Andrew snickered at her. “I can see that. Good girl.” He came over and sat at the edge of the bed next to her. “Did you brush your teeth?” he asked. Molly nodded. “Good girl,” he said again. Molly beamed. She would never get tired of hearing that. He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I’ve decided that little girls like you need to get more sleep than you’ve been getting. From now on, your bedtime is ten o’clock. That gives you plenty of time to do your chores and spend some time having fun after work, but should still give you enough sleep. And when I say that I want you in bed, I mean that I want you to be in bed asleep by ten. Do you understand me?”
Molly frowned. She took so long to fall asleep.
“What if I can’t sleep?” she asked. “I, uh, usually can’t sleep.”
Andrew smiled gently. “I’ve noticed this. You need to try to get to sleep by bedtime. If you really can’t sleep, then I want you to come get me and tell me what’s on your mind and I’ll see if I can’t make you sleepy,” Andrew said.
Molly gave him an inquisitive look. “What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means that I’ll give you a bedtime spanking, of course. That certainly helps to make you sleepy, it seems.”
As if on cue, Molly yawned.
Andrew chuckled. “See?” he said. “Sleepy little girl. Get some rest.” He kissed her on the forehead and left the room, leaving the door cracked a little bit.
Molly couldn’t help but reflect on the unusual course her life had taken today. Andrew was treating her like a child, but it felt so right. She spent all her time trying to prove to the world that she really was a grownup, but maybe this was what she needed.
* * *
As the days went by, Molly found herself feeling better about her life, and truly wanting to make Andrew proud of her. Sitting at work next to Samantha the morning after she had been spanked, she had felt embarrassed by the thought that she was squirming in her chair, as her bottom had remained sore despite her long night’s sleep. But her mind was clearer and sharper without the burden of sleepiness, and she found herself better able to get her work done.
She still worried that she wasn’t good enough, but the fear enveloped her less, and she was able to be herself more. Both Samantha and Rebecca told her that they thought she was starting to ‘fit in nicely,’ or something to that effect, and she tried to build friendships with them, although she found, as usual, that she didn’t have much to talk about when they hung out in the break room together. Compared to their lives full of exciting stories, Molly felt positively boring. Of course she had lots of stories from her life, but she had learned early on not to tell those things to anyone. No one wanted to hear about the things that Molly had to share.
Another thing had changed for her, too. She couldn’t keep her eyes off Andrew. Of course, she had always found him attractive. In fact, she had noticed it in the back of her mind the first time she saw him at the airport. He was tall and muscularly built. She had walked in on him doing pushups one morning in nothing but his boxers, and she had marveled at the muscular lines of his body. His face was chiseled and masculine, and his resting facial expression was pensive. His stormy eyes jolted something awake in Molly.
But now that he had spanked her, now that she had cuddled on his lap and felt his strong arms around her, she couldn’t stop remembering that feeling. She longed to rest her head against his chest and to feel his touch on her skin. She was hungry for his attention. He had made it clear to her that she would get another spanking if she disobeyed him again, but she didn’t want to earn his affections through naughtiness. She wanted to make him proud of her. She wanted him to whisper ‘good girl’ into her ear, to feel his hot breath on her neck as she did it. It took effort for her not to sound dreamy when she said “Yes, Dr. Harrington,” in response to his requests in the office.
One day, about a week later, Molly was standing in the break room pouring herself a cup of coffee when Rebecca came in. She said hi to Molly and started to chat with her a little bit. Molly did so idly, only half paying attention and half watching a squirrel playing outside. Molly had a weakness for cute animals. They always occupied her attention as soon as she saw one, but she was trying not to be rude to Rebecca. Then, Rebecca said something that fully captured Molly’s attention.
“Please don’t take this personally, because I’m just genuinely asking,” Rebecca started, “but do you know how to iron?”
Molly’s face turned bright red. She had noticed her wrinkled shirts as she was getting ready in the morning but had hoped that no one else would notice. The fact that someone had made her want the floor to open up around her. Sure, ironing wasn’t that big of a deal, but Molly always felt incredibly embarrassed whenever anyone commented on her appearance. It reminded her of the times when she was in school and the other students would mock her for her worn-out hand-me-downs. It had been uncomfortable enough for Molly when Rebecca had gone out to get her some new things to wear to work, but that seemed to be motivated more by kindness. This made Molly feel small and stupid.
The truth was, Molly didn’t know how to iron. At all. There were a lot of things that people usually learned while growing up that Molly had missed. Her mother had always struggled just to get through the day, and never had time or energy to do things like iron. Molly could remember her doing it once, before Easter one year. Other than that, she remembered putting things into a wicker ‘ironing basket’ where they would sit until eventually Molly outgrew them and her mother gave them away. Most of Molly’s everyday clothes hadn’t needed ironing anyway, so she had never found it to be that big of a deal, but it was true: she probably looked silly.
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Rebecca cooed. “I can show you sometime if you want me to, if you don’t know how.”
Molly glowered. Of course she had meant to make her uncomfortable. There was no other reason to say something like that. She had been teasing her. Molly felt like she was about to cry. Part of her realized that this was silly, and that her reaction was over the top, but she didn’t care. Molly had always tended to be this way. She could endure real difficulties with silence, but little things got under her skin.
