One Hot Winter Break (Yardley College Chronicles Book 2) (8 page)

BOOK: One Hot Winter Break (Yardley College Chronicles Book 2)
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Lightly, he smacks the paddle against my bottom. There’s a quick twinge of sensation, not really pain.

I sense him moving, walking behind me. I wince, waiting for the next strike—

The paddle smacks against my ass a bit harder. Then again, slightly harder, making my cheeks sting.

Each hit gets more intense. He does it brilliantly, upping the sensation slowly, so I never feel anything that really, really hurts. He’s good at this.

He’s spanking me and my eyes are shut, my body braced against his strokes. Taking it. Over and over. My breathing is ragged. My heart is pounding.

Then everything shifts. Everything changes.

Inside, something hot and vile is taking root in my heart. I can feel it growing. It’s sharp and its burning and—I don’t know why—it suddenly explodes.

I’m back in my bedroom in our four bedroom house in suburbia, before my parents split up. My mother is making breakfast. My door opens and my stepfather—my dad—comes into my room...

I remember lying there, sometimes with my eyes shut, because I couldn’t open them and face him and say no. I was too much of a coward. I thought he would throw me out if I said no. Maybe throw both my mother and I out and we’d starve, because what could mom do to support us? She married young—to my birth father—and didn’t even go to college. She thought my real dad would end up wealthy with a good job—his father had a successful business. But my grandfather-by-birth shot himself and it turned out he’d been draining money off the business for years. There was nothing left but debt. My birth dad was stunned, devastated, and he did the same thing as his father—he took his own life. Leaving my mom widowed, with me. Then my mom met my stepfather, and to have her, he had to take me. I always felt my stepfather did things to me because he had to put a roof over my head and feed me, so he should get something out of it, shouldn’t he?

In the mornings he would come to me. And I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening.

Stupid little coward.

My breathing is ragged. My heartbeat feels like an alarm clock’s ring, strident, with no rhythm, too loud, too fast.

What am I doing? Letting some guy beat my butt, that’s what, because he wants to. Because I’m being coward again.

It all slams into me. Sickening memories, sickening anger, sickening self-loathing. I
do
deserve this. I was a stupid whore with no brains, who didn’t stick up for herself. Any other girl would have said no or said stop. Not me. Not stupid, cowardly me.

I get off the bed, my legs shaking. My throat is so tight, it feels my head’s been twisted on my neck seven hundred and twenty degrees.

“What’s wrong?” Jonathon drops the paddle to his side, holds out his hand and comes toward me.

But that’s just shit. He doesn’t care about me. He’s just getting what he wants. Just like how I let other people take what they wanted.

Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic.

The words gouge into me. The anger is incredible. I feel like I’m going to explode with it. I have to move. Do something. I grip my hair and pull it so hard it makes me scream.

My hair doesn’t come out, damn it. So I run.

Run. Run. Run. Can’t outrun memories. Can’t outrun everything you did wrong.

I can try.

But the damn sand doesn’t help an escape. My legs are like rubber. And while my heart is beating so fast it should be able to blast into orbit, I discover that doesn’t help me move.

I collapse on the beach.

What have I done?

Torn at my hair like a crazy person. Run out on Jonathon. Acted like I need to be committed.

Maybe he’ll lock the doors and you’ll be stuck out here all night. How are you going to get home? Charge a flight on your credit card? There’s no way you could afford it.

I know what I should have done. Know it now that I’m on my hands and knees on wet sand in the dark. I should have played along. Drawn the line in the sand in the fucking morning, when I had time to get a flight and get out.

I want to be sick. I can’t do what Jonathon wants. I can’t do it and not remember who I was in the past.

Tears well up suddenly. I give in to them because I’m sitting on a beach in paradise, certain I’m going to have to sleep on a beach with no money and nothing on my back but my underwear. I’m so angry I’m ready to hit myself with the damn paddle.

The crying really ravages me. It takes all my breath, turns my throat into sandpaper, makes my lungs heave. I want to vomit so badly. I think if I cry long enough, I will.

“Mia.” He touches my back, stroking it. “What’s wrong?”

I want to lash out at myself. But why? I push his arm away, which makes me fall on my side in the sand. I scramble to my feet.

