I lay staring in the darkness as I heard them downstairs. I closed my eyes, and tried to think of Paul. I had wanted to see him today. I had been hoping I would have three hours with Paul, three whole hours to be held, to get to touch him, and talk with him… My lovely, beautiful, gentle Paul—what was he doing right now? Was he even thinking about me? I knew in my heart he was. I knew that if I told him what had happened, he would take me away from here forever, and keep me safe with him. Paul would hold me in the bath and help me get clean, rock me in the warm, soapy water, and tell me I was still perfect and beautiful. He would clean me off, make everything right again, and carry me to his warm bed for the whole night…for the rest of our lives. I thanked a God I no longer felt was listening for letting me still have a chance for Paul to make love to me first. Daddy had done a lot, but he hadn’t entered my pussy. For the time being, at least, that was still for Paul. If I couldn’t concentrate on making up a happy story, I could concentrate on Paul.

In the beginning, every time when we played, Paul didn’t even take his cock out. Once I discovered it and he explained it to me, I could tell he was hard every single time, but he just wouldn’t let me see. Some things I didn’t understand, and this was one of them. When I asked, he usually said that it just wasn’t a good idea. At first, I thought that maybe he didn’t like me as much as I liked him, but then I realized how silly that was; sometimes he did nothing but tell me how much he loved me!

Then I thought maybe it was because he wanted to fuck me really bad, or because he didn’t want me to be scared over how big it was, or maybe a combination of both. He liked to call it making love, but I figured it’s the same thing. But I did figure out in a general way what it was he liked, and I did figure out that if I did certain things long enough, or said certain things, he would have to come. Or at least at the time I knew I made him frustrated enough that *something* happened that he had to leave for a few minutes, and I just knew that it was something…important, secret…something I wanted to be a part of. And I loved teasing him and controlling him like that! I am not manipulative really, it’s just that I felt such a deep connection and intimacy with him when I could make it so that he couldn’t wait.

Those times happened slowly, infrequently, and then only after we’d been playing for several months. At first, he didn’t let me see; after many apologies, he went into the bathroom. I caught on to that pretty quickly, and finally got up the guts to tell him to stay. Beautiful man, he did as I asked. But he wouldn’t let me touch it. He unzipped his pants, and tried to hide that huge thing under his untucked shirt as he ran his hand up and down. I was fascinated—I tried to watch even though I could tell he seemed almost embarrassed. After that was the result a few times, I tried another tactic; I gave up on looking for a little while, and would come up by his head—sitting by his side—and kiss him, talk to him, stroke his face and hair, all while I was not even trying to look. He loved it, and would not try so hard to hurry and finish. And my god—he was beautiful to watch. I loved it when he would get really into it, close his eyes, and come while he talked to me and I kissed him and stroked his hair… But I wanted to be the one that made him feel that way, not just watch. I felt like, if he let me do what I wanted, then that meant I was more important to him. And I wanted to be important to him, even a little; he was the most important thing in the world to me.

After a while, when we did this he trusted that I was not looking, and he would allow himself to close his eyes for longer, to not watch me so closely. I did love getting to kiss him and be held—even if it was only one arm—and I did dearly love the way he would talk to me while he stroked his cock. He always spoke to me so lovingly, but especially so then. After I saw that he had stopped trying to watch me, I decided that the next time, I would make him let me touch it. I waited until his eyes were closed, and I reached down. I put my hand around it slowly, tentatively, while I watched him. I was surprised at how it felt—warm, very warm, and hard, but smooth. And a different feeling than I’d expected, a different kind of hardness that felt very nice! After just a beat, Paul realized what I was doing. I was still looking at him when his eyes flew open. I knew he was going to say no, and he did, but I was ready; I’d planned this. I summoned up all of my bravado, and told him I wanted to. He protested; I told him again that I wanted to. He started to get up, and I told him to stay. In my planning, I had wondered if he would; if he did, I decided, that would mean that he wanted me to, that he loved me.

He stayed.

