molly/toby

"Geez, did you really have to come this early?" I muttered, stepping aside so Toby could pass.  

He was still dressed in workout clothes, drenched in sweat, adidas duffle bag over his shoulder.  "Wanted to catch you before you lit up for the day."  

I closed and locked the front door, greeting my friend with a kiss to the cheek, eyes barely open.  "But it's 7am.  I wouldn't smoke for another three hours, you know that."

"Take a thirty minute nap while I shower," he said with a pat to my shoulder and a half-grin, but then turned serious.  "I don't have to remind you about no mind-altering substances before our chat, right?"

My cheeks flushed and I shook my head.  "No, I remember the rule.  We made it together."

Toby excused himself to shower and I went back to bed, though unable to sleep at this time, even though I'd been up half the night.  My mind was racing with what Toby would do — it'd been so long since he'd spanked me.  But at the moment he just seemed to be the right person to call.  He'd understand what I needed.

It didn't take him the full thirty minutes to shower, and he suspected that I wouldn't be sleeping.  I heard the clatter of my beaded door before his head poked in to see if I was awake.  His hair was wet and spiked in a million different directions — the sexy messy look, without even trying.  He was dressed in a tight navy sweater and relaxed jeans, still barefoot.

He came to sit on my bed next to me, turning on his compassion.  "What's going on?"

I sat up leaning against the wall, knees to my chest.  It was hard being on the other side of the therapist chair nowadays.  And Toby knew the look to give me that would get me to open up — eyebrows slightly raised in curiosity, not too serious, nor too playful.  He read me so well that he probably knew the answer to his own question.

"I'm really worried about Violet."

"That's not why I'm here, though, is it?"

"Well, no, but it's relevant."

He urged me to continue.

"I think since she moved in, I've been a little triggered.  Back in the day we used to party really hard together, you know, my college days."

"Yeah, I remember."  

There was a long pause as I wondered what to say next.  Toby notoriously took his role as spanker seriously... but I was getting cold feet.  "Now that I'm older, I notice my patterns better."

"What have you noticed?"

I gulped, glancing up at him through teary green eyes.  My lip quivered, words on the tip of my tongue but refusing to come out.  Finally, I whispered, "the usual."