Pinch Week

PINCH WEEK

This story is fiction. Do not imitate any actions in the story as they are pure fantasy. Any attempt at replication in the real world of any part could be dangerous and is strictly forbidden.

All female characters in the story are above the age of adult responsibility.

Inspired by “Letter From a Strict Mom Part I” by Max Smart

smackmagnet’s email: smackmagnet@gmail.com

PINCH WEEK

© Smack Magnet

1: TRIBUNAL (Saturday)

We had to write “What we did over our holidays” for Mrs Simpson’s writing class homework. Seriously, stupid? You’d think we were fucking infants. You give that crap to pre teens, not to students with hair on their crotches and erections bulging through their pants.

Shit, why am I stressing about Mrs Simpson, a woman who looks like an apple that got left for weeks in the bottom of the fruit bowl? Who smells like old laundry gone to mildew? So what if, in her classes, she won’t let us write about anything remotely interesting?

The point is that for once in my life, I actually had something to write about. It even got to the point where I asked Barb (AKA Mom) if I she’d mind me writing about what we did to my bitch sister Lindy, because that had happened in the holidays.

Barb, predictably, said, “No, no way Kevin, what are you thinking? What happens in the family has to stay in the family!”

Well, okay, we argued about it some, though I was always going to be on the losing side. The way it went was that she decided that I’d decided that I had to write about our stupid trip to the Grand Canyon in Pete’s (AKA Dad’s) crappy ancient Buick. Not even the old Winnebago, which at that point was in the shop, Pete having meant to have it fixed up weeks ago, but actually getting around to it way too late. So it was the Buick drinking gas like a dypso drinks ethanol and a creepy stay in this Psycho-style motel far too near the canyon edge, which hadn’t even seen better days when it was first put up sixty years ago.

I told Mom she was a bitch for not letting me write about Lindy and she told me I should be grateful that what had just happened to her wasn’t gonna happen to me. But I‘d worked myself up to the idea of it. In fact, I was jazzed about it. I mean, I never wrote anything on my own before without someone making me do it. But I really, really wanted to write about me and Lindy, so, fuck it… I’m doing it at night on Lindy’s stupid pink hand-me-down laptop. And I’m crouched over wrong because I’m doing it under the blankets like a fucking ten year old, even though I left that blessed state of innocence years ago.

Ah, Lindy’s pink laptop. I really hated this thing when it got dumped on me six months ago. The thought of having to take its pink fucking flower stickers and its reflective blue butterfly into school brought me out in cold sweats. The only times I was forced into taking it, I kept it hid in my bag all day and damn near left it in a trash can once. But now that I’ve started this little number on it, the fact that it used to be hers suddenly makes it feel just right.

Let’s step back maybe two and a half years. I wasn’t the same then as I am now. How I am has… well, it’s changed. I mean, very recently. Like the butterfly on this stupid pink laptop has morphed into a giant jurassic dragonfly. It used to feel like I was in prison. But now I feel ten foot tall.

Think of a fish that’s been landed on the side of a bank. You’re watching a film of it. As you watch, the fish starts to flop and flip and slap about, going faster and faster, till suddenly it jumps backwards into the air, and with an inverse splash, falls tail first into the open water. That fish, unlikely though it may seem, is me. With a little help from my folks, I just made that impossible backwards jump off the suffocating river bank of my early teens. And now I’m swimming free.

But if that’s the case, how had I landed on that bank in the first place? Let’s look at me after the main event those two and a half years back. The depression. The sheer embarrassment when I saw not just the girls involved, but pretty much any girl. The wreck that was me. The twitching, frightened, clinically embarrassed teenoid with a face that flushed at the first passing glance from near any girl with crotch hair or boobs.

Why, you might observe, he just described your average teenage boy. But… nope. Because your average teenage boy didn’t get jumped by one lead girl and her giggling gaggle of cohorts, stripped under protest and serially humiliated. This teenage boy wanted to die. He didn’t find it funny. He didn’t find it in any way erotic. He felt abused and mortified and, worse, fucking betrayed.

It wasn’t just that they saw me naked and they all laughed at me. It was physically worse. They wrangled me up onto this stupid pipe-legged table in the fucking school canteen of all places, at a moment when they had a free period and I got called out of class by a bogus message from my parents, planted by a girl called Lindy, with the instruction that she had to take me straight home. Now.

Nope. Home wasn’t where I got took. To the empty canteen, with a girl on the door monitoring the corridor for teachers or ancillary staff. I was trapped. Told to keep quiet by that very lead girl with the threat that if I didn’t, everyone in the school would get to hear about what they were doing to me.

Yep, I got stripped, then pushed up onto this fucking cheap formica table. She got one of her fat friends to sit on my chest, with her ugly fat ass the only thing I could see, while she sat on my legs so I just couldn’t move. Then she invited these fucking giggling cohorts to come up one by one and tweak my naked thing. Yeah, okay, the first one barely touched me. The next wasn’t so nasty, to be fair. But the third interpreted the word tweak to mean pinch. And that seemed to give permission to the next to prod and pull and poke like I was a twitching frog on a dissection table being wired up for a galvanism show.

After that it was a fucking free-for-all, where tweak meant twist and prod and yank. And fucking slap. One of them, who called it goosing, seemed to think she was some kind of amateur nurse. That bitch actually tried to poke her finger up my ass. Yeah right, very fucking funny. Giggle away, girls.

The reason I felt betrayed? Lindy. My own sweet sister Lindy. Finally, Lindy and her fat-ass friend Candice got off me. Then it was, where have your pants gone, Kevin? Oh poor diddums, where did your pants go?

She told me I could have them back if I did a few little things for them. Turned out she meant humiliating things, and not so fucking few after all. Hey, who’s got an idea of what we should make my stupid brother Kevin do? Cue giggle-giggle snicker, guffaw and fucking full-on sputter. All very funny for everyone but Kevin. Lindy assured me later it was only maybe thirty minutes, another ten for the poke and pinch prelude. One lousy period. But in psychological time for me, it had lasted more like hours.

Then the days as I tried to survive the corridors, where even if someone didn’t know, to me in my head, they probably did. Then the months of depression. The years when it seemed that, whatever she’d said, what with the grapevine, most everyone did know by now.

You want the worst part? Not the stripping. Not the laughter, not the shitty things they made me do. The worst part was, I fucking went and cried, and they all saw me do it.

One shitty, awful experience, right? Nope. It was only the worst, the most public. But that same shitty period had happened, one way or another, a hundred other times. Sometimes writ large, sometimes writ small, even fucking writ routine. Was still happening as late as the week before last.

And what did Lindy get out of it? I sometimes wonder. All I can think is that it must have been for popularity. It was, hey, you know what we can do? What I can do to make all you mini bitches think I’m queen of the bitches? Come and watch me fucking shame my stupid brother. For fun. for giggles. To make you think I’m big. To make my brother feel like a stupid piece of shit.

So, what of Barb? What of Pete? What did they know of any of this? I had no real idea, but I’d guessed, close to nothing. It turned out though that they had half suspected, at least early on. They knew there must be something wrong. Why did I blush beetroot any time Lindy had this friend or that friend over to the house? Why had I been half way to clinically depressed for two plus years?

Well, the conundrum was answered for them just a few days back, on that trip to the Grand Canyon in the crappy ancient Buick. Specifically, it was Pete who found out, in his and Barb’s room in that Psychoville motel.

How did they hear? Did I tell them? Oh, no. Lindy, she’d always made me promise not to tell, on fear of far worse. And me, I may just be stupid, because I always kept my promises.

They heard, in fact, not from me, but from Lindy’s (now ex) friend fat-ass Candice, who’d sat on my chest two-plus years before. Candice fucking Calman, Lindy’s stupid lap dog of a friend, who’d been coming around to our house since the pair of them were six. Who’d been aid and assistant to half the things Lindy ever did to me. It was her who gave Lindy’s big secret away.

Now, before you get the wrong idea, Candice Calman plays no further part in this drama save for this cameo appearance in the Psychoville Motel. But, just to gloat for a moment, it does seem like justice. That it was Candice, metaphorically, who kicked Lindy off the cliff at the edge of that canyon. That, through her, Pete and Barb got the picture of my past into focus.

And what did they do when they found out? They freaked. No kidding. Our parents can be cool, especially Pete. But sometimes the cool spills over into not-cool-at-all. When they realised what a serious class of bitch Lindy had been being to me, they pulled one of those seriously cool (if you’re me) and incredibly not-cool (if you’re Lindy) things out of their wizard’s sleeve.

So just what class of cool / uncool? Kids, say Pete and Barb, should never, ever, be physically punished. In fact nobody, they say, should be physically punished without their express permission. But Lindy has, of late, made it clear as day that she’s no longer a kid. And technically, she’s not, though she insists on fucking acting like one. For her, school is out for good. She’s old enough to move out of the house. Old enough to vote! To fuck off to college and leave me in peace. But the sad thing is, she just can’t be bothered, as demonstrated by her failure, this year at least, to even apply. She’s been enjoying having time on her hands far too fucking much. Me, I saw a summer of horrors coming at me down the line, and at least another year of hell after that.

Then one Saturday, out of the blue, a week after the Grand Canyon trip, Pete and Barb called us into the games room. When we got inside, they locked the door. And there, they’d set up a fake tribunal, with them wearing black, sat in big old chairs like judges, with Lindy the accused and me as chief witness. Cool / not cool was way big in the air. They got us both to swear on the family bible, which was freaky, no kidding, because they’ve took us to church throughout our lives. Mom, for one, believes all that guff. So it was like, a big deal that we were swearing on this bible with like, mom’s pop’s name in it, signed and dated as its original owner.

Anyway, after the swearing on the bible schtick, we had to answer their questions like, the truth, the whole truth and not one goddamn lie.

Now, the dynamic between me and Lindy has always been that:

1) on the sly, she does nasty things to me and humiliates me. And:

2) she makes, and has always made me swear not to tell anyone about it, on pain of more and worse. And:

3) I keep my mouth shut because it’s always been that way. Even though deep inside, I believe that:

4) one day, somehow, I’ll get my own back so completely, she’ll never be able to pull any of that creepy crap again.

That bible thing, the black clothes and the big chairs, they moved the whole deal into weird-ass land. Pete and Barb, they got Lindy up to plead her case. Put specific accusations to her. Throughout, she glared and glared at me: I was to blame in her twisted girly mind, I’d been the one to rat on her. She denied the lot.

After Lindy, they got me up. I mean, I had not been primed, this whole tribunal was as much a shock to me as to her. But… well, what with Lindy herself most likely believing I believed I had to tell the truth, I felt it kind of let me off the hook. So when they put the question to me, which was, on such and such a date, had Lindy done this, or had she not? I decided that now was the exact right time to tell the truth. So yes, I confirmed it. I confirmed that that wasn’t the only time she’d pulled similar shit. I confirmed that she still hadn’t grown out of it, not a hundred percent, not by any means. But Nancy, she denied it again just as I confirmed it. Because, I guess, so far as she knew, it was gonna be her word alone against mine. So she claimed that I was making the whole thing up. I was jealous of her, that was her argument. Though of which part I was supposed to be jealous, she didn’t make too clear.

It was then that Pete and Barb pulled their big reveal. They turned the TV on. Showed video of Lindy’s fat-ass girlfriend. Out near Psycho Motel that night, her and Lindy had hit a bottle that Lindy herself had hid away, while me and them and Barb were out back of the motel at a barbecue. But Candice, finding Pete not there, she’d snuck back to the motel on excuse of needing to pee. And there she’d stumbled into him and started flirting shamelessly, though Pete’s old enough to be her dad and Candice herself is dumpy and ugly.

Right there, she’d showed how drunk she’d got. She gabbed about stuff she should never have touched. And Pete, being Pete, not only played along like the whole thing sounded hilarious, he managed to turn on his vid cam on the sly, and caught a whole bunch of her story as mpeg.

In the clip Pete showed, Candice talked about the exact fucking day when they’d sat on me in the school canteen. Lindy, watching, she started going pale. It wasn’t me who’d ratted her out. I guess, Candice got dumped as a friend on the spot.

At that point, Pete pointed out how Candice’s story matched the detail of mine. Even down to the bent-tubing table legs. Worse, in Barb’s eyes, Lindy had sworn on the family bible, then insisted it was me who was lying through my teeth. With the evidence clear, Lindy cracked and burst into tears.

She was guilty as charged, no contest, they said. They went out of the room to consider their options. They were gone a long time. I was left with my sister. But Lindy, she didn’t apologise once.

Our parents came back after maybe an hour.

“Lindy,” said Pete,” “you gave no choice to Kevin. But me and your mom, we’re giving you a choice.”

