by Frost, E J
I finish buckling my seatbelt and stretch my arm behind her shoulders. “You told me that you’d rather have ugly truth than a pretty lie. I can’t promise our lives will always be wine and roses, little girl, but I can promise I will always be honest with you.”
I can’t think of anyone I’ve been with who values honesty as much as Emily does, nor who would see the debacle of our second date as a bonding experience rather than a reason to kick me to the curb.
She leans over and plants a big kiss in the spot she likes under my jaw. “Ta, Sir.”
I squeeze her shoulders. “You’re welcome, little wonder.”
Chapter Five
Emily
I have a kitty.
Well, Sable’s a full-grown cat. Three years old according to the lady at the shelter. But he’s small and skinny, like me, so he looks more like a kitty than a cat.
My kitty.
Once he emerges from his carrier, I show Sable his food and water bowls, and his bed and his potty. He drinks out of the fountain thing Daddy bought that keeps the water fresh, but ignores the handful of dry food I put in the bowl for him and disappears under the big leather couch in the living room as soon as he’s finished his drink. I check on him a couple of times while I make lunch, and he blinks his golden eye at me but doesn’t purr even when I hold my fingers out for him to sniff, so I leave him alone to get used to the strange place.
Lunch is chicken salad with black grapes, toasted pecans, and homemade aioli. I baked the chicken last night while I was making our steaks, so all I have to do now is chop and assemble, then let it chill while the flavors blend. I leave a few leftover bits of chicken in Sable’s bowl in the hopes of coaxing him out, but he doesn’t emerge. Once the salad is in the fridge, I take one of the toys that came with the cat supplies over and sit on the couch with it dangling over the edge. It’s a long, flexible, plastic rod with a fluff of feathers on the end, and I’m a little concerned about the uses Daddy might find for it if Sable doesn’t like it.
But I don’t need to be concerned, because as soon as I draw the tuft of feathers along the bottom edge of the couch, a white-tipped paw whips out to swipe at the feathers.
I giggle and play with my kitty.
Daddy comes in while I’m teasing Sable with the feather toy. He’s frowning when he sits down in his big armchair across from me, but after watching for a minute, his frown fades and by the time the timer dings to tell me the salad’s ready, he’s smiling.
“Hungry, Daddy?”
“I am. How’s Sable doing?”
“He’s just getting used to all the newness. He’s staying in his safe place for now.”
Daddy chuckles. “Not so different from you, then, little girl.”
I set the feather toy on the coffee table while I peer skeptically at Daddy. “I never hid under the couch.”
“You didn’t emerge from my bedroom for nearly a week after we got home. Manny said he was considering a GoFundMe to raise money for your rescue.”
I like Daddy’s business partner, Manny, but he’s not as funny as he thinks he is. “You needed attention. And it was lots of people.”
Daddy smiles his patented daddy smile at me as he takes my hand and tugs me off the couch. “You did get an en masse introduction to my friends. But you feel comfortable with them now, don’t you?”
Mostly. I’ll probably never like Rick very much, and that was before what I saw on his Twitter and Instagram last week, and some of the Doms from Daddy’s club are just plain scary. Logan’s always a Dom; he tones it down when we’re in public, but his power and control are always there. His sadism isn’t as obvious. It peeks out when we have sex, and takes center stage with a flourish and a bow during formal scenes, but, otherwise, I don’t see or feel it. Some of the masters from Daddy’s club are All-Sadist-All-The-Time. I nearly ran out of the room after five minutes with Master Ten—I do not understand his appeal—and I honestly thought Master Karl was going to try to take me home for his human butterfly collection. Hannibal-level scary man. But the rest are wonderful. Mistress Maude is the doting mother I never had, and Master Javier promised me that no matter what happened to Daddy, I’d never be on my own again, which made me feel wonderfully safe, even though I know Master Niall would be on the next plane if I really needed him.
