Chapter 3

I'd been herea dozen times before with Archer, my first assigned Daddy, but this time felt different. More awkward, sure. Archer had been a student at my college, but Lennon had been a student of mine. My meetings with Archer had always been detached and transactional. I hadn't minded at all, but Lennon had cut to the quick with his astute observations and demand for the truth.

And that made it feel… real. Less like a means to an end. I actually felt shame creeping up my cheeks as his hard hand rested across my backside. Guilt pooled in my belly and I felt like a naughty child who'd been caught in a lie.

I felt like I needed this spanking. Sure, I needed them all; that had been the whole point of signing up, but this need was different. It was less about the physical rush and more about the emotional cleansing.

My skin burned under his touch, every nerve ending on fire as I waited for the inevitable.

Just spank me already!I wanted to shout, but instead I bit down on my lower lip and stayed silent.

Finally, his hand lifted away from my untouched flesh. I felt rather than saw it linger mid-air above my backside. I sucked in a breath. Already I felt close to tears, a sensation I'd never reached with Lennon's counterpart.

His hand crashed across the center of my bottom with a bloom of pain that expanded and spread, first through my buttocks, and then to my very core. The sting was unbelievable, but also delicious.

I let go of the breath I'd been holding while I waited, and pushed my bottom toward his hand, wanting more, needing more.

Lennon obliged. His hand smacked a steady cadence across each cheek and then in the center of both, over and over again, with barely any time to draw a breath before he spanked again. Each swat heated me, until I could visualize the reddening of my skin under his ministrations, and the heat pooling, blooming outward.

It calmed me, centered me, gave me the feelings I craved, exactly as it had with Archer, and suddenly this didn't feel as different as I'd built it up in my mind to be.

And then he started to lecture.

And everything was different.

"Zoe, I intend to become your Daddy. As your Daddy, my goal is to help you not only survive, but to see to it that you thrive. And for this goal to succeed, it is imperative that you are not only honest with Daddy, but that you give me any and all information I need to know how to best care for you, and help you achieve your goals. You've been settling, existing, content to languish in life without moving forward, and that will not do."

For a second it occurred to me to wonder how much of what he said to me he could also say to himself, but those thoughts were forced out of existence when he started spanking anew. His hand felt harder now, and each swat seemed to have an intense power behind it, loaded with the weight of repercussions for my actions.

Tears welled in the corners of my eyes, but more than that, gratefulness swelled in my chest. Lennon was demanding more from me than I had asked of myself in far too long. He was rejecting the status quo I'd grown so comfortable residing in. At first, I'd felt a twinge of bitter resentment at his questions and the command that had gone with them, but now I felt… hope. Life, freedom, wonder, excitement, and so many emotions that had been foreign for far too long.

The realization choked me up. The tears fell freely, and when he spanked me, I welcomed the pain, and the healing that it brought with it.

Lennon must have heard my sniffles or seen the change in my posture and body language. He paused abruptly, laying his spanking hand across the small of my back.

"Zoe, are you okay?" he asked. "Do you need a minute?"

I shook my head vehemently from side to side. I didn't need a minute. I didn't want to pause the wave of emotions I was feeling. I thought I might die if the pain in my bottom subsided, even for a moment. "No!" I cried, my voice so broken I barely recognized it. "Please… I need you to… keep going."

The air hung thick between us as he seemed to process my desperate response. He gave a little hum, adjusted his hold, wrapping an arm around my hip and pulling me close, and wrapped his legs over the top of mine. "Your safeword is Picasso," he reminded me. As if I could forget.

The next smack echoed through the room. It was hard and took my breath away, and I realized at once that he was no longer using his hand. I couldn"t hold back a gasp as I twisted my upper body to glance over my shoulder, catching a glimpse of a long, sturdy wooden paddle as it flew toward my upturned bottom.

"Aahhh!" I cried when it hit. "What in the… where did you even…where did that even come from?"

Lennon chuckled, his response not one I'd expected. "It was in the couch. I stashed it earlier in case our morning meeting went the way I hoped. Most Doms have a play bag or armoire. I prefer to stash my implements randomly around my apartment. You never know when you'll have a need."

The quirk made me chuckle, but only for a split second before the paddle landed again. I couldn't concentrate on anything but the pain, and my zen-like epiphany of all that I'd been missing fell to the wayside. Gone up in the smoke surrounding the flames licking my backside.

