Author's Note: So I've had more than one person ask for a prequel/flashback scene to the beginning of Olivia and Amanda's relationship for my fic, Where We Languish in Wintertime so here it is! You can read this without reading Where We Languish in Wintertime and vice versa. It's just a little something I put together because I enjoy this two and this scenario too damn much
The pink slip sat atop a dozen others, the eloquent cursive calling her eyes' attention every time she glanced in that direction.
She assessed the time once more before blowing out a breath and snatching the pink piece of paper from the desk. She held it in her hands and rubbed her thumb over the ink inscribed heavily into the fibers. The hand that had written those words had been sure and firm, etching out her fate into a few simple words.
My office. 9 pm. Don't be late.
Amanda's leg bounced beneath the desk, releasing restless energy as the clock turned from 8:56 to 8:57.
She swallowed hard and tilted her head back, trying to take in a few deep breaths.
It had been barely two days since she and Declan Murphy has closed the case on Anton Nadari...two days since she'd found herself inside of Olivia's office, offering any kind of penance possible to redeem herself.
The sergeant had hardly spoken to her since that conversation, although Amanda could sense a storm brewing beneath those layers of professional, calm command. The tension between them had grown to an almost tangible point, and though Amanda had promised to do everything possible to rectify the situation, she couldn't help the feeling of doom, that Olivia would crush her should they confront the mistrust and anger lying between them.
Amanda's foot stilled as she glanced over at the clock again. Her mind had drifted and she started when she realized the clock read 9:00.
There was no time left.
Amanda twisted in her chair, catching a glance of Olivia's office. The blinds were drawn, offering hardly a glimpse of the woman inside.
Amanda stood shakily from the desk, her stomach churning. She rubbed her sweating palms over her thighs as she set her sights towards the sergeant's office.
She couldn't possibly imagine what Olivia wanted to say to her after the way they had left things, but the twisting of her gut told her that it couldn't be good. Olivia could've simply transferred her as she had threatened, but instead she had kept her here beneath her burning, watchful eye. No type of punishment had yet been rendered and Amanda could only imagine the sharp, biting reproach that could be heaped upon her head in a matter of minutes.
Taking a deep breath, she crossed the room with her head lowered, her clammy hands curled into fists. Each step shoved dread deeper into her throat, choking her with the possibility of what lay behind those doors.
She lifted her head as she reached the door, her trembling fist rising to knock. Nausea seized her stomach and she pressed her eyes shut, swallowing back the bitterness of apprehension.
Just get this over with. She told herself, sharply. I'll be late if I stand here all night... Liv hates it when I'm late…
Her knuckles rapped hard again the door, rattling each bone with a resonating vibration. She waited for a response, her breath rushing quickly and shallowly through her nose.
"Come in…" Olivia's voice drifted through the closed door and Amanda strove to find her resolve.
She squares her shoulders, breathed out, pushed forward. Grabbing the door handle, she shoved the door open, stepping quickly inside.
"You wanted to see me, Sergeant?" She asked, trying to speak in an even tone despite the dread knotting her throat.
"Yes." Olivia replied, glancing up from her desk. "Close the door, please."
Amanda stifled a groan as she turned away to ease the door shut.
Everyone in the squad knew what a closed door meeting meant, and every single implication weighed down upon her like a stack of cinder blocks.
The door latched, closing them inside together with a click of finality.
"Sit down." Olivia gestured to the chair before folding her hands in front of her.
Amanda walked stiffly over to the chair and sat down. She gripped the arms of the chair, trying to still the trembling of her body.
She'd been afraid of superior officers before but something about this exchange, something about Olivia, was unlike anything she'd ever felt before.
"What can I do for you, Sergeant?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper as their eyes met.
Olivia's eyes were dark, even beneath the lights, her pupils barely distinguishable from her irises. Her expression was sharp, her visage cut from diamond - beautiful but intimidating.
"I've been thinking," Olivia began, her eyes hardly leaving Amanda's. "I've spent the last two days, in fact…. thinking about what I should do to you."
Amanda sucked in a sharp breath which caught halfway down her throat. She coughed quickly, trying to quell the panic rising in her chest.
"Look, I know I deserve every ounce of your wrath-" She began, the words tumbling desperately from her tongue.
Olivia held up a hand, cutting her off.
"Listen to me." She said, fixing her with a narrowed gaze. "I've thought about suspending you, charging you with desk duty, ripping your vacation days… But I don't think any of that is quite appropriate."