That’s not to discount the Blunts house subs. Except for Rachel and her Terrible Trio, they’re wonderful, too. One or two were always around, helping out, during the first couple of weeks. Austin has EMT training and he’s big enough to be able to lift Daddy, which isn’t just a super-heroic feat on its own, it was also a godsend those first few days when Daddy struggled to get in or out of bed by himself. Justine knows more than a hundred books about homeopathic healing and made me feel confident that what I was doing to help Daddy recover was right, when his doctors gave me zero encouragement.
“I do, Daddy,” I say as he leads me into the kitchen. “I really, really like Daisy and Mistress Maude and Master Javier and Austin and Justine. And Lucy.”
I add Lucy as an afterthought, because I like her a smidgen less than I did before she asked Logan to top her. I was telling him the truth when I said I was okay with it. I am. Mostly. But there’s still a lingering sense of outrage. It would never occur to me to ask someone else’s Dom to top me. I know Logan used to train all the house subbies, and he’s had open relationships before, but I haven’t given anyone reason to think he’s in an open relationship now. Where does Lucy get off asking my daddy to top her?
“They really like you, sweetheart,” Daddy says. He surveys the table, which I’ve already set for lunch. He can grumble at me if he wants to. I’ve seen how bending over to lay the place settings makes him wince. He shakes his head. “I’m not sure a kitty and a brand and a Lazy Baby Day are enough reward for everything you do, little girl.”
“They are,” I assure him. I love Sable already. And the idea of both the branding and a pirate-themed Lazy Baby Day have me shivering with delight as I take the chicken salad out of the fridge and dish it up on beds of chicory. “Do you think Hendry might clear you for squats with weights today?”
According to Daddy, that’s the acid test. When Hendry clears him for squats with weights, then he’s strong and stable enough to pick me up again. I’ve missed that so much. Not as much as I missed sex with Daddy. It was absolute torture to wait the three weeks until he was cleared for sex. Daddy offered to give me orgasms with his fingers or toys while his penis was off limits, which was very generous of him, but I didn’t want to have orgasms while he couldn’t. So, I waited with him. Longest three weeks of my life. I’m super-grateful we can have sex again, but I’ve missed him picking me up a lot, too.
“Mmm. Fingers crossed.” He takes a bite of the chicken salad, chews and smiles at me. “This is excellent, sweetie. And no chia seeds.”
There are flax seeds in it, but I whizzed them up in the aioli, so he probably can’t taste them. “I was thinking of making more for the party tomorrow.”
“Don’t feel you have to feed everyone. Manny and Jen will bring pizza like they always do. If you put out a healthy alternative, people will appreciate it, but I didn’t invite everyone over so you’d have to spend the day cooking.”
I hate the pizza Manny and his wife always bring. It’s greasy and gross and stinks up the compost. And they don’t believe in pineapple on pizza. Heathens. I’ve planned a bunch of party foods. Some of them are already made. I did a ton of cooking those first three weeks to distract myself from the lack of sex. I just have to defrost and bake. Some of them, like the green goddess salad, I’ll have to make fresh tomorrow, but they shouldn’t take very long. I don’t feel any pressure; in fact, cooking relaxes me. But I appreciate Daddy not wanting me to feel any anxiety about the party-preparation.
“It’s no trouble to make a few salads,” I tell Daddy. “And Justine and Austin don’t eat pizza.” Justine because she’s even more of a health food nut than Maman was; Austin because he doesn’t do dairy.
“Do you think everyone would like this?”
“I do.” Daddy takes several more bites. “Do we have a final head-count? I know you invited your little crew from Blunts. Anyone else?”
I wouldn’t call them “my crew,” but I did invite the five Blunts house subs I feel closest to: Lucy, Hunter, Austin, Justine, and DirtyGurl.
“Hunter couldn’t get out of work, so it’ll just be Lucy, Austin, and Justine.”
I don’t mention that I invited DirtyGurl. She can’t come anyway; like Hunter, she has to work. I didn’t invite her to say “thank you,” but because she was the first of the house subs who made me feel it was okay to be little around her. She’s crazy and zany and, as Daddy says, a little bit scary, but I kind of love all those things about her. Now that I know she makes Daddy uncomfortable, though, I’ll just do things with her one-on-one.
