Good Girl, page 15
The spanking starts off slow and deliberate. Each strike is hard, and he waits a few seconds before hitting me again. Those seconds feel endless, with a silence in the room so pervasive that as the sting of each slap dissipates there is enough time for me to reflect. I am getting what I deserve. The pain isn’t so bad at first, but then he starts picking up the pace, spanking me over and over again in the same area, revisiting already tender spots with the palm of his hand until my legs start kicking, and I instinctively reach back to protect my bottom.
“Don’t you dare try to cover up, sweetheart.” He grabs my wrists and pins them to the small of my back, while continuing to spank me with his other hand. Dumb slut can’t even take a spanking right, I think, but I don’t have long to sit with that thought because the hits are coming so quick now, too quick to think, bringing with them a blissful throbbing pain and Malcolm’s hard cock pressing up into me.
“I think it’s time we get these panties out of the way, don’t you, baby?” I moan in response, turned on and humiliated and turned on even more by the humiliation. He grabs the waistband of my underwear, and I raise my hips slightly to allow him to slide them off of me, but instead, he pulls them up tight, revealing my naked bum cheeks to him while increasing my discomfort. I bury my face back into the pillow.
“I wish you could see how pathetic you look right now. Spread over my lap, ass turning a bright pink, can’t even keep your panties on right.” He reaches one hand underneath, into the space between his thigh and my crotch, and presses his fingers up against my cunt. “It seems like you’re enjoying this. You disgusting pervert. Do you normally get so wet at being debased and humiliated like this?” I stay quiet, and he slaps me hard, much harder than before, so that I let out a high-pitched yelp that startles even me. “Answer me, slut.”
“Yes, Sir,” I whisper.
“Yes, Sir, what? Use complete sentences when you answer me.”
“Yes, Sir, I get off on being debased and humiliated.”
“Good girl.” He lets go of my wrists, though I continue to hold them in place at the small of my back. He uses his free hand to stroke my hair gently, like he did when I was sitting on the floor earlier. “But I think we really need to drive in the lesson, so we can make sure it gets through that pretty little dumb brain of yours.” He reaches out to grab something off the nightstand, but I don’t turn my head in time to see. Then he hits me with something so hard I scream. My hairbrush. He grabbed my hairbrush, and he’s using it to really hurt me.
I thought the earlier spanking was intense, but now he is letting loose an almost unbearable amount. It’s harder than anything I’ve experienced, definitely harder than Henry’s methodical approach with his paddle. Tears sting my eyes. He’s going so quickly now I don’t have time to recover from each spank before the next one rains down, no rush of endorphins following each surge of pain. I begin to seriously wonder how much more I can actually bear. Is it worth telling him to stop? Will he think that’s part of the role-playing? Does he know about the traffic-light system? We never discussed a traffic-light system. I grit my teeth.
Finally, after several more minutes of prolonged intense spanking, he relents. His hand replaces the hairbrush, caressing my burning hot buttocks. I still don’t dare get up. He gives me a moment to catch my breath and stop my wriggling.
“Now,” he says. “I think ten more spanks will really drive the point home. I want you to count each one. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Daddy.” I wonder how on earth I am going to last for ten more, especially when I hear him pick up the hairbrush again. He whacks it hard against my butt, and a loud crack fills the room. I scream in pain, then dissolve into sobs. He doesn’t move, and I wonder if he realizes he’s gone too far, but then I realize he’s waiting for me to count. “One,” I croak out.
The next nine spanks are excruciating, but I get through them. By the end I’m a complete mess; I do say “Ten,” but I’m crying so hard the words are barely audible. Still, he takes mercy on me and decides to count it. “Good girl,” he says softly. “You took your punishment well.” He helps me to my feet, then turns me around and pulls me back so I’m sitting on his lap. The contact against his rough jeans burns against my sore bottom, but it feels so good to be held. I bury my face in his shoulder and sob while he strokes my back. It was worth it, I think. This wouldn’t feel so good if he hadn’t hurt me so bad. He knows what he’s doing; I just need to trust him. For a second I consider asking him if he knows about the traffic-light system, but I stop myself. There’s no point in ruining the mood now. I raise my head from his shoulder, and a trail of snot extends from my nose, connecting to his shirt; I quickly wipe it away with the back of my hand before he can notice.