Amanda closed her mouth and swallowed back more replies. If she wasn't about to take a command discipline, she wasn't sure what was going to happen. Relief might've filled her had she been more naive, but she was keen enough to realize that Olivia's expression held no sense of mercy.
"I think you suffered quite enough professionally, knowing that you enabled the rape of an innocent woman," Olivia continued, "but there's a saying that goes 'people only do what they think they can get away with'..." She paused for a moment before tapping a finger on the desk. "This is my squad, Amanda. Mine to protect, to command, to care for…to discipline."
Amanda bit her lower lip, sinking down in the chair. Her heart hammered in her chest, and down low her stomach swirled.
This wasn't just professional. This was personal, and Amanda was in way over her head.
"You thought you could get away with what you did in my squad." Olivia tilted her head, her dark gaze digging into her. "I'm not sure why you thought you could, but...that's about to change."
"Olivia, please…" Amanda began, although she wasn't even sure what she was begging for.
Olivia rose from her chair, causing Amanda to cower even further in her seat, her pleading fading into nothing.
"Stand up." Olivia said, her tone low but stern.
"Why?" Amanda whimpered, though a small voice in her mind told her that it wasn't wise.
"Because… I'm going to punish you." Olivia responded, hardly missing a beat.
Her voice barely rose, but her unyielding inflection struck horror straight into Amanda's heart.
She'd rarely been physically disciplined as a child mostly due to lack of parental guidance, but she very much remembered being yanked from the backseat of an 18 year old boy's car at the tender age of 14 and seeing the look of rage and disgust on her mother's face. It'd been a rare sober moment for her, but Amanda would never forget the clarity in her eyes when she pulled her into the house and proceeded to paddle her into tears.
The look in Olivia's eyes right now was something akin to her mother's righteous anger nearly 20 years ago, and it shook her to the core.
She remained frozen in her seat, her mind spinning, trying to find some other explanation….some other way to pay her due penance…
"Amanda, stand up." Olivia's voice was hushed, but steady, dangerously calm.
"Olivia, please, I'll find some way to make it up to you!" Amanda finally burst out, tears pricking at her eyes at the very thought of Olivia punishing her.
"I don't want you to make it up to me." Olivia returned, sharply, "I want you to obey me."
Amanda glanced about the room, breathing heavily against encroaching tears, but there was no way out of this situation. She had put herself here in the face of Olivia's wrath and now she could barely stand to take the heat of consequence.
"One last time, Amanda." Olivia said. "Stand up."
Amanda clasped her hands over her face, fighting back tears and humiliation. She hesitated for only a moment longer before her trembling legs strained to push her to her feet.
She heard Olivia's footsteps round the desk and she panted into her palms as she stepped close to her, their bodies nearly touching.
"I think you know what I'm going to do." Olivia murmured, her fingers touching Amanda's elbow almost gently before wrapping around her bicep.
She pulled her forward until Amanda was standing in front of the desk.
"You can stop me if you want." Olivia said as she began to clear the desk in front of them, moving aside her name plaque and a picture frame. "But I want you to know that it is either this or... transfer."
Amanda sucked in a breath into her hands, choking back pathetic tears.
Olivia was offering her a way out of a much more serious discipline, one that would uproot her once more and publicly humiliate her in front of the rest of the squad. A transfer would involve brass and an entirely new department of people to lie to; not to mention after admitting her gambling addiction she wouldn't be finding herself in another prestigious department such as Special Victims.
And Olivia knew all of this.
There was truly no way out.
"Bend over in the next five seconds or get out of my squad." Olivia stated in her ear, her tone steely.
Olivia Benson didn't bluff and Amanda didn't dare test her chances. There was no mercy to be found here in this office, not personally and not professionally.
She hesitated for only a moment before bending slowly, her motions halting. She slid her hands from her face and grabbed into the desk. The floor swam in her vision and she pressed her eyes shut again utter humiliation.
"I would leave your pants on if I didn't think pain is a necessary part of this." Olivia said, causing another flush to rise on Amanda's cheek, followed by a tide of emotion. "But I think you're going to need to remember what this feels like."
Amanda sank down further against the desk with a moan, tears pushing quickly again her lids. Her forehead touched the cherry wood and she could feel a tear slip down her nose and land on the smooth surface. Her knees were trembling and she didn't think she could stay upright, much less look at Olivia.
She bit her lip, her stomach aching as she felt Olivia's hand at her belt buckle. Her hips swayed with each forceful pull until her pants were slipping from her hips. A soft sob escaped her lips as she was left in her panties, stripped of her ego and her decency.
