Deep Inside (8 page)

He actually gave me a failing grade! I'd never seen an F before. I stood up, showing it to my classmates, who murmured in amazement.

“Sit down, Katie,” Larry said. I held his gaze, pulled out my cell phone, and speed-dialed Mommy.

She was at the mall picking up makeup and Slayer CDs for me. She made outraged noises and told me to hold on.

In a few minutes, Larry and I were summoned to the principal's office. I sat there pretending to cry.

“Larry, you've made my daughter feel bad!” Mom said. I felt so triumphant watching Larry in the hot seat.

Yet what was this? He just said, “I don't care that she feels bad about herself. The objective fact is your daughter turned in an unacceptable exam.”

“But look how you've made her feel!” Mom yelled, and then started talking lawyers and lawsuits.

This was usually where I'd have a little orgasm while masturbating to this flashback. Then I'd have the big one when I'd remember how they fired him and he was escorted out of the building by guards.

It was the moment when I felt best about myself. If people didn't get with the program, then I could get rid of them. Everything was in my power. I was going to make a huge salary by the time I was in my mid-twenties. And be famous.

Thinking back on this usually made me wet. But—fucking shit! What was this?! I couldn't come! I was twenty-five and I wasn't pulling in big bank! Plus I was still unknown! Images of Shanna firing me and friends getting movie deals filled my brain. I lost it.

I tore my Scooby-Doo comforter to shreds. I smashed my trophies. Then I went to the computer and Googled Larry Gamble. I needed to know just how badly his life had turned out. There was always the chance he'd killed himself because of what I did. Or didn't have health insurance.

But it turned out he had his own Web site.

Big deal, I thought. Anyone can have a site. Besides there must be thousands of Larry Gambles.

I clicked onto it. There was a photo of him on the home page: same black eyes, same harshly beautiful face. What was this? I clicked around to figure it out.

He was the founder and director of the Zero Self-Esteem Institute with headquarters in the Santa Cruz mountains, plus offices in a dozen cities and plans to open more. They seemed to have a pretty big following. Whoa, Scientology—look out!

As I clicked around, I read dozens of testimonials from smiling people my age saying how Larry Gamble had changed their lives for the better.

My head was reeling.

 

Over the
next few days I researched Larry Gamble's outfit. I even spent a half-hour in the waiting room of his institute's San Francisco office.

The people there! They were my age, but you've never seen such prim haircuts, dumpy dresses, and boring suits. They were all devotees of Larry Gamble, blabbing about how he'd gotten them to be accountable and responsible in their lives and jobs.

A plan hatched in my brain. Mom tried to talk me out of it. But I had a mission.

The next morning I assembled my tools and drove down the coast highway. When I got to Santa Cruz I was a little early and stopped at a restaurant.

The owner knew Larry's institute.

“People in Santa Cruz don't have any complaints about Larry Gamble,” he said. “Sure, it's a little strange, all those conservatively dressed twentysomethings living up there with him. But they're such well-behaved, law-abiding young people. Everyone likes to hire his followers. They show up on time and do what you tell them to do.”

 

I went
into the ladies' room and changed into my undercover outfit: boring pumps and a conservative navy blue dress I'd found in a secondhand store. I pulled on a mousy wig. Underneath, I wore my see-through seventh-grade panties. Then I steered the car into the hills.

The institute was high up a mountain thick with redwoods. There were gates and a parking lot, and a path that led to a bookstore.

I must have been wearing my square drag pretty convincingly because no one gave me a second look.

The books on the shelves were all by Larry Gamble. They had titles like
You Don't Deserve to Feel Good
and
Discipline for an Undisciplined Age.

I struck up a conversation with a woman my age.

“Mr. Gamble changed my life,” she said. “My parents meant well, but they spoiled me. Now thanks to Mr. Gamble I'm learning how to be my own adult.”

I was gagging!

