Page 64 of Iron Hearts

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Perfectly fuckin’ adorable,” he agreed, and I laughed.

“Thanks for not calling me ridiculous,” I said and he shook his head.

“Never, baby girl.”

The words weren’t what sent a thrill through me, nor what raised gooseflesh in a tingling wash down my arms and the rest of my body even though the Florida sun shone bright and the heat hung thick in the humid air – it was the look in his eyes.

I’d never seen anyone look so damn serious about something before in my life.

I smiled and nodded and he got onto his bike, settling a little closer to the handlebars than I thought he normally would to make room for me.

I settled behind him, wrapping my arms around him and cozying up to his back, and even though this wasn’t the first time I’d ridden with him, after all the raw and honest and deeply flirtatious texting… it felt different. Like it was something brand new.

“Taking the scenic route!” he called over the roar of the bike starting up, and I called back to him, “What?” right as what he’d said fully registered in my brain.

“I said, I’m taking the scenic route!” he called again, and I grinned and hollered back, “Fine by me!”

I wasn’t sure what the ‘scenic’ route was supposed to be, but wasn’t surprised that it took us deeper into Ormond Beach rather than back past the Iron Horse and to the I-95.

We took the coastal byway on up, and it was nice, the breeze coming in off the water cooling the sweat that tried to collect under my mini-backpack.

I had no idea where we were going, but I didn’t care.

I felt safe with Striker. Calm in a way that I couldn’t describe. He’d been open with me about his likes and dislikes, and while I wasn’t sure about the whole daddy/little girl thing – I continued to mull it over.

I mean, I’d always thought it was weird and meant in an incestuous way, which I think everyone thought of it that way… but Striker and I had talkeda lotabout it recently, and it wasn’t that the more we discussed it.

I went from laughing at the notion, to curious about it, towantingto understand it, to wondering if Ididplay with the notion with him… how far or hownormalcould it become.

That was the part that honestly worried me the most.

It was going to be hard enough coming out to my mom that I was dating someone so significantly older than me, let alone if I got too comfortable and letDaddyslip out of my mouth in front of her. That would be an epic fucking horror show.

Still… with as much as we had been talking about it, I was getting comfortable with the idea… turning it over and over in my mind but still so very hesitant to break the ice with Strikerin personabout it.

It was a big step, but it was one that I wanted so badly to make. I worried that made me some kind of selfish, but I didn’t know how to go about things, either. I was sure it would come up at some point – for now, I just wanted to be close to him and let the wind carry the rest away.

I felt better the further we got from Ormond Beach and the closer we got to St. Augustine. It was like the layers were peeled off and blown back to flutter to the asphalt we left behind and the closer we got to his stomping grounds? The closer we got to me simply beingallowedto be my authentic self. No judgments, just a sort of shiftless freedom.

Like wearing your daddy’s tee shirt like a dress that fell to the floor the night you were small and sick, all of your own pajamas soiled with things coming out of both ends. All that was missing was the being cuddled and hugging your favorite stuffy as the blue glow of the television and the sounds of your favorite cartoons comforted you.

I wanted badly to connect with that feeling again, and the more time I spent talking with Striker, the closer I felt I edged toward it.

He’d explained that was the heart of the dynamic. That he was there to support, nurture, and comfort me. That it left me free to regress into a more childlike state without actuallybeinga child and that it had nothing at all to do with being a pedo. He had no interest in minors whatsoever. He likedwomen. I was awoman, and at no point did he ever forget that fact.

That was comforting in its own way, and made perfect sense to me.

I didn’t think the rest of the world understood it or wanted to.

I think if they put the thought into it that it honestly required, that it would make people face a part of themselves that they wouldn’t want to face.

As Striker had explained it to me, for some people the dynamic was therapeutic. Allowing them to regress into a childlike state that allowed them to feelsafeand repair some broken aspect of their own childhood. For others, who didn’t have a broken childhood, like me – it was something different. Allowing them to guiltlessly tap into and enjoy things that were nostalgic to them.

For instance, the outfit I’d chosen today… it was on the cusp of being socially unacceptable for a girl my age to dress the way I was dressed. I maybe only had a year or two left for it to be considered acceptable before it became considered low rent or trashy. Hell, if my grandmother had seen me leave the house like this, I would have had a hell of a fight and argument on my hands.

I knew I’d better enjoy it while I could… but also, this dynamic, no matter what age I was, I could dress this way for Striker in privacy and we could both enjoy it as much as we wanted and fuck what anyone else thought or had to say.

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