Chapter 41

Bob and I returned to his house after a fun afternoon with our friends. I was as upbeat as I'd been in several weeks. Carol wanted to talk to me, and according to Bob and my own hunch, she wanted to get back together. Life had started to look a lot more promising.

When we entered the house, we stepped into Hell, or at least I did. First thing we noticed was a palpable air of tension. Through the doorway to the living room I saw Bob Sr. sitting in his chair. He looked drunk. The little boys heard us come in and ran to us, throwing their arms around us. They seemed scared.

Sandy asked, "Why did Daddy spank Carol so hard? I think he hurt her."

Daddy spanked Carol? What's going on here? My blood ran cold, then boiled. What to do? Confront him or check on Carol?

I asked the boys. "Where is Carol now?"

"In her room."

Bob took the boys to settle them down and get them ready for bed. They should have been there an hour ago. Something was really fucked-up here. I ran upstairs to Carol's room and tried it. It was locked. I knocked on her door.

I heard a groan, then her voice, sounding like she'd just wakened.

"What?"

My anxiety for her showed in my voice.

"Carol Anne, Honey, are you OK? Sandy said your dad hurt you."

Her reply sounded distant, hopeless.

"I'll live, but I shouldn't..."

I felt fear gripping my chest.

"What happened?"

Despair and pain in that voice!

"I can't tell you. Please go away, David. It's all over now. I mean it! Go away. PLEASE! There's nothing you can say or do now to change things."

I was confused. She called me 'David' and said 'please', but 'it's all over'? Change what things?

"What? You're not making any sense."

She was starting to sob.

"I-I said it's over! I can't tell you a-anything! PLEASE, DAVID! Just go away!"

"Carol Anne, I can't just leave you now! Not like this! You're hurting and I want to help."

Her voice suddenly went flat, lifeless, as if in ultimate realization...

"You can't help me now, David. It's over, we're finished."

"But, Carol Anne..."

She interrupted me, suddenly screaming hysterically.

"IT'S OVER! WE'RE DONE! GO AWAY! I CAN'T SEE YOU AGAIN!! GO-O-O AWAAAAY!!"

Her screaming broke down into wracking, wailing sobs like her heart had completely shattered. What had that asshole done to her? I stood and waited outside her door, powerless, for an eternity. Her wailing and sobs gradually subsided. She sensed I was still there. In a drained, emotionless voice she spoke. Her words had a total finality to them in their very flatness. There would be no reprieve this time.

"Just go away, David. Our world is dead. Just bury it. Go away. I won't answer if you try to talk to me again, ever. Now go."

My life in ruins at the finality of her words, I was at a loss for ones of my own. All I could do was leave. I poured my whole heart into my last words.

"OK, I'm leaving. Good night, My Love. May the Goddess protect you. I love you more than life itself, and always will."

Her last direct words to me were completely final.

"Good bye, David."

I turned and started down the stairs. It was so quiet I heard her whisper.

"I kno-o-o-w... I kno-o-o-ow. Oh dear God, I know."

And then the wailing, wracking sobs began anew.

Broken, crushed, defeated, and desolate, I slowly trudged down those stairs. Bob met me in the hall.

"You heard, Bob?"

"Yeah. She'll get over it."

"Not this time, at least not any time soon, Bob. It's really over this time. What the fuck happened here tonight?"

Bob grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the front porch so we could talk without being overheard in the living room. He started by telling me what Iain had told him while he got them ready for bed. Age ten, Iain was extremely bright with an excellent memory. He was going to be every bit the scholar Riekie was. What little blood was left in me drained completely away as Bob re-told Iain's story.

"Iain said Carol was happy all day then after supper, something happened between her and Dad. He said Dad was drunk most of the day, and sat drinking all through supper. Apparently Carol took him a drink, even though she didn't want to. It must've been close to the boys' bedtime, because she made them wait at the dining room table and play in their colouring books until she fixed Dad's drink and took it to him. Iain said he could see Dad's chair from there. When she handed him the drink, Dad put his hand up Carol's leg under her skirt and she tried to move away. Something was said that Iain couldn't hear, but Dad got mad and suddenly threw Carol over his knee, ripped her panties off and started spanking her. He spanked her so hard she screamed and screamed in pain and fainted. Dad didn't stop spanking her until she passed out. Iain said Sandy and him were scared to death and never so glad to see anybody as us when we came in.

"Anyway, when Dad saw the boys watching, he acted scared, and told them everything was alright now. Carol had been a very bad girl, and he punished her."

