"You got enough food to eat? Good. The emergency numbers are on the fridge... well, they’re not hard to remember anyway, are they? Good. Err... towels are in their place, the girls will bring their own clothes. That’s okay. Oh, Mrs. Hart says they can wash by themselves, so you shan’t have to bathe them. I guess that’s good news, right? Right. Keep an eye on them anyway, will you? Good dear, you’re such a good girl. Remember: they gotta be in bed by 10pm, not later, understand? Before you say anything: yes I know it’s Saturday and everything, but when the Harts and us are back tomorrow morning we’re all going to church then out to lunch in London and spend the afternoon there, so I want the three of you ready and rested, understand? Don’t mess up with me, young lady, I don’t want to hear any excuses... okay Frank, I’ll calm down now. I’m just so anxious! What if something goes wrong? What if they’re hurt? What if... what if... what if?? Okay Frank, I’ll calm down now. Mary Margaret, are you sure you’ve got everything clear?"

Mary Margaret Pryce sat cross-armed on the living room couch, still in her pyjamas, her eyes wide-open and listening to her adoptive mother’s warnings. Not that she needed to, anyway, since the Pryces had been talking about that all week, especially Sandra. The young woman just wouldn’t stop worrying, and wasn’t convinced that two little girls could be left in the care of a fifteen-year-old for a whole day and a whole night. And they say it was normal in America for teenagers to baby-sit! She found it insane and irresponsible. Mary Margaret obviously disagreed, and so did Sandra’s husband Frank, whose words of wisdom to their adopted daughter were more along the lines of: "It’s going to be okay, honey."

The Harts and the Pryces lived in a little London suburb and they had been neighbours for years. Joshua and Alexandra Hart had two lively, beautiful daughters, nine-year-old Amber and six-year-old Jade. Sandra and Frank Pryce, on the other hand, hadn’t been able to have children on their own, but her extensive experience in child day-care services (plus the medium-high economic status and the favourable living environment) had granted the couple the right to adopt Mary Margaret Allison Brown, after the girl, who was twelve at the time, had been taken away from her biological parents’ household. Mary Margaret had settled in fine all in all, and she did on occasion look after the next-door little ones... but never for such a long time, and that was what was worrying Sandra so much. She had even tried to talk her husband out of the medical convention they would be attending in Manchester – both she and Joshua were physicians – but Frank had insisted that it was important for their careers and that he and Alexandra wanted to come along, and that left Mary Margaret in charge of the girls.

"It’s okay, Sandra, we’re going to get along just fine," Mary Margaret told her apprehensive adoptive mother. "I know what to do, and Amber and Jade are such precious angels after all," she added, knowing she was lying blatantly: the girls could be brats and they all knew it.

"Yeah, angels with dirty feet!" Sandra said, but then shook her head. "Okay, I’ll shut up now, just... oh! I forgot to tell you what to do if the dishwasher gets stuck! It does that at times. You wait here, I’ll write that down."

And before Mary Margaret could say anything, Sandra stormed out of the room and into her husband’s study, where she snatched a paper and jotted down a few notes. Meanwhile, Frank approached the teenager and tousled her hair as Mary Margaret rolled her eyes and lay her head on his shoulder.

"Oh – my – God!" she exclaimed in a whisper, separating the words.

Frank snickered and sat on the couch, snuggling up close to his daughter. "Your mother is just worried about you. She’d do everything to ensure your safety. Try to understand, I’m sure you can."

"Yeah, I know," said Mary Margaret, "and I’m very grateful, believe me, but that doesn’t make it easier at times."

"Yes, but still, you must admit it’s an important first time, isn’t it? You are going to have to be very careful and responsible, Mary Margaret."

"I know, Frank, believe me..." the girl answered, nodding her head. "And thank you." She flung her arms around his neck and smiled.

"Hey," he rubbed her back. "What for?"

"Well, for trusting me with the squirts. For everything in general."

The man smiled. "You’re sweet, but don’t thank me too soon: I tried to tell the Harts that you’re a juvenile delinquent who’s had trouble with the cops, but they would have none of it," he shrugged.

Mary Margaret laughed and punched his arm. "Dork!"

"Witch!" he returned the playful swat. "But seriously, now, and look at me: don’t think you can handle everything. If there’s a problem, call. Our cell phones are always on. Don’t make me come back and find that there’s a mess in here or that the girls or you are hurt or in trouble and you didn’t call, because I’m going to be angry. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Mary Margaret nodded, she too now serious, and she meant it: she knew not to mess up with Frank, and she hated to disappoint him and Sandra, for they always showed great trust in her mature, responsible ways.

