“You aren’t allowed to run away from me, Little One. You know it’s your bedtime.”

“But, Daddy—”

“And no talking back.” With that He put her over His lap and gave her a vicious swat on her white cotton panties. The pain of it was equal to the shock, and she gasped and stiffened. He spanked her again. Once, twice. Five times total. Her body burned when He’d finished. All of it, not just where He’d struck her. She lay there across His lap and panted while He rubbed her scalding skin.

“Are you going to behave now?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“That’s my good girl.” He rubbed her bottom and thighs gently as He rocked her in His arms again. She felt peaceful, quiet inside, happy. She’d forgotten who she really was in His arms and that this was a game He’d made her play. She was His little girl. Now. Always. “You need to settle down. It’s bedtime.”

One finger traced the edge of her panties all the way between her thighs. He pushed the fabric to the side and found her clitoris. He stroked it carefully, steadily and it swelled under His fingertips, throbbing against them as little bursts of fluid coated her labia and vagina. When He inserted one finger into her, He smiled at how wet He found her.

“Very good girl,” He whispered as He moved His finger in deeper. She buried her face in the crook of her arm while He fondled her. A second finger joined His first one and He spread them apart inside her to open her up.

“Thank you, Daddy,” she said, the word rolling easier off her tongue now.

“Are you ready for bed now?”

“Ready.”

He took His fingers out of her, and she scrambled back on her hands and knees. He tossed the quilt and top sheet back, and laid her on the bed. He fluffed the pillow under her head before reaching under her gown and sliding her panties off her legs. He stood at the side of the bed and she stared at the ceiling, but she knew He was unzipping His pants. She opened her legs for Him before He asked her to.

“That’s my girl.” He covered her body with His and when He pushed her legs open wider, she whimpered but didn’t say a word.

As wet as she was, He entered her easily, filling her with His full length in a stroke. His hands were on either side of her shoulders, bracing Himself up and over her to keep His weight off her smaller form. In the low light He seemed enormous, as if He would crush her if He lay on top of her. His shadow on the wall looked like a giant’s.

After a few minutes He paused but only long enough to pull her nightgown down her arms. Her nipples hardened as He uncovered them. When He bent His head to lick them, the deep muscles inside her twitched and throbbed and tightened to the breaking point. Not moving took more effort than moving. Her fingers clutched the sheets. He fed on her embarrassment like food. Tonight’s humiliation was a banquet.

She closed her eyes and laid her head back on the pillow. An orgasm so strong she felt it all the way up the center of her back and in her thighs tore through her. When her body ceased its shuddering around Him, she closed her eyes. At last He came inside her, His lips pressed to her forehead.

“You were a very good girl,” He said as His fingertips brushed her cheek, pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too, Little One.”

He pulled out at last, straightened her nightgown and covered her with the quilt.

She opened her eyes. “Can I have a glass of water, please?”

“Of course.” He kissed her on the forehead again and left the room. When He returned a few minutes later, all traces of His exertions were gone. Every button buttoned and every hair back in place. He passed her the glass of water. She took it with both hands and drank from it as He picked up the book off the table.

“This book is called Jabberwocky,” He said, opening it to the inside cover. “And it’s yours.”

On the inside she silently read the words “Never forget the lesson of the Jabberwocky. And never forget I love you.” It was signed with an elaborate S with a slash through the heart of it.

“What’s the lesson of the Jabberwocky?” She looked up at Him with eyes as wide as Alice’s lost in Wonderland.

“Let’s find out.” He opened the book and in His voice that belonged to a man from another time started to read to her. “‘’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves...’”

Meanwhile His semen dripped out of her body onto the laughing white moons and the smiling yellow stars.

* * *

Elle blinked and a tear landed on the keyboard.

She read through the story once. Then twice. She remembered the humiliation and the desire. She was aroused, painfully so, and would give anything for release. Her cheeks flushed hot with the sensory memories of her mortification. She could still feel Søren’s semen slick on her thighs. When she wrote her scene, she hadn’t been able to type his name. She could only write “Him,” capital H as if he were God instead of a mere man. Maybe he was a god with a god’s power and a god’s wrath. She had seen both with her own eyes. And he had seen into her soul the way only a god could and had conjured a scene for her designed to touch the most tender spots on her heart, the parts of her that mourned for her lost childhood and the love she’d had for her real father as a little girl. The night her father died, the night she had condemned him to die, she’d declared to Kingsley, “My only father is a priest.” Had Søren seen those words printed on her soul? Was that why he’d put her in the nightgown, made her call him “Daddy”? That wasn’t his kink, his fantasy. It was hers and he used it like a knife. But not a knife like a weapon, a knife like a scalpel, and he’d cut the wounded spot out of her heart with it. Her father hadn’t loved her. Her priest, that Father, did love her and always would. Her father had abandoned her. Her Father never would. Her father had never held her and rocked her and read her stories. But her Father had.

The memory of that night glowed in her mind like something radioactive; potent, powerful and dangerous. Such a memory could make her forget things she didn’t want to forget, like the sound of an antique riding crop snapping into the three pieces, or ugly words like you are mine.

A memory such as this could make her crawl back to him. The day she’d first seen him when she’d been fifteen, she’d felt a golden cord tied around her heart pulling her toward him. Even now she felt the cord, felt the pull. The cord tightened around her heart leaving her breathless with pain and wanting.

She didn’t want to go back to him.

She didn’t want to go back to him.

God, she wanted to go back to him.

If she went back to him it would all be for nothing—leaving, the year at the convent, swallowing her pride to beg Kingsley for a job, the plan to turn her into the Queen of the Underground. She’d have to give it all up to go back to him. He’d ordered her to stay away from Kingsley. He’d ordered her not to top Kingsley. He’d ordered her to marry him.

Would he order her to do all that again if she went back to him?

She couldn’t take that chance.

Elle highlighted every single word in the document, every word she’d just written.

She hit Delete.

Poof. It was gone.

Just like that.

Elle smiled although it had hurt.

Daddy’s little girl was all grown-up now.

Slightly shaking, Elle got up out of her chair, logged off the computer and walked back to the stacks, searching for a book, any book, anything to take her mind off what she’d just written, what she’d just done. She felt freer now. Stronger. Lighter but emptier in a way. But that’s what she wanted, wasn’t it?