I didn't need a "babysitter," since I was 18, but my father thought that I would throw parties and trash the house if I was left alone while he went on his honeymoon cruise with his new trophy wife. The sitter they chose was my new step-mom's best friend, Octavia, a bitchy overweight woman of fifty, the type who wore too much make-up and drank in the middle of the day. She actually volunteered for the job, saying that she would make sure to keep me under control. I dreaded spending any time with her, but my protests fell on deaf ears.
The first day, she laid out her rules for me. I couldn't leave the house after dinner! She was responsible for me and didn't want me to get some bimbo pregnant under her watch. There were other, equally stupid rules. I couldn't close the door to my bedroom or the bathroom, since she didn't want me masturbating. I couldn't use the computer outside her presence, so internet porn was out of the question. I must have been rolling my eyes because she suddenly stopped and asked me, harshly, whether she needed to write the rules down for me. I answered sarcastically that she should write them all down so that I could study them and be her obedient slave. She slapped me hard across the face; it was hard to believe a five-foot-two woman could muster that much power.
"You won't speak to me like that," she barked. Her look, though, was more cold than angry. I didn't really know what she was a capable of, so I decided I better pretend to go along with her rules until I figured out what to do about the situation.
"Your punishment will immediate and severe. You will not test me. I demand absolute obedience." I thought for a moment. With so many rules, though, I was likely to slip up sooner or later, and how bad could it be, really? I wasn't afraid of her spanking my bare bottom. She probably wouldn't do that anyway, risking the wrath of my parents. My plan was to test the waters first with a minor infraction: then I would know what I could get away with. I learned, in the next few days, that being late to dinner earned me an icy stare and a warning, a sarcastic tone resulted in a hard pinch to the both cheeks. I figured I could stand four weeks of her petty tyranny.
Octavia's only apparent hobby was making up her face. She spent hours in front of the mirror every morning, and I never saw her without a full coat of her "war paint." She reapplied her lipstick constantly throughout the day. Her long, painted fingernails could do real damage, as I had already learned. She even had her own ridiculous YouTube channel devoted to cosmetics for the "mature woman": what a vain and superficial broad, a thoroughly horrible person! If she was that vain, then why didn't she lose her forty extra pounds!
I tried to confuse her by obeying her respectfully one day, and then being a bit insolent the next, but without going too much over the line. Sometimes I would react to her slaps and taunts stoically; other times I would pretend to be upset and run to weep disconsolately in my room. I had to make sure that my reactions never fell into a predictable pattern. Her treatment of me didn't differ too much from day to day, though: I had a choice between an ice-princess and a raging maniac. When I had been particularly good, she gave me gentle kiss on the cheek, leaving a lipstick print that she said I was not allowed to wash off. That was the extent of her kindness to me.