My stoic resolve faded and I scrambled to dodge the blows, but Lennon held me firmly in place. "It's a punishment. It"s supposed to hurt."

His calm voice flowed over my nerves like a waterfall, reminding me. This felt different because it was different. It was harsher because I had something to learn. My body relaxed and I settled into the pain. As much as I could, anyway.

"Naughty girls who lie to their Daddies get their bare bottoms paddled." Lennon was lecturing again, his words pointed and accusing, but in a way that clawed at my lingering control, as if prying it out of my grasp.

"I'm sorry," I whispered thickly.

"Good. You should be sorry. And hopefully, you'll remember not to do it again. Because this will be the outcome every time." He paused and pulled me closer. "Do you like this? Do you like being helpless over Daddy's lap, being spanked like the naughty girl you are?"

In my entire life, nobody had spoken to me the way Lennon did, and his words released a dam of pent-up emotion that burst from me in strangled cries and gulping sobs. Every doubt I'd ever had and every feeling of worthlessness seemed to culminate, bursting from my core all at once. "I'm sorry," I wailed, my cries louder than the smack of the paddle against my skin. "I won't do it again. I want to be better. I want… I want to thrive!" I used his words from earlier, the ones I'd had to keep myself from rolling my eyes at. They didn't seem silly now. They felt like a promise that only he and I, working together, could fulfill. One I wanted with every breath I took.

"Daddy will help you. Daddy will make sure you thrive. If you want it." His hesitation, however slight, reminded me that in a way, this spanking was a one-off. Beyond it, I had yet to commit to anything. My hesitation seemed silly now. The control I'd held so tightly with Archer, too, was nothing more than a hindrance, keeping me from all I could really be.

I wanted it now. At that moment, I felt fearless. Hopeful. Sexy even, though Lennon had been nothing more than a perfect gentleman. There was something about his touch and the way he spoke to me that made me feel beautiful, even if he didn't say it. I knew he believed it, and that made all the difference.

"I want it! I want it!" The words repeated with desperation, bubbling from my lips with each smack of the paddle across my burning ass and thighs. Each wave of pain brought release and hope. New horizons. Though the paddle hurt like the dickens, and I was crying so hard I could barely breathe, I felt better than I could remember feeling in ages.

Lennon's hand rested on my aching bottom, rubbing small circles across my heated flesh, and I realized he had stopped spanking. The paddle was resting on the couch beside my thigh. Last time he'd paused there'd been a feeling of emptiness. I hadn't been ready for him to stop. This time there was no such bereftness, and I hoped he was done. My sobs were wracking my shoulders, but without the constant impact of the paddle, I finally felt as if I could catch my breath. The cries started to settle into shaky whimpers. Lennon released my hands, and I used them to push my hair from my face and wipe the drying tears from my cheeks. Strong hands pulled up my panties and skirt. The cool satin felt good against my burning skin.

"I'm going to help you up now. You have a choice. You can sit beside me, or I can hold you."

With Archer, I'd never had a choice. Sitting beside him hadn't even been an option. He'd always helped me straight to my feet before offering a brief hug. Of course, his spankings had never had quite the same effect as Lennon's, either.

"Hold me," I whimpered, and when he helped me into a sitting position in his lap, I latched my arms around his neck and buried my face in the fabric of his shirt, no longer caring about propriety, the age difference, or the history between us. Lennon was no longer a former student. Just like that, he'd become my Daddy.

His arms wrapped tightly around me, holding me as my cries died down to shuddering sighs. I was thankful for the silence. I was sure he had questions, but I wasn't ready to have answers.

Finally, he pushed my body away from his, putting just enough distance between us to force me to look up into his eyes. "That was a lot of tears," he said. It was a statement, but with a hint of a question in it.

I responded with a shaky laugh, and opened my mouth to explain, but no words came out. I didn't know what to say or where to start. The experience, and my reaction to it, had been overwhelming. "Thank you, for that," was what I finally settled on.

Thankfully, he seemed to understand. "You're welcome. Should I assume that you want to continue with this arrangement?"

"Yes, please, Daddy."

"And you're going to let me take control? No more lies, no more walls, no more keeping the status quo?"