A choice between awful and worse, of course. First choice was, they’d take away her college fund. Completely. And once it was gone, she’d never get it back. She’d have to go out and get a job, as early as Monday. She’d have to start paying her way in the world, particularly in this household. She’d pay rent out of her wages. She’d have to start pulling her weight around the house, doing regular chores like washing clothes, cooking specified meals, helping me with my homework, a bunch of other things like cleaning the toilets. She’d have to be a proper, functioning, member of society.

Pete said he’d already lined a job up. She’d start working in the supermarket, just down the road. He’d had a word with the manager Scott and they were hiring, no problem. They took anyone, Scott said. She’d have to do some training, then that would be it. Stacking shelves for a while. Then on to the checkouts. Maybe later, helping in the café. Nine to five, five days a week.

Lindy was pale. She kept asking about her college fund. They’d give it her back, right? After maybe a few months? No, was the answer. A hard, solid no. If she took that option, that would be it. Permanent. Final. No going back.

She started looking frantic. I mean, I know she’d been being lazy and all, but some day, she’d have gone for the college thing. Her future, after all, was tied up in it. They’d said she’d have a choice? What was the choice?

Pete cleared his throat. He looked at Barb, checked out if she was still on side.

“The other option,” Pete said, “is that Kevin gets to take revenge. Old-fashioned old testament justice, young lady.”

He stared at my sister. Then he turned his head to look at me.

“We just couldn’t figure it out,” he said, his voice really softening. “Kevin, you were such a feisty little kid. All beans, all up, all go! Then, as you got to puberty… you just seemed to wilt. Son, I hope you don’t hate me for saying this, but you just seemed to die a little inside. And me and your mom, we tried to work it out. We tried this, we tried that. We asked questions… not too mean, not too confrontational. But we asked. We tried. We never found an answer.”

He smiled at me. Kind of sad, a little shy.

“We knew your sister had a hidden streak of mean. We’d seen it when you were both a lot younger. But it all seemed to stop. We didn’t hardly consider it, thought it was a phase she’d gone through. Then Candice Calman started shooting off her mouth.” He turned back to Barb. Asked, “You still quite sure you’re okay with this?”

She said, “It’s the only thing I can think of that might actually help Kevin turn the corner. We have to do something! Telling Lindy off, I just don’t think that would shift it.” She focused on Lindy. Said, “Don’t get me wrong, baby, you are my child just as much as Kevin is. But you broke a contract! You brought things into this family you never should have brought! You damaged us. You damaged Kevin!”

“What we figure,” said Pete, taking over again, “is, for Kev to move on, he has to slay his ghosts. And you, young lady, are the author of those ghosts. You humiliated him, not once, but many times. You might not have exactly tortured him, though there certainly was an element of that. But you shamed him! In front of, how many random girls? You used him, abused him, for your own bizarre ends. It’s just shocking what you put him through! Your own flesh and blood! And to slay those ghosts, we think Kevin needs some payback.”

The second option. A short, sharp shock, he said. Payback would require punishment in kind.

“You still want to go to college?” Pete asked.

“Yes. Please,” she said. Real quiet. Eyes flicking. Her hands kind of shaky.

“If you take this other route, you’ll retain your college fund. You won’t have to go out and get a job. You won’t be required to grow up overnight.”

She said, “Yes, I’ll do this one. Whatever it is.”

“Repayment in kind means that, for a specific period of time, you and Kevin will swap roles.”

Mom nodded yes with that weird little hint of later in her eyes. It’s kind of sad… or, I don’t know, is it? Me and Lindy, we think she still has a crush on him. I mean, like, even now? Even after they’ve been married for like, forever? He can get her to agree to things she’d never agree to unless he was about. She, I swear, gets squirmy in her seat when he gives her one of those looks, when he gives her a smack on her ass. When he slips his big man hand up under her skirt and, I swear, fucking pinches her ass. Like, with me and my sister even in the room?

“Lindy, you are guilty of humiliating your brother.”

“Ye-es?” she said.

“In this option, for a week, young lady, you’ll be grounded.”

I could see Nancy’s eyes go, pathetic or what? Grounded? For a week?

“You will not leave the house. Even though for us, life will have to go on. Even though there’ll be times when Kevin is the only other person in the house. Now, that part worries us. You just demonstrated how untrustworthy you are. So we’re gonna take steps so you are very unlikely to want to leave the house.”

She just listened, kind of placid. Still thinking, grounded? Easy.

“First off, your phone will be impounded, as of now. All computers off-limits. Internet forbidden, house phone inaccessible. No friends. No social media, nothing.”

“Yah I’ll do it,” said Lindy, calm.

“But, with all that, we still think there’s a strong-to-certain chance you’ll sneak out the house. So we’re gonna make sure you won’t want to in another way.”

Nancy asked, sarcastic, “What, you’ll lock me in the attic?”

“Nope,” said Barb, speaking with her chin lifted up, pointed out. “We’ll take away your clothes, you nasty little trollop!”

Nancy just stared at mom, jaw wide. Barb can say some silly things. And that, that had to be one of her moments. Her head turned to Pete. “That’s a joke, right?”

Pete just shrugged. “This option isn’t the only one. Lose the college fund, get a job, pull your weight.”

Nancy had gone red in the face, like I haven’t seen for half her life! She turned back to Barb. “I’ll have like, pyjamas for around the house, right?”

Barb stared back. “Nope,” she said.

“A fresh pair of panties! A bra every day?”

Barb shook her head, slow. “The tee shirt you hadn’t bothered to remove. That’s what you left Kevin, so said that awful little bitch Candice. She said Kevin begged you to give him his clothes. You gave him back his shoes and socks.”

“You can’t! What else?”

“And nothing else, young lady! Nothing at all! Because that’s what you gave Kevin. Nothing!”

“No!” said Lindy.

Pete shrugged. “So the college fund goes. It’s the supermarket Monday.”

“There’s some way else! That can’t be it!”

Barb said, “Nope.”

“You guys are not normal!” Lindy said.

“You made it very, very obvious,” Barb said back, “that neither are you. Neither are you!”

“We will also,” said Pete, “in option B, give Kevin a class of rights over you. The same class of rights that you took from him. To quote your drunk little friend on that clip, she and you and all your other friends, ‘Goosed him and stuff and smacked his silly ass and like, pinched his thing for like, half the afternoon, mister Wilson!’ And when I asked if he’d seemed to enjoy it at all, she’d said, ‘Geez, no! He cried though. I mean, quite a bit?’”

Lindy said, “You can’t be serious! No!, No, no!”

“Yeah,” said Pete. “Now, me and your mom, we thought for a while. And considered that statement, ‘half the afternoon.’ Now, considering the number of years that have passed since we first noticed your behaviour, we figure, this has to be the tip of an iceberg. So an afternoon is just not going to cut it. In this option, young lady, we let Kevin go old testament. An eye for an eye.”

Lindy looked frantic. “Barb, tell him fucking no!”

Now, if there’s one thing Barb hates, it’s being called Barb by Lindy or me. She barely even tolerates that name from Pete. She seems to like Baby, and half the fucking time she calls him sir, as in, ‘yes, sir!’ especially when Pete’s in ass-smacking mood. The second thing she hates is us swearing. So what Barb said was, “Lindy, you are your own worst enemy! You have a mouth like a slut and the manners of a trollop! It’s this or no to college forever! It’s this or you’re working in the supermarket!”

“How long?” Lindy asked, sounding close to forlorn. “I mean, out of the week?”

“All of it,” Pete said.

“That’s just not right! How can you let him do that to me?” Lindy shouted, “He’s my fucking brother!”

Barb said, “Well you were his sister when you sat on him, stripped him, invited your friends to treat him like an animal!”

“They pinched my thing,” I said.

Nancy near screeched, “You can’t let him pinch me!”

Pete, he just laughed. “We can,” he said, “or it’s your future down the toilet.”

I felt like the world was lifting off my shoulders. I was grinning ear to ear, like a kid on his birthday. “That girl said on the video, they goosed me, she said!”

“No,” said Lindy, “no, no, NO!”

Pete stared, all quiet. “Okay, you made it clear,” he said in the kind of voice like, decision made. “You’ve said no a whole lot now. And, as the saying goes, no means no. So the short, sharp option is now off the table. Your college fund is forfeit. First thing Monday morning you’ll be training at the supermarket.”

He rattled off a whole bunch more about that, while Lindy stared, shattered. He went through how she’d need to be trained, how much she’d be paying in rent, what the new house rules would be. And Lindy, in the middle, she just started crying. I mean, proper sobbing. She now believed that was it, decision made. No college. No fun. A checkout girl for the rest of her days. Her future down the toilet.

I cleared my throat. “To be honest, the other option had way more appeal for me,” I said. “So far as I’m concerned, you can still keep college. Just let me get my own back.”

Lindy, she looked up under wet, heavy eyelids. “You can’t pinch me,” she said.

“I can pinch you. They said.”

”Not hard!” she said.

“If it’s my rules, Lindy, it’s as hard as I feel like.”

“But, just for like, a couple of minutes?”

Barb chipped in. “Whenever. As often.”

“No!” she squealed. “You can goose me! That’s it!”

“Your dad and I discussed this,” Barb said. “You and your nasty little friends pinched him. Hard, according to Candice Corden. An eye for an eye. They spanked him as well. A whole gang of girls spanked my poor little boy. Grossly humiliated your precious younger brother. And you, young lady, you caused it to happen!”

“It’s not right,” she wailed, “you can’t let him spank me!” But it was quiet. She was acting like she knew it would happen.

Barb said, “It’ll happen as your drunk little friend said in the video. You spanked him. Pinched him. So for my part, those are both fair game for Kevin.”

Pete said, “You invited suggestions for humiliating acts. Then made him perform them in front of all your friends! It makes me sick just thinking about it!”

“We think,” said Barb, “we’ve convinced ourselves… that for Kev to move on, he needs to be able to balance the scales. And those scales, young lady, are so out of balance! Me and your mom have tossed this about till we’re blue in the face. While your grounding is in place, your little brother Kevin is the one in charge. Your drunk friend said you goosed him? Well, that’s on the table! And so far as I’m concerned, he can spank your sorry ass at will! And pinch. As much. As hard. As he likes. And you, young lady you will not attempt to retaliate! You’ll do as he tells you,” said Barb, voice all gravel. “But at least, young lady, we’re giving you the choice. It’s this way, or college!”

Lindy wailed, “That’s no choice at all!”

“It’s the choice you’ve got, you little bitch! It’s more than you gave your brother!”

2: RULES (Saturday)

After the family tribunal, we basically split two ways. Lindy went with Mom to the kitchen. I saw Barb was taking trash bags out of a cupboard. Me, I went with Pete.

I feel like I should give some background, about their lifestyle. Even though the house isn’t the smallest, Pete and mom never seem to have much money. Barb does like, a secretarial job with a PV installation company. Pete works as a joiner but that’s pretty on and off. The impression me and Lindy get is that they’re always pushed to pay the bills, Pete’s money is kind of sporadic and Barb’s, I guess, doesn’t pay too high. Hence the crappy old vehicles, the cheap motel.

One thing it does though, is put Pete in the house a lot. We’re used to him cooking us meals, doing the laundry, ironing. He’s got a workshop by the garage, sometimes his joinery jobs get done there.

That was where he took me to talk. He said, “Sorry about the melodrama.”

“I’m not,” I said. “Lindy’s face was just…”

“Yeah,” he said, “that must have been cool.” He’d sat at a breakfast bar stool he uses by his work bench. “Don’t get the wrong idea,” he said.

“About what?”

“About… well I guess, your mom and me. Our motivation? I mean, over Lindy. Not for you. What I said… you know… about you slaying your ghosts. I want that for you. I mean, me and your mom have been talking about it, since that stupid girl shot her mouth off. This option… it’s pretty radical. I don’t suppose there’s many in your mom’s church who’d agree with what we’ve decided to do. But for Lindy… okay, she’s been incredibly mean to you over the years. But just to be clear, our idea is to liberate you. Not… you know… to do the opposite to her. But to get the first result, well we both of us get that there has to be a cost to her.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You mean, you want me to go easy on her?”

Pete scratched his head. “Well… no. I guess not. What I’m trying to say, son… there are boundaries. Okay okay, she crossed them herself, and that’s shameful of her. What I mean though, is…”

He couldn’t seem to say what he meant. I tipped my head.

“I guess I’ve just got to say it. No sexual contact.”

“Gross!” I said.

“Okay.” He held his hand up. “Okay, I hear you! Good, very good.” He thought some more. “Kevin? There’ll be times when we’re not around. I mean, I know I’m here a lot, but this coming week? I have a job on. I’m gone!”

