by Ashlynn Ally
“Okay, okay, okay,” I relent. “I understand. I told you, I just didn’t want to wake you up. It was hot and I wanted to go for a swim. These guys were smoking a blunt, I just had one little hit. It’s not even my drug of choice! Not that I do drugs, that was a joke. I don’t fucking touch that shit, just cigs. And when I don’t have ‘em, it makes me mad, okay? I can’t help that I swear, it’s just the way I talk.”
I’m rambling, but I don’t care. Maybe if I talk enough it will distract him from the reason he is all pissed off in the first place.
“Enough with the victim game,” he growls. Or maybe not. “It’s about time you take responsibility for your own choices, and with choices comes consequences for the wrong ones.”
He turns his back to me and when I see him reaching up onto a shelf, my stomach drops. When he turns back, he’s sliding a fresh bar of pure white soap out of its cardboard packaging. I glare at him, my eyes venomous.
“You are not putting that in my mouth,” I say in a low and what I hope to be threatening voice.
“Oh, yes, I am. What did I say would happen if you talked to me that way again?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I try again, my voice a spitting whisper. My stomach feels all tight inside, and somehow, even though I’m terrified, I also feel a thrill of excitement running through my veins.
“Jaden, I said I would wash out your mouth with soap and I meant it. Someone needs to teach you to speak properly, and it looks like I’m the only person up for the job. Now open up.”
I stand there steaming, hating that he has this kind of power over me, but also curious about how far he’d actually take it. “And what if I don’t? You’re going to kick me out? Throw me back on the street?”
“It’s not going to come to that,” Justin says, a little too sure of himself.
“Oh, yeah, and how do you know that?”
He stands there appraising me, holding the bar of soap up near my face. “Because you’re smarter than that, aren’t you, Jaden? Come on. I know you want to succeed. Graduate from the high school diploma program, get a good job, become a contributing member of society. But you can’t do it on your own. You’ve admitted that much. You need my help. And this is part of how I’m going to help you. Do you understand? You need to be punished, Jaden. You need to learn the difference between right and wrong.”
I hesitate, still thinking about protesting, but realizing maybe he is right. Maybe this would help me. Maybe this is what I’d always needed. A caring guardian figure to actually parent me, steer me on the right track. Not that I think Justin cares about me all that much. Seems more like he has something to prove, and I’m just a pawn to help him prove it, but either way, I guess I’ll take it.
“For how long?” I ask, my gaze still skeptical, drinking him in.
Even though it is a vague question, Justin knows exactly what I mean. “Until I decide you’ve learned not to curse at me again for a very long time. Now open your mouth—” and when he holds the soap so it’s just touching my lips, I do so, almost automatically, “—and now close.”
At first, I don’t taste the soap as I hold the bar in place between my lips. It just makes me feel awkward and a little embarrassed standing there with it jutting out of my mouth like that. I realize I need to try to keep any part of my mouth that’s wet from touching the soap too much, since I figure if it lathers this whole situation could turn into a hot mess, fast. I’m trying to figure how to do this when Justin starts in on one of his most favorite pastimes—lecturing me.
“Now, look, I get it, you’ve been allowed to run wild pretty much since as soon as you were put into the system—probably before that, and you think you’re hard wired for it. But you’re not. You can change. You got that?”
I realize he wants me to acknowledge this in some way. Of course this is kind of annoying since I can’t exactly talk at the moment, so I just nod while shooting him a dirty look.
He zeros in on it right away, his voice becoming even sterner than it was before. “Don’t you look at me in that tone of voice, young lady. And guess what, if you want to run around here acting like a naughty child, I will treat you like one. From now on, you’ll have a curfew. Eight o’clock on school nights, nine o’clock on weekends. If you come home late, not only will you be grounded, but I will put you right over my knee and give you a spanking. Do you understand? Same goes for smoking, your attitude problem, and anything else I deem needs correcting. Now, have you ever been spanked before?”