I nodded eagerly. With that one spanking, Lennon had opened up a world I hadn't dreamed existed. My ass throbbed with pain, my pussy with pleasure. When was the last time I had been so aroused? I couldn't remember. Certainly not any time during the last decade of my marriage.

And just as suddenly as I was enlightened, I was ashamed. I remembered who it was making me feel this way, and guilt and disgust knotted my gut. Not that Lennon was disgusting—he certainly wasn't. He was just… young. Younger than me, anyway. By a lot.

"Zoe?" His soft tenor broke through my shameful feelings, heating my core. God, I was a hussy, turned on simply by the sound of his voice. "Penny for your thoughts."

God, no. Anything but that. How could I share the things I was feeling? Emphatically, and on autopilot, I shook my head from side to side.

Lennon grabbed my chin, stilling me, and looked deep into my eyes. "I think you misunderstood. It wasn't a request."

Oh. Oh. I swallowed past the lump in my throat as I processed the enormity of the differences between him and his counterpart. Archer had never pushed. He'd never cared enough to, if I was being honest.

The fact that Lennon did… it should be a good thing. I knew eventually I might actually see it that way, but now was not that time. "I… I…" I stuttered, not having an answer for him. I wasn't ready to communicate quite so honestly. At least not out loud. "Can I see the questionnaire?" I asked instead. "I think I need to make some changes."

Lennon's brows furrowed and the corners of his mouth turned into a frown as he regarded me warily, but he stood, and without a word crossed the room, retrieving the papers in question from his bag and handing them to me, with a pen.

I leaned forward before I realized that Lennon's artsy decor did not include a coffee table, and I had no hard surface to write on. He seemed to understand my predicament, and walked over to the built-in bookshelf, retrieving a large hardback coffee table book from the shelves.

I stared down at the cover. Frida Kahlo, one of my all-time favorite authors. She was a feminist, and revolutionary—famous for her love affairs with both men and women. It said a lot to me that a man would love her work enough to have her book displayed in his home.

"Thank you."

I cleared my throat, and covered the surface with the packet of papers, staring down at my own one-dimensional answers. Sure, I'd been more honest and put more effort into it this time, but I'd still been closed off, still certain that I had only one thing to gain from an arrangement like this.

But now… now Lennon had opened up a whole new world. Or at least, he could. If I let him. If he wanted to.

Staring down at the papers, I turned the page, scanning my rote answers until I reached the section about limits. I had nearly everything marked as a limit, as I'd been sure that this could only be a transactional, platonic arrangement. Sure that anything even remotely or sexy should be off-limits. Sure that was what I wanted. But what if it wasn't? If I changed my answers, would it even matter?

It was true that Lennon was a mature worldly adult, no longer an immature college student, but he was still very much my junior, and I was still a woman nearing fifty.

I'd always been told I carried my age well, that I looked younger than I was. I took care of myself religiously, ate carefully, exercised right, indulged in a stringent skincare routine guaranteed to smooth out and delay wrinkles, knocking years of aging away, but there were some things that not even years of meticulous selfcare could help. The crow's feet still formed around my eyes. Laugh lines still imprinted deep into my cheeks. No matter how many sit-ups I did, I'd still gotten a soft pooch around my middle that I couldn't get rid of, and hair dye never seemed to cover the gray for more than a week or two. It peeked through.

The idea that Lennon would even care if I changed my limits and opened myself up sexually was preposterous… wasn't it?

Probably. But it wasn't about Lennon, I realized as I looked down at the rows of Xs down the page. It was about me. I had to do this, for me, even if it never went anywhere. Even if it meant nothing.

I told myself that and willed my pen to move, but it stayed poised over the page, frozen in terror.

"Zoe." Lennon grabbed my wrist, and I looked up at him, startled. Heat flushed my cheeks. "Talk to me."

"I… I can't."

He regarded me seriously, staring deeply into my eyes, and I shifted under his penetrating gaze. Had his eyes always been that blue?

He took the packet from me, glancing down at the answers for the first time, and I wished the floor would open up and swallow me whole. I fully expected him to chortle in disgust at the thought that I might change anything, or at the very least, tell me that I didn't need to, but instead, he looked almost… disappointed.

With a deep sigh, he set the book and the packet on the arm of the couch. "Did you enjoy your spanking?" he asked.

