The Institute, Daddy Issues(39)

“Her Daddy,” Dr. Lucy sup­plied.

I waved a hand dis­missively. “Yeah, right, whatever. She was let­ting him do things to her that were…that nobody should do to any­body else.”

“Shouldn’t they? Why not?”

I stared at her.

“Ser­i­ously?”

“Yes, ser­i­ously,” she said. “They are two con­sent­ing adults, after all. So I really want to know why it up­set you. Was it the loss of con­trol—or the sexual as­pect of the scene you wit­nessed?”

“I don’t know—pick one,” I said un­com­fort­ably.

She leaned for­ward. “Was it that you were pic­tur­ing your­self in Patty’s place, al­low­ing your own Daddy to pen­et­rate you the way she was be­ing pen­et­rated?”

“Ugh!” I ex­claimed in­vol­un­tar­ily. “How can you say that with a straight face? That’s dis­gust­ing! She was dressed up like a little girl!” I knew I wasn’t help­ing our case any but I couldn’t help my­self—her word­ing just pushed my but­tons.

“As are you,” Dr. Lucy poin­ted out. “But if you’re con­cerned or dis­turbed by that, let me as­sure you of some­thing. Though we at the In­sti­tute are cer­tainly not ig­nor­ant of those in­di­vidu­als that prefer to in­volve ac­tual chil­dren in a sexual way, they are not wel­come here. They have no place in our world.”

“Your world?” I said blankly.

“Yes. Our world…” She spread out her hands as though to in­dic­ate the en­tire In­sti­tute. “Is a place to be safe, sane, happy, and able to let down the walls we have built around ourselves over the years. In this place, the Bigs or Dad­dies can en­joy the gift that is the per­fect, in­no­cent, in­cred­ibly power­ful and un­con­di­tional love of their Little or Baby­girl. And their Littles are able to leave all adult roles be­hind—to resign the bur­den of every­day life—mort­gages, jobs, fin­an­cial wor­ries—and just feel safe and pro­tec­ted and loved by their Bigs.”

“That’s a nice speech, Doc­tor,” I said blandly. “You al­most sound like a bro­chure for this place.”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t be­lieve that kink—and in par­tic­u­lar Age Play—is a very power­ful tool in heal­ing psy­cho­lo­gical wounds,” she said quietly. “Do you think you might have some wounds that need heal­ing, mishka?”

I took a deep breath. From the corner of my eye, I could see Salt look­ing at me, no doubt won­der­ing what I would say next. I had to stop let­ting Dr. Lucy mess with my head or I was go­ing to ruin our en­tire case.

“Not really,” I said at last, try­ing to sound calm and ra­tional “Hon­estly, I think I over­re­acted yes­ter­day. I was just over­tired from the long plane ride—not to men­tion ex­tremely jet­lagged. I’m feel­ing much bet­ter and more, uh, centered today after a good night’s sleep.” There, nice and neat. She couldn’t poke holes in that, I was sure.

Dr. Lucy nod­ded. “Well, that’s a very adult thing to say.”

“That’s be­cause I am an adult,” I said flatly, nettled into re­act­ing again. “You can dress me up like a little girl all you want but I’m still an adult—I’m still my own per­son.”

Once again, I real­ized I prob­ably shouldn’t have spoken so freely. It made me sound like I didn’t want to be here and Berkley had already threatened to kick us out once for that at­ti­tude. But I was get­ting sick and tired of play­ing ‘daddy’s little girl’. So sick and tired that I guess it just came out, even when it wasn’t sup­posed to.

“I see.” Dr. Lucy nod­ded calmly. “So this very strong feel­ing of be­ing an adult makes me won­der…why do you think you’re hav­ing trouble get­ting into Little-space?”

“Little-space?” I star­ted to ask what she was talk­ing about but then I re­membered Pro­fessor Stevens say­ing some­thing about it. “You mean the mind­set where I can make my­self act like a little girl?” I asked.

“No, I’m talk­ing about the mind­set where you can let your­self be a little girl. Where you can let your­self be vul­ner­able and trust your Daddy to take care of you.”