The Mother Tracie Deserves Ch 15

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL

The next couple of days were a bit tense between Tracie and me. We both acted as if everything was fine, but we hardly spoke, and when we did, it was strained. It was impossible for me to not think about the passes my stepdaughter had made at me.

I tried to tell myself that teenagers and their hormones did crazy things; that nobody got hurt; that the weirdness of Tracie's blackmail videos had gotten confusing; that it was understandable how signals had got gotten mixed - anything to make what she did okay in my mind.

But the hardest part to confront - the part that disturbed me most - was the unacceptable reactions I had felt. Had I been neglected for so long that even romantic attention from my own daughter had turned me on? Something deep in my center shivered at the thought. I couldn't let anything risk my relationship with my girl.

Two days after the "garage incident," it was warm and sunny, beautiful spring weather. But I came home from work to an upsetting situation.

I drove up our street at my usual weekday time to find someone's car parked in my driveway. Tracie was standing beside the driver's window, bent over in very short shorts and a very tight top, apparently flirting with whoever was behind the wheel.

Tracie saw me driving up and I saw her tell the driver to leave. It was a boy, and he quickly backed out of my driveway and spun his wheels, spitting gravel, to take off up the road.

I saw a bumper sticker on the back of the car, and suddenly remembered whose car it was. My whole body got hot with anger.

Tracie must have hurried into the house, because she was nowhere to be seen by the time I parked.

I entered the house furious, looking for her. She wasn't in the kitchen or family room or dining room. I went down the hall to her bedroom.

I didn't hide my anger. "Tracie, what the hell was he doing here?"

She didn't act surprised or guilty. If anything, my daughter looked defiant. "It's not your business, Mom."

"Raymond, Tracie? Are you kidding me? What was he doing here? Why are you even talking with him again?"

Tracie just shrugged. "Seriously, Mom, what's it to you?"

I scoffed, my jaw slack in disbelief. "I cannot believe this, Tracie! After all the things that little bastard has done to you! Why are you letting him back in your life?"

"My love life has nothing to do with you, isn't that right, Mom? Isn't that the way you want it?"

I wanted to blow up at the girl, to let loose and yell all the reasons Raymond was bad for her, how she deserved so much better, how she was degrading herself to let that cheating liar anywhere near her. We'd had those fights before, over the years since Tracie's freshman year when he first broke her heart, and the times she'd gone back to him since.

But there was something in my stepdaughter's eyes that stopped me. It was more than just her stern defiance. I saw a disturbing confidence, like she wanted me to get mad.

I held my tongue and looked at her, trying to figure out what was in her mind. "What is going on, Tracie?"

"What do you care, Mom?"

"What do you mean, what do I care? I'm your mother! Nobody cares about you more than I do - certainly not that pimple-faced idiot."

"I know you care for me, Mom. But only up to a point."

"Huh?"

"I'm nineteen, Mom. I'll do what I want. Now if you don't mind, I'd like you to leave my room."

My jaw dropped. "Oh no you don't, girlie. You're going to tell me what's going on!"

Tracie jumped up from her bed and pointed her finger in my face. "No. You're going to get out of my room right now. Go make dinner. And when I want to tell you something, I will. Bye!" She pushed me out of her room and closed her door in my face.

My eyes nearly popped out of my head. My scalp was sizzling. I couldn't believe how my daughter was acting! I couldn't believe how she was talking to me! On top of it all, she was pulling the blackmail card, ordering me around again like a slave.

I was so mad, on so many levels!

And I felt so alone.

Humiliating as it was, I made dinner for us. The whole time I was in the kitchen, my mind was spinning with angry thoughts. That Tracie would boss me around in the middle of an argument was offensive, but much less surprising to me than seeing Raymond in her life again.

She met him when she was in ninth grade, having just started high school. I was suspicious of him right off the bat, since he was two years older. After a brief period when Tracie was carried away on her first love, Raymond quickly became the biggest problem in my daughter's life. And that made him a problem in mine.

I could write a whole book on how he mistreated her, strung her along, cheated on her, isolated her from her friends, and played with her emotions. He was heartless, but something about him made him irresistible to Tracie. Unfortunately, I knew too well how a teenage girl's heart can lead her astray. Every time he hurt her, I prayed she would give up on him for good. It was all I could do to keep from killing the jerk myself.