“Oh, okay,” I said.

“Your mom, she’s taken some days off instead. Because… you know… we think there should be one of us around. For most of the time.”

“I get it,” I said.

‘But even then there’ll be days she can’t be here. It was either this week, or, well, most likely it was never gonna happen. But the thing is… she’ll be naked, right?”

“Who, Lindy? I guess.”

“I just don’t think I should be around that too much.”

I frowned. “Why not?”

“Because… she’s my daughter. I mean, that’s not normal. And I really don’t think I should be present when you… spank her, and stuff.”

That took me by surprise. “I kind of figured though,” I said, “this thing might be your idea, not mom’s.”

He looked thoughtful. “Why?”

“Because… well, you smack mom’s ass sometimes.”

He laughed. “That would assume that you think the one smacking is the one in charge.”

“Yeah of course,” I said.

He was shaking his head, slow, half smiling. “I choose when to do it. To some extent. That’s about it though. Even then, I only half way choose. I’ll tell you, but you’re not allowed to tell Lindy. Kev, you kept her secret for years, even though the cost was always to you.”

“Tell me what?” I asked.

“Yeah, I smack your mom. I smack her more when you’re not around. It’s a game we play.”

“O…kay?” I said.

“A game your mom started. Before you or even Lindy were born.”

“A game mom started?”

“Yep. Maybe in secret I wanted to do it. But your mom, she told me when. Showed me how. It’s your mom who sets the rules.”

I was trying to get my head around it. “She’s, like… in charge of you being in charge of her?”

“Yep.”

“No way!”

“She tells me when she wants it. With her actions. With her comments.”

“When she calls you sir?”

“There you go. That’s one signal.”

I just blinked. I was still so surprised.

“You know whose idea the college fund was. I mean like, taking it away?’

“Hers?” I asked.

“No, son. That was mine. You know whose idea Lindy naked was?”

“The way you talked in there, I figured it was yours.”

“And you’d be wrong. It was your mother’s. You know whose idea you spanking her was?”

“I guess… Mom’s again?”

“‘She’s a brat,’ your mom said. ‘Lindy is being an incredible brat. And brats want controlling.’ Me, I nearly lost it because I thought at first she meant I should be the one to do it.”

“What, spank Lindy and stuff?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I told her no so fast. She thought I’d said no to the whole idea. It was only later, a day or so, that I got what the real idea was. It wasn’t me she meant to do it, or even her, but you. Your mom came up with that old testament thing, an eye for an eye. Your mom pointed out it was for you, not for Lindy.”

“A spank for a spank.”

“It’s to help you build back up, son. To help you reset. Wipe the slate clean, the slate of how you feel about yourself.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I get it.”

“So your mom, for  the sake of propriety,  she’ll be around the house most of the time. But I won’t. This is not something I want to be tempted by. Seeing my own daughter in… that kind of situation. Even though I think she totally deserves it. But just so you know, you know I know you know the rule.”

“No… I know… sexual contact.”

“Like, you know what I mean by that, son, don’t you?” And he pointed to my crotch. “No putting that thing anywhere it shouldn’t go!”

I got to give him credit, he made an awkward conversation easy.

I guess the same kind of deal had been going on between Lindy and Barb. Except, in their case, a lot more catty. Because when I saw Lindy, boy was she stressed. Outside Pete’s workshop we could hear the shouting. Barb, telling Lindy to grow up, Lindy squealing out all kinds of high-pitched girlie shit. Lindy wasn’t making Barb’s life easy, that’s for sure.

Me and Pete went into the kitchen. On its table were Lindy’s laptop, phone, even headphones. In the family room, Pete set to work unplugging the house phone and winding up its wires. Next, he said he’d disconnect the feed to the TV.

“I guess, DVDs should be okay,” he said, “but the cable has internet. If Lindy can get to that, there’s facebook and a ton of friends. She could even get one to come and spring her.”

“So what about my phone?”

“You can keep yours,” he said, “but we’re setting up a login.”

Since he was still busy, I thought I’d go up to see what Lindy was squealing about. Turns out that Barb was in her room, with Lindy glaring and sniping while Barb filled trash bags with Lindy’s clothes.

Barb sounded pretty stressed herself, “Keep on like that young lady and these won’t be just be locked in the garage. They’ll be in charity shop, gone for good!”

Lindy saw me coming. She said, “What are you looking at, creep?”

I said, “Looking at anything I want, soon enough.”

In Lindy’s room, Barb threw a bunch of tops into a sack. One drawer closed and another opened. Next it was bras. Lindy’s aren’t the smallest. My sister is curvy, kind of like Mom. I mean, she’s not humungous. They’re not a pair of party balloons. But maybe good-sized mangoes. Maybe grapefruit or a couple smaller melons. Sometimes she skips on bras. I’ve seen glimpses of them swinging free. If she runs down the stairs when she’s dressed like that, it’s an eyeful of bouncing.

My friend Billy from a few doors away, he was here for a sleepover. He insisted on us camping in the hallway, near the bottom of the stairs. Mom couldn’t get her head around it. We made up a story about wanting all the space of the hallway above us. It’s the one place in the house with double-height ceilings. Really it was so he’d see Lindy coming down in the morning, or even on the landing, maybe see up her skirt. And, yeah, he finally saw her, but I had to kick him. He’d dozed off. Then he only got to see her for half of the way. But the way he talked after, he’d been looking up at her bouncing boobs for easy half the morning.

I was looking at her now. Yeah, I know, she’s my sister, I get it. When I started getting stiffies though, she was right there as an image. Me, when I first came, I had no idea what was going on. My thing just exploded one night in the bath. The picture in my head? Of my sister, how I’d seen her a few nights before. Asleep on her bed, the sheets around her ankles, lying on her front with her ass poking up. Deliberate? No. But that sure was the picture that my dick first cannoned off to.

That’s another part of her that’s not the smallest. Lindy has an ass to match her boobs, a waist near half the width of either. Tall she isn’t, long of leg and limb she’s not. But curves… hell yes, my sister has curves!

She’s pretty as well, even I can see that. But pretty doesn’t mean she’s the sweetest girl inside. Pretty mean, pretty nasty, like I’ve said already.

Pretty naked soon, as well. They had to be kidding, surely? No way could they let this to happen between us! No way could they let me get my own back like this! But looking at her stood outside of her room, arms folded tight and angry, jaw jutting, mouth pouting, what I wanted wasn’t to smack her ass or pinch her somewhere painful. I wanted to see her stripped to the bare.

Later. Door shut, Lindy sulking alone in her room. Phone and laptop gone, drawers and cupboards emptied. I’d wandered past, wondering if she was naked yet, but when I knocked on her door, she just grunted, “Fuck off!”

So I went down to the kitchen, and outside I heard Pete and Barb talking things out. Still doing their tip-toe moral dance.

I caught Pete saying, “Are we sure we’re sure about this, hon?”

“Yes,” she said. Then, “No. But we had to do something! I’m just so, so mad at her! My poor little boy! You still think it’s too much? I can’t see through my temper!”

“I know, I know it’s radical,” he said. “But this has to be right. She’s crushed him. What we’re planning, it just might lift that weight up off his back.”

I took a breath and walked right in. Tried to act like I hadn’t heard, went straight for the fridge like food was all I was thinking about.

“Hey,” Pete said, his voice going louder. “Kevin! Your sister out of her room yet?”

“No,” I said. “Does she have to be?”

“She’ll have to be sometime,” Barb said to Pete. “Maybe sooner than later.” But they neither did anything about it, not then.

I got an ice pop from the freezer. Opened it, took a suck. “Hey, Mom? Dad? How long’s a week?”

“A week?” Barb asked.

“If she’s grounded for a week, when does it start?”

“Well it’s Saturday today,” said Pete. “A week would finish Friday.”

“Today doesn’t count,” I said. “She’s still in her room. Most of the day’s gone.”

“I guess Kevin has a point,” said Barb.

“Saturday,” Pete said. “End of Saturday would be seven days.”

“But the end of a week is Sunday,” I said.

“Then you’d have to start Monday.”

“No, she’s grounded now,” said Barb, “We can’t let her out once we’ve told her she’s grounded.”

“She might run away as well,” I said.

Pete looked worried all of a sudden. “She’s still in there, right?”

“She grunted,” I said. “Said I should f off.”

Barb, she pursed her mouth at that. “She’s been awful all day. Some of the things she said to me. Frankly, if her grounding lasted till the end of Sunday next, it’s no more than she deserves.”

“I… I kind of want it to start,” I said. “Like… everything you said? I just… I want to start tomorrow? Maybe?”

“There sure is an atmosphere.” Pete was watching me. “Sunday to Sunday what you’re after, champ? Eight days better than seven, maybe?”

Barb sounded whiny. “A week Sunday is my sister’s baby’s Christening. We have to be there, and you know what they’re like. They’ll want us staying late, for sure.”

“You want me to be honest?” Pete asked. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for Lindy to go to the christening. I think would just be too soon after… this.”

“Leave her home, then? If we’re leaving her here, maybe Kevin’s got it right.”

Pete looked like he was laughing. “Leave Kevin to baby sit?”

I said, “I’d do it! Christenings are really dull.”

Pete looked me direct in the eye. “If you don’t have control of your sister by then, it’s never gonna happen.”

“You think it’s appropriate?” Barb asked Pete.

“By then,” he said, “We’ll know, I guess.”

Barb’s eyes flicked upstairs. “Well the little bitch deserves it, that’s for sure.”

“So I baby sit Lindy?”

Pete said, “Kevin sure can skip your sister’s. He’ll be bored. I know I will.”

That got him a frown, but I could tell. Pete for one figured, in for a penny. An eight day week, that’s what they decided.

Later still. Lindy still upstairs, hid away. Mom was getting anxious. “We’ve got to pull the trigger,” she said. “I don’t want her running away in the night.”

Pete, he nodded. Barb went into the hallway. Called, “Alright, young lady! Time to stop sulking! Downstairs, now!”

No answer. So Pete took up the call. “Lindy? Your mom is right! You get down here before we change our minds! Your college fund is hanging by a thread!”

“Let it fucking hang!” she called back.

That did it for mom. “Lindy!” she shouted with a voice like a saw blade. “Right now! Downstairs! No excuses!”

There was just a short pause. Then we heard her door crack open. Heard feet above us. She came on down, still dressed. Like the saying, with a face like a well-slapped ass. Once she was in the kitchen, Mom hit the ground running.

“Me and your dad have noted your behaviour since the family tribunal. Far less than ideal. You swore at me more times than a daughter has a right to. You’ve been rude to your dad. Even worse, rude to Kevin.”

“Rude to Kevin?” She looked scandalised.

“Yep,” said Pete. “We understand you told him to f off just a while ago. And just so you know, Kevin didn’t tell us to try to stir more trouble. You’ve seen to that yourself. Your attitude, young lady, does not bode well.”

“That can’t go on.” said Barb. “As of now, you’e fully grounded. Till the end of Sunday.”

Lindy said with a frown, “Tomorrow’s Sunday.”

“Yep,” said Pete. “We mean Sunday next.”

“You said a week!”

Mom said, “It’s the end of next Sunday to show you your attitude just won’t do!”

Lindy glased at me. “What about him?”

“Kevin’s rights are also extend to midnight Sunday next.”

“Why?”

Pete said, “To show you that being a pain in the ass has consequences, Lindy!”

“Not only that,” Barb said, “but that punishment starts immediately! And you know what that is! So, go ahead… strip!”

I glanced at Pete. I don’t think he’d expected Barb to say that. He saw me looking. Set his jaw. Looked back. “You heard your mother. Strip,” he said. “Now.”

Lindy just stood there. Rigid. Blushing. Then she finally said, in this kind of weak voice, “You just can’t. It’s indecent! You just can’t make me strip everything off.”

“We can,” said Barb. “You agreed yourself. So all of it! Now!”

“You can’t!” Her eyes were darting, frantic. “We never made him strip to the bare! Kevin, we never took everything off of him! You gotta let me keep something on!”

Barb started young ladying Lindy, but Pete said, “Way I heard it, you let him keep on his shoes and socks.” He shrugged. “Fine by me if we leave you those.”

“I mean something to cover me up!”

Barb had gone quiet. Her and Pete, they try hard not to contradict each other. She watched him. But he looked at me. “So, Kevin,” he said, “maybe you should have the choice. If your sister had to keep one item of clothing, what would it be? A skirt? A top?”

“A swim suit!” said Lindy. “Like, an all-over swim suit? That’s just one piece!”

“Kevin?” Pete asked. “You get the choice.”

