The Institute, Daddy Issues(102)

For a mo­ment I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I fi­nally un­der­stood what he was say­ing—he couldn’t be­lieve I would ever let my­self be vul­ner­able and open to him without some kind of chem­ical in my blood­stream to loosen my in­hib­i­tions. If only he knew…

“There was a drug in­volved, Salt,” I said through numb lips. “But it wasn’t Please.”

“What?” He looked at me, frown­ing and clearly con­fused. “Did Berkley put some­thing else in your drink?”

“No. And if you’ll re­mem­ber, I barely took a tiny sip of my punch the other two meals we had at the In­sti­tute—I drank the wa­ter in your glass in­stead,” I poin­ted out.

He shook his head. “Then what drug are you talk­ing of?”

For a mo­ment, I felt everything in­side me clench. I couldn’t tell him the truth—it would make me sound sick and needy. It would make him hate me and feel dis­gus­ted. Yet some­how, I couldn’t help blurt­ing it out.

“It was the Age Play,” I said, look­ing away from him. “Get­ting into Little-space. Re­mem­ber that Pro­fessor Stevens said it could in­duce an altered state of con­scious­ness—al­most like a drug?”

He frowned. “Yes, but that is for those who truly want to be do­ing what we were do­ing. You were only pre­tend­ing, Da?”

“No,” I whispered, look­ing down at my hands. “I guess Stevens was right about me and my ‘Daddy is­sues.’ I know…” I glanced up at him for a mo­ment and then had to look away. “I know you were just pre­tend­ing, Salt. But I wasn’t—not after that first night. You…you were giv­ing me everything I wanted—everything I needed—even though I didn’t know that I needed it. It was…ad­dict­ive.”

“Andi—” he began but I held up my hand to stop him.

“No, let me fin­ish. I know it sounds sick and I know it dis­gusts you but I liked what we did—liked the way we were to­gether at that crazy place.” I took a deep breath. “I liked giv­ing up con­trol to you and be­ing your…your mishka.”

Salt made a soft sound at the back of his throat but didn’t try to in­ter­rupt so I went on. I could barely get the words out but I made my­self say them any­way.

“My father left me when I was so young and I guess…I guess I missed that. Missed hav­ing a man I could de­pend on and trust—one I thought I could trust any­way—never to leave me.” I looked down at my fin­gers which were twis­ted to­gether in a tight knot. My knuckles were white with ten­sion. “I con­vinced my­self you felt it too,” I said in a low voice. “What a stu­pid fool I was.”

“Andi—” he began again but I found I couldn’t look at him any­more. Now that I had ad­mit­ted my shame, I just wanted to get away.

I walked quickly into the kit­chen and went to the counter where I had been pre­par­ing cel­ery and car­rots earlier. Blindly, I picked up the knife and star­ted chop­ping again, sli­cing heed­lessly, not pay­ing much at­ten­tion to what I was do­ing. How could I? My en­tire be­ing seemed to be one snarled knot of shame and pain and hor­ror at what I had just ad­mit­ted to my part­ner—to the only man who had ever mattered to me since my father had left when I was nine.

He’ll think I’m sick, I thought. Sick and dis­gust­ing, ad­mit­ting I wanted that—no, that I needed it. Needed everything he did to me at the In­sti­tute. What man in his right mind would want a wo­man like that? Someone so weak? So needy and de­praved?

My thoughts were a mil­lion miles away and I wasn’t watch­ing what I was do­ing. It’s hardly a sur­prise that the knife chose that mo­ment to slip in my grasp and slice my fin­ger in­stead of the stalk of cel­ery I’d been hack­ing at.

I gasped and dropped it with a clat­ter on the cut­ting board. I didn’t know how bad the cut was and I didn’t want to know—I grabbed my bleed­ing fin­ger in my fist and squeezed tight, try­ing to stop the flow.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had this hap­pen but some­times when your mind is a mess and your emo­tions are in tur­moil, all it takes is a little phys­ical pain to push you over the edge.

I hadn’t cried when Salt sat in the Cap­tain’s of­fice and said he wanted an­other part­ner. I hadn’t cried while we watched the video of the two of us to­gether, even though I knew we never would be again. I hadn’t even cried when I told him my shame­ful secret—that I liked and needed the things we had been do­ing to­gether at the In­sti­tute. But now the sharp pain of my wounded fin­ger brought the tears that had been hov­er­ing like a rain cloud to the sur­face and I couldn’t hold them back any longer.