"Good girl. We’ll call you once we’re in Manchester, alright?"

"Alright..."

"Alright, here’s what you gotta do if the dishwasher breaks!" exclaimed Sandra as she handed Mary Margaret the piece of paper with the instructions. "Anything else, call us... I hope everything’s going to be alright!" she bit her lower lip.

"Don’t worry, Sandra: it is," Mary Margaret tried to reassure her. She stood from the couch and hugged her. "Go and crush ‘em, okay? You’re the best."

"Aww honey, you’re so sweet, but... well, I still don’t know if..."

The sound of a car horn being honked stopped her in mid-sentence, much to Mary Margaret’s – and Frank’s – delight. A few seconds later, two little girls came running into the house, and the older of the two announced:

"Mr. Pryce, Mrs. Pryce... mum and dad are waiting for you and the car’s ready."

"Daddy says you’re all going to be late," the little one announced, giggling.

"Thanks, Amber," Frank said, "and thank you Jade for reminding us we’ll be late. See, Sandra? It’s really time to go."

"Oh, but..."

"Yes, she knows who to call if the microwave explodes and she’s aware of the reanimation techniques for the hamster."

Mary Margaret hurried to nod her head in approval. With one last sigh, Sandra at last gave her daughter a sweet smile and a huge kiss to her cheek, that the teenager returned. Then she followed her husband out of the door.

"Be good, you little devils," Frank said as he playfully twisted Amber and Jade’s noses.

"Ouch yeah, yeah sure!" Jade whined, while Amber just giggled and rubbed her nose.

"As if you two know what the meaning of the word ‘good’," Mary Margaret added, pretending to complain.

"Hey, not fair!" Jade protested. "Mummy says I’m a very good girl."

"When she sleeps," Amber mouthed silently, making Mary Margaret giggle.

"Alright, now," said the teenager. "We’ve got a couple of hours before lunch, what do you two want to mess with?... err, I mean, what do you wanna do?"

"Very funny," Amber retorted.

"I wanna play Scrabble!" Jade exclaimed.

Amber laughed. "You can barely read!"

"Hey, be nice to your sister," Mary Margaret scolded her. "That’s a very good idea, Jade. Besides, if it’s true you can’t read, Scrabble will teach ya!" And she tickled the girls until they ran upstairs and into Mary Margaret’s large bedroom.

The rest of the morning slipped by rather uneventfully. Mary Margaret had to be patient and bear with the preteens’ constant teasing of each other, but it was no big deal after all. She fixed them all hamburgers and milkshakes for lunch, knowing they had steaks and peas and onions for dinner, that Sandra had pre-cooked and she would have to heat, so why not giving the girls a nice treat for lunch. All the fun, the good food and watching Sesame Street on TV eventually made them sleepy, and Mary Margaret could enjoy a long gossip session on phone with her best friend while the girls napped on her bed. They were up soon, though, and still in a playful mood. After a couple of rounds on the PlayStation, it was time for Scrabble again.

Mary Margaret didn’t understand why Jade kept nudging Amber and why Amber kept hushing her little sister and whispering things like: "I know, I know!", but she knew they were up to something. As the game went on, she noticed they were cheating, swapping letter tiles deliberately, and she pretended not to notice, too curious to see where this would go. Finally, about half an hour later, the girls took turns in presenting their tiles...

"Seven letters, ‘warlock’," Mary Margaret announced.

"Aww... five letters, ‘house’," Jade said.

Amber took a deep breath and revealed her tiles: "Eight letters... ‘spanking’."

The room fell into such silence that flies could be heard humming as helicopter engines. Jade’s eyes were wide-open as she looked at her older sister with a mixture of admiration, surprise and excitement: quite clearly, it was all planned, and she had been purposefully giving her the letters she was missing to form that word. Mary Margaret, on the other hand, looked at the chain of tiles in front of her and didn’t say or do anything for a minute, before shaking her head and smiling.

"That’s great, Amber wins this round," she declared. She grabbed the notes where scores were kept and read aloud: "Mary Margaret 147, Amber 112..."

"What’s a spanking like?"

More silence. Mary Margaret took a deep breath and updated Jade’s score too before setting down the notes and clearing the board for a new round. "It’s... it hurts," she just said, a gloomy expression suddenly darkening her face.

