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When Kate reached her Aunt Rhonda’s apartment—the habit of calling it Aunt Rhonda’s was unbreakable—she threw her bag on the couch and headed for the shower. She stayed under the water for a long time, increasing the heat until her skin was tender and the stall thick with steam. She wanted to be raw, to flay off her melancholy afternoon. If she melted away her skin, she could become someone else, not Kate McGrath, engineer, girlfriend, friend, and derby teammate. Something less. Something small and sweet and manageable.
Steaming and pink, Kate stepped out of the shower and towelled herself dry. When she wiped the misty mirror, she saw a rosy-cheeked adolescent. It wasn’t flattery. She didn’t look twenty-nine. She didn’t look twenty-three. Last month she’d worn her high school rugby jumper to the shops and the assistant asked if she was looking forward to graduation. She resembled a teenager more than most of the teenagers she saw out clubbing on Saturday nights. Those girls knew how to flaunt themselves in a way Kate was still working on.
But it doesn’t matter. I’m cute the way I am.
That thought would have once rung hollow, but tonight Kate smiled at her reflection and liked the smile she got back. At least until a wave of moodiness swept her.
“No,” she told herself, stern as a schoolteacher. “Not now. Now is for sexiness.”
She turned from the mirror and opened her toiletry bag. The temptation to apply make up in these situations was ever-present, but she knew from experience that foundation and mascara would be smeared all over the pillows if Ty’s role-play led to manhandling or crying—which it always did. She satisfied herself with dabbing water jelly moisturiser onto her still-flushed skin and opened the cabinet and grabbed her box of Ritalin. She swallowed the capsule with a mouthful of tap water. It used to bother her, having the tablets where Ty could see them. When he first moved in, she hid them in the couch cushions and in disused mixing bowls, forgetting her own stashing places so she had to keep getting refills. Eventually, when he found five Ritalin blisters beneath the SodaStream, Ty got angry.
“I know you take Ritalin,” he’d said, holding up the pills like a cop brandishing his MDMA bust. “Why don’t you keep your pills in the medicine cabinet instead of hiding them all over the fucking house?”
Embarrassed and a little relieved the Ritalin wasn’t missing, Kate struggled to reply.
“Well?”
“I don’t know...that’s like admitting I’m not normal.”
“To who?”
‘To you’ she’d tried to say, but the truth burst from her without permission. Like it had been waiting for the question. “My family.”
Ty didn’t miss a beat. “Fuck your family! They’re a pack of useless cunts! Acting like you’re pretending to have ADHD when they believe in chemtrails and flat earth and fuck knows what other bullshit. They can all get fucked.”
Two years later the memory still made Kate laugh. Ty’s blanket contempt—and swearing—had shifted something she’d spent years trying to budge. She couldn’t feel embarrassed about taking medication without hearing Ty’s voice. “Fuck your family! They’re a pack of useless cunts!”
That’s love, she thought, finger-combing her hair. The way he made something so hard so easy. But I could never explain how that feels to anyone else and have it make sense.
She imagined herself standing at an altar, wearing a long, lacy gown like her nicknamesake Kate Middleton, turning to Ty in a tuxedo and saying ‘I love you because you called my family cunts so hard it made me lose all respect for them.’
She snorted. No one but Rapunzel would appreciate that sentiment, and maybe not even Rapunzel, considering her current mood. Meanwhile, just the idea of wearing a wedding dress made her arms itch. She scratched her wrists as she strode to the spare bedroom.
The room was dim enough to make early evening feel like midnight—you could barely make out the Mallrat and Shawn Mendes posters on the wall. Kate opened her costume cupboard and pulled out a puffy white lace babydoll trimmed with pink ribbons. She tugged it over her head and pulled on the equally puffy panties. You couldn’t wear them under clothes without looking like you rocked adult diapers, but they were girlishly sweet on their own.
She twirled, feeling the material swish around her thighs. This was perfect. Now that all her simple tasks were completed, she had no nothing to do but wait. She climbed onto the small pink bed and pulled the sheets up to her chin. The cool cotton made her shiver. She closed her eyes and lay still. Minutes passed, but she didn’t feel bored or impatient. This was ritualised anticipation, the deliberate stringing out of arousal.
