CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Reader’s Note: This is Joanne Swift’s journal, adapted for reading, detailing the events around (Sunday), October 9^th 2016. The family was wrapping things up at the Spirit Halloween store.

Tom was skeptically amused by the boys’ sudden interest in dressing like a fairy and Harley Quinn this Halloween. I didn’t tell him that we were getting an employee discount because he was honest to a fault and would have considered that theft, since we weren’t employees. I’m a little more practical when it comes to money, and my feelings are that a ‘deal is a deal’ and we may as well take it – an employee OFFERED the discount to us.

You may have surmised by now from my journal that I can be a ‘Chatty Cathy’ and I tend to overshare and overthink things. I am sure it is one of my many shortcomings that I work on all the time. I tend to rely upon stories from my past to help me understand the situations in my present and I share those with you. I hope they provide enough context that you can see that we are a fairly normal family even though my husband and I have a healthy loving BDSM relationship we share.

I try to be honest with him at all times but I also want to filter out some of the details and noise for him. I don’t see that as being dishonest because I am trying to help keep him focused on the big picture while I handle the little things. That is why I also didn’t tell him that Hope gave us the costumes for half off. I just told him how inexpensive the costumes were and he shrugged that it would be fine.

“You boys need to learn not to let pussy control you, and this is probably the first step on a long road to that realization,” he laughed. “Well, now I know that, unlike Fart Face, a humiliating Halloween costume probably won’t really affect you. If it ever comes down to it, you’ll go out dressed like that just for a pretty face and a smile,” Tom offered his frank advice to his sons.

Tom and I wanted our own costumes, too. He probably wouldn’t go trick-or-treating, but I was going to walk with the girls around the neighborhood. He usually stayed home and manned the candy station at the front door. Scotty suggested a World of Warcraft costume for an orc woman named Garona, and a very stylish knight’s outfit for Lothar from the same movie.

Janie took one look at the orc costume the boys picked out for me and scrunched her nose, “Gross! Mom doesn’t want that, she wants sexy!”

“That’s even grosser!” Scotty and Donny both agreed.

Janie agreed with their assessment.

My ego felt a little deflated, although I guess I don’t want my kids to think I’m sexy anyway.

We passed some French maid costumes, and Tom and I both chuckled that these were hardly skimpy enough, just like we thought last year.

“Oh, you like those?” Hope flitted over to where we were standing.

“Sure, what do you know about them?” I asked the cute girl.

I was happy that my boys had ‘dates’ with her and her friends, even if it was as friends to trick-or-treat. They’re definitely handsome boys to me, but if I’m going to be completely honest, this girl was way out of their league.

“I wear it all the time.” She picked up a frilly black skimpy apron that was trimmed in white lace and held it up with an ornate feather duster. “If you want, I can model it for you,” she smiled invitingly.

I’d suspected the manager had hired these girls because they looked good in his costumes and not because of their ability to work a cash register. She was very flirtatious with Tom and said that she didn’t mind showing how it looked at all.

Tom thanked her politely and we kept looking around the store.

“If I didn’t know better I would say she was flirting with you, Sir,” I whispered in his ear when she was gone.

“These girls get paid to be flirtatious and make men my age think they have a chance with girls her age if we buy their 50-dollar knockoff rags,” Tom dismissed my playful compliment.

“There are a lot of women who would model that French maid costume for you, Sir,” I teased – I wasn’t the jealous type, and I was glad if a younger girl thought he was handsome. “I think they pay that girl by the hour, and she was trying to show off for you,” I said.

Tom kissed the nape of my neck and whispered in my ear asking if I was just trying to butter him up to get out of my punishment.

“Oh? I am to be punished, darling?” I asked sweetly. “I heard you in the dressing room with Taylor and all her whining and mewling. Will you punish me the same way, Sir?” I asked hopefully.

“Oh, yours will be far more exquisite and fitting,” Tom promised. “I just made her remove her top and attached clamps to her tits, alternating them.” He held up some small electrical alligator clips he kept on his key chain for just such a use on me. “You need something a bit more elaborate,” he told me.

He reminded me that I’d neglected to mention that Kimber was a boy and she’d spent nights over at our house sleeping in Taylor’s room.

“I only recently found out myself, Master,” I promised.

“You need to tell me these things right away.” Tom forgave me and said I didn’t need to be punished.