She squeezed her thighs together, seeking to hide any part of herself from Olivia's fiery gaze, but Olivia didn't hesitate to wrench the last bit of modesty from her. She slipped her fingers beneath the waistband of Amanda's underwear and tugged them down sharply just beneath her buttocks.
Her hips arched away from Olivia and she wrapped her arms around her head, muffling cries as she stood naked and trembling in front of her sergeant.
Olivia was quiet for a moment, allowing her to cry before she positioned herself next to Amanda's hip and spread her hand over her back. Amanda gasped at the contact, choking over saliva that had gathered in her mouth in the midst of her crying.
"I want you to remember this the next time you think you can slide something like this beneath my nose," Olivia said, "because I will not hesitate to do this again."
Amanda went quiet at the thought of enduring this humiliation over and over again, but her shock was soon compounded when a loud crack filled her eyes, followed by a sharp sting across her buttocks. She gasped, her body arching into the desk as she scrambled to find some sense of control over herself in the midst of this madness.
Olivia didn't pause, hardly gave her a second to process the first blow. There was a hair's breadth reprieve between one spanking and the next.
Her hand was rigid and sharp, cutting pain straight into her skin. It hurt more than she thought it could, but thinking of Olivia's long fingers and strong grip she wondered how she hadn't imagined that her hands could do this before.
Tears clung to her eyelashes as she flinched hard with each spanking, though the emotion had somehow stalled in her throat. Shock and humiliation riddled her with each passing second but all she could do was gasp and jerk every time Olivia's hand struck her.
Her hips were arched down into the desk when Olivia slid her hand from her back to her opposite side and pulled her close, forcing her ass back into a compliant position.
"Don't move." She ordered, her voice a husky rasp that raked shivers down Amanda's body.
Olivia punished her again, the loud crack of it ringing sharply across the room. Amanda's flesh burned dully with the amount of spankings she'd received and her body pleaded with her to fight against Olivia's hold, to escape the feeling, but she couldn't move. She felt trapped within herself, a piece of her strangely desiring to stand here willingly until Olivia was satisfied. With the sergeant's body pressed close to hers she could hardly ignore the clench of her groin.
Horrified with herself, Amanda squeezed her arms tighter around her flushed face, and tried to rip her mind away from the niggling feeling, but she couldn't pull herself away from this all too visceral moment. She couldn't ignore the way Olivia's palm struck her over and over, branding spanking after spanking into her flesh until she could hardly stand the pain. Each one seemed to fall harder than the next until the ache seemed to resonate into her very bones. Her hips jarred in Olivia's arm until finally silence fell.
"I'm not entirely sure you've taken the extent of what you deserve, but I think you've taken what you can handle." Olivia said, stiffly, her arm sliding from Amanda's waist.
Amanda remained against the desk, panting and gasping as she tried to regain her self control. Her legs felt almost too weak to stand and even if she could, she didn't want to face Olivia.
"That's enough for tonight, Amanda." Olivia said, more softly, when she still didn't move after a long moment. "You can stand up."
Amanda sucked in a quavering breath and moved slowly, dragging herself up into a half standing position. She leaned heavily on the desk, her face turned away from Olivia.
"For tonight?" She whispered with a sniff.
"Yes." Olivia said, shortly, hardly giving Amanda the answer that she desired.
Her stomach flipped sickly at the thought of being called in here again, though somewhere low in her groin she felt a sharp tug.
She grabbed her pants, suddenly desperate to escape the suffocating atmosphere. She yanked her underwear and pants over her hips, her hands shaking as she barely managed to button, zip, and buckle.
Olivia quietly returned to the other side of the desk and sat slowly in her chair. Amanda hardly glanced at her as she covered herself and tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
"You can go, Amanda." Olivia said, watching her with an unwavering gaze.
"Yes, ma'am." Amanda muttered, turning quickly towards the door.
Her fight or flight instincts told her to get out of the room as quickly as possible. Her sore ego told her to go home and crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head and never come out.
She had just reached the door, her fingers grasping the handle when Olivia's voice pulled her back one last time.
"Amanda?"
"Yes, ma'am?" Amanda whispered, glancing back at Olivia's austere expression.
"I'll see you tomorrow." Olivia said with a nod.
Amanda's stomach clenched sharply and she nodded in return.
"Yes, ma'am." She whispered once more, her fingers quivering around the door handle before she turned and yanked it open, finding her escape out into the squad room.
Olivia's final words weren't just a salutation. They were a threat and they were a promise and Amanda knew damn well that Olivia was and always would be a woman of her word.