She knew wherever Ty was, he was playing the same game. Maybe he was at work, completing unnecessary tasks, or, more likely, having a drink at a bar, vibrating with pent up energy, planning what was coming next. He liked to drink whiskey knowing she was lying in wait for him, horny and impatient. They both had a kink for waiting. Of all of her and Ty’s kinks, it was the most innocent. The others had grown darker as their relationship continued. When they had first started dating, Kate had been worried their insane sexual chemistry would burn itself out. Instead, their growing trust let them push each other further into what Ty called ‘the red zone.’ Their daddy/little girl role-play had never been more intense or realistic.
Sometimes Kate felt dirty about it, but mostly she felt fine. It helped that the concept of calling your sex partner ‘daddy’ had blown up in a major way. It was bananas. One minute her kink was niche and taboo and largely associated with incest and Freudian issues, the next minute, #daddyvibes was trending on Twitter and hot guys all over the internet were being called daddy. Soon DDLG porn was flowing into Pornhub like someone had turned on a tap in kinky heaven. Even Tambara, who avoided social media, kept sending Kate links to ‘Hollywood’s top zaddies, daddies, and dads—AND HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE!’
Ty didn’t get daddy going mainstream, but then he was twenty years older than her. Blowjobs were still considered a spicy sex act when he was growing up. Besides, he was too much of a daddy to comprehend his own daddiness. Like an eclipse, he couldn’t see the action, he was the action. Kate liked the daddy trend, even though sometimes it felt like strangers were wearing her favourite outfit. A jolt shocked her out of her thoughts. She’d absently caressed the line of her public bone and the skin sizzled with electricity. She took her hand away, opening her eyes to the darkness. Which daddy would Ty be tonight?
Sometimes he was sadistic, spanking her ass raw and forcing himself into her throat. Sometimes he was sleazy, sliding into her sheets reeking of whiskey and begging for relief his fake wife wouldn’t give him. Sometimes he was mischievous, teasing her about her ‘developing’ body and cajoling her into taking her top off. She’d intended to fantasise about the possibilities, but tiredness soon clapped its mask over her brain. Soon her anticipatory thoughts of Ty drifted into the eccentric flicks of dreams—her sister Lindsey offering her wedding cake, a sea of wet black dance floors, a band made up of seashell men...
A loud bang had Kate jerking upward. She clutched her chest, taken aback by the pink of her sheets until she remembered where she was. Remembered the game she was playing. She could hear Ty pacing the kitchen. Her daddy was home, and from the sounds of things, he was angry. She curled under her sheets as though they could protect her, her heart pounding against her curled-up palms. Loud footsteps banged up the hall and the bedroom door swung open.
“Katie?” Ty’s voice was clipped as a newspaper cutting. “You get up right now, young lady.”
And just like that, Kate knew exactly what kind of daddy she was getting—impatient, workaholic, ‘fed up with your bullshit’ daddy. As close to a real father/daughter relationship dynamic as she and Ty got. At least she thought it was close to a real father/daughter dynamic. Her own father had spent most of her life ignoring her. In fairness, so had her mum and nine brothers and sisters. Kate sat up straight, rubbing a sleepy fist into her eyes. “Is everything okay, Daddy?”
Kate didn’t have to fake the quiver in her voice, her pulse was leaping in her throat. Ty was silhouetted by the hallway light—tall and broad, his hair glowing like a gold halo. He was her Australian Adonis. The daddy to all other daddies. He put his briefcase on the floor with a thunk.
“You were out with that boy, weren’t you?” Ty’s snarled, daring her to lie.
Kate licked her dry lips, as frightened as if it was true. “We’re just friends, Daddy.”
Ty strode to the side of the bed and flicked on her unicorn lamp. It brightened, filling the room with rosy light. “Look at me.”
She did what she was told. Their gazes met and the anger in Ty’s face made her close her eyes. Stern and handsome, Tyler Henderson projected male capability with a weight akin to gravity. He was a Man. Capital letter required. If he was unattractive, Kate was sure people would still be drawn to him, but with his denim blue eyes and superhero jaw, he looked like the gods had manifested the most conventional interpretation of white guy beauty. Kate had never imagined someone so physically perfect could be hers. People turned to stare at him in the street.
Ty’s hand gripped her jaw. “You open your eyes right now, young lady.”
Her eyes flew open. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“Sorry isn’t good enough. You’ve been a bad little girl.”
Kate shook her head. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You did. How many times do I have to tell you that you can’t be friends with boys?”
The bitterness in Ty’s voice was Oscar-worthy. Anyone would have thought she had been with a boy instead of work then bed. Kate pouted as much as she felt she could get away with. Unlike Ty, she never felt entirely natural in these scenes and leaned heavily on pouting and closing her eyes. But she never struggled for what to say. She had that down to an art. “Other girls can be friends with boys. Other girls can date.”