I wanted to stroke him; he said that he didn’t want me to. I could tell that he was nervous, embarrassed. I kissed him and told him that I really wanted to. Paul tried to talk me out of it, but I kept my hand where it was, and tried to imitate what he had been doing. I was afraid of hurting him, so I continued gently, and when I looked at him, he was just watching me.
“Am I not doing it right?”
“It’s not that…”
“I would do my best to do it right if you would show me,” I protested.
“Later, ok? You don’t have to…”
“I know. I want to. I want to make you happy!”
“You do make me happy Autumn—very happy! It’s just that I…”
“Don’t you love me?”
“Of course, but…”
“Don’t you want me to?”
“I do, but just…” I waited for him to finish, afraid of what he was going to say. “Just not right now.”
“When, then?”
“Later?” He offered for the thousandth time; he wanted this to be just one more thing that happened at some unnamed ‘later’, and that was definitely not what I wanted. I kept my hand right where it was.
“Is “Later” printed somewhere on your calendar?” I asked, borrowing a line from my Mom. Paul had made the mistake of always encouraging me—teaching me, even at times—to talk back, to question, to be a smart-mouth when it was appropriate or even just when it was funny, even if I couldn’t do it around anyone but him. He might have regretted it at that moment, but I was determined to use anything to get what I wanted.

That time, I won. Paul let me get between his legs, all the while telling me I didn’t have to. I let him just talk and I tried not to smile because I could tell he was nervous or embarrassed, but I just couldn’t understand what he was nervous or embarrassed about; he was usually very confident. But, to me at least, the fact that I had the power to fluster this tall, muscular man so much made him even more adorable. I wanted desperately to find out what pleased him, and if that resulted in him getting more nervous, well…

I made him put his hands down and let me explore for a little bit first. He was watching me carefully—as if he expected me to suddenly need him to jump in and end this, or for me to change my mind and stop. I couldn’t tell which, but I could tell he didn’t want me to stop. Something deep in his eyes told me that he didn’t want me to stop. I tried to hold him up a little more so that I could see; he said it didn’t hurt. I wanted him to tell me all the names, like he had done to me. As I asked about each one, I held him with one hand while I ran my finger over what I was asking about while I waited for him to answer me. It—I mean his cock—actually sort of jumped when I got to the head! I traced all around and over it slowly, and got it to jump a few more times. As I played with him, a large bead of fluid appeared at the tip, and then a little bit more; I touched it with my finger and asked him what happened. He didn’t answer me, but I’d gotten used to that; I slid my finger over to the little hole it had come from, and ran my finger over and around the hole. A little more came out. I asked Paul what it was again, and he didn’t answer…again. I looked up at him, and he was looking at me almost like he was drunk. I decided this had to be because he liked what I was doing, so I decided to not push him for an answer and continued playing with him for a little bit. Then it occurred to me that I could lick there, and he might like that even more, like I liked it when he licked me.

My big mistake there was that I gave him warning. When I leant down, I had my mouth open, and probably my tongue a little too obviously ready to give him a test lick. Paul sat up quickly and took me by the arms; we uprighted ourselves together—him sitting, me kneeling, with that beautiful cock between us—and he tried to declare an end to that play. I protested that he hadn’t lived up to his part of the bargain, to which he pointed out that there’d been no bargain. I begged him to allow me to continue, and after making pleading eyes at him and asking please, he finally agreed, but only under the condition that I not try that again. Why not? Standard Paul: Later. But at least I did get him to lie back down.

I tried to wrap my hand all the way around—his shaft, he had said earlier after much prompting—but my hands were smaller than his, so after trying a few different ways, I decided two would be best. I slid my hands up and back down slowly, and looked at him as I did.

“Do you like this?” I asked, reading the answer in his eyes, even if he didn’t want me to. But I wanted to hear him say it.
“Autumn, kitten…you don’t have to do this,” he told me for the thousandth time.
“You’re not answering the question,” I stated; “do you like it? Am I doing it the way you want?”
Paul tried to answer; he opened his mouth…waited…finally, “I love you”
“I love you, too. So I’m guessing that means no.” I took his hands and put them over mine, “show me, Paul.”
He took his hands away; “I don’t want to make you do anything, Autumn…let’s stop for now and let me hold you and lick you, ok?”

