The Institute: Daddy Issues (14 page)

“It’s all right,” I whispered, rub­bing my cheek against his. “It’s all right now.”

He didn’t ac­tu­ally cry but his eyes did leak a little. It was the most emo­tion I’d ever seen from him and it tore at my heart to know he was in so much pain.

How was it that we had worked to­gether for three years and I had never had any idea of this be­fore? Maybe be­cause I didn’t much like to talk about my own past, my part­ner had been re­luct­ant to dis­cuss his as well. Or maybe it had taken a place like the In­sti­tute where you were forced to dive back into the deep, dark well of child­hood memor­ies to bring this ugly, hurt­ful truth out into the light.

We clung to­gether for a long mo­ment and then Salt slowly re­leased me.

“For­give me,” he said gruffly, swip­ing at his eyes. “This is…un­manly dis­play.”

“Maybe in Rus­sia it is,” I said. “But you’re not there any­more. You’re here—with me.”

“Yes.” He gave me one of his rare side­ways smiles—the barest lift­ing of one corner of his mouth. “We are here to­gether. For this I am glad.”

“Me too,” I said. “God, we’re both really screwed up, aren’t we? Stevens was right about the is­sues and this place isn’t help­ing them any.”

“He was right,” Salt ac­know­ledged softly. “Still, I am not sorry that we came here.”

For a mo­ment I looked into his eyes and it oc­curred to me that we were close—close enough to kiss as we had in Dr. Lucy’s of­fice. It also oc­curred to me that I
wanted
to kiss him—which scared me to death.

“Andi…
Mishka,”
Salt whispered and brushed his knuckles gently over my cheek.

“Salt,” I mur­mured. I wanted badly to lean to­wards him—to let it hap­pen. But that would ruin everything. We were get­ting in too deep again—for­get­ting the real reason we were here and let­ting emo­tion cloud our judg­ment.

I sat back a little, though I kept my hand on his arm.

“I think we need a plan of ac­tion,” I said, try­ing to make my voice sound nor­mal.

Salt frowned. “I thought we had plan. You will mis­be­have and I will spank you.”

“And…you’re okay with that? Be­cause I thought you weren’t be­fore.”

“I was re­luct­ant, as I told you,” he mur­mured. “But as you say, we are just play act­ing. Everything we have to do here is only for show.”

I felt a rush of re­lief. “Right! Of
course
.” I nod­ded. “So no mat­ter what hap­pens to­night, we need to re­mem­ber that. It’s only for show.”

“Ex­actly,” Salt rumbled.

“Good,” I said. “Then we’ve got our plan. We just have to stick to it and do…do what has to be done.”

But some­how I couldn’t meet his eyes as I said it. Just for show—everything here was just for show, I told my­self.

Then why did I have such a hard time mak­ing my­self be­lieve it?

“I hope you had a pro­duct­ive ses­sion with Dr. Ne­w­house today?” Dir­ector Berkley raised his salt and pep­per eye­brows at us in­quir­ingly.

“Yes. Most pro­duct­ive.” Salt nod­ded firmly. We were seated across the table from Berkley and Mandy again—Salt was in a nor­mal chair and I was perched on the stu­pid booster seat.

Mandy, who was dir­ectly op­pos­ite me, was be­hav­ing her­self for once. She was barely pick­ing at her din­ner but she had thirstily drained her glass of pink fruit punch and asked for more.

My­self, I still couldn’t stand the stuff. I had taken a few sips to be po­lite but I was mostly drink­ing Salt’s wa­ter while he had wine. The din­ner was some kind of pork chop with wild mush­room sauce and peas but I was barely pay­ing any at­ten­tion to eat­ing. I was too anxious and nervous about what I was about to do to have much ap­pet­ite. I knew I had to cause a huge scene—but how, ex­actly? What should I do to make Salt pre­tend to spank me?

“I’m glad that speak­ing with Dr. Ne­w­house helped,” Berkley said to Salt. Be­cause I’m afraid I have some mat­ters of grave im­port­ance to dis­cuss with you.”

“Which is what?” Salt frowned at him and I felt my stom­ach clench with ten­sion. Was Berkley on to us? Had Dr. Ne­w­house told him she sus­pec­ted us of be­ing fakes?

“You may not know this, but we mon­itor each of our guest suites for…er, safety reas­ons,” Berkley said, lean­ing across the table and keep­ing his voice low.

“So you are watch­ing us in the pri­vacy of our rooms?” Salt did a pretty good job of look­ing out­raged. “I can­not be­lieve—”

“Please, Mr. Saltanov, as I said we only watch to en­sure the safety of our guests. And the fact that we do so is plainly stated in the con­tract you signed be­fore we agreed to have you here at the In­sti­tute,” Berkley said sternly. “Leg­ally, we are do­ing noth­ing wrong.”

Salt sat back and crossed his arms over his broad chest.

“I still do not like,” he growled.

“Well, you don’t
have
to like it but I’m afraid that while we were mon­it­or­ing you and your little
mishka
last night, we picked up both a safety vi­ol­a­tion
and
a breech of the con­tract which you signed.”

