SSC2004: Story [edge]

'HOME SWEET HOME'

by Alex Birch

Category: Edge

Words: 502

The divorce was messy, the brickbats hurtful and Eleanor stumbled
through it in a trance.  Jim kept the family home and she got a
settlement but it wasn't enough for a place of her own, besides, she
was frightened of loneliness.  She hesitated for days in the shabby
room she'd rented before calling that familiar number and heard the
voice she loved and feared so much.
'Daddy..' she said nervously '..please can I come home?'

She stood on the doorstep, stomach tightening, as he opened the door,
his dark eyes meeting hers as they both battled with their feelings.

'You look like shit!' he said and she flinched.  'Get upstairs and have
a long bath and then rest.  Come down when you wake and I'll cook
dinner!'

She responded dutifully as she'd always done, taking a hot bath then
collapsed on her old bed in a heap and slept for the first time in days.

They ate in silence, so much to say, so much pain in their
relationship, a silence broken only when she took out her Prozac
tablets and he knocked them out of her hand. 'No pills, no shrinks, no
psycho babble...not any more..' he ordered '...plenty of exercise and
lots of sleep.  I oiled your old bike. We'll go riding an hour a day
and you'll be in bed by 11pm each night.'

She'd gazed at him open mouthed but didn't argue.  In the weeks that
followed, she obeyed his dictats and she lost weight, the colour
returned to her face and she felt like a million dollars.  She loved
him so much!!

One night she went out with friends, realising the time way too late.
She got home trembling and opened the door to find him waiting.

'Get up those stairs!' he ordered and sobbing she did so , feeling a
sense of terrified deja vu but he wouldnt...surely!!

She was down to bra and panties when he walked in , cane in hand.  He
gestured at her briefs.

'Pull them down!' he commanded and, cowed, she did so, bending low over
her bed, legs apart, displaying herself as she'd always done. The cane
cracked across her bottom and the pain vied with the moistness between
her legs as she writhed and wept in humiliation.

From then on he spanked and caned her bare bottom on the least pretext
but she thrived  on his tough love.

When he collapsed and died chopping wood one day her whole world fell
apart and she would have lapsed back to self pity until, after the
funeral, the telephone call came from her father's brother.

'You will come and live with us, Eleanor...' he ordered '...for I owe
John that much. He told me you need firm discipline and my wife and I
will be happy to oblige!'

Trembling she put down the phone and a smile of relief lit up her face.
The world was a comforting place once more.