I could barely look at him. I hadn’t expected everything to come out like this. I didn’t even know I was still feeling so horrible about the accident, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. All the doctors ever did in that hospital was feed me drugs, and the therapy just amounted to the biggest drama queens monopolizing the group sessions. If I could have just sat in a corner for the rest of my life, I would have been fine in there.

Since I’d been out, I thought I felt better about everything, but maybe I wasn’t over the accident as much as I’d told myself I was. I had been seeing a doctor in the beginning, but had slowly stopped, and had stopped taking the remaining drugs she had me on. There were times when I got depressed, but after a while I actually started to appreciate that feeling over the total numbness the drugs caused. But the sadness I had over killing my parents and my best friend was still overwhelming at times.

I was so embarrassed that Drake knew, though. I was so afraid that he was just going to see me as a broken little girl now. Not a woman. I hid my face in his chest as he carried me upstairs and put me in his own bed. We stayed there like that all day, until we both decided that we were finally hungry. Then, he went downstairs and made some food for the two of us and brought it up on a tray.

We ate spaghetti carbonara in bed while we watched an old movie. I kept wanted to explain things to him. I felt like I wanted to make him understand how sorry I was, but when he turned and looked at me, there wasn’t a shred of anything but kindness there.

We slept together again that night and in the morning I woke up to Drake kissing me.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Good, but exhausted.” I sat up in bed and stared at him for a long time as I thought about our conversation the day before. “I had no idea I still had so much bottled up inside me.”

“I know what you mean,” he said, standing up in front of me. “I feel a lot better today too. I’m glad we talked.” He grabbed both of my hands in his and pulled me up. “I made breakfast. It’s downstairs.”

I followed him down to a sitting area where two plates of food and coffee and juice sat on a table between some comfortable chairs. We sat down and started to eat, continuing the conversation.

“I’m so glad we talked too, Drake. I … I’m just so happy that you … want me to be here with you.“

Drake grabbed my hand across the table and brought it to his lips. “I don’t know if I could stand for you to be anywhere else, Ashley. I love that you’re here.”

My heart practically leapt out of my chest when I heard those words. He really did want me to stay. We ate in silence for the most part, and just as he poured us both some more coffee, he asked me another question.

“Do you mind if I ask you something?” Drake looked at me while I took a sip of coffee and shook my head, indicating that I didn’t mind answering anything he asked.

“Why did you start camming?”

I was a little taken aback. I wondered if he had that strange, puritanical belief about girls who got involved in the sex industry early on—that they must have been abused in some way as a child. Or that they had experienced some sort of trauma. I wondered if that’s what he was thinking. That I got into camming because of the accident and my suicide attempt. I wondered if he did still see me as broken.

“Don’t you think that girls can be sexual beings on their own? Does there have to be a reason?”

“Of course they can be. I was just curious about your own motives. Have you always been … sexual?”

He didn’t seem embarrassed to be asking about my sexuality, which was nice.

“You’re not someone who thinks that girls are pure and if they showed interest in sex at an early age that some man had to have given them that idea, are you?”

“No, I’m not. But I do find it interesting that you masturbate for men online but have not had sexual intercourse yet. I find it very curious, Ashley.”

“Well, I remember masturbating at a very young age, in front of my parents without their knowledge. I was probably about eight or nine years old and I had this really big t-shirt that I slept in that I would wear while we watched TV before bed. Sometimes I would sit with my legs crossed and I would pull the t-shirt over my legs and then pull my arms inside too, so that everything was covered up. My parents thought it was cute and said I looked like a little clam. But what they didn’t know is that a lot of the time I would be silently playing with myself while their eyes were on the TV.”

Drake’s eyebrows moved up high on his forehead as I continued.

“I would touch my clit and rub it back and forth, and the very first orgasm I ever had was in front of both of my parents, just like that. I had no idea what had happened, I just knew that it made my whole body feel good. But because touching yourself wasn’t something we talked about much, I didn’t ever tell anyone.