I’m so surprised I can hardly respond. Spanked? He must have known foster homes weren’t allowed to use physical discipline, though it didn’t stop me getting knocked around a couple of times anyway. But actually getting punished with a spanking was foreign to me. Whenever I was having too many problems in a foster home, they just moved me to another one anyway, or I ran away.
Slowly, I shake my head no, trying to let him know how disgusted I am with this whole thing with the daggers jumping forth from my eyes. The soap is starting to get kind of slippery now, and therefore harder to hold in place unless I use more of my mouth, which makes it suds up a little too. The taste wasn’t so bad at first, but now it’s starting to get to me, and that along with being made to stand with it in my mouth like this while being threatened with childish punishments is starting to feel pretty degrading.
“Now, if you’re ready to apologize for your little outburst back in the bedroom, and promise me it’s not going to happen again, I’ll take the soap out and let you rinse out your mouth.”
I just stand there, still staring at him balefully with my arms crossed. I mean, what does he expect me to say anyway with this hunk of putrid-tasting soap crammed in my mouth anyway? He is worse than a dentist who asks about your grades at school while jabbing a shot of Novocain into your gums.
“Are you ready?” he asks again pointedly. This time I give a slight nod of my head. A moment later he’s pulling the soap of my mouth and I spin around and start spitting into the sink, and then scooping water into my mouth and spitting that too.
“I better start hearing an apology or the soap is going straight back in,” Justin’s voice comes from behind me.
“I’m sorry, okay?” I gag, still hovered over the sink. “I seriously didn’t realize it was such a big thing for you.”
I fill my mouth one last time with water. Even though my mouth mostly tastes clear of any soap residue at this point, I needed to rinse one more time just to be sure. Then I turn around and face Justin, who’s still lumbering over me like a big, sturdy tree.
“And…?” he prompts me.
I cast my eyes down to the floor, furrowing my brow in annoyance. It’s like, it’s not enough for this guy that I just stood before him practically foaming at the mouth from his Leave it to Beaver style punishment, now he wants to drag it out as long as possible.
“And I won’t do it again,” I mumble as quickly as possible.
“If you do, you’ll find yourself right back here in this bathroom with me,” Justin goes on, grabbing me by the chin and lifting my face up to look at him. “And if that happens I’ll suds up the soap first, you got that?”
I don’t want to answer him, but something tells me he’s not in the mood right now to let me get away with that. “I got it,” I say tritely, as if I’m somehow used to this sort of thing, though the truth is, I’m not.
He drops my chin, and it’s all I can do not to yank my face away from him. Then he points me toward the shower. “Get in there and get cleaned up. After you get dressed, I want you to come downstairs. Have you eaten anything since you’ve been out?”
It takes just about all the willpower I have not to roll my eyes at this ridiculous question. “When I don’t have any money for cigarettes, that means I definitely don’t have any money for food.”
Justin positively glowers at me. “No one asked you to get smart with me, did they? Maybe you need that trip over my knee sooner rather than later. What do you think? Do you think you can adjust your
attitude, or do I need to adjust it for you?”
I throw my hands up and shrug my shoulders in mock defeat. “Look, I was just saying, okay? When you have an addiction, that’s the first thing you feed.”
“I know how addictions work, that’s why we’re going to break you of this habit. Not only is smoking disgusting, but it has several nasty side effects, the ultimate one being death. Now, shower, and then come downstairs. Now that you live in an actual house, you’re going to start eating regular meals—even if it is ten o’clock at night at this point.”
He hands me the bar of soap he just had practically halfway down my throat, and since I’m pretty sure it’s not a very good idea to argue with him, I take it and hop into the shower. I hear the door close as he leaves while I’m peeling out of my bikini, shedding so much sand into the tub it takes a while for it to all go down the drain. As I rub the ocean out my skin and hair, rinsing out my mouth a couple more times for good measure too, I nearly shake at Justin’s audacity.
Spank me?
