A Controlled Descent Ii

I'm in my bedroom changing outfits (again). I thought I had settled on what to wear tonight, but now I'm thinking something low-waisted would be cuter. Without thinking, I shimmy out of my red Palazzo pants and dive back into my closet. I completely forget Tommy is on the bed behind me scrolling through his phone.

"What the fuck is that?" he says sounding alarmed.

For a half a second, I'm afraid Tommy can see the outline of the plug Daddy told me to wear out tonight through my panties. Then I realize he means the back of my thighs and spin around to hide them even though it's much too late for that now. "Nothing."

Tommy is up and off the bed. "Don't nothing me, bitch. Turn around. What happened to your legs?"

"It's not as bad as it looks."

It is exactly as bad as it looks. My caning was a week ago tonight, and the marks have had time to settle deep into my skin. I am one solid, uninterrupted bruise from the back of my knee to the middle of my ass. It doesn't actually hurt too much anymore although going to the gym this week has been its own fresh hell. At night, I can't keep my hands off myself and finger the bruises painfully while thinking about Daddy hurting me. I like to look at the marks he left on me in the mirror, turning this way and that to admire them from every angle. This will sound fucked up, but I love them so much. It was a punishment at the time but now feels more like a gift. That's not the right word, but I don't have a better one. My marks make me feel connected to him when we're apart, and I'm going to feel a little melancholy when they're gone.

I have fantasies about wearing a skirt out, nothing too short I don't want to make it obvious, but maybe if someone looks at my legs as I pass they might catch a glimpse and wonder what happened to me. Maybe it has to be a stranger for the fantasy to work though, because I am mortified about Tommy seeing. Shyly, I turn to show him my legs.

"What did that?" he demands with a horrified expression.

"A cane."

"A cane?

He

caned you?" Tommy never calls him Jack only

he

or

him

. "What, like a thousand times?"

"Forty-four."

"Forty-four?" he repeats. "Why forty-four?"

"I dropped a penny," I say, realizing that's only going to lead to more questions.

Tommy might be the picture of domesticity now that he's met James, but he was plenty slutty once upon a time. He was never especially kinky but dabbled here and there, and I'm pretty sure he tops James in the bedroom although they don't think about it in those terms. So, Tommy can talk the talk even if he isn't especially interested in taking that particular walk himself. He's known about Jack since before I even met him, back when he was still just a weirdly intimate textationship. It's been really nice to be able to confide in someone although I realize now that I stopped updating Tommy weeks ago. How am I supposed to explain that I call Jack, "Daddy" now and sleep in a dog crate at the foot of his bed? Better to keep it vague then worry Tommy with the details.

"Are you being safe?" Tommy asks, taking my hand.

"Yes," I say but he looks unconvinced. "Yes, I promise."

"Look at me and say it."

I lift my eyes from the floor where I hadn't realized they'd been. "I'm being safe."

He still looks doubtful. "Can I ask a question without you getting mad?"

I nod even though I hate that shit - how the hell am I supposed to know until I hear the question if I'll get mad?

"Look I am not one to kink shame, but would you even know if you're being safe?"

It's a harsh question and from anyone else I would be furious on general principle, but it's Tommy, and he has earned the right to ask whatever he wants. Plus, he has a solid point. Safety first has never exactly been my credo. How many risky situations have I put myself in with men? How many strangers have I fucked sight unseen, showing up at their apartments or hotel room doors and just rolling the dice with my life? And I may or may not have goaded a group of college friends into gangbanging me at a wedding in Boston not a month ago. So yeah, I think it's fair to say that my sense of self-preservation is not FDA approved. That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt a little that Tommy feels he has to ask.

"This is different," I say.

"Yeah," Tommy agrees, staring at my legs and ass. "Hard agree."

"No, I mean this is

different

," I insist and run my thumb along the links of my collar for confidence.

"How?"

"Because Daddy accepts me," I blurt out and regret it immediately.

Tommy doesn't try to hide his surprise. "Daddy?"

I blush furiously. "Jack, I mean Jack. He understands me."

"Mac, he's using you."

"Yes!" I say, excited that Tommy finally gets it. "He's using me."

"Jesus Christ, that's not a good thing," Tommy says, throwing his hands up in disbelief.

