The Daddy Treatment Read online

  I should have read it, although I’m pretty sure I didn’t sign something authorizing some guy to finger my pussy while I was tied to a chair. I shift where I sit on the floor. It’s not the first time I’ve been touched without my consent. But this was different. Those other times just felt like lust. This felt like a lesson, and a soft ache accompanies the slight soreness from where his fingers penetrated me.

  I force myself to stand, and as I do I remember a conversation I had with a bartender at my drinking spot.

  “You only know what you know,” he’d told me one night. I don’t know why that comes to me at this moment, but it feels like providence.

  So, what do I know?

  I know I’m still in some kind of trouble, and whatever I signed sure as hell wasn’t a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card. I know wherever this place is, it’s locked down like a fortress judging by the seamless metal walls, heavy doors and what I suspect is two-sided mirror glass. I know I blacked out in that chair, and I know the guy who put his hand between my legs is obviously in charge.

  I also know that every single person who’s been in charge of anything in my twenty-six years has let me down or fucked me over. This guy won’t be the first. I know that I’ve never had a damn thing to gain by playing nice.

  What don’t I know? I don’t know why I’m here, or what the plan is. But whoever this man is, and whatever he’s got planned, he doesn’t know everything either. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know that I’m not going to make it easy for him. I’m not going to give in to his bullshit mind games, either. If I wasn’t so pissed off, I’d smirk at how he called me Sugar. That’s what my mama used to call me, although there’s no way he could have known that since she’s long dead and gone. Lucky guess, maybe.

  “Sugar.”

  I jump at the sound of that one word. I recognize the voice and behind the room’s single dark window, a beam of light illuminates the man who has promised to break me. I angrily swallow the feeling of my heart leaping into my throat. He’s staring at me with an almost clinical curiosity. I return that stare with contempt.

  “When’s the last time they fed you?”

  When I don’t answer, a tone sounds, and a rectangular slot opens in the door. A tray moves through on a thin platform.

  “We have decent chefs here.” He nods towards the tray. “Chicken marsala with fresh made pasta, French green beans with slivered almonds, a whole wheat roll, and lemonade.” He pauses. “A balanced meal. You’ll be fed nutritious food here, for a healthy body to go with your healthy psyche.”

  I cross my arms, quietly assessing him through the glass. His hands are stuck in the pockets of his casual suit jacket. The black t-shirt he wears underneath is strained tight across a muscular chest. There’s a hint of stubble on his square jaw. He’s GQ meets Captain America, and I bet in his private life he’s one of those assholes who expects women to fall at his feet. He probably expects me to thank him for the food.

  “Chicken marsala?” I ask, walking over to the tray. I pick up the plate, hold it under my nose. It smells delicious, which makes what I’m about to do all the more regrettable. I turn, throwing the plate against the window as hard as I can. A smear of nutritious food now obscures the big man’s image. I allow myself the luxury of smirking. “Have fun breaking a girl on hunger strike, pal.”

  I still can’t see him through the food plastered on the window. But his words, calm as ever, resound through the room.

  “You spilled your food, Sugar. You need to clean it up. There’s a napkin by the tray. Wipe down the window the best you can, then use the utensils to rake the food on the floor back onto the plate. You won’t be able to get it all up, but making the effort will be seen as a show of good faith and earn you another plate.”

  I walk to the window, moving to the side so I can see him and he can see me. “Just so we’re perfectly clear, I didn’t spill my food. I threw it. Bring me another plate. See if I give a fuck. I’ll throw that one, too. I’ll throw as many as you bring me.”

  There’s no reaction save the small arch of his eyebrow. “Are you sure, Sugar?”

  “My name is Kerry. And yeah, asshole. I’m sure.”

  “Ten.” He looks down at me. “Absolutely sure?”

  “Are you hard of hearing?”

  “Twenty.”

  “You can count all day. I’m not eating.”

  “Thirty.”

  I flip him the bird. “I can count, too. Forty. Fifty. Sixty.”