My heart star­ted beat­ing triple time.
Here we go…
I was cer­tain that they must have heard Salt and me dis­cuss­ing the case—the cam­eras must have mi­cro­phones on them after all. Berkley was about to tell us our cover was blown and our case would be his­tory.

I was so wor­ried and tense that the dir­ector’s next words al­most failed to re­gister with me.

“Your Baby­girl was seen tak­ing a shower
by her­self,”
he said.

“What?” Salt looked at him blankly and I felt my heart rate be­gin to slow a little.

“I
said
that
mishka
was in the bath­room
alone
in the shower stall,” Berkley re­peated.

“I do not see the prob­lem.” Salt shook his head. “Other than the fact that you were look­ing at my
mishka
without her clothes which I do
not
like.” He glared.

“Baby­girls can­not be al­lowed to take baths or showers un­at­ten­ded,” Berkley said sternly, ig­nor­ing Salt’s ac­cus­a­tion. “It’s dan­ger­ous. Our rules ex­pressly state that Baby­girls are not to bathe them­selves—they must be given a bath by their Daddy each night be­fore bed­time.”

“I…un­der­stand.” Salt and I ex­changed a quick glance and I felt my cheeks get­ting hot. Was Berkley say­ing what I
thought
he was say­ing? Was he really de­mand­ing that Salt give me a bath every night we were here?

Old per­vert prob­ably just wants to watch on the damn mon­it­ors,
I thought sourly.
Prob­ably has a bath fet­ish or some­thing weird like that.

But then Berkley made it even worse.

“So that was the rule vi­ol­a­tion. But the con­tract breech is even more im­port­ant. It clearly states, in the con­tract that you signed, that all Baby­girls are to be clean shaven…” He cleared his throat. “Down be­low.”

This time I couldn’t keep quiet.

“Ex­cuse me? Are you telling me I have to shave my…” I cleared my throat. “That I have to
shave
, Dir­ector Berkley?”

He frowned at be­ing spoken to so im­per­tin­ently by a Little but he
did
an­swer me.

“Most cer­tainly not, young lady,” he said sternly. “Every­one knows it isn’t safe for Littles to play with razors. Your Daddy will shave you nice and clean.” He turned to Salt. “I’ll see that you have all the ne­ces­sary equip­ment in your suite to­night. Just see that the mat­ter is taken care of without fur­ther ado or I’m afraid we can­not con­tinue host­ing you here at the In­sti­tute.”

“What?”
I ex­ploded. “You’re say­ing that in or­der to stay here—”

“Enough,
mishka!”
Salt banged one big fist on the table, mak­ing the sil­ver­ware jump and jangle. “You must learn not to speak so to adults—to Bigs,” he rumbled men­acingly.

“But he’s be­ing an as­shole!” I poin­ted a fin­ger at Berkley. “A com­plete and total as­shole! And he prob­ably just wants to watch us and get off while he does.”

“How dare you?” Berkley’s eyes flashed. “Mr. Saltanov,” he spluttered. “Either con­trol and dis­cip­line your Baby­girl at once or
I
will!”

Salt looked back at him, his eyes like pale blue slits.

“Nobody touches my
miskha
but me—
never
for­get that, Berkley. How­ever…” He turned his chilly gaze on me. “In this case you are right—such lan­guage is com­pletely un­ac­cept­able.
Mishka
, I did not want to do this but now I am afraid I must pun­ish you—get over my knee.”

“No!” Though we had planned all this out in ad­vance—well, not the fight with Berkley, that was just a happy ac­ci­dent—I sud­denly felt very re­luct­ant to go through with it. The idea of be­ing put over Salt’s knee with my panties pulled down and my ass in the air for every­one to see was mor­ti­fy­ing—more than I could bear. So when Salt grabbed my arm and dragged me to him, I was fight­ing him for real.

“Settle down,
mishka,”
he grated out, frown­ing at me. “The sooner you take your pun­ish­ment, the sooner will be over.”

“Salt,” I whispered des­per­ately. “I don’t want to do this. I changed my mind!”

I saw a flicker of re­gret in his face but he gave a short, sharp shake of his head.

“Is too late,” he mur­mured. “We must.”

And then he pulled me over his lap and raised my skirt.

“No—
no!”
I gasped as I felt his long fin­gers hook in the back waist­band of my in­no­cent pink panties and drag them down to my thighs. Now my ass was com­pletely bare and every­one in the din­ing room could see it! I began to struggle and squirm but Salt anchored me firmly with one big, mus­cu­lar arm so that I couldn’t get away.

“You have been very,
very
bad girl,
mishka,”
he an­nounced loudly. Then his big hand came down on my ass
hard—SMACK—
and the pain made me for­get all about the hu­mi­li­ation.

“Ow—
ow!”
I cried as Salt spanked me over and over again.
Smack-smack-smack…
slow, meas­ured blows that seemed de­signed to set my whole ass on fire.

“That’s good—really red­den her bot­tom. Make it glow like a sun­set!” I heard Berkley say, his voice drip­ping with sat­is­fac­tion.