I was actually looking forward to his attention, but I knew better than to seem needy and clingy about it. I knew from past experience that when I begged for punishment and his attention, he would only associate that with being a brat and he would only think I needed a time-out from his presence.

“Hey Mom! Look, a plus-sized Harley Quinn costume! We could be the three Harley Quinns!”

“I am not PLUS-sized, thank you,” I said, emphasizing my thin waist and adding that I was just top-heavy.

The costume did look like it would fit me without my ass and tits popping out – although that would be fun in the bedroom. I already had outfits like that and we needed something I could go trick-or-treating in with Janie and Taylor.

I asked Tom what he wanted me to wear, and he said that would be cute, but he had something else in mind. “I know a different store out on the highway that probably has what we need.” He said he would handle it.

I knew he was talking about the adult outlet store where he bought my gift. I could hardly wait to see what it was tonight.

We checked out and paid, and the boys fumbled around trying to sound cool to the two cheerleaders back at the store. The pretty girls giggled and politely overlooked Scotty and Donny’s nervousness. I didn’t expect there to be any more nice girls out there like that.

“Son, you should probably do LESS talking next time you get the chance to talk to a pretty girl,” Tom advised. He told Donny that his strength lay in being the strong silent type. “You want to answer their questions and then slowly work up to being conversational. You don’t want to come across desperate and nervous. That kind of hot girl needs a guy who looks like he knows what he’s doing,” he suggested.

“You dated hot girls like that yourself, did you?” I teased my husband as Taylor unchained our bikes. He’s very handsome, and I knew for a fact that he’d been with some incredibly beautiful woman before and while we were married and swinging – this was just playful teasing.

“I married one!” Tom said, slapping his daughter on the butt just as playfully. “You lose panties or the bra on the way home. You were told to bend at the waist, not the knees,” he reminded her.

I was very flattered that he still told me I was beautiful. He had trained me not to be prideful, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate his property and want to show me off. It also didn’t mean I shouldn’t strive to be as attractive as I could for him – which is why I went to great lengths to do my hair and makeup, and to remain shaved and clean for him at all times.

“Sir!” Taylor pleaded that wasn’t fair – she was just trying to unlock the bikes and she’d forgotten.

“Yes, and that means you need something to help you remember. Now pick one or the other, or I’ll take both,” Tom assured her.

“The bra then, Sir.” Taylor picked what I expected her to pick and started to walk back into the Spirit store.

“Where are you going?” Tom asked with a curious expression.

“To remove the bra in the dressing room, Sir,” Taylor explained with a startled look. It was broad daylight in a busy parking lot at a shopping center.

“Donny, since you’re going to go on a date, you can actually learn something, and we’ll kill two birds with one stone.” Tom told our son to stand behind Taylor and unhook her bra strap with one hand.

“Why not both hands?” Donny asked.

“When you’re going to be called upon to use this skill, you’ll be glad you practiced with one hand. If your other hand is free when you need it, then you’re doing it wrong,” Tom said with a wry grin. I think Donny and Scotty understood they should be touching the girl with the other hand while they try to remove the bra.

Donny stood behind her, and it took him some effort, but he eventually unhooked it and pulled it out from under Taylor’s apron.

Taylor winced in pain – she was clearly still feeling the sore nipples from her father’s punishment and it showed on her face. I knew that feeling well – he had stretched, teased, tickled, jiggled, bit, poked, tugged and tormented my nipples in every way imaginable since we got married, and it was one of my favorite things.

“Good, next time try it from the front,” Tom said, and asked Taylor if she minded any time she is going to come in the house letting her brothers practice removing it.

“I actually don’t mind at all, although I think she may have been amused, Sir,” Taylor laughed as she pointed through the window of the Spirt store. Hope, Gloria, and their manager were watching with curious expressions on their faces.

Donny held up the bra like it was a beaver pelt he’d just caught with his bare hands, and tried to explain through the window.

Taylor shrugged and smiled at him in the universal “What can you do?” way, and I think Hope said, “It’s okay – it’s cute,” through the window, but we couldn’t hear her.

Tom made Taylor go home trying to hold the straps of her heels and bra in her mouth the entire way.

The first time she dropped one of the items he let her pick it up, as long as she bent at the waist.

The second time she dropped it he made her get down on all fours on the street and pick it up with her teeth.

