“Okay, here we are.” Costello gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Remember, you’re just here to observe. You aren’t going to play with anyone, so if someone comes over to us, you keep your eyes down. I’ll do all the talking. You only speak when I tell you to.”
The adult in her boiled over at his instructions, but she’d follow them. He was keeping her safe, and if she deviated from his rules, they could both get into trouble.
“Okay, Daddy. I understand,” she said and took a deep breath.
“I’ll be with you the entire time,” he promised as he opened the door.
Music with a soft melody filled the room. She’d expected a club-like atmosphere, but what they walked into was an even larger scale nursery than the dayroom. Furniture meant for little girls and even babies had been made into adult sizes. Stuffed animals littered one corner of the room. There was even a ball pit.
It only took a moment before she saw past the innocent décor to the men and Lullaby girls in the room. She tucked herself a little closer toward Costello as they passed a man holding a woman dressed in a ducky onesie in his lap and was feeding her a cock shaped bottle.
“That’s a good little baby, suck all that milk out for Daddy. When you’re done here, you’ll suck Daddy’s cock,” he said to the girl, shoving the head of the bottle further into her mouth. She coughed and sputtered, but he didn’t remove it.
“Ariana, let’s keep going.” Costello tugged her along.
She hurried to keep up with him until he took her to a beanbag chair in a small nook.
“Sit here,” he said, gesturing toward the chair. She sank down into it, pulling the hem of her dress down to keep it from riding all the way up her thighs.
“C’mere, baby.” A sickly-sweet voice drew Ariana’s attention to the left of where she sat. Costello stood beside her, standing guard she supposed, but she could see everything going on around them.
The man grabbed a woman who was sitting on a rocking horse and pulled her to her feet. “You’ve been a naughty girl today, haven’t you?” he asked, already working his belt open from his jeans.
“Nooooo,” she crooned. “I’ve been a good girl.”
He yanked her harder toward him.
“Talking back?”
“No, Daddy! I’m sorry!”
“Melanie, go with Mr. Stephano. He’s your Daddy for the night,” a nanny, Ariana hadn’t seen before, chided the girl. If she hadn’t been dressed in the same uniform as the nannies downstairs, Ariana wouldn’t have known what she was.
“Oh.” Melanie straightened up and stopped tugging away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll just add it to your punishment,” he snarled and dragged her away from the rocking horse over to a whipping post.
“That’s not fair!” Ariana protested and tried to get to her feet.
Costello stilled her with a hard glare. “Don’t.” He pointed a finger at her.
“But she didn’t know that he was supposed to be her daddy,” Ariana pointed out. “He’s going to hurt her.”
Costello squatted down in front of her and grasped her chin. “Listen to me, little girl, unless you’d like to join her, you can’t argue here. You can’t get involved. These girls don’t have forever Daddies. Here, they play with every Daddy, and they don’t ever get to say no,” he explained.
A loud shriek from the corner made Ariana jump.
“He’s going to whip her as long and as hard as he wants to, and no one is going to save her.” Costello firmed his grip when she tried to look at the scene unfolding in the corner. “That’s what happens up here.”
She swallowed back another protest. “Okay, I’m sorry I got upset,” she whispered. With one more warning glare, he let her go and went back to standing guard.
The scenes she imagined were sweet compared to what she witnessed.
Spankings happened at the blink of an eye. Some girls were draped over benches while others were thrown against a wall while the men spanked them with canes, belts or thick paddles. The sobbing never seemed to end. The louder the girls cried; the more men filled the room to pick up a single girl to be theirs for the night.
“Costello. I didn’t think I’d see you up here.” A man with silver highlights running through his dark hair stepped up to them.
Ariana focused on him, thankful to be able to look away from the girls being abused around her. Every time she heard a cry or scream, she had to clench her teeth to keep from yelling out. Her jaw ached.
“Adam, good to see you. We’re trying something new with the girls downstairs. Letting them observe a night in the playroom.” Costello looked down at Ariana briefly. It was a quick glance, but she caught the warning in his eyes.