by S. L. Finlay
Hiding his emotions again, back to his stony-faced exterior, Daddy came back to stand beside me. He took a few deep breaths and turned toward me. I was looking up at him, astonished by the lack of emotion. As if to dismiss my concerns he gave a slight shake of the head and took my hand in his again. There lay my hand, in Daddy's weirdly cold grip.
After the funeral, there was a small wake where everyone went to a nearby reception center and had sandwiches and coffee. Everyone talked about everything except the diseased, and it quickly became apparent that Daddy's mother had been long-suffering with 'big C' cancer and had legally died a number of times before this one. It must have been a relief when the call to the hospital actually ended in a death that no-one could resuscitate.
Not wanting to think in such a negative way, I wanted to shake the thought from my head, but I knew that was how it was. Sometimes life wasn't about rainbows and butterflies. I knew what it was to mourn someone even before they were gone. I knew what it was to resent someone for continually threatening to die and never actually toppling off and dying. I knew what it felt like to regret these feelings, to feel bad about them. That guilt was all too familiar to me. I still carried some guilt for when I had these feelings when my mother had been passing.
For the most part though, I allowed all of Daddy's relatives and family friends to express their condolences. I didn't have any to express myself, and simply stood by while people talked to him. Mostly I was invisible. A few people introduced themselves to me, but Daddy never really acknowledged me or called me his girlfriend, which made the whole thing very awkward as I wasn't sure what I was allowed to call him and didn't want to upset him. In the end, I didn't bother with any label, instead introducing myself before quickly changing the topic.
After everyone was greeted and had cleared off, Daddy said goodbye to his brothers. Daddy had two brothers who both looked a bit older than he did and neither had partners. I wondered, looking at them, if perhaps they worked just as hard as Daddy did and didn't have time to go find partners. I knew that Daddy wouldn't have time to find a partner in a normal way, hence why he'd bought me. In addition to the fetish of course.
When all was said and done, we climbed into the back of Daddy's car and were driven home. We didn't talk for the first ten minutes or so, with Daddy continuing to stare ahead blankly. We hadn't touched one another since the burial and I reached out a hand to touch his shoulder. I felt like I had waited long enough and the fire in my belly was burning bright. I had to say something, I had to do something. I needed to reach out to my Daddy to stop the invisible line between us. There were things that had to be said, after all.
Reaching out to touch Daddy's arm received an instant reaction. Daddy looked over at me and asked, "yes, sweetheart?"
Without a thought, the words came tumbling out of me, "I'm sorry Daddy. I am so sorry that this is happening. It's awful. I remember when this happened to me, and it broke my heart into shatters. I know how you feel, and I guess, I guess I just wanted you to know that it does get better. In time it gets better."
Daddy nodded his head slowly, his eyes on mine before reaching up to touch my hand. He got my hand in his own and gave it a little squeeze. Now he was holding my hand, and he was comforting me.
"You lost your mother?" He asked and I nodded, my eyes welling with tears.
What could have been left, what could have been unsaid came spilling out of me. "Daddy, I lost my mother before I was auctioned at the slave market. I am only here because I lost my mother."
Daddy's face was grave. Grave and a little confused, "what do you mean, baby girl?" He asked.
"I mean that after my mother died, I had nothing left. So I auctioned myself off. Because this is something I had always dreamed of doing. Because I had always wanted to explore this side of my sexuality." I told him all in a rush. I had so much that I had to say that it felt as if I would never be able to say it all in one go. There was just so many thoughts inside my head that I had to express, and the sense of urgency was strong. It was as if I only would have Daddy's attention for so long, as if I would only be able to tell him what was up for so long before I couldn't anymore.
Daddy seemed to understand this, or at least he let me go with what I needed to say when he asked me, "so you wanted to be a slave, and you waited until your mother passed to do that?"
I nodded, feeling as if Daddy was getting to a point.
"Why wait?" He asked.
Shaking my head I asked my own question, "what do you mean?"
"I mean, why wait until someone who matters to you passes on before taking action?" He asked me, "when you can start living the life you want to live at any time. Why wait until someone who matters goes? If you matter to them, then they should support you in all that you do."
"What do you mean?" I asked, feeling more dumbfounded than I had when he first asked me 'why wait?'.
"I mean, baby girl," Daddy began, "that you only have this one life. And you've given up god knows how much of it because you were concerned with what your mother thought. Why?"
"I wasn't-" I went to protest, then cut myself off. Daddy had a habit of cutting me off when I was talking gibberish, and I didn't want to give him that opportunity. Daddy's slave training, however brief, had already had an impact on me, and it had only been a month. If there was less going on in this conversation, I would have given myself an opportunity to reflect on that. But right now, there was plenty going on and I didn't have a chance to reflect on the effectiveness of his training. There was too much to deal with right in front of me.
"What do you want most in life, baby girl?" Daddy asked me.
Staring ahead, I answered his honestly, "I don't know Daddy."
