Chapter 2: The Cheerleader

“Chloe?” I called as I stepped into the house.

“Your Jeep’s blocking the driveway again...” I added automatically, already climbing the stairs, irritation carrying me forward on habit alone. I glanced into her bedroom as I passed—empty.

“How many times do we need to talk about this? You can’t just park it right at the entrance so you can easily pull in and—”

I stopped as I passed my bedroom and saw her inside. My clothes were spread across the bed—not tossed, but handled. Carefully. Dresses I rarely wore. Not anymore, anyway. The kind of dresses you wore to attract a man. Shoes pulled from the closet, the kind you wore with those dresses to hold his attention once you had it.

Chloe stood at my dresser, one drawer open, her back half-turned, something clutched in her hands. She froze when she realized I’d seen her.

“Chloe,” I said, sharper now. “What are you doing?”

She spun around like she’d been burned.

“What—what are you doing home?” she blurted out, eyes wide, face draining of color. It was the look of someone caught somewhere they absolutely knew they didn’t belong. Her hands flew back into the drawer, shoving whatever she’d been holding out of sight, but it didn’t matter.

I’d already seen it.

My lingerie.

And not a stray camisole or babydoll, either. But the kind of lingerie you wore under those dresses. The kind you wore to seal the deal, to make sure you had his attention completely, permanently.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

I stared at her, my chest tight, trying to process what I was seeing. She couldn’t meet my eyes. She knew. She knew I’d seen.

“I—I’m just looking for...” Her voice faltered. “I was just looking for something.”

“For what?” I asked, though my voice came out quieter than I expected.

I crossed the room slowly, every step heavy, and picked up a dress from the bed. Then another. Beneath them, one of the pairs of stilettos were hiding—pulled fully from their box, set side by side like she’d been examining them.

“Why are my clothes on the bed?” I asked. My gaze lifted back to her, as I lifted the heels for emphasis. “Why are you going through my things?”

She stood frozen, shoulders hunched, hands clenched at her sides, caught between guilt and fear—as if bracing herself for what was coming next.

I think it was because she knew I’d see it. And I did.

The black leather bag. Small. Unassuming. Sitting near the pillows. The bag the restraints were kept in.

I stepped closer, my voice firmer this time. “What’s going on, Chloe?!” I raised it—not shouting, but enough that she knew I wasn’t exactly happy. Which, honestly, had to be a given.

That’s when she sank down onto the edge of the bed, her shoulders shaking, the first quiet sobs escaping. She covered her face with her hands, and I waited, giving her space, letting her cry until she could speak.

And then she did. Between the sobs, between the hiccups and the uneven breaths, she started explaining it all to me.

I sat down beside her. I already knew most of it—how she and Bobby had broken up, and how she’d been the one to do it. That’s how my daughter operates. She doesn’t get broken up with. She does the breaking.

So, that much, I knew. I could follow social media like everyone else, piecing things together through the pictures and the posts.

It was the rest I didn’t know.

How she’d learned that he had gone out with one of the girls from high school. One of the Vails. The younger one. The quiet one. The one who always read, always stayed in the background. The one Bobby would talk to—or at least nod hello to—sometimes.

Even though, honestly, those two were strange. “Odd” didn’t begin to cover it. They lived in a bookstore with their aunt—in the lower part of town, the part that still had those old storefronts, even as newer, shinier places were finally starting to move in. Coffee shops. Boutiques. The kind of respectable businesses that would hopefully choke out those older, dated shops eventually.

Okay, sure—they’d lost their mom. I got that. But still. They had been odd long before that. Even before their aunt died.

And then there were the stories that floated around about Candy—that she’d spent time in a psychiatric hospital. The truth? She was even odder than the two girls. Recluse. Didn’t talk to anyone. Just stayed in the bookstore. She’d go out occasionally to get groceries or other necessities, but that was it.

There just wasn’t something right about that entire family. But then again, apples don’t fall far from their trees.

Anyway, we didn’t speak to them. There was no reason to. I wouldn’t go so far as to call them white trash, though the distinction felt mostly academic. The older one worked at a department store; the younger lingered in a bookstore, selling old, musty paperbacks. Neither of them had gone to college—or even seemed to consider it an option.

