Was
there something wrong with what he was doing to himself? His thoughts were suddenly interrupted as the door opened. Melody was standing there with a serious look on her face. "Could you please come back in here to us Charlie?" she said quietly. "We need to have a little chat with you."
She led him back into the room where the other three were waiting, looking as solemn as the onlookers at the Nuremberg trials. "Sit down Charlie." said Melody, pointing to an empty chair. He did so, wondering with trepidation what was going to happen.
"Charlie, you have to know that what Meiko caught you doing was wrong. You were abusing yourself and you shouldn't be doing that." Melody said quietly. "But it's going to be okay. We're going to help you Charlie." She continued as the others looked at him silently. "You see, you're suffering from a sickness. An addiction. A disease of the mind. We want to save you Charlie. Save you from yourself."
Melody looked at him with a determined expression. "We've come up with a program to help you. A new kind of lifestyle that we're all going to be following." she continued, staring at him unflinchingly with her piercing green eyes. "We've decided we can never trust you to be alone by yourself ever again. By your actions, you have given up and rendered void your right to privacy. We've all agreed we're going to be with you at all times from now on. Ideally all four of us, but that won't always be possible. But as many of us that can feasibly be with you at any given time. And if the worst comes to the worst there will always still be at least one of us at your side, watching you unflinchingly. Your life as a private individual ends from this point on."
Charlie's mouth dropped open in shock. "You can't do that! That's ridiculous!" he protested angrily. "You have no right to follow me around every day! I have a right to privacy just like everyone else! I won't let you do this!" Melody looked at him coldly. "You've never had a job, have you Charlie?" she asked casually. "All those silly video games and comics books that you possess you bought with the generous allowance I provide to you. Not to mention all of your clothes and all the food you eat every day. It would be a real shame if something happened to that allowance, wouldn't it?" Charlie was stunned. He had no comeback to that. The implied threat hung in the air over him, filling him with dread.
"I hope you realise the sacrifice we're all making for you." Melody continued, looking at him sternly. "This is going to be a major disruption to all our lives, not just yours. Of course," she sighed, "Our family has always had a bit of a problem with isolation so it might not be too bad for Lucy and Meiko. But me and Karen both have jobs. But, well, Karen mostly works from home and as for me? I might be the CEO of the family company but it involves less work than you might expect, certainly a lot less than what you might gather by reading about me in the press. I've already delegated a lot of responsibility to others and I can easily delegate much, much more. And I can still conveniently hold group meetings with anyone in the world over the Internet from here. I might get a reputation as a sort of Howard Hughes type, but I'll just have to grin and bear it." she sighed, thinking about the possible headlines. "All of us are willing to undergo significant hardship to help you beat your addiction. That's how important this is, Charlie. That's how important you are to us and how worried we all are about you." Melody smiled at him tenderly as she said this, betraying her previous stern demeanour.
"But...but...how long are you all planning to keep this up?" stammered Charlie, his mind reeling from the very thought of it. "As long as it takes." replied Melody sharply. The other three all nodded their heads firmly. They were all fully committed. "There may come a day when you are legally wedded to a woman, in which case we'll be happy to hand custody of you over to her. We'll have to vet any possible candidates very thoroughly of course, to make sure she shares our beliefs and philosophies. But that would be a possible end to our duties."
"And if that never happens?" Melody continued. "Well if we have to act as your custodians forever we will, Charlie. Until we're all old and grey. The risk is too high to do anything less. Your very soul is at stake here." Charlie was desperately thinking about his allowance and how dependant he was on it. It would certainly be very difficult to live without it. Some kind of madness seems to have come over them, Charlie thought. I'll have to play along for now, but surely they'll eventually come to their senses.
"Now you know our plans to keep on eye on you, Charlie." Melody continued. "But if by some miracle you ever escape our gaze and start playing with yourself again, you will be severely punished."
"That's right!" Karen chimed in cheerfully. She had obviously been looking forward to this part. "Good old fashioned corporal punishment. If our parents had used it on you Charlie, you would have been straightened out a long time ago."
Charlie gasped in shock as Melody nodded. "That's right Charlie, corporal punishment. More specifically, spankings. Every time you attempt to masturbate from now on you will receive four of them. One from each of us, one after another. Every time you abuse yourself you will face our wrath. We won't be using any fancy or cruel implements." She shot a sharp glance at Karen who glowered sullenly at her but said nothing. "We decided on that when we had all managed to calm down a bit. It'll just be you over our knees, our bare hands colliding with your bare ass at extreme velocity. Each of us will keep going until we are satisfied that we have played the full contribution we owe to your punishment. And by the end of it all the cheeks of your ass will be just as red as the cheeks of your face when you confessed your little indiscretion to us." Melody said sweetly, with a slight smile on her face.
This was sensory overload for Charlie. He could barely take it all in. "I know this might be difficult for you to accept Charlie." Meiko suddenly said, the little Asian girl looking at him tenderly. "But it's for your own good. You have to trust us. We're your sisters and we know what's best for you. And we all love you so much."
That was enough to lift Melody's stern demeanour again. "Yes Charlie. We all love you and we're all going to help you. We have nothing but your best interests at heart." Melody smiled at him gently.
"But...But..." spluttered Charlie, desperately trying to put his horrified thoughts into words. A sudden implication struck him. "Wait a minute, you're going to be with me
all the time?
But what about...about..."
Melody interrupted him. "If you're thinking about the bathroom then yes, part of our duties will be assisting you in there, with both your hygiene and toiletry needs. Or maybe you were thinking of bedtime? Well..." Melody paused and looked at the others. "We initially considered just simply tying or chaining your hands to your own bedposts at night, but that didn't feel right to us. You're not our captive Charlie, you're not our prisoner. You're our brother and we all love you very much. So we came up with a different plan."
"That's right!" said Lucy grinning. "From now on all of us will be sleeping together with you in the same bed. We can use that king sized bed in the master bedroom. That's big enough for all of us." Lucy started bouncing happily in her seat, her blonde pigtails flying all over the place. "Oh Charlie, it'll be so much fun! Just like a big sleepover every single night! We can all snuggle together like a big happy loving family! And we'll all be with you the whole night long to make sure you don't do anything to yourself."
"Speaking of which..." Melody glanced at her watch. "It was already getting pretty late before this whole unfortunate incident, and our family discussion and then our little chat with you has lasted more than two hours. It's past all of our bedtimes." She smiled at Charlie. "Let's all go upstairs and get ready for bed, okay? We'll work out the sleeping arrangements when we get up there." And with that the four girls gently lead a shell-shocked Charlie out the living room door, up the stairs and into the master bedroom. It was the beginning of their first night together.
