Summer Swap 4.7

Lily had a head-start but Arlo knew where she was headed. He found her in their bedroom suite, the lights off except for the bedside table lamps. The room appeared empty, but he called out her name and heard movement in the bathroom. The lights were off in there, too. “Lily,” he said again, closing the door behind him, strolling into their room with his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “Come out here, please. We need to talk.”

From the bathroom came a mumbled “no.” Lily’s tone was firm yet soft and delicate, just like his wife. He sighed, tugging on his short legs as he sat down on the side of the bed, facing the bathroom. From the shaded cone of light cast from the table lamps he could see her in there, bare feet, wearing her pink unicorn PJs. He put out a hand, laid one palm over the other and began pushing downward on the palm to flexes the muscles on the inside of his forearm. He switched hands and did the same with the other. “Lily, we have to talk.”

Lily muttered, “Go away.”

Now he linked his fingers together, turned his joined hands inside facing out, palms toward Lily, stretching his arms again and cracking his knuckles. He took on the tone of a patient but aggrieved parent, his tone steady and armored against refusal. “Let’s go, please, Lily.”

Lily sighed and clucked her tongue; he heard the quiet click of her ankle joint as she shifted from one foot to the other and made a reluctant path to the doorway. She stopped there. “I don’t wanna talk,” she said.

Arlo checked his watch. “It’s far too early for bedtime, little girl.”

“I was going to read first.”

“You can read if you choose—once we’ve talked.”

“I don’t want to talk,” she said, childish and petulant.

“Are you proud of your outburst?”

Lily pouted and looked away.

He said, “I wasn’t proud of it. I was embarrassed. Do you know what that looks like to everyone?”

“I don’t care,” she said.

“You do care, Lily. You can act like a baby all you want, you can stand there and tell me you don’t care. I don’t believe it for one second. You don’t believe it and I don’t believe it, and where does that leave us? It leaves a standing here with your selfish little lie hanging in the air like a noxious fart.”

A small smile flashed on Lily’s face and she leaned closer to the door frame, resting her forehead on it and drawing lines on the mahogany trim with the tip of her index finger.

“You’re stinking up our bedroom with your lying farts.”

She snickered.

“I’m angry at you, though, you know?”

She nodded and looked down.

“I’m very angry with you. That was such a childish thing to do. You embarrassed me, but worse, you embarrassed yourself. In front of our friends. What were you thinking?”

Now her lips blubbered, and she scowled at him. “What was I thinking? What were you thinking? How about you? Bringing him here. Bringing him all the way here.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know,” she said.

“You did, Lily. You knew. You knew and you hate yourself for knowing and to make yourself feel better you threw a ridiculous tantrum in the kitchen. You smashed that plate. They had to go get a Shop Vac to clean it up.”

“So?”

He grumbled and shook his head. “That’s it, Lily,” he said, stern, the attenuated tendril of his patience wiggling and waving, unable to support the weight of his anger. “Come. Here.”

“Why?”

“Don’t say why, Lily. When I ask you to do something, you do it. And you know why.”

She sighed again, this time rolling her head around, wanting to object and complain more but knowing it would only make her punishment worse.

“Come stand by me,” he said, patting his right knee. “What do you say?” he asked her as she complied.

She muttered, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“I’m sorry I broke a plate.”

“And…?”

“Embarrassing you.”

“Pull your bottoms down.”

Lily hesitated, her lips wriggling as her brain struggled to form a reasonable protest. But she knew there was none, and her hands complied, coming to her sides, slipping thumbs under the waistband and pushing down her unicorn PJ pants just below her bottom.

He said, “Your underwear, too.”

Lily blubbered. “A-and my underwear?”

“I’m very cross with you, little lady.”

“I said I was sorry, Daddy.”

“Underwear. Now.” He snapped his fingers and jabbed a finger between her legs.

Lily repeated the same action, slipping her thumbs under her plain petite cotton underwear and lowering it to expose her bottom.

Arlo patted his lap. “Put your tummy down here.”

Lily stooped as if she would pray, hooking her elbows on the opposite side of his lap and pulling herself forward to lay her tummy over the top of his thighs.

“That’s a good girl,” he said. “You have to remember your place.”

She said, “I can still be mad at you, Daddy.”

“There are better ways of expressing it, Lily, wouldn’t you agree?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but he brought the flat of his palm down across her bared ass cheeks in a loud smack. Lily yelped and kicked her legs. “Stay still,” he reminded her.

“That hurt, Daddy.”

“It’s supposed to hurt,” he said and brought his hand down again in quick succession three times—crack, crack, crack. Lily howled and kicked her feet again and he used his free hand to steady her convulsing body on his lap. “I’m not done with you,” he told her.

“Okay-okay,” she said. “I know, I know.”

“What do you know?”

“I was bad.”

“You were,” he said, let a bit of silence hang and then brought his hand down in a hard crash on her pale, rosy bottom, blooming with reddish handprints.

“Okay, Daddy,” she said, “ow, okay,” twisting her arms behind her and blocking her blushing bottom with her hands.

“Take your hands away, Lily.”

Lily breathed heavy through her mouth for a second then obeyed, removing her hands and letting them fall to the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said, defeated.

“I know you are, Pet,” he said, and now instead of giving her one more good resounding spank, he caressed and coddled her bottom, just for a moment before tugging up her underwear. “Okay,” he said, “you can get off now.”

