Chapter Twenty-Four
Saoirse woke up from her nap in a foul mood and hungry. Maybe the bad mood was caused by the hunger? Whatever it was, she’d been asleep for a long time, missed her snack, and now all she could think about was food. Steak. Crab cakes. Swordfish. A pork chop. Or, ooo, a rack of lamb. Yes, she wanted a giant hunk of meat.
Usually she patiently waited for Arthur to come and get her out of the crib—he always had the monitor on when she was in her princess room alone—but she didn’t have the patience for that right now.
“Daddy!” she yelled as she shook the bars of the crib, pounded on the rail at the top with her feet. “Daddy, I’m hungry!”
It was only a couple of minutes before Arthur was coming through the door with a bottle in hand and by then she was standing, her hands on the rail and she was maybe hooking a foot over to see if she couldn’t climb out. Then if he was busy, she could just go down to the kitchen and get herself something to eat.
Except the dark way he looked at her said she would not be going anywhere except across his lap. Oops.
Arthur put the bottle on the table beside the rocking chair and then stalked toward her, hands on his hips.
“Saoirse Imogen Sullivan. We have talked about your tone and we have talked about needing Daddy to let you out of your crib. I understand you’re hungry but that is no excuse to be rude or unsafe. Now sit down and I will let you out properly.”
Uh-oh. Arthur wasn’t one of those men who yelled—which was good, because Saoirse hated yelling. But hewasone of those “I’m not mad, just disappointed” men and that made her feel even worse.
She did as she was told and plopped down on her butt toward the far side of the crib so she wouldn’t be in the way, and took Ziggy with her.
Once Arthur had put the side of the crib down, he gestured for her to come closer, and she did, crawling on her hands on knees.
“Do we need to change your diaper or can it wait until after you’ve got something in your tummy?”
“After, Daddy, please,” she said, letting him pick her up and wrapping her legs around his waist. “I’m so hungry. I don’t want a bottle. I want grown-up food.”
“You’re going to have your special formula first and then you may have a few bites of big girl food when we sit down for dinner.”
“I don’t want my bottle. Only grown-up food. And I want wine with dinner.”
He’d carried her over to the rocking chair and sat down with her on his lap but she didn’t immediately curl against him like she usually did so he could feed her. No, she sat up and glared at him.
“Saoirse, I understand that you’re hungry and that you miss eating more grown-up food. But you heard Doctor Eric. You’re supposed to mostly take bottles for a week, and definitely no alcohol. Now you can behave and take your bottle like a good girl or I can spank you for being naughty and make you take your bottle anyhow.”
This was ridiculous. She was a grown woman. She wanted real food and a glass—or a bottle—of wine, so she should fucking be able to have it. And while she liked being bottle-fed, she’d had more than enough of it this week. So when she wanted a slab of ham or a turkey leg was she going to accept a smoothie from a baby bottle? No fucking way.
“No,” she said, scowling.
Arthur’s salt and pepper brows arched but he didn’t otherwise react to her refusal. No, he simply unlocked her diaper cover at the waist, turned her over his knee, pulled her skirt up and her diaper down, and started spanking her. Hard. So hard it didn’t take long for her to be in tears and begging for her daddy to stop.
“I’m not going to stop until I believe you’ve learned your lesson,” he said, his palm coming down on her backside over and over and over again, making her flinch and squirm and wail. “You were rude and unsafe, and now you’re being uncooperative and refusing to follow Doctor Eric’s instructions. You need a great deal of correction and I want you to remember that you could’ve been having your bottle right now instead of getting a long, hard spanking. You had several opportunities to be a good girl and you didn’t take any of them.”
“Daddy, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry,” she cried.
“I don’t think you are, naughty girl. I think you’re sorry you’re getting spanked but I don’t think you actually regret your behavior.”
After what seemed like forever, her daddy stopped spanking her and rubbed her bottom. Her face was flushed and her head felt heavy from being over his lap for so long, and her face was a mess from all the crying she’d done.
Arthur gathered her up and held her on his lap, petting her hair as she sobbed into his shirt. And while she’d like to honestly say he was wrong, that she really was sorry, she couldn’t. No, she didn’t like how her butt was on fire and her head felt all stuffy and thick but she also… It was hard to explain.
She wanted to be blurred out and taken over. She wanted to forget for a while who she was and why everything hurt. She wanted to let go of all the regrets she had and all the mistakes she’d made. She wanted Arthur to be the person to help her do it and she wanted to know no matter how hard she pushed, no matter how bratty she was, that he wouldn’t give up on her.
It felt dangerous to press him like this when she’d never been much of a risk-taker. What if he did throw up his hands and show her the door? She’d be devastated. But better to discover it now while everything had already fallen apart. Frustration and recklessness was not a good combination—made her take a swan dive toward rock bottom while hoping against hope that her daddy would be strong enough to catch her before she hit and shattered.
“I’ll be good now, Daddy,” she said into his chest.
“No, it’s too late for you to be good. You were naughty and uncooperative so now you get to see what happens to bad girls who fight their daddies. You’re going to have ten minutes of corner time before you take your bottle.”
She wanted to scream. Throw things. Stomp her feet and collapse on the floor. But instead she marshaled the last of her willpower and let Arthur steer her toward the naughty corner of the nursery and arrange her so her nose touched the joint of the walls, her skirt was tucked up and her diaper still down so her red and throbbing backside was on display, and he clipped her mitts together behind her back. Humiliating.
“I need to get some things from downstairs but I’m turning the monitor on so don’t you dare move because I will see you. I know you’re holding out on me but we need to get some food in your tummy so we’ll deal with that first. Don’t be naughty or you won’t be able to sit down without wincing for at least a week. Are we understood?”
“Yes, Daddy,” Saoirse said as she closed her eyes and breathed through the tumbling thoughts in her head and the painful burn on her backside.