Hey, perverts. Here’s the title story of my collection of erotica. Check back here tomorrow (July 19th) at 5pm EST to find the indiegogo and ways to pre-order the book! Thank you all for your support and feedback thus far. <3 

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Sweetheart’s got a secret.

I call her “Sweetheart” because there’s something inherently filthy about it. It’s subtler than “Slut,” more condescending than “Pet,” more dignified than “Bitch.”

Most importantly, she likes it. It grabs her a certain way, makes her blush and bite her lip, lets her play coy. And it lets her shift the shame away from herself and embody it into a character she can put on and step out of at will.

But the thing about Sweetheart is that she bites off much more than she can chew. She’s a terrible gambler. She’ll get cocky and claim she can take thirty swats on her ass, but she’s in tears by seventeen. She says she can take a week without touching herself and is bargaining by day two. If she hadn’t handed over control of her allowance to me, I’d have every worry that she’d gamble it all away, and God knows how I’d explain the pigtails and the lollipop to the croupier.

“You always do make bad wagers, Sweetheart.”

She is curled up on the couch, feet tucked over her bum as if she could make me forget it. She keeps the television on in wrongful presumption: I don’t mind that I’m an interruption. I reach for the remote and switch the program off. It didn’t look like cartoons anyway.

“Hey!” She snaps around so hard her pigtails slap against her neck. Sometimes, I’ll have her wear them when we go out. And for all her protests and complaints, it was her idea to make them so pretty with the little pink love-in-tokyos.

“I said,” I repeat, sinking onto the couch beside her, pulling her up into my lap, “you make the worst wagers. I’m starting to believe that might be intentional.”

She nestles her cheek against my shoulder, burying her face into the fabric of my shirt. The tiniest, almost imperceptible squirm twists against my lap and I barely stifle a chuckle. “Nuh uh,” she insists, the telltale catch in her voice indicating that she’s blushing, “it’s not my fault.”

Sweetheart likes to imagine that she is bashful. In any case, she plays it off fairly well, attempting to pass off a pair of red cheeks for reluctance. But she can’t keep herself from smiling; sometimes, from outright giggling.

“I don’t wanna” usually means “tell me again.” “It’s too blushy” is “push me harder.” “You’re a meanie” roughly translates to “thank you.” The dead giveaway is usually that she’ll typically have yanked her panties down around her ankles in the same breath as a pout. Not to mention the fact that she can barely keep her fingers out of her cunt when I punish her.

 “Sweetheart,” I’ll growl, “stop that, you’re shameless.”

 “I can’t help it,” she’ll insist, hiding her face with her free hand. “It’s hungry.”

Now, she’s moved her face from my shoulder and nestled her head against my chest. It’s a game she plays, it’s her favorite trick. If she can not only just avoid eye contact, but completely obscure her face, she can somehow disconnect herself from whatever behavior she’s done that requires correction. She is no longer her choices, her horrible wagers, her brazen fingers, her eager cunt.

“You don’t think that you make the worst bargains?” I ask, settling my hands on her sides. I bounce my knee and lift her, forcing her to sit up and face me, “or you don’t think you make them on purpose?” 

She shrugs. “I ‘unno, Daddy.”

“Sweetheart, I think you do know,” I tease, easing my hand underneath her to flip her onto her stomach across my lap. She attempts to sit back up with a huff, but I seize a wrist and twist it up her back just short of it being painful. For some drama, she gasps anyway. “You said, if you don’t remember to make me coffee for the rest of the week, I could spank you as much as I wanted,” I begin, rolling her dress up until it is basically a shirt, knotting the excess fabric off to ensure that she cannot pull it back down.

“So, I…I just forgot to buy coffee,” she insists.

I slip her panties down around her knees. “Sweetheart,” I try to sound firm, but I just come off entertained, “I found the coffee grounds in the garbage last night.”

Silence. She’s completely still. A flush of embarrassment that must be consuming her face and chest peeks over her shoulders.

“It’s not fair!”

She flails, kicking her legs enough to be controversial without risking any actual harm. It’s kind of her style: acting out just enough to ensure she’ll be punished, throwing the wrench in a calculated enough way to break the machine at just the right point. She lies to get caught and she bets to lose.

 It’s her worst kept secret.