A bell rang that sounded just like the one back in seventh grade, and I was swept along with everyone else into a big building that was kind of like a church, not that I'd ever been in one. It was full of people, all of them squeaky clean. I found a seat in the back.

There was silence, and then Larry Gamble strode onto the stage. A couple of burly assistants stood behind him.

Larry took the microphone.

“You're floundering,” he said to the audience. “You don't even know it. But things keep getting away from you. You've got no control over your lives. Why?”

Everyone in the audience shouted together, “Because of the self-esteem movement!”

“That's right,” Larry said. “Good, now we can begin.”

It was like some congregation of loonies!

Larry launched into a sermon about how these days parents aren't really parents, they just try to be friends, and how that's a disaster. Blah blah blah.

“There was a time in this country when people didn't cater to children,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion. “When children who spoke out of turn were sent to their rooms and couldn't come back until they behaved better. When rude little children would get a whuppin'.”

There were gasps.

“And you know what resulted from that upbringing?” He looked accusingly around the room. “We became adults.”

The girl sitting by my side burst into tears. The guy with her squeezed her hand and touched her hair.

“Now, all of you here were raised in the self-esteem movement. Tell me one thing: do you feel any actual self-esteem?”

A resounding “No” swept through the auditorium.

“Of course not! Because the fact is—the F-A-C-T is—
you shouldn't feel good about yourselves!
”

Larry's style had improved a lot since the seventh grade. I was furious at him and my panties were wet.

“Let me tell you about my own mother,” he said. “She knew that I needed her firm guiding hand in order to become the person you now see before you.” He paused. “She is gone,” he said, “but never forgotten.” He looked upward. “Mother,” he prayed, “thank you for every slap, whipping, and spanking you gave me. For every time you put me in the closet with no dinner. You made me strong.”

You could tell he wanted to shed a tear but wouldn't let himself. He looked out at the audience.

“You are here to relive your childhood,” he said. “Only this time, I will take you through it in the right way.”

The audience nodded and sighed.

Larry paused, wiped off some sweat, and looked at us compassionately but sternly. He clapped his hands.

“All right,” he said. “It's time for you to confess about the bad things you've done this week.”

A young woman raised her hand.

“Yes?” Larry said.

“I…” then she broke down into sobs.

“Stop crying,” Larry said.

The young woman swallowed her tears. “I'm sorry, Mr. Gamble,” she said. “I just feel really badly.”

“I don't care how you feel. Quit whimpering and tell us what you did,” Larry said.

She flinched. “Well, it's good for me to be spoken to like this,” she said. “I didn't show up on time at my job.”

“What?” Larry said. “Say that again.”

“I called in sick so I could hang with my buds.”

Eyebrows were being raised all around me. Larry looked like some angry mutant from a first-person shooter. Then he calmed down. “Look, it's good that you're telling us this. Honesty and courage are steps in the right direction. Come up here.”

The girl looked scared but walked up on stage.

Mr. Gamble snapped his fingers. One of his assistants brought over a big box and swung it open. Inside were several whips.

“It's your choice,” Mr. Gamble said. “Pick one.”

The young woman picked the mildest-looking one.

“Wrong choice,” Mr. Gamble said. He took out a bigger one. I recognized the brand as one with genuinely tough leather. “Now I'll have to punish you twice as hard.”

“Yes, sir,” the woman said. The assistants led the obedient young woman offstage and she disappeared.

What was going on here? I was surrounded by kinkier freaks than I'd ever encountered at Shanna's dungeon!

“Who's next?” Larry Gamble said into the microphone.

No one raised a hand.

“No one?” he said, looking gently amused. “All right. So maybe I'll have to ask for reports from my assistants about your transgressions. You know they follow your activities very, very closely.”

A dozen hands shot up.

Larry shook his head. “Too late,” he said. “But then, it's always too late for your type.”

He took a piece of paper from one of the assistants and began to read, “Tara McIntyre was seen throwing her top off at a Hogs 'n' Heifers bar Saturday night.” Larry Gamble peered into the audience.

