The Institute: Daddy Issues (3 page)

The cap­tain frowned. “There
was
one case where a girl was given a hit of Please at a party and her older brother took her home be­fore she could fall into the wrong hands. It wasn’t un­til after he got her back to the house that the symp­toms hit.”

“Oh no…” I put a hand to my mouth. “Please tell me he didn’t—”

“No, he didn’t have sex with his own sis­ter, Sug­ar­baker,” the Cap­tain said. “But people who take Please are in des­per­ate need of in­tense phys­ical sen­sa­tion. So in­stead of hav­ing sex with her, he
beat the hell out of her.”

“He
what?”
I asked, rais­ing my eye­brows at him.

“You heard me—he beat her black and blue.” The Cap­tain shrugged. “It worked. She didn’t die but when she came down off the Please high she was a mess.”

“Did she press charges?” I asked.

The Cap­tain shook his head. “No. She gave a state­ment to the ef­fect that she’d rather have a few bruises than have been raped by some stranger. She was grate­ful to her brother, if you can be­lieve that.”

“Well, he
did
save her from be­ing date raped,” I said, shrug­ging. “And then he gave her what her body needed, even if it prob­ably wasn’t ex­actly what she wanted at the time.”

“This must be stopped.”

I was sur­prised to hear the vehe­mence in Salt’s voice. Turn­ing, I saw that there was a grim ex­pres­sion on his nor­mally blank face, a mur­der­ous an­ger I rarely saw.

“So you’re up for this?” I asked him. “You want to go in un­der­cover as my “Daddy” so we can bust these guys?”

He looked at me ser­i­ously. “I know this will be hard for you, Andi. Much harder for you than for me. For that, I am sorry. But yes—I think we must stop this at any cost.”

Well, that was some­thing to con­sider. I’d been pre­pared to put up more of a fight on this one but Salt seemed to feel really strongly about it.

“All right,” I said, nod­ding at last. “I still don’t like it but we’ll do it.”

“Great.” Cap­tain Douglas looked very re­lieved. Clearly, he’d ex­pec­ted more of an ar­gu­ment from me. “We’ll make the ar­range­ments and in the mean­time, I’d like Pro­fessor Stevens here to coach the two of you on what to ex­pect and how to act.”

I looked at my watch. “Sounds good but it’s al­most quit­ting time, Cap­tain. Can we pick this back up to­mor­row?”

“Ac­tu­ally, we were hop­ing to get you into the In­sti­tute sooner rather than later,” the Cap­tain said.

“Okay.” I sighed. “Maybe the three of us can all go out to din­ner to­gether? Talk some more now?”

Stevens shif­ted un­com­fort­ably. “We do need to talk but I think it’s bet­ter we do it in private.”

“Plus you’ll need to try on your cos­tumes,” the Cap­tain put in. “I don’t think you’ll want to be seen out in pub­lic wear­ing those. Sorry, Sug­ar­baker.”

I frowned. “Okay, and what is Salt go­ing to wear?”

“Just wear a suit,” the Cap­tain said to Salt. “The more ex­pens­ive, the bet­ter. You’re go­ing to be a wealthy Rus­sian in­vestor who’s new to the whole Daddy-Dom ex­per­i­ence. You’re go­ing to the in­sti­tute with your Little, hop­ing to get tips to train her bet­ter.”

“Wait—why does Salt have to ‘train’ me?” I de­man­ded.

“Everything is al­ways a fight with you, isn’t it, Sug­ar­baker?” the Cap­tain growled. “Dr. Stevens and I thought it would be bet­ter for the two of you to present yourselves as new to the Age Play scene to ex­plain any mis­takes you might make.”

“All right,” I said re­luct­antly. “I just don’t like the idea of fetch­ing a stick or beg­ging for treats.”

“No, no, my dear.” Stevens laughed. “That would be
puppy
play. The In­sti­tute isn’t about that at all.”

“I was just kid­ding about that,” I said. “But you’re ser­i­ous—that’s a thing? Puppy play?”

“There are all
kinds
of kinks,” the pro­fessor said. “But as of now, you need only be con­cerned about one. So maybe the two of you would like to come to my house for sup­per and I can ex­plain your roles in more de­tail?”

“No.” Salt spoke up, sur­pris­ing me. “No, we will meet at my house,” he said, look­ing at Stevens. “Less trouble this way.”

“Well, okay, sure.” I shrugged. “Pro­fessor Stevens?”