There weren’t any cars around at the time, but they could have driven by at any time. I could smell my daughter’s sex and see her soaking those white panties while she did it. Tom pointed out her wetness and said she’d stand in the corner when she got home.

“Fart Face peed her panties?” Janie giggled.

“Something like that,” I told her. She’d learn soon enough all about that, and I was surprised she seemed so naïve about it given she was in 8^th grade.

When we got to the house Taylor’s friends Kimber and Summer were sitting out on the front step.

Summer was wearing her hair short and spiky, and had on a Sex Pistols half-shirt and black stretch pants with boots.

Kimber had long blonde hair and wore a black-and-white striped midriff top with a pink frilly skirt and leotard leggings that came down just above the knee.

“We got your text. What’s up?” Summer said as we approached with the bikes.

Kimber asked what the hell was up with Taylor’s face. “Girl, you look like a whore that was run over by a steamroller,” she sighed. The girls normally had immaculate makeup, and they were deeply confused already.

They also asked about her shoes and Tom said these weren’t very expensive heels at all. He told her she was going to be wearing heels from now on.

“Not those shoes,” Kimber said. She said Taylor had a pair of Jimmy Choo sneakers that cost about 500 dollars. “If you ain't going to wear those anymore, then can I get those shoes, beh-tch?”

Tom was livid that somehow Taylor had got her hands on 500 dollar sneakers. He said he’d address that later, but right now he wanted to give them a better understanding of why they came over and what the purpose was.

My eyes went wide, trying to remember if I saw a 500-dollar charge on my credit card. I must have overlooked it on one of the main cards I used to pay the utility bills. I would never have approved a purchase like that – Taylor normally kept things under a hundred dollars for the several items of clothes and accessories she ordered.

I mentally prepared myself for ‘The Big Speech’ that I’d given Lanny and Brandon earlier. I needed a glass of wine if I was going to do it properly.

“That text came from me,” Tom explained. He said that he’d be handling her phone at home from now on.

“Ooh, I probably shouldn’t have sent those selfies then,” Kimber teased.

“You probably shouldn’t have,” Tom said. I wasn’t sure what the pictures were but they were obviously racy. Tom invited them in the house. Kimber and Summer looked at Taylor to see if this was some of trap and maybe they shouldn’t come in. She nodded at them that it would be fine.

“I need to put away these bikes and then I’ll meet you inside, Ma’am,” Taylor promised the two of them. She was holding her heels and bra in one hand, and they knew something was clearly going on.

Tom asked them to sit down and said that we would explain everything once she came inside and then he could go over it.

“Is this because of the shoplifting?” Kimber asked.

“What shoplifting would that be?” Tom asked.

“I’m kidding,” Kimber said. She said that was a joke in poor taste, and asked if it was about the video she showed them.

“It is.” Tom asked if it was the video of him spanking me, and they blushed and didn’t answer.

“My kids already know all about it, so there’s nothing to hide about that,” Tom promised them.

“I was kidding about that too,” Kimber said. She claimed she had never seen any video. I couldn’t be sure if she was joking or not, but I knew the girls had a dark sense of humor, so it was certainly in the realm of possibility that everything was a joke to them.

“Wait, you never watched a video? I thought Taylor said she showed it to both of you?” Tom asked with a confused look on her face.

Taylor knocked on the door and stuck her panties through the sliding glass door on the back patio.

“In the future wait until we open it.” Tom sent Donny to collect her panties and told her to hold anything we needed to collect in her mouth from now on as well while she waited. “They should be clean and fresh, and if they’re juicy and musky that’s your fault.” Tom told her to get inside. “Your grubby little hands could have been anywhere.”

She bent over at the waist and set the heels and folded bra at the sliding glass door.

Kimber and Summer started to laugh at first, but they could see in my daughter’s face that she looked scared.

“Get in the attention position.” Tom pointed to the center of the living room in front of the couch. Taylor, wearing only the apron and punk rock collar, stood with her hands behind her head and her legs apart. She had stalked across the living room in such a way that her bare ass wasn’t readily visible to her friends, but she had to know she was only delaying the inevitable.

“This began with a video you say you showed the two of them.” Tom asked her if she actually showed it to them.

“I didn’t, Sir, I was just having a laugh and I thought it would get your goat if you thought I showed it to people. I am not THAT evil that I would show it to everyone,” she said with a tear forming in her eye.