Overwhelmed, Molly got up and left the room quickly. She didn’t quite run (the office was too small to really run anywhere), but she had given into her instinct to flee. Where she fled to was just a few feet down the hall, in one of the empty examination rooms. She shut the door, probably harder than she should have, and climbed up onto the padded brown table. The room was small and tight and it made her feel safer, but she couldn’t shake the memories of being teased and mocked.
She remembered with shame how some of the cool kids had offered to show her how to apply makeup in middle school and had left her looking like a clown. They had reassured her that she looked great and let her go to class like that, and everyone had laughed.
Sitting on the table, Molly began to cry, partially because she was upset about what Rebecca had said and partially because she felt so stupid that she had just run out of the break room at her job to cry because someone asked her about ironing. She was sure that Dr. Harrington would laugh at her for acting this way, and maybe it would be the first step to him seeing just how pathetic she really was. She balled herself up, put her head on her knees, and sobbed as quietly as she could. No one could be stupider than her.
Molly’s crying was interrupted by a knock on the door. She didn’t say anything, but drew her legs in closer to her chest and tightened her grip on herself, trying to disappear. She heard someone come into the room and shut the door, but didn’t budge. Then she felt a strong hand on her shoulder.
“Hey, little girl, what’s the matter?” Andrew’s voice asked, his tone soft and gentle.
Again, Molly didn’t say anything, she just kept crying.
“Molly,” he said again, his voice a little firmer, “tell me what’s going on.”
Molly shook her head. “I’m stupid,” she muttered. “I’m
Andrew sighed deeply. “You’re not dumb, Molly. You’re just a sensitive little girl. That’s okay. Rebecca didn’t meant to set you off. She was just trying to be nice.”
Molly peeked out of her ball angrily. “No, she wasn’t,” she accused bitterly. “She was teasing me. She was making fun of me like everyone always has.”
Andrew sat down next to Molly on the table and forced her onto his lap. She struggled for a moment but soon acquiesced and cuddled into him. She couldn’t stop crying.
“Why do you think that Rebecca was making fun of you, Molly?” he asked.
Molly didn’t think, she knew, but she didn’t want to argue with Andrew. She was surprised by his patience with her so far and didn’t want to push it.
“She was asking me if I knew how to iron, because my clothes always look wrinkly, I guess,” she tried to explain. “People always made fun of the way I looked.”
“What did people make fun of you for?” Dr. Harrington asked, sweetly and not accusing in the least.
“Because I was poor and my mom is crazy, so she could never take care of me right, so I always looked like…” she hesitated with the word and then blurted out “trash.”
It felt bitter in her mouth and made her tears renew themselves. As Andrew held her, she confided all the things that she tried never to tell anyone to him. She talked about how her father sold drugs and how he had been arrested when she was a little girl, and how his arrest had pushed her unstable mother over the edge with her emotional issues. It left her withdrawn and depressed, forcing Molly to take care of herself from an early age.
She talked about how her classmates had mocked her and how she had never made real connections with anyone, and how desperately alone she had always felt. She told him that her mother had eventually had to be put away in a mental hospital after a suicide attempt and that she remained there, and that her father had never tried to make contact with her after getting released from prison.
She couldn’t believe that she was telling him all this, but she especially couldn’t believe that he kept holding onto her and calmly stroking her hair as she spoke. When she finished, Andrew held her quietly for a moment. “Do you still like me?” she asked, entirely unsure of what the answer would be.
“Of course I still like you, little girl,” he told her with a laugh. “I knew that there was something in your past that you didn’t want to talk about. It doesn’t make you any less of a person. It doesn’t make me care about you any less.”
Molly looked up at him, her eyes wide. “Promise?” she asked.
“I promise,” he told her.
“And you don’t think I’m stupid for running away and crying for no reason?” she wanted to know.
Andrew didn’t seem to mind her need for reassurance. “No, I don’t think you’re stupid.” He glanced at his watch. “I do think that lunch is almost over, though,” he said. “Do you think you can get yourself cleaned up and go back to work?”
Molly nodded. Her tears had already started to dry.
“That’s my good girl,” Andrew said with a smile as he gave her another hug.
Molly took a moment to pull herself together. She was hanging on the word ‘my’ in the last sentence that Dr. Harrington had said to her. Was she his girl? The thought seemed dreamy. She wanted nothing more than to belong to him, whatever, exactly, that meant.
She got up and rinsed her face off in the exam room’s sink before heading out to tidy up in a bathroom with a mirror. Everything felt lighter, like she had just set down a heavy backpack she’d been lugging around for a long time. His, she thought to herself again with a smile. What a wonderful thought.
Chapter Four
The night after Molly’s outburst at work, Andrew felt a little unsure about what to do next. Really, he had always had a special place in his heart for Molly. It was obvious. He wouldn’t have given her his card at the airport in the first place if there wasn’t something about the girl that tugged at his heartstrings. The more he got to know her, the more he wanted to take care of her. Now that he knew what a wounded little girl she was on the inside, all that he wanted was to nurture her, to make her feel loved and comforted and to give her the security she had never had. But in addition to needing comfort and affection, Molly obviously needed and craved stern discipline. Those boundaries and rules gave her the structure that she so required.
