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Malcolm frowned in thought as Tommy came into view, it had been some time since he had cut the boy off from the family fortune and it seemed Tommy was finally here to settle their personal score. "Good afternoon, Tommy."
"Dad." His son hissed. "I need your help."
Malcolm titled his head in a catlike fashion and watched his son with both a smirking smile and predatory eyes. "How so?"
"Can we cut the crap?" Tommy groaned through gritted teeth. "I quit my job at Oliver's club."
Malcolm grinned; he had known Tommy would be back here eventually. He raised an elegant eyebrow and leaned forward on his elbow, he looked up at his son from where he sat at his desk, dark amusement flashed in his gleaming eyes. "I don't see how this involves me."
"I'm your son, of course it involves you!"
For a moment warmth filled him, a possessive, dark kind of longing that he hadn't experienced quite so deeply since before the day his wife had died. He blinked, his eyelashes fluttering heavily as he observed his son with less than fatherly appraisal. "Hmm, I suppose it does." He paused. "State your case. I don't have all day."
"What? You can't be serious!"
Malcolm leaned back, an easy smile spread across his smug face. "I am a busy man, Tommy. If you want my help, you have to ask for it, granted I still might not give you it, depending on how you ask me though, I am sure I can be convinced."
Tommy clenched his fists tightly at his sides. "Always the business man, huh, dad? I should've known this would happen, it's never just help with you, it's 'Tommy do this' or 'Tommy do that', it's pressure and control. That's how it always has been with you."
Malcolm frowned and rose from his chair, his index finger tapped a staccato as he circled around his desk and ultimately Tommy. "And you." He began as he moved forward to stand in front of his defiant son. "Are a spoiled brat who should know his place."
"I'm not some kid you can just throw over your knee!"
Malcolm flashed a smile, all teeth and dark promise. "Now that is a thought."
Tommy's eyes widened, what the hell was going on? He blinked deeply and with confusion at his father. He shook his head in disbelief. "You're not, you're not suggesting what I think you are, are you?" He paused when he saw Malcolm's nostrils flare and his eyes dance in the low light. "You, you can't be serious!"
"Believe me, Tommy, I am."
"I am not a child, you, you can just course correct whenever you feel like it!"
"Oh." Malcolm grinned, his teeth sharper than any blade or arrow tip. "I am completely aware that you are no child."
"Then, then why?"
Malcolm stepped forward and dusted off the lapels of Tommy's suit, he did so with a distracted sort of reverence. "Because I can, and you have no choice." He paused and with a surprising amount of agility he grasped Tommy by the jaw. "Either you allow me to punish you as I see fit and when I'm done bring you back into the fold, or you walk away with nothing."
Tommy growled and turned his head away from the man who should be his father, instead of this, this predatory creature with no concept of right and wrong. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Malcolm chuckled as he stroked Tommy's chin with his thumb. "Everything."
Tommy shivered at the touch and at the horrifying sound of his father's voice, it was a dark timber that spoke of secrets and lies, just like Oliver's voice did. He was missing something obvious, just like usual. Tommy sighed and averted his gaze to look at the fish tank just left of the desk.
"What, what do you want ?" He asked as the bubbles rose to the surface and burst against the lid of the tank. "Just, what do you want?"
His father didn't answer at first, he only grabbed him by the shoulders and moved him where he wanted him to be. "The desk." He told him in a husky roar.
"What-"
"Bend over and take off your pants."
"No! no, what the hell, dad?!"
Malcolm raised an eyebrow and pressed a prompting hand to the small of Tommy's back. "If you want a happy, secure life with all the money you could ever want, you will brave this humiliation, if not; you are no son of mine. I am stronger than this, I have undergone every humiliation you have brought upon our family , you will repay my kindness by doing this one simple task."
Tommy hissed as his father nudged him to bend over, he did so with a red face and a wounded pride. "I hate you, so much." He seethed as his pants were lowered to the floor.
Malcolm gave a deep chuckle that vibrated against the base of Tommy's spine, Tommy could feel him looming over him like a shadow. "Now that's a good boy."
Tommy growled and bucked back against him. "I am nothing of the sort." He hissed as he bared his teeth and reluctantly bent over.
Malcolm pressed a hand to his son's shoulder, simultaneously pushing his son closer to the desk, holding him down and gaining leverage and height over him. "This wouldn't be happening if you were, would it?
"Fuck you." He gritted out, his hot breath glossing over the dark mahogany wood. "Just, fuck you."
Malcolm gave a low laugh as he, silently as he could, undid his belt. "Choice words for such a delicate position."
Tommy thrashed when heard the unbuckling of a belt. "What, what are you doing?!"
"Teaching you your place." Malcolm remarked simply before moving away from the desk.
Tommy wanted to object, to stop everything but felt paralyzed with fear and some other kind of emotion he really couldn't recognize. He jumped when he felt the first strike connect with his backside, the pain was sharp and swift and his cheek rippled and reddened with the blow.
"One." He heard the baritone of his father begin.
Tommy almost moved to protest but the gleam in his father's eye that he caught in his peripheral vision silenced him. Something dark was shifting in the back of Malcolm's eyes, something Tommy had never seen before, he shivered as the second blow knocked the wind out of him. The pain singed through his skin, through his very veins.
The thing that terrified him the most was that it felt like coming home.