Lily slunk away, sniffling, pulling up her PJ bottoms, doing a little dance to get them seated properly. Arlo folded his arms and regarded her. She was beautiful; eyes bright, expression twisted somewhere between happiness and supplication. She wiped her nose, looking around for an awkward moment before crossing one arm over her tummy and holding the opposite elbow.

“If you have a grievance, Lily, it’s now in the privacy of our bedroom you can tell me about it.”

“You know what it is.”

“I’d like you, little lady, to put it into big people words.”

“I trusted you,” she said.

“You trusted me and what?”

“You let him in our bedroom.”

“Lily, we talked about this,” he said, rubbing his thighs then plucking a stray pink cotton thread from her new underwear that had attached to his shorts. He flicked it away. “Would you prefer the alternative?”

She didn’t answer, only showed him a sulky expression.

“Well, would you?”

When she still didn’t answer, he described it for her in clearer terms. “Do you know what they’re doing? We talked about it.” He didn’t let her answer, continuing, “You told me how afraid you were. And I did everything I could to make it better. Would you prefer an orgy?” He clapped his hands loud and Lily jumped, her eyes darting to his. “Well, would you?”

“No,” she said.

“Then you don’t trust me…”

“I don’t like him. I don’t like him at all.”

“Perhaps you could’ve been clearer with me. I know you know it was a possibility. It’s not a complete surprise though you act it’s like one. The truth is a night with him and all the things he likes to do is better than a night with our friends doing those dirty things. Are you one of those girls, Lily? Are you going to walk around here naked, are you gonna play games? Is that what you want? Did you want to play a game with Cody’s penis?”

“No.”

“With Philippe’s penis?”

She looked away. He clapped his hands again, and she looked at him.

“Is that what you wanted?”

She shouted, “No!”

“Don’t be a baby. You take your lumps. And what you definitely don’t do is embarrass me and embarrass yourself and embarrass our marriage in front of our friends by airing out our grievances in public.”

Lily stood there now with her chin dimpled and tucked down to her collar, her arms hanging loose and apish at her slim sides.

“Do I need to spank you again?”

“No,” she said, clear and defiant.

“Are you sure? Because I don’t think I’ve got through to you.”

“You did, Daddy.”

He pointed toward the bedroom door. “Should I go and get him right now?”

She said, “Who?” inquisitive but guarded, knowing who he implied, disbelieving and frightful.

“Him.”

When she spoke his name, it was uttered in a fearful, tight, chest-constricted whisper. “Mr. Graves.”

“Mr. Graves, Lily. You don’t think he’s still here?”

“I wish he’d go home,” she said.

“That’s where you like him? Do you like him at home?”

“I hate him. I hate him everywhere.”

“But perhaps if you were a better girl...”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.

“Didn’t he prove you did? . . . He has authority, you know. He has a lot of authority...”

“I know,” she said, beating her fists against his thighs, dipping at the knees and bouncing. “Please— I know, I know, I know...”

“He could put you in prison. How about that? If you comply, he won’t. Life is that way, Lily. Do you think life’s easy? Do you think you get everything you want? Do you think that’s what the grown-up world is like? How about me? Do you think I go to work every day and I just can’t wait to hang around with that asshole Shellenberger talking shit and acting like a big shot when I know deep down, deep in my heart”—he jabbed a thumb against his chest—“I can out-cook that guy, I can out-think him, build a better menu, I’m a better business person, and yet he’s the one, he’s the one with his foot on my neck, and that’s what life is like, Lily. Life is like that. You have a foot on your neck from the moment you take your first breath until when you die. There’s only one time when you don’t... And when is that?”

“When…” Her cute mouth twisted to the side.

“When?”

Lily said, “When my Daddy protects me.”

“And you don’t trust me?”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Tell me now, Lily. Should I tell Mr. Graves to go? Should I let him go back to his office in Washington, sit in his cubicle, crank out the numbers... Can you picture him with his little green visor tap-tap-tapping away on his big-button calculator, looking for where this poor little New York City girl made a mistake—because he knows you did. And you think I’ll punish you? If you think my punishments are harsh, the things he’ll do to you Lily...? Ho boy...”

“Ho boy,” she repeated.

“But you can’t get away, you can’t run fast enough. There’s nowhere, nowhere on the whole earth his tentacles can’t reach. So, you do what you can to make him happy. You open yourself up to him...”

“I hate that. I hate it when he does that.”

“Be my guest, then,” he said, “just go out the bedroom suite door, why don’t you take off your PJs, take off your little pink bottoms and strut around up there like Cheyenne does? Or Scarlet even. At least Carla has the decency to keep her clothes on most of the time. What, do you wanna be like that? Do you want to lie with those men who are our friends?”

“No,” she said, her voice cracking.

“I’m going to go get him.”

Her eyes widened. “Don’t...”

“He came all this way for you, Lily. He came all this way. He has authority. I do what I can to keep him back, but there’s only so much I can do. We want a future together. You have your business and you know I want to start mine. Carla said she could help.”

Lily nodded

“So, which is it? Cody or Mr. Graves?”

Lily sighed and hung her head again, lumbered to the bed like her light body weighed a thousand pounds, climbed up onto the mattress and collapsed in the pillows, curling up on her side and plugging her thumb into her mouth.

Arlo took her wrist and guided out her thumb. “Don’t do that,” he said.

She pouted.

“Who should I go and get, Lily?”

Lily’s lips pooched out, her eyes staring to the bathroom, blinking. “Mr. Graves,” she said.