The anger coursing through me is amazing. I’ve never felt like this. It’s like I’ve drunk six bottles of champagne. I feel high, wild, furious, incredibly sick.

“No,” I say. “Why do you need to do this? Why should I be punished? Hit? I’ve never intentionally hurt anyone. I never meant to do anything wrong.” My voice rises. Panic—I don’t know why I feel panic—makes my heart pound.

“I don’t deserve this,” I blather. “I’ve done bad things but I never sat down and said: I want to destroy someone. I was destroyed. I hated myself. I blamed myself for everything that happened. But to feel like I deserve to be hit, that I deserve to be punished—”

I want to run. I want to scream.

Jonathon’s going to say something, but I shout, “I do deserve to be punished. Why don’t you do it? Whip me raw. Hurt me. Hurt me like I should be hurt.”

The fury scares me. And I’m angry I said all those things. It’s
not
what I want. “I’m supposed to feel less because I don’t want this. I’m supposed to embrace being a victim, because somehow I deserve it,” I scream at him. “I can’t
do
this.”

His arms go around me. “I don’t want you to feel less. You are not a victim.”

“What I need is to be loved and respected. Period.”

“I will love and respect you. I would never do anything but that. You are strong.”

“I’m doing this because
you
need this, not because I do.” This isn’t what I want and that should be a simple decision, but it’s not. I feel twisted up inside. I want to share things with Jonathon. Deep things. Intense things. I can’t. Can’t. Can’t. What I said isn’t true. He’s right. It’s not all about him. It’s about me too—that’s why I’m here, why I told him I would try things.

“Talk to me,” he says. “Get angry at me.”

I—I can’t. He must hate me now. I have to get out of here. I’m shaking, because I hate confrontation. I let my soul and psyche be destroyed to avoid confrontation with my stepfather, after all.

I push away from Jonathon. I run down to the beach. What do I do now? I should run for the hotel’s marina, because I’m going to have to go home now, aren’t I?

And I’m going to get a boat to the airport using what?

I run and run until water splashes my bare feet and I almost fall over because the sand is wet and kind of dissolves under my soles.

The rolling, rushing sound of the waves wraps itself around me. My heart rate slows down. I breathe in salty air.

If I were the little mermaid, I could keep on walking and dissolve into the water and become part of the sea. That’s the ending I remember to the story. Not the happy Disney one. No, in the story I remember, the little mermaid isn’t enough for the prince. He loves someone else and he isn’t going to change his mind. That’s the tragedy. He doesn’t do anything wrong—he’s just in love with someone else. She gambles everything and loses.

I feel like that. I gambled on a relationship with Jonathon. I’ve lost.

He’s seen me act crazy. There’s no way he’s going to want anything to do with me.

Why couldn’t I just be able to play kinky games? Why should I go off the deep end when it really is just a meaningless sex fantasy?

“Mia?”

Jonathon has followed me again. I’m ashamed of my outburst. He didn’t even hurt me and I went nuts.

“I’ll pack and leave, if you want.” I speak calmly.

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“You want a content little submissive. You saw me—I’m a mess. That’s the truth, Jonathon. I am a complete mess.”

“You are not. The fault and blame lies with me. I pushed you too hard. I set off one of your triggers.”

I turn, confused. “A trigger?”

Moonlight turns his eyes to a silvery-green. It illuminates the concern on his face. Concern for me. He reaches out for me and puts his arms around once more. “I’ve had a hell of a lot of therapists.” Quietly, beneath the soft, dark, star-dotted sky, he explains about triggers. He holds me against his chest as he does.

He tells me stuff I know—that repeated abuse has effects that last forever. Like panic attacks, thoughts of suicide, flashbacks. Apparently, flashbacks are called intrusive memories. A traumatic event can trigger those memories and reactions. Can make me feel all the things I’ve felt before, like shame, depression, humiliation, guilt.

I realize I feel something new, too. What I feel is an all-encompassing, consuming anger.

Jonathon’s body is warm, damp. I press my cheek hard against his chest and close my eyes. “I can’t play the submissive who just takes a whipping. I’ve realized that now. It’s more than just a sex game to me, Jonathon.” I shake my head against him.

I realize he ran out after me naked.

“There are many other aspects to what I do. Many things that won’t make you react like that.”