"See?" Malcolm began. "It's not that difficult, son. You are doing so well." He cooed as he readied his hand to deliver a third.
A part of Tommy's mind rejoiced at the praise, since the day his father had left, since the day his mother had died he had been at drift without an oar, hoping, wishing for just a scrap of attention, just a hint of praise. To finally receive it now, when he was bent over his father's desk? Well, that was an altogether strange experience for him to evaluate later, probably with the help of some richly expensive scotch.
The third strike landed along the top of his thighs and he groaned at the sensation. The pain throbbed everywhere, simultaneously making him hypersensitive and numb. Sweat trickled down his forehead and face and incoherently he rubbed his cheek into the woodwork, hoping for just a hint of coherency and perhaps a dash of decency.
“How, how much more?" He grunted out as he panted against the desk.
Tommy felt Malcolm shift behind him. "Depends, have you learnt your lesson?"
"I." He began. "I don't know."
Malcolm chuckled and ran a hand down the length of his son's spine. "Not yet, just a bit more." He paused and splayed a possessive hand on the very arch. "Make it to ten and you can come home, make it to ten, I know you can." He gave a soft smile, one that Tommy hadn't seen in some time.
"You are my son, after all."
"Dad." Tommy hissed in pain and not in anger like he had before. "Dad." He said with legs clenched together and thighs slicked with sweat. "I, I can do it. I, I want to come home." He proclaimed as he awaited the rest of his punishment. Maybe he did deserve this, maybe he had always needed this.
When the fourth strike came Tommy leaned into it and a groan echoed from his lips. The belt had been but a whisper against his thighs this time, most of the strike coming to rest on his cheeks again.
The pain had begun to feel rhythmic, almost cathartic in a way. Bent against his father's desk Tommy didn't have to think about the failing state of his friendship with Oliver or his farce of a relationship with Laurel, the same Laurel who mingled with the vigilante, the same Laurel who was still in love with his best friend, or the man he had once called his best friend.
"Please." He pleaded, pleaded for something he didn't quite understand.
"Shh." He heard his father softly say. "It's alright, Tommy."
Tommy gave a heavy exhale as a fifth blow landed atop his thighs. The hit swayed him, had his body thrusting against the wood, he groaned yet again, but this time for a completely different reason. "Dad. Dad, I-"
Tommy felt a warm hand stroke his bared left cheek. "It's okay, I know and it's alright." He paused and straightened his belt, ready for another slap. "Half way there."
When the sixth hit came he let out a muffled cry, his cheeks rippled as he was pushed further forward, he gave a decadent groan when he felt the hard line of the wood brush against the fabric of his boxers. "Please, I, please dad. I want, I need-" He gave a grunt, the seventh smack making him clench his thighs and twitch inside his underwear. "I need more, I need something, please."
There was a pause between the seventh whack and the eighth, he felt his father's hand tracing the curve of his spine and he heard panting in his left ear. "Oh, oh when you come home, son. Oh the things we will do. Such a good boy, my boy."
The eighth smack came and so did he.
He felt his cock jerk inside his boxers, it twitched and throbbed at the bitter sting of leather against flesh and yet it rejoiced at the jostling sensation of being thrust, hard, against the desk. He dug his nails into the wood, white knuckling as he soaked the inside of his underwear.
"Dad, please." He begged. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'll be good."
Malcolm panted where he stood, his own mind running wild. Tommy had come, come without being properly touched, this boy, this boy had so much potential, he had to just reach ten and he could bring Tommy home again, maybe tell him everything, maybe even about Nanda Parbat and the Undertaking.
"Shh, shh. It's okay, just a little more son. I promise this will be worth it."
"Dad." He groaned over sensitive and maybe a little incoherent. "Please, dad. I can't-"
"You can and you will." He told him, his voice was rough and sure as he delivered a ninth blow.
Tommy gasped and his knees buckled against the woodwork, pain, pain like he had never felt before blossomed against his skin. His father had deliberately increased the heaviness of his blows, making them connect with better efficiency. Tommy clenched his fist and waited with bated breath for the final slap, the final hit, he waited for the tenth that would end his punishment and his exile.
His father paused and the tenth didn't come. He panted against his back.
"Tommy, are you sure? Do you really want this?"
Tommy stilled and gazed up at his dad with a mixture of anger and incredulity. "Now." He panted. "Now you ask?!"
Malcolm closed his eyes and controlled his breathing; he needed to control his cravings. This was Tommy's final test; would he take the final slap, even if he thought there was a way out? Temptation was a sin any son of his needed to be steered clear of.
Tommy clenched his fist, turned his head away and leaned into the cool surface of the desk, with a blush spreading scarlet across his face he reluctantly presented his lower half to his father. "Just, just finish it."
A pleasantly surprised grin spread across the elder's face. Tommy was coming home.
When the tenth crack of the belt fell across his thighs, Tommy gave a cut off scream and shut his eyes firmly closed. He whimpered as the skin throbbed and a cut splattered blood across his right leg. He panted heavily as his father wrapped his belt around his waist again, buttoning himself up to look presentable, whilst his son lay debauched across his desk.
For minutes he lay there attempting to collect himself.
"I'll have the driver come pick you and your stuff up in the morning." Malcolm told his son before grabbing his coat and leaving Tommy alone in his office.