"I dunno. I didn't come out of my coma for months. I forgot to ask later."
Nick laughed. "So what are you going to do?"
"I really don't know. When my girlfriends got weird on me and refused to talk about it, I'd give them a few days to settle down and if they still wouldn't talk about it and were still being pissy, I realized they were in the Danger Zone on the Hot Crazy Matrix. It was time to end it and move on. Why, what do you do in that situation?" Our server Tiffany had arrived with our drinks and waited for our meal order.
"Nothing. All my girlfriends seem to live in the Danger Zone. I just keep it going until she slashes my tires and stalks me and then I either get a restraining order or move. Or both. And change your number. Changing your number is the key, bud." Nick looked up and winked at Tiffany. She looked speculatively at Nick while she took our orders.
As Tiffany headed back to the kitchen with our orders Nick asked, "What did you do with her mom when she was a teenager?
"I either ran away and stayed at a buddy's place for a few days or ended up in a coma. Hey, that reminds me, you got a guest bedroom, right?" I waggled my eyebrows and grinned.
"Hey no problem, buddy! Send Erika on over." Nick waggled his brows right back.
"Pig."
"I thought we covered that already. You're not hurting my feelings, pal. Sooo, you can't really run away so your options according to Eckhart Tolle are thus: One, send her back to her mommy and daddy. Two, just accept that she's fucking nuts and hope the craziness goes away until next month. Or three, fix it." Nick sat back in the booth like he'd just solved the simple problem of world peace. I was
not
going to ask who this Tolley guy was.
"Okay, One: I can't send her back. Sue's marriage is cracking up and sending Erika back would be like dropping a nuke on it. Two: I have to say locking myself in my room for one week a month is starting to look pretty good. But if I said, 'Hey Bob, how 'bout Door Number Three?', how am I going to fix this, Einstein?"
Nick scowled, "Einstein, huh? I thought we firmly established that I'm
not
the one to go to with women problems. If I was
that
guy, all my chicks wouldn't be in the Danger Zone."
Nick snapped his fingers, "Hey, I know what! You should do a Pavlov's Dog on her."
"A what?"
"Pavlov's Dog. There was this Russian scientist named Ivan Pavlov. He conditioned a dog to salivate every time he rang a bell. He'd give the dog a treat and ring a bell at the same time. Pretty soon he could ring a bell and the dog would start drooling on demand."
"Nick, I'm aware of who Pavlov is and what he did to his poor pooches. What does that have to do with Erika?"
"Everything. The problem with behavioural conditioning is that most people are quick to criticize and slow to praise. It's about a 7:1 ratio. We get seven negative comments on average for every compliment. So you gotta reverse that. Give some kind of praise seven times for every time she does something bad. So for every time she screws up and you spank her, she needs seven good things said about her, and her self-esteem and where she's looking for attention will shift as a result."
"You really think that will work?" I asked as our server brought us our food. Tiffany gave Nick an extra big smile before sashaying off to her other tables. Both sets of eyes followed the red head's tight little black skirt for a moment. Maybe Tiffany liked the idea of Nick spanking her?
"Where were we? Oh, right. I guarantee it'll work. Money back guaranteed." Nick started unrolling his napkin from around his utensils.
"Can't get any money back if I don't pay for it. And I'm not about to pay you for
your
advice," I laughed
"Well you should. That way you could get your money back if it failed to work. Which it won't"
"So says the guy with the Danger Zone girlfriends," I chortled.
"Hey, lookie here, Tiffany wrote her number on my napkin! 'Call me', she says!"
The rest of the week was hell. Literally hell. She was acting out all over the place. I got calls from the school because she was skipping classes, she was either uncommunicative or downright rude every time she opened her mouth. She left her room a utter disaster. The bathroom was covered in makeup, wet towels, cremes, bras and panties hanging off of stuff. I really tried Nick's suggestion. But she left me very little to complement her on. And when I did, she gave me that glacial stare and stalked off even more angry than before, if that was possible.
Friday night took the cake though. She came home from school and I tried to sit her down to discuss things.
"I don't want to talk about it." Erika stomped into her room. I followed her and knocked softly on her door.
"Erika, I'd really like to discuss what's going on between us. We can't continue to fight all the time."
"Why not!" she yelled through the door, "It's worked for my parents so far! They're so busy fighting they probably don't even notice that I'm gone."
"That's not true, Erika. I've talked to Sue several times this week and told me how much she misses you."
"Bullshit!" she screamed. "She never worried about me when I was there. Neither of them could give a shit if I was alive or dead." Somehow I sensed that she wasn't in a talking mood.
I retreated to the kitchen and started cooking up some supper. Forty-five minutes later she came down the hall dressed for clubbing. She wore a gold lame spaghetti strap backless mini-dress that barely covered her essentials, the middle of the dress between her breasts hanging down to nearly her belly button. She accessorized that with a little black clutch and a pair of black five-inch platform pumps with the little straps around her ankles. With the pumps she easily topped my 6'1". She was a stunning sight to behold.
"I'd like a word with you before you head off, Erika," I asked, stirring the sauce.
She glared at me as she stalked to the door. Yanking the door open she held up her middle finger at me.
"Fuck you! And she slammed the door. I dropped the wooden spoon and flew to the door. I ran for the elevator bank and as the elevator doors closed a second ahead of me reaching them I saw her laughing at me as she held down the 'Close Door' button. "Fuck you," she silently moved her lips.
It was probably a good thing I didn't catch her then. I'm not sure what I might have done. I've never been that angry. I wasn't this mad when I caught an ex-girlfriend cheating on me. She was really good at pushing my buttons. I never get rattled, but I might have done her bodily harm if I'd gotten to the elevator a second earlier.
