All's well that ends well [Part 3]
After almost an hour, I saw my Daddy come back down from the weight room. So I hopped off my bike, snuck around the cardio machines, and placed his hoodie right where he left it at the entrance to the stretching area. Then I went back to my bike, putting the finishing touches on the damage control plan I'd thought up.
Once my Daddy left the stretching area, I gave him about five minutes before following him downstairs. I peeked around the corner and saw him in one of the armchairs outside the locker rooms. He didn't look particularly happy, so I froze for a moment, then turned tail and ran. About a minute later, having worked up the courage to go and see him, I walked sheepishly around the corner again, and crouched down next to him.
"I think I have a plan," I told him.
"Let's hear it," he said.
And so I presented it, in all its sordid detail. I said I could research the numbers to call and measures to take when sensitive information is lost, and I'd come up with an action plan based on best, worst, and most likely scenarios. My Owner was fairly pleased with that, although I'd later learn that his partner does not approach planning in quite this way.
I did significantly worse in my suggestions for making it up to my Owner's partner, in which I babbled something about tents, vineyards and not ever having any time. Daddy gently suggested that perhaps I might want to offer his partner a nice, long massage instead, and I said that I could do that, of course.
I'm really glad we never got to the third part of the plan, which was how to penalize me and correct my behaviour, because my ideas in that department were so harsh I doubt I would have recovered. However, I did ask my Daddy how I might learn to tell the difference between "tired, but this needs to get done" and "so exhausted that anything I do right now is going to suffer because I can't focus." Experience, he said, and pattern recognition. As well as learning to say "I need a nap," even to my Owner.
By this point, my ankles couldn't deal with squatting on the floor any longer, so I plopped my butt down and sat cross-legged at my Daddy's feet.
"I didn't just let your hoodie sit there while you were upstairs," I blurted out suddenly.
"I know," he said. "I saw you."
"Oh," I said, elated that he'd noticed, yet slightly glum, for I'd tried to be invisible.
We kept talking for a bit, and he acknowledged that I'd done some serious thinking about the situation. He told me he was proud of me for taking only two-and-a-half hours to get through my fear and self-loathing enough to start with damage control, because a few years ago I'd have been busy kicking myself for weeks over much smaller shit. I confessed that I had looked at my plane ticket to see if I could leave any earlier (mostly to punish myself) and he rolled his eyes and told me that being a mensch means sticking around for the hard stuff, and working on making things right even when it sucks. Which, I figured, takes priority over beating myself up.
I apologized repeatedly and stressed that I really was trying my best. He asked if I thought this was the last time I would try my hardest and yet have something big go hugely, horribly wrong. I grinned, despite myself, because, well, of course I thought this was a fluke, and if I did my best, this would never happen again.
One of my Owner's many strengths is giving a lot of credit to factors outside the realm of his control. Perhaps paradoxical, given our roles, but I am always the one who assumes everything will be fine because I'm trying my best, and he'll plan for the train that gets delayed, or the gas station that's mysteriously closed, always building in an extra slack to his plan. I'm learning, but in a lot of ways, I'm still flying by the seat of my pants, which works just fine the 90% of the time I am in control, but bites me in the ass the rest of the time. So it was a good reminder that I need to develop skills for when everything goes right, and yet everything goes wrong.
At that point, my Owner's partner showed up, and I got up, dusted off my butt, and walked out with them, only vaguely realizing that we'd done some serious bdsm in the Y, and wondering how on earth our interactions might possibly look from the outside.
In the car, I apprised my Owner's partner of the earlier conversation, only to find out that he didn't want a massage, wasn't interested in a detailed action plan with scenarios built up surrounding the missing envelopes, and at most, we could split the cost of canceling the cheques, because he was of the opinion that I was doing him a favour by agreeing to mail them in the first place.
