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The Family Feud
Chapter Six
The rest of the day had gone like the past few had, except because they were all home and part of the day wasn't spent with Wendy at work, the kids at school and Bill kept in isolation until Wendy or Jamie got home.
The men were put through exercises to tone up and increase their cardio, supervised while they cleaned up, and taunted and mocked. Taken all together it seemed to wearing down their will, making them more complacent and accepting that this is just how it was going to be now.
Still, there was some defiance, especially in Bill. Bill was play-acting, and Wendy could see that he just was going through the motions, perhaps as he had through life, getting the job, marrying the girl, but never trying hard enough to earn those things. These things had almost landed in his lap and he just happened to look the part of a middle-manager to have hooked a good job in his twenties and be good enough at sports to have caught her eye when she was so much more naïve about men.
Wendy thought about what Jamie had said about sadism and pain. The girls would switch off watching the two men and supervising them so that it didn't exhaust either of them to have to keep the boys in line.
They had taken to calling them “boys”, since they were no longer acting like Men, if Chris ever had. The switching-off had been an unexpected benefit, because while the new supervising female was fresh and ready to take charge, the men hadn't had time to recuperate and refresh, think of new excuses or reasons to be sticks in the mud. It was all working so perfectly keeping the boys in line.
In Wendy's break time, she loaded up Bill's computer and began google searching sadism. She read about how pain, both physical and mental could be a motivator. How what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. An unpleasant dose of pain, tells you not to repeat the same mistake twice. You won't set your hand on a hot stove after you do it once.
“Sadism is all right in its place, but it should be directed to proper ends.”
Sigmund Freud
She stopped on that quote, and thought what ends, should she deliver this sadism too?
As she thought about how to take the double meaning of that quote, she asked Jamie to take her brother shopping. She took Jamie into the other room to go over an agenda that would keep her out of the house for a few hours, and since Jamie now had the credit card that once was used by her father, it shouldn't be a problem to pick up a few extra things for herself from Urban Outfitters and Hollister.
“Take your brother with you, to carry your bags...” she said as Jamie walked back into the living room where two naked men were trying to look like they had been busy and not trying to eaves drop. They had surrendered their aprons hours earlier, and looked kind of ridiculous standing there naked around two fully dressed women with their milk white skin and flabby bodies.
“Hear anything interesting?” Wendy taunted a rhetorical question to let them know she knew they would be sneaky enough weasels to try to listen into her private pow-wow sessions with Jamie. They pretended not to understand and kept quietly working.
“Come on brother dear, I'll pick out something for you to wear...we are going shopping” said Jamie very luxuriantly. “Well I am going shopping, you'll be carrying what I buy.”
This left Wendy alone with Bill for a little experimentation and practical applied learning to what she read on the internet. It wasn't going to be a pleasant afternoon for Bill, she thought to herself as she waited for her daughter to pick out something for Chris.
She couldn't help but giggle as he came down the stairs wearing a powder blue tank top, and some very short-shorts with high knee socks.
“Oh isn't he adorable, but aren't you afraid the glare from his legs will blind some people?” Wendy mocked.
“Well, I was planning to go tanning, maybe we should invest in that?” Jamie suggested.
“Nonsense, regular sunlight is good enough for the likes of your father and brother. Even God rested on the seventh day, we'll let them lay out side in the backyard on Sunday and catch some rays, recoop.....IF they are good boys” letting it sink in that the relaxation was conditional on their behavior. Surprisingly the two Taylor males seemed to actually be pleased they would be offered a brief respite. It seemed pleasure and positive reinforcement may be a tool just like pain and negative reinforcement could be. She made a mental note.
“Come on, dum-dum” Jamie said to her brother and he followed her out of the house and got into their mother's car. Naturally, Jamie drove and she made her brother sit in the backseat. On the way to the first store she had additional instructions for him, protocol. He was to follow from a slight distance, he was to defer to her in everything, he was not to in any way embarrass her or there would be consequences. With Chris it wasn't really necessary to be explicit about consequences and rules. She could just sort of make it up on the fly as needed and he didn't seem to realize that her rules and how strict she was really changed with her mood. Right now, she was just wanting to get out of the house.
When they got to the first store it was Baby's R' US, Chris started to ask, but she hushed him. “Yours is not to ask, dear brother...yours is to only do...now be a good boy and get a cart. I want to see your hands out in front, both hands on the cart, so you can't do any funny business.” she wasn't sure what funny business he may be up to, but it never hurt to just be vague and let him use his imagination.
As he pushed the cart, they walked through the store and she would tell him to put in baby pacifiers, large diapers, and a variety of really odd things for people that have no babies. She usually made sure to go out of her way to pick something that really required him to reach. If there was something closer, she'd pick a different brand so it was either on the very top or bottom shelf. So much for those brands that pay for their products to be placed at the middle eye-level shelving in stores as a form of subliminal advertising she thought.
“What have we here, it's Cathy Griffin, fellow cheerleader of the Cherry Lawn Cougars...hows it shaking mama?” said Jamie feeling kind of playful with all this power, it was a sort of confidence high. “I didn't know you worked here?”
“Oh hi Jamie” She scrunched up her nose at Chris as she turned around as if was unexpected. “Yah, you..um...I just started here a few weeks ago....uh hi, it's um Chip isn't it?” she tried to politely acknowledge her brother.
