paying for bad choices

I woke up with a headache. My sinuses stuffed and throat sore. I probably had fever. I knew I had to go to classes because of the ones I skipped without a real reason. For a moment there lying in a comfortable bed I thought: What the heck. I don’t care even if I fail… But then I heard Nat going down the stairs and I knew I wouldn’t be able to face her. I mean Mom would be difficult too, but she knows me. She knows I am a mess underneath those As. But Nat she doesn’t want to see the mess I am. She wants to believe I am brilliant. Just looking at her eyes and telling her that I failed..… oh… I had to get up.

Trying to pretend I felt better then I really had I got ready and decided to skip breakfast so Nat wouldn’t notice anything. Of course, she has a freaking sixth sense.

“Hey, Nat” I stood in the doorway and blurted quickly “I have to hurry. I overslept. We have a discussion class” And I started for the front door

“Anna, aren’t you going to eat before you go?”

“I’ll grab something on the way” I sent her kisses and went for the door again.

“Are you getting sick, honey? Wait a second.” She was walking towards me.

“Yeah, I think I might be. Don’t get to close though” the third one’s a charm.. or not.

I felt her hand on my shoulder. Her eyes locked with mine the moment I turned around.

“Is everything OK?” but the suspicious tone was gone when she took a good look at me. Her hand on my forehead. “You have fever, sweetie! You should be in bed. You really should go back. You are allowed to be absent 3 times per semester, you know.” (yeah, I knew and used it all up already) She turned to go up the stairs under the impression I was going to follow.

“Nat, I don’t feel that bed. I’ll just go to the first two classes and then I’ll come back. It’s really important I am there”

“Are you sure, sweetie?” I thanked God she doesn’t think as sharp as usual when she is worried.

“Yeah…”I wished I could hug her. But didn’t want her to get sick too…

The day was so long. I was about to fall asleep the whole time. My head was heavy. I felt cold and just longed for my warm bed. And the classes dragged on. Linda would get me tea in the breaks and I would put my head on my hands and try to rest at least a little bit. The medicine I took was not working at all. I couldn’t go to the doctors because he was our neighbor’s nephew and visited his uncle at least once every two weeks.

I felt so weak. By the fourth class I started feeling dizzy. And during the break I collapsed. Linda was too quick on the phone and next thing I knew I was waiting for Nat in the hallway. I was only thanking God the teacher witnessed the fainting and panicked so I was safe. Well, at least with him because he was the one who told me to go home and rest and that he would overlook my absence. 

Nat arrived, her heels making a sharp sound on the wooden floor. At the same time I was scared, I knew the scolding was inevitable, but also happy and relieved. I just wanted to cuddle.

“You told me you were going to come home after the second class” She stood in front of me. The dizziness was making her scarier than usual. I realized I was never sick during the stay at her house. Must be the food she was making me eat. I half smiled.

“Exactly what is funny?”

“No, not funny. It’s just that … I am kind of dizzy…”

“Should have obeyed and stayed at home, shouldn’t you?!” We were already walking and every part of my body felt so heavy and weak. I stopped and hugged her. I needed the comfort. Always a bit stiff when it comes to cuddling she put her hand on my hair and kissed the top of my head. I mumbled:

“I am sorry, Mom… Nat”  Whoa! I couldn’t believe what I just said! I suddenly felt so guilty. I wished my Mom was there… She would hug me properly… but I still wasn’t letting go of Nat.

“Let’s go, honey”, she patted me gently on my butt.

****

Nat woke me up at about 7pm. Mark was about to come (of course he couldn’t say no to her! It was soo obvious I thought to myself) . I felt a bit better. I took a shower and was even getting hungry.

I came down the stairs, had couple of spoons of her famous green peas, but even sitting in a chair was just too tiring. I felt the fever rising. It was 102 F! I couldn’t let them know! I’ll go for… 101? No… let’s say… 100.8. Yeah, that sounds credible.

Mark was writing it down. But I wasn’t sure Nat believed me. I half expected her to tell me to take the temperature again. Mark seemed oblivious. I felt my lungs kind of hurting. The cough wasn’t terrible and I was trying to keep it down, pretty much successfully.