Yes, very much. The truth was on the tip of my tongue but it would never get past my lips. Instead, I gave a strangled laugh. "It's a spanking. I'm not supposed to enjoy it. Isn't that the point?"

He didn't let me off the hook. His eyes stayed locked on mine and his mouth turned up in a smirk. His eyes sparkled. "There are different kinds of enjoyment."

"Oh." I licked my lips. My throat was suddenly dry. "I wasn't expecting it to be that… enlightening," I admitted. "It never was before."

Lennon nodded sagely, and paused as if considering my answer, or maybe his own response.

"When done right, with someone who is committed, discipline can open up a whole new world," he finally said. "And it can be so much more than hand meets ass. If you let it be, of course. Do you want to let it be, Zoe?"

Yes, so much.But I couldn't say it. Even with the engraved invitation he was handing me, my pride and fear wouldn't let me. "I… my …uh… the questionnaire," I stammered, trying to reach around him for it.

He blocked me with his body, clicking his tongue. "I'm not asking what you wrote on the questionnaire, Zoe. I don't care about what's on the paper, to be honest. You lied on the first one, and probably on this one, too. Isn't that right?"

"It wasn't a lie!" I protested hotly, before I could stop myself. "I just… changed my mind!"

His smile spread slowly across his face and my mouth dropped open as I realized I'd shown more of my hand than I intended. "I mean… I…"

He clicked his tongue. "No lying to Daddy. I'd think very carefully about the next words to come out of your mouth, little Picasso."

I snapped my mouth closed. Sure, I didn't want to admit how I was feeling, but I also didn't want to lie.

Twisting his body slightly, Lennon reached for my packet and the book underneath it, holding both items out to me, along with the pen. Before I could take it, he spoke.

"I don't really care what's on the application, Zoe. It doesn't really matter. If you can't change your answers, or you don't want to, then don't. But answer me this: Did you enjoy your spanking? Did it make you wet? Is your pussy throbbing as much as your ass?" He paused and drew a deep breath. When he continued, his voice was husky and full of unbridled arousal. "Do you want me to touch you?"

I tried to swallow but the motion got stuck in my overly dry throat. My lips parted and I sucked in a sharp breath. God, how I wanted to answer, but I couldn't. There was a part of me that still thought it was a joke, that he would think I was a joke if I answered honestly. There was another part of me reminding myself that even if he did touch me, I'd just be a client, another notch on his belt, a duty he was performing.

That almost made it better… sort of. But could I really live with that?

"Fine." Lennon's voice lacked the sharpness his one-word response conveyed as he took both the book and the packet, placing them again on the arm of the couch, out of my reach. "You don't have to answer, Zoe. You don't have to change the things you put in the packet. All you have to do is give me your consent. The consent to be your Daddy however I see fit."

Was it really that simple? And was that safe? I was pretty sure the questionnaire was a part of the application process because it served a purpose, an important one. But Lennon kept saying it didn't matter. Was he just doing that because he was as horny as me, and wanted any excuse to get his rocks off? I couldn't be sure, but I didn't think so.

I also wasn't sure that I cared. Giving consent would be so easy. Blanket consent would take the agony of choices away from me. The thought was both freeing and terrifying.

Finally I found my voice to ask the one question that would determine how I moved forward. "Would I… have a safeword?"

"Of course." His reassurance was instantaneous. "I'd never do anything without one. And you could stop me at any time, if I did something you didn't like, or even if you were just unsure and wanted to stop and talk about it, or just think. But I'm not a monster, Zoe. I'm pretty intuitive, actually, and I'm a good Daddy. I doubt you'd ever need to use it."

It seemed like an overconfident, arrogant statement, but somehow I believed him, and before I knew it the words he wanted to hear were coming out of my mouth before I could stop them, as if my pulsating pussy was controlling my brain and my body was betraying my common sense. "Okay, yes, I give you consent."

There was a part of me that expected him to take me in his arms right then and strip me naked, parting my legs for his touch. Or maybe I thought he'd pull me back over his knee, pull my skirt and panties down again, and let his hands work their magic somewhere besides my aching ass.

But Lennon did neither of those things. Instead, he just smiled. "How much vacation do you have saved up at work?"

"I… what?" The question was not in the realm of anything I expected. "Lots."

