Page 43 of Ruthless Daddy
“Marco?” I said.
“My cousin’s husband. He’s a good man. It’s how they live.” He said it so matter-of-fact that it knocked the wind out of me. The idea that his whole family knew about this, that they helped him build the architecture of care for someone like me, was—devastating. I felt something in my chest crack, clean through, and for a moment I almost lost it.
But I didn’t. I breathed in. I let the paper smell anchor me.
“Walk me through it,” I said. My voice was steady.
He nodded. He started from the top.
“The contract is a guide, not a prison. You can change anything you want, anytime. We do it in pencil first, ink after.”
He walked through the sections: boundaries (hard and soft), daily check-ins (text, in person, or phone), rules (must eat at least twice a day, must get minimum six hours sleep, must notify if leaving the apartment, no self-harm without reporting). I felt myself relax with each rule, as if someone had come in and straightened the picture frames of my mind.
He went through the rights—my rights. The right to say no. The right to privacy. The right to safe words and to stop anything at any time. The right to ask for time alone.
Responsibilities, his and mine. I was to do my best. He was to do his best. If either of us failed, we would talk about it. No blame.
He asked, “What do you want to add?”
I took the pencil and wrote in the margin: “Must be honest at all times. No games.” I thought for a second, then wrote another: “No sleep deprivation as punishment. I like sleep.”
He smiled. Not at me, at the page.
He took the pencil and added one of his own: “You can text me anytime, even at three in the morning.”
I added: “You can wake me if you need to.” I liked the symmetry.
We went back and forth for half an hour. I edited. He agreed. I crossed out the sleep rule and rewrote it to allow for “occasional late night, if approved in advance.” He added a clause about exercise, but only if I wanted it. We worked together, quietly, the way people do when they’re building something that matters.
Finally, he pushed the pages toward me.
“If you want, you can sign now. Go on to the second part. Or we can wait.”
I looked at the pencil. I looked at my name, printed on the top. I looked at the rules, the rights, the boundaries. All of it was clear, defined, not negotiable except by my own hand.
I signed.
He signed next, quick and sharp, like he’d been waiting his whole life to do it.
When it was done, he folded the contract, set it in the folder, and closed it.
He looked at me for a long time.
“Thank you for trusting me,” he said.
He returned to the folder, opened the next set of pages. This time, the font was bigger. Each section had a heading: DISCIPLINE, REWARDS, PHYSICALITY, SEX, RESTRAINTS, HARD LIMITS. The words felt heavier than the rest. I could feel the weight of them just reading down the line.
He watched my face as I read. He watched everything.
I said, “Is this the part where you tell me I’ll be punished if I color outside the lines?”
He smiled, just enough. “If you want to be, yes. But only if it helps you. Otherwise, we find other ways.”
I took the pencil. I tapped the first line. “Discipline. What does that look like for you?”
He shrugged. “Depends on the infraction. Sometimes it’s just a talk. Sometimes it’s loss of privileges—no sweets, no tv, no phone. Sometimes it’s something more physical. If you need it.”
“Spanking?”