“Look, it doesn’t seem too bad. Let’s hear your lungs” (no..) I dreaded that and I was right. His face expression changed. “Hm.. this doesn’t sound right. Blood work is necessary and I think some antibiotics will be too.” (my heart started racing. Blood work. Oh… I hate that. I hate needles. But.. at least he didn’t mention shots… that would be too much… and maybe if  I get better by tomorrow, maybe I’ll figure out a way to skip the laboratory. Wait what the heck is he doing. To my utter surprise he was pulling out the equipment… No escape. Right there on the spot. Nat watching. No escape. Shit.)

“Straighten your arm.” He had a soothing voice but I could see that neither of them realized that for me it wasn’t a routine blood work “it’s no biggie” stuff. He tied that thing around my upper arm and prepared the needle. I wanted to look brave. Nonchalant. Nat was taking the empty cups to the kitchen. Thank God! I could look away and brace myself. It hurt… ok it’s not too bad…. It’s going to be over soon… sooon… oh, come on Mark. OK… that’s done. I relaxed. Smile on my face.

*****

I fell back asleep in no time. Nat brought me one of her squeezed juices, the not so tasty beet one. It must have been midnight. She was probably working late. Or… staying up for me… I felt terrible seeing her tired eyes.

She handed me the thermometer. I put it a bit further than my armpit in order to prevent the real number to show up. I had already devised the tactics. I’ll ask her for something when it’s about to end and put it right so it does show something but not too much.

“Drink up, sweetie” I got ready for the undesired taste, but she had put honey in this time and it was actually great! She gently brushed off the hair from my cheek. And then held the hand on my forehead. She was worried. “You’re burning up. How do you feel?” I felt horrible.    

“well.. ok”. I wanted her to just go and let me rest. I remembered how my Mom would stay up all night and take temperature down by rubbing alcohol all over my body. I didn’t want that to happen. But at the same time I didn’t like that she took her hand off my face. I needed a gentle touch. I always do. The thermometer started beeping. Shit, I had forgotten to distract her and put it right. She made a move to pull it out. I panicked.

“I think I didn’t put it right”. She continued pulling it out, looked at it and the firm gaze made a knot in my stomach. “Kim told me you were afraid of shots, but this is childish Anna” She knew!! How did she see through me with such ease? I felt embarrassed. “I’ve known you since you were a tiny baby! Did you really think you can pull something like that with me?” She said as she was cleaning the thermometer with ethanol. “Open up”

I was appalled. “No, .. Nat, I’ll do it right” My hand was left empty in the air.

“Anna, now.” She didn’t have to raise her voice. She had the coldest, ice tone when she wanted. I felt ridiculous with that thing in my mouth but I was starting to get too tired.

Of course the fever had to have gone over 102. “We have to take it down.” She took away my blanket. Soft warm blanket. And started at my feet. “Take off the top” As if it wasn’t enough that she was pouring ice cold ethanol on my legs. And as if it weren’t disgusting. I mean touching my feet! Yucky … The fabric of the shirt was hurting my skin. At least I have some dignity left with the undershirt. The alcohol went dry almost while she was rubbing it in. I could see she was worried but at that point I no longer cared. I just wanted to sleep.

****

It was a long night for both of us. I could hear that the phone woke her up.

“Yeah… I guessed so. Ahm. No, no, don’t worry about that I know how to do it. No, she’s not allergic. I know, God forbid… yes… of course. Thank you so much!... Yes… I’ll let you know.”

In a haze I wondered what it was that she knew how to do but I drifted off to sleep.

****

“Annie, honey, wake up. I have to give you a shot before I leave.” A shot! That’s a wake up strategy. Is she nuts!?? My eyes flung open to see her prepare the syringe and the needle … the knot in my belly grew tighter. “I will be here another two hours but we have to do it now in case you’re allergic. Come on, get ready” She looked at me almost surprised that I hadn’t moved. What did she expect me to willingly expose myself to the needle?! I was like hypnotized. I felt the tears coming. The pending threat making my lips curl. She couldn’t believe it.

