Chapter Nine
“So, um, my parents want you to come for dinner.”
We’re sitting on Rufus’s couch. My feet are in his lap and he’s painting my toenails purple. He’s surprisingly good at it for someone who’s never done it before.
When my parents mentioned that they want us over on our next day off I didn’t know what to say. Part of it is worry that it’s too couple-y for us. Too normal. On the way to work I became all wistful, for the first time wishing I had the sort of boyfriend other girls did, where dinner with the parents is a natural part of the relationship. There are no guidelines for having a dom. He might laugh at me, or tell me I’m silly.
The other part of it is terror that he will say yes.
Rufus looks up and grins. “You look like you’re about to throw up, kitten. Do you think I won’t be able to behave myself?”
The terror suddenly expands. “Of course not. You’ll be the perfect, affable gentleman and charm the pants off them, but they’re going to be able to see it written all over my face. They’re going to know.”
“Know what, kitten?” he says, eyes wide, mimicking my innocent-little-girl look.
“What we do,” I wail, and press my face into a couch cushion.
He scoffs. “Oh, please. I doubt they’ve even heard of what we do. Or if they have, then maybe they’re into it themselves, so who cares.”
I lift my head, my face a rictus of horror. “Don’t even joke about that, they’re my parents.”
“Hold still, I’m going outside the lines. Daddy’s not as good at coloring in as you are.”
I shudder. “Oh, god. What if I accidentally call you daddy in front of them?”
“What’s my name?”
“Rufus.”
“There you are, then. No danger.” He slants me a look. “But who cares if you do?”
My embarrassment goes nuclear. “Oh my god, Rufus, you can’t say things like that. I would die. I would literally, physically crumple up and die. I’d be disowned. I’d be flayed and quartered and hung out to dry.”
He winces at my screeching. “Calm down, babygirl. It’s just a word. You’re not a murderer.”
“I would be, because they would die, too!”
He caps the nail polish and turns to me, placing one hand just above my knee, digging his fingers in. His eyes have turned that flinty that’s-quite-enough-young-lady color. “Look at me. You are not going to accidentally call me daddy in front of your parents. They are not going to be able to read anything in your face.” His grip on my leg tightens. “We will have a nice, friendly dinner, and then I will go home and they will tell you how much they like your settled, mature boyfriend, and how good they think he is for you. All right?”
I take a deep breath. Most of the tightness has disappeared from my chest. “Are you sure?”
“Sweetheart, I know so. Take another deep breath.”
I do, and I feel better.
“All right?”
“Yes, daddy.”
“Good girl.” He returns to painting my toenails but he’s watching me out of the corner of his eye.
He’s so confident that my parents are going to love him. Hell, they already do half love him and they’ve only met him for thirty seconds. How is Rufus? Did you have a good date with Rufus? What a good influence Rufus has on you, we’ve been trying to get you to eat vegetables for years. “Haven’t half got a good opinion of yourself,” I mutter.
He grins like he was waiting for me to say it. “There’s my bratty girl.”
* * *
An hour before he’s due to arrive for dinner I get a text from him. Can I fuck you in your frilly bedroom?
Do you want me to have a panic attack?
Breathe, babygirl. What’s my name?
Rufus.
Good girl.
“Abby, could you get some red wine out of the garage?” my father calls from the kitchen.
I’ve hidden myself in the laundry to text Rufus. “Yes,” I call, and I tuck my phone into my jeans pocket and go and get the wine. The good wine is in the garage. Rufus is deserving of the good wine. I make a face that Rufus would call bratty, and go and get it.
He arrives dead on time, of course, and my mother opens the door. The smell of her perfume is all through the house and she practically twitters up at him, “Oh, is that your car? How smart.”
I get a kiss on the cheek and a sly wink, which makes me blush, and he hands my father a bottle of wine. I recognize the label. It’s the same wine we drank at the restaurant the first night we slept together.
I’m not able to do much talking at the dinner table except for “Yes,” “No,” and “Thank you.” Rufus keeps up his end, though, asking my parents about their plans to move to the country and talking sensibly about the state of the housing market.
