The Institute, Daddy Issues(21)

“Do you have a mas­seuse on staff then?” I asked without think­ing. I was think­ing that the pat­ent leather little girl shoes that went with the damn dress I was wear­ing were pinch­ing my toes like crazy. A foot mas­sage right about now would be nice.

“Nat­ur­ally not.” Berkley glared at me but re­frained from telling me to shut up—barely. “That job is re­served for the Dad­dies or Bigs, as we some­times call them.” He nod­ded at the door­way again, which had a little wave sign on it. “You can find any kind of mas­sage oil or cream you need to soothe or stim­u­late your Little.”

Ugh. I shivered in­vol­un­tar­ily. But then I thought of Salt rub­bing me all over with mas­sage oil, of those big, warm hands caress­ing my bare back and then mov­ing lower… Sud­denly my dis­gust melted away to be re­placed with in­terest.

But no—we were try­ing to keep this as­sign­ment as unsexual as pos­sible. I needed to stop hav­ing thoughts like this—it was too weird and con­fus­ing.

“Tell me,” Salt asked Berkley. “You say you have things to stim­u­late the Littles. Do you per­haps have some­thing to stim­u­late li­bido as well? Mishka and I have been tak­ing things slowly but maybe with a little help…”

Berkley frowned. “If you’re talk­ing about an aph­ro­dis­iac, no cer­tainly not. We do not have a doc­tor on staff, so it wouldn’t be safe to dis­pense med­ic­a­tion.”

“I see,” Salt said neut­rally. “But I have come all the way from Rus­sia be­cause you prom­ise some­thing dif­fer­ent here. Some­thing stim­u­lat­ing.”

Berkley nod­ded. “Well, Mr. Saltanov, we do have a nurse in our med­ical wing. She can re­com­mend vari­ous salves that we have mixed at a local apo­thecary which will give your Little new and stim­u­lat­ing sen­sa­tions. I think you’ll find the res­ults are most sat­is­fact­ory with even the most re­luct­ant of Littles.”

He shot me a glance which I re­turned blandly.

“Why do you have a med­ical wing if you don’t have a doc­tor?” I asked. To hell with the little girl per­sona—he already thought I was a hor­rible Little any­way. Might as well get some an­swers.

“Be­cause, young lady, some of our Dad­dies and Baby­girls like to par­ti­cip­ate in med­ical play,” snapped Berkley.

“Med­ical play?” I asked, squeez­ing Salt’s hand more tightly. “What the hell is that?”

“Young Lady.” Berkley was pos­it­ively glower­ing at me now. “While you are here at the In­sti­tute, please be aware that any swear­ing is severely pun­ished.” He looked at Salt. “If your Little can­not curb her­self, Mr. Saltanov, I’m afraid you will be re­quired to.”

I stared at the man. Was he really that up­set be­cause I’d said “hell”?

“I am sorry, Dir­ector Berkley. Will not hap­pen again.” Salt turned to me and held up one fin­ger. “Mishka, I real­ize you are tired after long jour­ney but this kind of be­ha­vior is un­ac­cept­able. You will start be­hav­ing at once.”

“But—” I began

Salt leaned even closer, his ice blue eyes blaz­ing into mine.

“Mishka,” he rumbled. “This is your last warn­ing. Do not make me put you over my knee.”

I felt my heart rate start to quicken. Was Salt ser­i­ous? Would he really spank me? Surely not but… I saw no lev­ity in that ice blue gaze, no ac­know­ledge­ment that he was just talk­ing to make Berkley happy. For a mo­ment, I was con­vinced that he really would put me over his knee, pull up my skirt, push down my panties and whip me un­til my back­side stung.

“All right, Papa,” I said, try­ing to sound con­trite. “I’m sorry. I was just…just curi­ous.”

“Well, let us sat­isfy your curi­os­ity about our med­ical fa­cil­it­ies at once,” Berkley said. “It’s up­stairs along with the other pun­ish­ment areas. I think we have just enough time for a quick tour be­fore din­ner starts.” He glanced at his watch—a Rolex by the look of it. Clearly the In­sti­tute was mak­ing bank—or else he was mak­ing a tidy profit from push­ing Please. I didn’t buy his protests that they didn’t dis­pense any med­ic­a­tion around here.