Meddling, Chapter 6 (M/FF, paternal - eventually)

[beguiling]

Dad finally meets Pam, and figures out why his paternal radar has been pinging him for over a month. Thanks for your patience :> In the next chapter, sentence will be handed down and the punishment will begin.


Every bit of the fantasy that I’d built up during the weeks of planning and plotting, it all crumbled in that moment. Everything that I’d convinced myself wouldn’t happen – especially Daddy’s anger and disappointment – happened. And then worsened. All of those times that my conscience had prodded me and asked if the ends justified the means came back to haunt me as I saw the answer playing out in front of me. I waited for my conscience to say “I told you so”. This? This was worse than any spanking, with or without the paddle. I was, for the first time ever, terrified that he would decide I wasn’t worth it, and would walk away.

And I had no idea what to do about it. Other than to tremble and finally – FINALLY – start to realize just how far beyond the line I had gone.

“It wasn’t Ari’s fault, Daddy,” I whispered. “This was all my . . .” I stopped talking when Daddy abruptly turned away from me to look at Pam. I don’t know what his expression was when he looked at her, but she stood up slowly and uncertainly.

“Pam, it’s nice to finally meet you. Please, call me Joe.” Dad’s voice was calm and even and low as he put his hand out to shake hers. Hesitantly, she put hers in his and shook it.

“I have to admit,” Pam said, looking from him to us, “I’m a little confused. I didn’t realize you were joining us for dinner.” She smiled then. “I’m glad you are, though. I’d planned to pump your girls for news about you.”

Ari squeezed my hand and I squeezed hers back. At least Pam was happy about Dad being there. But we had no idea what Dad was thinking or feeling. He turned to look at us, and the banked fury in his expression had us both stepping backwards again. Dad can be very charming when he wants to, and he I could see him visibly taking hold of his emotions before he gestured to for Pam to sit, graciously waiting until she did to take her own seat. Neither Ari nor I moved at all.

With a confused look, Pam glanced at us and then back at Dad. “Ummm, can I ask what’s going on?”

“Certainly. You and I,” he said calmly, “are the victims of the plotting of two young ladies. Primarily,” his eyes lit on me for a long uncomfortable minute, “one soon-to-be-miserable young lady.” A tiny shaft of true hope filtered through. If Dad was planning on punishing me, he wouldn’t be walking away from me. It was a sad thing to hang my hope on, but it was all I had and I hung on for dear life.

I don’t know which of us whimpered first, Ari or me. We stepped back again. By then, we were definitely in the way of traffic, but I couldn’t bring myself to move from the way. I guess Ari couldn’t either, because we just made the servers and guests maneuver around us and paid no attention to the looks we were getting. Dad saw the traffic jam, though and crooked his finger at us. Dragging our feet, we stepped to the table again, just standing behind a chair, too nervous to do anything else.

Pam looked at us, then at Daddy, then picked up her coffee for a sip. Then she calmly asked, “Is it possible to get a better answer?”

“W-we’d like to go home, please?” I interjected hopefully, very softly and in a very pitiful voice.

“You, Michaela Joy, don’t get a vote. Sit.” I don’t think I’d ever heard Daddy sound that . . . horrid. That … cold. It went beyond angry. That’s when Ari started sniffling. I think she might’ve been crying, but I was too upset – and miserable, Daddy was right about that – to look. “You too, Ariel. Sit your butt down while you can.”

Slowly, we let go of our grip on each other’s hands, and sat down in the chairs he’d indicated, neither of us looking up. The waiter offered to bring an additional menu, but Daddy nixed that. “No, thank you. They won’t be needing it. They’re not eating.” I blushed at his curious look, but didn’t say anything.

He looked at the cup in front of him. “Coffee, MJ?”

“I ordered it for you,” I explained in a sad little whisper.

“Ahh. You thought of everything. Every little detail.” Daddy’s voice slid from his calm, conversational tone to so cold I expected to see icicles on his mustache. “Everything except how Pam or I might feel about having our lives manipulated around for us.”

He stared at the two of us for a long minute, letting us squirm, and then turned to the waiter, who was obviously trying to listen in, and ordered drinks for the two of us. Some part of me was embarrassed, but that was such a minor part of what was going on that my mind tucked it away to blush over later. Finally, Dad turned back to Pam, and his voice returned, almost, to his normal one.