My mother has made a roast even though it’s Monday, because I told her once that Rufus never gets Sunday dinner because he’s always working. She seems to think this is about as tragic as the erosion of the ozone layer and has cooked him an enormous joint of beef. She’s forgotten that I don’t ever get Sunday dinner, either.
Rufus doesn’t pass me the dishes of vegetables. He serves them for me, and I see from my mother’s expression that when he leaves she’s going to go on and on about his old-world charm. I almost want to call him daddy so they’ll know how corrupt he really is.
My father has noticed the vegetables as well, and that I’m eating them. “Rufus, we’ve been trying to get Abby on a decent diet her whole life. How did you manage it?” He finishes with a laugh; he’s half joking, probably thinking I’ve done this myself because I want to impress my boyfriend or something.
He looks me right in the eye and says, “Oh, I just asked nicely.”
My mother simpers at him. I am going to kill him.
When we’re finished my mother says, “Why don’t you give Rufus a tour of the house while I get the dessert ready?”
I noticed that she says dessert and not pudding. In our house we always call it pudding, but that’s not good enough, apparently, for smart Rufus with his smart car.
“See,” he murmurs in my ear as I take him out to the back garden. “They love me.”
“Yes,” I agree. “It’s disgusting.”
He looks at me in surprise. “Princess. What do you mean?”
“My mother,” I say in a stage whisper, pointing toward the kitchen, “has said pudding her whole life, and then you show up with your nice car and your manners and suddenly it’s dessert.”
He grins. “I think she likes me.”
“You don’t deserve it.”
“No, I don’t,” he agrees. “I don’t deserve you, either. Come here.” He puts his arms around me and I resist a little, but let myself get tugged toward him.
“You’re a very bad man,” I tell him.
“The worst.” And he kisses me.
I take him up to my room, and he frowns. “It’s a little stark, isn’t it? I was expecting lots of pictures and knick-knacks and personal things.”
I shrug. “My mother persuaded me to get rid of a lot of those things over the years. It used to be pink,” I say, looking at the walls.
“I’m sorry, kitten. That must have been hard.” He looks like he really means it, too. He sits down on my bed and picks up Chubbles. “Who’s this, then?”
We spend a few minutes going through all my stuffies and he admires each one as I pile them into his lap.
“You know,” I confess, “they were all in a box upstairs until recently. The night you yelled at me I came home and cried and dumped them all out and slept on the box room floor with them. My mother found me there the next morning.”
He looks stricken at this confession, like I still might be hurting because of something he did. “Oh, kitten. I’m so sorry.”
“No, no, it’s all right. Later on you were the reason I had the courage to bring them all downstairs again. The night you asked me to call you, you know, the thing, I started Googling, um, the thing, and found all these other girls like me. It was such a relief. I brought them all downstairs again the next morning.”
There’s a look on his face that’s warm and sweet and intense at the same time.
I want to ask him how he felt when he realized what he was into, and if he’s ever been afraid of what people might think, but I hear someone walk loudly up the stairs, cough, say my name, and then my father puts his head round the door. I think he was worried he was going to catch us making out. What he actually sees is Rufus with a lap full of stuffed animals and one in each hand, as well.
“Oh—ah, pud—dessert is ready.”
“Okay, we’ll be right down,” I say.
My father goes back downstairs and I get up off the bed and go to take all the stuffed animals off Rufus’s lap, but he catches my hand.
“Abby,” he says, looking into my eyes, “I love you.”
I stare at him. And then I burst into tears. Big, gulping, ugly tears.
Panic flicks across his face. He stands up, stuffies falling left and right, and puts his arms around me. “Oh, shit, Abby, what’s wrong? Shh, it’s okay.”
I bawl into his shirtfront for a minute or so, and then he digs a tissue out of his pocket and wipes my tears and blows my nose. He smooths the hair back from my face and looks down at me with bewildered eyes.
I try to explain. “Every time I’m af-af-afraid of something—” I hiccup “—you just t-take it away.”
“Sweetheart, what were you afraid of?”
