"Alright, dear. I'm going out shopping with Sally from down the street. I'll be back for dinner."
"Okay. Have fun," Greg said, smiling at his wife. She paused, one hand on the door, and looked back at him.
"And remember, our naughty little girl is still grounded."
"Yes, m'am."
She smiled and slipped out the door. Greg kept the smile on his face until Sally's car pulled away from the curb with his wife inside, and then he let it drop.
He wasn't likely to forget that Polly, their daughter, was grounded. She had been grounded for over a year. It was getting to the point where he was wondering if he needed to do something about it, maybe call the police--but how would he explain that he had let it go on this long?
It had started when Polly had come home for spring break her freshman year at college. She'd been all smiles and excitement, talking about how much she loved her classes, how she was thinking of declaring her major before the end of the year. Chemistry. She wanted to be a pharmacist.
Thinking back, even then, his wife had been a bit strange about things. A little fake in her enthusiasm, a little too quick to ask whether Polly could really handle such a complicated subject.
Then, two days into spring break, the video had come out.
Polly said the guy in the video was her friend, that she had trusted him. She hadn't realized he'd been filming their...encounter.
None of that mattered to her mother. Her little girl's naked ass was plastered all over every free porn site on the internet. She snapped.
Polly hadn't gone back to college.
Since that awful week, she'd been grounded to her childhood bedroom. Her mother had bought some handcuffs that kept her secured to the bed, and had brought out boxes and boxes of old things from storage--Polly's old stuffed animals, her princess bedding from when she'd been in middle school, clothes she hadn't worn in years. Greg's wife seemed to be fixated on turning back time, turning their daughter into an innocent little girl again.
"She's safer this way," she'd assured Greg, the few times he'd dared to question this plan. "It's only for a little while. Only until she learns."
Greg wasn't entirely sure what Polly was supposed to be learning. Maybe not to experience arousal any more; his wife certainly seemed fixated on punishing her for it. She often inspected Polly's crotch for evidence of wetness, and if she didn't find any, sometimes she would rub her there until it happened anyway, just to have a reason to punish her. Punishments involved spanking the girl's clit cruelly with a ruler, or rubbing fresh-cut peppers over the dripping folds of her pussy.
Greg was often obligated to stand by and observe, to agree with his wife whenever she asked him to back her up on the necessity of such discipline. The image of his daughter's dripping, twitching pussy had become seared into his mind, the sight of her swollen, tortured clit haunting him.
Greg knew that his wife wasn't well. He was starting to understand, too, that despite her words, this insanity wasn't likely to end any time soon.
But he had to admit that it was kind of nice to have their family all under one roof again, to have his little girl back.
He got up, thinking to check on Polly before he started watching TV to pass the time while his wife was gone. As he made his way upstairs, he heard a tell-tale rhythmic creaking noise.
He knew what he was going to find when he got to Polly's room; he'd caught her at it once before, humping her pillow. He could hardly blame the girl--she'd been tormented for over a year without release. He could only imagine how pent-up she must be.
Greg paused in the hallway, considering. Maybe it would be kinder to just leave her to it, to let her find whatever comfort and satisfaction she was able to while his wife was out of the house.