“Oh, Anna, come on! That is just too childish! You are not still afraid of a little prick.” She appeared to find it  funny. Well at least she didn’t look worried. “Anna, honey, come on.” She took away my soft blanket my wonderful cover and protection and I was left in my panties and shirt. I turned to lie on my back, my butt safe, and recovered my voice.

“Nat, can’t we… skip that…?” I was pleading and about to start crying my eyes already welled up.
“Anna, stop being a brat and turn around this instant. Don’t make me spank you before I give you the shot” She was menacing but the needle was even more.

“Maybe… if I don’t have the fever anymore..(and I felt pretty good) maybe we could…” her left hand grabbed me by the waist and started turning me around. I wouldn’t give in.

“Fine” she put the top back on the needle. Her knee on the edge of the bed, my butt was up in a second. She landed couple of quick smacks on the left cheek.

“ow!”

“Relax your muscles” She was getting impatient and angry, but I couldn’t I was scared. “Anna!” I crossed the line, sick or not, wham, wham, smack.. I arched my back and my hand flew to protect my bottom. It ended up pressed against the small of my back. SMACK

“owww”

“Will you be still and relax, now?”

“uuhnn.. I ca-an’t” Smack, smack, smack “doo- don’t.. smack …uhhh ….smack smack Na--- Nat”

My bottom was already stinging when she landed a few really tough ones.
“I Smack told you Smack to relax SMACK. You will get the shot, you cannot evade  it. So let’s get it over and done with. With you everything has to be drama.” I felt so terrible.. and stupid… I tried my best to relax. The cold ethanol on the cotton… her finger clicking at the syringe, her hand pulling my panties  down (this is all so embarrassing ). “Count to five and it will be over and relax, OK, sweetheart?” She gently patted the spot and ouch! “Count!”

“UUUH.. one .. uhh two.. “ I counted through the tears… “ Make it faster Nat .. three.. uhh… four… uuhh five. It’s overrrr”

“Almost, sweetie” She pulled my panties back and set beside me stroking my hair gently.

“Sometimes I think you’re a five year old in an adult body… “
“I feel like that, too…” my sobbing was calming down. My bottom was sore in more than one way. I went for a hug and ended up head in Nat’s lap, she stroking my hair with love.

I wished I could stay there forever… and not go to university and face the professors.. and then… her… I couldn’t even imagine what she would do… 

The turning point

I was in front of the computer screen as usual, but instead of writing my paper I was watching the Kardashians. My brain was in that half dreamy state when you just can’t focus on anything. I did try to write, but without success, so I figured that relaxing a little bit is better than going to sleep. If I go to sleep I most certainly won’t advance on the paper and if I relax … well maybe…

I was careful not to play the show to loud because my Godmother was watching television in the other room and we had already had soooo many talks on how I should “Just do it”. She couldn’t understand what a curse procrastination was, she couldn’t understand how I “just couldn’t”. So, I was hoping that she would believe that I was being a good student. It was my last year at the university and it would be stupid to blow all the good grades and opportunities.

I felt like taking a snack and, being in the Kardashian all’s happy and relaxed mood, I thought I could sneak over to the kitchen unnoticed.

By the time I was back she was in my room, sitting at the desk. My heart skipped. The nerves made me almost chuckle. The stupid nervous laughter was stopped by her stare.

“I really don’t know what to do… how to get through to you...” – she never yelled, but most of the time she held kind of a distance that would make me think she didn’t really care, like… she would repeat the same stuff but it sounded to me like she thought it was her duty or something, not like she honestly cared. This time… she was also calm but she looked at me in a strange way, and I could feel how present she was in that moment, how she was up to something.

I started with the usual excuses… “I know, Nat… it’s just that I couldn’t write… I just read… and I didn’t have any ideas.. .and I felt kind of frustrated so I figured, I’d relax, take a break...Look, I’ll do it .. you know I’ll do it as soon as deadline approaches… it’s just….my stupid… brain… doesn’t work”. Usually she would interrupt me right away trying to convince me how I have to try harder, how I could relax when I had finished it, how it was all easy for me… but that evening the silence was menacing…

She closed the player, opened a blank Word page and stood up.

