Disciplining Little Abby (21 page)

The curtain pulled aside and as he stepped inside, she fixed him with the angriest glare she could manage. No matter what he said at this point, they were through. All she wanted from him was her purse, her phone, and directions on where to get her car after they released her from the hospital.

“Abby, there’s someone I want you to meet,” he said, stepping aside to make room for a tall blonde to step by him.

Abby’s mind reeled. Instinctively she knew the woman standing at the foot of her bed was Kali, and she was beautiful. Tall and athletic, with long honey-blond hair and a flawless tan. She wore a pink dress and matching pink heels.

She’s a Barbie
, Abby fumed.
A fucking Barbie doll
. She opened her mouth to tell them both to get the hell out of her room, then did a double take.
Oh, no fucking way
.

“Hi, Abby,” the ocean-eyed beauty said with a mischievous grin. “I’m Kali. Chris’ step-sister.”

* * *

Chris had left the two alone and gone to wait in the lobby. He could have just told Abby about his step-sister, but something told him he’d be better off letting Kali do the talking. No one could resist Kali’s bubbly personality and genuine warmth.

A half hour later, Kali found him by the vending machines.

“You’re an idiot,” she said, leaning her back against the machine as he got a bag of Doritos. “Why didn’t you tell her about me?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

She snorted and followed him back into the lobby, the click of her pink stilettos against the cold concrete floor sounding unnaturally loud in the empty hallway. “Well, it wasn’t. She found my tampons and convinced herself we were having some wild love affair and she was just your side fling. Don’t worry,” she added when he groaned. “She knows better now. But you got some explaining to do, big brother.”

As they reached the front entrance, she flung her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Love ya,” she whispered, kissing him on the cheek. “Now I got a party to get back to.”

“I owe you!” he called out as she walked out the doors, laughing as she gave a thumbs up sign without looking back.

This time when he came around the curtain, the hostility and anger in her eyes was gone. A nurse was reading her vitals, and he tried to stay out of the way until she finished. As soon as she left, he pulled the chair back to the side of the bed and took a seat beside her.

“You forgive me?”

Her lips pursed as she shook her head no. “You lied to me.”

“How did I lie to you? I told you I had a step-sister.”

“You said she went to U of Austin. You never said she lived with you.”

“She does go to University of Austin, during the regular semesters, and she’ll be going back there in two weeks to start the fall semester. But in the summer months, yes, she does live with me.”

“But you tried to hide her from me.”

Chris sighed. She had him there. “Yes,” he replied. “I didn’t want to. I knew you two would be instant friends, given your… common interests. But I also knew how your mother had you convinced what we were doing was dirty and wrong, and I was afraid you’d learn about Kali and get even more twisted up in your mind.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “I didn’t want you to think I had some sort of fucked up incest fantasy about my step-sister and that was why I was attracted to you.”

* * *

Abby leaned her head back against the pillow, raising her eyebrows as she considered what he’d said. She hated to admit it, but he was right. Even now she had a hard time believing it wasn’t entirely untrue. “How do you know it isn’t?” she demanded.

“Because she was already seventeen when I met her,” he grinned. “I was twenty-seven. Her mom and my dad had this whirlwind romance and eloped without telling anyone, not even their kids. I flew to Greece after the fact, and surprise, I had a step-mom and a step-sister.”

Abby picked at the sheet draped over her as she tried to imagine what that had been like for him. Her mother couldn’t even have a family dinner without sending out invitations weeks in advance.

“When Kali came out here to go to college, I got to know her. She opened my eyes to what it was like to being around someone special, someone like you,” he went on. “Everything is always fresh and new to her. Every rainbow, every flower, every thunderstorm—she sees them all with this sort of wide eyed wonder. All the other women I’d been with, they’d lost that… that ability to be completely in the moment. Everything is been there, done that for them.”

Abby studied his face as he explained. She saw nothing but earnest sincerity in his eyes and expression.

“Kali was the one who told me about Spectrum. She gave me Mr. Green’s card. Before then I had no idea, and they sent me a dozen suggestions, but none of them clicked for me. Until you.”