“Can I pick it?” I asked. “Like, the thing itself?”

“Sure,” said Pete.

I whispered in his ear. He smiled. He passed it on so Mom got to hear.

“But that’s kind of indecent,” Mom said. “Besides, I’m trying to wean her off them.” Then she seemed to see the joke. “Aversion therapy?”

Lindy didn’t know what we were talking about. Mom went to the garage. She waved me with her. I picked three of the shortest, so she’d have a change. We came back with them in a bag.

“That’s something for me to wear?” Lindy asked.

Barb nodded. “Now, strip!”

I could see Pete’s face. He was trying to not look. Me, I watched the lot.

Lindy didn’t do it sexy. She went red again. Blouse first. Then her mini. She started to go for her shoes, which were kind of sensible, but Pete told her no, she could keep those on. Mom said she’d get a change of socks as well. Then Lindy was stood just in her bra and pants, pink and flowery both.

“Everything,” said Barb. “Then you get what Kevin picked for you.”

It cost her, I could see. When she took off the bra, she was looking at the ceiling, eyes twitchy, even wet. When she pulled it off, her tits swung free. They’re heavy, like I said. Pear shaped, up-out-pointy. Big, tan aureoles. Nipples turning hard in the cold. She held onto the bra. Then kind of threw it away with a jerk.

“Panties,” said Barb.

“I can’t!” said Lindy. “Pete and Kevin are looking on!”

“I’ll go out,” said Pete.

“No you won’t,” said Barb. “Missy! Strip!”

Lindy, grudging, hooked her thumbs in her panties, which were big ones, ass-shaped. She stood awkward a second. Said, “This isn’t right!” Then she pulled them down, quick. Let them drop to her ankles. Stepped out, arms dangling, eyes back to the ceiling. Said, “Please, just give me the clothes from the bag!”

Mom handed them to me. I took the first one, threw it to Lindy. She caught it. Stared. Looked angry, embarrassed. Stamped a single foot.

“Put it on,” said Barb.

Lindy, looking redder than ever, pulled it over her head and down into place.

A top. Real short. I’d heard Barb say how much she hated Lindy wearing tops this short. She did it to shock, going out with her friends. With it and just sensible shoes and socks, she looked nakeder now than with nothing at all. A tiny black top with, “HANDS OFF!” printed on, ended just above the underside curve of her tits. Too small across her bust now as well, since I guess she’d grown bigger since she’d bought it last year.

Below the top, the pinch of her waist. The curve of her belly down to her crotch. The swell of her hips. Thighs slimming to knees. White socks, black shoes.

Barb picked her other clothes up off the floor, took them to the garage. Locked the door as she came back out.

“Kevin picked two other tops,” said Barb. “Barely bigger than that. One a day, then the others can be washed. Socks the same. The shoes you’re stuck with. And, Lindy, everything else is off limits. From now till…”

“Midnight,” Pete said. “Sunday week.”

By then it was ten at night. Pete left the room. He looked real uncomfortable with Lindy like that. Me and Barb stayed with Lindy in the kitchen.

“Now then young lady, the punishment proper! We need to make sure you’re prepared to comply!”

Lindy’s eyes widened. “You’re letting this little creep spank me right now?”

I heard that and I started breathing faster. Lindy was embarrassed, but so was I!

“From now till the end of next Sunday,” said Barb, “Kevin has the rights we already discussed! And you, young lady, have accepted he has them. Kevin? Ready? Tell your sister how you want her.”

My mouth wouldn’t open. I gulped air like a goldfish.

“She means how do you want me standing, dummy.”

“I guess… turned around?”

‘Kevin?” Mom said, “it might be best giving clear, firm instructions.”

“Yeah,” I said, but I froze again. My mind went blank and Lindy just tutted.

Mom whispered in close. “I know you’re embarrassed. It’s only the start. You want a suggestion?”

“Yes. Please,” I said.

“Tell her to pull out a chair and lean over it. Hands go on the flat of the seat.”

“Oh,” I said. “Oh, okay.” I told Lindy.

She glared at mom. Then she sniffed. Her embarrassment was turning to angry. She dragged the chair out, clumped it hard on the floor.

“So yeah,” I said. “Like, your hands should over, flat on the seat.”

“The chair back’s in the way,” she said.

Mom shrugged. You tell her, that was kind of what the shrug meant.

“Yeah, so? That’s where your belly goes.”

The chair back was low enough for her hands to go down flat, but it looked kind of awkward. Mom said, “Lindy, hold the edges of the seat. You’ll find that easier.”

She changed her grip. I’d expected I’d be hard, but I wasn’t, even though I could see the undersides of her tits hanging down in the skimpy top. I took a big suck of air in, let it out. Flexed my hand. Held it out near her ass. She was trying to turn her head to look around. Left ways, right ways. I’m a right, for the most part. I held it so close to her ass, I felt its heat.

Lindy’s mouth lets her down. “So is that it, dumb ass?” was what she said.

I smacked. Not hard. It felt weird. Swing back, then forwards. Half a smack. Then a wobble. I blew out a breath. Went again.

“It wobbles,” I said.

“Jesus Christ,” said Lindy.

Barb sneered. Mouthed, “Harder!” I pulled back and smacked the other cheek. Didn’t hit it straight. Wondered about how many were allowed.”

“Kevin, Lindy, you know the rules,” said Barb. “I’m going to check how your dad is getting on. Lindy? Give Kevin any trouble, we can ground you longer. Or the supermarket, Monday.”

She left the kitchen. As she left, she caught my eye. And winked.

I thought for a minute, thought Lindy might get up and give me hell. Instead, she said, “So I guess you’re finally getting what you want. Well, you better make the most of it! This week won’t last forever!”

She hadn’t moved though. Still over the chair back. “Hey sis,” I said, “eight days feels like forever right now.” And I smacked her other cheek. Kind of harder than before. It half way hurt my hand. Then I smacked her first a couple times more. The last one, she sucked air and grunted. “Asshole!” she cursed. Her ass had wobbled wickedly, my hand had left a hand print!

I did it without really thinking. Put my foot between her feet, pushed the left one left. Kicked the right till she moved it right herself. It came easier now without anyone watching. The kitchen door was open. I guessed Barb and Pete could hear the basics. Ass slaps make noise, right? Mom left us for a while. Must have been weird for them both, now I think. Hearing that and just letting it happen.

Then Barb came back. She’d given us maybe ten, fifteen minutes. Lindy’s ass was pretty red, both sides. My hand felt like a bee had stung it. I was jazzed, but it was enough for just then. I ran out to find Pete, left Lindy with Barb. I have no idea what they talked about.

Pete had taken Lindy’s bedroom door off its hinges and was half way to taking off the bathroom door. He got me to help him heft them down to the garage. Me and Lindy, we share a bathroom. Pete told me I could use his and mom’s en-suite. But Lindy, she’d be stuck with ours.

3: DAWN (Sunday)

We stood in the garage. The doors Pete had taken off were propped against the back wall. “You think this is this going to work?” he asked. “I have to know, Kevin. It’s a massive risk we’re taking.”

“I feel… I feel weird,” I said, “I didn’t see this coming. But I feel kind of light.”

Light? Well that’s good for starters.” He went quiet, looked aside. “Eight days,” he said. “Is that… is it too much? Isn’t it?”

“You’re asking me? No! Dad, I’m… it’s like my hands are shaking. Only not shaking, and not my hands. All inside me.”

He was looking on, head cocked.

“I don’t know how to say it. Like… like when you drop a bottle of coke? And you open it? I feel like that. Inside.”

He blew out air. “The idea of you finally getting your own back, that’s very cool. I mean, I know we weren’t really too clever about working out what was going on. But now that we have… now the decision’s been made… I kind of envy you. You can put all that behind you.

“And your sister… well from now, she’s always gonna know it’s a two way street. A long time ago I used to catch her doing little things to you. Even from when you were both kind of small. Pinching your ear. Pushing nasty things down your pants. A whole bunch of evil little things she maybe never even knew we’d noticed at the time. What I figure is… what your mom and I figure is… if she did things like that when we were in the room, she probably did a lot more when we weren’t. It must happen a lot with different-aged kids. All it takes is a jealous nature, and the size and age difference makes it just so easy. But… you should have said something. When it got that bad.”

He looked down, shook his head.

“Na, forget that. What’s done is done. And there’s just no denying, that girl has a  mean streak. She’s just got so bad, we had to take action. When we realised the extent, the sheer vindictiveness of what she’d been doing… then your mom suggested a way to redress that awful skewing.”

He went quiet again.

“But you gotta know, Kev, I’m kinda worried. That we may be allowing just too much swing back.” He touched me on my head, stroked my hair. Asked, “Will you do something for me?”

“Sure,” I said, thinking it was gonna be, ‘go easy on Lindy.’ He seemed to be thinking. Then he smiled, quick. And winked.

“You just make sure you make up for lost time. Okay son?”

I laughed. My dad can be great sometimes. “What if she won’t, though? What if I can’t make her take it?” I asked.

“We warned her enough about the college fund. We really will take it. But you can always… and don’t tell your Mom I said this, okay?” And he laughed. “You can always try blackmail. She did other things, right?”

I nodded.

“A lot?”

“Enough.”

“Tell her you’ll tell us. Like, even though we know about the dining room thing? We don’t know about this thing she did here, that thing she did there.”

“I got a list ten times that long. I probably got some she doesn’t even remember.”

“See?” he said. “But if that doesn’t work, we can think of something else.”

I slept. I didn’t think I would, but I must have fallen asleep soon after I got in bed. When I woke, it was a different day. You could see light behind my curtains, just real early dawn, nearly nothing. And I knew it was my day. Because that’s what they’d said, all day. For eight days. And all day includes real early, right?

I crept into her room. I figured I just wanted to gloat, to think about what I might do to her. There wasn’t even a creaking door to warn her.

It was hot. I’d woken up hot, and Lindy had clearly been hot as well. She was in that same position, lying on her front. It’s got to be a favourite, I guess she does it all the time. The bed sheets had been pulled off her ass, pushed down around her ankles. Her ass, of course, was naked.

Ever since we’d talked about me pinching her, I’d been brushing my nails on the pads of my fingers. Normally Mom cuts them regular. They were ready for it now, but she hadn’t got around to it. So I had an edge to pinch with. And there were her two ass cheeks, fully naked, kind of begging for it. She even had her legs apart, with one out straight and the other with the knee bent, still just about under one fold of the sheet. I just stared, real quiet. Should I do it? I wanted to do it so bad.

The thing that got me, that cut through all that, were Pete’s words last night. “Just make sure you make up for lost time,” he’d said. That, and the fact that I’d spanked her some already. After Barb had left the room, I’d moved Lindy’s legs some inches apart. And she’d just let me do it, hadn’t commented. I was spanking her, sure. She was making snide comments.

“I suppose you’re just loving this, you fucking little creep. If they hadn’t threatened to ruin my life, you wouldn’t be there and I wouldn’t be here.”

But when I spanked her harder, she barely made a comment. Just grunted. Just took it. Kind of like she’d expected it that hard all along. I guess maybe that’s how she’d have done it herself?

When I pushed her feet even wider apart, she left them where I stopped. With mom there, I’d spanked how I figured you should spank. Slap in the middle, hand edge square to the floor. When Mom left the room, I carried on the same. The more snidey Lindy got though, the more I figured, fuck you too. So I slapped her up high, where her ass becomes her hips. No comment. Just a grunt. I slapped her in close, with my finger tips near where her ass meets her crack. No comment, just a grunt.

Then, “Fuck. You’re fucking loving this. Jesus!”

“Yeah, well we all know what you love, Lindy. At least I don’t need an audience to believe I exist.”

I could see her going red at that. Red, jaw-clamped, even hurt. That had got her way more than the slaps and spanks. Still, I only really stopped when I heard Barb’s footsteps coming back down the stairs.

Morning. Lindy’s ass on show. We don’t live too close to anyone else. Maybe that’s good. Because when I pinched her ass, with one thumbnail in skin right up top of her thigh, with the other just the far side of the crease where her ass meets, and dug in and twisted, her screech could have woken up half a city block.

I had to duck her arm. Straight out of sleep, she was lashing behind her. Then screaming at me, swearing. She jerked her arm out, grabbed a wrist, yanked me in towards her. Her other hand landed a thump on my ear.

Then Pete was in the room, pyjamas all loose, light on and shouting. Barb was squinting behind him in a night dress far too short for any mom.

“Lindy, let him go! What’s the screaming?”

“He pinched my ass! The little asshole woke woke me up with pliers in my ass!”

Mom came from behind, wrestled Lindy’s hands off me. I cradled my ear, cause it fuckin stung.