“That I l-love you. That I f-feel so much for you in such a short time and I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to. I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t met you. I honestly don’t.” I sniffle and look down at the soggy tissue in my hands. “I’m not explaining myself very well.”
“You’re explaining it perfectly.” He kisses me and then smiles. “You love me?”
I nod. “Since the night we first slept together, when I realized you like the whole me. The part that likes stuffies and the part that likes that red dress. I didn’t think anyone would ever be so accepting of all that I am.”
“Babygirl,” he says, “how could I not be?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and bury my face in his chest. A minute ticks by, and then he says, “I’ll go downstairs. You go to the bathroom and wash your face with cold water, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper. I catch his arm. “But I’ve cried all over your shirt.” He’s wearing a blue shirt and the tears show.
He just smiles and shrugs and goes downstairs. When I come down my father and Rufus are talking about military history, my father’s pet subject. My mother’s eyes flick between Rufus’s damp shirt and my blotchy face, but she says nothing.
After dessert I walk Rufus out to his car. He stops by the bonnet and turns to me. “If I tell you I love you again are you going to cry?”
I shake my head.
He smiles and strokes my cheek. “I love you, babygirl.”
“I love you...” I look to the left and right, as if for eavesdroppers, and then raise myself up on tiptoe and whisper in his ear. “Daddy.”
I watch him drive away, then saunter back inside, a silly grin on my face.
My mother comes into the hall wiping her hands with a dishcloth when she hears the front door close. “Abby? Are you all right? You looked like you’d been crying when you came downstairs.”
“I had been.”
“Honey, why?”
“He told me he loved me.”
My mother’s face changes from concerned to relieved. “Oh, but that’s wonderful, darling. Why did you cry?”
I shrug. “He just caught me off guard.” I follow her through to the kitchen and help her with the washing up.
“He’s such a nice young man, Abby. I was worried at first, you know, because he’s in charge of the theater you work in and he’s a few years older than you, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect on how he treats you. So polite. To think he told you he loved you here, in the middle of dinner.” She calls out the good news to my father in his den, adding that it was in the middle of the dinner that she had cooked. To hear her you’d think that it was her dinner that had done it.
She’s still musing on Rufus when we’re drying up. “There’s something about him that makes you understand how he’s managed to run a theater single-handedly all these years, and deal with you flighty arty types as well as all the finances and practical things. Something—” she searches for the right word “—authoritative. Have you noticed?”
“No, Mum. I haven’t.”
“Oh. All right, darling.”
* * *
“No peeking.”
I grin as Rufus walks me slowly forward. We’re in his flat but I have no idea which room as he spun me about on the spot until I was dizzy. “Rufus, my eyes are closed and you’ve got your hands over them. I can’t see anything.”
“Keep them closed,” he says again, his voice echoing. He drops his hands and moves away from me. I hear him pick something up and then he’s in front of me. “Hold out your hands.” Obediently I do, and he places something weighty and flat, like books, into them. “Okay. Open your eyes.”
I do. I’m holding what looks like magazines tied up with pink satin ribbon and we’re standing in his spare room. It’s empty, and the windows are bare. “Where are your books? Your bike?”
He shoves his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “I got rid of them.”
“Why?”
“I thought this could be your room.”
I stare at him, and then at the magazines I’m holding. They’re not magazines. They’re catalogues. I spy the names of department stores. Debenhams. Selfridges. John Lewis.
“I was thinking about how you don’t have a space that’s just your own to be yourself in,” he says, taking the catalogues from me and leading me back to the couch. “You might not feel comfortable expressing yourself in a shared flat, and my apartment isn’t exactly to your taste.”
“I love your apartment,” I say.
“Thank you, sweetheart. I’m glad you do. But I don’t want you to feel like a visitor. I want you to feel like it’s your space, too. So—” he puts the catalogues on my lap “—make it yours. However you want it.”
I stroke the satin ribbon. Not since high school have I felt like I’ve had a space that’s been mine, that I could be myself in. “You mean that? Even if it ends up looking like a unicorn’s fairy tea-party exploded in there?”