Paul wasn’t making this easy; he knew those two things were my most favorite things in the world, but I was determined to make him show me what to do. He stammered and stalled, and I had to prod him along. The hardest thing I had to do that day was make him stroke himself in my full view while I watched how he did it, and then after a few minutes of that, make him put his hands over mine and direct what I was doing. I had been afraid of hurting him, but he had actually needed me to hold him more firmly. Once I did that, I imitated his strokes as best I could, and I could tell he liked it. But I wanted to make him say it. After all of his protests…I just wanted more than anything for him to tell me he liked it and to ask me to not stop. The same thing I told him all of the time. Every time he had pushed me away, every time he said “later” was like a rejection. I knew it wasn’t, but that’s how it felt in my heart. I needed him to say it, needed to hear the words. I asked him if he liked it, and after a long pause, he would only say, “Oh, Autumn…” For whatever reason, he didn’t want to give me what I needed, so I decided to just tell him the truth.

“I know you love me, and I know I don’t have to do this,” I started. Paul looked at me; at least I’d gotten his attention. I continued as I stroked, “But when you tell me that, it feels like you don’t…like you don’t want me to do this, but I can tell you do, and I would just like to hear you really say it, because I don’t understand why you don’t…” I struggled to finish my clumsy thought; it was complete in my head, but I just couldn’t make it come out.
“Because,” Paul said softly, startling me, “I don’t want you to ever think that you have to do anything for me. That this is something you have to do to get me to do anything for you. Or to get me to love you. It isn’t. You don’t. Anything I want can wait…”
I finally started to understand, but I had to ask, “Until later? When is later?” Considering what he had just said, what I said almost sounded harsh; I hadn’t meant for it to. I kept the same slower stroking pace because I wanted to hear his explanation, but I didn’t want to give up hard-won ground by letting go, even though I could feel that he had started softening a little.
“Until you’re…until I’m certain that you want to. Not as a duty you have to perform.”
“I want to. Right now. And later, but right now, too,” and a light bulb went on in my head, “I want to just like you want to do things for me. Just the same!”
“Autumn, I want to believe that with all of my heart, and because of that, I have to make sure I don’t see something that isn’t there while you get a completely different message. I think that, more than anything else would be wrong; would be…abusive—do you understand?”
I didn’t at all. I made a mental note to ask him about it later. “Sort of,” I lied, “but this, now…isn’t like that.”
“Do you want to stop,” he offered gently, “if you stop, I’ll hold you and we can talk about it.”
“I don’t want to stop; I want to finish,” I declared. The rest was almost embarrassing, but I had to go on, to make him understand, “And I want you to like it, and tell me you like it…and tell me you love me, and…need me. And not want me to stop!”
“Kitten…”
”And for sure to quit offering to let me stop,” I said with finality.
“I love you so much, Autumn…” I knew he did; his love for me I could feel throughout the room.
“And,” I began, expecting him to tell me again that I didn’t have to. Paul stared at me for a moment, and then lay back fully, even letting his head drop back onto the pillow.
“Please don’t stop, Kitten”

I felt victorious as I stroked him and he responded, responded more than I could have hoped for—his cock again became very hard, and more fluid came out of the top as I went. He told me he loved me over and over, and begged me not to stop. Just as the suspicion snuck into my mind that he was only saying what I had asked him to, he begged me please to go faster. I hadn’t mentioned that, I knew, because I hadn’t thought of it. That was what I sought—to know what he wanted, to know that I was truly pleasing him; I gave him his wish. I went faster. Some things he said I couldn’t hear; they were overshadowed by his breathing, but I did hear him ask me if I thought about doing this. I told him, honestly, yes. That pleased him. He was almost moving with me; I had expected him to be still, but he wasn’t. I could see the muscles in his jaw clench as he moaned, his neck tense and tight. I was amazed at how his cock seemed to get even harder, even more swollen and straining as I moved my hands over him. Paul almost looked like he was in pain, and I slowed unintentionally, hypnotized by his reactions. He begged me again to not stop, and I paid more attention and sped back up. He tensed again, and looked right at me; the fierce and hungry look in his eyes made me catch my breath in surprise. And it made me wet.

At that moment, the only thing in the world I wanted was for him to fuck me.

