by Ava Sinclair
“I got here as fast as I could.” I look around, as if expecting my little one to be there. “Where’s Sugar?”
“Sit down, Eli.”
“Chance. Where is she?”
“In a sublevel holding cell.”
I stand there trying to process what I’m hearing. “A holding… What happened?”
“One of the other staff heard a crash coming from your office. A moment later, Sugar came running out. She was out the door before anyone could stop her. One of the guards intercepted her. Afterwards, I took the liberty of checking the camera footage of your office. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
He clicks on his computer and turns it to me. I watch the footage, my heart sinking in my chest with each passing moment. The camera is in a corner behind my desk. I watch as Sugar leaps into the office, yelling “Boo!” She looks achingly adorable in her braids and outfit. I watch as her face registers disappointment, watch her as she begins to examine my desk. The computer comes on. She finds the files.
“Oh no. Oh no.” I find myself sinking into a nearby chair just as she sinks into a chair at my desk. What must she have thought?
“She’s angry, Eli. She feels betrayed, violated. She was raving when we brought her back about being manipulated, about how we’re all thieves. It’s nonsense, of course…”
“Is it?” I look at my partner. I wipe my hand down my face, forcing myself to watch Sugar watching the memory of her drunken night of sex in the parking lot. When she rips off the necklace, I feel her hurt. When she speaks to the camera, I feel my own pain welling in my chest. It’s the pain of loss, the pain of letting down someone you love. And I love Sugar. I love her, and now I’ve lost her.
“I need to talk to her, Chance.”
My partner clicks off the monitor and sighs. “She doesn’t want to see you. She wants a new placement. She says she knows some girls don’t work out. The others told her.” Chance falls quiet. “I tried to warn you. I had a bad feeling about her.”
“Shut the fuck up!” I slam my fist into the chair in front of his desk, nearly knocking it over. I don’t know who is more shocked, me or my friend. I’ve never spoken to him like this.
“Eli… I didn’t mean…”
“Look, Chance. I know she’s more damaged than a lot of women we’ve taken here. I know she’s hurt. But I’ve always gone on instincts. Something told me she was perfect for the program. And I think inside, I felt like she’d be perfect for… more.”
“Sometimes our instincts steer us wrong. Sometimes we have to admit defeat.”
“No.” I turn and walk to the door. “I’m not giving up. If she wants to leave, she’s going to have to look me in the eye and tell me so.”
I don’t have anything else to say to my partner. I know Chance is only looking out for my best interest, but of all people, he should understand the protectiveness I feel. As I take the elevator down to the manor’s sublevel, I feel both anticipation and dread. I’m relieved that Sugar is okay. I want to see her. But I could tell by her expression on the recording that this is a major setback.
On the way to the holding cell, I pass the part of the lab where she first saw my face. She didn’t trust me then. She came to depend on me. Now she distrusts me more than ever.
A guard is stationed outside her door. I hasten him away after demanding his passkey. The command in my voice is unmistakable. Even though I’m breaking protocol, he doesn’t question me.
Deep breath. I open the door. The cell is austere with a metal bench and toilet. Sugar is sitting on the floor. She watches me enter with the same flat, hostile expression I saw the first time I met her.
I walk over and lean down, holding my hands out. She smirks.
“Don’t worry that I’ll hit you, Dr. Crane. I don’t care enough to bother.”
“Sugar.”
“Don’t bother explaining, either. And don’t expect me to give you an opening by telling you how I should have known being happy was more than I deserve or such bullshit. You’d just twist it by telling me how much I deserve to be happy. Isn’t that what people like you do? Use the insecurities of others against them? Is that what they taught you when you were a soldier? How to fuck with people? How to steal from them, lie about it, and then still come off looking like a hero?”
Her words hurt because they are said without malice, and because they ring with some truth.
“You’re right to be angry, Sugar. I know you found the file on my computer.”
