Mika never came by on Fridays. There had always been something else going on – late classes, gym workouts, Girl’s Nights, pool at the student union – but he’d come to accept that he would spend his Friday nights by himself. He justified it as a trade-off for continuing to date a woman over forty years his junior.

So when Jeff saw her step out of the rideshare car at the edge of his lawn, he was shocked. She’d texted him earlier to let him know she was coming, of course, but he’d dismissed it at the time, as Mika had a habit of making such plans and not following through – another habit of hers that had come with the territory.

Images from Passchendaele would have to wait for another night. He slipped his bookmark in place and made it to the door before the first chime sounded.

She’d brought wine. It was another rare gesture, and while he appreciated it, the only treat he wanted then was to be found under Mika’s floral sundress. After a hot afternoon, her sweat had pasted the cotton like a second skin against her young and athletic body.

Mika eschewed underwear, she found it restrictive and patriarchal. Jeff didn't understand her reasoning, but he certainly enjoyed the outcome.

“Surprise,” she giggled, and held out the bottle.

“My favourite,” said Jeff, and kissed her. He took the bottle and gestured for her to follow him inside.

The kitchen was minimalist – stovetop, oven, and refrigerator all in cast aluminum. A bar that doubled for food prep and dining surface. If he had more than one guest, he’d clean off the patio table outside. Jeff had designed the house himself, he’d known what he wanted then.

Placing the bottle on the bar, he reached into his cupboard for a pair of glasses.

“So what brings you here unexpectedly, little girl?” he asked.

Mika leaned up against the bar, ignoring the stool tucked in beside her. She smiled weakly at the nickname. “Can’t I just come and visit my Daddy whenever I want?”

“I would love that. In fact, I seem to remember asking you to come live here with me…” Her face turned downcast and he quickly changed the subject, “But as it is a Friday, what’s changed?”

Mika was quiet for a moment. “I took my last exam on Wednesday.”

Jeff understood the ramification. This was Mika’s last year of university.

“Congratulations. So when’s the ceremony?”

“Unless I flunked it completely, four weeks from now. The whole family is going to be there. Even my Dad.”

“Of course. I’ll be right in the front row when you get your degree.”

The smile that she’d tried so hard to maintain slipped. “I mean my father. Not you.”

Jeff had been digging through his odds and ends drawer looking for a corkscrew when those last two words sunk in. He closed the drawer. There just didn’t seem to be a point anymore.

“He’s arranged an internship for me back home,” Mika continued, her eyes peeled for Jeff’s reaction. “I leave right after.”

“Your parents don’t know about me, do they?”

“What would I tell them? That I’ve spent the last year with a man old enough to be my grandfather? That he likes me to have sex with other people, and that sometimes he spanks me? They’d call the cops.”

“You’re a grown woman,” said Jeff firmly.

“I thought I was your little girl,” she replied.

He remembered, finally, that the corkscrew had been tucked away with his silverware. He retrieved the tool, only to discover that the bottle had a screw cap.

Realization struck him. “This is why you wouldn’t move in with me, isn’t it? You always saw your time with me as having a deadline.”

He filled the first glass and took a sip. He passed the second glass to her.

“You’re not wrong, but that’s not fair, either. Did you still think we’d be doing this when I’m thirty? When I’m forty?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. By the time you’re forty, I’ll be dead.”

He’d meant to lighten the mood, but it was the wrong thing to say. Mika’s body language shifted, her arms folding into a defensive posture.

He tried a different tactic. “Do you remember the day we met?”

***

The Red Room was everything Jeff had heard so much about, and more. It was crowded with props and toys, some on display and some in baskets for easy access, some that he’d always dreamed of using, and some that he didn’t recognize but looked forward to playing with.

So it bothered him that the first thought he had was I wonder if Marianne would like this place.

His first wife had always liked that her husband worked with his hands. She wanted to be taken by a ‘real man’, and Jeff found himself tying her down, or taking her with force, or when she was being particularly combative, throwing her over his knee and spanking her. It was a good marriage, he’d thought. But in twenty-one years, they were together, actually together, for maybe six of them. Jeff’s job kept him moving, and in the meantime she moved on.

