Chapter 2: The Evidence Shared
The water had gone cold. Annie stood in the shower until her fingers pruned, the steam condensing into droplets that traced paths down the glass. She toweled off roughly, the terrycloth abrading her sensitive skin, and pulled on an old t-shirt and cotton shorts. The fabric was soft, but every movement was a reminder.
Her phone glowed on the rumpled bed, a silent beacon. She picked it up, the cold glass against her palm. The gallery was still open, a carousel of pink skin and intimate shadows. Her thumb hovered.
It was a stupid, reckless idea. The absolute worst idea. She selected the least revealing, yet most telling, photo. It showed the angry color blooming across her skin, the curve of her hip, the edge of her thigh. Evidence. She didn’t type a message. She just hit send to Susan.
The three dots appeared almost immediately. Then vanished. Appeared again. Annie’s heart thumped against her ribs, a frantic bird.
Susan: holy shit.
Annie: yeah.
Susan: are you ok?? what HAPPENED
Annie: clara happened. new house rules.
The dots danced. Annie clutched the phone, pacing the small patch of floor between her bed and her cluttered desk.
Susan: oh my god. i knew she was strict but… that’s… real.
A pause.
Susan: can i call you?
Annie shook her head, though Susan couldn’t see her. Typing felt safer. A layer of insulation.
Annie: no. just text. it’s… i can’t talk.
Susan: ok. ok. tell me.
And Annie did. In fragmented, furious texts, she laid it out. The potatoes. The smirk. Her father’s silent, complicit plate. Clara’s calm, terrifying walk. The grip on her arm. The feeling of being tipped over a lap like a misbehaving child. The first smacks through her jeans. The sound. The unzipping. The cool air. The fire.
She sent it all into the digital void, each message a little purging of the poison. The shame burned fresh with every confession.
Susan’s replies were quick, punctuated with stunned emojis and outbursts. ‘NO WAY’ and ‘ur dad just SAT there?’ and ‘i would have died.’
Then, after Annie described the part where Jake held her ankles, the dots lingered for a long, long time.
Susan: annie.
Annie: what.
Susan: jake. he was right there. holding you down.
Annie: yeah.
Susan: so… he had a perfect view. when she… you know. pulled your jeans down.
The words on the screen seemed to pulse. Annie froze, the phone heavy in her hand. She hadn’t let herself think about that. She had been focused on the ceiling, the floor, Clara’s face, the pain. She had deliberately not thought about Jake’s perspective. The angle. What he would have seen, framed by his mother’s lap.
A fresh, different heat flooded her cheeks, a scorching wave of humiliation that felt strangely liquid. She sat down hard on the edge of the bed.
Annie: shut up.
Susan: i’m just saying. he saw everything. i bet he couldn’t look away.
Annie: STOP.
But Susan didn’t stop. The texts kept coming, each one prying open a door Annie had slammed shut.
Susan: sorry. i’m sorry. it’s just… i can’t stop thinking about it. clara. she looks like a freaking school headmistress in those cardigans. i’ve seen her scold you before, at the mall that time. the way she looked at you. i’ve thought about it. what it would be like if she actually…
The confession hung in the space between them. Annie stared. Her best friend since seventh grade. The one who borrowed her clothes and laughed until they cried at stupid videos.
Annie: you’ve thought about her spanking me.
Susan: not LIKE that. i mean… i don’t know. it’s weird. it’s just a thing i imagined. once. it seemed… intense.
Annie’s breath was shallow. The throbbing in her rear, which had subsided to a warm, persistent ache, reignited. It spread, curling low in her stomach. She felt simultaneously exposed to her friend and profoundly understood in a way that was terrifying.
Annie: it was intense.
Susan: did it hurt?
Annie: yes.
Susan: a lot?
Annie: yes. a lot.
Susan: and you just took it?
Annie: what was i supposed to do? jake had my legs. my dad was a statue. she’s stronger than she looks.
Susan: god. i can see it. i can totally see it. her face all serious. jake watching. you over her lap. fuck, annie.
Annie lay back on the bed, the phone held above her face. The popcorn texture of the ceiling blurred. She was ashamed. Deeply, gut-wrenchingly ashamed that Susan was picturing this. And yet. And yet the coil of heat was tightening again, fed by the graphic detail, by the shared secret, by the illicit thrill of being so vividly imagined in a moment of total helplessness.
Annie: it was so embarrassing.
Susan: i bet. but also… kind of hot?
Annie didn’t reply. She pressed the heel of her hand between her legs, over the soft cotton of her shorts. A small, choked sound escaped her.
Susan: sorry. was that too much? i’m a freak. forget i said that.
Annie: no. it’s ok.
Susan: really?
Annie: yeah.
The admission changed the air in the room. It was no longer just a report of a disaster. It was a collaboration. A secret, shameful club of two.
Susan: do you think she’ll do it again?
Annie: i don’t know. probably. if i mess up.
Susan: what counts as messing up?
Annie: breathing wrong, probably.
Susan: are you gonna… test it?
Annie’s fingers stilled. That was the real question, wasn’t it? The impulsive, stupid, magnetic question. The one that had been whispering at her since the moment she stood up from Clara’s lap, her jeans around her thighs. The structure was a prison. But it was also a script. And she was suddenly, desperately curious about the next scene.
Before she could type a response, a new sound penetrated the walls of her bedroom. Not the tick of the clock or the hum of the fridge. A rhythmic, solid thwack. Then a muffled, masculine whimper.
It was coming from down the hall. From Jake’s room.
Annie sat up slowly, the phone forgotten in her lap. The sounds were unmistakable now. The crisp impact. A low, pained grunt. Clara’s voice, too muffled to make out words, but the tone was the same: firm, corrective, absolute.
He was getting it too. For what? For not mowing the lawn? For a B on a test? For smirking at the wrong time?
The thwack came again. Annie found herself holding her breath, her body tense, listening. The heat between her legs became a sharp, undeniable throb, synchronized with each distant blow. Her own skin tingled in sympathy, and in memory.
Jake, who had held her ankles. Jake, who had watched. Jake, who was now on the receiving end of the same cold, orderly justice.
She picked up her phone, her thumbs flying.
Annie: she’s doing it to jake right now. i can hear it.
Susan: NO. SERIOUSLY?
Annie: seriously. she doesn’t play favorites.
A long pause from Susan. Then,
Susan: this family is so fucked up. and so hot. i don’t know what to do with this.
Annie listened to the final, definitive smack. Then silence. A heavy, settling silence. She looked at her closed bedroom door, imagined Clara smoothing her cardigan, Jake pulling up his pants, the same shame and relief she’d felt coloring the air in his room.
The structure was everywhere. It was in the dining room. It was in the hallway. It was in her own confused, racing pulse.
Annie: i don’t know either. but i’m gonna find out.
She put the phone down, screen facing the mattress. She lay in the dark, the echoes of discipline fading into the house’s bones, a new and dangerous plan beginning to form in the fertile dark of her shame.