His voice was deep and urgent, “Do you want to make me come, Kitten?”
Confused, I answered, “Yes!”
“I’m going to come for you, Angel,” he panted, almost as if it were a warning, “I love you…I love you so much!”
”Please!” I cried, not sure what he wanted me to say, still hypnotized by what he was doing and saying. This was not what I had expected; I felt scared and aroused at the same time, and I loved it.
“It’s all yours…” and then he roared. His hips thrust up and I tried to hold on to his cock and keep stroking as it bucked in my hands, but then Paul put his hands over both of my hands and made me hold him even harder as he pushed my hands down to the base of that huge thing, swollen up and an almost dark red. He held my hands there in a death grip while more fluid came out and shot across his chest, and I saw that there was a lot already on his stomach that I hadn’t noticed…and the pillow. I was dying with curiosity, but it was going to have to wait. Paul was just saying “Oh, I love you” over and over, in almost perfect time to the final beads of fluid coming out of his cock, slowly sliding down the shaft toward our hands.

He let go of my hands when his fell to his sides, limp. I didn’t know what to do, and I thought for sure that Paul had fallen asleep for a second, but then he stirred and took my hands again, this time very gently. He guided me up to him, and kissed my open palms tenderly as he looked at me lovingly.

“Did I hurt you?” He asked.
“No,” I assured him.
“Did I…scare you?”
“No!” He looked at me, scrutinizing my answer. “Well, not in a bad way…” He laughed. I could tell he was exhausted. “You made a mess,” I said as I slid my fingers over his stomach.
“I’m sorry,” He smiled shyly. And then I did something without even thinking; I brought my fingers to my mouth and tasted them. It was warm and almost salty; almost…I couldn’t identify it. I looked at Paul to see if what I’d done was ok, as well as for permission for what I wanted to do; I wanted to do it again.
Paul was suddenly alert; “Did I tell you to do that?” he sounded alarmed.
“No, but…” Had I upset him? It almost seemed like I had.
“I didn’t tell you to do that?”
“No, Paul…”
”Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know…maybe because you wouldn’t let me before,” I tried to explain something that had happened without any thought at all, “I just…I don’t know. Because I’ve seen you do it? I just wanted to, Paul; I’m sorry.”
“You don’t ever have to apologize to me,” he corrected me gently, like he always did, “you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You said it was mine,” I offered, trying to inject some humor. Paul stared at me, as if he were trying to decide what to think.
“Did you like it?”
“Yes,” I said, deciding that very second that I did, “if you aren’t angry, why did you ask me if you had told me to do it like that?”
Paul paused as if deciding what to say. He finally looked at me as if he were apologizing, and said, ”Because I was afraid that I might have.”
“Why would…” I started, but then realized why. “You want me to?” I asked as I brought my fingers down to his stomach and back up to my mouth.
“Autumn, you don’t have to do that…”
I had to laugh as I put my finger back in my mouth, “Oh, no…you’re not starting that again!” I took his hand and put it to my neck. I held it there as I lowered myself to his chest, “Tell me what you want.”
“Autumn…”
“Is it mine?” I held his hand in place, “Tell me what you want,” I insisted, “tell me that it’s all mine!” I looked up at him, “Say it.” I felt his hand on the back of my neck, gently pulling me closer.
“Lick my cum, Kitten,” Paul said hesitantly, “please…”

And I did. As with everything else, Paul got a little better with the directions as we went on.

———————————-

I don’t know if I slept, or for how long. But thinking of Paul calmed me down, enough so that I didn’t realize until too late that it was light again outside; I bolted up, wide-awake and scared. Everything hurt. I should have gotten up a long time ago and started making breakfast, but Daddy had said not to try to leave my room. I didn’t know what to do, and I felt like whatever I did would be wrong. I didn’t want to get punished again, I thought as the tears started to fall; I didn’t want to get hit, slapped, kicked, whipped…or…what had happened yesterday. Not ever again. I was tired, aching, and paralyzed with terror; Daddy had won again, and set me up so that I didn’t know what was right to do, and what was wrong. I knew from past experience that whatever I did would be wrong. If I stayed, any second the door would fly open and I would get beaten for being lazy; if I opened the door to leave, Daddy would be standing outside, waiting to leap at me and do horrible, painful things to me for disobeying.