I was getting very angry now, suspecting the worst.

"Did Iain see him do anything else?"

"No. Iain said Carol only fainted for a few minutes and came to as Dad was telling them everything was OK. When Carol sat up, Dad said something to her too quietly for Iain to hear, but whatever he said, must've shook Carol up badly because she screamed again and ran to the stairs. Iain thought he must've told her if she ever was bad like that again, she'd get another bad spanking. That's what he figured Dad would've said to him if it had been him getting punished.

"He said she ran, but then he said she couldn't very well. She acted like her bum was too sore. Iain said he knew what that felt like from his own last spanking. He said Carol couldn't lift her feet to climb and actually crawled up the stairs. That's why Sandy thought she was hurt. She probably was.

"Dad doesn't lose his temper with us very often, but when he does, his spankings are brutal. I don't think Carol had ever been spanked before. She saw me and Riekie get it a couple times, and that was enough for her. That's the first time any of us ever got it bare-ass that I know of, and the first time he ever hit one of the older kids.

"After Carol crawled upstairs, the boys didn't know what to do. They were scared Dad would go after them next. You know how it is when one kid gets punished, they all think they're gonna get it. Dad just sat in his chair drinking, so Iain snuck upstairs to ask Carol if she was OK. She was crying but told him not to worry about her. Sandy and him just stayed at the dining room table drawing and colouring where Dad could see them from his chair until we came in. Iain said Dad never paid them any attention. He's been sitting there drinking ever since. He's probably totally juiced by now."

"I have to talk to him, Bob."

"What's the point? He's probably too drunk now to make sense."

"I still hafta try, Bob. Something's fishy here."

"OK, but don't do anything stupid. You can't help Carol at all if you can't come here anymore."

"I'll try to hold my temper."

We had been talking quietly in the front porch, now I headed into the living room to beard the lion in his den. I told Bob to stay out and leave us alone. Bob Sr. was still sitting in his chair, a drink dangling limply in his hand. In his other, he held a wisp of material. I approached him.

He greeted me like an old army buddy.

"Well, well, Old Man! Quite a show, eh? I showed that little slut a thing or two! She'll never miss a slice off a cut loaf! Beautiful legs, but a lousy lay! You're well rid of her! I heard her screaming at you to leave her alone. By the feel of her, she's been whoring it up with every Tom and hairy Dick in town, or was it just you? She was wet before I ever touched her!"

I wanted to beat the living shit out of the drunken bastard right then and there, but was mindful of what Bob said, so I kept my wits and kept my fists to myself. Of course she was wet! She always was when she was happy with or about me! Another sign that until he got going, she was coming back to me! My eyes held his drunken ones steadily, enforcing the strength of my words and my reply was icy cold.

"A gentleman doesn't tell tales out of school, and I know you're lying about fucking your own daughter, so why the brag? From what I hear, what you did do is bad enough, but if I thought for one tenth of a second that you really had, you wouldn't be alive now to brag to me about it. If I ever find out that you really did rape her or ever lay a hand on her again, I will personally hunt you down. So now, tell me exactly what happened and I may remember I'm a gentleman."

He paled at my cold, flat statements, but thought he'd try me.

"Young man, you can't talk to me like that in my own house. You had better leave now."

I wasn't backing down.

"For now, this is just between us, but perhaps Dolly and the police would like to know what you claim to have done, eh, 'Old Man'?"

He really paled at that not so thinly veiled threat.

"No need for that, I think. I didn't do anything except feel her up a little. She was wet, I thought I excited her. My finger slid into her and I discovered she was no longer virgin. I lost my temper and gave her the spanking she deserved for being a tramp. The little boys saw the whole thing. When she recovered, she went to her room."

As I spoke my next words, I heard Dolly come in. She didn't hear most of our next exchange as she puttered in the kitchen, but she caught the tone, and she definitely heard what he said last.

"For your sake, and Carol Anne's, that better be true. She is no tramp or slut. She belongs to me. Remember what I said about hunting you down."

"Idle threats don't frighten me, young man. Well, if she 'belongs' to you, then I guess these are yours, too. Enjoy them. From what I heard from her just now, it will be an extremely long time, if ever, before you get to see or touch where they came from again."

He threw the wisp of cloth to me. It was her panties. I slipped them in my pocket as I replied. I destroyed Carol's torn panties the very next day. The memory associated with them was too painful.

"Hear me and hear me well. I do NOT make idle threats. As the Goddess is my witness that is a promise I WILL keep."