Bas­tard!
I writhed in Salt’s lap, cry­ing out with pain though I didn’t want to. My part­ner had ap­par­ently de­cided to make this as real as pos­sible be­cause he didn’t seem to be hold­ing back. At least, it didn’t
feel
like it to my poor, sting­ing ass cheeks.

But though the whip­ping really hurt—so much that tears of pain were stand­ing in my eyes—some­thing strange seemed to be hap­pen­ing. I could feel my pussy get­ting wet as I wiggled all over Salt’s lap. His heavy hand was hold­ing me down, press­ing my breasts against his legs and I could feel my sens­it­ive nipples rub­bing against his thigh through the thin ma­ter­ial of my dress.

What was hap­pen­ing to me? Was I get­ting turned on by this? Surely not! And yet, as the spank­ing went on and on, I couldn’t deny the wet­ness between my thighs. I couldn’t
un­der­stand
it—why was the pun­ish­ment af­fect­ing me this way?

And then, with one fi­nal
smack
the whip­ping fi­nally ended.

“All right,
mishka?”
I heard Salt mur­mur­ing in my ear as he smoothed the hair away from my tearstained cheeks.

“No,” I said thickly. “I’m most def­in­itely
not
all right, you bas­tard.”

“Shh…” Salt muttered. “Do not make me spank you again. Watch the lan­guage.”

“Fine.” I got off his lap rather stiffly and pulled up my panties with as much dig­nity as I could muster. Which hon­estly, wasn’t much with every­one at the table star­ing at me.

“Mishka…”
A look of re­morse was in Salt’s eyes as he used his linen nap­kin to dry my cheeks.

“Leave me alone.” I jerked away from his gentle touch. I was pissed off at him—not only for whip­ping me much harder than I felt he had a right to, but also for the weird feel­ings I’d got­ten while he was do­ing it. I still couldn’t ex­plain why my pussy was so wet and swollen even as my ass was sting­ing but it made me feel angry—made me feel like a freak.

I’m not like these other ‘Baby­girls’
I told my­self.
I do
NOT
get off on pain and hu­mi­li­ation!

Yes, but maybe you
do
get off on hav­ing all of your Daddy’s at­ten­tion centered just on you,
whispered an in­si­di­ous little voice in my brain.
Maybe you like know­ing that he loves you enough to dis­cip­line you…and that he’s so strong you can’t get away from him and his love even when you try. You can’t run away—he won’t let you go and he will stay with you forever…

I pushed the con­fus­ing thoughts away and tried to con­cen­trate on what was go­ing on.

“Now,” Salt was ask­ing me sternly. “Do you wish to apo­lo­gize to Dir­ector Berkley?”

“No,” I said, scowl­ing.

“Mishka…”
Salt looked at me warn­ingly.

“Fine.” I stared at Berkley. “I’m sorry I called you an as­shole.”

He sucked in his breath. “Very well but please re­mem­ber that in the fu­ture such lan­guage is not ap­pro­pri­ate or ac­cept­able here at the In­sti­tute.”

“Fine,” I muttered again and sat gingerly back on my booster seat. The cool leather felt good against my heated bot­tom but it was dif­fi­cult to sit down when my sting­ing ass was still singing
Ave Maria
.

“Now then, maybe we can re­sume our din­ner,” Berkley said primly. He glanced at Mandy who was star­ing at me with a look of re­sent­ment on her face. “Prin­cess, eat your peas.”

“No!” she pushed the plate away ab­ruptly. “I don’t
like
peas!”

“Mandy…”
Berkley frowned but his little “prin­cess” was already in full tan­trum mode.

“I don’t
like
them!” she shrieked. “I hate them and I hate,
you
, Daddy!”

Clearly, she was angling for a pun­ish­ment. Maybe she felt like I had stolen her thun­der by be­ing spanked first and now she wanted to be the cen­ter of at­ten­tion. Which she cer­tainly was. Nobody was look­ing at me now—all eyes were on the little blonde who was wear­ing an out­fit that was even skim­pier than the one she’d had on the night be­fore, if pos­sible. I could see the round pink arcs of her are­olas peek­ing out from un­der the brief top she had on and her skirt was, as al­ways, in­de­cently short.

Berkley looked ex­as­per­ated.

“Mandy, I am not in the mood for this right now,” he said sternly. “Just fin­ish your sup­per, there’s a good girl.”

“I don’t
want
to be a good girl.” Mandy scooped up a hand­ful of peas and threw them across the table. A few landed on my plate.

“Eww!” I ex­claimed, de­cid­ing to go with it. “I don’t want your nasty peas on my plate! Get them
off!”
Scoop­ing up my own hand­ful, I threw them back at her, try­ing to get some in her golden hair.

“You bitch!” Mandy shouted while Salt grabbed my arm to keep me from throw­ing more. “I’ll get you for that!”

“You will do no such thing.” Berkley looked ex­as­per­ated. Maybe he was get­ting tired of this game? Or maybe he just wasn’t in the mood for his­tri­on­ics every night. “You’re go­ing dir­ectly un­der the table,” he told his Baby­girl. And grabbing her by the back of her neck, he forced her down un­der the table­cloth.