“Did you hit him, Lindy?”

“He pinched my goddam ass with fucking pliers!”

“Don’t you swear!” shouted Barb. For her, swearing is worse than most anything.

“I don’t spy any pliers,” said Pete.

Lindy, wrestling loose from mom, tried to pull on her ass to see where I’d pinched. Pete sucked through his teeth.

“Well yeah, he’s left marks. From his nails, if figure.”

Mom said, real strident in this gravelled, angry wake-up voice, “Well of course he pinched your ass! He’s allowed to pinch your ass! That’s no excuse to hit him!”

Pete was trying to stifle a laugh at that. “Best say you’re sorry to your brother, Lindy.”

“Say what?” she screeched. “You’re both fucking crazy!”

Mom said, “Ah Pete, she’s never going to learn! This is pointless!”

Pete said, “Kevin? You are technically… and I say this with feeling… you are technically allowed to pinch your sister Lindy. But, son! At barely half after five in the morning? Would you try to be nice to your mom and me, at least?”

The look on Lindy’s face at that… well I wish I’d had a camera.

Mom said, “We both get real cranky if we don’t get our sleep!”

Pete said, “We’re up by seven fifteen, son. Okay? Can’t you wait until then?”

I acted all down and glum for a moment. “If you want. I suppose. I guess I could wait till seven fifteen.”

The pair of them laughed. But Lindy, no way. She glared at me and glared at me.

We all went back to bed. I slept later than seven fifteen myself. Till eight, in fact. When I came down, breakfast was out on the table and Mom and Dad were dressed up for church. Lindy was sat at the breakfast table. Ass-naked except for a cut-down top, at the far end of the breakfast table, chair drawn close as she could get it underneath. When the others weren’t looking, I ducked my head to look below. Yep. Knees together. Socks and shoes. Nothing else on.

Barb asked, “Feel like coming to church with us, Kevin?”

I kind of like it. I mean, really, it can be cool. All those folks dressed up real nice. The priest is kind of funny, he tells real funny stories sometimes. There’s this girl I like, sometimes I sit near her and we play stupid hand games when we kneel to pray. “Will Jenny Madder be there?”

“She might be,” said Mom.

“I think the Madders are away on holiday,” said Dad.

“Oh. Then probably she won’t be, Kevin.”

“I might stay here,” I said.

“Lindy?” Mom asked. “Oh well no, I don’t suppose you’re really dressed appropriately. You’ll have to stay with Kevin, then.”

Pete said, “I had another think and I removed all of the window lock keys. Afraid the house might be stuffy till we’re back.” Then he looked at Lindy. “Normally we’d say, look after your brother. Only this time… no.”

“Lindy?” Mom asked. “This is real important, real important. Your brother is in charge. You don’t hit him. You do what he tells you. You got that? Because Kevin will tell us every single infraction. Won’t you, Kevin?”

I was looking straight at Lindy. “Maybe,” I said. “I just might. We’ll see.”

Lindy said, “So he just gets to… whatever he wants?”

“Kevin knows there are limits,” said Pete.

It was a while before they went out to the church, though. Lindy’s ass was crushed up against the back of the chair she’d bent over last night. The backs have spokes. I wandered behind her to test things out. It was kinda funny, her trying to eat her breakfast, not knowing what I was about to do. Pretty soon I pulled a chair up right behind her. The first pinch I did was just a nip. She started pushing back though, but Barb said, “Lindy? Stop!”

“But he pinched me,” she said.

“Yeah hon, we know. But he obviously wants to.”

“I have to just… sit and let the little asshole do it? That’s barbaric!” she declared.

Mom lost her temper. “Barbaric is stripping him in front of your friends! Barbaric is shaming your brother! Lindy? So it’s one rule for you, another for him?”

Lindy poured some cereals and milk. I watched her. Started timing it. She kept trying, right hand lifting the spoon. Towards her mouth. Then, pinch. I got her to spill at least four soggy spoonfulls of corn flakes on her cut-away top. It was fun, but after a while I wanted breakfast.

“Can I please go to my room now, Kevin?” Lindy asked, sarcastic.

“No,” I said. The others kept quiet.

Lindy sounded offended. “Can he really tell me no?”

“Yep,” said Pete.

“Seriously? Mom?”

“If he can spank you and pinch you, he can tell you to stay.”

“See?” I said.

“Jesus,” she said.

“You brought this on yourself,” said Pete.

“But what if he tells me to do stupid shit?”

Barb was in so fast it kind of shocked me. That angry edge to her voice again. “Language, Lindy! That’s part of what got you into trouble in the first place!”

“But… he’s a little asshole! You know he is!”

Mom shouted her answer. She’d really lost her rag. “You do just what he tells you, missy! Your brother’s a hundred percent in charge!”

Pete chimed in, oh-so clam compared to Barb, “Your mom is right, hon. That’s just how it is.”

I went back behind her, pinched a butt cheek for fun.

Lindy, she doesn’t know when to stop. “If he tells me to, what, do something disgusting? That’s just okey dokey with you two morons?”

I watched them. Barb looked at Pete. Tipped her head like she was asking a question, then shot a filthy look at Lindy. Pete looked back, nodded. It was real, real small, but I saw it clear, and so did Barb.

“That’s exactly what you do, young lady.”

Lindy gawped, astonished, “Are you two seriously going with this?”

“You brought it on yourself, you little hussy,” said Barb. “All your swearing! Those… disgusting tops you wear! Skirts about as short as a middle-sized belt! What do you expect with behaviour like that?”

“Dad, you can’t let him!” Lindy pleaded.

Barb pointed a finger. “You’ll do what he says while we’re both out at church! While me and your Dad are out, Kevin is in charge! You hear us, Lindy? Or your college fund is gone, just as fast as that!” And she snapped her fingers.

Church isn’t far. The services are usually an hour and fifteen. I figured I had an hour and a half.

They locked the door behind them as they went. They promised not to invite the priest back for tea and biscuits after the service.

4: SERVICE (Sunday)

Pete had a thought before him and Mom went out to church. He handed me a clip board with a piece of paper and a ball point pen. “You just write her infringements on there, son,” he said.

Then it was just me and her. I looked at the clock. Looked at my sister. Looked at the mostly empty cereal bowl in front of her. I went to the fridge. Poured some milk out.

She said, “What’s that for, asshole?”

“Saying asshole’s an infringement. Any swearing’s an infringement. I won’t write that down, but if you swear again, I will. You heard them, right? Any infringement.

She was trying not to swear. She asked, “Why did you put milk in the cereal bowl?”

“Say, please Kevin, why did you put milk in the cereal bowl?”

She glared at me real hard. I was leaning back against a work top just down the end past where Pete had been sat. I had the clipboard poised and ready to write. She said it deadpan. “Please Kevin, why did you put milk in the cereal bowl?”

“Tits are for making milk.”

“What?” she said.

“Tits and milk go together.”

She pulled a face.

“So put your tits in the milk.”

“No,” she said.

“Saying no is an infringement.” I lifted the pen.

“Kevin, please.”

“Put your tits in the milk.”

“And what does an infringement get?”

“No idea. They’ll make it up.”

“I can’t!” she said.

“Yes you can. Stand up. Lean forward. Put your tits in the bowl.”

“Kevin, it’s not right! You’re my brother!”

“Want me to telling Barb about the time you shoved me in poison ivy?”

She didn’t answer for a minute. Then, “I didn’t. You fell in it.”

“That’s what I told them, yeah. After you threatened to take my pants down. Make me sit in it. Should I tell them the truth?”

“They won’t believe you.”

“No? You know it’s true though. And even if it wasn’t, right now they’ll believe most anything I say. They’re letting me spank you. Pinch you. Ass-naked. What d’you think they’d let me do if I tell them you pushed me in that poison ivy? Put your tits in the milk, or I tell them what you did.”

She huffed. Pushed the chair back. Stood up. Started leaning. Stopped. went red.

“Kevin, please!”

“Put your tits in the milk!”

She went down. Her tits point away from each other. She could only get one in. So I got another bowl from the drying rack. Put it on the table, splashed in milk, pushed it next to the other one.

“One for each.”

“Very funny.”

I went behind her. Moved the chair out of the way. Said, “Feet apart.”

She didn’t.

“Feet apart!”

“Kevin, please.”

“Right, I’m writing poison ivy,” I said.

She stepped her feet sideways. It dropped her tits in both cereal bowls.

I stood behind. Bent, looked up the crack of her ass. Reached out. Squeezed.

She jumped, must have figured I meant to pinch. Milk went over the table top.

“Tits back in, moo cow.”

She stood up straight up and turned. She was dripping milk. She said, “Aren’t you ashamed? You and Mom and Dad, I should divorce you!”

“Have to marry us first.”

“You know what I mean.”

“They’re really pointy. Least that one is.”

She looked where I was looking. “Well the milk’s cold,” she said. “Asshole.”

“Cow. Least my asshole’s covered. You’re the one with milk dripping off your tits.”

“Fuck off.”

I started writing.

“Stop!” she said.

“Put your tits in the milk.”

“We could gang up against them.”

“Who, Pete and Barb? No need. They’re on my side.”

“You’re… horrible!” she said

“Put your tits in the bowls.”

She ground her jaw. Turned around. Half dipped.”

“Go on, or I’ll finish what I’m writing, Lindy.”

She leaned, dipped her tits in the bowls again.

“Feet wider apart.”

A little pause. Then she did it.

I stood behind, put down the clipboard. Measured up a practice swing. I don’t think she knew what I was doing. Then I spanked her. It felt great, once I’d done it, once she’d grunted and jumped. Said, “Fuck!” real quiet.

“Swearing’s not allowed.”

I spanked her again. Took a swing, smacked the lower half of an ass cheek. Then again with the other.

She’d gripped the edge of the table top, to stop herself splashing out milk with her tits. I didn’t like it much. “Hands on your head, Lindy.”

She peeled them off. “Asshole. How many times are you planning to spank?”

“How many times? What does that mean? How many minutes?”

“Times!” she said. “Times!”

Spanking, like I said, it hurt my hand as well as her ass. But I thought, I know when I’m going to do it. Where it’s going to hurt. She doesn’t. That’s worse. I spanked her right on the top of a thigh.

She sucked breath in, flinched, “Nobody said you could spank there!” she said.

“No-one said I couldn’t.”

“Well you can’t!”

“I say I can. They said I’m in charge.” I leaned in, pinched one of her pussy lips.

She squealed, shouted, “Stop it!”

I spanked her right where I’d done it before, at the top of her leg.

She’d jerked nearly every time. Hands still on her head. The breakfast table was dripping from its edges, her skimpy top was so wet, it showed everything. I poured more milk in the cereal bowls.

It felt kind of weird. She was doing what I told her. I’d spanked her. Pinched her. So I figured, time to goose her. Goosing must be like groping, I figured. I felt her ass and squeezed it some. Then I poked her pussy. I don’t mean inside, I just poked around, prodding this, prodding that.

Then she told me to stop. First thing she’d told me not to do for a while.

“No. Why should I?”

“It’s not right. I’m your sister!”

“That’s why it is right. You used to put things in my mouth. You put a beetle in it once and I spat it out. Then spat for like, an hour.”

“That was different. Just your mouth.”

I poked her in her asshole. It must have hurt because her hands came off her head and she squealed. I said, “Remember that bitch tried to do that to me? Must have tried to shove three fingers up.”

That was when Pete and Barb came back in the house. We heard the big hallway door go clunk. They must have heard that squeal. Pete was straight into the kitchen, looking round like he’d caught us doing something we shouldn’t.

“Why did Lindy scream?” he asked.

My sister said nothing. I was kind of surprised. But then, neither had I, all those times she’d done evil things to me.

Pete asked me next.

“I poked her in her butt,” I said.

“With what?”

“With my fingers.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I was goosing her,” I said.

Barb had come in. She said, “I don’t think that’s what’s meant by goosing.”

She caught sight of Lindy’s wet tits then, at the bowls, the dripping milk.

Pete said to Barb, “It looks even half way innocent. Lindy doesn’t seem to be hurt. Did she do what you told her? Demerits on that list there?”

“No,” I said, “none.”

He looked surprised, half disappointed. “Well. There’s a surprise. See, hon?” he said to Barb, “he’s just a kid, pretty much.”

Barb and Pete stayed in all Sunday after that. Barb cooked a roast. Lindy even helped her, though it looked weird her cooking naked and all.

Pete, he disappeared into his workshop for a while. I went inside after him and asked why.

He said, “She’s naked. I just don’t feel it’s right. Short bursts. Not all the time, all day. Did she really do what you told her, Kevin?”