“Do you think that since you lied and said you did show them, that deserves any less punishment than having shown them the video?” Tom asked.

“No sir,” Taylor answered.

“Your mom is going to give ‘the big speech’ about why you’re under punishment. Do you have anything to say in your defense before that happens?” Tom asked her. I started to feel guilty about doing this to my daughter again, because she was getting teary eyed, and we may have overreacted to what was one of her many outbursts.

“No, Sir, nothing in my defense.” Taylor was about to let me begin my introduction, but she requested and was permitted to say a few words anyway. “Summer and Kimber, you’ve been my ONLY friends since I moved to Cherry Lawn. I have fucked both of you over, spread rumors about both of you, talked shit about both of you to your face and behind your back. You were both friends before I got here and knew each other since you were in kindergarten, and I came between both of you. I’ve been a very shitty friend and human being for a lot longer than I care to remember. I told my parents that I showed you a video that I shouldn’t have taken of them doing some adult stuff, and you saw what happened when I made my mom play a little dare game around the table at lunch,” she said with her voice starting to waver.

“Shit, I’ve played much more interesting dare games,” Kimber said dismissively, and forgave Taylor completely for all of the things she said. “You my bae – I feel you, you do some heinous shit, but so do I. That’s how we roll. There’s nothing you can do that I haven’t already done. We’re cool,” she said.

That was very sweet and I was touched by her loyalty. They may have both been sullen bitches, but to Kimber they were bitches together. I felt wrong to even worry about her in the bedroom with Taylor – she was clearly one of the girls.

Summer, on the other hand, was furious with her for talking shit behind her back. “You told me you never spread rumors and that it was all Kimber!” she said.

“I know, and I was lying about that, Ma’am,” Taylor admitted apologetically. “I can’t help it – I am just naturally a lying, manipulative little skeezer and I know that now.”

“Fuck this ‘Ma’am’ shit.” Summer didn’t want anything to do with her, and Taylor said she understood.

“The reason I asked you here is that I may need your help,” Tom interjected.

“Shit, this bitch can help herself!” Summer sneered at my daughter.

“She really can’t, though,” Tom told her. “If she could, she would have years ago. This ship won’t right itself. I’ve started disciplining her, but it’s a little too little and a little too late at this point,” Tom admitted.

“Good on you.” Summer laughed that Taylor probably deserved it and more.

“Oooh, I like discipline; is it the fun kind?” Kimber asked sassily.

“I don’t think you’d find it fun,” Tom said. He was uncomfortable with the teenager – whether she was transgender or not – coming on to him.

“Try me!” Kimber looked amused and adventurous.

Tom explained that in the last 48 hours he’d made significant changes to the way he ran his household. He said he was addressing her shortcomings and would correct whatever he could. He explained, “She’ll remain in this state until either I’m satisfied she has corrected her behavior or she’s old enough to move out on her own, whichever comes first! The reason I’m asking for your help is that at home she can be supervised almost the entire time, but school is a big unknown. I need eyes and ears there to help make sure she stays on the straight and narrow there and follows her discipline plan. I can address the behavior when she gets home. All I need you to do is tell me when she messes up,” Tom tried to explain.

Summer held up a finger for him to wait while she finished what she considered a very important text. She was barely even paying attention to what he was saying.

“Harsh!” Kimber said with a grin that signaled she was impressed.

“It sounds like you got this then.” Summer concluded that this was the extent of the conversation and was all ready to leave.

“Don’t you see? He knows we colluded with her and are just as heinous in our treachery as she is.” Kimber suggested Tom wanted to punish both of them the same way.

“No, not at all,” Tom clarified, and Kimber actually looked disappointed. “I don’t have any rights to punish you – that’s for your parents to decide,” Tom said.

“Did you not say back in your day that if a parent caught another person’s kid fucking up they would punish them and send them home to their own parents to get another whipping?” Scotty reminded him.

“That was another time, though,” Tom reminded our son, with a tone that suggested he just sit quietly and stay out of this conversation. I could see Scotty looked disappointed to be have been dismissed so easily when he was clearly trying to be helpful – at his sister and her friends’ expense, no doubt.

“Hell, my parents are pill-popping OxyContin-heads that would probably thank you,” Kimber joked.