“Earth to Frobie,” whispered Carl. “Sorry, I expected a better turnout, too.”

Carl, an old contractor friend, had been the one to suggest this event, billed as a mixer for BDSM-inclined singles. Maybe it was too late in the year, maybe it was too soon after COVID – but less than a dozen people had shown, and all but two were men.

Not that the inconvenience had held Carl back. He’d already collected phone numbers from three of the ‘boys’, and had just come back after schmoozing with a fourth. Jeff had been self-conscious enough in coming here – worried that he was too old, too out-of-shape, too out-of-practice – but Carl had dispelled all of those concerns.

He’d said, “ So we’ve both gotten old and fat. So what? Not everyone here is looking for a stud. Some just want a Daddy.”

Jeff winced again at the thought of that word. He wasn’t good at dealing with discomfort, so he went back to fidgeting with the paper badge pinned to his golf tee. Its purple colour, the same as Carl’s, identified him as a dominant among this crowd of strangers, but Jeff didn’t feel up to taking charge of anything at the moment.

“You want to head back?” Carl was still looking after him. “My dance card’s full.”

Jeff sighed. “Maybe next time.”

Carl patted him on the shoulder. “Before we go, can you let me know if you spot a thin, red-haired woman?”

“Thinking of changing teams? I just saw the heavyset blonde in the corset. She was a no, by the way.”

“I’m looking for the owner of this place, jackass. Her name’s Sherrie; she might need to have a talk with one of the guests.”

He pointed without averting his eyes to the young Asian woman trying to insert herself into a conversation at the back of the room. She was wearing a halter top and jean shorts that would have revealed a scandalous amount of skin on someone with a… shapelier figure. A yellow tag was affixed to her strap.

Jeff couldn’t miss that despite her youth and beauty, she was having a hard time making friends. The group she was trying to insinuate into brushed her off, and she immediately sought out another.

“What’s wrong with what she’s doing?” he asked.

Carl leaned in closer. “This isn’t a prison gang, Frobie. You can’t just walk up to the butchest guy in the room and challenge him. Nobody’s going to take you seriously.”

He was right – the next group shrugged her away on approach. There was no mistaking her frustration in the way her hands shook, or the way she stamped her tiny feet.

“Let me try,” he heard himself say.

The girl, defeated, had taken up a post at the wall, her arms folded. She sneered as Jeff walked up to her.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime, grandpa?”

Jeff smirked. “First time, eh?”

She must have been expecting some snappy quip in response, but Jeff wasn’t any good at those. She sputtered for a second before recovering.

“Of course not. New to this place, sure, but I’ve been to all of the clubs back home.”

Jeff wished he had a cigarette he could share with her. He still felt the habit, even if he’d given it up for Kim, his second wife.

“It’s the first time for me, too. I came here with a friend who’s been in ‘the scene’ for a while. He’s trying to get me out of my shell. Kudos for trying it on your own.”

“Thanks.” She paused. “You know… I kind of had high hopes for tonight.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I heard about Oubliette in my second year at uni. I was going to check it out on the Valentine’s Day party last year, but I chickened out, and well… last year happened.”

“It did.”

Her voice was starting to crack. “It seems like I’ve had so many opportunities to find myself since I came here that I’ve missed, or lost, or got there to find that nobody likes me. Do you know how long I dreamed about coming to a place like this?”

Jeff raised an eyebrow, accenting his wrinkles to full effect. “Try me.”

She chuckled even as the first tears welled up. She caught herself, then wiped her eyes with her wrist. Someone nearby tittered – there was still a lot of public service messaging about hygiene going around.

“Did you want to take a walk?” he offered.

She nodded, and he signaled to Carl that they’d catch up later. The look on his friend’s face was priceless. Jeff would have a lot of explaining to do later.

“I’m Jeff, by the way,” he said as they left together, “I never caught your name.”

“Mikaela.”

Even at night, the August heat hit them like a blast furnace as they came out the door. Mikaela seemed to embrace it, letting the warmth soak her already tanned skin and evapourating her tears. Her energy returned.

“My dorm’s about a half-hour walk from here. You think you can make it without breaking a hip?”

