The Institute: Daddy Issues (26 page)

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 such 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
.”

Salt made a soft sound at the back of his throat but didn’t try to in­ter­rupt so I went on.
I could barely get the words out but I made my­self say them any­way.

“My father left me when I was so young and I guess…I guess I missed that. Missed hav­ing a man I could de­pend on and trust—one I
thought
I could trust any­way—never to leave me.” I looked down at my fin­gers which were twis­ted to­gether in a tight knot. My knuckles were white with ten­sion. “I con­vinced my­self you felt it too,” I said in a low voice. “What a stu­pid fool I was.”

“Andi—” he began again but I found I couldn’t look at him any­more. Now that I had ad­mit­ted my shame, I just wanted to get away.

I walked quickly into the kit­chen and went to the counter where I had been pre­par­ing cel­ery and car­rots earlier. Blindly, I picked up the knife and star­ted chop­ping again, sli­cing heed­lessly, not pay­ing much at­ten­tion to what I was do­ing. How could I? My en­tire be­ing seemed to be one snarled knot of shame and pain and hor­ror at what I had just ad­mit­ted to my part­ner—to the only man who had ever mattered to me since my father had left when I was nine.

He’ll think I’m sick,
I thought.
Sick and dis­gust­ing, ad­mit­ting I wanted that—no, that I
needed
it. Needed everything he did to me at the In­sti­tute. What man in his right mind would want a wo­man like that? Someone so weak? So needy and de­praved?

My thoughts were a mil­lion miles away and I wasn’t watch­ing what I was do­ing. It’s hardly a sur­prise that the knife chose that mo­ment to slip in my grasp and slice my fin­ger in­stead of the stalk of cel­ery I’d been hack­ing at.

I gasped and dropped it with a clat­ter on the cut­ting board. I didn’t know how bad the cut was and I didn’t want to know—I grabbed my bleed­ing fin­ger in my fist and squeezed tight, try­ing to stop the flow.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had this hap­pen but some­times when your mind is a mess and your emo­tions are in tur­moil, all it takes is a little phys­ical pain to push you over the edge.

I hadn’t cried when Salt sat in the Cap­tain’s of­fice and said he wanted an­other part­ner. I hadn’t cried while we watched the video of the two of us to­gether, even though I knew we never would be again. I hadn’t even cried when I told him my shame­ful secret—that I liked and needed the things we had been do­ing to­gether at the In­sti­tute. But now the sharp pain of my wounded fin­ger brought the tears that had been hov­er­ing like a rain cloud to the sur­face and I couldn’t hold them back any longer.

I clutched my wounded fin­ger to my chest and bowed my head as the sobs shook me. I didn’t want to be like this—didn’t
want
to be weak and needy and sick but some­how I couldn’t help it. The events of my child­hood had left me raw and warped in­side—flawed in a way that seemed im­possible to fix. I was scarred…dam­aged and I didn’t blame my part­ner for want­ing noth­ing to do with me now. I didn’t want any­thing to do with me either.

I wished I was dead.

Sud­denly I heard Salt come up be­hind me.

“Andi,” he said and his deep voice was wor­ried. “What happened—what is wrong?”

“I…I’m fine,” I choked out, try­ing des­per­ately to get con­trol of my­self. I didn’t want him to see me like this. Didn’t want him to think I was even weaker than he already did. “I just…I cut my­self but only a little bit. It’s a really small wound—I’m okay—you can go now.”

“Bull­shit,” he said. “Is
not
a small wound—there is blood every­where!”

“Is there?” I looked down and saw he was right—the pale green cel­ery and bright or­ange car­rots I had been cut­ting were now spattered with gory droplets of scar­let.

“Yes. So let me see.” He spun me around and tried to take my wounded hand but I backed away, keep­ing my dis­tance.

“I told you, I’m
fine
,” I said, wish­ing my voice soun­ded stronger. “Now please, would you just
go?”

“I am not go­ing any­where un­til you let me look at your fin­ger,” he said firmly. “Come.” He held out his hand for mine but I still res­isted.

“No.” I lif­ted my chin. “You’re not my part­ner any­more and you’re not re­spons­ible for me.”

“I
am
re­spons­ible for you,” he growled. Then his voice changed—went low and soft and com­mand­ing. “
Mishka,”
he said. “Let me see your fin­ger.”

“Don’t.” I looked up at him, my heart beat­ing so hard I thought it would burst. “Don’t do that.”

“I must.” Salt cupped my cheek in his big hand gently.
“Mishka,”
he said again. “Show Papa your hurt fin­ger. Let me make it bet­ter.”

For a mo­ment a blind­ing rage filled me—how
dare
he do this to me? How dare he use my weak­ness against me? Then I looked up at him, looked into his eyes. They were filled with ten­der­ness and de­sire—he was look­ing at me the same way he had at the In­sti­tute. The way he had when he rocked me and bathed me and read me bed­time stor­ies. There was no lie in his eyes—no de­cep­tion. Only the de­sire to heal and pro­tect me.

Word­lessly, I held out my wounded hand.

“Hmm.” Salt ex­amined me wor­riedly. The bleed­ing had mostly stopped be­cause I’d been put­ting pres­sure on it but it was still a long, ugly cut right up the middle of my ring fin­ger. How in the world I’d man­aged to slice my­self in such an awk­ward way I didn’t know but there it was and it hurt like hell.

“Salt—” I began but he shook his head.

“Call me Papa. And come to sink—let me tend you.”

He walked me over to the kit­chen sink and ran cold wa­ter over my cut. This made it bleed again but Salt wrapped it firmly in a pa­per towel and had me hold it tightly while he went for the first aid sup­plies. By the time he brought the Neo­sporin and bandaids, the cut had mostly stopped bleed­ing again. Salt ten­ded the wound and band­aged me care­fully.

“There,” he said at last, eye­ing his handi­work with ap­par­ent sat­is­fac­tion. “Should heal with no prob­lems now.”

“Thank you,” I said, not meet­ing his eyes.

“Thank you,
what?”
Salt asked sternly. When I wouldn’t an­swer him, he lif­ted my chin so that I had to meet his eyes.

“Thank you…
Papa,”
I whispered at last.

“That’s good. Very good, my little
mishka.”

Without warn­ing, he swung me up into his arms and car­ried me back to the liv­ing room.

I wanted to protest but be­fore I could, he had settled on the couch with me in his lap. I thought he was go­ing to kiss me but in­stead he pulled me against him and po­si­tioned my head on his chest. Then he stroked my hair and held me close. His big hands felt won­der­ful, mov­ing over my trem­bling back and shoulders, pet­ting my hips and arms and thighs, al­most as though he couldn’t bear to stop touch­ing me.

For my­self, I felt like I could never get enough of his touch, enough of be­ing close to him. But I still wasn’t com­pletely com­fort­able with what seemed to be hap­pen­ing.

“Salt,” I said in a low voice. “Please, you don’t have to do this—don’t have to act this way just for me.”

He stopped strok­ing me and let me sit up for a mo­ment.

“You think I am do­ing this only for you?” he asked, rais­ing an eye­brow at me.

“Well…aren’t you? I mean, the whole ‘Papa and
mishka’
thing? What could you pos­sibly get out of it?”