Chapter 2

“I just want to visit with my mom. I ... I miss her,” I admitted, wiping my nose on my coat sleeve and feeling a little more emboldened when Mr. Johnson didn’t bite my head off for saying so. “I don’t want to see her in the nude or doing nasty things with you, though. I didn’t know you were a sick freak!”

I couldn’t help myself. Just imagining the way he must look at her staring back at him through cage bars was starting to make me angry again.

Anyone who keeps a human being in a cage, especially MY mom, IS a sick freak. Dad should have punched his lights out but he hadn’t and I didn’t want to understand why not, even though I really did understand it. My dad is a pussy like Mr. Johnson had said. Dad just gave up on mom without a fight.

My DAD was the one who should be in the cage, not mom, I told myself. My double standard didn’t occur to me. My anger was already being redirected at my dad because I didn’t understand what was going on.

Mom must be being blackmailed or something. I’d already figured out that much. It happens on TV all the time, but usually by the mafia. Mr. Johnson didn’t even look Italian, much less like a gangster, but I knew without a doubt it was it.

I REALLY needed to spend some alone time with mom. But right now, I just wanted out of Mr. Johnson’s house. He was really creeping me out and I already felt guilty about trying to run out on mom and Rich.

Even Rich hadn’t acted like that and he’s just a kid but he’s stupid and doesn’t know what I know. He looks for the best in strangers and he’ll talk to just about anyone. He thinks people are always good.

Even now, he was just standing there holding mom’s hand, not looking the least bit scared. If he had my street smarts I bet he would have run first. I know when I’m in danger but not him.

“Answer me slut, or this’ll be the last time you see Cunt,” Mr. Johnson broke into my thoughts. “Will you follow my rules to come visit your mom or not?”

“I’m not a slut. I’m sixteen,” I replied. And why do you need to use that awful word? There’s a kid here!”

“My rules. I ask and you answer. But I can see you’re too stupid to understand that so I’ll work with you just this once.”

“You’re a pig is what you are.”

Mr. Johnson just smiled like I’d complimented him.

“I’ll take this one baby step at a time so you can keep up. You’ve got a cunt so you’re a slut. Sluts use their cunts to get their way, outside my house. But here I call it as I see it. And I’ve seen you with guys outside your house, too. Three days in a row there was a different guy each time and you kissed all of them. So you’re a slut. You just think it’s a bad thing. As for your mom, she’s just a cunt now so that’s what I named her. You’re the one making more of it than it is.”

“But MY name is Erin. It’s rude to use other names when you know a person’s name. And I’m NOT a slut. I haven’t even...” I stopped myself before I said something about still having my v-card. All of my friends had lost theirs at least a year ago. Even mom didn’t know I still had mine.

“Fine, Erin. I’ll call you by your name. See, I’m working with you. Now work with me. Do you want to be able to visit your mom or not?”

The way he said Erin made me want him to keep calling me a slut. He made my name sound more like a dirty word than when he’d called me a slut directly. It made me shiver inside.

“Yes I do. Oh COURSE I do!” I felt the rage coming to the surface again. How could he even ask such a dumb question.

“Then there will be rules. You decide if the rules are worth it. And you’ll have to get your father to sign off on them.”

Mr. Johnson turned his attention to my mom. “Cunt, bring a set of his and her rules from next to my computer. Chop chop,” he said, punctuating his words with sharp hand claps that made me shiver again.

I imagined him slapping my mom’s butt with those hands. I didn’t doubt that he had. Mom shot to her feet and scampered off as if her butt was on fire.

“Why does dad have to agree too? You said he’s not allowed over here. Anyway, he can’t stop me and Rich from coming to see our mom. He wouldn’t dare.” Still, I bit my lip, wondering when we’d be allowed to leave.

I didn’t want to leave mom here, but I was still feeling overwhelmed by everything I’d seen and heard tonight. I needed time alone to process it.

While I nervously waited for mom to come back with the papers I tried to imagine what Mr. Johnson’s rules would be. He must have been expecting me and my brother if he had them all printed out already.

Something about the way Mr. Johnson had told mom to get the papers bothered me. I decided it was that mom had jumped so fast to do his bidding. She was never like that at home. A few seconds later mom came back, knelt in front of Mr. Johnson and offered up two pages as if her hands were a platter. One page was pastel pink and the other, a light blue.

I briefly wondered why Mr. Johnson had gone to so much trouble to dream up two PAGES of rules. How many rules could there possibly be for visitation rights? The answer was in Mr. Johnson’s hand. Obviously, two pages worth!

At least I understood why Mr. Johnson wanted dad to sign. If it was a legal document, neither of us was old enough to sign it by ourselves. Even I knew that.

But then Mr. Johnson handed Rich one of the pages. My curiosity got the better of me and I shuffled closer to Rich so I could get a look while he was reading it over.

I saw that right at the top of the page, in big, bold letters, were the words, BOYS RULES. Under that were a bunch of bullet points but I couldn’t read them upside down and at an angle.

I suddenly wasn’t that interested in the blue page anymore because it had to mean the pink page had a whole bunch of probably different rules, for girls.

That figured. Mr. Johnson had already said he believed all girls were sluts. Why should he think the rules should be the same for women? I think I even rolled my eyes a bit.

But Mr. Johnson wasn’t handing me the pink page. He was watching Rich read the boys’ rules. My brother looked more confused than anything.

“Are these rules for me? I think you gave me the wrong set,” Rich said, using that look that shows how dumb he can be. “This is like a list of sex rules or something,” he said looking confused.