“Like I said, Pam, you and I have been ‘victims’, of these two. Now, here’s how I think it occurred. MJ, here, knows that you and I were talking, and she knows that we had – or, rather, I had – let our contact slide. She knew that I was enjoyed our conversations, though, so she got it into her head that you and I should pick back up. I’m going to guess that she contacted you, Pam?” There was a pause, so I peeked up, and saw Pam nodding her affirmative answer. “Right. That’s what I figured. Knowing MJ, she would move quickly once she’d made an important decision in life,” his eyes narrowed at me for a moment, “even if it’s someone ELSE’S life.” I dropped my eyes to the table, unable to hold his look for even a second and tried to blink back tears. “Then she would’ve worked herself to a frenzy to plan the rest of this – for us to meet ‘accidentally’ at dinner once we were in the same area, while carefully keeping us both in the dark. What I don’t know, is how she got you to agree to come to this area. The last time that we’d chatted, I know you’d moved.”

“Well, that was easy enough,” Pam said with a smile. “I was visiting the area anyway. If you remember, Joe, I have family here. I’ll be back for a while. I mentioned that, and MJ mentioned that we could meet, if I wanted to. She left it up to me. As we talked, I did tell her I wanted to meet her and her sister.”

“Well, that’s something then. I can relax, knowing that she didn’t manipulate you into this meeting. Not like she did me.”

That did it, I burst into tears. Quiet ones, but tears nonetheless.

“Joe, aren’t you . . .“ Pam’s voice trailed off as she looked at Ari and I with no small amount of sympathy and then back at Daddy. She didn’t even have to finish her question, and Daddy’s voice was finally his normal calm tone when he answered her.

He shook his head, as he took a drink of coffee. “No, Pam. For MJ to have played this out, she had to ignore me, ignore her sister, and ignore her conscience. Didn’t you?” I didn’t trust my voice to talk, but his question, snapped at me the way it was left me no choice but to answer, so I nodded.

“I don’t hear nods, girl.” Somehow, his voice managed to stay calm, yet still insert cold steel into his tone.

“Y-yes, Daddy.”

“And Ari, though she didn’t come up with this idea, certainly played her part.” His eyes slid almost callously to her, and Ari covered her mouth to try to hide her sob. “She had to ignore what I’ve repeatedly said about MJ’s meddling – which she’s damn aware of – and ignore her own conscience. Is that about right?”

Ari was crying too hard by that point for her answer to be audible, but she gave it her best shot, and a strangled “Yes D-Daddy” mumbled its way past her lips.

He stared at me for a moment, sighed softly and turned back to Pam. “I’m not being cruel, Pam. They both knew better. And this is, quite honestly, so far beyond ANYTHING that they’ve ever done that I’m stunned. If I were going to do what I were really tempted to, I’d be dragging both girls out of here by their ears, pulling off my belt and strapping them, in the parking lot, until they couldn’t sit. And then we’d be going home and pulling out my paddle and guaranteeing that neither of them can sit without crying for quite a while. For starters. I think I’m being a kinder this way. But still making my point.” I hadn’t been completely certain if Daddy had told Pam all about us and our relationship but, if he hadn’t, she’d sure figured it out by now. I wasn’t going to ask or object. Daddy took a couple of deep breaths, the kind he only takes when he’s making himself calm down.

He looked at me again but, this time, there was a softness in his eyes. That tiny shard of hope grew a little. “MJ likes making people happy, Pam. She thinks she knows what they want, or what’s good for them, and sometimes she’s right, and she likes to make it happen. And that’s a wonderful trait. I love that she loves people and wants to do what she can to make them happy. I really do. But, for her to do it like this, she didn’t just try to make me – and you – happy. She made some major decisions about things that don’t affect her and aren’t any of her business. She had to talk her sister into getting involved. And she had to lie to and manipulate both of us to what SHE had decided. She took the choice out of my hand. And out of yours. My daughter decided on my life for me and controlled me and my life to line up with her choices. And I won’t have it.”

Thank God. He was still referring to me as his daughter. My shoulders shook as the tension inside me finally eased. I was so lost in my feelings that I nearly missed it as Dad got himself back under full control and continued. “Both girls spent the day leading me down a merry path, setting this up, and leading me into this like leading a lamb to slaughter. And they’ve been doing it to you for how many weeks? This isn’t minor. They must’ve been planning it for a while now.” He plowed on without waiting for a comment. “But here’s the thing. Girls. GIRLS.” His voice sharpened when we didn’t look up fast enough. “Did you, even once, ask either Pam or I if we wanted to meet?”

Ari and I blinked at Dad. We blinked at each other. We blinked at Pam.

“Well?” he demanded.