I realize then that I simply don't have the words to make Tommy understand. Thing is though, I have a pretty solid vocabulary, so it also occurs to me that maybe if I don't have the words that's because there aren't any. That maybe Tommy is right.

"Well, it is for me," I say and hate the note of apology in my voice.

He looks at a loss for words. "So, what's going on? Are you in love with him?"

"No, I thought I was at the beginning. But it's more than that."

"More? What's more than love?"

"I'm his," I say, knowing Tommy won't understand it the way I mean it.

"And is he yours back?"

"No. It doesn't go both ways. He has another girl." I have also been careful not to mention Chloe before now.

"So it's an open relationship?" he says, trying to understand through the lens of mainstream nonmonogamy and poly. "You can see other people if you want?"

"No that doesn't go both ways either."

His eyes narrow, his voice becoming icy. "So he can fuck other people, but you can't?"

"Not unless he tells me to," I say sensing this won't go over well either.

Tommy pauses, his brain stuttering over this new piece of information. "He can make you fuck other people?"

"Of course," I say as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I belong to him. He's my owner."

Tommy's eyes widen. "Owner? Holy shit that is so fucked up. This isn't normal, Mac."

My temper finally gets the better of me. "I fucking love when gay men throw around words like normal. Shows a real solid grasp of your own history, you know? But thanks so much for not kink shaming me, Tommy!" I storm out, make a lap around the living room, and come to a stop in the kitchen staring venomously at my bedroom door.

Tommy doesn't emerge for a couple of minutes, and I'm girded for battle when he finally shows his face. His hands are up in surrender though, and the first words out of his mouth are an apology. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm really sorry. That was a shitty choice of words. I'm just worried about you. This just sounds so unfair."

"It is unfair," I agree. "That's how I want it."

"And how is that healthy?"

He's just substituting the word healthy for normal, but I don't make an issue of it because I can see him trying. "Tommy, look at me. Do I seem more or less 'healthy' than I did a month ago?"

Again, his eyes drift down to the bruises.

I press him to look around. "What do you see?"

"Your apartment?"

"My

clean

apartment. You see piles of clothes? Shit everywhere? Dirty dishes in the sink?"

"No," Tommy admits. "And that's because of him?"

"You know how much I hate cleaning. Of course, it's because of him," I say. "And what usually happens when we go out?"

"At some point you ghost."

"Yeah, I hook up with some rando and then you yell at me the next day."

"I never yell at you," Tommy corrects.

"Yeah you do, but not tomorrow, because tonight I'll be with you until it's time to go home. And that's because of him, too. I can't explain it, but this is good for me. He says no when I'm too weak and stupid to say it myself. Can you understand that?"

Tommy is shaking his head. "Try and see it from my side, okay? You're seeing a guy at least twenty years older than you, who did that to your legs, who orders you around and makes you call him 'Daddy', who can fuck anyone he likes, and somehow has you believing this is all a good thing. It sounds like a cult, Mac. This is some David Koresh type shit. You see that, right?"

"It's not a cult," I say defensively, feeling relieved I left out the dog cage. "Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I don't trust you, bitch. Have you met you?" That's fair, but he sees he has wounded me. "But l love you, so if you tell me this is good for you, okay."

"Really?" I say hopefully because at this point I will settle for, 'okay.'

"Yeah okay, I will get on board."

"And can you not call it a cult again? Please?"

Tommy relents a little. "Yeah, I can do that. But I'm not not going to worry about you."

"It means a lot that you not not," I say and wrap my arms around him fiercely.

"You are a lot sometimes," he says with a laugh and hugs me back.

That settled, I finish changing, and we head out to meet our friends at a bar in Shaw. Over the course of the evening our party swells from six to as many as fifteen. We have a blast and all drink too much. There is dancing, which makes the plug do all sorts of wonderful things inside me when I move. I may or may not grind up on one guy just to fuck myself with the plug against his hip. I also flirt with everyone in sight because that's not against my rules, but when they ask for my number or socials I tell them sorry: this slut is taken. At midnight, I check in with Daddy to tell him I am the goddamn life of the party. He enquires about my night and sounds pleased with my answers. He's out with Chloe, but I can't bring myself to ask him how it is going. I'm doing my best to be positive about her but that's just more than I can manage yet.

