Daddy Issues

  Stop it, I told my­self fiercely. You’re not even in the front door yet and you’re already hav­ing repressed memor­ies or whatever they call them. Do you want to prove Pro­fessor Stevens right about your “Daddy is­sues” be­fore this case even gets star­ted?

  “I just don’t like it,” I said, frown­ing up at Salt. “I mean, I’ve got bows in my hair and shiny little pat­ent leather shoes on my feet. It feels per­ver­ted.”

  He raised an eye­brow at me. “More per­ver­ted than the other where your body is on dis­play? At least in this you are covered.” He nod­ded ap­prov­ingly at the dress.

  “Covered in a pe­do­phile’s wet dream,” I muttered sulkily. “Come on, Salt, this is gross.”

  “Look, Andi…” He blew out a breath in ob­vi­ous frus­tra­tion. “The reason I asked you to wear this one in­stead of the other is simple—the other is too dis­tract­ing. We both of us must keep our minds on the case. I find that very hard to do when you are so ex­posed.”

  His words made me pause. Could he mean what I thought he meant? Could it be that see­ing me in the slutty school girl out­fit was hard for him be­cause he wanted me? Sexu­ally? But surely not—we were just part­ners, weren’t we? Then I thought of the hard lump I’d felt un­der my ass when I sat on his lap the night be­fore.

  “Salt,” I said hes­it­antly. “Are you say­ing…what are you say­ing?”

  He sighed and looked at me.

  “I am say­ing you are very beau­ti­ful wo­man, Andi. Most of the time I can re­mind my­self you are my part­ner and is easy to deal with. But if you are wear­ing that out­fit, climb­ing me like tree and sit­ting in my lap…well, will be much more dif­fi­cult.” He leaned for­ward and stroked my cheek gently. “So please…for me will you wear the dress? At least for a little while? Is much easier this way. Much less sexual.”

  “Well…okay,” I said at last. I was taken aback be­cause this was the first time Salt had ad­mit­ted he found me sexu­ally arous­ing. I mean, there were al­ways little things like the com­ments about my eyes or telling me I was pretty but he’d never ac­tu­ally come out and said I made him hot.

  I should have been up­set or taken aback but, just like the night be­fore when he’d got­ten hard for me, I kind of liked it. It made me feel beau­ti­ful…power­ful to know my part­ner was at­trac­ted to me.

  Care­ful, Andi, I told my­self sternly. You’re on a slip­pery slope here. Go too far in the wrong dir­ec­tion and you could ruin the best part­ner­ship of your life. Hell, the best re­la­tion­ship period. So be care­ful—be damn care­ful.

  Yes, I would, I re­solved to my­self. I would watch what I said and did and if Salt found it easier for me to play this age than the slutty teen­ager, I could man­age it. I would have to man­age it.

  “Come, is time to go. We will be late for din­ner.” Salt got out of the car and came around to get the door for me, as he al­ways did. When he opened the door and held out a hand, I took it with a coquet­tish smile.

  “Thank you, Papa,” I said de­murely—might as well get into char­ac­ter now. Salt seemed to feel the same way be­cause he smiled and nod­ded.

  “You’re wel­come my little mishka.”

  Tuck­ing my arm through his, he led me through the park­ing lot around to the front of the build­ing, which didn’t look much bet­ter than the back.

  “Sheesh,” I said un­der my breath. “It’s not much to look at, is it? Are you sure we’re in the right place? It just looks like an old aban­doned ci­gar fact­ory.”

  “This is it,” Salt as­sured me. “Hope­fully will be bet­ter on the in­side.”

  “Hope­fully,” I said. “It could hardly be worse.”

  The big build­ing was a dull, uni­form gray with peel­ing paint and a rusty fire es­cape cling­ing to one side. The few win­dows at the front were boarded up like blind eyes. Only the broad wooden double doors at the top of the long row of crum­bling brick steps gave any in­dic­a­tion of wealth. They, at least, looked new and when Salt rang the bell soft, rich chimes soun­ded from within.

  A small pee­p­h­ole I hadn’t no­ticed be­fore slid open in one of the doors.

  “Name?” a cul­tured voice asked.

  “I am Viktor Saltanov from Mo­scow,” Salt said, de­lib­er­ately deep­en­ing his ac­cent. “I was told to be here at this time for din­ner? Yes?”

  “Oh, yes of course.” The small pee­p­h­ole shut and the front doors swung open, re­veal­ing an op­u­lent hall­way flooded with golden light—the ex­act op­pos­ite of the out­side of the build­ing. “Do come in,” said the but­ler—be­cause he had to be a but­ler. Dressed as he was in black and white with white gloves there was noth­ing else he could be.