"Well, duh," Jade said. "But we were kinda... err..."

"Yeah, you know..."

"Sorta curious about it..."

"And how it’s done."

"And why."

"And when... where... wearing what," Amber’s voice trailed off as she said this, and she looked at the ground while Mary Margaret fixed her stare at her.

The teenager inhaled and shook her head. "I understand you’re curious, but... it’s not really something cool to talk about, you know? Let it go, already." She tried to word it in a way that two preteens could understand, also because there was no way she would tell them what was going through her mind in that very moment.

She could barely tolerate it herself.

"Ooh but I think it’s very cool!" Amber insisted.

"Mummy and Daddy say you were spanked by your real parents and that wasn’t good, is that true?" Jade asked.

While Mary Margaret wondered if that was Joshua and Alexandra’s idea of privacy about discussing delicate matters when the kids could hear, even Amber stared at her sister wide-eyed, a silent admonishment in her look. "Well, that’s what they say... doesn’t mean it’s got to be true. We really just wanted to know how it’s like, is all."

Mary Margaret still didn’t find it in her to answer. At the moment, she was too busy controlling the sudden rush of blood going to her head and the thousands of painful memories flooding her mind, to answer the curious children.

"No. I said it’s not cool, and now let’s play," she mumbled.

"Maybe you could tell us," Jade continued nonetheless.

"Maybeeeeee you can even... err... give us a little one so we’ll know first hand," Amber added.

That did it for Mary Margaret, who smashed her closed fist on the Scrabble board, sending the little square plastic tiles flying across the room. The children shielded their faces and squealed out of surprise before looking at her in amazement.

"What part of NO don’t you understand? NO, two letters, that’s six points!" She stood and kicked the Scrabble board away. She ran fingers through her hair and felt tears welling up in her eyes and her head spinning. Her heart paced wildly, her blood ran cold and her legs felt weaker. The room swirled around over and over and the walls seemed to be closing in on her. She felt tiny and completely out in the open, vulnerable and defenceless, naked and weak.

Mary Margaret was on the verge of yet another full-blown panic attack and she couldn’t afford to have one now, not when for the first time in two years her adoptive parents were miles away doing something important for themselves rather than for her, not when she was in charge of two little girls who, she knew, was scaring with her reaction. Fighting harder than ever before, she took deep breaths and slowly, but constantly, started to regain control of herself. When she felt confident enough to walk, she approached her own bed and sat on it, casting a sideways look at Amber and Jade, who were still staring wide-eyed, their mouths hanging open in shock and surprise.

"It’s alright," Mary Margaret managed to murmur, adding a weak smile that was meant to reassure the little girls, but which didn’t really work. "I’m gonna be okay. I just need a minute... can you... Amber, Jade, can you get me a glass of cold water from the kitchen, please?"

She didn’t actually need to drink, but she thought it a good idea to give the kids something to do, and also, she could use a few seconds alone without having to sustain their stare.

"S-sure," Amber said in a trembling voice. "Y-you okay, M-M?"

"I’m fine," Mary Margaret lied.

Amber nodded, not convinced at all, swallowed and stood from the floor. She pushed a still shocked Jade out of the bedroom, and Mary Margaret could feel their steps getting farther. She didn’t want to cry, she just couldn’t, because once she started, it could be an hour before it stopped. So she just lay back and rest her head on her pillow, looking at the decorated ceiling, where colourful drawings of angels and fairies intertwined beautifully. That view always relaxed her, and keeping her head pulled back helped the blood flow back there too, so it was all good. She breathed deep again, and again, and then some more, and by the time the two now very quiet little girls re-entered her room, Mary Margaret’s head wasn’t spinning anymore and she had her heartbeat under control.

"Thank you, baby," she said as she took the glass from Jade’s hand and drank a tiny sip, then another, just to show that she actually needed it.

"Are you okay?" Amber inquired again.

"Yes, yes, I’m alright. I just get little... migraines," she lied, but then she saw they weren’t understanding anyway. "It’s like headache," she simplified as much as she could. "Like when you’re stressed or tired and your head hurts."

"Oh I see," Amber nodded, and Jade did too, though perhaps just so she would do the same as her sister.

"So you’re very tired. We played too much," Jade stated.

"Err..." Mary Margaret hesitated. "Not exactly, well... yeah, it was playing Scrabble for so long, that really got my head spinning, you know?"