The older sister, I’ll grant her, knew how to dress. More so than the younger, who was perpetually frumpy. She wore skirts, technically, but everything about her looked worn-in, as though the clothes had settled into her. The older one, on the other hand, made an effort. Dresses. Skirts. Heels. Hosiery every time I saw her at the store. At first glance, you might not know.

But polish can be deceptive. Strip away the presentation and you could still see the class beneath it. All that careful grooming was just lipstick on a pig. It worked well enough for retail, I suppose, but it didn’t change what she was.

Needless to say, they weren’t the kind of people we ever associated with.

Chloe’s voice shook as she went on. Bobby had been seen out with her, she said—the younger one, all dressed up. But in prison chains. Chained.

She said Megan told her she’d seen them together and had run into the sisters weeks before—the youngest in restraints, being led by the oldest. They weren’t alone; there were others with them.

Later, Megan heard—through people who’d spoken to others who’d been there that night, friends or friends of friends at school—that the sisters were involved in some sort of service. The way Chloe described it, it sounded like something meant to teach women their place with a man: how to submit to them. And that, apparently, meant learning to be restrained. Bound.

Even though she’d also heard that the sheriff’s department was somehow involved—at least where the restraints were concerned—Megan couldn’t explain how. Only that, at some point, she’d been in the bookstore when the sheriff showed up to speak with them about something important. It seemed to have something to do with the restraints the youngest sister was wearing, which meant she’d been wearing them at the store, too. While working.

I just sat beside her and listened. Some of it I understood immediately; some of it I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. But it was all real—no matter how screwed up it sounded.

I hugged her.

“So ... why are you in my bedroom?” I asked her again, but gentler this time. I reached over, picked up the stilettos, and held them out. “Were you ... looking for clothes to wear?” I probed further. “For Bobby?”

She nodded.

“And the bag?” I asked, nodding toward it.

She nodded again.

“He’s ... into that?” I asked, my voice a little tighter now.

“I don’t know,” she replied, closing her eyes, her hands twisting in her lap.

“But he was with her?” I asked, making sure I really understood. “On a date. In public. And she was in ... them. With him?” I asked again. “Not just in that bookstore, but out?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

I raised my eyebrows. Women dress for their men. They wear what their men like—or what they think their men like. I told myself that. And that girl ... she’s so bland. Sure, she’s pretty enough, but there’s nothing to her. Not like Chloe. Not even close.

I shook my head slowly, letting out a sigh I didn’t know I’d been holding. That had to be it. Why else would he be out with a girl like that? Associating with a family like that? And in restraints? In public, for God’s sake. Humiliating himself.

No one would do that unless they wanted that. And she knew somehow and was using it to her advantage. That’s the only way a girl like her could get a guy like him. She was completely out of his league.

Nothing else made sense. That little ... that little cunt ... was giving him something Chloe wasn’t.

So, I asked more questions. And she repeated what Megan had told her.

She had that look—the one men always pretended they were immune to. The sexy librarian act: smart, quiet, unassuming on the surface. Mousy, even. But underneath it all, unmistakably sexual.

The dress she wore fit the part perfectly. Plain, but quietly seductive, hugging her in all the right ways while pretending not to. You didn’t notice it at first—and then you couldn’t stop noticing.

And then there were the shoes. Open-toe stilettos—at least five inches—with hosiery. Megan wasn’t sure if it was pantyhose or stockings; only that it was obvious. The kind of hosiery you wore when you wanted a man to know it was there. The kind that made him wonder whether they’d need to come off later that night.

No woman with real taste would ever pair hosiery with open-toe stilettos. But this girl ... she wasn’t dressing for herself. She was dressing for him, knowing exactly what he liked.

That meant Bobby liked a woman who dressed a certain way. Hosiery. Heels. And not just sexy—controlled. Restrained.

The only reason a man like Bobby would be into something like that—into publicly associating with a woman like her—was because he wanted control. Submission. Obedience. Complete, unquestioning compliance.

And that girl—that bitch—was giving him exactly that. Every detail of her appearance, every careful gesture, every tiny, hobbled step was part of a lesson she was learning for him.