Like that would really do any good. He was about ten years too late, if not more. Yeah, I might put up this façade for a few more weeks, if not only to get a few more nights’ decent sleep. But Justin is kidding himself if he really thinks he can ‘adjust my attitude.’ I’ll get kicked out of my summer school classes just like I got kicked out of my real ones, and pretty soon I’ll be sick of this whole gig and find myself sleeping back in the bush outside Trader Joe’s, smoking as many cigarettes as I can bum.
Until then though, I guess I’m stuck with eating whatever shitty health food store concoction Justin is going to cook up for me, because I’m feeling too passive right now from the whole soap experience to test out his spanking theory tonight. But another time, after I regain back a little bit of my dignity and gumption, I’ll be game.
Chapter Seven
That night, after my long nap on the beach, I have trouble falling back to sleep. I roll from one side to the other, the sheets tangling around my legs like a fisherman’s net. Suddenly, I know I need to be back on the beach, and I run all the way there. It’s because I’m a mermaid. I don’t sleep in beds, I sleep on the waves, gliding back and forth with the tide. I’m wild and free, and no one can tame me.
Only then a ship pulls up in the water alongside me, looming and massive. A fishing line is cast down from above, and the hook gets caught on my backpack. Wait, why am I wearing a backpack in the water? I’m a mermaid, dammit! Mermaids don’t wear backpacks, do they?
I try to unhook my backpack from the fishing line, but it’s too late. I’m already being pulled up out of the water and into the cold, unfamiliar air. I thrash and kick, desperate to be free, but then there are sharks in the water below me, circling. Do sharks eat mermaids? I’m not sure if I want to find out. I let myself be pulled up, hoping whatever has captured me isn’t as bad as the sharks.
I’m surprised to see Justin standing there at the side of the ship with the fishing pole. He takes me around the waist and helps me onto the ship, but I can’t stand because I have no legs. I flop to the deck, struggling to hold myself up with my hands.
“Look what you’ve done!” I cry out dramatically. “I can’t be out of the water! I don’t have any legs.”
“It’s okay,” Justin responds. He crouches down next to me, resting his hand on the small of my back in a tender manner. “I’m here. I can help you get your legs.”
That’s when he leans in and kisses me. His arm slides around my torso and pulls me close. I feel his warm body pressed to mine, and his hard-on inside his jeans bulging against my abdomen. That’s when I slide my hand down and inside my legs. It’s slick, wet…
Wait a minute. I’m not supposed to have legs. I’m a mermaid. That’s when I realize I’m back in my bed with my hand inside my panties, my fingers wet with my own juices. It was only a dream. But what about the soap and Justin’s threat to spank me? That seems like it should have also been a dream. But no… that part was real. It takes me a moment to piece it together, but I’m sure of it now. Soap—real. Kiss—dream.
The light inside the room is gray, the first touches of sunlight from the window barely penetrating it. I lie there in bed as the day brightens, still lightly fondling my clit, confused and embarrassed by my dream. Justin holding and kissing me so romantically, which was so silly because I’m sure he doesn’t see me in that way. But do I see him in that way? No! It’s impossible. Justin is just a pain in the ass who I’m using for a place to stay. Nothing more, nothing less. Right?
Chapter Eight
We get one more day of the heat wave before it finally breaks, and then it’s time for me start my classes at Pacific Palisades High. Justin drives me, and I’m going crazy at this point for a nicotine fix. I tap my fingers faster and faster against the side of the door, desperate to get my lips around the first cigarette I can find.
All day yesterday, Justin watched me like a hawk. He even followed me around the mall where he took me shopping for ‘some decent clothes,’ as he called them. Resentful and ready to rip his head off as it was, I let him pay for everything without even offering to ever pay him back. Hey, if he wanted to spend ridiculous amounts of money on clothes I could easily steal for free, that was on him. Besides the clothes looked like something a soccer mom or college babysitter would wear. I’m wearing one of the outfits now at his insistence that the school had a dress code. No short skirts or shorts, no spaghetti straps, no foul graphics or language. Blah, blah, blah.