Ty’s upper lip curled. “Date?”
“It wasn’t a real date. Just a coffee.”
“I swear to God, Katie...”
“Please don’t be mad at me, Daddy.” She said it automatically, hoping to offset his temper. She wanted him to kiss her. To be nice to her.
Ty blew out a frustrated sigh. “You’re growing up, aren’t you, baby?”
“I don’t mean to.”
He sighed again and sat at the edge of her bed. Kate shivered beneath her persona’s sheets. She loved all Ty’s daddy personas, but this might be her favourite—exasperated, full of self-loathing, prone to anger and sweetness in quick succession.
He rubbed a thumb across Kate’s cheek, and she inhaled, smelling Giorgio Armani cologne, whiskey, and a trace of end-of-day sweat. She adored that smell. Maybe that was real love too, craving the smell of someone’s sweat.
“I love you, Daddy,” she said, needing to say it.
Ty’s handsome features tightened. “I love you too, baby. But you’re still small. I need to keep you safe.”
Beneath the covers, Kate’s nipples pricked. She folded her arm across them. “I’m not that small. I want to be like other girls.”
Ty gave her a hard look. “You haven’t been with any boys, have you?”
Kate made herself look away. “I...”
Ty’s hand tightened on her chin, turning her to face him. “Katie?”
“I...I’ve been kissed. And he felt me a little bit...” Kate folded her arm more tightly over her breasts. “...that’s not bad, is it?”
Ty shot to his feet. “Goddammit, Katie.”
She flinched. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is you’re a naughty little whore.”
Kate pulled the blankets up to her chin. “But, Daddy—”
“But nothing. Shut your mouth. I need to think.”
Ty paced the room, breathing hard through his mouth. His cock jutted against his suit pants, its hardness utterly at odds with his fury. Kate’s mouth filled with saliva. This daddy wouldn’t have sex with her—too intimate, too dirty—but he might make her suck him while he castigated her about how dirty she was. Her insides gave a pleasurable squirm as she imagined being set on her knees and forced to swallow...God, she was turned on. If role-play lasted much longer, she might stop acting naive and straight beg Ty for sex. She sat up, letting the covers fall away to reveal her low-cut babydoll. “Daddy, please don’t be mad at me?”
Ty’s gaze fell to her cleavage. A muscle in his jaw jumped. “You don’t understand what you’re doing, do you?”
“What am I doing?”
“Disobeying me. You know you’re not allowed to be touched by other men.”
There was a short pause.
“Boys,” Ty corrected. “Boys who don’t respect you. Who’ll hurt you.”
Kate tried to look prettily puzzled. “That won’t happen, Daddy. I promise.”
“You can’t make that promise. Only the boys can make that promise and they won’t. Not with the way you’re looking and dressing these days.”
“What do you—”
“Never mind.”
Ty turned on his heel and paced. He shoved his hands in his pockets, accentuating the swell of his erection. Kate slid a hand between her legs and cupped herself. She wanted to play properly, but the temptation to say her safe word and just have Ty fuck her was getting stronger. Thankfully, her boyfriend stopped in his tracks and stared at her, his eyes full of a hunger that said he was as near breaking point as she was.
“You know you’re right, baby. You are growing up.” His words were light but there was an undercurrent of malice.
“S-sorry, Daddy.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s only natural. You’re becoming a big girl. That means you need big girl ways to feel good.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you remember that talk we had about what mummies and daddies do together?” Ty stared at her, his hands still in his pockets. From the way they were moving, he was caressing the head of his cock.
She forced herself to inhale, to focus on her role in the scene. “I remember. Special cuddles.”
Ty nodded, kneeling beside her on the bed. “You’re too little for special cuddles, baby, but you’re curious, aren’t you?”
“What does that mean?”
Kate asked so many dumb questions during sex, it sometimes felt like a farce, but it was necessary. It kept the plot moving and her absurd naivety intact. And it was kind of fun to wallow in knowing nothing, in being told all manner of self-serving lies so she could remain innocent.
Ty’s gaze bored into hers, his right hand shifting in his pocket. “Do you touch yourself between your legs, my baby?”
Kate turned away, faux embarrassed. “I don’t know...”
Ty knelt before her and grasped her cheek. “Do you?”
“I...yes.”
“Do you ever put your fingers inside yourself?”
Kate’s heart was palpitating, pumping hard. “No.”
