Daddy Issues

  The knock soun­ded again. I threw down the knife and, leav­ing the half fin­ished car­rots and cel­ery on the cut­ting board, went to an­swer the door.

  Salt was stand­ing there look­ing very tall and grim with the flash drive curled in one large fist. He has his own key to my place so he could have just let him­self in but clearly he wanted to keep things formal. Well, fine—I could do that too.

  “Good even­ing, De­tect­ive Saltanov,” I said evenly.

  Salt didn’t look happy but he re­turned my greet­ing in kind.

  “De­tect­ive Sug­ar­baker,” he rumbled, in­clin­ing his head.

  “Won’t you come in?” I stepped aside to let him enter. Nor­mally when we went to each other’s houses we made ourselves at home. Salt al­ways went right to my re­fri­ger­ator to see what I had to eat. But now he stepped in­side and then just stood there. It was a re­minder to me that things weren’t “nor­mal” between us and never would be again.

  “This way,” I said shortly, and led him to my liv­ing room as though he didn’t know the way.

  Salt fol­lowed me si­lently and had a seat on the couch when we got there.

  “The flash drive?” I asked.

  Word­lessly, he dropped it into my hand.

  I went over to my laptop and plugged in the flash drive. Thanks to Salt, who had found a way to hook my com­puter to my tele­vi­sion, I was able to bring the im­ages up on my large flat-screen.

  I grabbed the re­mote and, since Salt was sit­ting on the couch, I took the love­seat which sat per­pen­dic­u­lar to it.

  It hurt my heart to do that—to sit away from him. I couldn’t help re­mem­ber­ing all the times we had sat to­gether on my couch to watch movies. Salt had never ac­tu­ally put his arms around me or cuddled me—we hadn’t got­ten that phys­ical un­til our time at the In­sti­tute—but we al­ways sat close, our thighs touch­ing. And some­times when the movie was long or I was tired, I would lean my head on his broad shoulder and just rest there. Once or twice I even fell asleep and only woke up when Salt was tuck­ing an afghan around me to keep me warm.

  I would never be able to do that again, I real­ized. Never be able to draw com­fort from hav­ing his big, warm body so close to mine. We were never go­ing to have an­other movie night and I was never go­ing to fall asleep with my head against his shoulder. We would never— Get over it, I ad­vised my­self roughly. He doesn’t want you any­more. And can you blame him? Look how needy you let your­self get at the In­sti­tute. Look at all the weird things you did to­gether. Salt was prob­ably just act­ing but not you, Sug­ar­baker—no, you got into it. Deep into it. You liked be­ing a Little—play­ing the Baby­girl to Salt’s Papa. He prob­ably knows that and it dis­gusts him. You drove him away your­self by be­ing too damn needy and strange so don’t start moon­ing over him now. Just be­cause he’s sit­ting on your couch right now doesn’t mean he’ll ever want you back as a part­ner or any­thing else. He’s already gone.

  My lec­ture to my­self didn’t make me feel any bet­ter but it did make me feel a little stronger. I poin­ted the re­mote at the screen and clicked it on, ready to watch.

  “Wait,” Salt said, as a scene of the two of us en­ter­ing the room at the In­sti­tute came on the screen.

  “What?” I paused the im­age for a mo­ment and looked at him.

  “I think it would be mis­take to erase all im­ages of the two of us.” He ges­tured at the screen. “Would be bet­ter to keep some of the less…em­bar­rass­ing ones.”

  “Right. Makes sense to avoid sus­pi­cion,” I ac­know­ledged. “So I think we can agree that this one stays?” It was just the two of us get­ting com­fort­able in the room and look­ing around. It must have been the first night we were there.

  “Yes.” Salt nod­ded.

  I picked up a yel­low legal pad and pen I’d placed on the arm of the love­seat earlier for just this pur­pose and made a note.

  “All right. Mov­ing on.” I fast for­war­ded the im­age and saw the two of us sit­ting on the couch to­gether. Then I saw Salt pulling my feet into his lap and tak­ing off my shoes and socks. I couldn’t help re­mem­ber how won­der­ful his big warm hands felt when he mas­saged me.

  “Do you wish to leave this part or not?” Salt asked me.

  I cleared my throat. “Well, it is kind of awk­ward but not, you know, ob­scene.”

  “Noth­ing we did was ob­scene,” he said quietly.