Amber nodded, but she quirked an eyebrow. "It started when you saw the word ‘spanking’... maybe that was it."

Always the smart one, aren’t you? , Mary Margaret thought. "Yes, it was probably that. That’s why I said it’s not cool to talk about it, okay? I’m sorry I over-reacted, it doesn’t depend on me." She took another sip of water, now starting to feel thirsty for real.

"I’m sorry if I asked all those questions then," Amber said, hanging her head.

"Yeah, we were just curious," Jade added, her lower lip pouting just a bit.

Seeing how sorry the two girls were, and predicting they might start crying, Mary Margaret sat up on the bed and tousled their hair affectionately. "Naah, it’s okay. It’s all my fault, really. Well, not entirely... actually..." She sighed.

Suddenly, she felt the need to say it all. She hadn’t talked about it to anyone outside of her therapy sessions anyway, and then maybe those two girls deserved to know the truth. Anyone who’s curious about spankings deserved to know the truth, her truth at least. And who better than those two curious children could appreciate her lifetime experience on the topic? When the idea flashed through her mind, it was already too late for Mary Margaret to think it through properly and thoroughly, and she decided she would go all the way and show them what a spanking was like. What all spankings were like. In the bluntest possible way.

"C’mon, follow me."

* * *

Frank and Sandra’s study was furnished with classic-styled desks and chairs, not to mention brick walls and a big library with bookshelves reaching the four-metres high ceiling. Mary Margaret walked in and motioned for the kids to sit on the small two-seats couch lined up along the short wall. The Harts complied without a word, and the young teenager took a three-stairs out from beneath Frank’s desk, unfolded it and climbed on it so she could reach some of the highest shelves. Standing on tiptoes, she moved aside her adoptive mother’s medicine manuals and behind the Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy she saw what she was looking for: a slim photo album with a light blue cover and plastic pages and a worn look to it. She grabbed it and climbed back down, her heart beating fast now. That would be the first time since her placement in the Pryces’ foster home that she would dare to get anywhere close to that album, let alone open it, let alone showing its content to someone. But this was right, the situation was right, and Mary Margaret felt she just had to relieve herself of that burden weighing down on her. The fear of an item could only increase the fear for what it represented.

She returned to the couch and motioned for Jade to make room; when the child complied, Mary Margaret took her seat and let Jade sit on her lap and snuggle in close, while Amber stayed on their left and looked, her eyes fixed on the album in the teenager’s unsteady hands.

"This..." Mary Margaret started in an insecure voice. She stopped and took a deep breath before resuming. "This is the reason why I was taken from my parents’ home and placed in Sandra and Frank’s custody, more than two years ago."

And with that she opened the album to page one. There were two photographs in the usual 8:5 format, one below the other, both picturing the bare bottom of a very young child who couldn’t be more than four or five. In the first one, her slender cheeks were pale white; in the second one, they were of a bright pink hue.

"Oh my..." Amber startled, covering her mouth with her hands. Her face cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she looked.

"Th-that’s a spanking?..." muttered Jade in a hoarse, barely audible whisper.

"Not exactly," Mary Margaret explained as she pointed at the pictures. "This is before and this is after."

"Oh... who’s the child?" Jade asked naively.

Mary Margaret smiled just a bit and reached around and kissed her little nose. "Then it’s true you have a hard time reading, huh? Look here."

With her finger she traced a label attached beneath the two photos, a pen-written caption reading: ‘Mary Margaret, 2 / 7 / 1989 – Bad word – Hand’.

"Holy..." Amber started, but stopped before actually cussing, the sight to what might happen to whose who say bad words subconsciously preventing her from.

"Yeah, that’s me," Mary Margaret just nodded. "I was little. That’s probably my first spanking. I don’t remember."

"You don’t... you don’t remember?" said Jade as her jaw dropped. "How can one forget a spanking?"

"Oh it’s possible, when you’ve got a whole lot, honey," Mary Margaret stated, a slight note of bitterness in her voice as she swallowed hard. "My real parents used to say that this was their way of making me remember every spanking I got and why. Have you ever heard of birthday spankings? No? It’s an American tradition I guess, I never knew they existed until my parents told me. My dad was half-American. Well, they’re playful spankings they give you as you grow, sort of a reminder but also a game... but I never got those. That’s what I got instead..."

She turned two or three pages, and a large photo showed a cute five-year-old in a delightful party dress; she was sitting on a chair and holding that very same album. The caption read: ‘Mary Margaret turns five and thinks about being good.’