“But no one touched me or got me to do it. I don’t remember any man making me feel weird in any way. I figured it out all on my own. And when I got older I … well I saw pictures of things that I thought were interesting.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about what I’d seen, the pictures of him fucking his wife in the ass. But I was curious about him, too.

“If you don’t want to talk about it that’s okay,” Drake said, after a long silence.

“No, it’s not that. I don’t mind talking about it at all. I was just thinking …”

“About?”

“About why you like to do … what you do.” I was kind of shy about asking him, but all I could think about since I found out that he was the one who had kidnapped me was those photographs … and the time I saw him spanking Jessica’s mom. “The dominant stuff.”

“Well,” he paused for a long moment. “I’m not sure if anyone can answer that question—why they like one thing over another. Sometime I think it has to do with things we’re exposed to at an early age—“

“So you do think we become who we are because of things that happened when we were kids?” I was a little disappointed in that answer and I was pretty sure it showed in my voice.

“Well, I don’t think it’s the only influence, but, sure, I think it contributes. I also think that a lot of people claim to have preferences when they really just allow themselves to be guided by the world around them—popular culture or what their friends like. Why are you so curious about this? Is it because of what happened in the bedroom? Did that scare you?”

“No, not at all! I loved it. I’ve always … I mean, for a long time now, I’ve thought about that sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing?”

I wanted so badly to have this conversation, but I was still feeling embarrassed. I wished we didn’t have so much between us in our past. I wished that we had just started out together and this was all fresh and new.

Plus, it felt funny telling someone what I wanted. I’d never done it before with any boy. They seemed perfectly happy to tell me what they wanted, but somehow I had never gotten up the courage to ask for things that I wanted. Maybe because I’d never been taught that it’s okay to want things. That, if I’m not hurting anyone, there was nothing to be embarrassed about when it came to sex. But it was still hard to say it out loud. “Being spanked.”

“You want to be spanked?” I could tell Drake’s eyes were on me. I could practically feel them burning into the top of my head while I looked down at my fidgety fingers. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Ashley. Is being a submissive something you’re interested in? Or was everything on Daddyland just an act. It’s okay if it was. I’d like to know.”

“It wasn’t an act at all.” I finally got the courage to look up and it was exactly as I had feared, Drake was looking right at me. His eyes were fixed on mine so intently, they made me suck my breath in. I didn’t know what it was about his eyes, but when they were fixed on me like they were now, I felt so helpless. Like I was completely under his control. “I … I’ve wanted to be spanked, ever since …”

“Ever since when?” The sound of his voice was hypnotic, almost as if he were prying me open and taking what he wanted with his words.

“Ever since I saw you.” I could feel my face growing hot. I couldn’t look into those black eyes anymore. They made me feel naked. Even more naked and vulnerable than when I had no clothes on when we were in the bedroom. I didn’t understand how he could do what he was doing without saying a word.

“Ever since you saw me where? What did you see, Ashley?”

My head was spinning. I felt like a horrible person for having spied on him. But I had—twice.

“I saw you … through the balcony doors at the vacation house … with Jessica’s … I mean, with Samantha. I saw you pulling her hair and spanking her and … I saw you …”

“You saw me fuck her in the ass. Yes, I remember that night. How long were you watching?”

“I watched you spank her, and I heard you tell her that she was a filthy slut, and when you finished and came toward the balcony doors I ran away.” Everything I was saying was making me squirm. I felt like I was back at the clinic being questioned by one of the doctors. But there was something about the feeling this time that was turning me on. Something about the way Drake was looking at me. When I finally got the courage to look into his eyes again I felt like a rabbit caught in a trap. There was something in his eyes. Something that made him look like he was about to devour me.

“Are you a filthy little slut, Ashley?”

Drake’s words stunned me into silence. Where I had been unable to keep myself from fidgeting a second earlier, now I was as still as a statue.