A loud rap on the wall behind the bed snaps me to attention, and I see the scene for what it is: a naked woman, covered in tears and snot and red handprints, sitting on the lap of her former coworker. If somebody didn’t know I was making an empowered feminist choice, I could see how it would look bad.
“Everything okay in there?” a voice calls. “It sounds like you’re having a brawl!”
“Shouldn’t you be at work, Mr. Fillipelli?” I shout back, my voice still raspy from crying.
“I called in sick today!” he says. “I have a cold! I think it’s going around! Does this have anything to do with the fight you and that girl had this morning?”
“I didn’t have a fight then, and I’m not having a fight now! I’ve just been watching movies all day!”
“Pretty fucked-up movies if you ask me!”
Instead of responding, I get out of bed, amble across the floor to my desk, open my laptop, and blast the Cocteau Twins, picking a reverb-heavy song that’s a lot louder than it sounds to drown out the noise. There’s a message notification on my screen. Sasha, I think, but it turns out to be my mother. Have you booked your flight out east for Xmas yet? it reads. I’m sure I already explained to her the holidays are the busiest season at work. I x the window shut. I turn back around and see that Malcolm is standing up in front of my bed. He undoes his belt and pushes down his jeans, revealing a bulge in his boxer briefs. I stare at his crotch, then up at him. He nods and gestures to the space of floor in front of him. I take a few tentative steps and kneel in front of him, gazing up into his face. He reaches down and strokes my hair before cupping my jaw.
“This is how good girls say thank you after receiving a punishment. Ask nicely, pet.”
“Please may I suck your cock?”
He slaps me across the face. “Is that how you address me?”
“Please may I suck your cock, Daddy.”
Frankly, I’m exhausted and would love to still cuddle, but I like Malcolm too much to ruin things by being uptight. If I could just learn to turn all my discomforts in life into kinks, I would have way more fun. Just trust him, I think.
I start the blow job slowly, spending lots of time on the, you know, general groin area (the balls, I mean the balls) and lick the shaft, but it doesn’t seem to be quick enough for Malcolm. The second that my lips wrap around the tip, he grabs my hair and starts fucking my face, jamming his penis into the back of my throat again and again. I need to break for air, but he doesn’t relent. I can’t move my head with how hard he’s moving it and obviously my mouth is too occupied to tell him to stop, and I raise my hands slowly, tentatively considering pushing him away. But the voice in the back of my head nags me. Don’t fuck it up, it says. You like him, remember? You like this guy and have fun with him and he’s perverted in all the ways you are. You know better than anyone how hard it is to find someone to like all your deeply messed-up parts. Don’t fuck this up. I relax my jaw. I try to breathe through my nose. I think about other things, anything else. Work. That collection of Lucia Berlin short stories I’ve been meaning to start. My fight with Sasha. No, not that. Why are you such a bitch? You’re definitely going to hell. Hell. Hell. Hell. Infinite torture. Your mother was right about you. Back to the blow job. Just focus on the blow job. I only have to put up with a few more minutes; then we can stop and cuddle; then I will be his good girl again; then he will take care of me, and I won’t have to think about anything.
Finally, mercifully, he finishes, shooting a hot stream of bitter cum into my mouth, and I swallow, then reach for my coffee cup and take a lukewarm swig to wash the taste out of my mouth. Malcolm helps me up, and we crawl back into bed, lying on our sides with him spooning me from behind. We stay like this silently for a few minutes. It’s nice. He pulls me tighter into him so my hips are pushed up tight against his, and I can feel his boner growing once again. I hope he doesn’t want to go for another round. It would feel so good to just nap right now. My head throbs again. I should call Sasha.