“Just tell me the ad­dress,” he said nod­ding. “I’ll be there with bells on.”

Know­ing that he was deep in the fet­ish com­munity made me won­der if he meant that lit­er­ally. I had a feel­ing Salt and I were go­ing to find out.

I hummed as I moved around Salt’s kit­chen, set­ting out a plate of sand­wiches and stir­ring the soup on the stove. Liv­ing in Flor­ida, I had never been much for soup be­fore I met my part­ner. It’s al­most never cold enough to crave winter com­fort foods, which was how I al­ways thought of it. But I had gradu­ally learned that Salt didn’t see a meal as com­plete without it, so I had ad­ded a num­ber of new soup re­cipes to my cook­ing rep­er­toire. The kind we were hav­ing to­night was ac­tu­ally a nice ve­get­able soup I had made for him a few weeks be­fore. He had frozen the rest so all I had to do was re­heat it—con­veni­ent.

As I worked in the kit­chen, Salt set the table. He was also hum­ming to him­self in a low, tune­ful bari­tone. I stopped my own hum­ming to listen to him. I hadn’t thought of it much be­fore but it oc­curred to me how much I liked my part­ner’s voice. It’s very deep and mas­cu­line and com­mand­ing. It’s funny—he doesn’t talk much and when he does, he keeps his tone quiet for the most part. But still, when he talks, people listen and things get done. I liked that about him.

“What are you hum­ming?” I asked, stir­ring the soup again. “It’s nice.”

“Is a song my grand­mother used to sing to me at night some­times.” For a mo­ment, he stopped hum­ming and sang in­stead, his deep voice wash­ing over me as the rich, gut­tural Rus­sian lan­guage filled his warm kit­chen. It sent a shiver through me for some reason, though I didn’t know why.

“What does it mean?” I asked when he fin­ished. “Trans­late for me.”

“It is what you call a lul­laby I think. It goes…My little fox, my little kit­ten, sleep, oh sleep—the day is through. Heavy eyes and tired feet. Sleep my little mouse, sleep my little…” He paused for a mo­ment. “I think the last would trans­late into ‘my little nug­get of gold.’”

“What?” I burst out laugh­ing. “My little gold nug­get? Is that a nick­name in Rus­sia?”

“Da
—of course.” He gave me one of his rare smiles. “What is more pre­cious than gold? You could also call someone dear to you
pchelka
—my little bee.”

“Little bee?” I frowned. “But bees sting people.”

“Bees also give honey,” he poin­ted out. “Which is an Eng­lish term of en­dear­ment.”

“I guess so,” I ac­know­ledged. “It
does
sound weird when you think about it. Though no stranger than a man call­ing a grown wo­man ‘Little girl’ or a wo­man call­ing a man ‘Daddy,’ I guess.” I shivered. “Ugh—I’m
really
not look­ing for­ward to that.”

Salt frowned. “This both­ers you greatly—the terms we are meant to use for each other?”

“Come on, Salt…” I put a hand on my hips. “You meant to tell me it
doesn’t
bother you?”

He shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling.

“Is just an­other term of en­dear­ment, I sup­pose. Would you prefer we use other names for each other dur­ing this as­sign­ment?”

“Can we?” I asked. “I never thought about that.”

“Why not? I am from Rus­sia—I think it would be nat­ural to use terms of af­fec­tion in my own lan­guage.” He frowned thought­fully. “I will call you
mishka
—my little mouse.”

“Why mouse?” I bristled at once. “Mice are timid and scared—I’m neither one of those things.”

“You’re little though,” he poin­ted out. “And you have soft brown fur.”

I laughed and put a hand to my hair. “Okay. If you say so.”

“You also have big brown eyes,” Salt said quietly. He put the plates down and came over to tip my chin up so that our gazes met. “I see your soul in your eyes when I look at you, Andi.
Tih kra-sah-vee-tsa.”

“What does that mean? Is it Rus­sian?” I asked un­cer­tainly.

“It is,” he ac­know­ledged softly. “It means, ‘you are beau­ti­ful.’”

“Oh…” I didn’t know what to say. Salt was usu­ally all busi­ness but every once in a while he would come out with a state­ment like this that left me flounder­ing. I told my­self he was just act­ing as he had been raised—it was prob­ably just ‘the Rus­sian way’ to com­pli­ment a wo­man, even a coworker, on her looks. But still, some­times…

“But the ques­tion is,” Salt con­tin­ued after a mo­ment, fi­nally let­ting me go. “What should
you
call
me?
You do not wish to call me ‘Daddy’ I take it?”