“I think you do.” Ty’s fingertips slid along her neck. “And because I think you’re lying, I’m going to see if I’m right.”
“But, Daddy—”
“No buts.” He was breathing hard, his rough palms working their way inside her babydoll, though he’d said nothing about inspecting her boobs. Kate held her breath as he scrubbed his palm over one nipple, then the other. He touched her roughly, as though he could no longer resist the impulse to take her, to consume. As he caressed her, she fought the urge to whimper, twist, or otherwise give the game away by showing how turned on she was. Ty went rabid if she put up a little resistance. She needed to stay silent and shiver. Be the frightened waif a little while longer...
Ty rubbed lower, skimming her stomach and grunting as he slid his hand into her underwear. “Baby...”
“Yes, Daddy?”
But he didn’t want an answer. He wrapped his free arm around her back and slid his finger through her landing strip, parting her cunt with a groan. “You’re wet, baby. You’re so wet, you dirty little girl.”
He rubbed her clit lightly and expertly, and she closed her eyes. “What are you doing?”
“That doesn’t matter. You like it, don’t you? Being touched like this?”
The strain in Ty’s voice combined with the long-anticipated touch was electric. She wanted to moan so badly it hurt, but she bit the insides of her cheeks instead. “No.”
“Don’t lie, Katie. It makes Daddy angry.” Ty’s fingers circled lower. “What am I going to find when I touch you?”
“I...I don’t know.”
Ty’s free arm became an iron bar around her shoulders. “Then I’ll have to find out, won’t I?”
His fingers dipped inside her, pulsing gently at her entrance.
Sweat prickled on her forehead. Ty had summer skin and the little girl blankets were thick, but all that heat just added to the headiness. “No, Daddy!”
“Yes, baby.” Ty’s fingers sank deeper. “Yes.”
Kate relaxed as Ty pulsed inside her. Growing up, she’d thought fingering sounded gross and her fledgling sexual experiences had proved her right—but that changed with Ty. He was gentle with a drone’s precision for her g-spot. But this evening he wasn’t stroking with electrifying accuracy, he was slipping in an out, a hard look in his eyes. He wasn’t trying to make her come, he was teasing her. Kate scowled. “Can’t you tell I’m a virgin?”
Ty spanked her sharply on the clit. “Don’t be naughty.”
She looked up at him as innocently as she could manage. “If you don’t want me to be with boys, maybe I could be with you, Daddy.”
Ty’s face crumpled. For a moment he looked genuinely thrown. “Don’t say things like that.”
Kate cupped her small breasts. Her nipples were so sensitive she had to pretend to pinch them. “But I want to be touched. Can you show me how?”
Ty made a wounded animal noise. “Baby, you don’t know what you’re doing...”
“I do.” Kate lifted the hem of her babydoll, showing him her saturated panties. “I won’t tell anyone.”
Ty scrubbed a hand over his face. “You really want to know what it feels like for grownups, baby?”
“Yes.”
“And are you going to do whatever I say and not pout?”
“Yes...?”
“Good.” Ty strode to the door and picked up his briefcase. He flicked the locks and withdrew a pouch of purple satin—the purse that held the fancy dildo Ty had given her when they were first sleeping together. The toy had once been a warning not to expect too much of him or his penis, but in the years since, it had become a staple object in their fun, fucked up sex life. Kate arranged her features into what she hoped was an expression of surprise. “What’s that?”
“Practise.” Ty took out the glass dildo. It looked bigger than Kate remembered, shining in the lamplight like an ice sword.
“What is it?”
“Something to make you feel good.” He held it out. “Take it, baby.”
“Wh-what will I do with it?”
There was a hard glitter in Ty’s eyes. “You’ll slide it inside yourself, right where Daddy’s fingers were. Then you can play however you like. And I’ll be here watching and making sure you’re safe and happy.”
Kate looked at the seat of his pants, where his erection still bulged. “Daddy, I don’t think I can—”
“Do it, princess. Right now.” He gripped her hand and forced the dildo into it. It was cool and heavy.
Kate widened her eyes. “It’s so big, Daddy.”
“It’s better that way. Now take off your little panties.”
Kate tugged off her underwear, and Ty watched her with a sharklike smile. “Now pull down your pretty dress so Daddy can see your nipples.”
She obeyed, tugging her babydoll past her breasts.
“Good girl. Now put Daddy’s toy inside you.”
Kate made up her mind to come as quickly as possible. She lay back and slid the toy inside herself, moaning at the shock of the cool glass compared to the heat of her skin. She stroked the dildo inside herself, whimpering as it flexed against her overstimulated body.