"Every birthday, after the party or whatever, I had to browse through the pictures of my past spankings. It was my parents’ way to remind me to be good. They’d take a picture of me while I did this and stick it to the album."

Jade’s mouth was still hanging open in disbelief, while her mind tried to connect the pretty child in the photo with the woman Mary Margaret was now – to her six-year-old eyes, at least. Amber, on the contrary, was biting her lower lip and watching with unconcealed interest.

"You don’t look sad," she stated, and in fact the little Mary Margaret in the photo was smiling.

"It was no big deal when I was little, but look at this." She expertly browsed to about three quarters into the album, her thumb skipping several light plastic folder pages, before showing the photo of a late-preteen girl, perhaps ten or eleven, holding the book. Her face cheeks were flushed and a couple of trails from tears showed.

"Oh, you were crying," Jade described what was obvious. "You’d just been spanked?"

"No. Sometimes it was the sight of my previous spankings to make me cry, also because my parents always reminded me not to do again all those things I’d done... I just turned a deaf ear often, but it wasn’t always easy, especially when I had to listen, like on birthdays."

"That must’ve been terrible!" Amber exclaimed, looking at Mary Margaret in shocked amazement.

Mary Margaret shrugged. "There was worse," and without further comment she turned a few pages back.

Amber and Jade were presented with the bright pink bottom of a ten-year-old girl... but that was the first photo; in the second, her backside was crimson, with a few welts and angry-red bruises showing near the start of her thighs.

"Ooh!" Jade exclaimed, again making a big show of covering her mouth with her hands. She whimpered and looked at her sister. Mary Margaret wondered whether showing these two children such a gruesome spectacle was a good idea.

The caption read: ‘Mary Margaret, 4 / 9 / 1994 – Swearing and Lying – Hand, Belt, Mouth Soaping.’

"Oh my Goodness," Amber hissed.

For a minute or two Mary Margaret didn’t find it in her to comment and just stared at her raw bum. She did remember that one spanking, for sure. She remembered the fury her mother had washed her mouth out with; the angry scolding and yelling; the belittling and humiliation she went through as she was stripped down to her underwear and then not even that; her father’s clinical approach as he took the photographs and whipped her with the belt after the ‘warm-up’ with mum’s hand, which was hard enough in itself. Apparently, the fact that she had been spanked the previous day (hence the already pink bum at the beginning) didn’t matter to them. They had said: "Maybe that whipping was useless since you misbehaved again... let’s see if this works." Mary Margaret thought that made some sense, in a way... but there was no deleting from her memory that God-awful day.

"Well, I was a handful, I must confess."

"But you’re so good and kind and grownup!" Jade protested, and Mary Margaret could see a few tears welling up in her little eyes.

"Aww thank you honey, but I wasn’t always like this, and my parents had little tolerance for..." she struggled to find the words. "Well, for everything. There was nothing I could really do apart from studying and being a good girl, not without getting in trouble anyway. I was a very mild troublemaker after all, but they took nearly every excuse to spank me."

"And how..." Jade swallowed before she could continue. "... how many did you get?"

Mary Margaret didn’t respond. She just went to the album’s last page, showing her rounder, more developed and bright red girlish bottom. According to the caption, she was a few months short of turning thirteen and had been spanked with the hand and the hairbrush for bad grades, then made to sit and write lines for an hour. But the teenager drew the girls’ attention to the number embedded at the bottom of the page: "147".

"Wow... one hundred and forty-seven spankings??" Amber exclaimed. Jade couldn’t count so high and bit her lip.

"Well, no, a little less than that," said Mary Margaret, "because you need to subtract the pages with the birthday photos. Anyway, it was a high number. Not as high as other children, maybe... but it looked awfully frequent to me. It’s about thrice every two months. By the time I was twelve I could barely bear it anymore, not so much the pain itself, but the shame and the humiliation; being treated like a little girl – no offence – being made to undress, being hit and everything. They said they loved me and that was why they did it and they always cuddled with me after the spanking, but after a while I just didn’t believe it anymore. And most of all, being photographed in this state..."

Mary Margaret shuddered involuntarily, and a tear escaped the corner of her eye as more and more remembrances came to her mind, the sudden POP! of the camera’s flash sealing the beginning and the end of each of her punishments. She decided not to tell Amber and Jade about the one time when she’d refused to have her photograph taken. That was a page better left unturned. Yet again she swallowed and carried on, drying the single tear away. She had always been much stronger than her own past, this was not the time to break that habit.