“What are you thinking about?” he mumbles into my ear, biting my lobe.
“Sasha,” I respond without thinking.
“I beg your pardon?” he asks.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I’m having fun with you.” Please don’t make Malcolm be mad at you. Not after he came all this way to take care of you. Please don’t fuck this up, Lucy. “She just . . . got in my head this morning.”
He pulls me tighter. “I’m sorry she was so uncool to you.”
“It’s not that, it’s just . . .” I let myself trail off. I don’t want to badmouth Sasha to Malcolm, not because Sasha needs me to defend her, but because it feels disloyal to her. Complaining about the men I date to Nora feels different. Those are just stories to tell. But I know no matter what I have to say about Sasha, even if I only described her in positive terms, I can never detail a full-enough picture for Malcolm to understand her, or why I need her, or why I’m terrified when she needs me, or why I don’t care who was wrong or right this morning. How I just need to be a worthy-enough person for her to love me, just like I need to be a worthy-enough person for Malcolm to bring me bagels and to hold me and to call me sweetheart. “That was really nice of you,” I say. “Bringing me coffee. Coming over at a moment’s notice. It felt really good, to have somebody do that for me.” He’s quiet, which I take as an indication to keep talking. “I really like hanging out with you, you know.” And he still doesn’t respond. It takes me a few more seconds to realize he’s fallen asleep.
20
I haven’t heard from Sasha in a week. I should call her, I think. Then, She should call me. Then, Maybe the reason she hasn’t called is because she hates me and if I call her I’ll make it worse. I should give her space. Then, Why is she being such a bitch? Malcolm and I continue to spend every night we can together, and I let him be as rough as he wants, my pain tolerance increasing every time until it’s like he can’t hit me hard enough. I ask him while we’re cuddling in bed after I’ve swallowed his cum why he hasn’t moved to New York the way everyone at The Hog thought he would. “Too expensive.”
“But surely the jobs in New York pay more?” I push. “I mean, you’ve written for the New York Times Magazine three times now.”
“Getting there is expensive. The visa application alone is a whole thing. Immigration lawyers cost thousands. I’m not some rich kid with family connections. I can’t just buy my way into a better life.”
I think about the National Magazine Awards I saw shoved disdainfully on his desk. Malcolm in Toronto doesn’t make sense. He seems to belong in Brooklyn, or maybe Berlin, somewhere the ambitious people from Toronto always seem to end up. “Couldn’t you—” I start, but he rolls on top of me, pinning me down and sticking his tongue down my throat.
“We’re not talking about this anymore, sweetheart.” He pecks me again gently on the lips. I free an arm and pull him closer, willing him to fuck me again.
*
I pick up more shifts at the bookstore. Nora and Christopher are spending a week in Vermont to look at the foliage or, in Nora’s words, do it without worrying about the kids hanging around and then watch American TV. This means I’m working with Danny way more than usual.
“Good morning, Lucy,” he says when I show up for work after a particularly raucous night with Malcolm. Danny has an exceedingly polite way of speaking, making every interaction more formal than it needs to be. I always unintentionally end up matching his tone.
“Good morning to you, Danny.” I go behind the checkout counter and take my usual seat on one of the hard metal barstools, immediately remembering a nebula of bruises on my tender ass and jumping back to my feet, pretending to adjust my tights. It was Halloween last night, and we watched Secretary sitting on Malcolm’s couch, pausing occasionally when trick-or-treaters came by. I had put together a lazy cat costume, and once it was late enough that the last straggling trick-or-treater had left us alone, he spanked me and fucked me while leaving my cat ears on because, in his words, I looked “adorable in them.”
“Is there anything new happening in your life?” Danny asks. It’s our seventh day in a row working together, the seventh day in a row Danny has asked me this. If Nora were working, she wouldn’t even need to ask. I’d have already launched into a play-by-play recounting of my fight with Sasha and latest hookup with Malcolm, asking her what she thought in the most honest terms and then flinching when she told me the truth. I give him one-word answers, focusing on my phone, while he describes a zombie-themed poetry reading he went to the night before. I get a text from Malcolm.