  “Thank you.” Salt entered with me still on his arm.

  I looked around, my eyes nar­rowed as I searched for pos­sible threats. The Cap­tain had told us that Berkley, the man who owned and ran the In­sti­tute, was a dan­ger­ous guy, pos­sibly with ties to the Mob. We weren’t ab­so­lutely sure he was the one dis­trib­ut­ing Please, but it was a pretty safe bet he was in­volved in one way or an­other.

  But all I saw in my scan of the entry­way was a broad, open area with hard­wood floors and an old fash­ioned crys­tal chan­delier hanging from the high ceil­ing. There were two curving stair­cases, one on either side of the entry­way but I couldn’t see where either of them led. Ex­pens­ive look­ing paint­ings hung on the walls as well as an an­tique mir­ror with an or­nate, scrolled frame. When I looked at my re­flec­tion, I got a nasty shock. I saw a little girl wear­ing a fluffy party dress hanging on her father’s arm like she was about to go to a Daddy/daugh­ter dance.

  The Valentine’s Day dance—that’s why he bought me the dress! But he left be­fore it happened. I never got to wear it and Mom threw it out. She said— I shut down the memory hast­ily and looked away. I really had to get hold of my­self if this was go­ing to work!

  “We’re very glad to have you here, Mr. Saltanov,” the but­ler said. “Dir­ector Berkley is ex­pect­ing you.”

  “So I am and it’s good to see you got here safely.” A tall man with iron gray hair sud­denly ap­peared, smil­ing at Salt. I real­ized he must have come up to us while I was star­ing in the mir­ror, hav­ing mor­bid thoughts. “You had a com­fort­able flight from Mo­scow, I hope?” he said, hold­ing out his hand.

  “Mod­er­ately com­fort­able.” Salt made a see-saw ges­ture with one hand. “First class is not what it once was. Still, my little mishka was happy. She loves plane rides. Isn’t that right, mishka?”

  He looked down at me af­fec­tion­ately and I tried to re­turn his smile but the sight of the two of us in that damn mir­ror kept tug­ging at me. There was a long si­lence and I real­ized Salt was wait­ing for me to agree with him.

  “Yes, Papa,” I man­aged. “It was fun.”

  It soun­ded lame, even to me but it was too late to take it back.

  “Well…” Dir­ector Berkley smiled and bent down, put­ting his hands on his knees. “And this must be your Little,” he said in sing­song voice as though he was talk­ing to a small child.

  “Yes, this is my mishka,” Salt said. “She is…how do you say? New to the con­cepts your In­sti­tute is foun­ded on. We are both here to learn.”

  “Is that right?” Berkley looked at me with in­terest. “How long have you been your Daddy’s little girl, my dear?”

  “Just a few months,” I said tightly. I knew I ought to act shy or coy like a real little girl might but this guy’s sim­per­ing, con­des­cend­ing at­ti­tude was get­ting on my nerves and the im­age in the mir­ror seemed to be mock­ing me.

  “And do you like it?” Berkley per­sisted.

  “Sure,” I said flatly. “It’s great.”

  He stood up­right, frown­ing. “You don’t seem too thrilled about it, my dear.” He looked at Salt. “Mr. Saltanov, I hate to ask, but are you cer­tain your Little is as c
om­mit­ted to this re­la­tion­ship as you are? We want only happy Daddy/Baby­girl couples here at the In­sti­tute. One un­will­ing or un­happy par­ti­cipant can spoil the mood for every­one.”

  “My little mishka is simply tired from the long trip,” Salt said quickly. He drew me against his side, his arm firm around my shoulders, mak­ing sure I couldn’t get away. “Is a long flight from Mo­scow. Very long.”

  “I see.” Berkley still didn’t look con­vinced. “Well, as you’ve come all this way we will of course, give you a trial as we do all of our par­ti­cipants.”

  “Thank you,” Salt said with dig­nity. “I be­lieve we were sup­posed to ar­rive in time for din­ner. Are we too late?”

  “Not at all! In fact, you’re a bit early.” Berkley smiled. “Why don’t I give you a tour of the In­sti­tute while we wait for din­ner to be served?”

  “Very well. I am eager to see all of your fa­cil­it­ies.” Salt nod­ded.

  “Good! This way if you please.” Dir­ector Berkley led us through the entry­way, past the two stair­cases.

  “What’s up the stairs?” I asked in im­pulse.