“Project Sugar.” She shakes her head. “When were you going to tell me this was all a game?”
I lower my hands. “Sugar—”
“Don’t fucking call me that, okay? My name is Kerry. You only call me Sugar because you knew it would trigger some tiny shred of happiness and trust clinging to whatever was dead inside me. Do the other girls know? Are they projects, too? How long before the test is over? Where do we go next?”
It occurs to me then that she thinks this is all a game, an experiment. I feel a tiny spark of hope. If I can prove to her that she’s wrong...”
“Sugar, it’s not like that. It’s just something I named the file. You’re not a project. You’re a person. You’re my little…”
“I told you not to call me that!” She scrambles to her feet. “And I’m not your little anything, okay?” She walks across the cell. When she turns back, her arms are crossed.
“Be honest. Is there a place for women who don’t work out?”
I stand where I’ve been kneeling. I don’t want to answer her, but I force myself to do so.
“Yes. There are other projects. I don’t run them. But I can get girls into them.”
“Put me in one.”
“You don’t even know what you’re asking.”
“I don’t care.” She walks over. “Find one for me. You said I signed myself over to you? Then that makes me yours to give away. Don’t tell me there’s not some other kind of training program out there. Rich women need maids, right? Rich men need whores. We both know there are places out there that will train a girl like me for something like that. I don’t care where you put me.”
I look down at her, resisting the urge to grab her, haul her over to the bench and spank her until I can get her to listen to me. But to do so would be to invalidate a hurt that I’ve caused over an invasion I should have admitted. She’s right. In some ways, I’ve treated her like a project. How could I have asked her to be with me while keeping what I did a secret? But still, I can’t let myself believe she’d actually want to leave.
“Are you sure?” I search her eyes. When she doesn’t answer, I press her. “Tell me… Kerry.” It’s hard to say her name. She’s still Sugar to me. “If you are sure, look me in the eyes and tell me.”
“I’m sure. I want to leave.” She looks directly at me, her gaze unwavering. “Let me go.”
Chapter 18
Sugar
I’ve won. I’ve gotten out, just like I told myself I’d do when I woke up tied to that chair. It took me a while, but I’m away from the manor.
When I was little, I watched a cicada crawl out of its hard shell. It took a while for it to emerge, and when it did it was soft and vulnerable. I remember putting it under a bush so that it would be safe until its skin hardened back into a protective shell.
I wonder if Eli Crane watched that memory. It’s one of the few that I didn’t bury, and useful now that I’m re-growing my shell.
“Don’t feel.” I tell myself that as I sit in the processing room. It’s my second day here. Since arriving I’ve spent my time in a dormitory with a hundred other women. Today we’ve all been brought into a stuffy auditorium, where I’m sitting in the third of ten rows of chairs. I’m being retrained for domestic help. Before I took a number to be seated, I was told that when I’m assigned a placement later today I’ll be bonded to that family until I repay my debt to society. I’m being sold into service. Just as I suspected, there’s always a place for women like me.
I try to
look ahead, imagining myself strong and defiant again, getting the lay of the land so I can plot my escape anew. I may have committed a crime, but I shouldn’t be enslaved for it. I wonder if the family I’ll be put with has children. I imagine going into a little girl’s room and my throat tightens.
Don’t. Just don’t.
Nora cried when I left. I didn’t. I still haven’t cried. I’m sure at some point I will, but only if I remember. I concentrate on stuffing the memories down, of pretending that all the happiness I felt was a dream I can forget. I’ve buried my memories before. I can do it again, and this time I’m not going to let anyone near them.
I look down at the number that was etched on my arm with a marker when I walk in. 3754. I don’t know where I am in the queue. I’m hungry. My back hurts. This chair is hard. I try not to think of the manor with its comfy chairs and good food.
A loud bang makes me startle. I turn towards it, but my view is blocked by the other women, who are craning their necks to look towards the door we came in through.
“Sir, we aren’t allowed to let anyone back here. Sir!”
