As he’d swiped the disinfectant over her knee, she’d cried out, “Ow, Daddy, that hurts.”
Adam had stilled and looked up at her. Mortified, she’d just stared at him for a moment before jumping from the bathroom counter and pushing past a still stunned looking Adam, raced into one of the spare bedrooms, locking the door quickly before slumping to the floor in shock. Marly curled in on herself, her legs held tight against her chest.
Adam banged on the door shortly.
“Marly, open this door now, please,” Adam’s voice was gentle. Marly cringed. What he must think of her? She didn’t even know what she thought of herself. Why had she called him that? Sure, sometimes she felt quite childish, imagined what it would be like to be free like a child, but she didn’t see Adam as her father. He was her husband, her lover.
“Marly.” His voice grew more demanding. “Open this door, right now.”
Marly shook her head. No way, no how.
“Marly, you let Daddy in now. If I have to unscrew this door to get inside, I will. But you will end up as a very red bottom as punishment.”
Marly gaped at the door. She could not believe he’d just said that! Not the part about spanking her, Zac and Adam always talked about spanking her butt and often followed through. But he’d just called himself her Daddy!
Jumping to her feet, she raced to the door, opening it quickly to glare at Adam.
“Do not mock me,” she told him ferociously. “It was a slip of the tongue, it meant nothing.”
Adam merely pulled her into his arms, rocking her. He kissed the top of her head. “I’m not mocking you, baby,” he whispered in her ear. “I would love nothing more than to be your Daddy. You’re my precious baby girl.”
It had taken some more convincing from both Adam and Zach before she’d decided to explore that side of their relationship. It had taken her time to regress into a being a child, to trust them with that part of herself. But over time they’d all grown into their roles. She figured a shrink would tell her that her need to regress to a little girl came from her lack of a real childhood. But she didn’t care. Zac and Adam didn’t think her strange for her needs, and they were the only ones who counted.
“But not on Friday night. On Friday night I’m a grown woman and I can decide where I go and who I spend it with,” she argued back firmly.
“Have you forgotten we have rules in this house, young lady?” Adam said in a stern voice that both grated and thrilled. But she wasn’t going to let him win, not this time.
“I’m not doing anything wrong, Adam,” she said reasonably. “I’m telling you I’m going to be late, where I’m going to be, I’ll even give you a time I’ll be home.” There that was reasonable, wasn’t it?
Adam frowned. “You don’t handle alcohol well, Marly. I don’t like you drinking without one of us with you. Besides that fact, you’ll have to drive home afterward.”
Marly knew he had good reasons for his concerns. Marly didn’t have the best relationship with alcohol. She’d gone a bit crazy in her younger years, gotten into some trouble with the wrong crowd, alcohol, drugs. But that was the past.
“I won’t drink,” she told him. “I’ll just stick to juice. It’s our Christmas do and I really want to go.”
She heard Adam sigh and knew she’d won. He wasn’t unreasonable just overprotective.
“All right, you can go. But,” he raised his hand as she went to speak, “there are rules. No drinking. You’ll be home by ten, and you’ll ring us before you leave to come home. You don’t walk anywhere alone and you will call us if you need us.”
“Eleven,” she countered.
“Don’t push it, sunshine.”
*****
The first drink was a mistake. Well, kind of. It was a celebration glass of bubbly for a job well done and she wasn’t quite sure how to refuse. By the third glass, refusal was the last thing on her mind; she was enjoying the buzz too much.
She didn’t notice the hours pass by.
“Hey, Marly.” Angie, one of the women she worked with, came up and put an arm around her. “Marly, you want to come with us to a club? Go dancing?”
“Sure,” she replied, smiling as she followed the others out. As she entered the dance club twenty minutes later, the music pumped loudly. She couldn’t hear herself think, let alone hear what anyone else was saying.
Jiving on the dance floor, she began to feel dizzy, the alcohol buzzing in her system making her sway unsteadily as everything blurred around her.
“I don’t feel so good,” she muttered, not that anyone could hear her. Marly raced from the dance floor, searching for a bathroom. Stumbling through the doorway, she found herself outside, the cool air hitting her overheated skin. Seeing double, she felt her way around the side of the building, her stomach heaving, as she rested against the concrete wall of the nightclub.
Whimpering, she slumped down, sitting on a damp patch of ground. To add to her misery the skies opened and began dumping their contents on her.