“I’ll be right here at three o’clock,” he says, pulling up in front of the drop-off section of the school. “Good luck, Jaden. You got this.”
I mumble out some kind of excuse for a response before I barrel out of the car. I slam the door behind me and start immediately casing the place for fellow smokers. It’s not as if I don’t want to go to my classes and learn and all that, it’s just I know I won’t be able to concentrate very well without nicotine in my blood. Yesterday was torture, and I am still pissed at Justin for thinking he knows what is best for me. I know what is best for me, and I do what I want when I want to do it, whether anybody else likes it or not. Going to school is for my benefit, but I can’t see the reasoning in quitting smoking just yet. I need to take things more slowly, cut back gradually. Justin is expecting too much of me, and it isn’t realistic.
The first bell to start classes rings right on time at eight o’clock, but the few kids I’ve seen so far that looked remotely like smokers just shake their head blankly at me when I ask if they have a cigarette. Shit. And now everyone is disappearing into the school and presumably their classrooms. Looks like I’m going to have ditch campus and take to the streets to find my fix.
I intend to leave for only a few minutes, but it seems none of the locals smoke around here besides those two kids yesterday. I change tactics and start bumming change instead. It takes a couple of hours before I finally have enough to buy a pack, but without ID to prove I’m actually eighteen, I need someone to buy them for me, too. I used to go for other homeless people when it came to this, but they’ve ripped me off so many times, I started going after younger guys instead. Which means I have to act flirtatious and cute.
“Hey, I know you probably think I’m full of shit, but I forgot my license at home and need to buy a pack of cigarettes for a friend. You probably think I’m like fifteen, right? Yeah… get it all the time. I actually really am eighteen.”
By the second or third guy, I finally find a taker, and good thing because I’m beyond desperate. He buys me the cheapest pack and keeps the change, but I don’t give two shits about a dollar or two at this point.
I strike one of the matches I told the guy to make sure he got with the pack. Justin must have confiscated my Bic when he took my last cigarette because it was somehow MIA. Then I proceed to suck down the first cigarette so fast it makes me dizzy, but my nerves finally stop shaking and I start feeling like my old self. I realize I should probably go back to the school, only now I’m pretty thirsty. Afte
r a day of eating health food crap yesterday, an ice-cold Coke would taste really good right now. That, and a big bag of Reese’s Pieces.
I stroll into the gas station the guy just bought my cigarettes from, and use the messenger bag Justin let me use (probably another hand-me-down of Jessica’s) to help myself to whatever I want. The soda and candy, new pair of sunglasses, ChapStick, new lighter. I wish there were a way to get one of those giant Big Gulp slushies and an order of the nachos with the day-glo cheese into my bag, but even I’m not that talented.
After my mini-heist from the gas station, I find a park with a nice tree to lean against where I can eat my breakfast. Or is it lunch at this point? Either way, I pull out my iPod, stick in my earbuds, and start chowing down.
For a while, I get lost in the music. It’s almost like I forget this whole thing ever happened, that I’m back on the streets just trying to pass the time. After I eat half the bag of candy and finish most of my Coke, I pull out another cigarette, and then another. Man, tobacco never tastes as good as when you haven’t had it for a while.
All at once though, the iPod beeps a warning that it’s almost dead, and I realize with a start I need to get back to the school. There’s a clock on the iPod, but it isn’t set so I have no idea what time it is until I get back to the school and check the one over the door to the office. Shit, how was it past one p.m. already? I dig around in my bag for my course schedule, try to figure out what period I’m in. Fourth period American History, fifth period lunch, sixth period English. But there’s nowhere that says what time the periods start. Dammit. I’d have to ask someone in the office.
The lady behind the desk eyes me suspiciously as I walk into the cool office, air conditioned while the rest of the building has been left to the elements.
“Uhh… hi,” I start, trying to sound as innocuous as possible while I hold my schedule out in front of me like a peace offering. “I’m not really sure where I’m supposed to be right now.”