All of a sudden she snapped the album shut, too suddenly for Amber and Jade, whose eyes were still fixed on the Mary Margaret’s bare twelve-year-old bottom and jumped in surprised when she closed the book. "It’s over now anyway," the teenager whispered, running fingers through her hair and quite proud of herself for having lived through that.

"I..." Amber was licking her lips, clearly trying to say something.

"Go ahead, it’s okay," Mary Margaret encouraged her.

"Yeah, I meant to ask... w-why did it end? I mean, your spankings stop at twelve, and now you’re fifteen, and you’ve lived here for a couple of years, and I..."

"I reported my parents for child abuse, Amber."

Both girls gulped at that, and the silence that followed was uneasy, even worst than the previous ones. Mary Margaret could feel their eyes in hers, and she looked away. Again memories of those days swarmed through her mind. This was all her fault. Yes, it was Amber who’d brought up the topic but it was up to her, the grown-up one, to get over it without such a fuss, and without showing The Album to these little girls. And now here she was, fighting with memories that she wanted repressed and never coming up to disturb her again.

"Why?..." Jade asked innocently.

"‘cause she hated them, silly," Amber said.

That brought Mary Margaret back to reality. "No! That’s not true!" she snapped, again causing a startle from the girls. "I loved mum and dad, I’ve always loved them... it’s that I thought they didn’t love me... and then I couldn’t go on like that, and they told us in school about parents who do some weird things to their children... being bared, hitting and all that... and I didn’t know what to think. I was confused. I just knew that I hated it when they hit me and took these photos, because I didn’t feel loved. And I know that the point is to hate a punishment, but... well, this was too much."

Mary Margaret hung her head and stared at the carpet for a moment, again trying to regain control of herself. When she managed, she looked at Jade and Amber and saw that they were upset, possibly even more than her. The little one’s eyes were glistening with tears, and the eldest wasn’t faring much better.

"Aww, I’m sorry," Mary Margaret said quickly as she enclosed them both in a tight hug. "I didn’t mean to shock you, but... it’s good that you are a little shocked, maybe."

"I love my mummy and daddy and I would never do that to them," Jade said with a hint of anger in her voice, breaking Mary Margaret’s heart.

A little more consistently with the moment, Amber asked: "Why is it good that we are a little shocked?"

Mary Margaret took a deep breath and still held them close. "You see, honeys, all parents love their children. Well, most of the times. Yours do, anyway, and mine did too. But they had different ways to show it. They were so scared that I’d grow up wild and out-of-control like many teens that they took away my every joy. In a way, they were doing it for me, but they didn’t realise that I was lacking their love. They did love me, somehow... I don’t know, but I sure didn’t feel it. Can you see that if you don’t feel your parents’ love it’s just like they don’t love you at all?"

Amber nodded in agreement, while Jade shook her little head no, chewing on the tip of her index finger.

"Baby," Mary Margaret addressed her. "Sandra and Frank love me a lot. They never raise a finger on me, ever, but they do punish me, and quite strictly too. Last September I skipped school twice in a row, and when they found out they talked my ears off with a scolding, then they grounded me for two weeks, took away my allowance, my TV and video games privileges, and even checked on my homework everyday. I was very unhappy, but every day they’d remind me how it was done in order to teach me, and they did so with love. Sandra and Frank talk a lot, yes, but they talk with me and not about me. They do it with love, because they understand and support me. When I was spanked, back at home, I had the feeling that my parents and I were fighting a war and were not on the same side, and this is very bad for kids because it makes them anxious and frightened. Does this make sense to you, sweetie?"

This time Jade nodded too, even though she didn’t really grasp everything that Mary Margaret was saying. But the basic concept of loving discipline was clear to her: Joshua and Alexandra were very stern on some things too.

"So you say that all those who spank don’t love their kids?" Amber asked.

"No, baby, they do love them, just in a different way. And sometimes maybe it’s even good, for some kids, I don’t know about that and I don’t care, really. I just know that you don’t strip your child half naked and take photos of her before and after a spanking... I just know that this," she tapped the album, "is wrong, and as soon as I realised it, I asked for help. I showed this album to my school counsellor asking what I could do to make them stop or if it was all my fault instead. I sure couldn’t imagine that she’d call the Police and that my family would be torn apart within a few weeks, or I wouldn’t have done it... but perhaps it’s better this way, now."

