Disciplining Little Abby

by Serafine Laveaux

  Amanda waved a hand dismissively. “You’re my friend. I’ll always be there for you. Even when you are acting like a beyotch! But hey,” she added as she checked her cell, “it’s after midnight, and we gotta work tomorrow, babes.”

  Abby walked with her all the way to the parking lot and waited until Amanda was safely in her car.

  Before she left, she rolled the window down and made Abby promise to at least think about calling Chris. “You deserve to know the truth, if nothing else,” she said.

  I may deserve to know the truth, Abby thought as she watched her friend’s taillights recede into the night. I just don’t think I want to.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rain that had barely misted the windshield only minutes earlier now pelted it with growing intensity. The ancient Bug’s windshield wipers were sketchy at best, and under the current onslaught did little more than give Abby the briefest of glimpses at the traffic around her. Her father had tried talking her into spending the night, but it’d been a stretch just to last through dinner. She had no intentions of sticking around longer, storm or not.

  Abby didn’t know why she went in the first place. Her mother had been thrilled to learn of her breakup with Chris. It gave her yet another subject to voice her disapproval over—not that Abby had called it off, but that her refusal to grow up only served as a siren call to “undesirable elements”, of which she clearly considered Chris to be. Abby hadn’t bothered to argue. Since she’d walked out on him, she’d found herself sinking further and further into a depression. For once the Willis family monthly dinner managed to last the afternoon without doors being slammed or Abby walking out midway through the meal, if only because Abby simply didn’t care enough to take the handfuls of bait her mother and older sister continually threw out.

  Through the rain-blurred windshield she saw the traffic light ahead switch to yellow. Mindful of the Bug’s tendency to hydroplane, she gently tapped the brake and came to a stop just before it went red.

  As she waited, she wondered what she was doing with her life. In the weeks after the breakup, she’d done little more than eat, sleep, and go to work. Amanda had tried several times to get her to go out on the town, shake it off, maybe even meet someone new, but so far she’d always retreated to the silence of her empty apartment.

  She didn’t even have Mr. Jingles for comfort anymore, not since she’d torn his arm off in her wild tantrum. She’d taped it back on as best she could, but he was too fragile to be held and cuddled now. He simply sat on her dresser and stared at her, looking every bit as pathetic and miserable as Abby felt.

  I can’t keep on like this, she thought as she waited for the light to change. Maybe Amanda had been right. Maybe she should call Chris and demand the truth. His calls had stopped after the fourth day, so obviously he’d moved on, no doubt with his little princess Kali.

  Maybe if she heard him say it out loud then she’d be able to move on as well, finally set aside the childish behavior that seemed to cause her more trouble than joy.

  I could have a normal life. One I’m not afraid to let people see. As the light finally changed and she eased the Bug forward into the now blinding rain, she smiled. Normal.

  She never saw the truck.

  * * *

  Chris tried to hide his impatience as the client sitting across from him studied the latest paint job he’d come up with. He’d had indecisive clients before, but none this aggravating. The middle aged executive was going through a divorce and a mid-life crisis and was filled with grandiose fantasies of how his life would change once he threw a leg over a custom motorcycle. More than once Chris had to bite his tongue to keep from telling the guy there wasn’t a bike in existence that would hide his overhanging belly or the gleaming bald patch at the back of his head, and to make up his mind already. Twice now the bike had been rolling into the paint booth when the call came that he’d changed his mind, and the constant design changes were starting to piss him off. The costs were adding up as well, additional expenses he’d made clear the client would be paying for, but so far it was looking like he’d never be finished with the project.

  “Maybe the silver on the blue would be best,” he said as he shuffled through the sample images. “The black looks more aggressive, though.”

  The faint sound of a distinctive ringtone drifted up from a desk drawer, and for a moment Chris thought he was imagining it.

  “Wait.”

  His client looked mildly surprised as Chris held up a hand to silence him and yanked one of the desk drawers open. It was Abby’s ringtone, and he hadn’t imagined it. He snatched it up before it could go to voicemail, ignoring his client’s indignant huff at being dismissed.

  “Abby?”

  “Chris?”

  His heart jumped at the sound of her voice, but from the tremor in it he knew something was wrong. “I’m here. Are you okay?”

  She was slow to answer. “He hit me.”

  Chris was out of his chair and halfway across the showroom floor in a flash. “Who hit you, babygirl?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level. “Where are you now?”

  This time she didn’t answer.

  Shit! “Abby, talk to me. Tell me where you are, and I will come and get you right now.”

  “Mom and Dad’s house,” she answered at last. “I was going home. Light was green.”

  A wreck, he thought. She was in a wreck. The way her words were slightly slurred, he knew she needed help. At last he managed to get her to tell him the name of the street she’d been crossing. It would take him at least fifteen minutes to get there. As he threw a leg over one of the motorcycles parked outside and fired it up, he told her to wait where she was and he’d be right there, then stuffed the phone back in his pocket. He couldn’t hold the phone and guide the bike at the same time, and he wouldn’t have been able to hear her over the engine anyway.