“It won’t work,” I say softly. I’m scared to try. Scared to go back into the past. “Now I know it for sure.” His heart is pounding in his chest. I feel it against my cheek.

“Stay through Christmas,” he says, his voice husky. “No whippings, no spankings. I promise.”

What else am I going to do? Swim home? But I’m stubborn. “I can’t. It’s not fair to you.”

“I want to spend winter break with you. That’s the most important thing to me.”

I don’t understand that. He couldn’t compromise when he was dating Lara. Why would he be willing to do it for me? That makes no sense.

The truth is I don’t want to go home. I know I shouldn’t stay, but I really don’t want to leave.

“Okay,” I breathe.

Chapter Seven

 

 

 

The next day, Jonathon and I take a boat in to the main island to watch a cricket match, shop, and have dinner. Cricket is fascinating, I don’t understand all the rules about batting and runs and overs, but it’s tremendously fun to sip tea and eat scones while watching.

We stop for some of the famous Christmas treats, including slices of Black Cake, a fruit cake where the fruit is soaked in rum for weeks. Some people soak their fruit for a year. Rum is also drizzled on the cake, with more rum added to the remaining pieces after slices are served.

After my second slice, I am buzzed. We drink a rum drink that has cream and crushed ice, and is topped with nutmeg—kind of an island eggnog.

The brilliant sunshine makes it seem surreal to have Christmas coming. It helps take away the homesickness of not having Christmas Day with my mom. This was the first year Dad wanted to have me visit for the holiday—but of course, now I won’t be there.

Shopping on the main island makes me nervous. I have the exact opposite problem of what I had with Ryan. Ryan was hurt because he felt I’d assumed he couldn’t afford a gift. I guess I did think that, and I didn’t want him to spend money he would need for school.

Jonathon can have anything he wants and his own personal fortune continues to grow. What can I get him for Christmas? I have no money and can’t even dream of buying him something expensive that will dazzle him.

I’d love to get something meaningful, but would that be too much too soon? If there was a sex shop, I could get him a new spanking paddle or a set of handcuffs, but since getting spanked proved to be an emotional roller coaster, it might not be a good idea.

We split up for an hour since he says he has something to buy on his own. I chew my thumbnail. Is this where he buys my gift? Wearing a large hat, jean shorts and a tanktop, I stroll one of the main shopping streets. Beautiful, inviting stores lure me to stop and look in the windows.

There are gorgeous clothes. Sparkling jewels. Delectable edible treats. I see the price tag dangling from one jewel-encrusted clutch bag, which is in a locked four-tier glass case in the window. I swallow hard. It costs more than my entire first year at Yardley.

As I watch, a pretty saleswoman with a dark brown complexion and long braids highlighted with strands of pink unlocks the case and takes out the clutch. I watch it sail away. But really, what would I have done with something like that? Lock it away out of fear of losing it.

“See something you like?” Jonathon’s deep voice washes over me.

I turn to meet his sexy smile, and my heart stutters.

“There are some beautiful things. It’s fun to just look,” I say brightly. I feel out of place. My mom stayed with my stepfather for years because she didn’t think she could support both of us alone. That was after she knew the truth. She asked me if it was okay with me if we stayed, as long as the abuse stopped.

What could I say? That I feel creepy, wrong, sad, weird? I didn’t want to force her into poverty.

Dad left anyway, for another woman, a couple of years after we’d made that bargain. And I got used to not having things. It became a matter of pride for me. I only wanted what I could buy myself. I wanted to be in charge of my own life, independent.

“What’s wrong?” Jonathon asks.

“Nothing.” I shake my head. “Just Christmas memories.” Then I smile. “Is there anything you like? Christmas is coming in just two more sleeps.”

“Or a dozen more fucks,” he teases.

“Is that all? I plan to fit in more than that. So what would you like for Christmas?”

“Nothing, Mia.”

“You must want something.”

“I don’t do Christmas,” he says. “Even before my mother died, my parents were never around for it. We had it with nannies.”

“That’s terrible. I love Christmas.” I did, even without money for gifts. My mom and I would buy stuff from Walmart—pens, cheap nail polish, discounted books, even stuff we needed like tape and dishwashing liquid—and wrap it up. I decorated my gifts for her to look as precious as Faberge eggs. We did it by saving paper and keeping bows and ribbons.

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