Bedtime came much too soon for Grace's liking. Olivia had given her all evening to think about her decision, and Grace had spent most of the evening cuddled in Olivia's arms, battling within herself to accept the fact that she was going to get another spanking on top of the very sore bottom she was already sporting. With her face washed and teeth brushed, Grace knelt in the corner of the bedroom waiting while Olivia finished getting ready for bed. Olivia walked out of the bathroom into the bedroom and her heart broke when she heard Grace whimpering in the corner. Every fiber of her being was screaming at her to relent and just tuck Grace into bed for the night, but logic and reason told her that she had to be consistent for Grace's benefit.
"Come here, honey." Olivia sat down on the bed. Grace turned from the corner and crawled over to where Olivia sat. She picked up a bottle of lotion and smoothed lotion onto Olivia's legs the way she did every night before bed, and when she was finished she capped the bottle and set it on the bedside table, "Thank you, sweetheart. Have you made your decision?" Olivia inquired gently.
"Yes, Ma'am. The paddle." Grace forced herself to choke out with tears in her eyes. It would hurt more, but it would be over in less than a minute.
"Okay, bring me the paddle." Olivia ordered kindly.
Grace stood to her feet and went to the closet to retrieve the implement, and then returned to Olivia's side and handed it to her.
"That's my good girl." Olivia gently pulled Grace's panties down to her knees and gently took her by the arm, "Come here, baby, over you go."
Grace lowered herself the rest of the way down into position, offering her bottom for punishment.
"Please, Ma'am, do it fast." Grace pleaded meekly.
"It will be over very fast, my baby, I promise. Here we go."
By the third spank, Grace was sobbing hysterically. After the fifteenth and final spank, she threw her hand back to cover herself.
"No! No! No! I can't! I can't do it!" Grace wailed as Olivia tossed the paddle aside.
"You already did it, my baby. It's all over. You just rest now, sweetheart." Olivia lovingly rubbed Grace's bottom, "There, there. Such a good girl."
Grace laid across Olivia's lap for several minutes catching her breath, and then she pushed herself up and crawled into Olivia's arms to be cuddled, comforted, and babied. Olivia gathered her sobbing baby into her arms and gently rocked her, lovingly stroking her hair and face. Olivia bent down to place a tender kiss on Grace's forehead.
"Don and Eileen are never going to trust me again." Grace sobbed.
"Of course they will, sweetheart. They know you were coming home to be punished, the next time we see them everything will be fine. You tested the limits and you found out where the boundary is, that's all that happened today. Now it's up to you to remember where that boundary is and not cross it again." Olivia explained gently, "You can't disappear like that, baby, it's not safe. That's why you were spanked today, to remind you to be safe, because we love you so much and we would be devastated if anything happened to you."
"I won't disappear again, I promise. I'm so sorry." Grace sobbed.
"You don't have to be sorry anymore, little one. It's all over and forgiven. My good girl has a clean slate, nothing ever happened."
"I wasn't a good girl. I kicked my feet too much." Grace admitted.
"What do you mean, baby? You didn't kick your feet at all, you were a very good girl. I'm very proud of you." Olivia replied kindly.
"When Don spanked me. I kicked my feet." Grace's lower lip trembled.
"And I can see that you didn't get away with it." Olivia gently rubbed Grace's thighs, "You've already been forgiven for everything, my baby. It's time to forgive yourself now."
Olivia comforted and babied Grace until the young submissive was completely calm and her eyelids were drooping, then she guided Grace to curl up on her belly at the foot of the bed and Olivia lovingly rubbed Grace's bottom until Grace fell into a deep, peaceful sleep. Olivia then returned the paddle to its place in the closet and slipped into bed herself.
In the middle of the night, Olivia's cell phone rang, startling both women awake
"Benson." Olivia sat up and spoke into the phone pressed to her ear.
"Captain, sorry to wake you." Elliot said, "We've got a rape victim in the apartments on Mayfield. She's conscious, but pretty badly beaten. She's disabled, she uses a wheelchair, and the description she gave us of her rapist matches the description of William Lewis."
"Text me the address, I'm on my way." Olivia ordered. She turned to Grace and lovingly rubbed her bottom to soothe her, "I'm sorry that woke you up, sweetie. I have to go to work. You can go back to sleep, I'll call you when I can."