I thought she had finally gotten over him once and for all, but now he was back in her life, and I couldn't understand why.

I finished cooking dinner, fixed our plates, and set them on the table. But while I was filling my water cup, I realized I was too upset to sit with Tracie. I took my plate and cup out the back door onto our little patio overlooking the back yard.

I ate little of my dinner. Mostly I just stared out at the yard shaking my head in anger and disbelief.

Behind me I heard the house door open. I didn't look back.

Tracie said, "Dinner was good. Thanks."

The kindest thing I could do at that moment was not react at all. I slowly sipped water from my cup.

Then my stepdaughter said, "We're going to make another video tonight. Be ready at seven o'clock."

I spun in my seat to glare at her. "Are you serious?"

She calmly said, "Why wouldn't I be? Be ready at seven." She slid the door closed between us and walked away into the house.

I sat there restless with fury. I couldn't understand what was going on with this girl. Her disrespect had my skin burning.

I threw my water cup across the yard and tried to keep myself from crying. Why was my daughter being so cruel to me? Tears dropped onto my uneaten dinner, as I felt the full weight of being in her control.

~ * ~

For all my righteous anger, I had no choice but to be ready at seven o'clock for whatever blackmail project my stepdaughter wanted to do next.

But I still had a shred of dignity in me. I promised myself that while she made me do another video, if there was some way to put Tracie in her place, I'd do it.

I went to her room.

My daughter was laying on her bed, her hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling as if she didn't have a care in the world.

I said, "So? It's seven o'clock. What do I have to do?"

She sat up without looking at me. She said, "Let's get ready for bed, and then I'll tell you."

"Ready for bed? I thought you were making me do something for your file."

"We are. Just put on your regular clothes that you sleep in."

"Fine." I walked to my room. I told myself I didn't care what stupid thing she had in mind. I tried not to think about it as I changed out of my clothes and into my typical sleepwear, an old t-shirt and panties.

Through the door connecting to my bedroom, I saw Tracie enter the bathroom in a short silk nightie.

I recognized the nightie was the one I'd bought her a few years before, for her sixteenth birthday. It was too big for her then, but she said she loved it and would keep it anyway. Now she had grown into it. She straightened it as she looked in the bathroom mirror. If it had been a normal day - if I hadn't been so mad - I would have commented that the nightie looked great on her, that she now really filled it out.

Tracie looked at herself in the mirror, turning side to side, stroking the light silk. It just made me angrier to think she would give her beautiful body away to some loser like Raymond.

Then Tracie started setting up her phone.

I clenched my teeth when my stepdaughter started to give me my directions. She said, "So, we're going to pretend it's morning before school, and we both just got out of bed."

I said nothing.

Tracie looked at me. "Did you hear me?"

"I heard you."

I could see her register how angry I was, but she ignored it. She continued, "And I'm going to be in here, like, brushing my teeth and stuff."

"And?"

"And you're in your room, watching me through the door, but I don't know it at first. Then, you come in and stand behind me..."

"Mm-hm."

She mimed with her arms as she said, "And you, just, reach around me, and you start, you know, touching me."

I blew out a big exhale. "What exactly does 'touching you' mean, Tracie?"

"Nothing crazy. You just, like, grab my boobs, rub 'em. You know, just general groping, all over me."

"General groping," I said flatly. "Fine."

"Yeah. Act like you're really obsessed with my body and you just want to feel it up and rub against it."

I said, "Like I'm abusing you?"

"Sure, if you want. And don't just come in, grab my boobs, and walk away." She faced the mirror and demonstrated with her hands massaging the air. "You know, touch me all over. Reach down to my coochie, too. Evil stepmother stuff. Get off on it. Like you really want me."

I just blinked, saying nothing, but not hiding my disdain.

She slid her finger along her neck and shoulder. "Like, kiss me here while you do it. Are you getting the idea?"

"Yes, I get the idea, Tracie. But what I don't get is why we're doing this."

My stepdaughter turned and stepped up to me, sighing. She put her hands on the sides of my face, looking at me with a mocking expression of pity. "Oh, Mom," she said. "It's a good thing you're pretty, because you're not really that smart, are you?"

The insult sent anger burning over my body. I was speechless. I couldn't remember Tracie ever being this rude to me before.

She patted my cheek and said, "But it's okay. You don't need to know why. You just have to do as I say, don't you, Mom?"