“With Manny and Jen, Rick and Max, that’s a nice group.”
It is, but I wish Maude or Javier could have come. For weeks after Daddy was injured, I saw them every day. Now, I barely see them. “You said you’d planned to go to Blunts on Sunday night. Could we have dinner with Mistress Maude and Master Javier before we do our scene?”
Daddy lifts an eyebrow. “Sure. Why?”
“I miss them.” I shrug. “I haven’t seen them in a while.”
“Sorry, little girl. I didn’t realize. You got close to them on the way back from San Diego, didn’t you?” At my nod, he says, “They’ll be delighted. I’ll text them after we eat to make sure they’re free.”
“You could invite Briar, too. To keep Master Javier company,” I say.
Daddy chuckles. “Mischief. Pretty sure blow jobs in the restaurant are against the health code.”
* * *
I check on Sable again before we leave for Daddy’s physical therapy appointment. He’s still under the couch, but he’s curled up in a ball with his tail over his nose. I think he’s asleep. I’m hoping he’ll come out once he feels more at home, and I have a thought about how to lure him out, but it will have to wait until after dinner. Daddy needs my attention first.
Logan told me weeks ago that I didn’t need to come to his physical therapy appointments. But I’ve weaseled my way into as many as I can. I really like his P.T., Hendry. Unlike Logan’s primary care doctor, who I think still uses leeches, Hendry’s been super-supportive of a holistic approach to Daddy’s recovery.
But more than talking about the benefits of foot rubs and flax seeds with Hendry, the reason I go to the appointments is that Daddy tends to minimize his injury. He doesn’t tell Hendry about the things that still hurt him, like bending over to set the table. He also “forgets” to tell me what Hendry says he should and shouldn’t do. Like when he started doing the laundry again, carrying the hamper up and down the basement stairs, and I found out at the next appointment that Hendry had told him not to carry loads up and down stairs yet because he was still at risk of falling.
I know weakness is tremendously hard for Logan, both to experience and to admit. Beyond being a big, strong man, he’s a Dom, and any loss of control works his last nerve. I try to be understanding, and supportive, while still making sure Hendry knows what’s really going on with him, and that I hear what is and isn’t okay. That means going to appointments.
Today, it means another walk in the hot sun. I don’t mind, since I’m wearing such cool, pretty clothes, although the nipple clamps are pinchy, particularly after we’ve been walking for a few minutes and my skin swells with the heat. Still, I like walking. In Syracuse, I drove pretty much everywhere. I like being able to walk, and I really like walking in the City, where there always seems to be something new to see. On East Third Street, we come across a street fair, with striped kiosks selling food and jazz music drifting on the air. I like walking hand in hand with Daddy, particularly when he stops to buy me sugar-free gummy bears. We share the sweets out of a paper bag as we walk to Hendry’s.
Hendry has a tiny office above a dry cleaner’s in a newer brick building. Daddy has more exercise equipment in his basement gym than Hendry has, and she often comes to the house for appointments, but his Friday appointment is always at her office because she uses the electrical stimulation machines on him. Neither of us has mentioned that Daddy has a variety of electrical stimulation machines in his basement as well, although we’ve shared some quiet jokes about showing Hendry our “Red Room.” She doesn’t seem at all kinky, though. We cover the playpen and the spanking bench in the outer playroom when she comes to the house. I suspect the inner playroom will always remain our secret.
Hendry greets us at the door of her office, wearing her standard uniform of black tank and black yoga pants, with her graying, red-brown hair pulled back into a braid that almost touches her butt. She’s even skinnier than I am, and the lack of insulation must be keeping her cool, because there’s no air-conditioning in her office, although she has fans going in the windows. I don’t know how she’s not melting.
