Obedience Lessons

Chapter Nine

Warning: Brace Yourselves.

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Dylan's POV

I'd shivered when he touched me. Melting like candle wax under the heat of his palms and eyes and wanting more. So much more. My body protested at being denied, crying out to me in frustration to be touched, remembered somehow. I was sorely tempted to touch myself right now as I remained in a state of half-arousal just thinking about what I was doing with Andy not too long ago.

I grinned stupidly to myself as I texted him, quickly spelling out a teasing message, "Dinner at eight? It's time I learn how you play with your food." Hitting send, I leaned back in my chair to daydream.

It had been just us. No crazy, filthy whispers in my head about being worthless or untouchable. If someone good cared enough to stick around me, didn't that mean that I was good too? Good by association? I wanted to be his good boy. So badly.

"Mr. Ryman, your father is -"My assistant barely had to enough time to say those words when my father, a tall, crisply attired middle aged man with a buzz cut, barged into the room.

"Louisa, you can go," I told her with the last of my composure before quailing under my father's glare. He'd never broken stride, walking across the office with his shoes just slightly making a tapping sound against the granite, he held something in his hands until he flung it onto my desk. The pile of papers scattered and pooled on my desk and some fell onto the floor.

I didn't want to look at them, since I was already pretty sure I didn't wanted to deal with whatever it was. My head began to throb and my mind swam in the deep end as I sifted through the photos. The colours blurred and blended.

The pictures were of me. There I was arriving at Ballerz, pictures of me getting into the club, on the dance floor, making out with different guys. I realised that the photos were mixed, some old and some new, and wondered how long my dad was having me followed. I progressed in the pile and found several of me being tied up, with only a blindfold on, after that the photos only get dirty. I felt myself go cold with horror, that my dad had had these taken.

"Did you think I wouldn't know?" My father began. "I warned you not to ever come back to this filth. I made it abundantly clear that when you took this position it wasn't for fun and games or your... disgusting lifestyle. And I gave you billions in exchange for that. It was a deal." His brows furrowed into a sharp frown, as if he couldn't understand what could possess me to 'betray' him, as if he wasn't the monster who'd invaded my privacy here. I couldn't even manage to point out that whatever deal he thought we had, had been one-sided. My parents assumed that I would do everything they told me to when they gave me this position, they wrongly assumed that it was just that easy to snap my fingers and become straight, and that I would even try for them. Simply because they had done what got them everything else in life, thrown money at it and willed it to exist.

My father began to make his way around the desk and I instinctively sprang out of the chair, circling so he wouldn't get near me. Slowly, he sat in my high-backed executive chair and placed his hands on the desk. I saw it immediately for what it was, him reminding me that he was in charge. His cold blue eyes met mine again, "But you broke that deal."

"What deal? Your unspoken 'do-what-we-want-or-we-cut-you-off deal?" I dared to challenge. My voice was weaker than I'd have liked and in that moment I hated myself a little more for hearing how it cracked to address my father.

"Don't take that tone," he snapped, "Your mother and I never said anything about cutting you off. The money is nice, yes, but after - after..."

"Liam," I suggested helpfully.

My father slammed the desk and I flinched, shutting up. He especially hated when I reminded him. He became more like concrete right in front of my eyes as he absorbed my verbal barb. "We didn't threaten you because I knew you think you can survive without the money. To avoid you doing something stupid I didn't hold that over your head and threaten you. But I'm telling you now, and believe me when I say this is not about the money. You disobey me again, and I will have you admitted to a mental facility. These pictures. I didn't show them to your mother because it would break her heart. But I will use everything at my disposal to move against you if you dishonor this family's name again. I would make sure you spend the rest of your life straight jacketed and in a rubber room before I let you screw this up. Your brother-"

"Liam!" I couldn't contain myself, demanding that he recognize his son's name.

He spoke over me, face red with fury, shouting now, "Your brother worked hard for this company! He worked hard for everything he got and I'll be damned if I let you ruin it!"

"My brother died unhappy because of you-"

"Sit down!" I hated how that tone made me sit immediately, biting back the words I knew I mustn't say. "I made a business deal with you before, don't mistake this as being so kind. This is a threat. No more clubs. No more fucking with strangers. No more nauseating -"He held up a photo of me being jizzed on my face, and I look away, "Displays of unwholesome and unsavory, debauched filth."

He moved around the desk, eyeing me coldly as he adjusted his already perfectly straight tie. This meeting was over. I heard the soft tapping of his shoes as he let himself out. And I died a little more inside when the door slammed.

I moved again when my watch beeped two hours, alerting me that it was noon and that I was free to leave for today.

"Mr. Ryman, are you alright?" Louisa asked, "You look a little off."

I cast her a side glance, "I don't feel so well, you can probably take off too since I'm going." She looked surprised that I'd even answered and I cursed myself for forgetting to be mean to her, she was probably in my father's pockets too. He hadn't allowed me to change Liam's assistant.

"I think I'll hang in here for a while, in case anyone calls for you or needs something..." She summoned her smile and sashayed back to her desk.

I grunted noncommittally, entering the elevator with a shrug. I managed to maintain enough of my composure to make it to my car before slamming the steering wheel in frustration. I wrenched the tie off savagely and ripped the suit off as it had begun to stifle me. My vision blurred because of the tears that had begun to flow, and crazy sobs build in my throat. I cried from the shame, rage, because of my father and cried for Liam all at the same time.

Suddenly I knew where I had to go. I don't know how I drove without an accident but I made it to the cemetery. There, beneath a black rock with his name engraved he rested beneath the fresh flowers I had replaced every day for the past two years. Because what my parents didn't know was how Liam loved flowers. How he wanted to be a florist. They didn't know how much he hated himself for living out their dreams and doing everything they said because all he wanted was their approval. And I know that they definitely didn't want to remember the way he never came back us.

I cried anew over his tombstone.

"Here lies Liam Nelson Ryman

Beloved Son and Brother

D.O.B. 7th July, 1987

D.O.D. 19th December, 2016

Rest in Peace"

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A/N: I always cry when I meet this part or reread it our have to even touch this chapter. The page in my book is forever water stained and crumbled or blurred by me crying like a baby. So if you'r emotional too I'm sorry for making you tear up.

I wished I could tell you I won't try to do it again but... I have to.

Stay Golden

-Ender Xen