SCAR_A Dark Military Romance

by Loki Renard

  I love Ken. I lust for him. Tom is handsome as hell, but I don’t feel the same way about him as I do Ken. Monogamy in action, I guess. Or maybe it’s just that Ken is utterly ruthless and unyielding and would probably have whipped my ass on day one if I’d tried any of the shit on him which I just tried on Tom.

  “Good,” he smiles warmly. “Then that’s settled. No more of the attitude, no more of the messes, no more of the rudeness. Just you and me, getting along.”

  I snort a little. He has to know that’s not the end of it.

  “Well, it’s a start,” he says. “Mary…”

  “What?”

  “I’d like to examine those scars.”

  I shake my head. “Sorry, no.”

  “I’m guessing you got them under some adverse circumstances, and from how you reacted when you found out I’m a doctor, I’m guessing you haven’t seen one for a while.”

  My palms are sweating. My mouth and throat are getting dry.

  “No,” I croak.

  “Okay,” he holds up his big hands in surrender. “Not going to force anything.”

  “Good.”

  “Let’s just talk,” he suggests.

  I don’t want to talk. He’s seen the scars and now he feels sorry for me, and though he’s being sweet to me that makes me mad. I fucking hate it when this happens.

  “I’m not weak, and I don’t need to be taken care of.”

  “True and false,” he says. “You absolutely need to be taken care of. You’ve spent a week proving that to both of us. And besides, even if you didn’t need it, I’d do it anyway because I promised Ken I would.”

  “You can’t give me what I need,” I say, immediately wishing I hadn’t. I need to stop this conversation. It’s getting way too real.

  “Not all of what you need,” he agrees. “Because you need Ken. But I can keep you in line well enough until he gets back.”

  “Can you?”

  He smiles. “Mhm.”

  I try not to visibly squirm, wondering if he means what I mean. I need a spanking. God. That’s weird to admit even to myself. I just want so badly to be able to let go, to feel like someone else has me under control. I wish Tom would spank me. I want my bottom to hurt. I want to cry. I want to forget who I and where I am and why I’m here and just be free of the burden of existence for a bit.

  “But you have to ask for it,” he adds, unexpectedly.

  “What?”

  “You have to ask for what you need. Use your big girl words.”

  “I don’t know what I need,” I lie.

  “Yes, you do. You’ve been trying to bait me into doing it all week.”

  I feel my face go flame red. He knew. The whole time, he knew exactly what I was doing. How fucking embarrassing.

  “Sorry,” I mumble, turning my face away from him. Jesus. I’ve humiliated myself and got nothing for it. I feel small and silly and utterly like a little girl who just got caught trying to lie to her dad.

  “You can ask for a spanking.”

  I let out a little squeak as he says the word that has been floating through my head since I got here.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Why not? Pride?”

  “I guess.”

  “My little girl doesn’t get to have much in the way of pride,” he says, coming to sit on the edge of the bed. He reaches out and brushes his fingers through my hair gently. His touch is so kind and so gentle, I find myself leaning into it.

  “Ask me for it,” he murmurs gently.

  I try to find the words.

  “Please… sp…”

  Spank is a fucking impossible word to say under pressure. I stutter and stammer my way through it so much it’s basically incomprehensible. “

  “Sp…pp..p.. ank me.”

  “And what do you call me?”

  Oh shit. He’s going to make me call him…

  I curl up on myself and hide my face, but Tom gently guides my chin back toward him. “Ask me for it, little girl. Ask me nicely.”

  “Please, spank me… daddy…” I practically whisper the last part of the word, but it’s enough.

  “Alright, little girl. I’ll spank you.”

  And he does.

  He takes me by the arm and slowly guides me over his lap. I relax and let it happen. I let this man, who is so kind and so strong, take me right over his thighs. We’re so close right now. His hard leg is beneath my hips, his strong arm is wrapped around my waist.

  This feels nothing like when Ken spanked me. When he punished me it was passion and fire and pure hard dominance. Tom cradles me and when his palm meets my ass, it’s with a stroke which is firm and hard enough to make it sting, but it doesn’t ignite the same fire.

  And that’s a good thing. Because it’s means I’m safe. He’s safe. Tom holds me and he spanks me, his big hand peppering the seat of my jeans with firm slaps which sink through me, sending wave after wave of security through my body.

  “You can be a good girl,” he says, lecturing me in the kindest way you can be lectured. “And you’re going to be a good girl from here on out, aren’t you, Mary?”

  “I’ll try,” I gasp.

  His palm finds my ass a little harder, intensifying the heat and the sting.

  “And every time you start to feel lost or afraid or alone, you’re going to come to me,” he says. “And I’m going to do this for you.”

  The spanking isn’t hard enough to make me cry, but his promise is. The floodgates I’ve been holding closed spring open, and with them come tears. Tears I can’t restrain in any way. I start sobbing over Tom’s lap. He immediately picks me up and settles me on his knee, cuddling me close and letting me cry all over his shirt.

  “There, there, little girl, he murmurs. “It’s going to be okay.”