“No, that’s what I called my own father. Well, be­fore he left.” I looked down at the soup again, which was sim­mer­ing nicely. Bet­ter not to think about that too much. “It just…creeps me out,” I said. “I mean, call­ing an­other man by that name.”

“Why not call me Papa?” Salt asked. “Would that bother you?”

I con­sidered it for a minute. “No, not quite as much, I don’t think.”

“Very well then, you are my little
mishka
and I am your Papa. Will this do, do you think?”

“I think so.” I sighed. “This is just so
weird,
Salt. I mean, we’ve had some strange cases be­fore but this…”

“This is just an­other as­sign­ment,” he said calmly.

“Easy for you to say. You get to wear a suit,” I poin­ted out. “I’m prob­ably go­ing to be wear­ing Hello Kitty panties and pig­tails.”

He frowned. “It should not mat­ter what kind of panties you wear as no one will be see­ing them.”

“You’re go­ing to be a strict Papa then?” I fluttered my eye­lashes at him jok­ingly. “You’re go­ing to pull down my Hello Kitty panties and spank me if I’m bad?”

“If I have to,” Salt rumbled and I sud­denly real­ized he wasn’t jok­ing.

“Hey.” I frowned at him. “I thought you told the Cap­tain you wouldn’t beat me be­cause I was too ‘del­ic­ate.’”

“I would not beat you with a belt as I was beaten as a child, no of course not,” Salt said. “But a spank­ing by hand…”

“Is
not
go­ing to hap­pen,” I said firmly. “And you never told me your dad beat you with a belt.”

Salt looked sud­denly guarded. “It was not some­thing you needed to know. Some things are best for­got­ten.”

Well, I cer­tainly knew how he felt. I would be happy to for­get my whole child­hood if it came to that.

“I don’t know,” I began but just then Salt’s door­bell rang. “I’ll get it,” I said and went for the door.

Pro­fessor Stevens was stand­ing just out­side the door­way with a drycleaner’s bag in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.

“Hi,” he said, smil­ing broadly. “I thought maybe we got off on the wrong foot earlier so I’d like to make amends and start fresh.” He handed me the bottle which looked like a pretty de­cent red.

“Thanks.” I stepped aside to let him in. “And I’m sorry if I was what Salt calls ‘prickly’ earlier. I’m just not really thrilled about this as­sign­ment.”

“I un­der­stand,” he said quickly, fol­low­ing me into the kit­chen. “It’s a lot to take in if you’re not already into kink.”

“Well, I’m not,” I said bluntly. “I can’t speak for Salt, here, but I know for my­self, I’m about as vanilla as they come.”

“Vanilla?” Salt asked, frown­ing.

“Non-kinky,” I ex­plained. “Not into whips and chains and spank­ing—that kind of thing.”

“Ah.” He nod­ded.

Stevens frowned. “Well, you don’t have to worry about whips and chains at the In­sti­tute but paddles and hair­brushes is an­other story en­tirely. A big part of the Daddy/Baby­girl dy­namic is dis­cip­line.”

“What? Are you ser­i­ous? Salt might have to…to spank me for real?” I felt a strange little quiver in my belly as I said it and I couldn’t look at my part­ner. “But that’s
crazy
.”

“No, that’s part of the Big/Little re­la­tion­ship,” Stevens said mat­ter-of-factly. “The stern Daddy cor­rects his way­ward little girl and them com­forts her af­ter­wards. Look, why don’t we eat and then I can tell you a little more about it.”

“Please…” Salt in­dic­ated a seat for him at the end of the rect­an­gu­lar table. He him­self took the other end and I sat at his right hand. It was how we al­ways sat when we ate to­gether. I liked be­ing able to have a good con­ver­sa­tion with my part­ner without shout­ing. Salt was already so tall I felt like I was talk­ing up to him half the time so it made sense to sit closer.

I served out the soup and sand­wiches, play­ing the little wo­man, and Salt de­can­ted and poured out the wine Stevens had brought. We ate in si­lence for a few minutes un­til I couldn’t stand it any­more.

“Okay, let’s stop beat­ing around the bush,” I said to Stevens. “Tell us what we can ex­pect.”

“I’ll tell you what you
can’t
ex­pect,” he said grimly. “You can’t ex­pect to go into the In­sti­tute and shoot off your mouth to your Daddy without arous­ing sus­pi­cion. You can’t talk to him the way you were talk­ing to your Cap­tain dur­ing your brief­ing.”