“Sure Chip is fine” Jamie answered for her brother before he could “It's a lot better than what I call him” she said half-jokingly “I am sure you've seen my brother around school before?”
“Yes... I guess I have” Cathy acknowledged.
“Well, he has DEFINITELY seen you around before....” Jamie joked.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Jamie smiled thinking back to the fact, that her brother had been well aware of his father's stash of cheerleader amateur nude modeling, and that Cathy was the one who happened to be on the screen when his father was cycling through whatever fantasy he needs to jerk it too. “Oh nothing, just that I think my brother may have a crush on you...isn't that right Cow-chip?”
Chris wasn't sure what to say, he sort of hemmed and hawed for a second.
“What is that Chris? Now is your chance...don't you want to ask Cathy out? Didn't you say you liked her name because it sounds like Kathy Griffin the comedian and she has red hair just like her?” Jamie smiled she knew Cathy hated comparisons to the comedienne namesake. It was just a coincidence they shared the same name. Jamie wasn't sure who she enjoyed digging at more, Chris or Cathy who had been a little bit stuck up to her in the past and there was something intoxicating about bossing men around that was giving her a boost of confidence and lowering her inhibition on what to say next.
There was a silence.
“Gosh you can cut the sexual tension between you two with a knife, huh?” Jamie smiled coyly.
Cathy changed the subject; she would have just walked away except she worked here. When you work in retail it's a habit to ask “So you need any help with anything?”
“Yes, I've got to get some fleet enema bottles, what aisle would they be on?” Jamie said without any hesitation.
Cathy looked a little confused, that wasn't something people usually asked for. It's a big store, it carries not only baby stuff, but things for mothers such as breast pumps, and even enemas in one section. “Um...what do you need this stuff for, starting a babysitters club?” Cathy asked.
“Oh that was a good movie....it's the one where the cheerleaders all become whores and start charging the men in the neighborhood for sex, right?” Jamie asked with a definite pointed tone.
There was a silence.
Cathy was about to interrupt it and get back to work, when Jamie said “The diapers are for my brother, he pees the bed at night, like a widdle baby, don't you Chrissy-pissy?” she used soothing babytalk as he pinched her cheek.
He wanted to brush her hand away, but he had been staring at Cathy's sweater meat the whole time. Seeing her this close for this long with clothes on was sexier by far than the images he saw of her standing next to a pool table completely naked.
“Um...yes...yes...” he said as if by habit agreeing with his sister.
“Yes, what, dear brother?”
He became self-aware at that moment. He had almost been in a trance like state up to this point, waltzing through this because Dad was. It suddenly dawned on him what she was expecting him to say AND to admit too.
“Yes, Ma’am, I piss my bed, the diapers are for me?” his tone went up at the end, making it clearly a question.
“Are you asking us, or telling us?” Jamie teased.
After a few more awkward exchanges to get a reaction from Cathy, she pulled Jamie to the side and asked “Is your brother retarded? It's terrible you make him call you ma'am and tease him this way!!”
“No, he's not retarded, he lost a bet” Jamie said lying, because it's far too long a story to give several chapters of essential background that doesn't contain anything juicy. It'd take at least four or five chapters before anyone could really appreciate just how things got the way they are.
“OMG, that is hilarious, you should have told me. I totally get it...how long does he have to be your bitch for?” Cathy said suddenly elated to be in on the joke and not just an innocent bystander to a very weird encounter.
“Oh it's a pretty big bet, so at least until tomorrow, mom says they can rest tomorrow.”
“Your MOM is in on your bet?” Cathy whispered with a Cheshire cat smile. “This just gets better and better!!”
“Yeah, she sent me here with the credit card to buy this stuff, its that funny to you?” Jamie said, unsure why this is so hilarious.
“Can I borrow him for a few hours? We just got a bunch of inventory to put away, it's a Saturday and so the boss is out.. I could definitely enjoy taking a break, while he stocks the shelves.”
“Well, my brother is a bit of a dumbass, you have to watch him like a hawk. I can't be responsible if he fucks anything up?” Jamie felt a little bad for say ‘fuck things up’, but she had been falling into the habit of talking that way the past few days, because the men so often did just that. They would need her direction to tell them how to arrange the couch, or to finish the laundry. Her mom was using the phrase ‘fuck things up’ and she was picking up on the figure of speech.
“okay, cool, what do you want in exchange?”
“Want?”
“You don't want anything in exchange?” Cathy asked inquisitively as if she had assumed there must be a quid pro quo involved.
“Hit me with employee discount?” Jamie countered quickly.
“Can I paint his nails, and put lip stick on him, while he does the inventory?” Cathy asked as if she had wanted to do this all along.
“Aren't you twisted, Cathy? I have a new found respect for you, I would never have thought of that. I suppose so...”
The two girls had a deal and Cathy got a free day at work to listen to her iPod, while Jamie got a little free time to finish shopping at the mall after Chris loaded the trunk with the stuff they just bought. She would be leaving her older brother, with one of her friends from school, and wouldn’t be embarrassed by being seen with him out in public.
It made her feel a little bad that she had to admit to herself he embarrassed her in public. He would have even before she was put in charge. She decided it was more his fault he was the way he is, than hers for not wanting to be associated with him.
It was nice to go to the mall without him tagging along. It didn’t feel burdensome. She put him completely out of her mind as she chatted with friends, buzzed around some stores and did whatever teenage girls generally do when they go shopping.
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