This story was written by Joe Doe as a gift to Alec Leamus, who has permitted me to edit and post it here. DEAR ALEC by Joe Doe A RECENT LETTER FROM A FRIEND IN THE ARMY Dear Alec, I know we've been out of touch for quite a while, but I've got a problem that I hope you can advise me on. Although my wife, Lisa, has her Master's degree in electrical engineering, the recent slowdown in the job market has made it difficult for her to find work. Since I was going to be stationed overseas for the next few months, we decided that she should save money by getting rid of our apartment and moving in with my mother. At first, Lisa wasn't too keen on the idea, since she has never gotten along well with Mom. But, when my wealthy mother sweetened the deal by offering to help us out with the down payment on the house we've been saving for, the offer was too good to refuse. I should take a moment to explain that Lisa is a slender, very pretty blonde, who stands barely 5 feet tall, while my mother is MUCH taller and quite stoutly built. Lisa has always found my mother bossy and overbearing, but, since Mother is an expert money manager, my wife reluctantly agreed that my paychecks should be sent directly to my mother to help us save for the house. The friction started almost immediately. My mother declared that Lisa's stylish and fashionable clothes were much too dressy for "summer vacation" in her semi-rural neighborhood. She immediately had all of Lisa's clothing and jewelry put into storage and dragged her off to the local Wal-Mart for more "appropriate" clothing. Lisa was horrified when she was marched her past the adult clothes and into the "Junior Miss" section of the store. Lisa hated the cheap midriff-baring t-shirts and "day-of-the-week" underpants my mother bought her, but Mom insisted that the clothes were a bargain and buying more expensive things for "an unemployed underachiever" was simply wasteful. My mother insisted that Lisa model every purchase, and soon began "saving time" by leaving the dressing room curtain open and even pulling my wife's clothing off out in the public areas of the store. The chirpy 18-year-old clerk who was helping them offered no assistance and was clearly amused by Lisa's transformation from well-dressed executive to tarty teen. Mother rolled right over Lisa's objections. "I'm paying the bills, so I'll make the decisions!" she insisted as she handed my blushing wife a pair of cotton underpants (emblazoned with colorful balloons and clowns) and propelled her into the changing booth with a sharp slap across her posterior. My wife's face turned crimson as she scurried into the dressing room while the bratty sales clerk tittered in amusement. Lisa's Wonderbras were seized that day, and now she is forced to wear undershirts that totally flatten out her tiny chest. When she complained, my mother's response was devastatingly brutal. "You simply don't have the figure for a bra, dear," she patronized. "Maybe we'll get you a training bra...in a few years...maybe." Mother forced my educated and highly intelligent wife into a job in a burger joint at the mall. And, since she works double shifts, she has no free time to look for another job. Lisa is not allowed to use the telephone without permission, she has no more Internet access, and all of her technical and business journals have been cancelled. Out of sheer intellectual desperation, she now finds herself reading "Seventeen" and the other teenybopper magazines my mother buys for her. She finds her burger-flipping job humiliating and demeaning, and she detests Alan, her boss, a pimply-faced 19-year-old geek who calls her "shortcakes." He blames her whenever anything goes wrong, and takes malicious delight in belittling her intellectual abilities and mocking her as a "blonde airhead" in front of the smirking customers. My mother has also arranged for Lisa to take a class in shorthand at a private school that is run by a friend of Mother's. Unfortunately for my wife, the school is a reformatory with a rather strict dress code, and my wife is forced to cycle across town every day in a blue blazer, white blouse, school tie, white knee high socks, and ultra-short plaid skirt. When I saw the picture my mother sent me of Lisa in her new uniform, I understood why my wife hated it so. She looks like a teenager again, especially since school regulations require her to keep her hair in pigtails. To make matters worse, the school practices corporal punishment, and she has received several bare bottom paddlings from her lecherous shorthand teacher. When she complained, Mother simply told her that she was in need of "consistent discipline, both at home and school." The next day, Mother purchased a large razor strap, suitably engraved with "FOR LISA'S BARE FANNY." My mother straps my wife's bare backside for every tiny infraction, and she has hung the strap in the entrance hall of the house. She discusses Lisa's shameful bare-bottom discipline with everyone who visits the house, much to my wife's chagrin. Every time the milkman sees her, he rubs his bottom and winces before giving her a knowing smile and a wink. No one seems to find her situation at all unusual. Since she is always dressed in her school uniform, her burger-joint uniform, or the teasing, tarty clothes my mother picks out for her, no one even suspects that she isn't a teenager. Alan the geek knows how old she is, however, since my mother showed him my wife's social security card when she got the job. He has taken advantage of her predicament by demanding sexual favors, and she is often herded into a corner and fondled. When she complained to my mother, she was strapped for making up "childish stories" and being "disrespectful" to her boss. My mother now discusses Lisa's "behavior problems" with her boss on a weekly basis. Since an unsatisfactory progress report from him means a spanking, my wife has been forced to submit to the lustful teenager's demands. My beautiful 28-year-old wife had tears in her eyes the first time she was forced to drop to her knees and service the leering high school drop-out. He openly taunts her about her "overtime" in front of the other employees, and now everyone at the burger stand calls her "BJ." Lisa finds her reduction in status and the loss of her adulthood deeply humiliating. She recently was tossed out of a 7-11 because there were "too many kids in the store," and one night the police even picked her up for violating curfew. Since my mother seized her purse shortly after her arrival, Lisa had no way of proving that she was an adult. My mother decided to teach her a lesson by making her spend the night in Juvenile Hall and has even threatened to send her back there or to enroll her in the reformatory full time if she continues to question my mother's authority. I've repeatedly told Lisa that I'll be home soon to rescue her. But then I recently found out that I'm going to be stationed overseas for at least a year (maybe more). What should I tell my wife to do? -- Johnny Edited by C. Lakewood