  I don’t know if it is going to be okay. But it is going to be better than it was, I think. As he holds me, his arms loose about my waist in a comforting, paternal grip, I start to settle down.

  “One more thing,”

  “What?”

  He brushes a stray tear away with his thumb.

  “You’re going to talk to Ken again.”

  TOM

  “Well fuck you, Ken!”

  Their conversation is not going well. It’s not surprising. They both need one another and they can’t have one another. Ken is too much of a hard ass to show her how fucking exhausted he is from being over there, and Mary is too much of a brat to see that he loves her with everything he has. They talk past each other regularly. It’s strange how two people who have so much in common, who are basically made for one another, somehow manage to disagree almost all the time.

  She wouldn’t be acting out like this if he were here, that’s for sure. I hear him growl something to that effect.

  “Well, whatever,” she snaps. “You’re never coming back anyway.”

  “I will be there next week,” Ken snarls from the laptop. “And then your ass is mine.”

  “Next week?” Her tantrum stops mid-stride.

  “Yes,” he says, his expression still stony. “Seven days. So get in all the sitting time you can, Mary, because when I get there…”

  “Next week!”

  “Mhm.”

  I hear him start to smile through his voice.

  “Oh my god!” Her voice gets all high pitched and squeaky. “Next week!”

  She comes running in to grab me. “Tom, Ken is going to be here next week!”

  “So I heard,” I smile as she throws herself at me in a hug.

  “Next week!”

  MARY

  Fresh from the shower, I look at myself in the mirror. It has been a long time since I let myself see what I look like. Usually I avoid looking into the glass until I’m dressed. Then I don’t have to see what they took. I don’t have to see what I’ve become.

  Today I stand and I force myself to look, because soon he will be looking again. I want to see what he sees. Maybe it’s not so bad…

  …

&
nbsp; … It’s even worse than I remembered.

  I am trammeled with marks. Lines. Scars. I am geometric where I should be smooth. My skin puckers where it should lay flat.

  How could Ken look at me and see anything worthy? Let alone a woman he wants to have sex with?

  He will be back soon. I will have to face him again. The man I bait through the computer will be made flesh in front of me and he will have his way with me. He’s told me so enough times that I believe him.

  I wrap my arms over my breasts, hide the missing nipple. Sometimes I wonder what they did with it. Tiny frisbee?

  I snort at my dark thought. It’s not funny, but it helps me deal.

  A tap at the door makes me yank a towel around my naked body as Tom’s voice comes from the other side.

  “You okay in there, Mary?”

  I roll my eyes at the mirror. What is he, psychic?

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Just checking.”

  He might actually be a bit psychic. Not in any kind of paranormal way though. Tom just has a sense of empathy so strong he seems to catch my feelings almost before I have them.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Your breakfast is getting cold.”

  That’s my cue to stop dredging up the darkness and get some clothes on.

  I get dressed and go and sit at the kitchen counter, where Tom has made a breakfast spread that would make a hotel chef cry. Croissants. Juices. Cheeses. Grapes. Three different kinds of jam.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Just felt like spoiling my little girl,” he says with a flicker of a wink.

  “You’re way too fucking nice, Tom.”

  “I’m just the right amount of nice, and no swearing, please.”

  He really does treat me like I’m his kid. It’s kind of weird in a way, but it’s also really fucking sweet.

  As I pick at what is enough breakfast for a small army, he makes conversation.

  “You looking forward to Ken coming home?”

  “Of course.”

  “So you’ve forgiven him for sending you here?”

  “Yeah,” I shrug. “I mean. I get it. He had to do what he had to do.”

  Tom smiles. “You’ve come a really long way.”

  “Yeah, from Afghanistan.”

  “No, brat,” he snorts. “I mean, when you got here you were so angry. I could barely talk to you. But you seem happier now. Settled.”

  “I’d like to be settled,” I mumble through crumbs.

  “You can stay here as long as you like or need…”

  “… or until Ken says otherwise,” I smirk.

  “Or that,” Tom agrees. He doesn’t look happy about that. I think he likes having me here. I’m company. Not good company necessarily, but company.

  “So what’s your story, doc?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why aren’t you working?”

  “It pays to take some time off every now and then,” he says, turning his attention to cleaning crumbs off the counter. “Like when your marriage falls apart.”

  I don’t want to pry, but I can see Tom being thrown off kilter by something like a marriage breakup. He’s strong, but sensitive, and he wears it on his sleeve.

  “How long have you been off work?”

  “I’ll be getting back to the hospital in a couple of months,” he says. “Don’t worry about me, little girl. I’m just enjoying my time off now. The wallowing is over.”

  Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.

  I know better than anyone that some things can hurt for a very, very long time.

  Later that day, I’m watching television. Tom has gone out for groceries and I’m just relaxing when I hear the doorbell. It’s not a common sound, and at first I don’t even recognize it. It rings several times more in very quick succession though, and I soon realize that there’s an uptight brunette standing at the door with a screwed up expression like a dog just pissed on her.

  I open the door. “Yeah?”

  “Where is Thomas?”

  “Thomas?”

  “Typical,” she mutters under her breath. “His bimbos never know his name.”