  “Oh no? You pre­tend­ing to be my ‘Papa’ and me pre­tend­ing to be your ‘Baby­girl’ wasn’t ob­scene?” I snapped.

  “No,” he said simply.

  “Right.” I didn’t be­lieve him a bit. I had heard how he really felt about what went on in the In­sti­tute loud and clear when he’d told Berkley that it was sick and he was dis­gus­ted by it. Dis­gus­ted by you, don’t you mean, Andi? whispered a little voice in my head. Yes—that was ex­actly what I meant. I forced my­self to look at the TV again and tried not to think about it.

  On screen, the foot mas­sage was fi­nally over. There was vid feed from the bath­room too but the cam­era in there had been fo­cused on the tub so you couldn’t see either Salt or I shower­ing or do­ing any­thing else—for which I was grate­ful.

  Salt and I went about our nightly routine—well ex­cept for the part where I ex­amined his back which made me un­com­fort­able to watch be­cause I re­membered the past pain he had re­vealed to me. At last, I went to bed. The cam­era angle switched to the bed­room—did they have some kind of mo­tion sensors so the cam­eras only clicked on when someone was in the room? Or did who­ever was watch­ing just as­sume the ac­tion would be wherever I was?

  I thought the scene would be nor­mal but I had for­got­ten about my night­mare that first night. There was no sound and only min­imal light but I saw my small shape huddled un­der the cov­ers and watched as I sat up, clearly agit­ated. Then the bed­room door burst open and Salt’s tall frame was sil­hou­et­ted by the light shin­ing be­hind him. He came to the bed and gathered me into his arms. Ten­derly, he cradled me to his chest and sat down in the large rock­ing chair to rock me like a child.

  I felt a wave of long­ing as I watched the scene and then an equal wave of shame raced over me. I was a grown wo­man, for God’s sake—why was I wish­ing to be rocked and com­for­ted like a little girl? It was stu­pid and weak and it made me angry with my­self and with Salt too for act­ing the way he had.

  “Look at this,” I com­plained, point­ing at the TV. “Why did you have to do that in­stead of just wak­ing me up and telling me I was hav­ing a bad dream? Now we don’t have any­thing even re­motely nor­mal to leave in the video.”

  “I wanted to take care of you,” Salt said in a low voice.

  “Oh, you took care of me all right,” I muttered. “You son of a bitch.”

  “Andi—”

  “No. Don’t start.” I held up a hand to stop him. “You do not get to feel bet­ter about be­ing a com­plete shit by try­ing to ex­plain it away. Just keep your mouth shut and let’s get through this.”

  “How am I be­ing ‘com­plete shit?’” he asked, his voice a low, angry growl. “I am giv­ing you what you should want.”

  “I should want to be be­trayed and deser­ted by my part­ner?” I de­man­ded. “No, stop—don’t an­swer that. Let’s just go on.”

  Be­fore he could protest I fast for­war­ded the video, which was just a nor­mal one of us sleep­ing, to the next night.

  “Oh boy,” I muttered as I watched Salt bathing me in the big tub. “This has to go for sure.” I star­ted to fast for­ward it but he said, “Wait.”

  “What are we wait­ing for?” I de­man­ded, frown­ing at him.

  “I just…want to see it.” His deep voice held a note of wist­ful­ness.

  “What—you want to watch us be­ing per­ver­ted to­gether?” I said roughly, fast for­ward­ing.

  “How is this per­ver­ted?” he ask
ed softly. “I am wash­ing you, that is all.”

  “Yeah and in a minute you’re go­ing to be shav­ing me,” I poin­ted out, my cheeks get­ting pink. “Look—there.” I poin­ted to the screen where he was per­form­ing the ex­tremely in­tim­ate ser­vice for me. It was hard to watch, hard to see my­self be­ing so na­ked and vul­ner­able and stu­pid, let­ting Salt into my heart as I let him touch my body. How much more cliché could I get? “And there,” I con­tin­ued point­ing at the screen again. “Where you kissed me in a very, uh, in­ap­pro­pri­ate place. How is that not per­ver­ted?”

  “I should not have done that,” Salt ac­know­ledged in a low voice. “But I wanted so badly to taste you.”

  I felt my breath catch in my throat and I fumbled with the re­mote. I meant to fast for­ward the scene on double speed but in­stead my thumb hit the pause but­ton. The screen froze just at the place where Salt was pla­cing a soft, gentle kiss on my freshly shaved pussy.