Around one a.m., Tommy announces he wants to go to a karaoke bar on 14

th

Street, so the four survivors pile into a rideshare and relocate. When we get there, we find a table right away and pick our songs. With an impish wink, Tommy serenades me with Usher's

Hey Daddy

. It's his way of telling me that even if he doesn't understand, he still has my back. Because I'm a silly girl, it almost makes me cry. Not to be outdone though, I choose

Kiss with a Fist

, which I think is very clever. I may not have Florence Welch's voice, but I sing with gusto and that counts for something. James arrives just as my song ends and gives Tommy a lusty kiss that signifies the end of our night. They drop me at my apartment on their way home to fuck, and I make it to bed without having broken a single rule all night. I sleep the sleep of a good girl.

◊◊◊

One of the embarrassing side effects of being such an industrious slut is the sheer number of men who know how to contact me. Maybe there is a reputable excuse to be on Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, Snap, and Kik, but I sure don't have one. Daddy knows all this, and I expected to be ordered to delete all the apps or at least block any men who reach out. Instead, he told me not delete anything but that I'm not to read or answer any of the messages. I asked if I can at least mute the apps, which are massively distracting, but he said absolutely not. He wants me to hear all the wolves gathering at my door, sniffing for a way between my legs. Well, as soon as he puts it like that, I am a Pavlovian mess. Now every time my phone vibrates, it makes me wet and curious. Daddy is an evil kind of genius.

A few nights after going out with Tommy, I'm in Daddy's kitchen getting ready for dinner. Chloe has the evening off and is out with her friends, so it's just the two of us. He's had a hard few weeks at the office and has been too busy to eat well, so I suggest salads. When he agrees, I ask to prepare everything so he can relax, but unsurprisingly he wants to make the food together. He just isn't a man capable of doing nothing. Even when he's sitting still and watching a movie, I sense him analyzing and dissecting every frame. It's just how his mind works. He puts on music and pours a glass of wine; I am not offered one nor do I ask. His button down is untucked from his jeans, sleeves rolled to his elbows. I have a weird thing for a man's forearms, so watching him chop vegetables is really doing it for me. My nipples harden, and I bite my bottom lip trying not to linger on the image of him pinching them cruelly.

When Daddy made the rule that I would always be naked in his house, I didn't know how to feel. I did as I was told but couldn't not find the whole thing a little silly. It was the sort of a rule a boy who had never seen boobs before would make. I don't know the exact number, but I would bet my life that Daddy has seen more than his fair share of naked bodies. So why is it so important to see mine all the time? Only in the last few days have I begun to understand that it was never about him seeing my body. It's about my body being seen. I don't blame you if you think that's just a nitpicky, semantic difference. It's only once I lost the privilege of clothes that I realized how much I depend on them. Clothes are a kind of power. They give me control over how and when my body is seen. Taking that away is profound. So is always being naked around someone fully dressed. I can't hide from Daddy. I can't prevent him from looking at me from unflattering angles or seeing the parts of my body I don't love. Standing behind him, distracted by how handsome he looks, I am extremely aware of how hard my nipples are and since I'm naked know he must be aware as well. I am always at a disadvantage and that is all by design.

Despite the wine and music and naked girl, Daddy's mind is still a million miles away on work. I'm doing my best to lighten his mood, telling stories and being generally adorable, but nothing seems to work. I don't know what else to do. It's not like I can get any more naked at least not without an Allen wrench. Daddy even declines my request to blow him, which makes me pout a second longer than is wise, which in turn aggravates him, which in turn makes the hair at the nape of my neck stand up. We become a closed circuit of depravity. My phone chooses that moment to begin buzzing frantically. It's supposed to be on Do Not Disturb in the house, and this is the second time I've forgotten. Daddy slams his knife down on the cutting board and stares furiously at my cubbyhole.

I rush to silence my phone, apologizing profusely. Repeating himself is one of Daddy's major pet peeves, and he hods that neglecting the details is a sign of disrespect. If a girl can't attend to the little things then what chance do the big things have?

"Sorry Daddy," I say feeling very small yet not nearly small enough.

"Is that your fan club texting?" he asks, his voice low and quiet. It's his thunderstorm register or at least the register that precedes the storm.

The phone is still in my hand like incriminating evidence I forgot to throw in a river on the way back from committing a crime. "I don't know."