  Bimbo? Did she just call me a fucking bimbo?

  “Doctor. Ares,” she says in a loud, slow voice. “Is. he. in?”

  I fold my arms over my chest. I don’t like this woman. I don’t like her tone. I don’t like her face. I don’t like her shoes. I don’t like anything about her.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “His wife,” she says haughtily.

  “You mean ex-wife?”

  The woman bristles and looks me over with open hostility. “So you’re what he replaced me with.”

  “No,” I say, speaking before I can think. “He replaced you with a cock-sleeve full of wasps. He says fucking it reminds him of you.”

  Her expression is priceless. Her jaw drops and she makes a spluttering sound which indicates she has no comeback whatsoever.

  “Mary, go to your room!”

  Turns out, Tom is home after all. He must have come through the back door with the groceries. Now he’s standing behind me, looking about as unhappy as I’ve ever seen him look.

  This isn’t my fight. I shouldn’t get involved. So I don’t. I lift my hands up and walk away - as far as the hall corner where I can still see and hear what’s going on beyond.

  “You still have that sick fetish of ordering women around,” she says, her voice loud enough for the neighbors to hear. What a bitch.

  “Is there a problem, Stephanie?” Tom says, remaining impressively calm.

  “Yes, there’s a problem. I need an advance on my alimony. I’m going out of state with Hector.”

  “I can’t do that,” Tom says. “You’ll get your alimony at the usual time.”

  “I want my alimony,” she says, her tone getting nastier. “Or…”

  “Or what?” He lowers his voice a little. “You’ve already gotten me suspended pending an investigation. You’ve already taken the apartment in the city, and the car. What else do you want?”

  “You’re obliged to keep me in the style I became accustomed to.”

  My blood boils as I listen to this bullshit. Tom is the sweetest guy on Earth and this woman is trying to shake him down. There’s threat in her tone, like she has something on him she plans to use to try to ruin his life if he doesn’t do as she says.

  I go to the bathroom to grab something, and then I come back. When I do, she’s still outside, trying to badger Tom into giving her more money. Fuck everything about this.

  “I’m sorry,” I say sweetly, pushing past him. “Tom doesn’t have any money right now. He spent it all on this stupid spoiled whore repellent.”

  I have a can of toilet spray air freshener. It’s the only thing for pieces of shit like her. I spray it in her direction, a nice thick mist. She starts making coughing sounds and waving her hands about, but that’s not the worst of what I have planned for her if she doesn’t get the fuck off his porch.

  “Go away, bitch,” I hiss. “We already gave to the gold-digging slut-athon.”

  She opens her mouth to speak, but gags on the scent of concentrated lavender and wild flowers.

  Fortunately for her, Tom sees what I have in the other hand and grabs it off me before I can use the lighter which would have turned the smelly spray into a ball of fire.

  He slams the door shut in her face, more for her protection than anything. Through the glass, I see her rushing back to her car as fast as her high heels will take her.

  I look at Tom, expecting to see him smile. Instead, he rounds on me, his face a mask of stern anger.

  “You do NOT use home-made flame throwers on my ex-wife.”

  “Not when you take the lighter off me, I don’t,” I say. “I was trying to help.”

  “Help? By burning her?”

  “I was only going to do that if she didn’t leave.”

  “You don’t do that at ALL!” He thunders at me. “What’s wro
ng with you?”

  It’s my turn to stand, stunned. He’s actually yelling at me, after I tried to defend him.

  Tears spring to my eyes. That last part of the question is like a knife to my stomach. What’s wrong with me? Fucking everything apparently.

  “I’m sorry, I guess I should marry some guy and ruin his fucking life. That would be normal. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with me then, would there!?”

  TOM

  She turns and runs away from me, tears streaming down her face.

  Shit.

  Stephanie drives me crazy. Always has done. And what Mary just did was so wrong. There’s no question about that. She has to know better than that, though I’m somewhat afraid that she doesn’t. I think I just saw why Ken threw her out of Afghanistan.

  She is sobbing on her bed when I find her, crying real tears which make her shoulders shake. I could take a hairbrush to her butt for half an hour and not end up making her this miserable.

  “Mary…”

  “Go away.”

  I sit down next to her on the bed and put my hand on her shoulder. She predictably flinches away. I put it back on her back, nice and low, and firm enough to hold her in place. She squirms a bit, but accepts it after a second or two.

  “I’m not normal,” she growls into the bed.

  Ken was right. This girl is a handful. She doesn’t respond to things the way most people do. She’s hyper-defensive, and overly aggressive in a way that’s frankly confusing. Most of the time she seems ‘normal’, whatever that is. But every now and then, she’ll do something so far out of the realm of normality it makes me wonder what on earth she’s been through.

  “Who taught you to act that way?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she mumbles.

  “It absolutely does.”

  “Everybody knows about aerosols and fire,” she shrugs.

  True. But not everybody tries to use them on annoying ex-wives. Mary could have done Stephanie serious harm. Criminal harm. There’s so much anger in this girl I’m looking after, a dangerous amount.

  “Now you know what I’m really like, huh? I told you Ken didn’t do you any favors when he sent me here.”