He shifted in his seat and it occurred to Abby that he was nervous. The stern, in-control man who had spanked her on the coffee table was nowhere to be seen now. Seeing him vulnerable as he bared his soul made tears well up in her eyes.

“When I saw your face light up over those balloons, I knew you were the one.” He took her good hand and placed it over his heart. “And then when I gave them to you and our hands brushed against each other, the way you reacted to me… Abby, I knew you were the one I’d been looking for. You have this amazing light inside of you, despite everything your mother and oldest sister have done to try to put it out, and I’ll do anything to make it shine.”

He kissed the back of her hand, then turned it around and laid his cheek in her palm.

Oh now, that’s not fair,
she thought dryly. She couldn’t stay mad at him if she wanted to, not when he’d laid himself so utterly bare at her feet like this. Not that she wanted to stay mad. In fact, she wanted to pull the sheets aside and have him make mad, passionate love to her until she’d completely forgotten about everything that had happened.

“Baby… Abby, all I want is for you to be happy. If that means playing with toys or skateboarding or going to the theater in high heels and Versace, then I’ll help you do it.”

She looked at her lap and twisted the sheet between her fingers. “And if I want to be bent over your knee and spanked?”

Chris took her chin in his hand and gently turned her to look at him. “Then I will do that too.” Standing up, he leaned over and kissed her on the top of her head. “But for now, I think you should rest. You’ve had enough excitement for one day. I’ll be back in the morning to pick you up.”

The nurse came in just as he was leaving. Abby grinned as she saw the older woman stick her head around the curtain and watch him as he walked away. When she looked back, she gave Abby a nod and a wink. “That one has half the nurses on shift finding excuses to come down to the ER,” she said, unfolding a blanket and draping it over Abby. “And he doesn’t have eyes for a single one of them. You got a keeper there, honey.”

Abby smiled sleepily as the nurse tucked the blanket up under her chin. It seemed impossible that just that afternoon she’d been convincing herself to forget about him. Now she found herself eager to resume their relationship. The woman whose name (and tampons) had sent her into a wild eyed rage just a few weeks ago was now someone she looked forward to getting to know better. Chris had been right. She’d had enough excitement for one day.

By Monday Abby felt perfectly fine, but Chris called her boss anyway and told him she would be unable to come into work for the remainder of the week. She’d had plenty of unused sick time built up, so it wasn’t a problem. Plus, Kali would be there.

They’d hit it off just as Chris had predicted. Abby considered Amanda her best friend ever, but with Kali she could lay everything out in the open and not only be accepted, but understood. They’d stayed up way past their bedtimes talking about their lives and families, and Kali had opened Abby’s eyes to a world she never knew existed. Even after Chris had stuck his head in their room and told them to go to sleep, they’d lain in the dark, whispering excitedly across the room for hours.

Friday morning Kali woke Abby up early and told her to hurry up and take a bath. She promised she had something special planned for that day. Abby rushed through her shower as best she could. Her sprained wrist made washing her hair a difficult task at best, so Kali came in and helped her shampoo and condition it. Ordinarily Abby would have cringed at the thought of another woman seeing her naked in the shower. She didn’t have a problem with gays and lesbians; she just didn’t have any interest in being one herself. With Kali, it was different. When Abby was small, Eva had often been tasked with getting her bathed and ready for bed. Now it seemed she had a new big sister to take care of her, even if Kali
was
ten years younger.

Back in Kali’s room, she quickly put on her panties and dried her hair as fast as she could while Kali waited impatiently. Once her hair was semi dry, she reached for the drawer Chris had put her clothes in, but Kali ordered her to stop.

“Not those clothes,” she giggled. “Today we’re playing dress up!”

“Dress up?” Abby looked at her warily.

“You never played dress up before?” Kali’s eyes light up. “It’s so much fun!” She practically danced to the closet and slid one door open, then gestured towards the clothes inside as she stepped back and gave Abby room to take a look.