  He holds up both hands. “No need, Sugar. I think fifty will do for this first time.”

  The man turns then, and as he does, the illumination in the room increases. I can see now that there are two other men standing behind him, dressed in the white garb of orderlies. He inclines his head towards them and they turn and walk away. Thirty seconds later, the door to my room opens and the two men walk in. I know by their purposeful stride that they are taking me out, taking me to the man who’s still staring down at me.

  My fighting instinct kicks in. I dive for the only thing I can use as a weapon, a plastic knife. I don’t make it, though. Strong hands take hold of me before I can reach it, so I have to resort to the only defenses I have—tooth and claw. Anger is my fuel, and one of the orderlies slips in the spilled food as I bite him on the arm. I learned more than one trick on the streets. My nails are short, but long enough to put scratches on the back of the other orderly’s hand. I stomp the instep of his foot before I’m finally subdued. All I have left now is a volley of extensive profanities. By the time I’m hauled out the door, they both know I think their mothers were dirty fucking whores who birthed worthless bastard shit bags.

  They are not gentle. Each man has me by the upper arm and walks so fast that I can’t keep up. The result is my being dragged out the door and down a long hallway that’s as stark and sterile as the rest of this place. I don’t ask where I’m being taken. I know if I do, I won’t be able to keep the rising apprehension out of my voice. I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing that I’m already afraid to find out what’s at the door at the end of the hallway. It opens on its own, and I’m literally tossed inside, throwing out my hands to catch myself as I fall.

  I keep my eyes on the gleaming black tile of the floor, drawing in a deep breath as I mentally prepare for what I will see when I look up. The first thing that meets my raised eyes is a table. A medical table. My heart pounds when I turn my head to see medical cabinets. It pounds harder when I see a man who’s obviously a doctor, and harder still when I see the big man beside him. The look of patience is gone from the stubble-shadowed face.

  “You should have obeyed me, Sugar.”

  Don’t call me that. I can only scream the words in my head because they’re stuck in my throat when he closes the distance between us.

  “Dr. Brockman, if you would be so kind as to fetch me that chair.” My captor nods towards the only one in the room, which sits between two tall cabinet. The doctor wordlessly fetches it and carries it into the middle of the room. The big man settles into the chair, but even sitting he is still nearly eye level.

  “I would have probably set the limit at thirty, Sugar. But I believe you upped it to fifty, so fifty it is.”

  Fifty what? I’m confused, then stunned as I’m pulled forward to find myself staring at the floor. I’m draped over two sturdy thighs, then jerked against his rock-hard abdomen by an even harder arm that winds around my middle to restrain me. I feel the cool air of the room on the backs of my thighs, then on my bottom as it is bared. He’s raised my skirt and pulled my panties down.

  Holy fuck. He’s going to spank me! I know it even before I feel the slight shift in his posture, even before I glance back in horror to see his huge hand raised and note the stern set of his jaw.

  The sound of his hand impacting the smooth flesh of my bottom resounds through the room along with my outraged cry. My first reaction to anything is anger, always anger. But trapped in this man’s grip, the anger is scalded away by the pain
and panic as he layers burning smack on burning smack.

  I buck wildly on his lap. I kick. I claw at his leg, at the floor. I would bite him, but all I can do is scream. And scream. And scream. I’m not a big woman. His hand nearly spans the surface of my bottom, and he aims the punishment with stoic force, landing the blows first on the crest of my buttocks then on the sides, then—worst of all— on the crease of skin where cheeks meet thighs.

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” I wail the single word over and over, first as an indignant command then as a pathetic plea that dissolves into a childish bawl. Tears course down my face, running into my open mouth. Sweat adheres my shirt to my back. My throat is hoarse, my nose running like a sieve.

  Through a ruby haze of pain, I hear the word “fifty” and realize that he’d been counting the number of spanks. I also realize now that my stubborn counting more than doubled my punishment.