“Are you going to answer my question?” His voice had a tinge of impatience that was smoothed over by a blanket of unquestionable authority. His tone demanded an answer.

“Yes,” I said quietly.

“When I ask you a question look at me, Ashley. I’m going to ask you one more time, and I want a proper answer. Are you a filthy little slut?”

I looked up slowly, sure that my face was beet red and wishing there was some way I could conceal it. When my eyes finally met his, there was that intensity again, but there was more. Excitement and even a touch of amusement. He looked like he was about to pounce on me from where he was sitting. “Yes, I’m a filthy little slut.”

“Then why haven’t you had a man inside you? Why are you still a virgin?”

I looked down at my hands. I knew it was silly. I had always known that it was silly, and now he was making me say it out loud.

“Why, Ashley?”

“Because … because I’ve always wanted you to be my first. I’ve been saving myself for you.”

I could have sworn he was going to jump up right then and come after me, but instead he sat back further in his chair. He unzipped his pants and brought out his cock. It was only partially hard, but it was still enormous. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it.

“This is what you want? This is the cock you’ve dreamed of being the very first inside you? This is what you want to stretch and fill up that virgin pussy of yours? Well, you’re going to have to work for it, like the filthy slut that you are.”

I looked up at Drake’s face and he was smiling. His hand moved up and down his, now hard, cock and he was smiling. I couldn’t even breathe. I had no idea what he was going to do. This was everything I’d ever wanted—everything I’d ever dreamed about—and it was happening right now.

“Take off your clothes and come stand in front of me.”

I did as I was told and when I stood in front of Drake my whole body started to quiver.

“Lay down across my lap.”

I crawled up onto the chair and across Drake’s lap. I could feel his hard cock pressed up against the side of my stomach, then one of his hands on my bare ass cheeks.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asked, bringing his hand down lightly and giving me what would be considered a love tap. After a moment and no answer, he grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled it back so that I was looking at the ceiling. “Is this what you wanted, Ashley? Don’t make me ask you again.”

“No, Sir.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to spank me harder.” I felt the color rush to my cheeks again. Not only was he making me tell him that I wanted to be spanked, he was forcing me tell him that I wanted him to spank me harder. It was humiliating, but that humiliation translated into tingles that pulsated in between my legs, sending my juices flowing down my thighs.

I felt his hand come down on my ass again, a little harder this time but still not as hard as I’d imagined.

“Like this?” he asked, his hand still curled around a fistful of my hair.

“Harder,” I replied.

“Please.”

“Harder, please,” I said with a quiver in my voice. He sounded like he was enjoying himself, and when I thought back about the look on his face in the pictures and what I saw through the window, I knew he was. He loved this.

His hand came down on my ass harder this time, and I felt the sting spread to my pussy. I could also feel Drake’s cock getting harder as it brushed against my stomach. “Was that hard enough for you? Or would you like more?”

“More, please.” It was humiliating asking to be spanked like this. But somehow, each time he asked me to tell him what I wanted, I could feel my pussy getting more and more wet, until my juices were not just dripping down my thighs, streams of my desire were pooling up underneath me.

Drake released my hair and moved his left hand so that it was gripping my waist, then with his right hand he leveled several hard blows right on the same ass cheek, causing me to squirm and yell out in pain. My hands flew back to cover my ass in a total reflexive reaction and Drake caught both of them in one of his.

“That,” he almost yelled. “Will cost you, young lady. I never want to see you covering your ass in front of me again. Is that understood?”

I said yes and he dropped my hands. I let them fall to my sides and swore to myself that I wouldn’t move them again. My body jumped when I felt both of his hands on me again, but this time he was spreading me apart. I felt Drake’s fingers slide up and down the slippery surface of my pussy, gliding over my clit and spreading my juices up to my asshole.

“You are a filthy little slut, aren’t you?” he said with a wicked laugh.