"Well, we're going to have to find out together then baby girl." Daddy told me, in full Daddy mode now. It astonished me how he went from being a mourning child, one who missed his mother, to then being my Daddy again. My care giver who wanted the best for me, and wanted me to be at my best. I'll never understand for as long as I live quite how he does that, putting everything aside for me when he obviously needs support. But, I can always appreciate that he does it, even as I will never fully understand it. My Daddy is a very special man, and a man who I respect and admire and who will always respect and admire.
But right in that moment, when we were sitting in the back of his car, driving home from his mothers funeral, Daddy was posing some of the biggest questions of my life to me, and I honestly had no answer in sight. I hadn't ever had to make the decision before, or give the answer. Now a man who had bought me as a slave was telling me I had to make decisions and I was dumbfounded about what I wanted to decide.
CHAPTER TEN
One can look back on their own story and see something odd there that they didn't see at the time. But then, Daddy's behavior could always be dismissed by myself as a simple act of him not wanting to dwell on his own loss and throw himself into something else rather than deal with the difficult lot that life had just given him. He was that personality type after all - the giver who was most interested in growth of himself and those around him - so it made perfect sense in that context that Daddy was more concerned with making me grow than he was with his own private sorrows.
There was a clearer line between slave and master for a while, however. Daddy obviously needed his space as every night for a few weeks, he had me sleep in the little room rather than in his bed. That sucked for me, but I realized was more to do with Daddy and what he was dealing with than it ever had to do with me. I knew not to take it personally.
In those weeks, Daddy had me do a lot of introspection. On top of the reading I was to do, Daddy also had me start a diary. He got me to write down all of my dreams - the crazier, the better, he'd said - and then I was to take those dreams and share them with him. I was to tell him about all of the things I dreamed about as if he could make every single one of them come true. He told me to write in my diary as if I was talking to him and he were a genie, ready to grant any wish.<
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When I asked if it would matter if my dreams went against one another, such as a desire for novelty and a desire for the familiar would for example, he told me I was over thinking it. This first phase was about discovery. I should write whatever I liked. If I'd always dreamed about my own pet unicorn, he told me I should write that in there.
Going back to my diary the first few times, I wrote simple things like that I'd always dreamed of visiting Paris and I'd always wanted to meet my favorite author and hear from them about how they wrote the wicked things they wrote, and what their process was really like.
The day that I went to share those dreams with Daddy after he had finished work will be one that sticks in my mind forever.
Daddy had a long day starting at four AM when he had visited some conference rooms at the airport and had a meeting with a visiting executive who had come in from overseas specially for Daddy's meeting with him. The meeting was short, so the executive could jump on another plane, but it was from that meeting that Daddy begun his day filled with meeting. By the time Daddy got home at two thirty in the afternoon, he was a little tired from a busy day and the concentration all of these negotiations took.
Al had asked me to go in and meet Daddy once Daddy arrived home. I had agreed I would. Or rather, when Al came into the little room to tell me that my Daddy wanted a meeting with me as I knew he would, I had jumped off my bed and excitedly run out the door past him. Of course I wanted to meet with my Daddy!
Running towards Daddy's office, I felt light and free, not like a slave at all. This was the feeling that a lot of baby girls got for their Daddy, my reading had told me. The more time I spent with my Daddy, the more he coaxed my inner child to the surface and I changed from being a woman of the world to being child like and fancy free.
When I arrived at his office door, I knocked three times and bounced on the balls of my feet. I wanted to talk to Daddy! I wanted to show my Daddy just how much I had written in my diary. I wanted to share my dreams and sincere hopes with this man.
"Come in!" Came Daddy's voice from the other side of the door. Without hesitation, I swung open the door and entered Daddy's office.
Usually, as I spent all of my time in the home naked, I would hardly notice my own body. It was only when Daddy's eyes were on me and he saw my naked body that I became conscious of how I looked to him. I wanted to always look good for my Daddy so I would stand just this way or that. When I did sit, I always did so with a straight back. I moved so the curves of my body were just so. With a straight back and my shoulders pulled back, my pert breasts sat out just a little bit from my body. My tummy was flat, and getting flatter by the day with the exercises I was doing while Daddy was working (another attempt to please Daddy!). My butt was round and I knew that Daddy loved that ass, based on the way he looked at it, and on the was he squeezed it when he became aroused.
Standing before him in his study that day too, I felt like a gazelle in the sights of a hungry lion, and that feeling turned me on so much that I forgot about little space and how excited I was about showing Daddy my diary. All I could think about when I was in the presence of Daddy, and he was looking at me like this, was sex. But sex was the one thing that seemed to be permanently off the menu with him.
It seemed strange, when I would talk about my relationship with others, that my Daddy hadn't had sex with me yet, but that when he used my mouth it felt so good and all I wanted was to feel that again. My mouth was watering just thinking about it, and my heart was thudding inside my chest.
Then Daddy instructed me to sit down and I looked at the chair in front of his desk. Sighing inwardly because I couldn't think of anything but how much I desired him, I let it go. I was here to please Daddy with the words from my diary, not the please him sexually. That is, unless he ordered me to please him sexually. I allowed myself that one naughty thought. I hoped that he would do that soon. That he would take me in his arms. If only I could get myself back into his bed of a night time, maybe he would feel like taking me sexually then. I wondered what it would be like.
