Chapter 23

Danny wasn’t happy about the punch. I wasn’t afraid of him. I knew he was going to punch me back and I didn’t defend myself even though I could have. I kept thinking the same word over and over “humility”. It was comforting even though I don’t know why. It made me feel less angry or even worried about being hurt.

He punched my tits and flipped me over and spanked my bare ass over his knee in the dining room. I let him do it and honestly – I enjoyed it.

I was so confused, because despite having a willingness to continue as I had, I was no longer finding any joy in this. I was not particularly horny, and my butt burned from Danny’s strong hands – but the endorphins hardly made up for the pain and intense humiliation. I was having flares of defiance and memories.

A combination of things I might have done in the past. Shoplifting things I didn’t need and then ditching the stuff was the one that puzzled me the most. Why did I do that? For a thrill? I remembered I felt nothing afterward and I was angry. I could have donated what I stole or brought it back, but I threw it in a stream and littered.

I was apparently someone who didn’t feel guilty about littering in a pristine stream behind under a park bridge back then. I felt like an outsider watching the memory as it returned. A part of whoever I am now was unhappy with me. I had thrills at the mall, and at home from doing daring stuff – without hurting anyone else. I also had strong feelings about the environment and not littering. I couldn’t even imagine someone who would be okay with that.

“Surely, I was not THIS bad of a person?” I said to myself after he let me stand up. I pulled my bikini bottoms back up and started to head to the kitchen to eat my left overs.

“Where are you going, Cunt-leastist?”

“Can you not call me that right now? I am still a little confused, Danny. I just need to eat, maybe,” I asked him for a break.

He punched me hard in the solar plexus (above my tummy) and took away my breath. I fell backward on my ass. My sister kicked him and told him to lay off. He threw her down on the floor and slapped her face.

We’d be subjected to far worse- but I think my sister and I were deeply offended.

“Get on all fours, and eat off like little cum piggies,” Danny poured the eggs, toast, greasy-bacon, and grits mix we just put together on the wooden floor at his feet and pointed.

No way I was doing that! “We JUST cleaned that floor yesterday, Danny!”

“You’ll do it again! And I don’t understand you twats. This morning you are all boo-hoo, boo-hoo, Scotty! Please fix us. We’re broken dollies who don’t like to fuck anymore. News flash! It was never real, you dumb-cunts. Now crawl to my feet, and I might let you lick my toes while you eat!”

We didn’t move.

“What is this? Are you playing like you are not hypnotized, and then when he waves his magic wand, you’ll go back to being good sluts? Or are you just refusing to obey ME, because you think I am the bad one?” Danny sounded pathetic – like a powerless man begging to be given the respect he had not earned.

“I do not understand girls. You say you want something, then you get it, then you do not want it. I can treat you like little brats, tease you, smack you around! There wasn’t anything you would not do less than 12 hours ago. You were fucking fearless dick hounds. Now Mom, basically told us we can play all over the house and you are going to leave me hanging?”

“No Sir, we are just confused – something is not right, and we are trying to make sense of it. I’d like to rewind and go back to how it was,” I said as I got to my knees and crawled over to the mess on the floor. My hair fell into it as I leaned forward and put my face down to try to lap it up. It felt awkward and I was aware my ass was fully exposed.

My sister was reluctant – nervous and disgusted by the food.

“I played your games. I sat at family meetings where you told lie after lie. Last night, you told Mom you need the discipline to keep you getting good grades. She made me sit there with Scotty and talk about it like it was real. You don’t need shit but books and time to get good grades. I am tired of playing games with you cunts. Either get over here and lick, or I am out,” Danny demanded.

“Mom said we could do this, Sir?” Bethany sounded mousy, and unsure of herself. She seemed concerned that Danny was going to watch her big ass. She complied but her heart was not in it.

The bacon grease was the worst – it was thick and heavy, and the bacon was completely ruined. It was all mixed in to the eggs, grits and bits of toast. That’s how we often ate – except we stood up and used our fingers to eat with our hands. We’d even let Danny pour cold coffee and mix up whatever disgusting slop he wanted to feed us.

Today, I was going to vomit.

I heard Mom’s high heels clicking on the wooden floor as she headed toward us rapidly. It was too late to hide what we were doing. I rose up and looked when she walked into the kitchen. She ignored us.

“Go back to what you were doing, girls. I am not here. Just a ghost. Okay?” she sounded passive-aggressive and annoyed as she looked around for her glasses. They made her look very intelligent, but she didn’t need them all of the time.

“Sorry Mom, you weren’t supposed to see this,” Danny tempered his earlier angry comments when he spoke to my mom. He knew better than to raise his voice to her. He became very polite.

“We told you, it’s fine. We just don’t want our nose rubbed in it. When we have guests, they cannot eat this way unless it is in the garage or on the back patio.”

“You are okay with it?” Danny seemed pleased.