I curl up in a chair in front of a fan and eat the last of the gummy bears while Hendry asks Daddy about his pain levels and flexibility. Then they move to the small mat area so she can direct him through a series of stretches. Daddy calls it “putting him through his paces,” and it’s his least favorite part of the physical therapy. I can see how tightly he controls his expression, particularly when she has him bend over and hold his arms out straight. He’s not going to be cleared for squats today, I can tell; I sigh to myself and take out my tablet.
Hendry has Daddy do a lot of stretches and then some odd exercises where he flexes his toes while she covers each eye. She says that’s about retraining his brain to work around the damage. I’ll admit I don’t understand everything Hendry does, but I can’t argue with her effectiveness. Before we left San Diego, Logan’s neurosurgeon warned me not to expect too much, and to prepare myself for the possibility that Daddy might never be able to walk unassisted again. Six weeks into physical therapy with Hendry, he’s barely using a cane anymore.
After exercises where Daddy has to walk in a straight line with his eyes open, then closed, then open again, for the last half of the hour, Hendry hooks up Daddy to a super-TENS machine. He gives me a dark, amused glance as she puts the electrode patches on him and I wriggle in my chair, trying not to think of the times he’s put similar patches on me. Daddy likes to play what he calls “predicament games,” where I have to do something like keep my balance in an impossible position to avoid getting zapped. The last time we played, he hooked up the current to a butt plug and zapped me that way. Insane stinginess inside my butt. He’s such a sadist.
Maybe I should suggest to Hendry that she try zapping Daddy in the butt. It could be therapeutic.
That thought has me grinning into my tablet.
As she finishes, Daddy asks Hendry if he can start doing squats with weights. She shakes her head, which makes me sad, but happy I didn’t have to tell her how much pain Daddy’s still in. She cautions him about pushing too hard, too fast—again—and talks to him for a few minutes about different exercises to strengthen his core. Logan already has a serious six-pack, so I’m not sure why she thinks he needs core-strengthening, but I don’t interrupt, and take Daddy’s hand when he holds it out to me after saying goodbye to Hendry.
“Don’t think I missed that sly smile when Hendry was hooking me up to the electrical torture device, little girl,” he says as we step out onto the sidewalk. “What was that all about?”
“You know where you zapped me the last time?” I ask.
“Uh-huh. I remember.”
“Well, I was just thinking that I felt the zap all the way down to my toes, so it might be a good idea if Hendry zapped you there, too.”
Logan chuckles. “Try suggesting it to her, little girl. You won’t sit down for a month. Possibly two months.”
I giggle, knowing he would never hurt me that badly.
“But, Daddy, we want to do everything possible to speed your recovery,” I say sweetly.
“We do
. I’m just giving you fair warning: open your mouth on that subject to Hendry and my ass will recover a lot faster than yours.”
I’d like to say my butt’s not afraid of him, but that wouldn’t be true. I settle instead for swinging his hand as we walk down the heat-hazy street and whistling MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This.”
Chapter Six
Logan
For the second time today, we open a door and walk into a serious stink. Only this time, it’s my house, and the stink is urine instead of shit.
“Oh, no!” Emily drops my hand and bolts past me. As she runs through the great room, the cat emerges from under the couch and begins meowing plaintively at her, but she runs past him, into the kitchen. “Oh, no! Oh, no! Daddy, don’t come in here. I’ll clean it up.”
I follow her into the kitchen, and the cat follows me, still meowing.
Emily set up the cat’s litter box in the space between the breakfast nook and fridge. While we were out, the cat evidently decided that location wasn’t to his liking and left a yellow puddle in front of the closed door to the half-bath between the kitchen and my office. It’s a big puddle, too. Horse-sized, rather than cat-sized. In the overly warm house, the stink is eye-watering.
I move to the French doors and open them. No self-respecting fly will want to come inside, given that smell.
The cat takes one look at the open doors before darting back under the couch, still meowing.
Emily’s already gathered handfuls of paper towels and is mopping at the puddle, although how she can see anything through the tears filling her eyes is a mystery. She’s trembling all over and whips her head towards the couch every time the cat yowls, before going back to madly swiping at the puddle.