I cried and tried to hug myself, tried to think; I did my best to guess what Daddy would want me to do, with the certainty that whatever I picked would be wrong hanging over my head. I had to go to the bathroom. I wanted to take a shower. Without realizing it, I found myself curled up in a ball on my bed crying, looking at a patch of dried blood on my comforter. My blood. I am probably dying, I thought, but I just accepted it. It was okay. My deepest and only regret was that I might not have my Forever with Paul.

I finally decided that I had better get up and be hardworking; I might get less punishment if they saw I was hardworking. I put on some clothes and saw the marks on my wrist when I went to open the door—there were bruises all around both of my wrists, and my ankles as well. I had tried to not look at my body as I dressed, but now my curiosity got the better of me; I looked down the front of my shirt and saw that my breasts, what little there was, were bruised, too. From the way the rest of my body felt, I could easily guess that I was covered in bruises. I didn’t look because I didn’t want to see any more. But that meant I had to take a cold shower to minimize the bruises, instead of the scalding hot shower I so desperately wanted.

When I opened the door (it opened! I had forgotten about the lock!), there was a sandwich and a glass of milk on the hall floor. I felt the milk; it was warm. The bread had turned slightly hard on the outside, too; they’d both been there for a while. I went quickly to the bathroom, avoiding the mirror, and then took the sandwich and milk to the kitchen. It was one in the afternoon, according to the kitchen clock. I quietly washed the milk down the sink, afraid of being caught wasting food. The sandwich I wrapped up and hid in the bottom of the trash can. Then I saw the calendar—it was Thursday. Almost two days had passed? It can’t be, I thought. Thinking back, I only vaguely remembered getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Last night? The night before? Slowly I remembered being surprised before when my bedroom door had been unlocked. How had I forgotten that? What was going on? I felt a strange uneasiness that was almost surreal; how could that have been forgotten? How could two days have passed?

I didn’t have time to stand around and worry about that; I had to get moving, or I was going to get beaten, and now that Dad had crossed that last line, god only knew what my beatings were going to be like from now on. I could think and worry while I worked, like I always did. I headed back up to my room to change the sheets, and heard something down in the basement. I froze at the foot of the stairs and listened until the inescapable truth made me realize; it was my Dad. He was downstairs, using his weight bench. I was frozen with fear. Why was he here? He should be at work! Then it occurred to me that he should have been at work yesterd…the day before yesterday too, when he…did what he did. What was going on?

I quietly crept back into my room. I sat on the floor with my ear to the door, listening. Then I realized how stupid that was. He had heard me. He always heard everything. If I didn’t start cleaning up, he was going to hurt me for being lazy! I rushed to change my bed linens, and put them with laundry to be done, and then got into the shower. If all of this had happened just about two days ago, I didn’t have to bother with a cold shower, and I didn’t want to go into the basement to do laundry. I made it scalding hot and started scrubbing myself, everywhere. Even places that hurt. Private, tender places that Paul would never have hurt me in. I felt so alone; I started crying. I held my face under the hot water until the tears stopped. It was all coming back, all at once. I tried to not remember, but there was no stopping it.

The feel of Daddy’s fingers as he pulled my nipples.

My slut nature.

The way the belt had bitten into my pussy.

“Hit me Daddy; I’m a dirty whore!”

The feel of Daddy’s cock buried deep in my ass.

“Scream, baby slut!”

The feel of his filthy piss and cum as it filled my swollen ass for hours in the dark basement.

I let the water beat down on me as I crouched in the shower, crying. No soap would ever clean this off of me. There was no water hot enough. Even now, I still had some up in me. Forever. There was nothing I could do. And it was only a matter of time before he put his cock into me. And then I would be filthy dirty forever, and even Paul wouldn’t want me, I thought as I cried until I could cry no more.

And then it occurred to me. I had no other choice.

I had to get Paul to make love to me before Daddy fucked me. I suddenly understood the difference Paul said there was between making love and fucking. I had to get to Paul. And I had to not let Daddy get to me first. If it meant that… I wasn’t going to think about that. I would do what I had to do. Once the bruises went down a little, they would let me go back over to Paul’s house. I would have to go this Saturday, I suddenly realized with joy. I would have to go this Saturday, because Mom and Dad were working doubles, and after what had happened, there was no way they would leave me alone, if only to make sure I didn’t kill myself, or run away, or whatever it was that they were always so afraid I would do! That’s what they always did.