  “Crap!” I tried to un­pause the scene on the TV but I was all thumbs.

  “Here. Al­low me.”

  To my sur­prise, Salt got up and came to sit be­side me on the small love­seat. He took the re­mote from me and pressed play, re­sum­ing the ac­tion.

  Of course that meant that we had to watch him dry­ing me off and tak­ing me into the bed­room where he rubbed the cool­ing oint­ment onto my bare be­hind. Then I turned over for him and he star­ted rub­bing my pussy while I writhed shame­lessly like a cat in heat un­der his touch.

  “God!” I could feel my cheeks burn­ing as I watched my own wan­ton dis­play. Clearly this part of the video needed to be erased for sure. It looked like my part­ner and I had de­cided to make our own private sex tape. “I can’t be­lieve I ac­ted like that!” I muttered.

  “I can,” Salt said in a low voice.

  “Thanks a lot.” I glared at him, reach­ing for the re­mote.

  “I am not mak­ing a com­ment on your vir­tue, Andi,” Salt said stiffly, keep­ing the re­mote just out of my reach with one long arm. “I am talk­ing about the drug that was in your sys­tem, mak­ing you act as you did.”

  “What?” I turned to him, un­com­pre­hend­ing. “What the hell are you talk­ing about?”

  “The Please,” he said. “It was in the punch.”

  “Yes, I know—I drank a whole glass­ful of the stuff like a fuck­ing idiot,” I snapped.

  “You were tricked by Berkley—we both were,” Salt poin­ted out. “But lab re­ports showed that punch was drugged every night—not just dur­ing our last din­ner. You were drink­ing it all the time, Andi. It was build­ing up in your sys­tem, mak­ing you re­act to me in the way that you did.”

  “Bull­shit,” I said flatly. “I barely touched it those other nights.”

  “You must have drunk more than you thought. Look,” he said and fi­nally hit the fast for­ward but­ton.

  The scene jumped again, this time show­ing the med­ical wing. At first Berkley and the damn se­cur­ity guard were spank­ing my pussy as I writhed in my bonds. I felt Salt tense next to me and a low growl rose in his throat.

  “I should have got­ten there sooner,” he said in a tense, angry voice. “I should not have al­lowed them to hurt you.”

  “You got there as soon as you could,” I said neut­rally. “See?” As we watched, Salt burst into the room, dis­lo­cated the se­cur­ity guard’s arm and nearly choked him to death. Then he ar­gued an­grily with Berkley who handed him the thick, black plug.

  Just see­ing it, even on screen, made me feel in­cred­ibly un­com­fort­able. I squirmed in my seat as we watched Salt go down on me, lick­ing and suck­ing my pussy as he in­ser­ted the plug into my tight rose­bud.

  Fi­nally, I couldn’t take it any­more.

  “Salt,” I said through grit­ted teeth. “Is there a reason we’re watch­ing this? It’s fuck­ing em­bar­rass­ing!”

  “Yes,” he growled. “To prove a point. You would not have ac­ted like this—would not have al­lowed me to treat you in this way—if you had not been com­prom­ised by the drug in your sys­tem.”

  “Is that what you think? That’s just…it’s not true, Salt.”

  “It is true,” he in­sisted. “I took ad­vant­age of you, Andi. Did things I should not have done—things you would not have al­lowed me to do if you had been your­self.”

  Which self is that? I wanted to ask. The tough-as-nails, fem­in­ist cop who doesn’t take shit off any­one or the wo­man who’s will­ing to put on a little girl’s clothes and call you “Papa” and let you take care of her in every way—phys­ic­ally, emo­tion­ally, and sexu­ally? God, I was so in­cred­ibly screwed up.

  I couldn’t sit still any longer. I jumped up and star­ted pa­cing. On screen, the im­age shif­ted again. This time it was Berkley and Mandy and Salt and me in the Dad­dies' Lounge. Salt fast-for­war­ded through all the angry con­ver­sa­tion and went to the scenes of me beg­ging him to fuck me and him put­ting me over his knee.

  “Watch,” he said, his deep voice hoarse.

  I stood still for a mo­ment and watched the spank­ing, saw my­self writh­ing against him, beg­ging him for what I knew I shouldn’t have but wanted so badly any­way.

  “What does that prove?” I asked. “It just shows that when you knew I was un­der the in­flu­ence of Please, you did the right thing. You spanked me in­stead of…of fuck­ing me.” The words seemed to stick in my throat but I forced them out any­way.