I clenched my jaw, wanting to slap her smart-aleck mouth.

She glared into my eyes. "Say it, Mom."

Through gritted teeth, I said, "I have to do what you say."

"Good job," she said sarcastically. She patted my cheek again. I wanted to bite her fingers. She said, "Go in your room, but stay where you can see the mirror."

My body was shivering with fury as I went where she told me to go.

Tracie angled her phone again and checked how she looked. She adjusted her hair and smoothed her eyebrows, looking completely unbothered by the vicious things she had just said to me.

I stood there fuming, but I knew I had no choice but to follow Tracie's direction. While doing it, though, I could teach this little brat daughter of mine a lesson. If she wanted me to go in there and be a creepy evil stepmother, that's what I would do. She could record her little video, but in this "scene," I would be in charge.

She looked into the bathroom mirror to see me through the door. She pointed and said, "Stand over there by your dresser, where it's darker. When I turn off the water, that's your cue to come in, got it?"

Stiff with anger, I said, "Yep."

She tapped her phone to begin the video. She ran the water in the sink and started to brush her teeth. I stood there watching, thinking about what I was going to do.

I felt like I was in a cheesy 1980s slasher movie, with the cliché of a gorgeous girl in a short nightie just waiting to get attacked. My role was the attacker, lurking in the shadows. So be it.

When my stepdaughter bent to spit toothpaste in the sink, her nightie tightened on the curves of her backside. I could have kicked the little brat right in that shapely butt.

My heart started pumping faster, knowing at any moment she'd turn off the water as my cue.

She tapped out her toothbrush and rinsed her mouth, but left the water running.

Like a classic Eighties horror movie starlet, Tracie started to admire herself in the mirror, as if realizing for the first time how beautiful she was.

She opened the medicine cabinet. I gasped when she took out the precious bottle of my all-time favorite perfume. It had been my signature scent for years, but they had stopped making it a couple years before. All I would ever have of it was the little bit left in that bottle. Tracie knew she wasn't allowed to use it. It was one of the few special things I kept just for myself.

She uncapped the bottle, sniffed the nozzle, then spritzed it in the air - two full sprays! - and let the mist drift down onto her.

As she put the bottle back, I saw in the mirror a little smirk on her face. She was intentionally goading me!

I stood in the shadow of my room, breathing to control my anger. The water still ran. I watched my daughter wasting more time looking at herself, stroking her hair, then her jawline. She turned her head to see her face at different angles, like she was in a makeup commercial.

I tightened my fists in impatience, feeling like a race horse wanting the gate to fly open.

My stepdaughter's fingers wandered down the smooth length of her neck, and along her collar bones. She fingered the thin shoulder straps of her nightie. Touching the bare skin of her upper chest, she was entirely unhurried by the wash of the pouring water.

Her strong legs flexed as she raised to her tip-toes to look closer in the mirror. She lightly traced the outline of her lips with her fingertips, then puckered and watched herself kiss the air. Somehow it made me even angrier that Tracie was more beautiful than any horror movie scream queen I'd ever seen.

She softly smiled, admiring her beauty. She let the water run on and on, and I knew she was dragging it out to make me mad.

My heart was thumping in anticipation. I couldn't wait to go in there and wipe that self-satisfied look off her face.

She looked down to her nightie. I swallowed - in both surprise and impatience - when she began to slowly caress her breasts through the shiny silk. Her mouth opened as she fondled herself.

Enjoy yourself now, you little brat.

My body was tensing up, waiting for my cue. But still the water ran, noisy through the faucet, splashing in the sink. I sank even deeper into the evil character Tracie wanted me to be.

My cheeks grew hot watching my daughter play the tips of her middle fingers daintily on her nipples. They were visibly stiffening under the thin silk. She sighed in pleasure.

Was she trying to rub my face in how gorgeous she was? How she was in the prime of her life, while I was past mine? How she could make me wait because I was her blackmail slave? Everything she did made me angrier. The sound of the tap water she was wasting mixed in my ears with the sound of hot blood rushing in my veins.

She smoothed her hands over the curve of her breasts, then slowly down her flat belly. Then lower, and lower...

She startled, seeing me in the mirror's reflection. She gasped and acted very flustered and embarrassed. "Oh! Hi Mother... I, uh, I was just finishing."

She turned off the water. Finally, my cue!