“This isn’t where I was going with this,” Tom tried to explain. “I’ll call your parents if you want and have a talk with them about how I’m instituting discipline with Taylor, but that’s about all I can do,” Tom promised.

Kimber asked, “Did you not hear me? My parents are pill-heads, and my dad’s under house arrest. They aren’t going to discipline me. They can’t discipline themselves,” Kimber cooed.

“So he wants us to stand in the living room bare-assed to learn a lesson?” Summer asked skeptically.

The tension was building and I felt like I could cut it with a knife. It took nearly 20 minutes of talking with Kimber and Summer to get them to understand that Tom had no interest in disciplining them or fucking them.

Tom had been trying to get the two of them to understand he just needed them to report back to him on Taylor’s behavior at school. He wanted them to let him know if she was rude or cruel, but it seemed obvious to me that Summer and Kimber were just as ruthless as Taylor and wouldn’t know how to tell the difference, because they were both as morally bankrupt as Taylor had been.

I was about to suggest to him that he just go ahead and discipline Kimber because she seemed to need it worse than Taylor. The more she talked about things she’d done in the past, the more I thought my own daughter had been the lesser of the three evils.

“So what is it you want us to do? Help you discipline her?” Summer finally seemed to be paying attention. She had repeatedly looked at her phone and even held up a finger to Tom to wait so she could finish what she considered to be an important text.

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying,” Tom said, adding that he wasn’t going to ask for much. “All I need you to do is observe and report. I’ll handle everything. I’ll go over all the details once you understand more about why we’re doing this.”

This was where I was supposed to give ‘The Big Speech’.

Unlike the previous ones I had done, where Donny and Scotty’s friends sat quietly and saved their questions to the end, I could barely start. They giggled, they talked over me, they frequently asked unrelated questions, they popped their gum, they checked their cell phones.

This was all in the first two minutes.

“Show them Cadmus.” I had her show the butt-plug and the two girls nearly fell off the couch, cackling and laughing.

“You don’t care if your brothers see? OMG!!” Summer was beside herself at how over-the-top this all was.

“Hell, I wouldn’t care if my brother saw,” Kimber smiled.

I had known a woman like her when I was being trained early in our marriage. She was equal parts Greta Garbo and Jane Mansfield. She spoke with a slight French accent and everything she said or did was sexual or had a sexual energy to it.

She was constantly flirtatious and seemed insatiable, often taking many different lovers for many different reasons. Some men paid her bills, while others just offered her sexual thrills. Some she was just curious about, and other men she simply pitied and wanted to compare to past lovers.

I’d always suspected she did all of this as a cover for the fact she was empty, broken, and hollow inside, and the meaninglessness of her life could be readily hidden by a very active and all-encompassing sexually focused lifestyle.

She was not into BDSM for the reasons Tom and I were – she was a thrill-seeker, and it was on her list of deviant experimentations, the same way nude hang-gliding and ‘wild orgies until dawn’ had been.

Taylor had actually been as cooperative as she could be while her friends made a farce of my big speech.

“What’s your name?” I asked her at one point.

“Fart Face, Ma’am” she answered, and her friends nearly spat all over each other in giggles.

“Are you allowed to refer to your friends by their first names?” I asked.

“No Ma’am,” Taylor explained when prompted. “They are above me. They haven’t reached a point in their lives where they lack respect for everyone, even themselves. They aren’t hurtful, cruel and lazy. They don’t bite the hands that feed them and show spite when offered love,” she said. “I’m no longer on the same level as they are, Ma’am.”

In the case of Brandon and Lanny, they were both basically good boys, as far as I knew.

I couldn’t say the same about Summer and Kimber. I could see on Taylor’s face that as she gave the answer, she too was starting to think that the two girls were just as bad as she was. I didn’t want to deviate from the format of ‘the big speech’, but I felt those two girls probably were right about the same level as Taylor—or worse, if truth be told.

“We do all of those things too!” Kimber was proud of herself for being a strong, powerful young woman.

The Big Speech follows a bit of an outline.

1. Tell them what Taylor has done in the past and why she needs discipline;

2. Tell them Tom’s value systems and why we can’t tolerate Taylor’s behavior without drastic measures;

3. Explain what they’ll see in our house if they’re here;

4. Introduce Cadmus and why he is worn;

5. Explain why she can’t be permitted to be aroused;

6. Tell them what that means to them and where we’re going with this.

Then we do questions and usually continue with Taylor’s lesson or punishment, if one was happening when the guest arrived. Summer and Kimber had such a narrow window of attention span that I felt constantly rushed to jump through the basic tenants of Tom’s value systems.