  On the screen, Salt pushed me off his lap and rose to un­fasten his belt. I watched my­self walk on shaky legs to the arm of the leather couch and drape my­self over it with my skirts raised. Then Salt’s arm rose and the belt des­cen­ded, mak­ing me jump and gasp.

  Watch­ing the beat­ing, now that I was clear-eyed and com­pletely free of the Please which had been in my sys­tem when it happened, was damn dif­fi­cult. It wasn’t just the sav­agery of the act, though it was clear that Salt was beat­ing me hard, it was also the frozen look on his face as he did what was ne­ces­sary. I re­membered think­ing that this must have been hard for him—now I wondered how he had been able to bring him­self to do it at all.

  “Oh!” I whispered, un­able to help my­self as the belt rose and fell, strip­ing my na­ked ass with lines of fire. I shif­ted from foot to foot, feel­ing the pain all over again.

  I saw Salt wince as the small sound left my lips. The look on his usu­ally im­pass­ive fea­tures was dif­fi­cult to see. There was pain and shame in his ice blue eyes as he forced him­self to watch the scene we had played out to­gether. And self-loath­ing so deep it made my stom­ach twist.

  “Do you see this?” he said hoarsely, turn­ing to me at last when the scene changed to show him throw­ing down the belt and gath­er­ing me into his arms. “Do you see what I did to you? Why I do not de­serve to be your part­ner any­more?”

  “I know what you did to me, Salt—I was there, re­mem­ber?” I said. “You saved my life.”

  “By beat­ing you. The way that I was beaten.” He rubbed a hand over his face and hit the off but­ton so that the screen went black. “The way I never wanted to beat any­one. I never wanted to hurt you, Andi—I swear it.”

  “There was no other way,” I re­minded him. “Other than—you know.”

  “I could not do that to you,” he said harshly. “Could not take from you what you would not have given me without that damn drug cloud­ing your judg­ment.”

  “So that’s why you told Cap­tain Douglas you want a new part­ner?” I de­man­ded. “Be­cause you hurt me to save me?”

  “That and be­cause of the way I took ad­vant­age of you the other nights we were at the In­sti­tute,” he said stiffly. “I thought you were act­ing in such a way be­cause you wanted me as…” He sighed. “As I have wanted you, from first mo­ment I saw you.” He shook his head. “I should have known you would not act in this way on your own. Should have known only the damn drug could be re­spons­ible for s
uch be­ha­vior.”

  For a mo­ment I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I fi­nally un­der­stood what he was say­ing—he couldn’t be­lieve I would ever let my­self be vul­ner­able and open to him without some kind of chem­ical in my blood­stream to loosen my in­hib­i­tions. If only he knew…

  “There was a drug in­volved, Salt,” I said through numb lips. “But it wasn’t Please.”

  “What?” He looked at me, frown­ing and clearly con­fused. “Did Berkley put some­thing else in your drink?”

  “No. And if you’ll re­mem­ber, I barely took a tiny sip of my punch the other two meals we had at the In­sti­tute—I drank the wa­ter in your glass in­stead,” I poin­ted out.

  He shook his head. “Then what drug are you talk­ing of?”

  For a mo­ment, I felt everything in­side me clench. I couldn’t tell him the truth—it would make me sound sick and needy. It would make him hate me and feel dis­gus­ted. Yet some­how, I couldn’t help blurt­ing it out.

  “It was the Age Play,” I said, look­ing away from him. “Get­ting into Little-space. Re­mem­ber that Pro­fessor Stevens said it could in­duce an altered state of con­scious­ness—al­most like a drug?”

  He frowned. “Yes, but that is for those who truly want to be do­ing what we were do­ing. You were only pre­tend­ing, Da?”

  “No,” I whispered, look­ing down at my hands. “I guess Stevens was right about me and my ‘Daddy is­sues.’ I know…” I glanced up at him for a mo­ment and then had to look away. “I know you were just pre­tend­ing, Salt. But I wasn’t—not after that first night. You…you were giv­ing me everything I wanted—everything I needed—even though I didn’t know that I needed it. It was…ad­dict­ive.”

  “Andi—” he began but I held up my hand to stop him.

  “No, let me fin­ish. I know it sounds sick and I know it dis­gusts you but I liked what we did—liked the way we were to­gether at that crazy place.” I took a deep breath. “I liked giv­ing up con­trol to you and be­ing your…your mishka.”