  He frowned at me. “Young lady, in the fu­ture it’s bet­ter to re­mem­ber that Littles should be seen and not heard. But since you’re new here I will an­swer your ques­tion. The right hand stair­case leads to the guest suites, one of which has been re­served for you and your Daddy. The left hand stair­case, how­ever, leads to the pun­ish­ment areas. Never fear—you will see those soon enough.”

  Pun­ish­ment areas? That soun­ded omin­ous. I grabbed Salt’s hand just like a real little girl would and felt in­stantly bet­ter when he en­twined our fin­gers and squeezed. Then I felt ashamed of my re­ac­tion. We’d been on plenty of dan­ger­ous mis­sions be­fore and I’d never felt the urge to hold Salt’s hand. Why should I need his re­as­sur­ance now? But the fact re­mained that the touch of his big hand on mine made me feel bet­ter and try though I might, I couldn’t make my­self let go.

  “Now this is the main hall­way,” Dir­ector Berkley was say­ing. “Most of the other pub­lic areas lead off from it. This is the way to the din­ing room,” he poin­ted at one door. “And fur­ther down here you’ll find the play­room. Does your Little like play-dates with other Baby­girls?” he asked Salt. “We al­ways have two or three Baby­girls play­ing there dur­ing the af­ter­noons. All we ask is that every­one play nicely.”

  He shot me a side­long glance as though he wasn’t sure I was cap­able of that. I didn’t even try to smile back—the man was ser­i­ously creep­ing me out with his talk of play-dates and Baby­girls.

  “Mishka al­ways plays nicely with oth­ers,” Salt said firmly and squeezed my hand again.

  “Um, yeah. I do,” I chimed in.

  Berkley shot me an­other dis­ap­prov­ing glance and nod­ded. Huh—had it been wrong of me to an­swer? Did he really mean that seen and not heard crap? What a load of bull­shit! Still, there was noth­ing to do but try to smile at him—I wasn’t very suc­cess­ful—and go on with the tour.

  “So then, fur­ther down on the other side is the In­sti­tute cos­tume shop.” He poin­ted to a wooden door which had the thespian sign of two masks—one sad and one happy—painted on it. “Any­thing you need or de­sire for any age can be found there,” he told Salt. “And there’s no need to pay right away—it will simply be charged to your room.”

  “Thank you—is good to know,” Salt said. “Mishka and I had to pack lightly so we have not many out­fits for her.”

  “Leave it to Deirdre, our cos­tume lady,” Dir­ector Berkley said cheer­fully. “She has im­pec­cable taste. Now fur­ther down the hall­way we have a private in­door swim­ming pool, sauna, and spa. Littles can have beauty treat­ments just like big girls.”

  “Do you have a mas­seuse on staff then?” I asked without think­ing. I was think­ing that the pat­ent leather little girl shoes that went with the damn dress I was wear­ing were pinch­ing my toes like crazy. A foot mas­sage right about now would be nice.

  “Nat­ur­ally not.” Berkley glared at me but re­frained from telling me to shut up—barely. “That job is re­served for the Dad­dies or Bigs, as we some­times call them.” He nod­ded at the door­way again, which had a little wave sign on it. “You can find any kind of mas­sage oil or cream you need to soothe or stim­u­late your Little.”

  Ugh. I shivered in­vol­un­tar­ily. But then I thought of Salt rub­bing me all over with mas­sage oil, of those big, warm hands caress­ing my bare back and then mov­ing lower… Sud­denly my dis­gust melted away to be re­placed with in­terest.

  But no—we were try­ing to keep this as­sign­ment as unsexual as pos­sible. I needed to stop hav­ing thoughts like this—it was too weird and con­fus­ing.

  “Tell me,” Salt asked Berkley. “You say you have things to stim­u­late the Littles. Do you per­haps have some­thing to stim­u­late li­bido as well? Mishka and I have been tak­ing things slowly but maybe with a little help…”

  Berkley frowned. “If you’re talk­ing about an aph­ro­dis­iac, no cer­tainly not. We do not have a doc­tor on staff, so it wouldn’t be safe to dis­pense med­ic­a­tion.”

  “I see,” Salt said neut­rally. “But I have come all the way from Rus­sia be­cause you prom­ise some­thing dif­fer­ent here. Some­thing stim­u­lat­ing.”

  Berkley nod­ded. “Well, Mr. Saltanov, we do have a nurse in our med­ical wing. She can re­com­mend vari­ous salves that we have mixed at a local apo­thecary which will give your Little new and stim­u­lat­ing sen­sa­tions. I think you’ll find the res­ults are most sat­is­fact­ory with even the most re­luct­ant of Littles.”