The door to the room flies open and there’s a collective gasp, save for me. I’m stunned into utter silence as Eli Crane walks in. His eyes scan the room. He looks purposeful.
I turn and sink into my chair. I want to hide, not from him necessarily but from the burst of feeling that shot through my body at the sight of him. It was so sharp it hurt. I close my eyes against it, but I can hear the women around me murmuring, hear chairs scraping against the floor. When I open my eyes, he’s there. Eli wordlessly takes my upper arm and lifts me.
“Sir, you can’t just…” A female guard comes over, looking concerned.
“If you have any questions, contact Judge Thurmond.” Eli reaches into the inside pocket of his coat and withdraws some papers, which he hands her. “This one is coming with me.”
He pulls me along without pausing, without explanation. I’m too shocked to say anything. I hear the other women chattering as I’m led through the door, down a hall, and thrust into a windowless room with block walls. Eli enters after me, slamming the door behind him. He looks disheveled, his five o’clock shadow grown thicker. His eyes are red, as if he’s been crying or lacking sleep.
He walks over and for a moment I think he’s going to grab me again, but he stops.
“I don’t have to call you Sugar if you don’t want me to. I don’t have to pick your clothes or your food or where you live. But understand that I couldn’t leave you here.” I catch the glimmer of tears in his eyes. “You don’t have to believe me, but you’re my little girl. It took you leaving for me to realize that of all the things I don’t have to make you do, I do have to make you listen.”
He puts a hand out, tentatively, to cup my cheek. “I love you. I love you as a daddy. I love you as a man. I can’t stop thinking about you. A daddy can’t let his little one goes, not even if it’s what she wants. I was wrong to keep the secret I kept from you. If I could go back and change it, I would. I’ve already told Dr. Brockman that we’re disclosing the memory retrievals to all the women.”
I turn away. The shell I’ve been trying to build is already melting. He’s close to tears. I can’t stand it.
“Come home with me,” I say. “Be my wife. I can’t live without you.”
I find my voice. It comes out in a sob I try to stifle with my hand. I’m shaking with all the effort it took to push down the feelings I’ve been trying to suppress since leaving.
Daddy loves me. Daddy came back for me. Daddy loves me.
“You didn’t give up on me,” I say. “You didn’t forget me.” My legs give way. I sink to the floor. “You’re here.”
He clutches me so tightly I can barely breathe. “I shouldn’t have let you go. I thought…” He buries his face in my hair. “I thought after what I did that I had to. But the thought of you out here alone… It would have killed me…Sug—”
He stops. He’s started to call me Sugar, the name he stole from one of my happy memories. But it’s okay now. It’s the name for making many more.
“You can call me Sugar,” I say. “On one condition.”
“What’s that, baby?” he asks.
“If I can call you Daddy.”
Chapter 19
Eli
My little Sugar has been very naughty.
Very, very naughty. She’s a very good girl most of the time. When she needs limits, however, I’m happy to provide them.
It makes for nice scenery. I’m especially enjoying the view tonight as I sit with my legs crossed, brandy in hand, staring towards the corner where she’s standing.
“No fidgeting, young lady, especially not on your wedding night.”
The ceremony was quiet and held in the parlor. After I went to save my sweet Sugar and bring her home, I knew I’d have to marry her. I asked her the next morning. She’d said yes, then surprised me by telling me she wanted to wait until our wedding night to fully consummate our relationship. She wanted the day—and our first night as a forever Daddy and his Little One—to be special.
The wedding was as unique as our dynamic. Penelope, who has grown especially close to Sugar in the two months since she’s been back, served as the Maid of Honor. Newer friends served as bridesmaids. Mitzi insisted on being the flower girl.
It was a magical day, with Sugar wearing just the dress she wanted, a white ballet-style dress with puff sleeves and a skirt that would twirl when we danced. Little crystals were sewn into the fabric, guaranteeing that she would twinkle like a fairy princess during the garden reception.