“Do you think you can stick to the rules without breaking them?” Mr. Johnson asked in a softer voice than he used with me.

“Ahhh, duh. I don’t think I’ll be breaking any of these,” he said with a giggle. “‘Specially not the one about jizzing in mom’s pussy,” he laughed. “That’d be nasty! She’s my mom! But do I really need to call first? Couldn’t I just knock on the door?”

“Those are my rules. If you don’t think you can observe them, we won’t have a deal, Rich,” Mr. Johnson said calmly then asked, “Will your father sign off on them?”

“I think he’ll spaz a little but he will if he has to. He won’t stop me from visiting mom. Is the other page for Erin?”

“It is, but she hasn’t asked for it. Sluts don’t get anything without asking,” Mr. Johnson explained to my brother.

Seriously? “Mr. Johnson, may I please look at the girls’ rules?” I asked as politely as I could while rolling my eyes again for Rich’s benefit.

I was still feeling ashamed of crying in front of my brother and I was trying to let him know that he’d never again see a little breakdown like that from me again. That and I wanted to get my hands on the pink paper with a minimum of fuss.

“Thought you wanted to leave?” He reminded me of what I’d said earlier.

That reminded me that he also said I’d have to ask to leave. I instantly hatched a plan to thwart his humiliating treatment of me.

“I do. I’d like to take the page of rules home to study it if I may, please, Sir. Can I have it and leave?”

I thought that was pretty clever. If he said yes, then I’d get the sheet and he’d have to unlock the deadbolt for me and Rich. I didn’t actually consider that he might NOT say yes. Luckily he did.

To show how little interest I had in the pink paper, I refused to look at it when he handed it to me. I simply folded it in half then half again, and jammed it into my pocket. The whole time I was dying to know what was on it. Then I looked at Mr. Johnson expectantly. He had the key to the deadbolt.

Mr. Johnson didn’t even order mom back into the living room. I’d figured he’d worry she would try to escape but she simply went back to holding Rich’s hand until the door was opened then she knelt there and watched us leave. It was surreal.

It was dark outside and we picked our way together down the path and across Mr. Johnson’s lawn to our own. There wasn’t much of a moon to light our way, either. When we got home, dad had already gone to bed.

Rich and I hadn’t said a word about our experience at Mr. Johnson’s house.

“Do you think mom’s happy at Mr. Johnson’s house? I’ve never seen her be all tied up naked like that and stuff before,” Rich volunteered while we were taking our coats off and hanging them on their hooks.

That’s what he got from our adventure? “She had whip marks on her, Rich! Of course she’s not happy no matter what she says. Mr. Johnson must be blackmailing her and dad knows all about it or he would have called the cops already. I think we need to play Mr. Dick’s games so we can find out what’s really going on.”

“Mr. Dick?” Rich asked.

“He’s a dick. You heard what he called mom and me. And he didn’t make you ask for anything. Just me.”

“Oh. Yeah I guess,” Rich shrugged like it was no big deal before adding, “But mom looked happy to me. She looked weird with no hair, though. She does seem to have chilled out a lot. More than she was around here, always fighting with dad and stuff.”

“She didn’t have a choice, Rich. You saw. He had her in a cage and she was naked and gagged. You think she LIKES being in the nude? Being gagged? And as for the piercings...”

“They were so cool! I wanted to touch them. They looked really neat! Did you see the one on her pussy? Do you think she’s had them the whole time she’s been there?”

“Rich! That’s your mom you’re talking about! How could you want to touch her tits?”

“I meant the rings, Erin. They looked real heavy. Anyway, she had ‘em right out there for anyone to see. She didn’t care. And the rules_”

I cut him off. The rules! I had somehow forgotten they were in my coat pocket. “Hold on. I’ll get them. And I want to see yours too. Did it really say jizz or were you making that up?”

“No, it really said milkshake. Of course it said jizz, Erin! Jeez. Mr. Johnson is doing S&M stuff with mom. But I never thought that stuff was real until tonight. Hey, I want to see yours too!” He said as I was rifling through my pockets looking for the pink paper.

It took a moment to translate what Rich had said. I’d still been thinking about mom’s piercings so at first I thought he was saying he wanted to see my tits before I realized he meant the pink paper.

I found it, pulled it out of the pocket it’d been in and held it high like a trophy before remembering it was a piece of paper from creepy Mr. Dick.

I suddenly wasn’t sure I wanted to read what was on it, much less let Rich see it. If he had really talked about jizz, there was no telling what the pink one said.

Shielding the paper from Rich, I unfolded it. Even before I unfolded it all the way I saw the bottom right corner said ‘rev 3.1’ like a school textbook. I knew ‘rev’ meant revision. If it was revision 3, it hadn’t been put together just for me. That made me even more nervous about opening it all the way.

I chewed my bottom lip and opened it all the way. The page said, ‘RULES FOR GIRLS’ at the top.

The first rule was next to a bullet like a list. It was in little printing I had to be close to read and I realized that’s why I hadn’t been able to read Rich’s rules when he’d been given them.

It said, ‘In my house, all girls are sluts and can expect to be referred to as such. If you don’t like it, fuck off and don’t come back’

That figured. Mr. J had said that enough times. I reminded myself that it was just a word. I could get over that because I’d know it wasn’t true for me even if he kept calling me one.

The second bullet point was way more scary. ‘Tantrums piss me off. Piss me off and you’ll be punished’

I was sure that tantrums weren’t the only thing that upset Mr. J, but what did he mean by ‘punished’? I’d seen mom’s body. He’d obviously whipped the shit out of her. I’d die if someone did that to me! I didn’t want to think about that one so I moved on.