  My bottom is throbbing with hurt, each pulse generating a new wave of pain that seems to radiate out from the inner layers of my punished skin. I can’t catch my breath when he raises me to my feet. I haven’t cried this hard since…I can’t remember, but I hear a child’s desperation in my own voice and through my tears I see my punisher’s steely eyes studying my tear-stained face.

  “Breathe, Sugar,” he says. “Breathe.”

  I still don’t want to obey, but what he’s commanding is a necessity and I know if I don’t comply I’m going to pass out. It takes me a few minutes to transform my shallow, hitching gasps to deeper inhales of air. Once I do, he reaches into his pocket for a handkerchief and proceeds to mop my face and dab at my puffy eyes.

  “Fifty,” he repeats the number. “And understand, Sugar, that I can and will spank you just as long and hard again if you disobey me. Show your ass on the street, and you might get away with it. Show your ass here, and it gets blistered. Understand?”

  I gape at him wordlessly. I’m not five years old, but he’s talking to me like I am. And with my bottom stinging beneath my skirt, I feel like I am. I reach for my panties, which are still around my knees, only to have him stop me.

  “No, Sugar.” His tone carries a tinge of regret. “We’re not finished. Not yet.”

  “What?” The word comes out as a squeak.

  “There’s the matter of your nutritional needs, remember? You passed on your chance to eat the meal I gave you, so your daily nourishment will be delivered in a way you may not like, but it’s necessary given the circumstances.” He looks past me. “Ah, Dr. Brockman. You have the bolus?”

  Bolus? I’ve never even heard the word, but the doctor is approaching with something that looks like a large, oval pill.

  “I’m sorry that it has to be this way, Sugar.” He’s pulling me back across his lap and renewing the hold he had on me to start. “If you fight, we can move you to the medical table and restrain you. But if you hold still, it will be over quickly.”

  “What? What will be over?” I find my voice again, just as I feel his hand spread one bottom cheek and look back to see the doctor pull aside the other. The two men are looking down at my exposed bottom hole, and there’s a pressure now of something pushing against it.

  “A bolus is a kind of pill,” the doctor says. “Once lodged inside, your body will absorb its nutrients.”

  “No…no…no!!!” I begin to wriggle, but my resistance is as futile as it was when he was spanking me. Clenching my bottom only makes it worse, and the pressure is only growing more persistent. I moan in humiliation as I feel the ring of muscles relent to the intruding object, which is lubricated with some kind of coating that allows it to slip inside. The doctor pushes it in. I can feel it now, lodged inside of me.

  “I think a nap would do her good,” he says.

  “I agree,” the man holding me answers. “Sugar, you’re going to feel a pinch.”

  There’s renewed dread at his words. In my peripheral vision, I see the doctor pulling out a hypodermic needle. My bottom is already so hot and sore. He can’t be serious.

  “Don’t!” I say and then wail anew at what feels like a wasp stinging my already tenderized bottom cheek. And then…darkness.

  Chapter 3

  Eli

  I’m not a monster.

  I’ve seen monsters. I’ve seen what they’re capable of, what they do to women like Sugar—women who slip through the cracks of society and disappear without a trace. The ghosts of women I couldn’t reach before it was too late still haunt me. One day, when Sugar is stronger, I’ll sit her down and tell her what could have happened if she’d fallen into the hands of the traffickers that silently compete with me to snag women from a corrupt penal system. A breakdown of society has led to two distinct classes—the wealthy and the poor. Sugar is a product of the latter.

  Right now she’s sleeping, blissfully unaware that the papers she signed were bogus. She wasn’t agreeing to enter therapy. She was sold by a sham system. Had I not gotten the winning bid, who knows where she’d have ended up. She could have been trained as a maid and bonded to years of servitude. Or worse, she could have ended up with a sex trafficker. Had I not gotten her, right now she might be sleeping on a dirty floor of the cell she’d be repeatedly raped in. And when she came to? There’d be no chance at redemption, no chance to make things better.

  I’m not a monster. But I know that’s how she’s going to see me at first.

