Page 10 of Balance

He waited for an answer and when he didn’t get one, he rolled back onto his side. “Goodnight, Troye.”

I finally got an acknowledgement, and it sucked. It was another dismissal. I didn’t want him to dismiss me. I wanted—something. I wanted his attention. I’d always been like that. Some people called me an attention whore. I just didn’t like feeling invisible. That’s why I spent so much time with my online community. If I had a thousand people watching me, I wasn’t invisible. If I had a hundred people in my chat, it was like being at a party where everyone wanted to talk to me.

And yet I wanted Matthew to talk to me. To look at me. To see me. It was his attention I burned for. I tried not to think about his lap, and how it had felt when I’d plopped myself down in it, but I couldn’t help it. He’d been solid. Firm. Warm. Even when he’d shoved me off his lap, I’d felt the heat of his hands through my shirt.

My pacing had resumed, but not because I was trying to be annoying. All these things I was thinking had built up inside me, and I couldn’t get myself to settle down. Back home, I had a permanent path worn into the floor.

“Troye, will you please, please, sit the fuck down?”

Matthew’s voice had an edge to it. He was irritated with me. And how dare he be when he was the cause of my distress? My irritation.

Not unless you ask me.

“Maybe you should fucking spank me then.” I threw the words out there, not quite as softly as I’d intended. But they managed to suck the oxygen out of the room, and then I was still. Still as a fucking statue. I didn’t even breathe.

The covers shifted, and I watched Matthew push them back and slowly, so fucking slowly, he got out of bed. I watched him, brave enough in the dark to openly stare at him while he straightened up, coming to his full height. The darkness might have given me cover to stare, but it also made him seem bigger, more imposing. My knees turned to water.

“I won’t put a hand on you that you don’t want me to, but I get the feeling that you might want me to.” Matthew took a step closer.

I willed my body to take a step back, to put distance between me and my impending doom, but my body wasn’t listening to me anymore.

“I don’t know what I want, remember?” I wanted to stop fucking talking because I’d worked myself up into one of those states where I said stupid shit. It happened when I was gaming sometimes, but usually it was because I was frustrated with a level that I couldn’t beat. And that’s when I’d switch to something softer. Cozier.

Matthew didn’t move or speak, but I heard his voice in my head. Over and over.

Not unless you ask me.

“I’d like to get to sleep sometime this century, Troye.”

I love-hated the way he said my name. Like he had a right to use it. Like the way he said it belonged to him and only him.

“What are you going to do if you don’t? Spank me?”

“If that’s what you want.”

Not unless you ask me.

Funny, because I thought I was. But maybe he needed the words. Maybe he needed assurance that it was something I actually wanted him to do. I supposed when you were going to put your hands on another person, you might want to know for sure that it was consensual.

“Just fucking do it then.” I flung my consent at him like it was a grenade but instead of it landing and me getting an explosive reaction, Matthew sat down on the edge of the bed.

“If you really want one, you’re going to have to ask me nicely.”

My watery knees barely held me up, and yet somehow they found the strength to carry me across the room. I had no frame of reference for this kind of thing, but I was pretty sure Matthew did. And I tried not to compare myself to other people he might have spanked. What if I wasn’t good at taking it? What if I had a weird ass? It might not be the kind of ass he was used to spanking. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Leave it to me to find a way to be bad at owning an ass.

My feet shuffled across the carpet, bringing me closer to my destruction. Matthew sat there patiently, like he’d sit there all night if that’s what it took for me to get my shit together.

When I got close enough, he tipped his head up and looked at me. I could almost make out his expression in the dim light.

I opened my mouth and for a second I was terrified that I was about to say something stupid. Something that would be typical of me to say. Some sort of ill-thought insult or some kind of shitty snark.

“Please,” I said instead, shocking myself. Did I really want one bad enough to ask him nicely? I hadn’t thought so, but sometimes it was like there were two people living inside me. The Troye who got wound up and said and did things that weren’t smart, or clever, or nice. And then there was the Troye who hated the other version of himself, and he tried to be one Troye. One really good Troye, but that never lasted long.

Matthew didn’t make me wait. Reaching for me, taking my hand, he pulled me closer and then suddenly the world was tipping and my stomach was swooping and then I was in Matthew’s lap. And my watery knees turned to rocks that shook and trembled as an earthquake of anticipation and fear rippled through me.

Matthew was being kind and gentle, and he arranged me so I was comfortable and then he struck me. Over my soft pajama pants, the hit barely registered. I’d imagined my bare ass. I’d been spanked during sex before, so I knew about the way flesh on flesh stung, and I wanted that. I wanted…

Not unless you ask me.