I was on step 5 in less than 10 minutes, and it had taken me about 20 minutes to get there with Lanny and Brandon.

“Tits Out.” I instructed my daughter to pop her boobs out. She had both nipples painted bright red with glossy nail polish.

Once the laughter subsided I explained that we color her nipples so that she doesn’t have to walk around fully topless, but we can still tell if she’s aroused simply by looking at how hard they are.

“I’ve got little nipples,” Kimber said. She rubbed her chest and told us hers were ALWAYS hard.

“Your boobs are smaller than mine!” Janie observed, clutching her chest.

“Mine only recently started growing since I started taking hormones.” Kimber smiled at her like she was talking to a toddler.

I looked at Tom, silently suggesting he put a stop to this now.

He shrugged for me to continue.

“We don’t encourage touching yourself in our house,” I told Kimber.

“Ooh, I am naughty! Sorry, I just thought since boobies were out that it was fair game. I’ll behave!” Kimber promised.

“Sorry, Mom,” Janie pouted.

“The only reason Fart Face is permitted to show her boobs in the house is to determine quickly if her mind is on her training or on perverted thoughts,” I explained.

“Oh, mine is on perverted thoughts all the time. That’s probably why my nipples are always hard.” Kimber was making wisecracks like this all the way through my big speech.

Summer, on the other hand, was stewing and simmering without comment. She wore the dark eyeliner and pale foundation like Taylor, and seemed wholly disgusted and scornful over Taylor’s treatment.

“So skip to the end,” Summer finally spoke, and suggested I wrap up my big speech early. “We get it. You spank her, make her stick things in her butt, and she can’t have fun. Anything else?” Summer was clearly unimpressed.

Taylor had her back to the girls, but I noticed a very surprising look on Taylor’s face. I want to describe it as a reaction of disagreement with her friend. I could have been reading into her expression, but I was hopeful she knew there was more to this than how Summer described it.

“There’s a lot more to protocol and discipline,” Tom answered for me, and thanked me for giving ‘the big speech’ again before letting Taylor turn around and sit on the floor. I really thought he was going to tell them that he’d changed his mind and would find some other way to deal with Taylor at school.

“I take it you disagree with our methods, Summer?” Tom asked her.

“I think it’s gross, misogynistic, and reinforces the patriarchy. You don’t have her brothers in aprons, and they’re huge perverts. The apron is reserved for the woman – to keep her barefoot in the kitchen,” Summer said with a scowl on her face.

“She wears heels, too, and the apron is for almost everywhere.” Tom wasn’t going to defend his decision or training methods to these girls, but he also thought her comments were way off base and he wasn’t going to let them stand with no response. “If my boys were as bad as Taylor, I’d discipline them using a method that works on the male mind. Each person has different triggers and motivations,” Tom said.

“Yeah, you’d take away their video games and tell them not to stare at boobies,” Summer said, rolling her eyes. She was trying to pick a fight.

“Do you try to find fault with everything?” Tom asked with a bemused expression.

“I don’t know,” Summer said, sounding a lot like Taylor used to. “What else do you have? And I’ll letcha know if I do.”

Tom said he had no doubt she would, and asked her if her response meant she had no interest in helping him with this plan.

“I don’t know.” Summer popped some gum with a look of disinterest. “What do I get out of it?”

Tom was taken aback by that question. “You get a better friend when it’s over – one who’ll hopefully not lie or backbite, and will take your feelings into consideration when she acts, for one.”

“If I wanted someone like that I’d go find a goody-two shoes to hang out with,” Summer said. I found it ironic she was steamed when Taylor admitted she’d talked about her behind her back and betrayed her trust, but at the same time fully expected it from the kind of girls she hung out with.

“What would you want, then?” Tom asked skeptically.

“Money, drugs, power, rock and roll,” Summer chuckled. “The standard stuff.”

“You don’t even know what I’m asking you to do.” Tom was surprised at how brazen Taylor’s friend was to ask for compensation.

“It doesn’t matter,” Summer said, and explained that as long as he paid enough, they’d do anything he wanted.

