Please be here. Please be here.
I switched on my phone light and shined it down. I would have checked the parking lot first for his car, but I couldn’t risk the guards seeing me. I went with my gut and hurried along corridors until I arrived at the administrative block. The door leading inside to where the secretary usually sat was half-opened, and light spilled out.
I hesitated. I didn’t have to do this. I could pack all my shit and hoof it out of town. No one would be able to find me. I could get lost like I had before, but the thought of leaving him again hurt. Maybe I wouldn’t stay forever, but I needed more time before I was going to say good-bye.
The door creaked as my shoulder hit it as I sidled my way inside. Shaw’s office door was closed. I bypassed the secretary’s desk and grabbed the doorknob. The hardest thing was to turn the doorknob and push the door open.
Just as I predicted, Shaw sat at his desk, staring at the wall, his hair disheveled as if he had run his hands through it. I closed the door behind me with a soft thud, and he jerked his head in my direction. He straightened in his chair, flushing a bright red, then plastered on his principal look.
Damn, if only it didn’t affect me so much. How many times had I dreamed of entering his office and having him spank my bottom with a ruler while I lay draped over his desk? Right before he’d take me hard and punish me for not being the perfect angel he thought me to be.
I wanted him to be dirty with me, just like the way I felt most times.
“Ari, how’d you find me?” he asked, his voice low.
I linked my hands behind my back and stopped before his desk. “I couldn’t think of anywhere else to look.”
We stared at each other until he looked away, speechless.
“I made you dinner,” I said softly. “Chicken pot pie, which you like so much. Will you come home? Please?”
“You shouldn’t have come, Ari.” He dropped his gaze to his desk.
“I had to.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “I was worried.”
“You should have thought twice before you did that.”
I bit off the apology before it tumbled in an unceremonious lie from my lips. “I’m not sorry about anything.”
He snapped his head up, and my heart thumped hard in my chest. If he rejected me, what was even the point in trying to be good?
“Do you know how much I worked on convincing your mother nothing sexual was going on between us?”
“And nothing was, but I’m older now.”
“You were—are—like a son to me, Ari.”
“Like a son,” I cried. “You are not my father.” Never that asshole who’d—I shook my head to get rid of the disturbing mental images.
“Then why do you call me Daddy?” He gave a hoarse laugh and turned the computer monitor to me. “This is what I’ve been doing here, Ari. Trying to understand what all this means ’cause I don’t know what I walked into.”
The article’s byline was catchy about a twenty-four-year-old adult who wears diapers and uses pacifiers. A young woman with her hair in two pigtails, wearing a pink onesie with the word “Baby” on the front and sucking on a half-filled bottle, took up the side of the screen.
“It’s not as unpopular as you think.” I tried to gauge his reaction. Did he find it repulsive? “There are many people into that kink.”
“So this is the reason you call me Daddy?” he whispered. “You want me to-to do all this with you?”
“Yeah.” I dropped my gaze. “You’ve always taken care of me since you came into my life. It made sense you would be the one.”
“Is it sexual for you too?” he asked, his tone hopeful. “What I’ve read said it doesn’t have to be sexual.”
I could tell the answer he wanted to hear, but I couldn’t lie to him. Not with this. It meant way too much.
“Yes,” I replied. “I do like sex in little space. I like Daddy treating me like a little baby while he fucks me.” I inhaled deeply, just the thought of it turning me on. “I like to suck on my binky while Daddy drills me, like to-to-to use his cock as a pacifier.”
“My god, Ari.” The color drained from his face; his eyes were wide in shock.
“But I also love the nonsexual parts.” I stepped around his desk. When I stood next to him, I went down on my knees and stared up at him. “I love it when Daddy gives me bubble baths and makes me baby food. I love cuddles and naps during the day. I like silly cartoons and coloring, theme parks, and playing outside. I don’t always need it, but sometimes I do when life gets extremely difficult.” Like today.