  He shot me a glance which I re­turned blandly.

  “Why do you have a med­ical wing if you don’t have a doc­tor?” I asked. To hell with the little girl per­sona—he already thought I was a hor­rible Little any­way. Might as well get some an­swers.

  “Be­cause, young lady, some of our Dad­dies and Baby­girls like to par­ti­cip­ate in med­ical play,” snapped Berkley.

  “Med­ical play?” I asked, squeez­ing Salt’s hand more tightly. “What the hell is that?”

  “Young Lady.” Berkley was pos­it­ively glower­ing at me now. “While you are here at the In­sti­tute, please be aware that any swear­ing is severely pun­ished.” He looked at Salt. “If your Little can­not curb her­self, Mr. Saltanov, I’m afraid you will be re­quired to.”

  I stared at the man. Was he really that up­set be­cause I’d said “hell”?

  “I am sorry, Dir­ector Berkley. Will not hap­pen again.” Salt turned to me and held up one fin­ger. “Mishka, I real­ize you are tired after long jour­ney but this kind of be­ha­vior is un­ac­cept­able. You will start be­hav­ing at once.”

  “But—” I began

  Salt leaned even closer, his ice blue eyes blaz­ing into mine.

  “Mishka,” he rumbled. “This is your last warn­ing. Do not make me put you over my knee.”

  I felt my heart rate start to quicken. Was Salt ser­i­ous? Would he really spank me? Surely not but… I saw no lev­ity in that ice blue gaze, no ac­know­ledge­ment that he was just talk­ing to make Berkley happy. For a mo­ment, I was con­vinced that he really would put me over his knee, pull up my skirt, push down my panties and whip me un­til my back­side stung.

  “All right, Papa,” I said, try­ing to sound con­trite. “I’m sorry. I was just…just curi­ous.”

  “Well, let us sat­isfy your curi­os­ity about our med­ical fa­cil­it­ies at once,” Berkley said. “It’s up­stairs along with the other pun­ish­ment areas. I think we have just enough time for a quick tour be­fore din­ner starts.” He glanced at his watch—a Rolex by the look of it. Clearly the In­sti­tute was mak­ing bank—or else he was mak­ing a tidy profit from push­ing Please. I didn’t buy his protests that they didn’t dis­pense any med­ic­a­tion around here.

  We fol­lowed him back the
way we had come but I couldn’t help no­ti­cing there was an­other hall­way lead­ing off the main one that he had failed to men­tion. What was back there? Was it just ser­vice areas? Or maybe a secret lab full of chem­istry equip­ment for cook­ing Please?

  I nudged Salt and nod­ded at the other hall­way.

  “What is there?” he asked Berkley, point­ing.

  “A private of­fice,” Berkley said shortly. “And you should know that I am show­ing you all of the ad­miss­ible areas at the In­sti­tute on our little tour. We warn all our guests—our curi­ous Littles es­pe­cially—that other areas are off lim­its for safety reas­ons.”

  “Safety reas­ons?” Salt rumbled.

  “Of course. The kit­chen, for in­stance. We don’t want any of our Littles cut­ting them­selves on knives or get­ting burned on a hot stove. It’s purely com­mon sense.”

  “Oh, of course.” Salt nod­ded but I cast one last glace at the private hall­way and prom­ised my­self I would look into it later, when Salt and I didn’t have Berkley to con­tend with.

  We came back to the entry­way and the dir­ector led us up the left hand curving stair­case. My little black shoes clattered on the wooden stairs and I winced as they pinched my toes un­mer­ci­fully. Maybe we could visit the cos­tume shop and find me some­thing more com­fort­able—I swore these were go­ing to give me blisters if I didn’t get them off soon!

  The stair­case ended in a for­bid­ding look­ing set of double doors, both painted black. There was a sign hanging on one that said, Naughty Girls.

  I tried not to roll my eyes. Were they ser­i­ous with this crap?

  “Here we are,” Berkley said in a hushed voice. “Come right this way.” He opened the Naughty Girls door and stood back, wait­ing for Salt and I to go in be­fore him.

  Though I had scoffed to my­self about the door, I was strangely re­luct­ant to enter the pun­ish­ment wing of the In­sti­tute. But Berkley wanted to show us and we needed to look every­where for traces of the drug we had come to find. This was ac­tu­ally a good op­por­tun­ity, I told my­self. Still, part of me didn’t want to go past that black door.