As it was I had hours and hours to calm down. I called Nick and we went for dinner, then to our coffee shop where I had a couple of peppermint teas to calm me. That shit was not working tonight. I was too angry to work, so I picked up a novel I hadn't finished yet and read for a few hours. Then I put on some soothing classical music and sat sipping Glenfiddich single malt. After a couple or three fifths I put the bottle away and turned off all the lights, just sat in my chair staring out at the lights of the city, listening to Holst's
The Planets.
Suddenly I was jolted awake. I looked at my watch, it was just after three AM. Fuck! I must have fallen asleep. Erika was likely in bed hours ago. I got up from my chair and started towards my room when I heard a thump.
"Fuck me!" I heard a barely audible whisper and then another thump. I reached over and flipped on the lights.
There was my niece in all her glory. Hair messed up and windblown, mascara streaks and her lips looked like she'd been french kissing a shop vac: smudged lipstick and puffy lips. She was clearly drunk, staggering and leaning on the wall to hold herself up. She'd taken off her shoes to try and sneak in. Good try. It works better when you aren't bombed out of your gourd.
"You're drunk," I accused her.
"Wow, you're good. I'm also pissed, shhit-faced, corked, tanked, um, plastered, hammered, hic! and ssseriously fucked up." I waited for her to continue. She laughed but just stood there, one hand on the wall, swaying. "Don't worry about having to clean up the mess, I already threw up outside," she giggled.
"I thought we had an understanding, Erika." She swayed a bit holding her high heels.
"Ffuck you and your understanding! You... you don't understand anything," she ranted.
"Where did you go tonight?" I asked quietly, trying to maintain my control.
"None of your damn business!" she snarled, "I'm a fucking adult and I'll do as I damn well please!" She was daring me to do something about it. This was my tipping point, if I did nothing tonight I would be as castrated and ineffective as her parents. Her callous disregard for my rules, her language and demeanour could not go unpunished or I would lose all credibility with her. My trouble was I was still furious. I had to react without anger or I would lose control. But her attitude since arriving home had me seething.
Taking a deep breath and trying to find my centre I walked up to my drunken niece and grabbed a large handful of her pretty blonde hair in my fist and walked her over to the couch in the living room.
"What the fuck, Uncle Marc? What's your problem?" she screamed at me as we crossed the apartment. She attempted to use her high heels as a weapon, swinging them at my face, but I just pulled her head down to waist level and her swings impacted nothing but my shins. Bending her upper body over the arm of the couch, I trapped her legs with one of mine to keep her pinned over the couch frame.
"My problem is that you have no respect for anyone else. I have given you a lot of latitude and you have just shown me that you don't have any self-discipline. My problem and your parents problem frankly, is that you don't take responsibility for anything you do. You think you can just run around, doing whatever you want to whoever you want, and someone else will clean up your messes. Your parents or your teachers or your stupid uncle will just clean things up for you with no consequences. Do you even understand what consequences are little girl?"
"Fuck you!" she spat into the couch cushions. Nice concise answer. I leaned over near her ear.
"Consequences, my little darling brat, are the natural outcomes of your decisions. They're not necessarily good or bad, they are just there. You plant a seed and water it, it grows into a tree. You walk into traffic, you get hit. You don't do your homework, you fail school. You don't clean your room, I throw your shit out. You come home drunk, I paddle your ass."
With the threat of having her butt spanked she went into a fit, fighting like a wildcat. She twisted and thrashed about and scratched at me and screamed. She flung her shoes in my general direction and I had to dodge as they passed over my shoulder. I reached down with my free hand and pulled her dress up to her waist. Her bare bum in all its tanned glory revealed that she was without panties. Her gyrations grew even more intense as she swore and called me every vile thing she could think of. I grasped both of her wrists and held them together over her head so I could clamp down over both with my left hand, stretching her out.
"Erika, this time
you
will count out your punishment." I raised my right hand above my head and came down with a great crack on one cheek of her ass. Her glorious derriere flexed and rippled from the blow. Erika gave a startled shriek. A bright pink hand print appeared on the golden tan of her bum cheek.
"What are you supposed to say?" I demanded.
"Fuck you, you fucking, perverted, masochistic deviant! I will call my mother, you sick fuck!" her voice muffled by the couch cushions and her hair covering most of her face. She sounded surprisingly sober all of a sudden.
I laughed in the face of her blustering. "Good try my little drunken brat. My deal with her is that I could do whatever I liked with you if you didn't behave. Now count!" Erika screamed in frustration and anger as my next smack arrived on the other cheek.
"Count!"
"Fuck you!" she frothed.
"Fine." Another blow smacked down on the first cheek. Again she screamed.
On a side note, I hate neighbours. I don't want to hear their dogs bark, their babies cry, their kids fight or the asshat that always has his stereo cranked up. I want to sleep in peace. I want to be able to listen to my music or watch my movies and not have someone banging on the wall or on my door. So when I bought my place, I gutted it. I didn't like the kitchen or the master bedroom so I rebuilt it all from scratch. While I was at it, I insulated the walls, the ceilings and the floors. I even insulated the walls between bedrooms. The place is virtually soundproof. It was a good thing as Erika's screams would have had someone calling the cops otherwise.
"Hey, you worthless skank, I'm going to keep beating your ass until you count them off. I can do this all fucking night. When my hand gets sore I'm pulling off my belt and using that just like last time. So you choose. Count or don't count. I don't care." More smacks rained down on her ass, now a bright rosy-red from my ministrations. Erika was silent but for the yelps and screams each time I struck. God, she was a stubborn bitch. More blows struck her glowing red ass. I lost track of how many spanks I had administered. Finally after perhaps five minutes of punishment, I felt her body cease her violent struggling.
