It was half past eight. Everything was calming down in the cold night. I was sitting 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 too loudly 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 first year at college and it felt a little too much. Much more difficult than high school where I was a star-student.
As I was watching the people in the show eating, I felt like taking a snack and, being in the Kardashians’ all’s basically happy and relaxed mood, naively, I thought I could sneak over to the kitchen unnoticed. By the time I got back my Godmother was in my room, sitting at the desk. My heart skipped. The nerves almost made me 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 a kind of a distance that would make me think she didn’t really care, like… she would repeat the same stuff, as if she wasn’t truly thinking about what she was saying, but saying it by default. Also, it sounded to me like she thought it was her duty or something, not like she honestly cared. This time, she was calm, but she looked at me in a strange way, and I could feel how present she was at 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 was just reading… 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 the deadline approaches… it’s just….my stupid… brain… it doesn’t work until… the last moment…. – Usually she would interrupt me right away trying to convince me that I am not stupid, and that I have to try harder, that I could relax when I had finished it, that it was all easy for me…and so on, as if I didn’t know the theory… But that evening the silence was menacing… She was looking at me with a stern expression for at least 10 seconds. I wanted to interrupt the silence but the unease was overwhelming. Finally, 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 had been 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…- 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…Everything seemed obvious. It felt like the last moment surge of energy. I started typing, just putting my ideas on the paper, but suddenly, I desired desperately to impress her, because, suddenly, I felt visible. Just like when I was a kid and she would come to visit us. She would talk to me, and I would philosophize and argue my points, and later when I was pretending that I wasn’t listening I could hear her tell my Mom that I was a genius and how much she loved me, and that she would have a kid if someone could guarantee that she would give birth to a kid like me. And I wished there was a way that she could adopt me, while I keep my Mom as Mom at the same time.
She has always been a goddess to me… I lived for her praise and loving words or a look. When she moved away I was 8 and I almost had a nervous breakdown. My Mom says I cried for days and I went on a hunger strike. And all that time, I wouldn’t speak to Nat on the phone because I was angry at her and I kept telling my Mom how much I love Nat and that I wanted us to move where Nat was. When my Mom realized that I could actually get sick she promised that we would move near Nat next year and that we would go visit her during the summer, so I calmed down a little bit. Time healed the wounds and my Mom kept postponing the imaginary move until I found another female authority figure to love – my teacher, and then I wanted to stay at the same school. But the essence of my emotions for my Godmother hadn’t truly changed, and after all these years I still wanted her approval and love just as badly as when I was a kid.
I heard Nat’s phone ringing and it brought me back to reality. “She will read what I write! SHE will read it! I have to make it brilliant and these ideas are just too obvious.” A rapid search for papers online began… I started reading but I couldn’t start writing… 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…right?… ground me…maybe? 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 into 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 hooker” (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 thing I saw was Nat falling on the bed and belt flying through the air. Nat was sobbing in seconds and her thighs already had a few pink straps, 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 to go and hug Nat, but one look from Felicia and I was out the door, Nat kneeling beside 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 her the following 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 still 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 in black streaks on my cheeks …. I felt so ridiculous.”… that’s when my Mom, who’s 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 and godmother you’ve ever known 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…She is Felicia’s daughter… ”
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’d told me it was by 11… I mean Nat is forgetful…well about the things she promises to me… always hundred things being planned… Ok… but I’ll do it.. like… for myself.. it’s not like I am scared… or something…Ok, so… Capitalism produced overproduction… no that’s a stupid sentence… the products are not there to satisfy needs but tastes… ah… everybody knows that… oh.. I have to write something good… something about planned obsolescence … and how it’s hidden in plain sight! 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… Yeah… I should maybe write about how much an average episode of Kardashians affects the ecology… the jets, the cars, the luxury goods, the parties…
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…
-Yes, I could hear you trying though the door. – I closed the laptop almost without realizing, while looking at her the whole time. As if hypnotized. She continued:
– Obviously,… I have to do it… to wake you up before it’s too late… 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… ) Anna, COME.
-I …am….I am no… Y-y -ou 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 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. It was so loud! And it started to really hurt! – 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 pronounced sternly and angrily:
-It is supposed to hurt- and 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, Anna.- That hurt so much more than the spanking. She didn’t even look at me when she left. I was confused and desperate… Her words were on a loop in my head. “you haven’t deserved it, Anna”. I wished I could disappear. She was right, but… I felt so vulnerable after the spanking. Nothing even remotely similar had ever happened to me… If I had went for a hug under normal circumstances, ok, but after that….? She must hate me… I cried myself to sleep…
In the morning, I was having breakfast when she was leaving for work, and as she was passing by my chair she kind of touched my hair. I think she had wanted to stroke my hair and kiss me as she sometimes did before leaving, but she must have changed her mind. My heart skipped, when I felt it her hand on my head but then she continued walking and I got so overwhelmed with emotions that my eyes were full of tears within a second. I looked at her and she glanced at me when she was at the door. There was a slight twitch as if she wanted to move, but stopped herself. It happened so fast that I can’t be sure what it was but I think she saw me. Actually saw me. I think that there was an internal battle within her and I think the pride won. Still, she said gently and meaningfully.
– I’ll see you later, kiddo….
A rush of love and relief overcame me. I beamed a smile at her and I wanted to run and hug her but I stopped myself. She went out and closed the door. Her voice from last night started the loop again, but it didn’t have the same effect. I saw my behavior over the past weeks and I realized she was right – I hadn’t deserved the hug. However, I felt that I could deserve it that day. I went to the first class but I couldn’t focus. I wanted to write the paper. It felt like I wouldn’t have enough time so I skipped the rest of the classes and went to the library and started writing.
It was difficult to sit. Couldn’t quite say if it was itchy, or burning or painful or all of the above, 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 7 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 handed it to her. She went through it fast. I knew her powers and I knew she wasn’t missing anything.
– It’s very good. – she put it on the table and looked at me. – … 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? was it love ?… but it vanished quickly. She sighed and got up:
– 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 my life, and… I knew I was supposed to be happy, because I she loved me enough to become that… 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… So, I started pouring the food going around the hideous pieces although I couldn’t avoid the stench. She took the ladle 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. I looked up and there was the “no negotiations” face.
In three weeks my test scores 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 she hugged me back! I felt as if she had truly adopted me, as if she cared more profoundly than before… and it was the love that gave me wings …well for a short time before I started going back to my old habits…
HER LOVE THROUGH DISCIPLINE 