My independent mind enjoyed this exchange as part of the continuing process of getting to know my Daddy's partner better. But there's another part of me, which wants me to pack up all my stuff to get a job serving coffee at the closest Starbucks and live in the basement of my Daddy's apartment building. That part of me was contemplating how much more convenient things would be if everybody just stopped asking questions and just did what my Owner said. I found myself seriously torn.
I figured I'd just make the action plan anyway, and send it to my Daddy. As for the cancellation fees on the cheques, I could look up how much they were and leave cash for my Daddy's partner, as part of a sneaky note. (For which I need to find a better hiding place next time, because I got so totally busted.) But while these steps would help deal with the practical ramifications of the missing cheques, they would hardly provide my Daddy's partner with any relaxation or comfort, which was what the vineyard/tent/massage plan was supposed to do.
Clutching at straws and desperate to do something nice for him, I said, hesitantly, "... and I give good blowjobs, too."
My Daddy rolled his eyes and his partner smiled indulgently and shook his head, looking about as interested as if I had offered him tickets to a Boyzone reunion concert. I had to laugh, and the fact that I could was immensely reassuring. I apologized again, and I was duly scritched behind the ears, which meant so much to me in the moment that I felt like bursting into tears.
Which I did, but that was several hours later, during some recreational reinforcement of our power dynamic. *ahem*
The next day, my Daddy and his partner saw me off to the airport. I gave my Daddy a big hug and didn't want to let go. I apologized for the shoddy service and promised that I'd do better next time. He pointed out that everything else I'd done that trip had actually been pretty okay. "So," he said, "Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?" We grinned at each other, he gave me another hug, called me his good boy again - always welcome words, but never more so than in that moment - and then I wiped my face on my already-soggy sleeve, stood up straight, grabbed my bags and headed into the terminal building.
Epilogue: In an exceedingly kind note from my Owner's partner, I learned that the morning after I left, the envelope full of cheques made its way back to its return address, right into the mailbox belonging to my Owner and his partner. It was unopened. After the most recent of my many apologies, my Daddy dismissed it with a wave, and said, "Done, now." And though the lesson is still sitting close to my heart, with those words, just like that, I was able to forgive myself for causing a situation that was rectified in the most unlikely of ways by the kindness of a stranger.
Once my Daddy left the stretching area, I gave him about five minutes before following him downstairs. I peeked around the corner and saw him in one of the armchairs outside the locker rooms. He didn't look particularly happy, so I froze for a moment, then turned tail and ran. About a minute later, having worked up the courage to go and see him, I walked sheepishly around the corner again, and crouched down next to him.
"I think I have a plan," I told him.
"Let's hear it," he said.
And so I presented it, in all its sordid detail. I said I could research the numbers to call and measures to take when sensitive information is lost, and I'd come up with an action plan based on best, worst, and most likely scenarios. My Owner was fairly pleased with that, although I'd later learn that his partner does not approach planning in quite this way.
I did significantly worse in my suggestions for making it up to my Owner's partner, in which I babbled something about tents, vineyards and not ever having any time. Daddy gently suggested that perhaps I might want to offer his partner a nice, long massage instead, and I said that I could do that, of course.
I'm really glad we never got to the third part of the plan, which was how to penalize me and correct my behaviour, because my ideas in that department were so harsh I doubt I would have recovered. However, I did ask my Daddy how I might learn to tell the difference between "tired, but this needs to get done" and "so exhausted that anything I do right now is going to suffer because I can't focus." Experience, he said, and pattern recognition. As well as learning to say "I need a nap," even to my Owner.
By this point, my ankles couldn't deal with squatting on the floor any longer, so I plopped my butt down and sat cross-legged at my Daddy's feet.
"I didn't just let your hoodie sit there while you were upstairs," I blurted out suddenly.
"I know," he said. "I saw you."
"Oh," I said, elated that he'd noticed, yet slightly glum, for I'd tried to be invisible.