And I would tell him he had to make love to me. Bruises or no. No choice.

I can make it to Saturday, I encouraged myself. I just have to act normal, and maybe they will, too. I made myself get up and finish my shower. Saturday. Saturday, I kept telling myself. I washed everything, five times. What pain, I asked myself. Saturday. I turned off the shower and squeezed my hair out. It’s practically Saturday already.

And then I smelled cigarette smoke.

I froze. My breath caught in my chest so hard it hurt. I couldn’t move for a moment, and then for just a fleeting second, I was afraid of Daddy, angry, rushing at the shower curtain and falling on me, hitting… and then decided that I was only making it worse by not opening the curtain, like usual.

No one was there.

I cleaned up the bathroom after myself in record time. One of Mom and Dad’s rules was that the shower stall had to be thoroughly wiped down after use; I raced though all of that and scurried out of the bathroom and into my room. I went to close the door and decided not to so that Daddy couldn’t surprise me by being there when I opened it up. I dressed and went downstairs to start working, trying not to look like I was sneaking around, but sneaking all the same.

Daddy wasn’t anywhere. He might be back down in the basement, or out in the garage; he wasn’t in the backyard because I could see all of it from the kitchen window as I cleaned. I worked and tried not to let possibilities pop into my head. All the bad things that could happen, or might have happened. Possibilities. I was afraid of Daddy popping out from around every corner, from behind every door. I nagged myself to not think about all of that. Don’t think!

Had Paul come over while I was asleep, looking for me? Another possibility.

Did he know Daddy was home? What if he hadn’t…

I had to make my mind stop thinking about frights and ghosts and tragedy somehow. After I finished the kitchen and living room, I snuck by the open basement door and listened. Nothing. I ran upstairs and got my laundry and started it washing while I had time. I finished the front room and as I was putting things away, I heard something out in the garage.

So that was where he was.

I relaxed, because he would be out there a while. He was probably doing something with his car. Almost like this was…a day off? On his days off, Daddy always got up, watched the news, ran an errand or two or something else, then he worked out downstairs, then found some project to work on with his car; changing oil, fixing this, customizing that, and then he would come in and watch TV in the living room, eat dinner, and then drink. He would drink at home alone, or at home with Paul over, or down at the bar. Then he went to bed. The same every day off, with some variations where Mom or I would get beaten up. But this wasn’t his day off.

I did not understand what was going on.

I started dinner as usual, Daddy came in and didn’t even look for me, he just went straight to watch TV. Mom came home, and they had dinner.

It was a night like any other night.

—————————–

The next day started normally, too. The only exception was that Dad didn’t go to work again. He wasn’t avoiding me, though I was trying to avoid him. But I was trying to not look like I was avoiding him. If he thought I was, he would make it worse and intentionally follow me and try to scare me. We were playing normal.

Mom hadn’t talked to me that morning, but that was nothing new. She got in moods like that sometime, and now that I knew…

I wasn’t hurt or angry at her anymore for not talking to me. Not now, and not ever before.

As I worked, I tried to stay focused on tomorrow. Saturday. Daddy just had to work on Saturday. He always did; they paid double or some kind of bonus for their tenured people to work Saturdays and Sundays. Even more if it was overtime. Daddy hadn’t missed a Saturday or Sunday in…ever.

And I hadn’t missed a Saturday or Sunday with Paul in ever, either.

At least that was guaranteed, I reassured myself as I worked. I had completely cleaned out under the kitchen sink, and was starting on the downstairs bathroom cabinets. Dad and Mom wanted everything removed from the cabinets, the cabinets completely washed out with Lysol and dried, and everything put back in place. No dirt or dust anywhere, ever. And they both checked everywhere. Maybe that was why Mom would turn me in to Dad, I thought; maybe he went easier on her if she did. I had always wondered why she did it.

“Autumn”

My Dad’s voice at the bathroom door startled me so much that I smacked my head on the cabinet door. If I had been trying to make him think I wasn’t scared, I just failed, I berated myself.

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