Tom had a bemused expression on his face as he considered her offer. “Well, Fart Face, I tried.” Tom said that without their help to discipline her, she would fall back onto her old habits at school. “We’d have to retrain you each and every night when you got home, and you’d suffer even further, because you’d never actually improve, because you’d go back to your old ways,” Tom promised. “You get to go back to your old ways. I don’t see any other option, because you’ll be ping-ponging from one extreme to another and that’s not fair to you. You’ll learn and then unlearn the behavior each and every day without supervision,” he explained.

Scotty and Donny were ready to help, but Tom had already told them that he didn’t want to impact them any further than he already had. He told them again, “You have to see this every day, all the time, and frankly I’m not even sure if you’re emotionally prepared to be mature enough to deal with it. I can’t ask you to supervise her at school and not expect your own grades or social life to suffer at the same time, either. I do appreciate your offer, but I just can’t abide that.” Tom had made his decision clear on the matter.

Scotty and Donny wanted to help, and even though I was pretty sure they also wanted to rub their sister’s nose in her punishment, they genuinely just wanted their father’s trust and approval. I felt sorry for them that he had to say that, but I understood my husband’s reasoning – this was a lot to lay on them.

“May I address my friends, Master?” Taylor asked for permission to stand and speak to them, and Tom granted her request.

“Miss Summer and Miss Kimber, I know that you have every right to think this is an unfair request,” Taylor began. “In the last two days I’ve learned a lot. It’s been hard to swallow the medicine Master has decided is best for me. I’ve questioned the necessity of this discipline constantly. I know that I’ve been cruel, talked shit about you behind your backs, and even started fights between the two of you by playing you against one another. I also realize from watching you two today that I’m just like you, and that’s my nature. I felt powerless to change the little monster I am, and frankly didn’t think this was going to work anyway,” she said.

I looked down at the carpet and wrung my hands. We’d tried a very unorthodox inclusion of domestic discipline into our household, and it had clearly backfired and failed to work. I was already wondering what long-term effect any of this would have on our relationship as they got older.

“That’s why I beg you to help keep me under discipline.” Taylor fell to her knees and clasped her hands to plead with them. “I realize listening to you both talk that I don’t want to be like you at all. I’m hopeful my example and sacrifice of my own pride will convince you to care about someone besides yourselves. I don’t know if I can be redeemed or taught to respect my betters, but I don’t think it’ll hurt to try. I wasn’t getting any better before this happened. It’s been a bit of a wake-up call for me that I’ve not only been a pissy little thoughtless bitch, but that I’ve rubbed off on my brothers and sister! I’m dreading going to school tomorrow like none of this ever happened, and I’m asking you to please reconsider? If you want compensation, I can ask if I can clean your room or carry your books or stand in line to get your lunch in exchange for your helping me. I don’t think I’ll ever make a good friend, daughter, sister or girlfriend to anyone – the best I can hope for is that I’ll no longer be a petulant bitch like you two,” she said.

It was an understatement to say that I was floored by my daughter’s impassioned speech. It had managed to both insult them and ask for their help at the same time. I really don’t know where it came from. Things had been moving so fast that I really hadn’t had time to process them. There were times when things moved slow, and Tom and I had time to reflect and really give a measured response; and there were others like this moment now where Taylor said something so completely out of character and above and beyond what I thought her capable of doing that they crashed through the ceiling and fell right on our toes before we had a chance to move out of the way.

I could think of a dozen times that had happened, from the first time Tom gave her Ignotus, to goofing on Mr. Goldman by pretending that she was going out as a puppy for Halloween. That had escalated things before we had a chance to really think about them – once they were out there we couldn’t put the lightning back in the bottle!

This was one of those moments – at least, for me. Hearing Taylor say these words really began to change my thoughts about her and the domestic discipline she was receiving.

I hadn’t been able to say nearly as much as her and hold Summer and Kimber’s attention. I wasn’t sure that Kimber or Summer had even listened to their entire thing Taylor said, but Donny, Scotty, Janie, and especially her father’s faces told me they were thinking much the same thing I was: who was this girl, and what happened to our old Taylor?

Summer popped her gum and chewed on it like a cow chewing her cud, breaking the silence.

“Fine. What do you need us to do?” she finally asked, with a roll of her eyes and a facial expression that was equal parts boredom and contempt. I knew that expression well, as I had seen it on Taylor’s face thousands of times over the last 15 years.