“I wouldn’t say okay with it, Daniel. I would say that I am fine with it, and that is a distinction that I do not care to elaborate upon, and I would advise you not to pull this thread today. If this is what had been going on behind my back, I’d prefer it remains behind it. However, if their grades slip, their attitudes change, Tig starts smoking again, then I will rethink the laissez-faire manner in which I am running this household. You are all nearing adulthood- you’ll be able to do anything you want in your own apartments to your heart’s content. While you are under mine, I’ll accommodate you up to a certain point – and if you are curious where that point is, I would urge you strongly to stop looking for it – because you are right on it.”

Mom couldn’t have made it more abundantly clear.

“Yes Ma’am,” he said.

“Now Girls,” my mom addressed us and we looked at her. Our faces and hair were messy from eating, but we stopped when she walked up. “You can keep eating. I don’t mean to interrupt whatever it is you are doing.”

We didn’t return to eating.

“Today’s lunch will be Turkey sandwiches with Swiss, and potato chips. I am going to write down how your father wants his made and you can ask your Inspectors or whatever you call them behind my back, how they want theirs. Matt likes his plain, but he can tell you that himself.”

She didn’t ask us if we had any questions. She turned back to Danny.

“You do need to go to the grocery store. I am taking your father’s truck today, so you can drive my car,” she handed it to him and started making a list of groceries as well. “You can take Tiggy and Bunny or leave them here. They are not on any house restriction unless you put them on one.”

“I can give them restriction?” Danny asked.

“We discussed this, Daniel. I have delegated their discipline to your discretion. I presume you chose this adorable bikini for them to wear?”

“Scotty did, Ma’am,” Danny said. I think it was their joint decision.

“Well, it does not leave much to the imagination. If this is normal for them now I’d like you to just pick up some ribbon when you are out today, and then it can be thrown away at the end of the day after they have sweat all over it.”

“Yes Ma’am!”

“Actually Ma’am, we picked these suits out. We bought them. We never intended to wear them,” I said that I never intended to get mine wet. I put them aside and never touched them. It was so embarrassing to be on the floor like this around my mom.

I would never have imagined her tolerating this behavior. She stuck her nose up in the air like she smelled a fart when she looked down at us. “If this is what you need to do,” she sighed as if she was trying to wrap her head around it.

I wanted to tell her it was not this that was helping us. I couldn’t explain the hypnosis though. That would be just too big of a pandora’s box to open. Even if they believed me, Scotty would get in trouble for doing something our old selves probably didn’t want and they’d never allow us to live that way.

Mom seemed detached. She could get that way when she was angry – passive aggressive. I could see where Bethany got it from. “I did not ask you, Tiggy, and I would ask that you consider your tone when you are talking to me. I do not like how you are speaking to me. I don’t claim to understand why this is working, but I saw an improvement and I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Talk to me again that way and I’ll end this now!”

What tone? I was speaking in my normal voice. Oh god! I just realized I couldn’t help it. I probably sounded like a horrid bitch.

After my mom left, I begged Danny to record me eating off of the floor and groveling so that I could listen to myself. I could not stand that shrill, pretentious, self-centered tone. Everything I said sounded sarcastic. The cadence of my voice and emphasis was all wrong. I was not melodic and bubbly – that’s how I was before today. It sounded like I was putting “air quotes” around every noun or verb I said to stress that I did not really mean what I said.

How annoying.

Mom left to show her house and didn’t even tell Bethany and me goodbye.

The day crawled along, and the work was drudgery. Danny was our only boss and he kept us together. He finger fucked us while we worked and played with our assholes. We let him – but we didn’t like it. It felt like an obligation.

Every now and then Scotty would check on us, but he spent most of his time with Dad. He apologized for his absence.

“Good timing to take up a new hobby, now that your old toys are broken,” Danny chided him.

“I’ve been talking to Dad, and I think I am willing to try to repair the dissociative breakdown you had – but we need to discuss it.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t trust our opinion, Sir?” I asked politely.

“Oh Jesus Christ, how long has she been like this?” Scotty looked at Danny with concern written all over his face. I became self-conscious that I sounded like a parody of Roseanne Barr.

“All morning! Mom basically told her one more comment like the one she gave her, and we are done,” Danny said before asking if he told Dad that we were hypnotized.

“No, obviously not, but I did ask him about some things, and he gave me a fresh perspective. He is a wise man. Has Tig been compliant?” he asked Danny.

“It’s Tiggy Sir,” I reminded him that I was still on board with obedience in the cute way I mentioned it this morning.

“I think I’ll call you Tig, for now, so you don’t feel compelled to bite my head off. Once upon a time, You REALLY did not like that name. You hated it almost as bad as the T-name!”

“Theresa?” I asked. That’s my real first name.

“When you see Mom or Dad, I’d ask that you not say anything unless they speak to you and keep it short, Tig,” Scotty said before asking Bethany how she was doing.

“I am fine. Mom says we have to wear ribbon around the house from now on,” she had her hands folded in front of her boobs.

“I am going to be honest with both of you right now. I am afraid of you. You are my big sisters, and you are both having a cognitive break with the programming that took me months to embed in a matter of hours. You’ll very likely soon become uncooperative. If I had an expert to talk to, I MIGHT be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together – but I am afraid all of the King’s horses and all of the King’s men may not be able to,” he said.