Angelo follows me up the stairs, a beat or two behind me, his presence a dark shadow trailing me until we are back where I barely slept.
I stop inside the door and turn to face him. I can’t run. There’s nowhere to run. There’s nowhere to hide. There’s nothing I can do to stop what’s going to happen to me.
“You’re a bad influence,” he says, rolling his sleeves slowly, deliberately up his arms. “You walk into a room and my boys mutiny immediately.”
I don’t think that’s my fault but, if he wants to hurt me, one reason is as good as another. I don’t intend to fight. I can already tell that this is not a battle I am going to win.
I have just one question for him.
“How do you want me?”
He answers without hesitation.
“Face down.”
* * *
Angelo
She lies down on the bed without question or resistance. I throw her skirt up over her head. She’s not wearing underwear. It’s not a sexual thing. It’s because she doesn’t have a change of clothes and I’m sure the underwear from yesterday is soiled.
She is slim, but her hips are full and her ass is perfectly made for spanking. Creamy and soft, full and round. My belt will find those cheeks delightful. I find what’s between them particularly alluring. One dark little hole, one pink set of lips hiding something which should be innocent.
She’s dangerous, this girl. To Bobby, to Mark, and to me. I took on a great deal when I took her in. More than my boys know. More than she knows.
I lean down over her, my hands on either side of her prone body.
“I know what you did, Tilly,” I murmur in her ear. “I know you’re not innocent.”
She stiffens. I expect a denial, but she never does what I expect, and no denial comes.
She stays face down, waiting for the punishment we both know she deserves. This punishment is the first step to absolution.
I stand up again, and I pull my belt from around my waist.
This is what she needs. This is what I need.
I only attract the most desperate, those at the very fringe of existence. Those who are dangers to themselves, and those around them. Until now, the only people who fell squarely into that category were men. Now this girl needs me.
It’s her need that draws me. Her body is alluring, but it’s the darkness which makes me want to take her.
* * *
Tilly
Face down on the bed, I await Angelo’s punishment. I know he’s going to hurt me. I understand now why he didn’t react when I came downstairs, and why he didn’t send me back to my room. He wanted me to make this mistake. He wanted me to give him a reason to hurt me.
Leather sweeps through the air with a swish and lands with an abrupt crack, creating a burning pain which flashes like fire across my vulnerable flesh. I gasp and then let out an involuntary cry. He’s hurting me.
He’s hurting me and I should hate it, but I don’t hate it. It feels cleansing. Every time the searing pain flashes through me, a little bit of the darkness feels like it might be leaving me.
This won’t absolve me. This doesn't even make a dent in my many sins. But for a brief moment, I feel a little cleaner and clearer.
Somehow, fate has put me right where I need to be.
I need an Angelo. I need a confessor, a punisher. I need someone who is not afraid to hurt me. Most people wouldn’t understand that. Mark wouldn’t understand that. He wants to cuddle and coddle and save me.
He doesn’t know what he’s saving me from.
It’s not Angelo.
The belt lands again. And again. The harsh lashes blaze over one another, creating passages of pain which trammel my skin. I grab the sheets and squeeze my eyes closed and I grunt and groan with the pain.
I don't know how many times the belt has landed when he finally drops it and leaves me with my rear hot, stinging, and throbbing with heat.
I’ve gone past the point of pain. I’ve gone through the heat and the fire, and I’ve emerged on the other side, somewhere I feel as though I’m lying on a cloud, my entire body fuzzy, but my head clear.
He reaches for my head, grasps the hair above my nape and turns me so I am looking at him.
“That was good, wasn’t it.”
I give him a little smile.
“Yes. Thank you.”
He sits down beside me and rubs my back all the way up to my neck and scalp and then back down again.
“You did the right thing, Tilly,” he says softly.
“By coming down for breakfast?”
“By coming down for breakfast,” he smiles.
He has cloaked kindness in cruelty, and he has given me relief by punishing me. I still don’t know Angelo, really. I don’t trust him. I shouldn’t trust him either. But what he just did made me feel better, even though it made me feel worse.