  I wonder how long it will take her to note the changes once she wakes up? Once the sedative took effect, two nurses had bathed her in a solution that had denuded her of body hair. Her skin will be smooth now, and soft as a baby’s. In a second bath, her hair had been washed and she’d been rinsed clean, dried, and dressed in a sheer cotton gown.

  She looks like a sleeping angel, her lashes dark against a pale face dotted with a smattering of charming freckles. Her brunette hair fans out over the pillow. Her slim arms are motionless over the blanket.

  Sugar is clean, reborn into her second childhood where I’ll be her guide, her mentor, her daddy figure. Like any good daddy, I’ll need to exercise patience when she errs, firmness when she disobeys, and indulgence when she’s the good girl I intend to make her become.

  I could not have picked a better subject, despite what Chance Brockman says. She’s the damaged vessel I plan to pour myself into, the shattered life I will save to redeem myself for failing those I wasn’t able to save.

  I push my hand into the pocket of my jacket, fondling the dog tags I wore during my covert military service where I designed the experimental rehabilitation program I’m using with Sugar. General Luber, who’d overseen our covert unit, had been supportive of the technology I planned to use when we were dealing with trafficking victims in other countries. But his untimely death had left us with a new command who did not see rehabilitation efforts as a worthy government expenditure.

  I’d never thought to leave the military. My training as a scientist soldier had put me on the fast track to advancement, but the prospect of not doing all I could for the traumatized victims of trafficking made me finally admit that my best friend from university, Chance Brockman, had been correct. By taking my memory retrieval software into the private sector, we could use it to identify repressed trauma and tailor a project to heal it. So far, we’ve helped over a dozen women. But managing the program has given me little time to take a project of my own.

  Sugar is my first, and I selected her not despite the sketchy details of her terrible childhood, but because of it.

  She mumbles in her sleep, and I lean over in the chair where I’m sitting and take her slim wrist between my finger and thumb, glancing down at my watch as I time her pulse. Her lashes flutter and her lips part. She squirms a little on the bed; her bottom is still sore. It was a hard spanking, but she needed a hard spanking.

  When she opens her eyes, they are fixed on the etched tiled ceiling of a little girl’s Victorian dream bedroom. I sit quietly, allowing her to come to her senses slowly. She looks to the side, away from me, towards the window overlooking a walled g
arden. A huge dollhouse sits on a table against one wall. It’s fully furnished with two occupants—a man and a young woman. The man wears a suit; the woman wears a dress similar to the ones that fill the wardrobe across the room.

  Sugar shifts on the bed and winces again. She turns her head, and as soon as she sees me the curiosity in her eyes is replaced by a guarded hostility. She remembers what I did to her. I know, because her face flushes deeply. I don’t move. I just wait to see what she will do. If she gets up, there’s no escaping me. Despite the hominess of the room, it’s as secure as any other in the manor Dr. Brockman and I renovated to house and treat women like Sugar.

  There’s a rap at the door. I feel Sugar’s eyes on my back as I receive the tray from the maid waiting on the other side.

  “Sit up,” I say. “It’s time for breakfast.”

  “Breakfast?” She gingerly raises herself up.

  “You slept the rest of the day and through the night.” I put the tray in front of her. “Bananas Foster French toast, Canadian bacon, poached eggs. Juice. Milk.” I sit back in my chair. I’m not worried about her throwing her food again. She’s smarter than that, and likely hungry given that the bolus contained an appetite stimulant as well as a nutritional supplement. “I can cut it up for you if you like.”

  “I can do it.” She lifts the fork, turns it on the side and presses through the soft bread drenched in whipped cream and banana flavored syrup. I watch as she brings the food to her mouth. There’s something sensual about watching a woman eat. I imagine feeding her myself, imagine my fingers grazing those soft lips as she trustingly takes morsels from my hand.

  “My name is Eli Crane. Dr. Eli Crane.”

  She glances over at me, chewing her food, waiting to hear more.