  He was still a few blocks away when he heard the sirens. Gunning the engine in response, he covered the final distance at breakneck speed, nearly running into one of the parked police cruisers as he slid in to a stop. Just on the other side, he could see Abby’s Bug—or what was left of it anyway—impaled on the snout of a three quarter ton pickup that had caught it square on the driver’s side door. An officer tried to step in front of him, but he shoved past and ran for the ambulance.

  To his relief, the EMTs had her sitting on the back bumper of the ambulance while they treated her injuries.

  “Abby!” He ran around the cars towards her.

  Her face was covered in blood and one of her arms was in a splint. After convincing the EMTs he was a friend of hers, they told him the extent of her injuries. Broken nose. Possible wrist fracture. Numerous cuts and contusions, plus a good deal of glass shards embedded in her left arm that would need to be taken care of at the hospital.

  “Most likely a concussion as well,” the EMT said. “We’re taking her in now, and they’ll probably keep her overnight.”

  Chris squatted down beside her and gently laid his hand on her knee. “Abby, you’re going to be okay,” he said, fighting to hold back the tears that had begun to form the minute he saw her bloodied face. “I’m coming with you, baby.”

  “My Bug,” she whispered.

  “I’ll take care of your Bug. Don’t worry about it.” He wasn’t about to tell her the Bug was little more than a pile of twisted metal. He waited until they loaded her into the ambulance, then went back to retrieve her stuff from what was left of her car. As he gathered up her purse and blankee, the wrecker driver asked where to take the VW. Chris gave him the address to his shop, then wrapped the blanket around her purse and tied it onto the back of the bike.

  “She was lucky.”

  He turned around to see one of the officers standing behind him.

  “Guy in the truck never slowed,” he said. “Said the rain was so bad he only saw the light was red about the same time he saw her, and by then he was already plowing into her.”

  Clenching his jaw, Chris tr
ied to remain at least outwardly calm. The blinding downpour from just twenty minutes earlier had already settled down to a slight drizzle. If she’d just been five minutes slower, she’d have been a lot luckier. If she hadn’t gone to the family dinner, if he’d been with her, if he’d been driving. A million what-ifs swirled through his mind as he got back on his motorcycle and went straight to the hospital.

  Once there he had to dump her disaster of a purse upside down to locate her insurance card and driver’s license before the stone-faced receptionist would tell him anything, and then it was only to sit down and wait.

  Several hours passed before a doctor finally came out to see him, and by that point he was about ready to kick the doors open and go find her, whether they liked it or not. The doctor confirmed the broken nose but said her wrist was only sprained and would heal in no time. The glass had been removed from her arm and her many cuts cleaned and treated. Because of her concussion, the doctor wanted to keep her overnight, but at last he allowed Chris to go back and see her.

  She didn’t seem pleased at his arrival, though he couldn’t be sure how much of her scowl was because of him or because her head hurt. Pulling a chair up to the bed, he sat down and reached for the hand that wasn’t bandaged up. Before he could take it, she pulled it back and turned her head away from him.

  “You scared the hell out of me.” His voice cracked as he said it. “When I heard your voice—”

  “I didn’t mean to call you,” she said dully. “I grabbed the wrong phone.”

  The words hit him like a knife in the heart. “Abby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I went too far, and I’m sorry.” When she didn’t react, he went on, the words pouring out of him as he tried to explain what an idiot he’d been. “When you kept acting out over and over, I thought you were doing it because you wanted me to punish you, and then that night when Amanda called, I guess I got the wrong idea. I thought you were going all out to make me, well—” He paused as he tried to find the words. “I thought you were trying to force me to be harder on you. And then when you… I thought it was what you wanted, and then I came home and you were gone.”

  Slowly, she turned her head and stared at him. “You think I left because you whipped me?”

  Chris blinked. “Well, yeah, I thought… I thought.” His voice trailed off in confusion as he saw the hostility brewing in her blue eyes.

  “I left because of Pinkalicious.”

  “What?”

  “Your little princess! The one you made that room for! The one whose diaper you stuck me in! Kali!”

  As the light finally went on in his head and his mouth fell open in understanding, she went on.

  “The reason you would never let me come to your house. Well, I found out about her, Chris, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be just another ‘babygirl’ to dress up and spank whenever you feel like it!”

  For the first time in two weeks, Chris began to laugh.

  * * *

  “Asshole,” she muttered to the empty room. She felt like a bigger fool now than she had when she’d first found the tampons in his bathroom. She’d confronted him with his cheating, and the bastard had the nerve to laugh at her and then leave. And what kind of jerk would laugh at her while she lay bandaged and stitched up in a hospital bed?

  Abby looked around to see if he’d left her purse. If she could get her phone, at least she could play some games or go online while she was stuck in the hospital. It wasn’t anywhere she could see, which meant he probably took it with him.

  “Dammit.” Not only would she have to talk to him to find out where her car was, she’d have to get her stuff back from him as well. So much for closure.