The only thing that Andrew wanted to do tonight was to wrap Molly up in his arms and cuddle her, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that she needed both his tenderness and his firmness in her vulnerable state. When nine o’clock came, he walked into the living room to find Molly curled up on the sofa watching TV. She was playing with the tassels on a blanket idly.
“Molly,” Andrew said, sounding unbending but not chastising, “I’ve decided that you need to have an early bedtime tonight. Come upstairs with me, please.”
Molly looked up at his hesitantly. “Am I in trouble?” she asked nervously.
Andrew shook his head. “No. You aren’t in trouble. I’m just going to give you something that you need. Now come on,” he told her, beckoning her forward with his hand.
She followed him up the stairs to her bedroom.
“Show me where you keep your pajamas,” he instructed.
Molly silently pointed to one of the drawers in the bureau near the window. Andrew got up and opened the drawer. Things were stuffed into it instead of being folded, but Andrew knew that now was not the right time to call her out on that. Instead he sifted through the drawer until he found a pair of cute, girlish pajamas: pink polka-dotted shorts with lace trim and a white tank top. He set them on the bed and gestured for Molly to stand up. She did what he wanted her to, and Andrew stood her in front of him, taking a moment to look at her. He looked at her big eyes and her delicate, innocent features, then let his gaze move down to her body. She was absolutely adorable. There was just no denying this. Slowly and calmly, he began to unbutton the buttons on her blouse.
“What are you doing?” she asked. She didn’t sound worried, but simply curious, maybe intrigued by the proceedings.
“I’m getting my little girl ready for bed,” he told her. He finished undoing her buttons and then pulled her blouse off her shoulders, sliding it off her arms and then setting it aside. It revealed an off-white bra. It was simple and unpadded, more for modesty than anything else. Her perky breasts held themselves up, capturing Andrew’s attention through the soft cotton fabric. He reached behind Molly’s back and, with a practiced maneuver, unhooked her bra with one hand. Molly began to blush furiously. It was adorable to watch the redness bloom on her face, originating around her cheeks and spreading across her nose and ears. He smiled boldly, and gently brushed the tip of her nose with one finger.
He pulled the bra all the way off and set it with her shirt, then reached back and unzipped her skirt. The pencil skirts that Rebecca had picked out for Molly were professional, but because of the roundness of Molly’s backside, they clung to her, captivating Andrew’s eyes as she wandered around the office or house. Now that he had seen her bottom bare and red, the thought was never far from his mind. It took a little effort to wiggle the skirt over her butt, and Molly assisted him a little, swaying from side to side to encourage the fabric downwards.
Soon, Molly was standing before him only in her panties. Andrew gently rubbed her back for a second, feeling her smooth, milky skin. He looked at her panties. They were pale purple with white polka dots, and Molly looked sweet and innocent wearing them, but it was time for them to come off. He pulled them down and she instinctively stepped out of them. Her coyness and obedience, combined with her lithe, nude form, made his cock grow hard.
“Good girl,” he praised and Molly smiled slightly through her embarrassment. Andrew took a step back to enjoy the view, noticing that although it was warm in the room, Molly’s peachy nipples were rock hard. He was surprised to see that she didn’t try to cover herself with her hands. Instead, she kept them obediently at her sides, with only the flush on her face showing how much it embarrassed her to be stripped nude like this. “How does it feel to be naked in front of me?” Andrew asked.
Molly bit her lip, as if she was thinking of the right answer. “Vulnerable,” she finally said.
“Vulnerable,” Andrew repeated. “I like that answer. Are you embarrassed that I can see you?” he inquired.
Molly nodded.
“You’re mine to look at, little girl,” he told her. “I told you you were my little girl, and I meant it.”
Molly’s delicate face was a mixture of embarrassment, nervousness, and glee.
“I promise that I’m going to take care of you, Molly.” Molly couldn’t hold still any longer and she broke from her pose and hugged Andrew hard, slipping her arms under his and squeezing his chest instead of wrapping her arms around his neck. He felt her whole naked body close to him, and he stiffened even more at her touch. He held her, too, rubbing her back and shoulders tenderly. Finally, he pulled back.
“I’m going to give you a bedtime spanking, Molly. Not because you’ve done anything wrong, but because I think you need it. I think you need a very physical reminder of just how much I care for you, and I think you need that release. Do you understand?”
Molly chewed her lip nervously. “Yes, sir,” she whispered.
Andrew nodded. “Alright then,” he said, sitting down on the edge of her bed. “Over my lap.”
Molly walked over to Andrew’s side with tiny steps, but didn’t actually resist him in any way. He could see her take a deep breath before she slowly lowered herself across his knees. Once she was in position he delighted at the sight of her naked form resting over his lap, her toes just barely touching the floor and her head bowed in submission. A closer inspection of her bottom proved that it still bore a few light pink speckles from her first spanking last week, but that neither surprised nor concerned Andrew. “Why I am about to spank you, Molly?” Andrew asked.
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