"Yes, Ma'am. Love you." Grace mumbled sleepily.
"I love you, baby." Olivia smiled.
"He climbed in through the fire escape, I had the window cracked open for fresh air. He was tall, thin. Brown hair, green eyes. He put his hand over my mouth, I couldn't get to my wheelchair and I couldn't get to my phone. He made me look him in the eye the whole time. When he realized that I can't feel anything below the waist, so I couldn't feel him inside of me, he got angry and that's when he beat me. Before he left, he told me if I called the police he would kill me." Chelsea Preston choked out, clearly in shock after her ordeal at the hands of her rapist.
"Do you have somewhere safe where you can stay for a few days?" Elliot inquired.
"I can call my parents." Chelsea nodded.
"Okay, Chelsea, Detective Tamin is going to take you to the hospital to get a rape kit done." Olivia said kindly, before turning to Kat, "You stay with her the whole time and you don't let that kit out of your sight. I want this one to stick."
"Yes, Captain." Kat nodded before gently wheeling Chelsea out of the room.
"Guys, I want every inch of this room processed, including the fire escape outside. I don't care how small of a speck you find, everything gets processed." Olivia turned to give orders to CSU.
By seven AM, Chelsea was safely tucked away in her parents' home, rape kit complete, and the crime scene had been processed.
"The report just came back from the hospital. DNA confirms Chelsea's rapist is William Lewis." Fin announced, looking up from his computer screen.
"Great, now if we could just figure out where the hell he is." Olivia stated, looking over Elliot's shoulder at something on his computer screen, "Wait, go back. There, that's him. Zoom in on that license plate."
"I'll run the license plate and get an address." Elliot began typing.
"Oh, are you the youth group from the church?" the old woman smiled happily at the detectives on her doorstep, "You can tell Pastor Paul that we already have plenty of volunteers for the charity dinner next week."
"No, Ma'am. I'm Captain Benson from the Manhattan Special Victims Unit, and these are my detectives. Is William Lewis here?"
"No, I don't know anyone by that name." the old woman looked perplexed.
"Ma'am, is this your license plate number?" Amanda showed the old woman a license plate number written on a pad of paper.
"That was my husband's car, he was killed last year in the war. The car's been in the driveway ever since." the old woman motioned toward the empty driveway.
"Ma'am, do you know what year it is?" Olivia asked kindly.
"It's 1975, dear, everyone knows that." the old woman smiled patiently as if talking to a young child.
"Mrs. Jeffs, it's time for your medication." a home health nurse suddenly appeared, "Oh, hello, detectives. Mrs. Jeffs, why don't you go sit and relax and I'll bring you your medication in just a moment."
"Oh, all right, dear." Mrs. Jeffs turned away to wander back into the house, and the nurse turned back to the detectives.
"I'm sorry, detectives, whatever it is you want, I'm afraid Mrs. Jeffs isn't going to be any help to you. Her mind is gone, I've been caring for her around the clock for the past six years." the nurse explained.
"You wouldn't happen to know anything about the car, would you?"
"Oh, it was stolen last month. We didn't bother to do anything about it because she hasn't driven it in over six years. According to the nurse who took care of her before I did, she's been living in 1975 for years now."
"All right, so we know he's driving a stolen car. Get a description of the car out to the media, let's find this guy before he hurts somebody else." Olivia ordered as the detectives walked back to their cars.
A few hours later, Olivia was sitting at her desk and looked up from her computer when Carisi walked into her office.
"Hey, Liv, you got a second?" Carisi asked, holding two cups of coffee.
"If one of those is for me, I'll give you a full minute." Olivia gratefully accepted one of the cups.
"I have some news. Melissa wants to talk to Grace." Carisi said, sitting down in a chair.
"When hell freezes over." was Olivia's immediate response, and she gave him her best Detective Benson glare for having the nerve to even bring it up.
"That's what I figured you'd say, but at least now I can look my boss in the eye and honestly say I talked to you about it. Melissa's first appeal is coming up next month, I think she just wants to try to manipulate Grace into speaking on her behalf, but I'll let everyone know that Grace declined the request. The second piece of news is that Dr. Lindstrom's trial is set for two weeks from today."