Ty’s gaze seemed to burn as he eyed her, studying her face, her breasts, the place between her legs. Sweat was beading on his forehead. He was beyond aroused, but she knew he wasn’t going to touch her. And she wanted—needed—to be touched. For Ty to hold her hair or work the toy. Anything. And the fastest way to do that was to protest. “Daddy, I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“It’s not about what you want, baby. Fuck yourself faster.”
“But you’re watching me, and I don’t know if I can—”
“Okay, I won’t watch you.” He turned her onto her stomach, flipping up her babydoll and exposing her bare ass.
“Daddy!”
Ty slapped her on the backside. “No talking, Katie. Fuck your toy like a good little girl.”
Kate adjusted her now-slippery palms on the dildo handle and pumped it inside herself. Pleasure twisted with shame, and the backs of her eyes prickled. These weren’t tears like real life, they were the culmination of deliciousness and humiliation. A prelude to orgasm, as integral to their games as the waiting. Her cunt throbbed. She was so, so close. She looked over her shoulder and saw that despite his promise, her daddy was watching, hands in his pockets, his gaze stony. A throb ran through her and she clenched the toy. This was what it meant to play these games, to be exalted and degraded at once. The star and the cleaner. She ground against the toy, rubbing her thumb against her clit as she rode it. “Daddy. Daddy...”
“That’s it, fuck yourself harder baby.”
“Can I pretend it’s you inside me?”
Ty choked. “I...”
“Please?”
“Okay, baby,” he said, brushing his fingertips over her ass cheeks. “It’s me inside you. Now, rub your little pussy. Daddy wants you to come on his cock.”
As she entered the halo of dazed pleasure that preluded coming, Kate saw the situation as though she was standing outside it—the girly room, her outfit, the almost fifty-year-old man standing over her—and it struck her how strange this was. So many people knew her and Ty. Some, her girlfriends, knew they played like this, but most didn’t. What would they say if they knew? Would they think it was sexy? Revolting? Would they care?
But they don’t know, she thought. They don’t need to know. It’s for me and Ty.
It happened like this sometimes, this desire to force the different parts of herself together. To make a picture that wasn’t utterly bizarre. But sex was bizarre, at least in this crazy world. There was no forcing, no reconciliation. She thrust the toy inside herself and looked up at Ty, her daddy, and let the strangeness and wrongness warp her into orgasm. Her vision went white and she closed her eyes, rocking back into her toy, weightless with pleasure.
“Good,” she heard Ty say. “That’s so good, honey.”
His voice was different, shaking slightly. She opened her eyes and saw he was kneeling between her legs, his cock jutting from his suit pants. His gaze was locked on the dildo between her legs as he stroked himself hard and fast.
“Daddy? What are you—”
He took his hand off his cock just long enough to shove her panties into her mouth. “Shhh.”
Kate gulped softly, wet lace pressing against her tongue. She returned her hands to the dildo and rocked it in and out of herself again.
“You want more, huh?” Ty shoved her hands away from the dildo handle and pumped it hard and fast. Aftershocks rioted through her lower half.
“Daddy!”
“That’s it, baby. Pretend I’m fucking you again. Pretend Daddy’s inside you, making you come.”
She did, coasting to a hot bright orgasm in seconds. Ty grunted and warmth sprayed her lower half, splashing across her legs and stomach.
That’s going to stain, she thought dimly. Worth it.
Her daddy knelt over her and cupped her cheek, kissing her forehead. “You’re my special little girl.”
She smiled at him. “I know, Daddy.”
There was a time when Ty’s aftercare surmounted to hanging around long enough to make sure she could walk, but it was much better now. He gently eased the dildo from her, then cleaned her up with a handtowel pulled from her pink bedside table. This was all done silently, reverently. Kate knew to stay quiet. Post-climax Ty liked to catalogue the memories of their encounter and try to hold onto as many details as possible. He climbed into bed beside her and pulled her into his arms. “You’re amazing, Middleton.”
She smiled, kissing his jawline. “You are.”
“I try.” He yawned, every inch her boyfriend. “Want to order something for dinner?”
She wanted to say ‘sure,’ but out of nowhere came a tug, like a breeze in her middle. Irritation flickered through her. Order what? And why? It didn’t matter, the food would be good. Everything was good. Everything was fine.
“Kate? What do you feel like having?”
More. I need, I want, I wish I had something more.
She turned away so Ty couldn’t see her face. “Anything. Whatever you want.”
