"Maybe plastic pants would help," Epiphany said to my father, as I stood there, pants around my ankles, having just had yet another whipping for bedwetting.
This time, in front of my college crush!
I love Epiphany so much. We call her "Piff" for short at Buttermilk State, and she is easily the cutest girl in the junior class.
Because of Father's rules, for my own good, I really can't date or go out at night.
But I have enjoyed having lunch with her and brief study groups in the library. I have tutored Piff through Molecular Biology and the English poets class.
"Bierce, you are a sweetheart." Piff has told me on more than one occasion. "We should go to a movie sometime."
I guess it puzzled her that I don't take her up on this. Father belongs to the Buttermilk Falls Legion of Decency, and we only go to Disney movies, or old stuff with Bing Crosby.
I understand Bing was a bit of a martinet with his kids, too.
One afternoon, I offered to walk Epiphany home, and instead she said she'd drive me home, as she has a license. I hope I have one someday!
We had some ice cream first--Epiphany treated me, she was very happy with he recent exam results.
It was a good thing, since Father gives me the same allowance he had as a boy, five dollars a week.
Sometimes I don't even get that, because I bought an old Playboy magazine and he caught me with it, and gave me a vicious thrashing with the vacuum cleaner cord, and then a rigorous enema.
But Piff has lots of cash, and we really enjoyed our time at Baskin-Robbins.
It was so nice and normal, two twenty year old college students, having a nice time. I really hoped that things could proceed from there.
But when she drove me home, I saw the familiar mattress on the porch.
Mother had put the mattress out there to dry and to kill the stink in the fresh air.
I knew what would happen now. My father is a Pentecostal minister. He doesn't believe in sparing the rod.
Just two days before, I'd wet the bed, and Father had taken down my pants in the back yard in front of my maiden aunts, giggling thirtyish women who were highly amused.
I'd tried to expiate my shame by not crying as Father had swung the cruel hazel rod against my naked, tender, trembling buttocks but the Reverend has a great right arm, and I was weeping by the eighth swat.
Father had looked on with grim satisfaction at the long welts on my errant bum, and my aunts had been helpless with laughter, pointing at my stray erection.
My arousal inflamed Dad, who called me a pervert. He'd made me lay my penis on a tree stump and he'd whipped it until it was welted and tiny.
Then Father had made me stand in the back yard with my pants down until dark.
The humiliation really had inflamed me, of course. I was wildly aroused by the shame of being punished in front of my cute aunts. It was really strange.
My Aunt Boots had watched me from the window as I stood in the back yard, and of course she caught me touching myself. She'd grabbed the hazel switch and come out herself to dispense justice.
Aunt Boots was still annoyed because I had been caught jerking off in her panties last summer...
Then, Aunt Boots had dragged me into the tool shed and made me lick her in her nasty parts until she'd had a shuddering orgasm.
But today, I didn't want to be shamed again. I had to get out of the car and hope that Epiphany would just drive back to campus. I couldn't let her know I was a chronic bed wetter. I was captain of the tennis team, and a competitive diver as well.
I might never be able to go out with this girl, but I'd like her to at least have a decent image of me, right?
I liked Piff so much. I could never talk to her at night, because my bedtime was seven-thirty. Father is terribly strict!