Send me a pic of your ass. I want to see my marks on you.
I smile to myself, angling my phone screen away from Danny.
“Will you watch the floor? I gotta go to the bathroom. Be there for a while. Lady stuff.”
Danny starts to reply—probably to offer me a tampon—but I’m a blur on my way into the stockroom. Then in the bathroom, making the most of the shitty fluorescent lighting, I stick my ass out, holding up a copy of a children’s book below to reflect the flash off my phone, a fucking Ansel Adams of butt selfies. My bruises have blended like watercolours, purples and blues, the handiwork of someone who took a tour of all my perversions and matched them with his own. After fifteen minutes or so—I can hear a rush of customers in the store, but Danny seems to have it under control—I manage the perfect picture to send to Malcolm.
Good girl, he replies. I can’t wait to add more tonight.
When I get home from work, I decide to pull out all the stops. I blow-dry my hair to voluminous sex-doll levels. I put on an elaborate lingerie set with garters and stockings I bought ages ago but have never worn because I’m not sure how exactly I’m supposed to wash them. I shave and pluck absolutely every stray hair, an hour-long process that stings and waters my eyes and turns me on. And Malcolm appreciates all of it. When I show up to his place, he says I look “absolutely stunning” and kisses me hard before even shutting the door behind us. He takes off my dress right away and says, “Hell yes,” when he sees the set underneath.
What if this is what it’s all supposed to lead to? This, right here, feeling like I’ve won the Nobel Prize the way this man looks at me. What if the pop songs and Hollywood films and other heterosexual propaganda were secretly right all along, and I am supposed to be constantly striving towards these moments of looking and being utterly fuckable for the right person, that this is the only way to ever feel loved or safe or at peace with who I am? I don’t have time to consider this for long though, because soon Malcolm has me bent over the bed and is striking me with his leather belt, forcing me to count each hit.
After he’s done hitting me, he flips me onto my back and has me shift up so that I’m on the bed. He grabs my wrists and pins them above my head, and then reaches for the belt he just beat me with to tie my wrists to the head of the bed. Being tied up is my favourite, the ultimate in surrendering control. Malcolm grabs my stockinged calves and pushes them up so my ankles are resting on his shoulders. The pose hurts, but if he notices me wince, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he enters me hard and begins thrusting in and out. Soon, I’m enjoying the feeling of his weight on top of me as he keeps control, and it’s almost enough to make me forget about the straining in the muscles of my thighs. Almost.
He finishes with a small gasp of pleasure, gently closing his eyes. When he cums, his face looks so vulnerable and peaceful and boyish, the way the face of every man I’ve been with looks, no matter how dominant they may act when they know they’re being observed. It’s a funny thing, how much of our lives is controlled by sex and how much of sex is controlled by this pursuit of a few seconds of giddy frisson. There’s an advantage in not cumming, I tell myself. If I don’t climax with him, then I never have to lose this feeling that I’m going to be okay that furls in the depths of my belly whenever I let someone else take over with making the decisions. I have all the power now. I’m able to make him lose control like this while still hanging on to my own, and I don’t even need ropes or bondage gear to do it. I can get myself off later at home when I have my vibrator. It’s what I always do.
Malcolm unties me, and we cuddle for a few minutes before I get up to go to the bathroom. I catch my appearance in the bathroom mirror. My hair is mussed and my makeup smeared, but in a way that looks completely striking. I don’t look like a mess, at least not in the way I look the morning after a night of heavy partying and drinking. I look, well, beautiful. Like a model shot in soft focus, maybe behind a lens of Vaseline, and also you have to squint a little, but this is the most I’ve liked the way I look in a while. I tiptoe back out to the hall, grab my phone, take a selfie.
There’s a new text from my mom on my phone—Ran into Sharon’s mom at the grocery store. Sharon’s got a good job working as a PR consultant. Maybe that’s something you can do? She’s buying a house—which I ignore.