“She's over here,” a guy's voice said.

Tara had her head between her hands and was saying, “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.”

“Sorry isn't good enough,” Larry said. Assistants hoisted Tara from her seat and carried her out.

The moment had come. I stood up.

“Yes?” he said, looking at me. “I don't recall seeing you here before.”

“Oh, I think you'll remember me,” I said.

Larry was taken aback. I did my best imitation of a humble walk and joined him on the stage. He looked me up and down. I could feel the discipline in the way he did it, but also something else. Was it lust?

“Well, young lady. Whomever you are, why don't you tell us what you have to apologize for?”

I grabbed the microphone away from him.

“What the—” he stammered.

I quickly backed away, carefully positioning myself a good distance from Larry and his assistants.

It was showtime!

With a sudden yank—and just like Britney at the MTV awards—I whipped off the stupid conservative dress I was wearing, and stepped forth in a leather bra and spangly shorts that screamed “eat me now” on the back of them.

“Katie Vail!!”
Larry gasped, reeling backwards.

I gave a few bumps and grinds and growled into the mike, “This man is a fraud. He's nothing. He's a failed schoolteacher. He's a sorry spectacle!”

Already I was feeling better.

Astonished murmurs swept through the audience. I could see Larry motioning for his assistants and knew I had only a few seconds more.

“He's got no real authority!” I shouted. “I got him fired in the seventh grade!” The assistants were on me but I still had hold of the mike. “There's no such thing as a real grownup!” I shouted. “You should all be at the beach or at rock concerts, not here listening to this dork!”

And that was it. Strong hands were all over me. And then I felt nothing.

 

When I
came to, I saw that my ankles and wrists had been tied with ropes, a gag was in my mouth that felt like cotton sheeting. I sat in some sort of dungeon.

So this was where Larry Gamble did his Zero Self-Esteem programming.

It was nothing like Mistress Shanna's salon. It looked more like a bunker or basement than a dungeon. And there weren't the cool instruments of torture that Shanna had. Instead I saw rings in the walls for people to be tied to and a line of paddles and whips. Steps led up to a solid metal door. I was alone in the room, in my see-through panties and leather bra.

There were two desks in the middle of the room—one was small, identical to the one I used to sit in during his class! A larger, teacher's desk faced it.

I looked around. Larry had no TVs to watch. There was nothing but cement and wood paneling to stare at.

It felt like hours of total boredom before the door opened and Larry Gamble stood at the top of the stairs, alone. My old hatred of him coursed through every cell of my body.

Was Larry wearing the same cords and sweater he'd worn that fateful day in seventh grade? He was definitely still carrying that ridiculous briefcase. But I had to admit he looked even more handsome. His black hair had grayed, and it gave him an alpha-daddy look.

He descended the stairs in that straight way of his, then walked over to where I was. He smiled at me.

“So you came back,” he said.

I glared at him.

“Can't say anything? Well, children are to be seen and not heard,” he said.

He leaned down so that his face was next to mine and took out a knife. I winced. He quickly cut the ropes that tied me but he left the gag in my mouth.

Then he roughly pulled me up, and dragged me over to a desk, making me sit up in the chair like a good little girl. I kicked him hard in the shins.

“Still the little brat, aren't you?” he said. “As you can see, your tantrum in the principal's office only made me more resolved to teach children how to be good adults.”

Larry opened his briefcase and removed a pen and a pad of lined paper, exactly like the ones we used in his class. He handed them to me and said, “You will write an essay about how you need to be punished for what you did to me that day.”

I took the pad and pen and wrote, all right. He strode around the room while I scribbled away. He began to talk. I'd never heard his voice like that before—it had real emotion in it.

“It's not your fault,” he muttered at me, “you didn't have the right kind of parenting, that's all. You didn't have the benefit of my mother. She knew what I needed. And she loved me in a way your own mother never has. In the way that I will now love you.”