  The sound of voices, muffled but clearly arguing, drifted through her ears and brought her back to consciousness. Judging from the clock on the wall, she realized she must have dozed off at some point.

  I didn’t think they were supposed to let you sleep with a concussion, she thought groggily as she fumbled with the bed controls, trying to raise herself to a sitting position. One of the voices outside clearly belonged to Chris. She’d had about enough of being helpless around him. If he came in, she was determined to be sitting up all by herself.

  The curtain pulled aside and as he stepped inside, she fixed him with the angriest glare she could manage. No matter what he said at this point, they were through. All she wanted from him was her purse, her phone, and directions on where to get her car after they released her from the hospital.

  “Abby, there’s someone I want you to meet,” he said, stepping aside to make room for a tall blonde to step by him.

  Abby’s mind reeled. Instinctively she knew the woman standing at the foot of her bed was Kali, and she was beautiful. Tall and athletic, with long honey-blond hair and a flawless tan. She wore a pink dress and matching pink heels.

  She’s a Barbie, Abby fumed. A fucking Barbie doll. She opened her mouth to tell them both to get the hell out of her room, then did a double take. Oh, no fucking way.

  “Hi, Abby,” the ocean-eyed beauty said with a mischievous grin. “I’m Kali. Chris’ step-sister.”

  * * *

  Chris had left the two alone and gone to wait in the lobby. He could have just told Abby about his step-sister, but something told him he’d be better off letting Kali do the talking. No one could resist Kali’s bubbly personality and genuine warmth.

  A half hour later, Kali found him by the vending machines.

  “You’re an idiot,” she said, leaning her back against the machine as he got a bag of Doritos. “Why didn’t you tell her about me?”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  She snorted and followed him back into the lobby, the click of her pink stilettos against the cold concrete floor sounding unnaturally loud in the empty hallway. “Well, it wasn’t. She found my tampons and convinced herself we were having some wild love affair and she was just your side fling. Don’t worry,” she added when he groaned. “She knows better now. But you got some explaining to do, big brother.”

  As they reached the front entrance, she flung her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Love ya,” she whispered, kissing him on the cheek. “Now I got a party to get back to.”

  “I owe you!” he called out as she walked out the doors, laughing as she gave a thumbs up sign without looking back.

  This time when he came around the curtain, the hostility and anger in her eyes was gone. A nurse was reading her vitals, and he tried to stay out of the way until she finished. As soon as she left, he pulled the chair back to the side of the bed and took a seat beside her.

  “You forgive me?”

  Her lips pursed as she shook her head no. “You lied to me.”

  “How did I lie to you? I told you I had a step-sister.”

  “You said she went to U of Austin. You never said she lived with you.”

  “She does go to University of Austin, during the regular semesters, and she’ll be going back there in two weeks to start the fall semester. But in the summer months, yes, she does live with me.”

  “But you tried to hide her from me.”

  Chris sighed. She had him there. “Yes,” he replied. “I didn’t want to. I knew you two would be instant friends, given your… common interests. But I also knew how your mother had you convinced what we were doing was dirty and wrong, and I was afraid you’d learn about Kali and get even more twisted up in your mind.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “I didn’t want you to think I had some sort of fucked up incest fantasy about my step-sister and that was why I was attracted to you.”

  * * *

  Abby leaned her head back against the pillow, raising her eyebrows as she considered what he’d said. She hated to admit it, but he was right. Even now she had a hard time believing it wasn’t entirely untrue. “How do you know it isn’t?” she demanded.

  “Because she was already seventeen when I met her,” he grinned. “I was twenty-seven. Her mom and my dad had this whirlwind romance and elo
ped without telling anyone, not even their kids. I flew to Greece after the fact, and surprise, I had a step-mom and a step-sister.”

  Abby picked at the sheet draped over her as she tried to imagine what that had been like for him. Her mother couldn’t even have a family dinner without sending out invitations weeks in advance.

  “When Kali came out here to go to college, I got to know her. She opened my eyes to what it was like to being around someone special, someone like you,” he went on. “Everything is always fresh and new to her. Every rainbow, every flower, every thunderstorm—she sees them all with this sort of wide eyed wonder. All the other women I’d been with, they’d lost that… that ability to be completely in the moment. Everything is been there, done that for them.”

  Abby studied his face as he explained. She saw nothing but earnest sincerity in his eyes and expression.

  “Kali was the one who told me about Spectrum. She gave me Mr. Green’s card. Before then I had no idea, and they sent me a dozen suggestions, but none of them clicked for me. Until you.”

  He shifted in his seat and it occurred to Abby that he was nervous. The stern, in-control man who had spanked her on the coffee table was nowhere to be seen now. Seeing him vulnerable as he bared his soul made tears well up in her eyes.

  “When I saw your face light up over those balloons, I knew you were the one.” He took her good hand and placed it over his heart. “And then when I gave them to you and our hands brushed against each other, the way you reacted to me… Abby, I knew you were the one I’d been looking for. You have this amazing light inside of you, despite everything your mother and oldest sister have done to try to put it out, and I’ll do anything to make it shine.”