He eagerly took the bait.

Once they had left the noise of the downtown cord, Mikaela opened up considerably. Jeff wasn’t surprised to hear that she was from a small town out east, or that her claim of visiting other bondage clubs had been a lie.

“Don’t judge me?” she pleaded.

“We’ll see.”

He saw dirty looks flashed at them from the group waiting in the pale light of the bus stop across the street. He hoped Mikaela hadn’t noticed.

She asked nervously, “You don’t mind being seen with me?”

“A little,” he admitted, “but I’m not going to overthink it. There’s no way they can know we’re not father and daughter, right?”

She nestled her hard little body into him. “Okay, Daddy.”

For a change of pace, Mikaela suggested they cut through the nearby park. While it was frequented by joggers on most nights, tonight the two of them had it to themselves. They walked alone along the trail, warm in the light of the streetlamps, serenaded by the cicadas in the trees above.

Neither one had said a word since she called him Daddy. It didn’t sound so terrible coming from her.

“I’m just up the staircase here,” she said, breaking the silence. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Sorry about being a brat earlier.”

“You’re just lucky you’re too old for a spanking.”

She startled, as if he’d flipped a switch. She grinned coyly. “Am I, though?”

He’d had this dance before with Marianne, long ago. Before Mikaela was born, no doubt. But he still remembered the steps. A spotlight shone on the nearby bench.

“If it was up to me, I’d put you over my knee right here and now.”

Her eyes widened theatrically. “But we’re in public!”

If he couldn’t tell if she was frightened or excited by his threat, her frantic nodding put his concerns to rest. He took her by the hand and sat down, pulling her with him. With Marianne he’d had to pin her wrist to the small of her back, but Mikaela proved a more willing partner.

His hand met her bottom with a sound he didn’t remember being so loud. He hesitated for only a second before committing a second smack to the first, then a third. Mikaela’s Daisy Dukes proved no impediment, the tiny shorts covering almost nothing of the girl’s wiggling buttocks.

But aside from an ‘ooh’ or ‘ah’, Mikaela hadn’t reacted. Was he trying too hard?

“Are you learning your lesson, little girl?”

“I’m sorry, Daddy…” she said, and his heart dropped, until she continued, “… but I’ve been a really, really bad girl.”

“A really…”

“Uh-huh. Don’t judge me?”

Something clicked for Jeff.

Considering where they were, he didn’t dare spank her for long. But that short time was enough to leave his hand tingling and each of her cheeks pink from hip to crack. And as he spanked her, she laughed. Not out of spite, but joy, the thrill of finally reaching her dream and finding it to be everything she’d hoped for.

The moment he let her up, she stuck out her tongue and rubbed her backside.

“You’re a mean Daddy,” she pouted.

“I like to think that I’m patient and a good listener. And I believe in discipline.”

“You do, don’t you? Ouch. Did you want to come up with me?”

She gestured toward the stone staircase leading uphill toward the campus. Jeff felt a stirring he hadn’t been able to act on in years. If she was willing to look past the years between them…

Finally, he shook his head. “My days of sneaking into ladies’ rooms are past,” he said, reaching for his phone. “But for next time, I do have my own house.”

“Next time?”

“If you’d like.”

She ran into his arms. For her thin frame, she was remarkably strong.

“Thank you, Daddy.”

She broke away and skipped up the stairs two at a time. He watched her until her glowing bottom faded into the night.

***

Jeff’s lips dabbed helplessly at the air. The words wouldn’t leave his mouth, and he could see Mika looking at him with pity.

“Daddy, we can’t live that day forever.”

He swallowed. “I know.”

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and I wouldn’t change a minute of our time together. But the truth is… little girls grow up. It’s what they’re supposed to do.”

“I know.” His voice caught. He shook his head again, but there was no dislodging the weight in his throat, and he turned away from her.

It was undignified for an old man to cry.

He felt her arms wrap around his waist. This once, she would be the one supporting him.

“I thought we’d have more time,” he said.

“I know.”

He loved her. As much as he hurt in the moment, he hoped he still loved her after she was gone.

But that moment wasn’t over. Not yet.