“She argued some. I did what you said. Brought up things she’d done, said I’d tell if she didn’t.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That got her playing ball?”

“Sure,” I said.

He looked thoughtful at that.

After a while I went into the family room and started to watch a DVD. Where I was sat, I could see right into the kitchen. When I’d got past the start, I saw Barb trying to attract my attention.

I stood up and saw why. Lindy was kneeling in the kitchen with her butt out, trying to fetch a baking tray (I found out) from right at the back of a cupboard by the oven. I raced into the kitchen as fast as I could and smacked her ass a good one on the run. Lindy jerked and made to pull out, screaming murder.

“Lindy, stay where you are!” I said. She was nearly out but I’d got down to push her back.

“No,” Said Lindy, struggling. “No, no, no!”

“Lindy,” Mom said, reasonable, “you know Kev’s allowed to spank you.” She leaned over in her Sunday best and cooking pinny, pushed Lindy’s shoulders down so I could shove her back inside.

“You’re actually helping him?” Lindy squealed.

“I think he wants you with your head in there, honey.”

“I do,” I said.

“No!” she said, “you can’t help him do that!”

Mom made a thinking sound. “After Kevin was so good while we were out at church, I’m thinking we should let him have his head a touch.”

“Have his head? You’re letting him spank me and… fucking pinch me! Isn’t that enough?”

“He is trying to spank you, honey,” said Barb. “He told you to stay with your head in the cupboard, only what do you do? You just start complaining and whining and bitching.”

“I won’t!” she said to the backboard.

“You will,” I said.

“You just stay there while Kevin spanks you,” said Barb.

“I look stupid!” she said.

“Yep,” I said, “you really do.”

We couldn’t see her face but I’ll bet she looked furious. Barb pressed her back down and me, I spanked her ass. Barb was trying not to laugh. She even asked for a particular baking tray. And she was giving suggestions. Not saying them out loud. More like signing higher, lower. Harder, left, right. Lindy squealed, banged on the the cupboard sides, but after a while she got that something was up.

“What’s going on?” she echoed. “What are you planning?”

“None of your concern,” said Mom.

I was lining my hand up in particular places, then looking at Barb to see if I should spank there. Kind of asking, how hard? It got to a point when my hand was real close to Lindy’s pussy. Not like, on it. I remember holding it there, looking up. Like, should I? She shrugged, then nodded. I spanked Lindy right where her ass meets her leg, where they both grade off and into her pussy. I looked up again, and mom signalled, harder. So I did that. And looked.

Mom likes her wine. She reached over with her free hand, picked the glass up, took a swig. Put it back. Nodded. Made the hand sign for, harder.

Lindy started saying, “Mom! You see where he’s spanking?”

Barb took another swig from the wine glass. “You stop complaining, young lady! You know your brother has every right!”

“But it’s wrong,” she said, “it’s all really wrong!”

I said, “It was wrong when your friend tried to poke her fingers up my ass. You were sitting right on me and you let her do whatever she wanted!”

Barb said, “Your whole attitude has been wrong for years. What Kevin is doing is just a little payback. Me and your dad say it’s alright by us. And you know you picked this option, right? So quit your stupid whining and let him get on!”

Maybe she nodded. We couldn’t see her head. But suddenly, Lindy was crying. You could see it in her body, how it started to shudder.

Pete had stayed in his workshop throughout, even though he must have been able to hear. He came out when we all ate the Sunday roast. I decided to be nice and just sat at the table with the family. Lindy sat there glum, tucked in close so all we could see was her tits in her top. I never tried to smack her once.

After, we went to watch a box set, only Lindy wanted to go to her room. I wanted to make her sit right there on a kitchen stool. I figured, I could pinch her ass now and then. But I’d seen how uneasy Pete had looked at dinner. I let Lindy go.

I passed her room later, once the show was done. She was reading a book. She flinched when she saw me.

I went back down to the kitchen. Pete and Barb were talking in the family room. I’m pretty sure they had no idea I was anywhere close.

Barb was saying, “So you think we should stop? Kevin, he looks so bright for once.”

“I don’t know,” said Pete. ”I guess… not? Though…”

“What?”

“I just don’t think I can be around it, Baby. She’s my girl. He slaps her ass, I just want to pull him off of her! But you, you don’t seem to have an issue with that.”

It was weird, it half sounded like an accusation.

“No,” she said, careful, “I don’t. That little bitch deserves it.”

“I know it,” he said. “Like, I know it in my head? I can’t watch it, though.”

“Pretty funny,” she said, “considering some of the things you’ve done to me.”

“You know that’s different. You’re…”

“What? A pain slut? Or maybe just a slut?”

He was quiet for a minute. When he spoke, it sounded weird. “Maybe part of me wants it too much. And that part, the other part thinks is sick. The dad in me thinks it’s gross, and wrong.”

“Right,” said Marge. “And if I don’t have a problem? That makes me sick?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“No? ’Cause from here, it sounds like that’s exactly what you’re saying.”

I was stood so still, hardly breathing, sort of scared. They didn’t sound happy.

Pete said at last, “Hell, what do I know? The boy’s looking lighter than I’ve seen him in an age. You just… the ball’s in your court, Baby. But I just don’t think I can be around it. I’m staying with Stan for this job. The commute is maybe do-able, but no-one will think it’s weird if I stay. And Stan never minds the company. Right?”

“You go,” she said, “you’re gone for the week. Me, I’m here on the spot. So it’s me who has to make all the on-the-spot decisions? Thanks. Gee, thanks.”

“Baby, listen…”

She’d been sitting, I guess, curled close. But at that, she pulled away, because I saw her arm jerk out into view.

“You know what it feels like to me?” she asked. “To be honest, it feels like you’re running away.”

He was quiet for a while. “I know. I’m a coward. But I trust in your judgment.”

“Oh, you trust my judgment? That’s funny. Because me, I don’t.”

“Your instincts are good, hon.”

“My instincts are fucked. But I guess I’ll just have to follow them, hey? Only, Pete? Don’t complain when you find you don’t agree!”

5: HIGH (Monday)

He was up real early, five AM. I heard a bunch of noises in his workshop, then the garage. Then his truck started up. And he was gone. I knew it because of what I’d heard. I fell back asleep, but woke up again and it was still real early. I lay in bed watching the clock. Seven o’clock. Seven o five. Seven ten. Seven fifteen. But still I stayed in bed. I felt flat.

About seven thirty, Barb came into my room in her way-inappropriate too-short nightie.

“I was half expecting to be woken by a scream.”

“Sorry, Mom. Dad’s gone, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah. He went to work real early.”

“I mean, for the week?”

“Well, yeah,” she said. “How did you know? Can you cope with that, champ? We have a couple functions in the evenings. He’ll maybe come back late for one or two of those. But yeah, he’s away.”

It was hot. I got up, put a tee on and some shorts. When I went downstairs, Lindy was in there, wrapped up in the real thin duvet from her bed.

She glared at me. “What’s with the little-boy look?”

“What’s with the duvet? Not hot enough for you?”

Mom came down a few seconds after. She was still in that nightie. I mean, she never wears stuff like that downstairs.

Lindy asked, “What’s with the baby-doll, mummy mine?”

“What’s with the duvet, devil-horn daughter?”

“She should take it off,” I said.

“Dad said I could wear it.”

“Oh yeah?” Barb asked. “And how did he tell you?”

“With his mouth.”

“For real?” she asked. “He yelled it from half way across the state?”

“He’s not here,” I said.

Lindy looked at me, then mom, then looked at Pete’s workshop. “His door’s open.”

“But he isn’t in there.”

“He never leaves his door open.”

Mom said, ”I told him to get some old thing out for me.”

“What old thing?”

“Something he made for me years ago. Kev? Sure you want your sister in a duvet?”

I told Lindy, “Throw it off.”

“Take your schoolboy shorts off.”

I went to make her lose the duvet. It turned into a fight and we both ended up on the kitchen floor. I got hold of a corner. She held onto the table. Barb joined in, prised Lindy’s fingers off the table leg. I stood up, pulled again. Lindy got dragged along the kitchen vinyl. She wouldn’t let go, not till we pulled her past the threshold of the family room. I think she must have got a carpet burn then, ’cause she let go the duvet and lay there moaning, shoulders down, feet apart with her hips off the ground. She was grabbing her ass and sucking through her teeth.

Barb said, sarcastic, “Elegant, Lindy, real elegant there!” Then she picked up the duvet and locked it in the garage.

Lindy had a different top on. The milky one was in the wash. This one was shorter. The whole of the underside of Lindy’s boobs were showing under the bottom of this top. I said I didn’t think it used to be that shor. Mom let on that she’d cut it down the day before.

“You cut it even shorter?”

“She’d annoyed me once too often.”

Lindy on the floor was still hugging her naked up-turned ass. Barb, back in the kitchen, doing angry things at the breakfast table. She was young when she had us. She’d had Lindy in her early twenties. So yeah, she’s mid forties. And my mom, of course. But she’s still kind of hot. You can see her and Pete have a lot going on. And it isn’t just the smacks he wallops her ass with. They kiss. They hug. Their arms and legs get tangled up on the sofa. But there’s one thing I notice. She always takes care of her appearance when he’s here. When he goes away, she can kind of let it slip. The baby doll thing, well I guess she wears that in the bedroom for him. Sometimes we see her in it out on the landing. But the only time I ever saw her downstairs in the like, it was when he was away on a job for a month. The fact that she was in it showed she was angry. Last night’s conversation was still in my head. To be honest, it feels like you’re running away.

He’d said he trusted her judgment. She’d said how she didn’t. Yep, this was a kind of reaction to that. He’d gone. In my pinch week. He’d dumped the responsibility on her. And Barb, she was angry. So, fuck you, Pete, I’ll wear what I want. As in, her I am in my baby-doll, baby. You see me? In the kitchen? Making breakfast for the kids? That thing is so short, Barb’s ass hangs out the bottom. Behind me, there was my sister, showing hers. Her top cut even shorter, then just knee socks and sensible school-type shoes. And there was my mom. You see my ass, kids? See if I care!

“Kevin? I got a job for you.”

I went up beside her.

“There’s a chair in Pete’s workshop. I told him to get it before he went off. Bring it out here.”

“A chair? How will I know which one?”

“You’ll know when you see it. Looks like a baby’s high chair. Only this, it’s big enough for a grown-up.”

So much stuff had been moved, it really must have been hid well away. But it was there, near the door. A freaky looking high chair. It had a small seat. A real wide-spread set of feet on supermarket trolley wheels, barely close enough together to get through the door. Its four legs were curved and really kind of elegant. They met together under a thick wooden block. The block supported four supports which met under a cage for the sitter’s hips. This was made up from a C-shaped base. It had a bunch of vertical dowels going up into a full ring of solid wood. The ring of was just narrow enough for someone like Lindy’s hips to fit through if she squeezed in from the top. He’d shaped that top ring into a back rest at the back, arm rests at the sides, with a small tray poking out at the front. The dowels joining the two parts were wide enough to let a hand through.

The C of wood under that top piece had dowels all the way around except for the front. The gap at the front of the C was wide enough for legs to poke through. But  legs that would be parted by a pair of longer dowels. Once she was in it, there was no way Lindy was ever gonna get her knees to come together.

“What the hell is that?” Lindy asked me when I pushed it through.

“Your breakfast chair,” said Barb.

“Looks like a stupid baby seat.”

“Yea,” I said. “Because you’re being such a baby about everything.”

Lindy had a brief, ill-advised hissy fit. “You’re making me walk around the house naked! And you, you little pervert, you’re lapping it up! And I’m acting like a baby?”

There’s still more to describe about the high chair, sorry. The seat itself sat clear, detached, inside the dowels which supported the back, sides and tray. It was wood, but it didn’t look like any seat I’d seen before. It was Y-shaped for a start. It half reminded me of a tractor seat, with a prominent ridge at the foot of the Y where Lindy’s ass crack would sit on it. Normally seats like that flare up at the sides as well. But this one didn’t, it just had the down-curve from that central ridge, then kind of stopped early as it flattened out, so the back and sides of her butt wouldn’t really have anything to sit on at all. It was just like, seven inches long where the main part of her butt would park, and of course Lindy’s ass is quite a bit wider. Her thighs would be supported though, which was where the seat looked like a Y, with left leg and right leg supports going off at maybe forty five degrees. Then her legs would poke through those gaps in the dowels.