The first thing that caught her eye was the sparkly pink dress Kali had worn the night she came to the hospital. Curious, Abby pushed it to the side and looked at the others around it. She’d looked in the closet the morning after Chris brought her home from the bar, but only in the right side. Apparently the left was where Kali kept her party clothes and her everyday things. Her big girl clothes.

Pushing her aside, Kali began to rifle through the closet, pulling out things to hold up in front of Abby, then shaking her head and trying something else. At last she found a red halter top with white polka dots that met with her approval. Bending over, she grabbed a pair of high heel sandals that seemed tailor-made to match the halter top. They had wooden platform soles with the same red polka dot material over the top of her foot and red leather ankle straps.

Kali tossed the top and shoes on the crib mattress, then opened one of her dresser drawers to retrieve a pair of white framed, oversized sunglasses. Next, she led Abby down the hall to Chris’ room, where they dug through his jeans for a pair that would fit Abby.

“You’re so small-framed,” Kali fretted as they tried to tighten the waist with a belt. “Wait, I have an idea!” Pulling the belt free from the loops, she began to roll the waistband over several times until at last the too-large jeans held fast to her hips. Dropping to her knees, Kali did the same with the legs until the cuffs hung just above Abby’s ankles.

Back in the baby room, she helped Abby into her shoes, then pulled the halter top over her head and tied the straps behind her neck. Handing her the sunglasses, she stepped back and let Abby totter over to the full length mirror in the corner.

The transformation was amazing. In the past when she’d tried to dress like an adult, she’d copied her mother’s style. But with Kali’s assistance, she looked like a pinup girl, the kind they used to paint on planes back in the 40’s. Grown up to be sure, but fun at the same time.

As she practiced walking around the room in the wobbly high heels, Kali pulled yet another pink dress from the closet and pulled it over her head. It looked more like an oversized blouse to Abby. The long sleeves stood in sharp contrast to the hemline that barely made it midway down Kali’s tanned thighs. It wasn’t until Kali moved her arms that Abby saw the sleeves had a slit that ran from the shoulder all the way down to the elastic wristbands.

“So this is playing dress up,” Abby mused as she watched Kali slip her feet into a pair of pink heels. “I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” Kali said, cutting her off as she grabbed Abby’s jaw and quickly applied a light coat of red lipstick to her mouth. “But you look at everything backwards.”

She left the room and Abby followed as quickly as she could on her unsteady feet.

“Today I’m going to show you the right way to look at things.” Kali made a quick call to a cab company, then took a seat at the kitchen table and motioned for Abby to do the same. “When you were in high school, did you ever dress up like your mom and try to buy beer?”

Abby laughed. “Who hasn’t?” Suddenly a light bulb went off in her head. “Sooo, we’re playing dress up so we can fool people into thinking we’re grownups?” The sly grin Kali flashed her told her she was finally catching on.

“So we can have some coffee.”

“Because coffee is for grownups, and we’re—”

“Not supposed to have it. We’re too little. So we’ll have to fool everyone into thinking we’re grownups so they’ll let us have it.”

Abby leaned back in her chair and laughed. Kali was right. She
had
been looking at everything backwards. Suddenly, the everyday, unremarkable task of buying a morning cup of coffee had become a risky, thrilling adventure.

“You’re a bad influence!” Abby giggled, just as a car honked outside.

“That’s for us,” Kali said, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the door. “Now remember, act like you do this every day.” She paused to lock the door behind them before heading for the cab. “Stand up straight, look people in the eye when you talk to them, and above all, act like you’re totally serious and bored!”

They giggled the entire way to the coffee shop. Several times they caught the cab driver looking curiously back at them in his rearview mirror, and they’d try to settle down and behave, but as soon as his eyes returned to the road, they’d look at each other and start laughing again.

At the coffee shop, Kali led the way while Abby focused on not falling over in her high heels and tried to look disinterested at everything around her, just as Kali had told her to do.

As they stood in line, she tried to decide what to order. Normally she would have ordered a straight up coffee, black and strong, but now she found herself looking at the menu on the wall with new eyes. “What are you getting?” she whispered.