I stomped into the bathroom, ready and seething. I stepped up behind her and glared at her in the mirror. "Finishing what, Tracie? What exactly do you think you're doing in here?"

"Oh, uh, nothing. Just getting ready for school."

"Really." I sniffed the air. I said, "And what makes you think you can wear my good perfume to school?"

"No, I didn't-"

"Don't you lie to me!"

Tracie jumped at my harsh voice. Perhaps she sensed how much true anger was in it. She said, "I'm sorry, Mommy. Yes, I did just try a tiny bit, just to smell it - because it's so beautiful, l-like you."

I felt every bit the wolfish villain of a slasher movie. My stepdaughter stiffened as I slid my hands down her arms. I then slid them back up, pressing in hard, like I would crush her. I smiled, sensing Tracie was not expecting me to come on so aggressively. As strong as her athletic body is, she acted weak.

I said, "Who are you wearing my perfume for, Tracie?"

"N-no one. I just-"

"Liar!"

She flinched, then whispered, "I-I'm sorry, Mommy."

"Yes you are. And if I catch you tramping it up for the boys at school again, you'll be much sorrier, get it?"

She nodded fretfully.

I said, "But you know what? Right now, I like it on you." I stuck my nose in her hair and took a deep whiff. "You know that's my favorite scent. Is that why you put it on, Tracie? Hm? To smell like me? You want to smell like you're mine?"

She acted frightened. I wanted her to be. She said feebly, "I... I need to get ready for school."

"You didn't act like you were in a big rush a minute ago. You had plenty of time for this." I flicked her nipples through the silk.

Tracie cringed. Her voice weak, she said, "Mommy, please don't."

I hissed into her ear, "Please don't what, Tracie?"

"Please..."

I noticed the peach fuzz on Tracie's arms was standing up straight. Stroking her arms, I leered over her shoulder and said, "My, my, look at you, with goosebumps all over your body. What are you so scared of, hmm?"

Tracie stammered, "I-I..."

I burst out loudly, "Scared of me?" I yanked her arms back, pulling her nightie tight across her chest, showing her hard nipples.

She started to cry convincing tears.

I gripped hard on my daughter's strong shoulders and put my cheek to hers, looking at us both in the mirror. Tracie was trembling.

I said, "You've been acting quite big for your britches, little girl. So you tell me: who's the boss in this family?"

"You."

"Say it!"

"Y-you're the boss, Mommy."

"That's right. And you have to do whatever I want you to, don't you, you little brat?"

More tears dripped from her eyes. "Yes, Mama."

"Wow, you're so, so smart. Who would have thought a girl as pretty as you would have any brains at all? Not that you use them." I slid my hands from her shoulders to wrap them around her neck. Tracie's eyes went wide and her breath stuttered and choked.

"Please don't," she whimpered.

"Are you afraid I'm going to hurt you, Tracie?"

She nodded frantically.

I said, "What could ever make me want to hurt you, hmm?"

Her jaw moved, but no words came out.

I said, "What kind of mother would I be if I hurt my baby girl?"

Tracie pleaded in a terrified voice, "Y-you're a good mother. A very good mother."

"And you love me, don't you, Tracie?"

"Yes."

"Say it."

"I-I love you, Mommy."

"You promise?"

"Yes, Mommy. I promise I love you."

I squeezed her neck a little. "Cross your heart and hope to die?"

Tracie nodded rapidly, more tears dripping. I could barely hear her faint voice when she said, "I have to get ready for school."

"Oh, you have to get ready for school," I mocked her. "So you can go throw yourself at boys, huh?"

Pathetically, she shook her head no.

"Oh sure you will," I said. "You'll find some boy, some liar just like you, and you'll fall head over heels for him, so he can treat you like trash. Is that what you're in a hurry to go do? Hmm?"

Tracie stared at me, saying nothing.

I released her neck and slid my hands over her shoulders. "You just can't wait for some smooth-talking swinging dick to make a fool out of you again, can you? And then, when your iddy-biddy widdle heart gets broken, you'll come crying to me, won't you? You'll want me to make it all better for you, won't you? Again and again and again, never learning."

I pressed my hands to the sides of her head. She burbled a little sob.

I said, "Who's the only one who will never hurt you, Tracie?"

She cried. "You, Mama."

"That's right. Mommy's never going to hurt you. Not the way you want."

Tracie squeezed shut her eyes and mouth.