Okay, I know this is a lot of explaining, and a picture might be better. But it’s all important. The circle of wood at the top is horizontal, at least its base. Because like I said, Pete had shaped the top part into a back rest, arm rests, tray. Then you’ve got a C ring of dowels under that, right? The C piece of wood those dowels are screwed into isn’t horizontal. If the C finished between her legs (between the forks of the Y seat) the gap in the C would be tilted down and the middle of the C (where her ass crack would be) was tilted up. Meaning that, with the Y seat being so small at the back, and the C dowel support being tilted at the back, I’d have real clear access to most of her butt, apart from where it was resting on the too-small seat.

If you looked close, you could see that that short-assed Y seat, which was detached from the C ring and the top ring, was itself stood up on two sets of supports, one left of the central ass crack ridge, one right. Those supports were supported on the solid block of wood below. If you looked real close, you’d see that right in the middle of that ridge where Lindy’s ass crack would go was a real thin line.

Lindy smelled a rat. That seat did not look normal. She didn’t want to get into it and I didn’t blame her. But Barb told her she wouldn’t eat breakfast till she did. Then evoked the college fund. Said she’d sat in it herself any number of times.

“But we all know what freaks you and Pete are,” said Lindy.

Eventually, between us, me and Barb coaxed Lindy into it. I think as well,  curiosity played its part. What the hell was it? What was the point?

She had to get up on on the breakfast table top, then me and Mom helped to lower her down. It wasn’t too easy. Part of the problem was, her legs had to go in first. The Y seat made it that they had to poke forwards. She had no way to support herself apart from with her hands on the arm rests. Then she had to try and squeeze her ass through the top ring of wood. Maybe Barb’s hips used to be smaller than Lindy’s, because Lindy’s had to squeeze real hard. In the end, we helped her through with the back rest pressing ridges in her ass cheeks. That, she didn’t like that at all!

Once she was down, her feet swung free from the knees. Then she started to panic and push back up.

The only thing she could push against were the arm rests. But with the ends of the Y seat coming close to where her knees dangled down, and the dowels stopping her swinging her legs from side to side, all she could do was lift herself the length of her forearms. And of course, her ass got stuck again. And I got it. She was trapped. She started rocking the thing to try and tip it over. But even though she got the wheels to shift an inch or so, she’d never get it tipping.

I sat down beside her. Her ass was at eye height.

“This is horrible!” she said.

“It’s brilliant,” I said.

“I hate it!” she said. “Let me out! Let me up!”

I reached over and gave her ass a pinch.

Mom put some cereal in a bowl on the food tray. It must have reminded Lindy of yesterday. She started shouting, “No! You assholes!”

“Kevin,” said Barb, “Your sister is swearing.”

“Should I pinch her again?”

“Do you think your sister deserves for you to pinch her?”

“I guess, yes?”

Lindy said, “No! Tell him no, mom, tell the little shit no!”

She should learn not to swear. Swearing always gets Mom angry. “Lindy, you’re your own worst enemy,” she said.

“Mom,” I asked. “What if, when I pinched her, it kind of, accidentally left a mark on her ass?”

Lindy shouted, “No! You pair of assholes!”

Mom stopped fussing at the table. She kneeled down beside me, behind Lindy’s ass. “Show me,” she said.

“If I pinch her like this…” And I pinched my sister’s left-side ass cheek.

“Did it leave a mark?” Mom asked.

“A little one,” I said. “You wanna try?”

I’d looked. Barb’s nails are longer than mine. She reached up. Pinched. She went harder than I had. Asked, “Did that leave a mark?”

“Oh yeah, That left a good one.”

“You still wanna know how hard you can go?”

“How hard?” I asked.

“Nothing permanent, Kevin. Your sister did a lot of nasty things to you. But none of it left permanent marks. You cause permanent damage to your sister, this whole thing is over. It’s a thing both me and your dad agreed on. I think you know where that boundary is, right?”

“I know,” I said.

“You cross it, that’s it.”

“I’m not gonna cross it. Mom?”

She smiled. “Kevin?”

“How hard can I spank her? Really?”

“How hard did she spank you?” Mom asked back.

I didn’t want Lindy hearing. I edged away into the family room. Barb came with me. “Not that hard,” I said, quiet. “Can I only go as hard as she went with me?”

“You wanna go harder?”

I nodded. “Yes! Is that horrible of me?”

“Was she horrible to you?”

I nodded. She’d been awful.

“And how did that make you feel?”

“Real bad. Like I wanted to die.”

“So far as I’m concerned,” she said, “you can spank her however she made you feel.” She looked around the door at Lindy, whose back was towards us. “Me and your dad, we talked this out a lot. She set her jaw. “Only, him being… absent, it’s kind of down to me.”

“I kind overheard,” I said. “Last night. I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t trying to listen in. I was just there in the kitchen. It… sounded like you were pretty annoyed. That he’s gone for the week while he works away. And you’re left here.”

“Yeah,” she said. “But, I’m glad we’re talking about this now. Me and you? I felt it was kind of, all you and your dad.”

“Can I ask a question?”

“Sure,” she said.

“What does goosing mean?”

She tilted her head. “What do you think it means?”

I must have wrinkled my nose because she laughed when I did it. “Kind of… things I don’t really want to do to Lindy. You know… private things? I don’t think I should be doing what I really think it is.”

“Ah,” she said. “Well… maybe that’s pretty mature of you. Is it okay if you’re limited to spanking and pinching?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess. I suppose.”

She laughed. “You sound disappointed.”

I sighed. “Maybe I wish it was something else.”

“Like a third thing? Spanking, pinching, and?”

“Not only a third. Just, like…”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Other things maybe.”

“Like… you wanna maybe use your imagination?”

“She did just tons of things, Mom! I never said. She always made me keep my mouth shut. I never knew what she’d do from one day to the next!”

She watched me. Tipped her head the other way. Said, “Let’s still call it goosing. But it’s goosing with a difference. Okay? From now on, goosing’s your imagination.”

“Really?”

“What is it? You want to make her squirm? Make her twitch and jump?”

“Yeah!” I said.

“Are you asking my permission?”

I said, “I guess.”

“Can I trade it for something?”

I blinked at that. “If you want,” I said. “What do you want to trade it for?”

“I want you to tell me to spank your sister.”

“You want me to tell you?”

“Your dad and me, we had an agreement. That we’d never spank you, either of you. Specifically, it was meant to be before you were adults. But what would we need to spank you after? You, I got to say, I have never particularly wanted to spank. But your sister? She’s deserved it so often, it was hard to keep back. Only, now she’s an adult. But still, that agreement?”

“But why do you need me to give you permission?”

“As we’ve both noticed, Kevin, your dad is not here. But this week, we’ve agreed, you are in charge of your sister Lindy. You can spank her. Pinch her. Goose her.” And she smiled. “Now, your dad’s left me all the way in charge of you. In charge of you when you’re in charge of your sister. And goosing her, Kevin… with yur dad not here? So far as I’m concerned, it means just whatever you want it to mean. But my little trade-off is, one of the things you might want it to mean is for me to spank that little bitch too. Just the once, that’s all I’m asking.”

I nodded yes. How could I say no?

We went back into the kitchen. Lindy was looking pretty red in the face. It kind of explained why she’d been so quiet. She’d been trying to push herself back out of the chair. No luck, just effort and lots of frustration. Pete had made the thing so it would be pretty much impossible.

“Hey Lindy,” I said, “you know I’m in charge, right?”

“Get me out of this stupid chair!” she said.

“Thing is, I want to spank you. But I don’t have much experience. So I’ve asked mom to show me.”

“You’ve asked what?”

“Mom,” I said, “can you do me a favour? Can you please spank Lindy?”

“You really want me to spank her?” she asked.

“Oh sure!” I said. “Can I watch if you do?”

“Of course,” she said. Then she tipped her head. “Just how hard to you want me to spank your big sister?”

I thought for a second. “Can you spank her as hard as I’m allowed to spank?”

Lindy said, “No! Not fair! Not fair!”

“How long should I spank her?” Barb asked next.

“Um… can you spank her as long as you think I can spank her? Like, kind of in one go? Like that?”

“If that’s what my spacial boy wants.”

Mom gave me a smile. And a wink that Lindy could not see. I pulled up a chair just a little way behind. Barb breathed this big sigh in and out. Then she went in close to Lindy’s ear. Said, “Your brother may not realise the favour he’s doing me. You have no idea just how long I’ve been waiting to do this!”

Now, Lindy’s high chair put her ass about the level of the kitchen table. As in, higher than it would be on an ordinary chair. But not so high that Barb didn’t need to bend forward some to get leverage. I mean, I know it was my mom. And I know it was my sister. But it was still completely hot! Pete’s high chair left both of Lindy’s ass cheeks exposed. There was nothing in the way, just that tongue of seat poking back between her ass like the wrong end of a bicycle saddle.

Man, she slapped hard! She told me later that for love spankings (whatever they are) you’re supposed to start gentle, warm the ass up, build slowly. That wasn’t what Barb did. Her first slaps were hard. Her next slaps were harder. She left prints on Lindy’s ass cheeks  right from the off. My sister could’t stop her. The shape of the arm rests made it hard to get her hands around back. Not that she didn’t try. She kept flailing, trying to stop Mom’s flow. It just kind of made it funnier.

Barb was real mean. She’d do several slaps quick, all on one cheek. Then do it with the timing broken, so Lindy never knew when the next smack was landing.

“Can you show me how hard to pinch, Mom, as well?”

Barb looked over her shoulder and shook her head a little. But it wasn’t a no. It was more like a thank you. She took a vicious grip on Lindy’s left cheek. Dug a nail in till my sister screeched. Smacked right on the same spot, really hard. And all the in-between time, she kept leaning in to whisper things. Some of it I heard.

“That’s for pulling his pants down in front of your friends.” A double pinch, either side of Lindy’s ass crack.

“That’s for dropping a worm down his pants when he was six.” A flurry of smacks.

“That’s for swearing like a little whore when Father Mark was here in the house.”

Wow! My mom can be mean, it turns out.

6: FOAMY (Monday)

She got a phone call on her mobile. She’d been spanking Lindy for maybe twenty minutes. She looked pissed, broke it off. Took the phone into the other room.

Back in a while, she said, “Gotta go to work, kids!”

Lindy started shaking her head. “You’re leaving? You can’t!”

“You’d rather I carried on smacking your ass?”

But the thing was, Mom didn’t really have a choice. She might have taken time off, but a job had come in and they had to get a bid out. She really had to go. So she ran to get ready. Maybe ten minutes turn-round, she was coming back down.

Lindy sounded frantic. “You gotta let me out of this chair!”

“You brought this on yourself,” Barb told her.

“You assholes! You and Pete, you’re not even proper parents! No-one leaves a grown-up girl to be tortured by her fucking dickhead brother!”

Barb took a moment to think about that. “No self-respecting sister does that to her younger brother. You get the difference between you doing it to him and him?”

“You assholes are letting him!”

“Wow,” said Barb. “Hit the nail right on the head! Dead right, Lindy. The difference is, he has permission. You didn’t! And this is his payback time. With our blessing, get it? So, so long as he stays within limits, I’m happy! Limits discussed with Kevin already.”

“What limits?” she asked.

I said, “That’s for us to know and for you to find out. ”

Mom just nodded. “Alright, sweety?” She kissed me on the forehead. Picked up laptop, bag and car keys. I followed her outside, with Lindy squeaking obscenities. Put the door on the latch so we couldn’t hear her.

“One thought,” said mom. “That seat? It has an adaptation. You saw the lever on the block of wood below?”

I frowned. “I’ll look.”

“It’s for comfort breaks. Okay?”

I asked, “Comfort breaks?”

“If she says she really needs to go for a pee. Pull the lever? Get a bucket.”

She was getting in her car. She buckled the belt up, sat looking out. Just stared. Shook her head a little. “You know what?” she said. “I’m kind of glad they’ve called me in. I know you know where the limits are, you showed it on Sunday. And, Kevin?”

“Yes?”

“Just… go and enjoy it!”

She kissed me. Pressed the window up. Started pulling away.

I waved her stopped. She slipped it back open. “So it’s definitely good if I mess with creative?”

“Yes baby,” she said. “Get creative as you like.”

I went back in the house. Went straight upstairs to get my phone. And called Billy Corden.

He’s a friend from school and from just down the way. He thinks Lindy is real good looking, too. He keeps saying how he wishes he could just see her naked.

“Hey Billy,” I said, “are you home today?”

“Oh, hey, Kevin! I’m real glad you rang!” His voice hushed quiet. “We were gonna look at porn. Mom and dad are out all day! You wanna come over here and surf the net? My dad’s left the checks off, I looked and it’s cool!”

“Ah, no,” I said.

“No?” He sounded strained. “Kev, we can look at anything!”

“I think you should come over here,” I said.

“Has your dad left the locks off your browser and stuff?”

