Chapter 3: The Drive to Sheri's
His knees were raw. The cold concrete of Emma’s garage seeped through the thin cotton of his uniform, a dull, persistent ache that competed with the sharper, hotter sting across his backside. He knelt, head bowed, waiting for permission to rise. The pine scent of the cleaner he’d swallowed for the last three hours clung to his sinuses.
Emma stood over him, tapping the riding crop against her leg. “You missed a spot behind the refrigerator. I’ll have to deduct from your credit.”
Robert didn’t look up. A deduction meant another day added to his sentence. Another video for Ava. His throat tightened.
“But that’s a problem for later,” she said, her voice cutting through his dread. “Up. We’re going for a ride.”
She didn’t wait for him to struggle to his feet. She turned and walked out the side door into the blinding afternoon sun. Robert staggered up, his joints popping, and followed.
Her convertible was a splash of violent red in the driveway. The blacktop radiated heat. She unlocked it with a chirp and slid into the driver’s seat. “Passenger side. Don’t touch the leather with your… uniform. It’s delicate.”
He opened the door and lowered himself in, the position pulling at every sore muscle. The leather was warm, almost hot, and he tried to minimize contact, perching on the edge. Emma started the engine with a throaty growl.
“Hands on the dashboard,” she said, pulling a wooden ruler from the door compartment. It was plain, varnished pine, about eighteen inches. School issue.
He placed his palms flat against the textured plastic, bracing. The engine revved.
She backed out fast, the g-force pushing him back. Then she was driving, one hand on the wheel, the other holding the ruler. The suburban streets blurred past, manicured lawns, sprinklers hissing. Normal life.
Whap.
The ruler landed across his thighs, a line of fire. He jerked but kept his hands in place.
“Posture,” Emma said calmly, taking a turn. The wind whipped her ponytail.
Whap. Whap.
Two quick ones, lower, where the uniform didn’t cover. His breath hitched.
“Sheri’s different from me,” Emma explained, as if discussing a colleague’s management style. “I’m about correction. Efficiency. Sheri is… artistic. She sees potential. A canvas.” She glanced at him. “You’re the canvas.”
Another swat, higher this time. He squeezed his eyes shut.
“She’ll want you primed. That’s what this is. Priming.” She accelerated onto a tree-lined boulevard. The houses grew larger, set further back, old money. “Don’t cry in front of her. She hates that. She likes quiet endurance. The… the tremor in a muscle before it gives out. You understand?”
He didn’t, not really. But he nodded, his face hot with shame and the wind.
She didn’t hit him again. The rest of the drive was a tense, silent procession under the dappled shadows of oak trees. The threat of the ruler, held loosely in her lap, was worse than the strikes.
They stopped in front of a towering Victorian house, painted a deep slate grey with lavender trim. It looked like a dignified old lady who secretly enjoyed gin. Emma killed the engine.
“Around back. Don’t use the front door.”
He stumbled out of the car, his legs stiff. She led him down a flagstone path alongside the house, past hydrangeas heavy with purple blooms. The back gate was iron, slightly ajar.
The backyard was nothing like the front. It was a walled garden, lush and private. A stone fountain bubbled in the center. And there, standing on a patio of weathered brick, was Sheri.
She was older than the others, maybe mid-twenties, with coppery hair twisted into a complicated braid. She wore paint-splattered jeans and a crisp white tank top. In one hand, she held a leather flogger, its falls swaying gently. At her feet sat a large metal bucket, water sloshing over its rim, a scrub brush floating inside.
“Emma. Right on time.” Sheri’s voice was warm, melodic. She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes, which were a pale, assessing green. They scanned Robert, head to toe, lingering on the fresh ruler marks over the older bruises. “Oh, good. You’ve started the texture.”
Emma gave a slight nod. “He’s prepped. Missed a spot behind the fridge, though.”
“We’ll consider that part of the patina,” Sheri said, waving a dismissive hand. She stepped closer to Robert. The smell of linseed oil and turpentine wafted off her. “Do you know why you’re here, Robert?”
He swallowed. “To… to atone.”
“Vague,” she sighed. “But acceptable. You’re here to be made useful. To be reshaped. My project today is the patio. Decades of ground-in dirt, of mildew. It needs to be scoured. Revealed.” She toed the bucket. “You will scour it. On your hands and knees. With that brush. And I will oversee.”
She lifted the flogger, letting the falls drape across her palm. They were soft, supple leather, dyed a deep burgundy.
“This isn’t for punishment. Not exactly. It’s for encouragement. For rhythm. You’ll find a pace, and I’ll help you keep it.” Her smile widened, finally touching her eyes, which now gleamed with a kind of hungry curiosity. “We’ll make something clean out of something filthy. There’s a poetry to it, don’t you think?”
Robert looked from her face to the bucket, to the vast expanse of dirty brick. The afternoon sun beat down on his exposed skin. Somewhere, a bee droned.
“The uniform stays,” Sheri said, her tone dropping into something final. “The view is part of the composition. Now, to your place. We have a lot of ground to cover before the light changes.”