The celebration had lasted long into the night. It ended later than I wanted. For nearly eight weeks I’ve teased Sugar’s sweet pussy and bottom, doing everything to her short of sinking my cock into her tight little body.
Tonight is the night, but she was still so wired when we came back to my suite of rooms that I knew she needed something to get her into submissive headspace. I’d waited, and sure enough, she’d snapped at me. I’d put her over my knee, spanking her briskly until her bottom was berry red before sending her to the corner.
The sight of her holding her wedding dress off her spanked ass is about to drive me mad.
“Are you ready to be Daddy’s good girl?”
She looks at me over her shoulder. Her bottom lip is extended in a pretty pout, and while there are tears clinging to her lashes, the look in her eyes is one of need rather than sadness.
“Yes sir.”
I hold out my hand. “Then come to Daddy.”
She drops her skirt and walks over, turning when she reaches me. She kneels between my legs and I know what she wants. I reach beneath the nape of her hair and pull down the zipper, exposing the bare skin of her back. I push the dress over her shoulders until it’s a mound of fabric around her hips. She looks like a fairy princess sitting in the middle of a white flower, with the garment bunched around her like this. I stare down, admiring the little dimples that crown the top of her buttocks.
I reach down, gripping her waist as I raise her to standing. She steps out of the dress, naked now except for her little ballet slippers. I kneel and remove them, then kiss the top of her cleft before pushing my tongue into it. I move my hand to her sore buttocks, holding her fast as I slide the spear tip of my tongue over the slick inner folds, lapping away the arousal she made for me during her spanking.
“My Sugar is so sweet.” I speak the words against the mound of her belly, enjoying the shudder still running through her body. I rise to tower over her. My darling little bride is completely naked and mine for the claiming.
I lift her into my arms. I’m still fully clothed. I’ve always been fully clothed with her and she stares up at me from where I lay her on the bed, watching as I shed my tuxedo, piece by piece.
“You’re so pretty for a man,” she says.
“Pretty?” I grin. “I prefer handsome.”
“Men can be pretty. And I mean pretty like a Greek god or a stag.”
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I’m down to my boxers now, the front tented. “A stag, huh? What’s the word for a female deer? A doe? Or a hind?”
“How about a be-hind?” She giggles and turns over, wriggling her bottom. I part her cheeks and twirl the medium size plug still lodged in her bottom. A few more, and she’ll be big enough to take my cock.
She moans as I remove it and looks back, disappointed. “Why did you take it out?
“Because I can’t give you your gift with that one in.” I place the plug on the table and fetch a mahogany box from the drawer, opening the lid. Cushioned in velvet are three gold plugs, graduated in size. Sugar bites her lip and grins. I remove the first one and show her the flange. On it is inscribed, “Daddy’s Sugar.”
“I love it,” she says. “Will you put in?”
“It would be my pleasure.” I sit on the edge of the bed and tap her bottom. “Present, Sugar.”
She moves to all four as I’ve taught her, parting her legs. Between her legs, her swollen pussy is dripping with anticipation. The crinkle of her bottom hole, halfway through training, is an inviting target. One night soon, I will take her there. But for now, I’ll just mark her with my gift.
I coat the narrow end of the teardrop-shaped plug with lube and press it against the crinkle of Sugar’s bottom hole. This plug is substantially larger than her last one. As I push it against her resisting ring of muscles, I remind her that her ass belongs to me, that I will touch her there any time I want. I tell her if she’s bad, I may spank this little hole with a leather strap, just as I spanked her little pussy a few nights earlier. She’s nearly coming just from my words alone. I stroke her clit as I continue to apply pressure on the plug, becoming more aroused as her body opens and draws it in. The flange keeps it from going all the way in, spreading her cheeks just slightly as it lodges in place. Seeing the disc with a message marking her as mine makes my cock strain painfully towards her slick pussy.