Chapter 28

“No, I don’t think we can return to how things were. You weren’t very strict, and I had a hard time not laughing when you made empty threats about making me run home naked. You have a tendency to make these absurd orders up, and then it’s obvious you aren’t serious. Remember Pete and all of his friends? You let Heather get gang banged, and you were going to make me be his urinal when he got home? I actually thought you were going to put me in my place. Instead, you acted like I am made of porcelain and that I am this faithful little housewife. That was just a character I was playing behind your backs. I am obviously not a prude, and I am kind of tired of pretending to be one.”

I was stunned by Karen’s admission.

“The only way I’d continue is if we stop the charade and you keep me in line – all of you. If every time you hear your father raise your voice to me, one of you is going to cry, then I doubt this will make me regret any of my past behavior.”

“You regret it?” Mandy seemed to want to hear her mother admit some contrition.

“No, not at all. I was hoping you guys would make me regret it, and there were times I wanted you to get even with me. Your dad wanted me to go door to door and make a fool of myself by introducing myself as Spunky. I’ve slept with half of those men and some of the wives too. I was literally terrified that I’d never be able to go back to my old ways after this.”

“What about Heather?” Mandy asked.

My wife looked right at her eldest daughter and said that was another lie. “I told you all that I favored Heather and spoiled her, but that’s not true. I really don’t give a shit whether she improves her behavior or not. I was honestly shocked she could keep up with me, but then you guys weren’t very strict. I really don’t care what you decide.”

“Decide?” I asked.

“Yeah, divorce me? Control me? I’d love to see you try, but you’ll probably just go back to the milquetoast way you’ve hidden us in the bedroom. Everybody knows you tie us up and spank us back there. You used to do it in the living room, but you got cold feet.”

“Go to the bedroom. Let me talk to the kids,” I instructed. I was losing patience with my wife. She said she wanted this, and now she seemed to be testing my resolve to give it to her.

“What if I don’t want to?” she laughed wickedly. It was not like my wife at all to be this defiant – then, this past week, I didn’t expect her to remain so submissive. “Fine, shall I crawl like a dumb dog? Or is that too mean?”

I didn’t answer her. My wife walked slowly into the bedroom in a defiant way, but she didn’t cover her nudity. She closed the door. “One thing is for sure,” she said as she opened the door again and looked out at us. “If I am going back to Karen, then this is MY fuck room, and you will all NEVER again tell me what to do.”

She slammed the door shut.

I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Heather asked politely if she should leave as well. “No, you should stay,” I said.

“I don’t know what just happened. I never knew Mom did all of those things. I guess it makes sense; she never seemed surprised by anything you made us do. For what it is worth, I thought you were plenty strict, Daddy.”

I made Heather join us. No one protested that she squatted on the floor at our feet in the living room. She didn’t sit smartly with her shoulders back, chin up, and hands behind her head. She was much more casual.

I think we all felt like we had just been sucker punched, and the wind had been knocked out of us.

We reached the conclusion that Karen was a wicked, cruel person. It was Heather who helped us understand her perspective.

“I can only speak for myself, okay? I still don’t understand why I like living this way, but I really do. I was popular in high school, and I felt entitled to everything. I was impatient, cruel, vain, and selfish, and those were my good qualities. The first time a boy slapped me during sex, I got angry and nearly beat his ass.”

Heather explained how she arrived at the conclusion that this boy had dared to strike her and put her in her place, being a good thing. “It was like he had this audacity not to put me on a pedestal. Instead of apologizing, he didn’t want me. That made me want him more.”

“Yeah, you want whatever you can’t have,” Mandy shrugged. We all knew that was a motivating factor for Heather when she was younger.

“Yeah, that’s part of it. I don’t know why I am wired like this, but the more controlling and strict a guy was with me – the more I behaved and tried to get his approval. I did some terrible things to all of you over the years. Just before Daddy took charge of me, I erased his fantasy football league, but that wasn’t nearly as bad as what Mom did.”

“Thanks,” I chuckled, and she just reminded me. I would have been first in the league if I still had my picks. Tom Brady had screwed the pooch, and the Buccaneers were definitely not in the Super Bowl this year.

“I was destructive, but I think many times I liked getting caught. I wanted somebody to make me stop. Instead, people let me get away with more, so I became a little bit brattier and doubled down on my ego. I think Mom must have reached the same conclusion and found it easy to get away with her lies and manipulations, and eventually, when she saw you punishing me – and how I behaved – she wanted to clear her conscious.”

That made sense.

“I don’t know if this clears my conscious, but every day I wake up thinking about how I can be better and be of service. I don’t try to pull any shenanigans because I know you’ll catch me. You guys may as well know this,” my daughter said. Oh no, another secret.