"It’s not good to break families," Amber muttered.

"You’re right, it’s not, and sometimes I regret having done it... I hate to be away from my real parents. They are still my parents, and that’s why I never call Sandra and Frank ‘mum and dad’, even though they’ve been great to me and I love them immensely. But this," and again she tapped the album, "is not good either, and between living in a family where I felt abused and not respected and not living with my family at all, well... I chose the latter, and perhaps it was for the best. I don’t know. My therapist... she’s a doctor who helps people who feel bad, Jade... well, she says that it will take a lot of time to understand, and that maybe one day I’ll be able to cope with it all. But what I want you two to know, little ones, is that spanking is not something ‘cool’ to talk about just because it’s fun. Okay, it can be fun, some people even find it... well, you’re too young to understand this part... let’s just say that some people like to spank each other, but to others like me it means lack of love, and that’s the worst thing you can ever have in your life."

By the end of her monologue, Mary Margaret had tears in her eyes just as well, while she seemed to have had the opposite effect on Amber and Jade, who were now calmer, and seemed to have understood, or at least opened their minds a little bit. Mary Margaret could only figure how hard it could be for such young kids to even think of such a topic in such terms, but she knew she had to tell them... and then, she was making it a point to tell her life’s experience so that others wouldn’t repeat the same mistake her real parents did, or her mistake to just "rat them out" and break the family. Sometimes she wished there were mid-way points, that she could tell someone who would talk her parents into quitting that habit instead of reporting them and have them arrested and processed and eventually sentenced to six years for child abuse, and place her in a foster home.

True, Frank and Sandra were lovely people and they literally adored Mary Margaret, and had taken the role of parents in an efficient way, and she had even felt happy to have a new family the day the adoption was formalised, after over a year... but she knew that things might have gone differently. In another country, perhaps her parents would be fined, or kept under control, but her family wouldn’t have been broken; or they might’ve imprisoned them for twenty years instead of six; or the authorities might have accused her of being a delinquent for reporting what was a parental right. All of these possibilities, that Mary Margaret played in her mind again and again, day after day, scared her as much as the one she was currently living. She also knew, though, that there were no if’s and no other scenarios but the present one, and that in four years, when she would be an University student and a fully grown young woman, she would meet her real parents fresh out of jail, and she would confront them.

What would come out of that, she really couldn’t imagine, and it was useless to unload this burden on two little kids like Amber and Jade, so she kept all of these thoughts to herself. Her point was to make them understand that not always things are as they look, and that what’s cool for some is a nightmare to others, and also that they would need to be careful and not take everything... anything for granted.

"Well," she said as she got up from the couch, having them stand too. "I guess it’s time to have some supper, what do you think, hmm?"

"I’m hungry," Jade simply stated, while Amber nodded and offered to help preparing the table.

"Thanks, and... girls... about this album... I’ve asked Frank and Sandra to keep it because I wouldn’t want it burned, and the Police didn’t need it as an evidence anymore after the trial... anyway... please, don’t tell anyone what you’ve seen, because some people may not understand, and... oh, I don’t bloody know why you shouldn’t tell, but I know that it’s way better if you don’t, and if you do, honest to God I’m going to sp..."

She caught herself before she could complete the sentence, but she felt a huge pang of guilt inside. Was it too late? The image of herself growing up to be a bad mother flashed through her mind, and she repelled it violently.

"... honest to God I’m going to be disappointed and upset at you," she corrected herself.

Both girls nodded eagerly, casting a bad look at the album and watching Mary Margaret as she put it back in its place. As they left the study, Amber and Jade wondered what in the world got them so interested in spanking in the first place. Perhaps hearing about it on a TV show, or just the fact that it existed as a thing in itself, or the void threats from their parents to ‘warm their bummies’, that never happened. In any event, they had walked in the Pryces’ house that morning curious and wanting to learn something new, and learn something new they did. Only, not what they expected.

* * *

On Sunday evening, Mary Margaret lay exhausted on her bed.

The church service had not been boring but rather quite interesting. The lunch out was stellar as always. Visiting London, then, was the top of the day. She and Amber and Jade behaved just like three sisters, enjoying themselves and having a great time, playing and chatting like the young girls they were. Not one more mention of their conversation the previous afternoon was made, and it was better like that. It seemed to have exited the little girls’ minds, at least for now, and that was good, because Mary Margaret knew that they would treasure the experience one way or the other, maybe in years to come. She could just hope it would be a good way and not an unhealthy one.

