My patience was gone. Destroyed. Evaporated. Buried. Wiped off the face of this Earth. No longer to be seen.
My patience was an ex-parrot.
Darla, my Aunt-in-law-to-be, was the one who killed it. She was 59 years old to my 32, but she had gone through several lifetimes of familial trauma from a family so toxic they made the Borgias look like the Cleavers. She had been a beauty pageant contestant as a young woman, but her father made her quit to marry a rich asshole who died young. Now she was married to a passive aggressive jerk who liked Hawaii too much ( yes, he is white as hell). Between Darla's Dad and her two husbands, her psyche had been squeezed into a constant cycle of Needing to Please and then Deliberately Creating Chaos. So as Terry and I planned our wedding, Darla meddled in everything and took it as an insult if we disagreed with anything she said, therein staying true to her family's history.
And look, I know all families have their troubles, but Terry's family was beyond fucked up. Despite what Terry had told me, it didn't prepare me for the experience of the meeting the entire clan as our wedding date approached. The thing is I have always been the kind of person people seem to want to talk to, and the VanDreesans were no exception. As I heard things from each family member their stories painted an aggregate picture of co-dependent toxic behavior that we didn't have names for back then. I realized even Terry didn't know all the stuff her family had done, was doing and will keep on doing to itself. It was terrifying, especially as I was an only child from a small family. To be honest, I was seriously considering calling the wedding off. It was important to at least respect your spouse's family, and I was having a hard time doing that.
It all came to a head three weeks before my wedding. Darla had been commenting on the cleanliness of my house all day. Some comments were passive aggressive, some weren't. Her attitude and bearing made it worse. She was tall, almost willowly, and had a decent body, and a bubble butt that I would have ogled on anyone else. Her age was apparent, but she had kept herself up with tennis and volunteering at the museums. Her perfectly colored chestnut hair was shoulder length, with a hairstyle that screamed Entitlement. She had bright green eyes and a photogenic smile, a smile she always used when saying things like...
"Say, Bob, does your bookshelf always seem so dusty?"
Or...
"Oh my goodness, it is so nice to see such a laid back approach to laundry. I'm jealous."
And then,
"Say, would you like me to give your bathroom to once-over, you know, just to spruce it up?"
I had cleaned it that morning.
And that was the line that turned my patience into an ex-parrot.
In that same moment I also realized that yelling and a mere display of anger would be useless. It was in fact the one thing she wanted. So, a different tactic would be necessary.
"Really?" My voice snapped the air like a whip. She took a step back and brought her hand to her chest, like a frightened heroine in a Black and white movie.
"Um, well, I just thought it might..."
"Let's go take a look together, shall we?" I grabbed her hand and pulled her to the bathroom. She was wearing a long dress that belted at the center with short sleeves with an open top that showed a lot of cleavage, cleavage that jiggled and bounced as I forced her up the stairs. Reaching the bathroom, I stood her in front of me in the doorway and held her arms in my hands, aiming her entire body as I turned her to scan the entire room, like her body was a searchlight for filth. "Where is there any sign of dirt or filth, Darla VanDreesan?"
"Bob, please! What are you..."
I continued to aim her around the bathroom. "It still smells like cleanser, Darla. Even the soap dish is clean. And that tub is shining. Shining!" I was angry, but I was careful not to dig my fingers into her arms. I knew I was walking a very thin line here, but I was in control of my feelings. And she was not resisting my grip at all. Weird.
"I was merely suggesting...!"
I spun her around to face me. "This bathroom is clean." I insisted.
"But.. that is..I just felt..." Darla stammered in response I'm not sure what came over me next, but while looking in her blue eyes was she squirmed in front of me, an idea popped into my head and then it went right to my hands. I turned her to the side and gave her ass a swat. One solid, hard spank on a single ass cheek. Darla yelped, and then I turned her back to face me.
"Bob, what the hell was that!?"
"Darla, this bathroom is clean."
"I don't think the bathroom is the.."
I didn't let her finish. I spun her once more to the side and gave her other ass cheek a single solid swat, but a little harder. She yelped again and did a little jig of pain. As I turned her back to me she had trouble catching her breath.
"Bob.. I.. you can't..". She stood there, looking me in the eyes, making no attempt to move past me. I was completely OK with the thought of her telling her family I gave her a spanking in the bathroom, and that was evident on my face. Darla's eyes locked onto me, her breath was shallow and labored, and she kept licking her lips. She wasn't scared. She wasn't angry. What the fuck? Her hands her at her side and her fingers were flexing and unflexing. Her face was different, all that meanness that usually obscured her beauty was washing away. Wait a minute...was she getting turned on?
"This... bathroom... is... clean." I said slower. I also said it with the stirring intensity of my hardening cock. Oh my god, she wanted me to spank her ass! And I was telling her that I knew she did.
She opened and closed her mouth, stammering, gasping for words. Her eyes were wide and wild but not from fear. It was something else, something she couldn't put into sound. I couldn't either. My hand was still warm from it's brief but delicious contact with Darla's bubble butt. I wanted to do it again.