“At the club, strippers have sex in the private booths,” she said.

“No!!!” Steve nearly convinced me he was seriously unaware of that fact until he asked if bears really did shit in the woods.

Heather pursed her lips in amusement. “Okay, well, Dad didn’t want you to know, okay? Anyway, He sent a guy to check on me the other day and buy some dances – see what I’d do. I could have manipulated him into thinking a knee in his crotch while we listened to Def Leppard was more than enough of a thrill for his dumb ass. Instead, when he asked, I took his dick out and let him fuck me in the ass. I made sure not to play with myself or let him fuck me so that I didn’t get myself off. I would have fucked him if that is what he wanted, but I know I am better when I am denied pleasure – so I try not to give into temptation, and that’s why I didn’t fuck him.”

“You let him fuck your ass?” Mandy scrunched her nose in disgust.

“Yeah, but Mom didn’t wait for him to ask. She took his dick right out and fucked him silly. As I understand it. She was telling the truth that she loves cock and that she doesn’t like to compete. She fucked him so hard that he prefers her to me.”

“Is that really a shocker?” Steve teased.

My daughter nodded touche’ and added that the point she was trying to make was that her mother was trying to compete with her, and she didn’t even realize it. “I was never really sure why Mom was so gung-ho about doing this with me. I didn’t really believe she was trying to set a good example for me. I guess she is probably more like me than she wants to admit, and she wants to be put in her place.”

“So, you want to continue being Gobbler?” Mandy asked.

“I don’t LOVE that name,” Heather admitted but nodded that she did. “I know I seem like a fruitcake, and there are days I just want to lay under the covers and not be humiliated, but the simple fact is the more that Dad pushes my reset button all the way down – the better I behave.”

“Do you want me to be more strict?” I asked.

“I think you are plenty strict, Daddy. If I am being honest, I really wasn’t licking the toilet like Mom was. That’s filthy, and I would prefer to sit on the couch with you guys.”

“Naked?” Mandy asked with shock.

“Yeah, I know why Dad insists we can’t be on the couch, but if you’re asking, would I sit on the couch if I could? Then yes.”

“Why haven’t you then?” Steve asked. It was a serious question.

Heather thought hard about it for a moment.

“You are going to think I am a fruitcake,” my daughter began.

Mandy cut her off and said she always thought that.

“You are going to think I am a fruitcake,” Heather repeated herself. “I thrive on discipline or whatever, and those are the rules of the house and have been for a while. I guess this won’t make any sense, but I like being told what to do and teased even though I know I should prefer comfort.”

“So, why do you give us the stink eye whenever we tell you to do anything for us?” Steve asked.

“You are my little brother, and you ALWAYS will be. I didn’t want you to get a big head,” she smiled.

“Oh, I’ve got a BIG head,” Steve took the opportunity to make a dirty joke.

“For what it is worth, I had no idea Mom was peeping on you guys. I’ve accidentally seen you in the shower here and there or something but never intentionally looked, and no, you have a regular-shaped head, Steve.”

Steve chuckled and nodded.

“So, what do we want to do?” I finally asked the question. The others didn’t know, so I laid out options.

“We can have your mom come back out here and forgive her for the things she told us, and try to move forward, go back to whatever normal is going to look like,” I said.

The others were skeptical of that. I was as well – I began to count up all the guys I knew in my head and try to place the times she may have fucked them behind my back. I pictured them grinning right at me when they came over to my house to watch Football and have a beer, and all the while, they had been plowing my wife.

“We can have your mom come back here and BEG forgiveness and tell her that she can earn it, as Spunky, but if she needs things to be strict – then they will be strict. I won’t make her quit teaching, but I’ll have more rules at school – no more fucking students or customers at the strip club unless it’s on my terms.”

“I still can’t get over how my friends kept this from me,” Steve suggested. “She’s my mom, but I kind of vote for the second option.”

“I am just so angry. I don’t know that I would be able to treat Mom like she hadn’t convinced you NOT to buy me a car when I graduate?” Mandy asked.

Frankly, she and I had never even discussed it. Mandy was still a Sophomore, and I didn’t have the money lying around until she started dancing. “If I put the girls back to work, then I’ll expect you to help me keep them in line, and in exchange, I’ll get all of you cars, plus fill your college fund.”

“Wait,” Heather raised her hand to ask a question. “Do I get a vote on whether I continue being punished?”

“No,” I said.

My daughter grinned with a look of satisfaction on her face and looked at the carpet.

I felt Edgar was remaining quiet because he was outvoted, or maybe he was just being bashful.

“It needs to be unanimous, Edgar,” Steve told his little brother that his opinion mattered.