He strokes his thumb over my cheek. “If that’s what you want, then I’m happy.”
I burrow into him for a moment, inhaling the warm scent on his shirt. “You always seem to know what I need,” I whisper.
He kisses the top of my head. “That’s my job, princess.” He brings me a packet of pastel sticky notes and my pink-and-white notepad and pen and I get to work sorting through the catalogues, wish-listing furniture and cushions, fairy lights and bedspreads. I’m engrossed for several hours, my feet in Rufus’s lap as he reads a pop-psychology book. He absently rubs his fingers over my ankles. After a while he gets up and comes back with a beer for himself and a box of Pocky for me, and I show him what I’ve found. It’s a riot of pink and pastel purple and white lace.
“Beautiful, kitten,” he says, and kisses me. It’s such a lovely kiss that I forget the catalogues and wrap my arms around his neck. Rufus feels my reaction and pulls me closer, and my mouth opens beneath his. When he pulls back he’s looking at me with a wolfish glint in his eyes.
“What is it, daddy?”
He feels behind the couch cushion next to him. “I bought you something.”
I’m sure it’s going to be something naughty. “What is it?”
“The tiniest, silliest pleated skirt I could find.” He pulls his hand out from behind the couch and he’s holding it. It’s pale pink and very short. He narrows his eyes at me. “Daddy’s going to fuck you in it.”
His expression reminds me of how he looked in my dressing room when he told me what he was going to do to his spoiled little fairy. I reach for the skirt. “Can I put it on now?”
“Only if you want me to fuck you now.”
There’s no question about that and I stand up and wriggle out of my clothes. He undoes the skirt and holds it out to me so I can step into it. “Oh, kitten,” he breathes as I stand in front of him between his knees. He smooths his hands up my waist and over my breasts, and then down over the skirt to caress my behind. “I’m going to do very bad things to you.”
He takes me through to the bedroom and tells me to lie down while he undresses. Looking at me thoughtfully, he says, “But first I’m going to try something.” Sitting cross-legged on the bed he hooks both of my legs over his knees so that I’m spread wide before him. It doesn’t make me shy or apprehensive anymore, being exposed like this, and I’m wet with anticipation as he pushes two fingers inside me, right up to the knuckles. I bite my lip and moan.
“Touch yourself, babygirl. I want you to come.”
The little skirt gives me an idea, and I say, “But, daddy, I wouldn’t know how.”
Something flares in his eyes, like the first time I called him that. “Oh, is that so? Do you want daddy to teach you?”
I keep my expression innocent as he reaches for my right hand and sucks my fingers. “Touch just there, babygirl, and rub yourself in little circles like how daddy does with his tongue.” He moves my hand for me, then lets go and watches as I keep going.
“Am I doing it right if I feel all tingly and warm?”
His free hand flexes on my thigh as if he’s fighting to keep his composure. “You’re doing it right for daddy, princess. He wants to fuck you so badly right now.”
I can’t keep hold of my virtuous expression any longer as his fingers rub hard on my g-spot. My back arches and my finger falls away as I come. But he doesn’t stop rubbing inside me and to my surprise another orgasm gathers quickly on the tail of the last one, deeper this time, and I come again even though I’m not touching myself. When it subsides I look up at him in surprise, breathing hard. “That’s never happened before.”
He leans over me, bracing his hands either side of my head. He looks pleased, and more wolfish than ever. “I know. Oh, babygirl.” His fingers, still damp from being inside me, trail over my lips.
“You look even more pleased than I feel.”
“I am pleased. If you can do that it won’t be long until you can come when I’m fucking you, and I really, really want that. So will you.” His eyes narrow and he looks down at me. Suddenly he flips me over. “Put your hands behind your back.”
I do, and he reaches into a bedside table and out comes the pink rope. He straddles me and starts binding my arms and shoulders, taking his time over the elaborate knots and twists. When he’s finished he gets up off the bed and goes out of the room. I hear a metallic tsing, and then the sound of a knife being sharpened. He comes back holding a small, pointed kitchen knife about three inches long.