We kept talking for a bit, and he acknowledged that I'd done some serious thinking about the situation. He told me he was proud of me for taking only two-and-a-half hours to get through my fear and self-loathing enough to start with damage control, because a few years ago I'd have been busy kicking myself for weeks over much smaller shit. I confessed that I had looked at my plane ticket to see if I could leave any earlier (mostly to punish myself) and he rolled his eyes and told me that being a mensch means sticking around for the hard stuff, and working on making things right even when it sucks. Which, I figured, takes priority over beating myself up.
I apologized repeatedly and stressed that I really was trying my best. He asked if I thought this was the last time I would try my hardest and yet have something big go hugely, horribly wrong. I grinned, despite myself, because, well, of course I thought this was a fluke, and if I did my best, this would never happen again.
One of my Owner's many strengths is giving a lot of credit to factors outside the realm of his control. Perhaps paradoxical, given our roles, but I am always the one who assumes everything will be fine because I'm trying my best, and he'll plan for the train that gets delayed, or the gas station that's mysteriously closed, always building in an extra slack to his plan. I'm learning, but in a lot of ways, I'm still flying by the seat of my pants, which works just fine the 90% of the time I am in control, but bites me in the ass the rest of the time. So it was a good reminder that I need to develop skills for when everything goes right, and yet everything goes wrong.
At that point, my Owner's partner showed up, and I got up, dusted off my butt, and walked out with them, only vaguely realizing that we'd done some serious bdsm in the Y, and wondering how on earth our interactions might possibly look from the outside.
In the car, I apprised my Owner's partner of the earlier conversation, only to find out that he didn't want a massage, wasn't interested in a detailed action plan with scenarios built up surrounding the missing envelopes, and at most, we could split the cost of canceling the cheques, because he was of the opinion that I was doing him a favour by agreeing to mail them in the first place.
My independent mind enjoyed this exchange as part of the continuing process of getting to know my Daddy's partner better. But there's another part of me, which wants me to pack up all my stuff to get a job serving coffee at the closest Starbucks and live in the basement of my Daddy's apartment building. That part of me was contemplating how much more convenient things would be if everybody just stopped asking questions and just did what my Owner said. I found myself seriously torn.
I figured I'd just make the action plan anyway, and send it to my Daddy. As for the cancellation fees on the cheques, I could look up how much they were and leave cash for my Daddy's partner, as part of a sneaky note. (For which I need to find a better hiding place next time, because I got so totally busted.) But while these steps would help deal with the practical ramifications of the missing cheques, they would hardly provide my Daddy's partner with any relaxation or comfort, which was what the vineyard/tent/massage plan was supposed to do.
Clutching at straws and desperate to do something nice for him, I said, hesitantly, "... and I give good blowjobs, too."
My Daddy rolled his eyes and his partner smiled indulgently and shook his head, looking about as interested as if I had offered him tickets to a Boyzone reunion concert. I had to laugh, and the fact that I could was immensely reassuring. I apologized again, and I was duly scritched behind the ears, which meant so much to me in the moment that I felt like bursting into tears.
Which I did, but that was several hours later, during some recreational reinforcement of our power dynamic. *ahem*
The next day, my Daddy and his partner saw me off to the airport. I gave my Daddy a big hug and didn't want to let go. I apologized for the shoddy service and promised that I'd do better next time. He pointed out that everything else I'd done that trip had actually been pretty okay. "So," he said, "Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?" We grinned at each other, he gave me another hug, called me his good boy again - always welcome words, but never more so than in that moment - and then I wiped my face on my already-soggy sleeve, stood up straight, grabbed my bags and headed into the terminal building.
Epilogue: In an exceedingly kind note from my Owner's partner, I learned that the morning after I left, the envelope full of cheques made its way back to its return address, right into the mailbox belonging to my Owner and his partner. It was unopened. After the most recent of my many apologies, my Daddy dismissed it with a wave, and said, "Done, now." And though the lesson is still sitting close to my heart, with those words, just like that, I was able to forgive myself for causing a situation that was rectified in the most unlikely of ways by the kindness of a stranger.