"Is he still representing himself?" Olivia inquired, already knowing the answer.
"Yes. Don't worry, Liv, the second he starts badgering anyone or getting too close to them I will object. I'm not sure yet when Grace's testimony will be, but I'll make the same deal with you as before; once Grace has given her testimony, she doesn't have to be there for the rest of the trial if she doesn't want to be."
"We will definitely take you up on that deal." Olivia agreed.
"Captain, there's some kind of problem down at Mercy hospital. Emily Jackson is asking for you." Amanda popped her head into Olivia's office.
"For me?" Olivia asked in confusion, "All right, I'll take you with me. Let's roll."
Olivia and Amanda drove to Mercy hospital and went up to Emily's hospital room where they found Abbie Carmichael standing in the room along with the translator and Emily sitting on her bed sobbing.
"Hey, what's going on?" Olivia inquired.
"Emily is being discharged today, and I'm having a hard time getting her to come with me." Abbie explained kindly, "She started crying and asking for you."
"Oh, sweetheart." Olivia sighed sympathetically as she squatted down in front of Emily and struggled to sign on her own, "I promise you will be safe at the Transition Station. That's where you are going to live for right now until better arrangements can be found for you."
"'I lied.'" the translator relayed what Emily was signing.
"What did you lie about?" Olivia signed.
Emily made a writing motion in the air, and the translator handed her a pad of paper and a pen. When she was finished writing, Emily handed the pad of paper to Olivia and continued to sob.
I lied. My Mistress didn't beat me. She paddled me, and I ran away from her because I was angry about being punished. While I was in Central Park, the man who raped me beat me. I was afraid because he told me that if I told anyone about him, he would kill me, so when everyone was asking about where my Mistress was, I blamed her for the beating instead. I don't want to go to the Transition Station, I want to go home.
Olivia sighed and rubbed her head. She needed more coffee.
"'Am I going to be in a lot of trouble?'" the translator relayed Emily's signed question.
"We'll have to see what happens, it will depend on what a judge says. Best case scenario, you'll be fined a certain amount of money for filing a false report." Amanda explained.
"'And the worst case scenario?'" the translator asked as Emily signed.
"A week or two at Block C for filing a false report." Olivia said kindly.
Emily just hung her head in shame and cried, and then she looked back up at Olivia.
"'Will you please tell Grace I'm sorry for lying to her? I'll text her later and apologize.'" the translator spoke.
"Yes, of course I will." Olivia agreed.
"What are you thinking?" Amanda inquired as the two detectives left the hospital.
"I'm thinking I need more coffee. We've seen victims change their story before, and I'm glad she finally came clean, but we still don't have a rape kit for her, all we have is her ID of William Lewis, and any defense attorney is going to tear her apart." Olivia sighed sadly.
"At least we have Chelsea Preston's rape kit. That's something." Amanda said hopefully.
When it was finally time to clock out for the day, Olivia drove home and let herself into the apartment, smiling as she was greeted by Grace crawling to her and kissing her feet. Olivia put her things away and then scooped Grace up and carried her over to the couch where she sat down and gently settled Grace on her lap. Grace snuggled down into Olivia's arms while Olivia cuddled her and gently rubbed her bottom.
"Something smells delicious. Were you a good girl today, my baby?" Olivia inquired.
"Yes, Ma'am." Grace replied honestly, "Dinner is in the instant pot whenever you want it. How was your day?"
"Long." Olivia sighed, "I have several things to tell you. The first thing is that your friend Emily is going to text you at some point. She's gotten herself into a bit of trouble with the police for filing a false report. Her Mistress didn't beat her, her rapist did, and she wants to apologize to you for lying to you."
"Wow. I wasn't expecting that." Grace said, shocked, "She hasn't texted me yet, but I understand that she was afraid. I can forgive her."
"That's my good girl." Olivia kissed Grace's forehead, "The other thing I have to tell you is that I talked to Carisi today, and Dr. Lindstrom's trial is scheduled for two weeks from today. We have the same deal as before, once you've given your testimony, you don't have to be there for the rest of the trial if you don't want to be. Carisi also told me that Melissa wants to talk to you."
"When hell freezes over." Grace said immediately, and Olivia laughed.