But it wasn’t just that. She’d hired someone. She was being professionally trained to play the role perfectly. Quiet. Compliant. The kind of woman who did as she was told, who knew exactly how to make a man feel powerful for wanting it.

It all made sense now. The look. The clothes. The restraints. Every calculated, deliberate choice. Everything finally clicked.

This was what Bobby really wanted. What truly attracted him. What he craved in a woman—and she was delivering it, meticulously, without hesitation.

And Chloe wasn’t giving it to him. Not because she wouldn’t—she would have—but because she didn’t know that was what he wanted.

“You didn’t know,” I told her, hugging her close. “You didn’t know that’s what he wants.”

I held her shoulders, looking into her eyes. “Listen to me. There isn’t time right now. Your father will be home soon.”

Her eyes widened, and she shook her head, like she didn’t want to hear it.

“But tomorrow,” I continued softly, “as soon as he’s off to work, you and I will start. I’ll help you. I’ll teach you.”

She swallowed, her voice barely a whisper. “Teach me what?”

I smiled at her with that gentle, motherly patience. “Everything I learned from my mother. From your grandmother.”

She blinked, uncertain. “Grandma?”

“Yes,” I said. “She taught me how a proper woman presents herself. How to dress. How to behave. How to become what a man needs.”

I brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Your grandmother grew up in the 1950s. She believed in rules—strict rules. Women wore heels. Makeup. Skirts. Dresses. And hose. A woman’s role was to please her man in every way.”

I squeezed her shoulders gently. “And I’ll teach you.”

Her hands trembled as she looked down. “But what if he ... what if Bobby doesn’t like it?”

I shook my head, firm but soft. “He will. He will like it. There’s no doubt about that.”

I paused, letting the words sink in, letting her feel the certainty in them.

“So,” I said softly, leaning closer, “tomorrow. We start tomorrow. As soon as your father’s off to work.”

She nodded, silent but not resisting.

The following morning, I got John off to work and then headed upstairs to Chloe’s bedroom.

She was sound asleep.

“Wake up, sweetie,” I said, nudging her gently. “We’ve got a full day ahead of us.”

She brushed me away and curled back up.

“Come on, Chloe,” I said. “You were in tears yesterday. I’m willing to help you, but you need to help me.”

“Come on,” I nudged her again.

“It’s break,” she mumbled, not fully awake. “It’s early.”

“Yes,” I replied. “Correct. No school, and your father’s at work. Now’s the perfect time to start. We have the entire day.”

I watched as she curled back up and mumbled something under her breath.

“Last chance,” I told her.

I counted to twenty in my head, then lifted the collar from the bed and unbuckled it.

“I think it was impulsive,” I told her. “I wasn’t cooperating. I wasn’t listening. We were maybe two weeks into the training, and none of it was sinking in.”

I glanced down, making sure it was facing the right way, before looking back at her. “So, she took it off the dog,” I said. “Said it worked on her ... and, well...” I shrugged. “It finally got my attention.”

I reached down and began to slip the collar around her neck.

“Mom,” she said softly, still not fully awake, but now with a hint of alarm in her voice. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you,” I replied calmly.

I slid the collar into place, carefully moving her hair out of the way, and began to buckle it. I pulled it snug, leaving just enough space for a finger between her neck and the leather.

“Mom,” she said again.

She turned to face me, her hands immediately reaching for her neck. And that’s when I pressed the button.

She jumped.

“That was one,” I said, matter-of-fact. “Touch it again and you’ll see what two feels like.”

That’s when it hit her—what she was wearing.

“What is this?” she asked, now clearly awake.

“Maggie’s shock collar,” I said firmly. “It’s to help you, since you’re already having trouble following my instructions.”

“You put me in the dog’s shock collar?!” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “I asked you to get up. And I’m serious about this.”

I didn’t waver. “My mother struggled with me. I’m not repeating that with you. And you’re much older than I was—you have a better grasp of what’s going on.”

“Honestly,” I continued, “I should have done this back when you were sixteen. I raised you to be independent. Strong. Capable. But the truth is ... no matter how strong a woman wants to be, there’s a part of her that still wants to surrender, to let a man take control. We fight for independence, we crave it—but when it comes to certain relationships, we often want to give it up. To be the woman a man can hold, guide, command.”