Mary Margaret barely found the strength to change into her light yellow pyjamas and grab her teddy bear – a childish habit she was finding difficult to get rid of – before getting under the covers. The moment she lay her head on the pillow, though, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in... if you really have to," she mumbled.

"... I surrender, officer! I just wanted to say goodnight!" said Frank, raising his hands as he walked in.

Mary Margaret gave a small giggle as she turned around in her bed. "Dork."

"Witch, and a rude one too," he pretended to bite her nose, then winked. "Hey, ‘twas one heck of a day today, huh?".

She smiled back and nodded. "I loved it."

"It showed. You must be exhausted now."

"Oh I’m already sleeping," she said, closing her eyes and hugging her teddy bear, "but I haven’t noticed yet."

Frank gave a mild laugh and stroke her soft hair with a hand, then leaned over and kissed her cheek. "You’re a good girl, Mary Margaret," he said as he stood and approached the door.

But that had flipped a switch in the young teenager’s mind, for those were the exact words she was told every time she would comply and present her bare bottom for the camera before and after the spankings. "Panties down... bend over... stay still... good girl, Mary Margaret." She shivered and sat up again, looking at him straight in the eye.

"Do you guys mind that I don’t call you mum and dad?"

He looked every bit as surprised as he was, for that was really the kind of talk he usually wanted to avoid. Just like a real father, Sandra would remind him. He sighed and walked back to her bed and sat again, wanting to snuggle with her but thinking it was safer to keep a distance for now.

"Yes, we would really like you to," he admitted, "but we understand why you don’t, and Frank and Sandra will do just fine for us as long as they do just fine for you, M-M," he used her nickname, something he did very rarely: she was so proud of her important-sounding name that she wouldn’t give it up.

The girl sighed. "It’s not like I don’t love you, it’s just that..."

"It’s okay, really. You needn’t explain."

"Yes but I want to explain," she insisted. "I just... well... in four years or sooner my parents will be out and... and they are still my family despite everything, I didn’t forget that, and even if I’m angry for what they did I am thankful that they raised me in the first place... I mean, they’ll always be my parents, but will I still be their daughter? What if they don’t even want to see me because I’ve got another family now? That scares me. And then... and this is silly, but... how will I call them? I see myself meeting them and saying ‘Hi Joyce, hi Henry!’, then I point at you and say: ‘These are my mum and dad’... that scares me even worse, because they are my mum and dad, while you... you... you are too. Oh, please, I don’t know how to say it..."

This time Frank placed a hand on hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Mary Margaret? You said it just perfectly."

– The End –

I know that some of Mary Margaret’s statements seem too mature even for an "experienced" teenager like her, but I couldn’t help it. Though a product of my current imagination, she is largely based on one of my role-playing characters, and thus I had the time to develop her reactions quite in-depth.

This story does more or less represent my view on spanking kids, even though, due to her age and experiences, Mary Margaret is more tolerant than I am: six years in jail for parents who spank (... and in that way?...) isn’t such a bad idea to me.

Like all stories in this section, this was inspired by the picture above. The photograph is an original snapshot from Trip’s collection, that he / she posted to the web and on several newsgroups. All rights reserved. If the owner of said photo would want it removed, please e-mail me , and it shall be taken down.

Please also note that the people depicted in the picture actually exist, somewhere in the world, and are probably not aware of this and other snapshots being posted on the Net by their photographer. By no means this story is meant as a personal offence to them, and ALL names, situations and events are completely fictitious to the best of the author’s knowledge. I am not a stalker and I am not sick with voyeurism, but merely taking a photo found on the Net for everyone’s access as an inspiration for an original work; whether said photo in itself is infringing any copyrights, or violating anyone’s rights just by being on the Internet, does not concern me (unless, as said, the copyright owner contacts me).

This story does not necessarily represent the author’s point of view about anything. It is simply a work of fiction . The characters herein portrayed are invented and do not resemble reality to the best of the author’s knowledge. This account is entirely fictitious . Any similarities to other persons, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.

This story is written for the sane amusement of adult readers. It does not intend harm and does not promote violence of any kind, including spanking. No offence is meant to any group, ethnicity or individuals.

The author does in no way endorse the non-consensual disciplinary spanking of actual children and / or teenagers.

Copyright © 2004 Haley Brimley . Contact for information and / or feedback.