“Anna, I want to see at least three pages by 11.” My stomach curled up in a ball, I felt an “or else” more frightening than if it were pronounced. A tiny voice of cheeky reason whispered inside me: “You are an adult,… come on..” As she was passing in front of me I started:

“But, there is no way I could write that.. I still haven’t read everything and…” the door closed behind her. I stood there, chocolate chip cookies in my hand, and a very strange feeling in my stomach…

Well, I thought to myself,.. I could try and write it… Brain fog gone, I sat at the desk and started thinking about the influence of capitalism on ecology… Suddenly desired desperately to impress her! Just like when I was a kid and she would come to visit us. She has always been a half goddess to me…

 She will read what I write, I have to make it brilliant. Search for papers online began… I started reading but I couldn’t get inspired to write… summarizing had always been so difficult for me… I felt so stupid.. and the “or else” was filling up my head. What could she do? Not speak to me?? She wouldn’t kick me out of the house… ground me…? I don’t go anywhere anyhow… and… I mean she can’t take the computer away, I need it for the studies, and I bought it myself… A story came creeping in to my mind… My Mom told me how she once witnessed Nat getting spanked by her mother… Mom and Nat were about to leave the house, dressed for a party, when Aunt Felicia (who’s not my Mother’s aunt, but Nat and my Mom were so close that they kind of adopted each other as sisters) returned from the neighbors’ earlier than the two 19 year old girls expected. Aunt Felicia was very patriarchal and she wouldn’t have approved of many things Mom and Nat did. Seeing her daughter “dressed like a hoocker” (quoting her) made her go ballistic in a second. “I had no idea what was happening”, my Mom told me. “I looked at Nat pale and scared, literally not moving as if frozen. Felicia went into her own room and the next I saw was Nat falling on the bed and belt flying through the air. Nat was sobbing in seconds and her legs already had a few pink straps below her bottom, the short skirt up on her lower back. I felt scared and helpless and… embarrassed… can’t imagine how she must have felt…” The belt was coming down on her mercilessly and she was crying out “Mo-oom… Mom… ple---ase”. Felicia didn’t say a word. When she was done I was crying as well, you know how Granny never even considered that kind of thing…I wanted go and hug Nat,  but one look from Felicia and I was out the door, Nat lying on the bed crying like a little child… As she opened the door for me Felicia mumbled… “If I were your mother…”  I thanked God she wasn’t. Nat told me the next week, ( she was, of course grounded), that she couldn’t believe it either. The last one was when she was 17 and caught smoking… but it felt different, being in high school…and this.. she said… it was so humiliating … and at the same time like… I wasn’t… 15 or 10… it felt like I was 5....especially in the end. And when I went to straighten up in the bathroom and looked at myself with the makeup …. I felt so ridiculous.”… that’s when my Mom, who never had any authority over me what so ever tried to sound all serious and authoritative which looked ridiculous on her. “Anna, I know how you adore Nat, she’s like the only aunt you ever knew and … I know you admire her… that’s why I consider it brilliant that you’ll be living with her, but be careful, hun… Nat is strict, you may not have seen that side of her, but trust me… I’ve seen it with her sister’s children… ”

My eyes slid to the bottom corner of the screen. Shit! It was 10:07! There’s noooo way I can make it!! Shit! Shitshitshitshit! Aaaaaaaaaa…

Ok, I’ll focus and I’ll write something… anything… she will probably have forgotten that she told me it was by 11… I mean Nat is so forgetful…always hundred things being planned.. and she always changes her mind… Ok… but I’ll do it.. like… for myself.. it’s not like I am scared… or something…

Ok, so… Capitalism produced over production… the products are not there to satisfy needs but tastes… ah… everybody knows that… oh.. I have to write something good… 10:15…

Advertising … advertising… oaah… I am so stupid why can’t I write…? I need references.. Ok, I’ll read and then I’ll just write when I have a clear idea…