"Well don't let me keep you. Have a look."

Reluctantly, I glance down at my phone praying that it's an emergency at work or at least the death of a distant relative. No such luck. It must be a full moon because three different men are all texting me out of the blue. One I haven't heard from in over a year and barely remember although he apparently remembers me vividly judging by his fifteen unanswered texts. The other two are complete mysteries to me.

"And?" he demands.

"Yes Daddy," I admit shamefaced.

"Queuing up to fuck you, I assume?" he asks and points to his feet.

"Yes Daddy," I say, dropping to my knees. Have I mentioned how much I love looking up at him? It's like being in the shade of a tree and even when I'm scared, which I currently am, it makes me feel safe.

"How many?"

"Just now or overall?" The messages have really piled up since Daddy told me to stop checking the apps.

He rolls his eyes. "Overall."

"On all the apps, or just this one?" I ask, wanting to get the answer right but know it is only irritating him more.

"Jesus Christ, I'm too hungry for irrational numbers, so let's just stick to this one app."

"Yes Daddy," I say and add them up. "Three-hundred and thirty-eight messages from sixteen men."

"Sixteen... How many men have you fucked in your short life, whore?"

I lost track of my number during freshman year in college and have to admit that I have no idea.

"Plus or minus fifty?"

"Plus, Daddy."

"Plus or minus a hundred?"

"Daddy, I don't know. Probably minus."

"'Probably,'" he says, underlining my vagueness with his tone. "Fuck you are worthless."

"Yes Daddy," I agree and on cue my phone buzzes several more times in quick succession.

"Well, they don't give up, do they?" he says. "Even if you don't answer."

"No Daddy."

"Why do you think that is?"

"Because they know eventually I will cave," I say and then quickly amend. "Or would have caved before Daddy."

"They know you're a whore and are just playing the long game," he sums up.

"Yes Daddy."

He hands me a freshly washed cucumber from the counter. "Fuck yourself with this."

Because Daddy hates repeating himself, I've been practicing doing what I'm told without thinking. So even though my brain says, "What?" my mouth says, "Yes Daddy."

I adjust my knees to widen my stance and press the cucumber against my opening. It doesn't budge though because despite being an unrepentant slut, I'm still a very tight one. It's kind of a superpower. Plus, Mister Cucumber is a bit of a monster, and I'm wet but not that wet. With Daddy glaring down impatiently, I try to spit in my hand, but my mouth is dry from fear. In desperation, I put my whole hand in my mouth and rail the back of my throat with my fingertips until drool runs down my chin. Gathering the spit in my palm like a precious resource, I smear it between my legs and work my wet fingers into me. With my other hand, I get as much of the cucumber into my mouth as will fit without dislocating my jaw. I focus on how pathetic I must look, how devoid of dignity or pride down here on the floor fucking my own face with a vegetable. Daddy's disapproval spurs me on though, and my eyes never leave his.

When the cucumber is slick with my saliva, I try again to make it fit inside my uncooperative hole. I tell myself to just get the tip in. After that, it will just be a matter of time and determination. I do like the pressure. The feeling of being forced open this way is primal, and I hear myself moaning deep in my chest. Not from pleasure but from the exertion and concentration. My back breaks out in sweat. I whisper to my own body to just let go, but it is a stubborn little thing and fights the intruder. When at last I feel the pop that signals surrender, I inhale sharply and shudder at the way the cucumber stretches me. It's so lewd, and I hear my breathing becoming ragged as I work more and more inside me. Daddy watches impassively. He's like my mirror, and it is only in his eyes that I truly know how despicable I must look. There are moments when I want so badly for him to hate me.

"Daddy please may I cum?"

"No," he says and takes the phone from my hand. Scrolling through the app, he reads a chain of recent messages from a random suitor: "'Hey slut." "This is Ken.' 'You still around?' 'Miss your sexy little ass. No one fucks like you.' 'Meet me tonight. Wife's away on business.' 'Come on don't be shy. I know how badly you need it.' 'Where are you hiding, whore?' 'Hey.'" Daddy looks at me over the top of my phone. "He's a real wordsmith. I can see the appeal."

"I'm sorry, Daddy," I say without pausing my work.

He ignores me. "Tell me about Ken."

"I don't know who that is. I'd have to see his picture."