“Shoot off my mouth?”
I put my soup spoon down and raised an eye­brow at him. “Did you really just say that to me?”

Salt had also lowered his spoon and there was a mur­der­ous glint in his pale blue eyes.

“You will re­spect my part­ner,” he said in a low growl. “Or there will be
con­sequences
.” It was about as much of a warn­ing as he ever gave.

Stevens paled a little but held his ground.

“I’m just telling you that a slave—a Baby­girl in this case—can’t talk so freely to her Mas­ter or Daddy without be­ing seen as a ‘brat.’ And un­less you’re
look­ing
for a pun­ish­ment, brat­ting will get you into big trouble.”

“Brat­ting?”
I shook my head. “What the hell is that?”

“Speak­ing out too freely to your Daddy—
sas­sing
is the term they use at the In­sti­tute. Among other things,” Stevens said. “Be­ing sassy to your Daddy or other Bigs will earn you a repu­ta­tion you don’t want.”

I put a hand on my hip. “In other words, don’t speak my opin­ion. Just shut up like a good little girl and do what Daddy tells me.”

“Es­sen­tially, yes.” The pro­fessor nod­ded.

“You have
got
to be kid­ding me,” I said, frown­ing. “This is ri­dicu­lous. How can any self-re­spect­ing wo­man even
con­sider
go­ing to this place?”

“Be­lieve it or not, many of the Baby­girls you’re go­ing to meet are savvy busi­ness­wo­men. Some are even Doc­tors, law­yers, CEOs—and I’m sure all of them would identify as fem­in­ists,” Stevens told me. “They’re at the In­sti­tute be­cause it al­lows them to ex­plore a side of them­selves they’ve kept hid­den and locked away for years. It’s a place of safety for them—a place where they can re­gress to a sim­pler time when the weight of the world wasn’t on their shoulders.”

“If you say so.” I shook my head again. “But I hon­estly can’t see it.” I pushed my plate away. “I’ve lost my ap­pet­ite. Could you please just show me the cos­tumes I’m go­ing to have to wear?” Might as well get all the bad stuff out of the way.

“Of course.” Stevens pushed away his own half eaten sand­wich and nod­ded at me. “If you’d like to come into the other room?”

I fol­lowed him back to the liv­ing room, where he’d left the dryclean­ing bag and Salt came as well, like a si­lent, omin­ous moun­tain at my back.

“Now,” Stevens said, open­ing the bag. “I have sev­eral choices for you. And it all de­pends on what age you want to re­gress to.”

“Ser­i­ously? I have to pick a cer­tain age?”

“Makes sense,” Salt said, sur­pris­ing me. “Is ne­ces­sary to know the age to tell what man­ner­isms to use.”

“I guess so,” I grumbled. “Well, show me what you’ve got and tell me what age it goes with.”

“All right. Well, start­ing from the bot­tom…” Stevens pulled out a pink ruffled jump­suit that looked like some­thing a young girl would wear ex­cept it was in my size.

“Eww!” I pro­tested. “Tell me again how this
isn’t
about pe­do­philia, Stevens? Be­cause how can it not be when you want me to wear some­thing like
that?”

“It has noth­ing to do with pe­do­philia be­cause the Age Play­ers are not in­ter­ested in chil­dren—only each other,” he ex­plained pa­tiently. “Re­gress­ing to this age al­lows the Baby­girl to be al­most com­pletely non­verbal. She’ll get naps, have bottles, and be rocked to sleep by her Daddy. Be­ing held in the strong, warm arms of a man who loves her and will never hurt her—there’s noth­ing sexual about that. It’s all about com­fort.”

“Still,” I said. “I’m not wear­ing that. Op­tion num­ber two, please.”

“All right.” He pulled out a blue checked party-type dress, again with lots of ruffles and lace. It looked like some­thing an eight or nine year old girl might wear to a fancy party.

“Nope,” I said at once. “Still too young. God, this is gross.”

“Con­sider it be­fore you turn it down,” Stevens urged. “At this age, you get to be Daddy’s little prin­cess. You’ll sit on his lap a lot and be taken out to the zoo and the park and any Dis­ney movies that might be play­ing. Your Daddy will cut up your meat for you at din­ner and check un­der the bed for mon­sters be­fore tuck­ing you in. It’s rather nice, ac­tu­ally.”