10:48…. I had written one lousy page… OK, I give up… I’ll just go back to the Kardashians… she’s probably forgotten all about it, and tomorrow morning I’ll probably have some good ideas…

11:00 Nat entered the room with disappointment on her face and a belt in her hand. It was as if somebody yanked my guts, I felt I would pee right there… My lips started curling on the ends without my will… “Nat… I tried…” I gasped for air… my voice went up a shrieking pathetic childish…

“Yeah, I could hear how you are trying though the door. Obviously,… I have to do it… to wake you up… and I hate it…Come” (What does she mean??? What does she have to do!!??? I’ll pee, I’ll start crying.. I can’t move… I can’t even feel my legs… I am an adult I … am … an adult…. Say it… ) “I …a m….I am no… You can’t…”

She sighed… and walked over to me as if she had flown. She grabbed my upper arm and pulled me up like I had no will or strength. The belt burnt through my pajamas, once, twice. I yelped… it hurt! It went on... Sucking in the air every time.  I was surprised… I thought it would hurt only after a while but she was strong and obviously skilled. “Nat… please…” I felt idiotic for begging...  I tried to release my arm, go couple of steps back to get to the wall when the she started to speed it up. I was over the table. The belt hit the chair couple of times and it banged! “Stop… pleeeeeasee…. I’ll.. wri….te …(she went on without a word or slowing down... That's not how I imagined spankings... I had thought when you said you were sorry or promised... it would be over) I proooo … aaaaaaaaa…. I prooo … mise you… Nat .. pleeee…se pleeaaaaaaa.. aaaaoo….it huu-aaa--uurts pleeese”.  

After a couple of swats more she pronounces sternly and angrily: “It is supposed to hurt” with this she pulled me up, tears streaming down my face. When I looked at her … so cold and angry and distant… the tears started flowing even faster … I wanted her to hug me and tell me that she still loved me... I wanted it more than anything… My own sobs and pleading echoing in my head. I felt as if I were 5. So scared, and small and in need of love and protection…

“Now go to bed. Tomorrow when you come back you will be writing in the living room. You will finish that paper by the evening.” I went for a hug. She stretched out a hand: “No, you haven’t deserved it.” I was confused and desperate…Nothing similar had ever happened to me...I cried myself to sleep…don’t know what hurt more… I just knew I had to deserve that hug tomorrow. I skipped classes and went to the library and started writing. It was difficult to sit. Couldn’t quite say if it was itchy or painful or both but all of it reminded me so well of my goal.

When I came home, there was no smile to greet me. She was distant the whole evening but I knew what I was doing. By 8 pm I was almost finished, the whole 15 pages. She was preparing dinner. It reeked of cauliflower. I hated it so much I felt sick, but I thought she would not make me eat it when she saw I’d finished the paper.

“Nat, I did it! I wrote it…” I said with a proud smile on my face while the printer was doing its job. I hand it to her. She went through it fast. I knew her powers and I knew she wasn’t missing anything.

“It’s good. But,… did we have to go through that…?” I felt guilty, my head hanging…  I whispered “I am sorry” and I really was… I looked up, hoping for a smile. I almost caught a strange expression, half smile half wondering… and love, definitely love … but it vanished quickly. “OK, the dinner is ready”.

I felt what it meant. I knew there was no escape from it…. And… I felt it was going to be like that from now on… She will become the authority I had never had in life, and… I knew I was supposed to be happy, because I knew she loved me almost as much as Mom did… and I knew she was capable of seeing further than Mom.. and I knew that it was going to be good for me … someday… but I really hated cauliflower…

I started pouring the food going around the hideous pieces. She took the spoon  from me and there it was, in my plate.

“But, Nat.. you know how much I hate it”

“I hated spanking you as well”… and then she added… “but if it could help you eat what's healthy ,…”

I was on the verge of tears. Looked up and there was the “no negotiations” face.

In three weeks my grades went back up, almost all A’s and the situation was almost back to normal, except that I obeyed her far quicker than before and hugged her more than before… And I felt as if she had truly adopted me, as if she deeply cared… and it was that love what gave me wings …well for a short time before I started going back to my old habits…