The man had several pairs of floggers hanging from a rack and when he started using an intricate Florentine pattern, I watched Emmy more than I did the man.
Her eyes widened as the woman playfully stuck her ass out at her Top, making him laugh and strike her harder, faster, theslapsof the leather falls striking flesh audible even from where we stood.
Emmy motioned for me to lean in and whispered, “She looks like that doesn’t hurt.”
“It probably doesn’t hurt. The floggers he’s using are specially made for that, the handles. The falls are probably stiffer leather than my flogger, but a lot of people assume floggers arecat o’ nine tails or flails, when usually they’re not. They just sound and look scary.”
She nodded and continued watching. She wore a dark blue Hello Kitty robe over her swimsuit. I bought the robe for her after dinner because I saw how much she’d liked it. When the couple finished, she turned to me. “Do they have video classes about that? About what he did?”
“Probably. Do you want to go back to the room?”
“Not yet. I want to swim.”
“Okay.” I held her hand and led her out of the Dungeon and toward the indoor pool, but then she caught sight of the arcade and playground area.
“What’s that?”
I led her over and she stopped in the doorway, staring at the adult-sized playground equipment, complete with a ball pit. There wasn’t anyone else in there at that moment and she didn’t even realize it when I took her towel from her.
“Go play, sweetheart.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Leave your sandals here.”
And like that she bolted, taking a flying cannonball into the ball pit with a happy squeal and making my heart swell with joy.
Oooh, yeah, we’d be making frequent trips back here.
I put our towels and shoes in one of the storage cubbies by the door and walked over, pointing at the top of the swinging bridge near the peak of the enormous structure, which you had to climb to reach. “Beat you to the top.” I started climbing as she squealed in outrage and floundered her way out of the ball pit.
Yes, I sandbagged a little, to give her time to catch up, but by the time we reached the top of the structure, she was laughing in a way I knew would also remain etched in my memory.
When we reached the bridge, she sat cross-legged in the middle of it while I watched her. It was like a dark curtaindropped over her and her smile faded. “We always wanted to play like this,” she said. “But there were never fun playgrounds like this at the shelters. None of the foster houses we were at, either. When we were older, we’d walk past playgrounds and watch the kids playing on the really cool slides and stuff that we didn’t get to use.” She looked up at me. “And of course, when you’re older, if you try to play on them you get weird looks from grownups, or you get run out of the park because you’re ‘too old’. I don’t know how to label myself.”
I sat next to her. “That’s what’s so great about this place. You don’t have to be a Little to enjoy doing stuff like this. I was right there with you climbing. One time I was here and they were having a water balloon fight at the outside pool. I was out there having fun with them, and I’m definitely not a Little. If you decide you are a Little? Then that’s okay, too. Little, submissive, slave—like I said, the only label I insist on is ‘Mine’.”
That earned me a smile. “We’d probably get in trouble if I fucked you right here, wouldn’t we?”
I laughed. “I’m not sure what the rules are about doing that in this space, but since it’s Littles-centric I have a feeling it would be frowned upon.”
When she leaned against me, I draped my arm around her.
“Thank you for bringing me here, Sir,” she said. “And thank you for being patient with me. I know I’m a mess.”
“We’re all a mess in our own way, baby. I get what you mean about playing, too. I missed out on a lot even though I was older when everything happened.”
“You don’t talk about them much.”
“Well, the past few weeks have been sort of scrambled,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about them, and I would never try to equate my circumstances with what you and Lilah went through, but I was fortunate enough to have resourcesavailable to me back then. I was in high school, and our school’s counselor was really good.”
“Who’d you live with after it happened?”
“One of my friends’ parents suggested I file for emancipated minor status and I got it. That meant I could deal with the house and their estate and everything. I sold it and ended up moving in with another of my friends and his family, living in their mother-in-law apartment with the stipulation I’d move out after graduation. They were nice people, but they had problems of their own, including financial problems because the father had been laid off and ended up doing gig work. I paid rent to them, and they pretty much left me alone to do my thing.
“But that’s how I met my ex because she was friends with my friend’s sister. She had a big family, and the more time I spent with her and them, I sort of… settled. I was eighteen, stupid, alone in the world, and the only thing I knew for certain was that I wanted to be a firefighter. Didn’t hurt that I knew it’d be job security. Her family felt sorry for me because of what happened, and before I knew it, I was proposing because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do and we got married and lived with them for the first two years while she went to school to be a hairstylist.”
“What happened?”