She pointed to the bucket.
The stone was unforgiving. The water was cold and smelled sharply of industrial soap. He heard the soft, trailing sound of the flogger’s falls brushing against the brick as Sheri moved to stand behind him.
“Begin,” she said.
And as he pushed the brush into the grout, he heard the whisper of leather through the air, a moment before it landed not with a crack, but a heavy, thudding cadence across his shoulders, a beat meant to be kept for hours.
The impact shoved him forward, chest-first into the suds. He gasped, caught himself, and kept scrubbing.
The second strike landed on the back of his thighs, a broad, dull pressure that bloomed into a deep, satisfied heat. It wasn't sharp like the ruler. It wasn't precise like the crop. It was a statement of intent. A reminder of presence.
"The patina of neglect," Sheri mused behind him, her voice thoughtful, as if she were narrating a documentary about pottery. "Layers of dirt. Each one a story. A winter of wet shoes. A summer of spilled sangria. You are removing memory, Robert. Brick by brick."
He didn't respond.
Couldn't. The flogger whispered again, another measured swat across his lower back. The impact pressed him deeper into the soapy water, the liquid sloshing around his wrists. He braced himself, palms flat against the brick, and resumed scrubbing. The brush's bristles were coarse, industrial, designed to strip away without mercy.
"Faster," Sheri murmured. "You're holding back. These stones have waited decades for this attention."
He increased the pace, his arms burning, his breath coming in sharp little gasps with each strike. The flogger moved methodically now, a rhythm pulsing through him: front shoulders, middle back, lower spine, thighs.
Couldn't. The flogger whispered again, another measured swat across his lower back. The impact pressed him deeper into the soapy water, the liquid sloshing around his wrists. He braced himself, palms flat against the brick, and resumed scrubbing. The brush's bristles were coarse, industrial, designed to strip away without mercy.
"Faster," Sheri murmured. "You're holding back. These stones have waited decades for this attention."
He increased the pace, his arms burning, his breath coming in sharp little gasps with each strike. The flogger moved methodically now, a rhythm pulsing through him: front shoulders, middle back, lower spine, thighs.
The rhythm wasn't just pain; it was a metronome. His world narrowed to the scrape of bristles on wet stone, the heavy slap of leather, the expanding heat map across his skin. Sheri hummed sometimes, a tuneless sound that syncopated with the flogger's falls.
"You're developing a nice consistency," she said, pausing to swirl the flogger in the bucket, soaking the falls. They landed heavier next time, with a wet, stinging smack. "The color is coming up. See that?"
He saw nothing but grey brick and white foam. His knuckles were bleeding, the skin split from grinding against the unyielding surface.
"Look," she commanded, the flogger resting on his shoulder.
He blinked sweat from his eyes. Where he had scrubbed, the brick was a warmer, russet red. The path he'd made was a stark, clean stripe through the field of grey grime. It was a fact. It was progress. It felt utterly meaningless.
"The evidence of work," Sheri said, satisfied. "Now, don't lose the pace. The shoulders are sagging."
The next hit was a twin strike, both falls wrapping around his ribs. He grunted, pushing the brush forward with a frantic burst of energy. The soapy water was now a pinkish-brown, a slurry of dirt and his own blood.
Time dissolved. There was only the next square foot, the next strike, the next burning muscle group. Sheri’s commentary drifted in and out.
“You favor your right side. Correct it.”
“The grout there is particularly stubborn. It requires commitment.”
“Breathe through it. The pattern of your breath is part of the work.”
He began to anticipate the strikes, his body tensing a fraction before they landed, which only made the impact feel deeper, more resonant. The clean stripe grew, a narrow avenue of order he was carving through the chaotic filth. His mind floated away, detaching like a lost balloon. It went back to the ledger in his failed office, the columns of red ink. It went to the cold, clinical smell of Nicole’s bathroom bleach. This was just another column. Another chemical process.
Suddenly, the flogger stopped.
He faltered, the brush skidding from his numb fingers. He knelt there, heaving, the silence louder than the violence had been.
Sheri crouched beside him, her knees cracking. She examined his work, her face inches from the brick. She ran a finger along the clean grout line. “Not bad,” she said, almost to herself. “The texture of the suffering is… appropriate. Honest.”
She stood and walked to a garden hose coiled on a wrought-iron hook. “Rinse it. The slurry is obscuring the result.”
He took the hose. The water was sun-warmed. He sprayed the clean section, and the foam and pink water sluiced away, revealing the true, vibrant color of the old brick. The contrast was shocking. It looked new. It looked salvaged.
“See?” Sheri said, a genuine note of pleasure in her voice. “That’s what we’re doing. Revelation.” She took the hose back and sprayed his hands, the water stinging in the cuts. “Now finish it. The whole patio. I want to see it all reborn before the sun drops behind the wall.”
She didn’t use the flogger again. She didn't need to. The memory of its rhythm was in his muscles now, a ghostly percussion driving him forward. He picked up the brush. He dipped it in the foul, cooling water.
ROBERT SCRUBS FLOORS.