“No. Something better. Billy? You remember how we used to play Special Ops and Terrorists?”

“Er… you got some new kinda video game?”

“Ah, maybe,” I said. “Maybe sort of like a 3D game.”

“Sounds a little bit lame against surfing porn.”

“Nope,” I said. “A hundred percent, I guarantee you won’t find this lame.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“You gotta come over.”

“Tell me first!”

“No can do.”

“Sounds lame.”

“Just come. And Billy? Bring the stuff for Special Ops and Terrorists!”

There was silence on the line. “Sorry. Don’t really think I can,” he said. “I’m not here on my own. My cousins are here.”

“Who, your cousin James?”

“Yeah, James. You met him?”

“Thanksgiving,” I said.

“He’s real jazzed about looking at porn with me. My aunt and uncle are strict about their locks and stuff.”

I’d met his cousin late last year, when him and his folks were over for the turkey trip. James was kinda dorky but, pretty much the same age as me and Billy. “Can James keep a secret?  Like, a secret he won’t ever tell his folks? Or yours?”

“He never let any of mine out,” said Billy.

“Bring him,” I said.

“My other cousin’s here as well.”

I sighed. “Younger or older?”

“Older. Same age as your sis, I think. What if they still don’t want to come though, Kevin?”

I had to tell him something. “It involves my sister.”

“Is she playing too?”

“Kinda,” I said.

“She’s definitely there? Or is it dirty pictures you’ve found of her?” He sounded real excited for a minute there. “It couldn’t be! Is it?”

“I didn’t find any dirty pictures. But she’s definitely here.”

He went quiet again. “Okay,” he said. “That might work. My older cousin’s getting kinda bored today, heah?”

His older cousin I’d never met. I guessed he must have figured, Thanksgiving with relatives sounded pretty much lame.

Billy told me after that the only way he’d got his cousin James to come was by describing my sister and promising she’d be there. All curvy ass and curvy boobs was how he said he’d said she looked. Just poppin’ out of her clothes and stuff. Little did he know.

Lindy was still in the kitchen, downstairs. She didn’t have any choice, of course. I’d made sure she hadn’t heard my call to Billy by shutting my door and keeping my voice down. As she’d gone out, Mom had left her with some breakfast to eat. Lindy’d downed the milky corn flakes, drunk the orange juice and coffee.

“You want something else to drink?” I asked.

She looked at me suspiciously. Thinking why I wasn’t spanking or pinching, I guess. “Are you gonna put something nasty in it?”

“Nope,” I said. “You want another coffee? Your favourite, cappuchino? You know I can get the froth just right.”

“Nothing nasty in it. Promise, Kevin!”

“Just good coffee and milk. I’ll make it how you like it, promise.”

She stared. “Why are you being nice?”

I shrugged. “I got all week. Got me plenty of time to be nasty later.”

I made cappuchino. A big one. In the biggest mug we’ve got. Made me one, too. I make them real good. Lindy even said so. She sipped it all suspicious, then drank the lot. Big frothy coffees, they’re her favourite in the mall. Barb and Pete complain because they’re so damned expensive. So they got a machine for home. They hoped she’d spend less of their hard-earned in the mall. Good luck with that!

“I still don’t get why you’re being nice. If you wanna be nice, you can help me out of this stupid chair.”

I shrugged. “You want another?”

She was down to the foam. She’s a sucker for foam. “If you want,” she said.

I made her another. Same size. Real big. She’d nearly finished that, too, when Billy rang the doorbell.

She jumped. “Who’s that?”

“How should I know? Maybe the postman?”

“Don’t let them in! Don’t let them see me!”

“Okay okay! Calm down, I’ll shut the kitchen door.”

Our house is kinda big. Which is maybe why Pete and Barb are always pushed for the mortgage now. I should maybe have described it. A lot of the houses around there are big. When they want to build new, they just build on the edge, then the edge of that, then the next edge, and the next. As you get further out, the houses get bigger. Ours is way back from the road as well, got its own plot of land. Pete planted hedges like, all around the garden. That was when I was real little, so they’ve grown. Pete likes his privacy.

Inside the house is big as well, our front entrance hall is this really tall space two storeys high with a balcony looking down from upstairs. The kitchen is through a door that goes off it, with the family room past the kitchen. There’s a door to the garage from the kitchen as well. The stairs to the balcony go up around the side of the entrance hall, and the bedrooms are off of the balcony. The entrance hall even has its own little entrance, a kind of small lobby before the main outside door. I shut the door to the big hall behind me, so two doors would be between me and Lindy. Then opened up the last door.

I just hadn’t got it. Billy was there with his cousin James. And yes, they were carrying the stuff we used to use for Special Ops and Terrorists. His other cousin was older, like he’d said, and definitely close to Lindy’s age. What I hadn’t understood was, she’s also a girl.

“You know James,” said Billy. “This is Marnie, his sister.”

“Kevin, right?” said Marnie. “I’m so bored with these geeks here! I wasn’t gonna come, not for cowboys and indians. But then Billy said you’ve got, like, a cool older sister? And I figured, maybe me and her can go out.”

“Sister? Ah… she’s grounded,” was all I got out. I was kind of amazed that Billy hadn’t ever mentioned Marnie. If I’d have had Marnie for a cousin, I’d have mentioned her a hundred times. She’s got jet black hair and alabaster skin. She was dressed in a real cool outfit, a green check ruffled mini and this matching top - a vest with buttons down the front, squeezing her nice little boobies up. Where her short flared skirt stopped was a gap of like, two inches of thigh. Creamy white. Perfect skin. Then patterned hold-up stockings with these real cute little bows at the back. And down on her feet, patent leather pumps with heels and platforms, a nice matching green. She was totally gorgeous!

“She’s grounded?” Marnie’s face had fallen. “She can’t come out at all?”

“No. No, I’m pretty clear she can’t come out.”

“Are your folks here today?”

“They’re out all day.”

“Oh!” She flashed me a smile that, ordinarily, would have got her pretty much anything she wanted. “So like, you boys could do Kevin’s sis and me a real big favour? Let us go out and like, be cool with your folks and not let them know?”

“Ah… no. I don’t think that’s gonna work.”

Marnie hit me with a frown, beetling her eyebrows right in the mid line. “Seriously? Why?”

“I don’t think I wanna say,” I said.

“Can I maybe talk it over with your sister?”

“Ah… no. I don’t think so.”

Billy said, “There’s some kind of game Kevin wants us all to play.”

Marnie made a face at what Billy and James were carrying. “With those? How old d’you think I am, eight? If she can’t come out and you won’t let me meet her, I can take off on my own.”

Billy was in quick. “Why can’t Marnie meet her? Kevin?”

“I thought it’d just be you,” I said. “And James.”

“I said cousins! Cousins plural!”

“She’s a girl,” I said.

Marnie tutted, started to turn away. Billy grabbed her wrist. “Why can’t Marnie meet her? Is it like… like what I was saying?”

“What were you saying?” Marnie asked sharp, pulling her wrist back.

“You know.” Billy was giving me real funny looks.

James looked frozen, panicked at his sister finding out what they’d planned.

“Where is she?” Billy asked.

“Is she ill?” asked Marnie. “Got the lurgy or something?”

It came out weak. “She’s in the kitchen.” This wasn’t how I’d planned it at all. It was supposed to be this build-up for Billy and James, a big reveal of my sister in her high chair.

“Where’s your kitchen?” Marnie asked, and she started pushing past. I tried to block, but she was so like Lindy on a roll, pulling all that big sister bossy-boots stuff. She just pushed me out the way, pushed into the great big hallway. “Billy, what’s her name?” she asked.

“Lindy,” said Billy.

And Marnie called it out. “Lindy? Where you at?”

Answer: silence.

“Lindy? Is there someone called Lindy here?”

Silence squared.

Billy was pointing. “Kitchen’s through there.”

I wanted to stamp on his foot at that. Too late. Marnie swivelled on her patent heels and clipped at a pace right across the tiling floor. She stopped at a door. Turned. “This one?”

Billy nodded. We’d kind of followed after, slower. Marnie pushed the door in. Looked. Froze. Dropped her jaw. Started giggling. Full-on sputtering.

Lindy was sat there with her ass to the door. She’d been trying to get the high chair to move by jerking her body. It was close to useless though. She’d turned it around, moved a foot or two maybe.

“Oh my god,” said Billy, “oh my god, oh my god! Oh, my god!”

James’s eyes were out on stalks. His jaw was half way to scraping the floor.

Lindy was jerking the chair still, frantic. We could only see her back and her ass, but she looked completely ridiculous. Up in this stupid contraption, ass clenching on that stupid weird ass-crack seat, legs akimbo, torso jerking, with her hands white on the arm rests. Her blond hair kept waving as her head tried to move her.

She sounded hysterical. “Get them away! Jesus Kevin, just get them away! Don’t let them see me! DON’T LET THEM SEE ME!”

Marnie turned towards me. Half crying, half laughing. “Hey, Kevin?” she said. “Me and your big sister? I don’t think we’re going to the mall today.”

Billy was staring at the things in his hands. “Oh my god,” he was babbling, “oh my god, Kevin… sheesh… Are these like, for doing what I think they’re for doing?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure. They’re for doing what you think.”

I’d thought it was finished when Marnie turned up. But she’d sputtered and gawped. She took a plastic toy out of Billy’s trembling hands. A rocket launcher, kid style. With a bolt stuck in its business end. A hard plastic tip. She took it, aimed. Looked at me. Asked, “Can I?”

“Sure,” I said, “if you want…”

She fired. The bolt hit Lindy hard in the butt. My big sister squealed.

Then Marnie backed out, back into the hallway. The rest of us others backed out as well. Then we shut the kitchen door so we couldn’t see Lindy. They had questions. Lots of questions. Mostly, their questions went, what the fuck? Your sister? Where’d that weird-ass seat come from? Why’s she in it? For real, your parents know she’s like this? Your Dad fucking made it? Jesus! My god, they really, seriously, left you in charge?

“It’s because of all this crap she pulled in the past.”

“Like, like that?” asked James.

“I know what,” said Billy. “When she pulled down your pants in front of all her friends. Right? And then… you know…”

Marnie said, “Oh my god, no wonder your parents were pissed. But seriously… that?”

“She’s fucked up my life.”

“So, what?” said Marnie. “Is she staying like that? You’re just looking after her, making sure she doesn’t bolt?”

“No,” I said. “I got rights. Three things.”

James listened with his mouth wide.

“I can spank her.”

“Jeez,” said Marnie, with a creeped-out glance at her little brother. “You can spank your big sister? Your folks really said that?”

“For the next week, anyhow.”

Billy dropped a weapon with a clatter. He stared down at the floor like he had no idea he’d even had a hold of it. Marnie’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Oh geez, just for the week then?”

“Only, just with my hand. I can pinch her if I want, too.”

Billy’s knees went out from under him. He grabbed at the door frame, looking half way to a stroke.

Marnie was way calm. “You can spank her. You can pinch her. Three things. What’s the third?”

“I can goose her as well.”

They looked blank. James spoke up, he asked, “Isn’t that just like pinching her?”

“It’s feeling her up,” said Billy with a groan.

I shrugged. “I know… weird. She’s my sister though. I can’t.”

Marnie’s lip lifted. “You can spank her and pinch her, but goosing her’s weird?”

“I’m not doing it, anyhow. Me and Barb changed up what goosing means.”

“Who’s Barb?” asked Marnie.

“Barb’s his mom,” said Billy. “You can’t, like, do goosing?”

“No I can,” I said. “Just not like, feely goosing.”

“So… what? What else is it?”

“It’s like, anything else.”

Billy’s eyes popped wider. “Like… anything else besides feeling her up?”

“Gosh,” said James. “We’re gonna goose your sister with Billy’s toy guns?”

Billy’s knees were really failing. He gave up, slumped down till his ass hit the floor. “We can use your big sister for target practice?”

“Um, that’s what I figured..”

Marnie moved in and mussed up my hair. “You’re a sick little boy.”

“Can you cope?” I asked her. “Will you like, keep this quiet? If Billy, me and James shoot my sis with toys guns?”

“Just you boys? Can’t I shoot her?”

“I thought you wanted to go to the mall?”

“Kevin,” she said, looking straight in my eyes, “I just shot your big sis in the butt with this… whatever it is. I can guarantee, baby. She doesn’t wanna go to the mall with me.”

I looked down at her hands. “You might spank her as well?”

“Is she really a bitch?”

“Oh hell, big time,” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Marnie. “Cause she’s like… you know? A girl and stuff? Can I think up some different ways to screw with her, Kevin?”

I nodded. Yes please.