My good mood persists all evening. The next morning I stand before my open wardrobe door in my underwear, deciding what clothes to put on. For once it’s not, What will not make me look disgusting and ugly and fat, fat, FAT? The nasty voice is quieter than ever within her box as I ask myself instead, What will make me feel cute?
I pull out a foil pink midi skirt and a loose white tee. As I put them on I remember Mr. Blomqvist saying, Do as you’re told in that deep, gravelly voice of his. Hell yes, I can be daddy’s girl.
An hour later at the museum, he passes my desk on the way to his office with his usual, brusque, “Good morning,” but today there’s a shade of a smile for me as well.
We have our scheduled catchups and respond to work emails, both of us pretending nothing out of the ordinary has happened. I eat lunch in his office, and as usual, he doesn’t say a word to me when he comes back from the gym.
After our afternoon catchup, a notification pops up in my inbox. It’s a new meeting with Mr. Blomqvist, scheduled between six and seven every weekday evening until the end of August. The meeting name is one-on-one, which is the same as all our other catch-ups. I have a feeling, though, it’s going to be a very different sort of one-on-one.
Nervously, I hit accept. The first meeting is tonight. I wonder if Mr. Blomqvist needs me to do anything. I’m used to prepping like crazy for meetings, but this invite is entirely blank. He sends me several more emails over the next thirty minutes, but they’re all about innocuous work things. It’s difficult to concentrate fully on what I’m doing when I remember what he asked me last night. Have you ever been spanked? Would you like to be?
It felt so easy to say yes at the time when we were so intimate together, and his large hands were cupping my ass.
Placing my fingers over the keyboard, I put all thoughts of Mr. Blomqvist and spankings out of my mind, and get on with things. I would be a poorly behaved sub if I let my mind run riot while I’m supposed to be working for him.
Oh, there goes that tingly feeling again…
At six, my heart pounding, I knock on his door and go in. Mr. Blomqvist is typing and doesn’t look up. He points to a spot on the carpet in the middle of the room. “Kneel. On your heels. Hands on your knees.” Then he goes on typing.
I do as I’m told, sitting in the spot he indicated. Well, this isn’t what I expected. He sounded so peremptory, very different from his soft, indulgent manner yesterday.
A moment later he calls out, “Turn a little to your right.”
I do, and now I can see his bonsai trees along the windowsill, and him in my peripheral vision to my left. He doesn’t speak after that, and I just sit there quietly, looking at the plants. Listening to him typing, feeling my legs beneath me, my breath flowing in and out of my body. It feels strange having nothing to do.
A moment later Mr. Blomqvist gets up and locks the door, and my heart rate picks up, but he just goes back to his desk. Even though he’s not looking at me, I feel instinctively that he’s as aware of me as I am of him.
Ten minutes later by the clock on the wall, he comes and stands before me with his hands clasped behind his back. “You were upset yesterday, käraste. I think you need a good cry. I didn’t like seeing you holding in your tears.”
I gaze up at him, and he seems impossibly tall and broad from this angle. I didn’t think he would make me cry. I thought he wanted to do the opposite.
Mr. Blomqvist kneels down before me and peers at me closely. “I’m going to put you over the arm of that sofa, and I’m going to spank you.”
He points to the sofa, and I look. Oh, boy.
“It’s going to hurt. If it starts to get too much say orange, and I’ll ease off. If something is awful and you want me to stop altogether, say red. If that sounds awful now, say red.”
He waits, and I say nothing.
“Good girl. You’re not going to say anything else except for those two words if you need them. Not even yes, daddy. There’s nothing I want you to say. There’s nothing I want you to think about. Is that clear? Nod if you understand.”
I nod again.
He takes hold of me by the ponytail, and I gasp, and he impels me to my feet. He’s not rough exactly, but he’s not gentle either. My stomach swoops with alarm and something else as he pushes me down over the arm of the sofa.