He pulls my pajamas down just enough to expose my butt.
“Sssss,” I hiss from the stinging cream. “I wish you knew how that felt.”
“I do,” he says, pulling my bottoms back up. “I’ve had it done to me a time or two.”
“You have?”
“Every Dom needs to know how it feels to be hit so they’ll know how far to take it.”
“Right,” I say, sitting up again.
“Tell me what you need, Sydney? How can I help you?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know anything anymore.”
“Know that we are all here for you,” he tells me and I nod.
“I think maybe I should try to sleep some more.” I get up again to pull my covers back, getting into bed.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he says, tucking me in. “I’m right downstairs if you need anything.” I nod, closing my eyes.
As soon as he leaves the room, the loneliness overtakes me. I toss and turn for the better part of an hour but sleep never comes. I don’t want to disturb him at this point, so I stay put until I hear the familiar sound of his voice coming from downstairs. It calls to me like it always does and I can’t help but go to him. Without stopping, he slides over, making room for me on the couch.