"Good. Take it. And as soon as possible. At least a week."

"What? Lennon, I can't just take time off at will for no reason!"

He was unmoved by my protests. "It's not finals season, or even midterms. I'm certain that you can. In fact, I'm certain your students would be thrilled."

"Okay, I can. But why should I? I really don't need to. My schedule is not that strenuous. I'm sure we can work around it."

He gave a soft sigh and took my hands, sending a jolt through my body. Why was the chemistry between us so electric? I was sure it had to be a fluke, leftover adrenaline and emotions from the very intense spanking he'd given me.

"It's not about your schedule, Zoe. It's about you taking time to heal and be kind to yourself. Did you take any sort of break when your husband left? Or when your divorce went through?"

"No, of course not. Why would I? He left; he didn't die."

I thought I'd made a good point, but Lennon just shook his head from side to side and looked disappointed. "See, this is the problem with your generation. You're so trained to be okay, to not rock the boat, to power through. It's ingrained."

"My generation!" I gasped indignantly, pulling my hands away. The glaring difference between our ages had become apparent with those two little words. Embarrassment burned through me, and it was on the tip of my tongue to call the whole thing off and admit that this was a bad idea. Except it wasn't. And I didn't.

"Yes, Zoe, your generation. They don't seem to account for things like mental health or self-care. It's just ‘be okay, power through, no one died, it could be worse, pull yourself up by your bootstrap.'"

He wasn't wrong. I'd used every one of those phrases since my divorce, except maybe the last one. I pressed my lips together tightly.

"I want you to learn to take care of yourself, to put yourself first, to check in with yourself, to do things that are just for you. I need you to know that self-care isn't a dirty word."

That last one hurt. He was right; that was exactly how I saw it. Putting myself first, doing things for myself, checking in with myself; all those things seemed like foreign concepts. And yet, they sounded… nice. There was a part of me that wanted to know, deep down, what it would be like to buck the things I'd been ingrained with, to admit when I wasn't okay, and to truly do things just for me without feeling guilty. I just didn't know how.

Lennon was staring at me intently, and he seemed to sense what I was thinking. "I know it goes against everything you've been taught your whole life. It probably seems like I'm asking for the impossible."

I nodded shyly. "I wouldn't even know where to begin."

"That's the beauty of our arrangement. You don't have to. Daddy's got you. All you have to do is obey and follow my lead."

I looked at Lennon. It was clear he led the kind of life he preached about, as did so many his age. It was something I, like many in my generation, had always found irresponsible. But maybe he had it right all along. I had a feeling that with him, my preconceived notions barely scratched the surface.

"Take the time off. I won't ask again. If you don't email or call whoever you need to, you'll be getting a punishment." He paused and softened. "I don't think that what I'm asking is unreasonable, nor do I think your protests are sincere, but if you have a real problem with something I ask of you, ever, well, that's what you have a safeword for. Use it and we will renegotiate." He peered at me intently. "Do you need to use it?"

I shook my head with zero hesitation, and dug in my purse for my phone. The gentle firmness with which he spoke to me had my pussy humming and begging for his touch. I'd given my consent and, I hoped, that once I did what he wanted, we could move on to whatever that meant.

With Lennon's gaze on me, I quickly shot off an email to both my students and the head of the department. "Okay, done. I'm off all next week, plus this Thursday and Friday since I don't have any Friday classes and I normally go in just to have office hours for my students. Now what?"

"Now, come with me." He grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet, leading me, I hoped, to the bedroom.

But no, instead he grabbed his jacket, and we went out the front door and down the hall toward the elevators. "Lennon, where are we going?"

"No questions. Follow Daddy's lead."

I frowned. I could see that arguing would get me nowhere, but I really wasn't one to just follow someone else's lead, or to do anything really, without a plan. I did not like spontaneity, and it seemed that was what Lennon was all about. That would take some getting used to.

We rode the elevator down to the parking garage and then we were in Lennon's car, cruising across town.

"Where are we going?" I repeated.

"No questions. Ask me again and I'll pull over and give you a spanking before we get there."

My mouth dropped open into a shocked ‘o' of surprise. It sunk in then that this was really different than what I'd had before. With Archer I had a standing appointment for discipline. With Lennon… with Lennon, I had a Daddy… whatever that meant. I had a feeling I was about to find out.