Chapter 6

When Barbara awakened the next morning the bed was empty. Since it was Sunday, she knew that no one had to do anything that day. Looking around the room, the only article of her clothing she could find was her shirt. Slipping it on, she padded out to the living room and found the apartment was empty. In the kitchen she found a note from Marie telling her to use the toiletries laid out in the bathroom and that she and Ken would be back from church by twelve. Looking at the clock she found it was a little after eleven.

After taking another shower and brushing her teeth, Barbara picked up a hairbrush and started stroking her wavy hair. As she did, she walked through the apartment. She smiled to herself when she realized what the dwelling really was. Although in terms of location and external appearance it was the normal sort of apartment for a struggling married student, in reality it was anything but.

In addition to the living room, dining area, bedroom and kitchen, it had a library and an exercise room. She noted that the machines each had two presets which she assumed to be the weight levels Marie and Tom used. Setting one of them at Marie's setting, she was startled to find that she could scarcely budge the weights. After cutting the weight in half she found she could now move them, but barely. It was only after cutting them in half again that she found she could actually do exercises. All the settings did was confirm what she already knew: Marie was in magnificent physical condition — and this in spite of being pregnant!

Marie found her in the exercise room when she returned home. Telling her it was Tom's turn to make breakfast — their contribution was risking starvation or food poisoning — she disappeared and soon reappeared naked. While Barbara moved her weights, Marie set another machine to her preset level and started to move the weights effortlessly and quickly. When Barbara asked her about it, Marie admitted that she didn't feel right if she didn't work out every day.

After companionably sharing another shower — this time Bobbie carefully scrubbed Marie's body and shuddered at all the scars she carried — they went to the bedroom to dress. With a grin Marie gave her a pair of Levi's and a shirt with the comment, "I'm sure these will fit you."

"How can you be so sure?" Barbara asked skeptically. "I don't have any clothes here except the junk I wore last night and I'm sure any size markings wore off them years ago."

Sticking out the pink tip of her tongue Marie replied, "Because you're Clifford & Jamison Standard, silly."

"What in hell is that?"

"You're not nearly as observant as I thought you were," Marie answered. "With a handful of exceptions — my sister Celeste, Joan Clifford and me — all the other girls are a dull sameness. The coloring varies a little, but that's about all." Pretending to be disgusted she snorted, "They're all the same size, give or take a small fraction of an inch — interchangeable parts! And you're one of them."

Although Barbara laughed, when she put on the clothes she found that they did fit perfectly. Going out to the dining area she found that Tom had, in fact, prepared a magnificent Sunday brunch, complete with spicy Bloody Marys. When she saw them, she rolled her eyes and said, "Here's where I get in real trouble. As a lawyer, I'm an officer of the court. As such, I have a responsibility to uphold the law ... And here you teenyboppers are drinking... alcoholic beverages!"

With a snap of her fingers, she exclaimed, "That's it!"

"That's what?" Tom asked, puzzled at her outburst. Usually he and Marie were so attuned to each other that they almost shared each other's thoughts. This time, though, he was baffled.

Instead of answering Tom directly, she looked at Bobbie and asked, "What are your living plans now? I don't know if you remember anything from last night, but your landlord, Mr. Smith, has resigned from the University and is gone as of now."

Barbara just shook her head. She had no plans at all, and Marie had been correct: She hadn't remembered anything from the night before. Then Marie smiled warmly and asked, "Would you care to live here with Tom and me? At least until our baby comes? I guess that will be around February."

When Barbara started to protest, Marie interrupted. "Wait a moment, Bobbie. We learned that you deal in rather ... unusual ... housing arrangements. Our arrangement would be a bit unusual, too. Are you interested?"

"Yes!" the girl replied quickly, but then added with a note of skepticism, "At least I guess so. What arrangement do you have in mind?"

"It came to mind when I made my usual crack about Tom being a teenybopper. You see, I'm a little strange. I love to carry the marks of the person I love on my body. I would have branded the initials, T C, all over me except Tom persuaded me that first, I'm scarred enough, and second, he doesn't like it very much.

"However, what he does do — or did do — is spank me black and blue. I keep track of which cheek is next. We sort of have an informal penalty schedule. For example, a simple crack about being a teenybopper is one spank. I pull down my pants and bend over his leg in whichever direction makes it easier for him to spank the correct cheek. Higher levels of insolence or disobedience receive more spanks."

With a shake of her head and a grimace she continued, "But last week Tom knocked it off. He says I'm a masochist — he's probably right — but there's no sign the baby is, too. Although I don't think it could hurt the little thing, I certainly can't make a case that it would benefit from it, either."

With a wicked grin she continued, "This is where you come in. You substitute your ass for mine. Whenever I make a crack, you take the punishment. If, by some chance, you do something that is deserving of punishment on our little scale of values, your own punishment is doubled." Looking at the girl with an eyebrow raised she asked, "Is that an off-beat-enough housing arrangement for you?"

To Barbara it was virtually perfect. She desperately wanted to be punished for her obscene behavior and realized that it was — at least in part — an element in her accepting the vile arrangements with Smith. The one proposed by Marie was far better, though. This way she would be explicitly punished rather than merely allowing herself to be degraded. "I accept!" she exclaimed, sticking out her hand to shake.

Rather than taking the girl's hand Marie quickly shook her head and said, "There's more. Don't be too hasty."

"More?" Barbara asked skeptically. "How much more?"

"I don't really know how much, hon," Marie replied candidly, "Because it really depends on me, not you.

"You see," she said with a smile, "We all carry babies pretty easily — it's due to lessons or inspiration or something from Tom's mother, Hank. You saw Joan the other day, for example. Incidentally, she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. He's going to be William Harrison Clifford, III. Anyway, I happen to know that Bill fucked her silly just that morning before going in to the hospital. Furthermore, she's just about my size although, to be honest, Bill is substantially smaller than Tom."

Then she interrupted her narrative, grinned and continued, "You learned something else when you were at the office from the children. Most of the women are nursing infants and have older children there, too. Anyway — and this may be Hank Conroy's influence, too — we are all wonderful milk producers."

She grinned broadly now and interjected, "I wouldn't be at all surprised if Ali had a breast milk competition at our Christmas party this year." Continuing her story she said, "I think that Kenny or Andy probably told you about nursing at their mother's breast after the baby has eaten its fill. You see, we all want our milk to be as fresh as possible for our babies so we want to be sure that our tits are completely drained."

As Marie spoke, Barbara was looking increasingly puzzled. She certainly knew about the children nursing at their mothers' breasts and thought it was utterly wonderful. Kenny told how his mother took the opportunity to hug him, stroke him, and love him. But still she could see no connection with Tom and Marie, and her lack of comprehension was obvious.