Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 41577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 166(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 166(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
In a matter of seconds, Maddox bent me over his knee, face-down, with my upper body resting on the futon.
“What are you doing?” My head swam from the sudden shift in tone, not to mention position.
“You’ve been a bad girl tonight, Paige. Drinking too much and running your mouth, drawing way too much attention to yourself.”
He pulled my dress up, exposing my bare ass. I felt the bulge of his erection through his slacks as I tried in vain to free myself.
“If your daddy was here, I’d make him punish you himself. But since he’s preoccupied, you’ll just have to settle for Uncle Maddox.”
The first slap was a shock to the senses, like a shot into the sky or the crash of a gavel. It hurt. It burned. It stopped my thoughts in their tracks.
My father occasionally spanked me during sex, but this felt different. There was a formality to it that made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Maddox hit me again on the opposite cheek, then again. He spanked me twelve times in total, six firm smacks on each cheek.
Tears flowed freely down my face, not from the pain, but from release. I couldn’t believe how easily this man had disarmed me, or the speed with which he’d reduced me to a sad, sorry little girl. The pain simplified me. I was no longer a raging storm bent on destruction. I was just a brat in desperate need of Daddy’s discipline.
How could a stranger have known that a spanking was all it would take to calm me down?
“Now, what do you have to say for yourself?” He caressed my tender skin.
I sniffled. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry for what?”
“Sorry for getting drunk and bragging about the painting, and for inviting you and Kristin without my dad’s permission.”
I let out a short sob. Maddox shushed me gently, his fingers gliding between my legs from behind. His touch was both sexual and not, the way a spanking could be either sexual or not depending on the circumstance.
“You’ve been a very bad girl, haven’t you? But that’s all right. You just relax and ask your questions. I’ll tell you what I know.”
My whole body trembled with anticipation. I nearly choked on the words, “Why did my dad abandon me?”
“He didn’t want to leave you, Paige. I can promise you that. Your mom found something that made her uneasy. Probably because of what’d happened to her. Hell, if she hadn’t threatened to go to the cops, he probably would’ve—”
“That’s enough, Maddox,” my father said.
My heart leapt into my throat.
No, no, not now. I was so close.
I rose from the futon and righted my clothes, then turned to face my father. He stood in the doorway, his back ramrod straight and his gaze sharp as a dagger.
“Hey, Henry.” Maddox smiled, not looking guilty in the least. “Paige was just showing me your work in progress.”
“That so?” Judging from my father’s stance, I expected him to be furious, but the expression on his face was more ominous than outraged. “I’m sorry to cut the private viewing short, but there’s someone here who'd like to speak with my daughter.”
“Who is it?” I dried my eyes and mirrored his defensive stance.
My father stepped aside, making room for my mother to enter the studio.
Chapter Sixteen
I wish I could step through a doorway into the memory of the last time I saw my father before he left. I would use the opportunity to look for signs, clues, smoke signals. Anything that might’ve hinted at his decision to go. But when I try to comb through the details, the memories blend together until I’m not even sure if I’m remembering the right film we saw or the flavor of ice cream in my cone. To my twelve-year-old self, everything about that day had seemed normal.
What I do remember is the look of relief on my mother’s face when I walked in the door, as if she had half expected to never see me again. Knowing what I know now, I wonder if my father ever considered running away with me.
Sometimes I imagine how differently my life would’ve unfolded if he had. Would we have circled the globe ten times only to find ourselves at a similar crossroads between Maddox and my mother?
Part of me thinks this was all inevitable. Stolen from my mother or abandoned by my father, the outcome would’ve been the same: a life shrouded in secrets and lies; the frantic search for the disparate parts of myself.
All roads converging on this exact moment, six years later, in my father’s studio.
“Hello, Paige.” My mother clutched a shopping bag in front of her like a talisman, protection from some invisible harm. She caught sight of Maddox. “What is he doing here?”
Maddox rose from the futon and straightened his suit jacket. “Nice to see you, too, Charlotte.”