My eyes widen. “What’s that for?”
He places it on the bedside table. “Safety.”
“Safety?”
“Yes. Yours. In case you panic and I need to get you out of the ropes quickly, or if your circulation is being cut off.” He lifts my hips and places pillows beneath them so that my ass is in the air. My eyes are still glued to the knife. Only a dom would bring a knife into the bedroom for safety.
But I don’t have much leisure to think as he’s behind me, his tongue licking me in long, slow strokes from my clit all the way up to my ass. I squeal with the unexpectedness of it, as well as the pleasure. “Do you remember what I promised I was going to do, babygirl?” he says between licks.
“Um. Fu—have me in this little skirt?” His tongue presses into my ass a little and I remember.
“I’m already having that. I’m going to fuck you with the plug in your ass.” He leans over and takes it out of the drawer along with a small bottle of lube.
I remember how strange yet pleasurable it felt the last time and my back arches. “Yes, daddy.”
I hear him growl behind me. “Good girl.”
The lube is cold and I gasp, but I forget about it as soon as I feel him pushing the plug into me. I bite my lip and moan as it slides all the way in. I’m completely at his mercy, bound and propped open and filled just how he wants me. His fingers are inside me again and he’s telling me how pretty I look in the skirt with the plug in my ass, all done up in pink rope, and then his fingers are gone and he’s inside me.
“You’re so tight, kitten.” He reaches beneath me and rubs circles on my clit as he fucks me slowly. I can feel myself edging toward orgasm when he stops and presses on the plug.
“Babygirl?”
“Yes, daddy?” I reply, panting.
“You look so pretty in your little skirt, done up like a little present, that daddy wants to fuck you in the ass.”
My breath hitches. Doesn’t that hurt? Or will it feel good like the plug, but better, because it’s him?
“Do you want to try, babygirl, if I’m very, very careful with you?”
He’s always careful with me, especially when he’s testing my limits. “What will it feel like?”
“Hopefully it will feel good, babygirl. I’ll stop if it doesn’t.”
The look on his face when I pretended not to know how to touch myself was so enjoyable that I put on the innocent act again. “But you said I was your princess, daddy, and isn’t that something bad girls like?”
“You’re my princess, babygirl, but you’re my slutty little princess who does bad things for daddy.”
I wriggle back against him. “Yes, daddy.” He fingers my clit again and I can feel myself growing wetter as he slowly takes the plug out of my ass. I hear him applying lube to himself.
“Are you okay, babygirl?”
“Yes, daddy,” I breathe. His cock presses against me. It seems impossible, at first, and I’m both fearful and aroused as he continues to rub my clit. I feel myself give and he pushes forward several inches.
“How does that feel?”
But I can’t find any words except for, “Please, daddy.”
“You want me to go on?”
I bury my face in the pillow, nodding. He presses deeper and suddenly he’s all the way in. He’s holding my bound body tightly and he’s deep inside me. I’ve never felt so stripped bare, so vulnerable.
“Good girl,” he moans, pumping harder, still circling on my clit. The pain is gone now and I cry out, louder than usual, “oh, god,” and “daddy,” and “oh please.”
“That’s my tight little girl. You feel so fucking good, kitten. Are you going to come for me, baby, with my cock in your ass?”
“Yes, daddy.”
“Who owns your tight little ass?”
“You do, daddy.” And I feel the swell of my climax and clench tight around him.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says through gritted teeth, and then I feel the sharp, violent thrusts of his orgasm.
I’m limp as a doll as he withdraws and slowly unties me. He pulls me onto his chest and cradles me in his arms. “God, you felt like heaven. How do you feel, babygirl?” he asks, kissing my sweaty forehead.
A warm, golden feeling has come over me, pleased and satisfied at the same time. It’s the feeling I always get when I know I have given him what he wants, and it has pleased me, as well. I enjoy the hungry way he looks at me and the fierce way he holds me and fucks me as much as I enjoy his sweetness and care. My legs are tangled in the loose ropes and I trail a hand across his chest. “Like nothing can touch me.”