Just the idea of sex with Daddy got me all hot and bothered. I imagined what it would be like to be taken by this man. I imagined him being rough with my body but tender with my heart. Imagining what that would look like was why I didn't speak immediately after I followed Daddy's instructions, sitting down in front of his desk.
Daddy cleared his throat before prompting me, "girl, your diary of dreams?" He asked.
I nodded my head and turned to my diary, which had been sitting in my lap as my mind wondered to dirty places. Looking down at its pink cover that I'd chosen out of a catalog and had Daddy's staff bring to me just the other day, I felt nervous to share. There was so much I had to say and so little time, but so much of it I wasn't sure what he would think, or what he would say. The unknowns made me nervous, but I pushed myself anyway.
Taking a deep breath I began, "Daddy, I wrote down a few pages. I'll just read from them directly, if that's okay?" I snuck a peak up at Daddy from the book which I had just opened to the first page and saw that Daddy was motioning for me to proceed. I did as I was told.
"I wrote about all the places where I would like to travel, Daddy. I wrote saying I would like to go to Paris, to Rome, to Prague. I wrote saying that I would like to go to Africa and see a Lion..." I let my voice trail off then, smiling to myself as I remembered how Daddy had looked at me when I came in and how much he looked like a hungry lion at the sight of my naked body. I cleared my throat and pushed on, "I also want to see a bunch of other places that I am sure I couldn't name. But, I'd like to travel." I told him quickly before skipping to the next page, as if all of these places, and all of these ambitions were simple and worth brushing over at how easy they would be to achieve.
"I want to study again, Daddy." I read from the next page. "I would like to do my masters. Although, I don't know what in. I also wrote that I would like to learn to paint, draw and work on my writing. I would like to go out and make more friends in the BDSM community, and to learn about rope." I looked up at Daddy to check he was still listening, and when I saw that he was I quickly looked back down at my book. I read about all the skills that I would like to learn both inside and outside of BDSM. I told him about how I wanted to be a better knitter, about how I wanted to learn a language, "other than English, that is." I told him.
Daddy was listened to me without interrupting. He was very patient with me and sweet, that was until I finished babbling and he told me curly, "is that all?"
I swallowed and asked, "what do you mean Daddy?"
Sighing, Daddy told me, "I mean that I asked you to tell me about all of your crazy dreams, and you told me your boring ones. Is that all you have for me girl?" He asked, not even trying to hide his impatience.
"I don't know what you mean." I told Daddy.
"Have you ever heard the saying, 'if your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough'?" Daddy asked me.
There was a moment of silence. I blinked at Daddy a few times before telling him, "but these are my dreams, Daddy."
Daddy was shaking his head at me and turning back to some paperwork, "if that's all you've got for me, you can go then girl."
But I didn't, I didn't move one single inch. I simply sat there and searched for my words. I didn't want to question Daddy and earn myself a punishment, but I couldn't sit there and let him talk to me like that, either. I had taken ages coming up with those dreams and I was excited about them. Daddy wasn't going to just sit there and dismiss them like that. I wouldn't let him.
"No." I said, and for the first time in my life, the word was a complete sentence.
"What do you mean, 'no'?" Daddy asked me, his eyes holding mine. He looked mad, but I knew better. I knew not to back down. If I backed down now, I would still get a punishment, only I wouldn't be able to get my message across as well, which was something I badly needed to do.
"I mean," I began, taking a big swallow to calm my nerves, "that I sat down and wrote this out, a
nd you are going to listen to it. These are my dreams. I am sorry if they are not big dreams like yours often are. But Daddy, we can't all dream as big as you."
"Are you talking back, little girl?" Daddy asked me rhetorically. His tone told me that I had earned a punishment, but I knew I would earn myself a punishment before I had even opened up my mouth in retort.
"I am, Daddy. I am talking back because you need to know that I did work hard on your task. You need to know that I put thought and effort into this and that I didn't just sit there making things up, Daddy. I have things to say, I have my own dreams. You want to be a good Daddy and encourage those dreams, and maybe even be the genie who makes them come true, then great. But don't just sit there and tell me that my dreams are not big enough and dismiss me." I stopped short of uttering the words, 'I won't have it.' But it was far too late for damage control. Even if I wouldn't have it, Daddy had already had it.
So there I sat, feeling frustrated with Daddy but also feeling like perhaps I had made a mistake. It wouldn't be long until I learned about my punishment.
The set of Daddy's jaw told me he was thinking about how he would punish me. Would he go for a traditional punishment, like spanking? Or would he go for something more specific? I know more about these types of relationships than I ever had in the past from my reading. I also knew from what Daddy and I had done so far. I was learning all the time, and I knew that Daddy would have a plethora of choices of how he would punish me, but I also knew that he might not choose to punish me right away.
In the end, he didn't punish me right then. Frustrated as he was with me, Daddy had plenty of other things to do that day so he simply told me, "go to your room, little girl. Go there and stay there. You have a bathroom and I will ensure food is delivered to you by the servants while you await punishment."