"If I take you on, I take you down to square one. You start out buck naked and will have to earn everything from your first stitch of clothing to your first phone call. I don't care about our history or who you are right now, this is all about what you will become."
She eyed me warily.
"You surrender all rights. I will have full authority over you and I will eventually permeate into your very soul. You will discover great joy in pleasing me and learning from me. You will be collared to indicate your subservience to me an to the illustrate to contract between us. I will use the crop and, when necessary, spank with my open hand. Every part of you from the tip of your toenails to the last follicle of the hairs on your head will be mine to mold as I see fit. In exchange I will house you, instruct you, and send you off with a new outlook, a new set of job skills, and a more satisfactory life all around but you MUST become my property!"
"But Daddy!" She pouted in return.
Technically speaking, Darla was not my daughter but she may as well have been. Her entire life she had called me 'Daddy.' I had raised her from the age of sixteen months to the age of sixteen. Now, four years later, at age twenty, she was tumbling down the same path as her worthless biological father and my now ex-wife. There was one bad boyfriend after another, there was the experimentation with drugs. There was her history of barely earning a diploma from high school and the subsequent flaming out of a college for dunderheads with a GPA too low to measure. Darla had lost her job, been kicked out of her apartment, and had no where else to go. My ex-wife, Bonnie, was simultaneously too self-absorbed and too obsessed with the cock of her new boy toy to provide any solace to her daughter. I had heard enough from old family friends and other sources to be prepared for Darla's inevitable visit to my doorstep.
Neither her current loser boyfriend, nor the dopes she had a history with had the means to take care of her, nor did they have enough affection for her to give her even a corner of the roof in the apartments or flop houses they dwelt in. She was at the end of her rope.
Darla and I had always gotten along, with some major caveats. She had been an exasperating daughter as I had been prevented from disciplining her the way I could have or should have because of Bonnie's interference. All of my old predictions as to how Darla would turn out were reverberating about my skull. It is true that a prophet goes without honor in his own country.
I returned her exasperation with a scowl.
"But Daddy, that's not how you raised me! Me being naked in front of you would either case me to turn to stone or you to go blind! You did nothing like that when I lived with you!"
"And see how good that turned out? Had I had a free hand when you were living under my roof, you would not be in the pickle you are in now. I won't take you back only to repeat the same mistakes. I will not repeat my offer. Take a walk around the block to think about it. After your walk you will have to fish or cut bait. If you enter my house tonight, you enter under my terms and you live here until I decide that you are capable of living on your own. Apply yourself, demonstrate that you have some backbone and a willingness to learn. If you do, I will even fund you another try at college. But the Darla that exists now can NOT enter this house. It is not too late for you but time is running out. I offer you hope and salvation, but my terms are non-negotiable and require unconditional surrender."
"My God, Daddy, You ARE serious!"
"Yes I am. This is the last shot for both of us. It is your last chance to turn around your life and it is my last chance to impart maturity, self reliance, and wisdom into you."
"But me naked. You spanking me."
"Embarrassment and shame are the last tools left in my arsenal. Had I been able to raise you right the first time, today, instead of turning up on my doorstep like a bad penny, you would be a career woman or a successful college student. Those methods of embarrassment and shame would have never left the toolbox. Look at all the bad choices you have made. If you are honest with yourself, you will recall that my advice was ALWAYS better than the course you chose. Even now when all others are rejecting you, I offer you a lifeline. It is my lifeline so I get to dictate the terms"
"Daddy, I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm a young woman."
"No Darla, you are a spoiled little brat who never heard no from her mother and were permitted to flaunt my authority night and day. Young women are respectful, properly demure, confident and capable. You Darla, are NONE of those things. You are a petulant six year old in the body of a twenty year old girl. That six year old little brat needs to be smacked in the fanny from time to time, made to clean her room, pick up her toys and apply herself in school. Most of all that spoiled little six year old needs to admit that she was wrong and that her life is messed up because she was too proud, and too spoiled to ask for help from a loving parent to make her a better little girl. When you lived with me, Darla. I offered you my ear. I attempted to discipline you the best I could but your mother wouldn't let me. In spite of everything, I never stopped loving you. I STILL love you. I STILL want the best for you. You can STILL have those things. Now I am going inside for fifteen minuets. Take that time and decide if you want to continue being a failure. If you want to change, come back and knock on my door. This is the ONLY offer of help that you will get from me."
Before she had a chance to object, I closed the door in her face. I knew that Darla had no where else to go. Since divorcing, Bonnie, Darla's mother, my life had been one success after another. A year or so after she left me for a school teacher who was later caught with a ton of kiddie porn on his work computer, I developed a code that was highly desired by several very large software and computer companies. I patented this code and made some very impressive money by selling it to the highest bidder, For legal reasons, I can not mention the company I sold my code to, but rest assured that you have used it.
I've been retired for over a year. I have no family to speak of. A new long-term project was just the thing I needed to banish the retirement blahs. Darla was the closest thing I ever had to a child of my own. For the most part, I enjoyed raising her but the frustration I felt when I saw the direction her life was headed, made me truly grieve. Darla really is a great kid. Although she never applied herself in school, she is whip smart. She's also quite lovely physically but her lack of self-confidence is so strong that she has never allowed herself to shine. Just altering the way she carries herself would do wonders for her appearance. Yes, I realize that Darla right now is a dead ringer for her mother. I married Darla's mother when she was a few years older than Darla is now. The fact that Bonnie was an unwed mother, should have been a warning to me but what can I say? Love is blind. The ONLY good thing that Bonnie instilled in her daughter was the importance of good birth control so that she not repeat her own mistake.
I strolled around my new home. Since I had an more than an inkling that Darla would be headed my way I had a spare bedroom all set up for her. It was spartan by design. The thought of Darla naked was, to be honest, more than a little arousing but I would push my dirty old man inclinations aside as much as I could because, as I said I truly cared about Darla and wanted the best for her. I told myself repeatedly that quasi-incest was NOT my goal. In truth Darla NEEDED to be reduced to nothing before she could truly appreciate anything. The sound of my door bell ringing again was simultaneously delightful and conflicting.
I opened the door a crack. Darla was in tears as she stood with her head hung low on my door step.
"Daddy, I have nowhere else to go!"