Finally, we turned to him and shook our heads. Before he had to chide us again, we murmured a soft, “No, Daddy.”

“No. You didn’t. I’m not saying we didn’t want to meet.” Daddy finally looked back at Pam and, this time, I could see him smile. A small smile, but a real one. That hope, buried under all of the misery, started to flower. Maybe I hadn’t screwed up absolutely everything. Maybe there was the tiniest chance that Daddy would take the opportunity to at least try to find out if Pam would make him happy. And him her. For the first time since this horrible evening started, I sent up a prayer about something other than my fate.

I focused back on Dad as he continued. “And, while I love that you want me to be happy, girls, And, while I appreciate that you are willing to work hard to give me something you feel will make me happy. And,” he paused and looked at Pam for a moment and took a deep breath before looking back at us, “while I am grateful to have the opportunity to talk to Pam again, I am not going to ignore your behavior.”

My heart wasn’t going to be able to take much more strain. Bouncing between glee that Daddy and Pam both wanted to continue their relationship, and relief that I hadn’t pushed Daddy to the point that he no longer wanted me, guilt over what I’d done, and pure fear about what he was going to decree as punishment was making me pale and nauseous. To say nothing of the tears pouring down my face. The humiliation I felt knowing that the diners and servers were paying rapt attention to our little drama was way down at the bottom of my list of concerns. “Your behavior has been wholly unacceptable. And I am determined to make that point. So thoroughly and so clearly that we’ll never have to discuss meddling again.” I swallowed hard and he sipped his coffee as calmly as though he were discussing the weather. It was terrifying.

I hadn’t thought it was possible to feel worse than I did a few minutes before. I was wrong. Not only could I feel worse at that moment, Daddy wasn’t done. I saw him look again at Pam, who had lost her confused expression, and was now calmly watching the proceedings. I wondered, fleetingly, if perhaps she was curious about how Dad would handle the situation. Still, having the woman that I wanted him to meet and hopefully date as our audience somehow ramped up both the embarrassment and the misery. Still not caring about the audience, Dad wasn’t ending the show just yet.

“Now, we’ve talked a little, based on my assumptions. But I want to make sure I have this right. Whose idea was this in the first place?” Oh god. Daddy was going to start the lecture portion now. Here. I’d finally gotten my tears to slow down, and he was sounding a little more like Daddy, and less like the Voice of Doom. I wasn’t going to do anything to negate that change. Obediently, I answered him.

“M-mine, Daddy,” I said, whisper soft.

“Unh huh. And who planned it all out?”

“Me, D-daddy,” I said, sniffling back the tears I’d thought I had under control.

“What do I tell you about meddling?”

“No meddling, Daddy.”

“Unh huh.”

I felt like crap as he turned to Ari, knowing that I’d gotten her into this.

“Did you tell your sister that this was a bad idea?” Oh, boy did he know us.

“Y-yes, Daddy.”

“Should you have gone along with it?”

“N-no, Daddy.”

“Are you ever going to meddle again?”

“Never, Daddy.”

“Damn straight, you’re not.”

He sat back in his chair and stared at us both. “I’m so furious, girls, that I don’t know how to keep from beating you. Flat out beating you.” He let that sink in for a moment. “By the time I’m finished with you, you may wish I had.” In the race of emotion, terror just nudged guilt out of the way for first place. “You can just sit there until you’re calm enough to drive. Then you take yourself home and wait for me. Michaela Joy, you go to Mike’s room. Ariel, you go to Kim’s. Stay in those rooms, no tv, no phones, no ANYTHING. Finish your drinks.”

With that, he dropped us fully from his attention, turned his focus to Pam, and continued as though we weren’t there at all.

Oh boy, had I ever screwed up. My conscience was finally quiet, but the tension I’d been feeling for the past month and a half had easily tripled. For the first time since I’d met Daddy – for the first time in my life – I had absolutely no idea what to do or how to make this better. At all. I had no plan. I looked at Ari, and mouthed, “I’m sorry” to her. I could see the tears on her cheeks as she mournfully mouthed back, “Me, too.”

Purely out of obedience, I sipped some of the tea that Daddy had ordered for me. The humiliation I previously hadn’t been able to feel bloomed when our waiter came to take our food order and, again, Daddy just said that we weren’t going to be eating. Daddy spoke for the both of us, not even bothering to look to confirm what he was saying. I was definitely not missing the very subtle point he was making about how it felt to have one person make decisions for another. Even though he had the right to do so, Daddy had never made a decision for my life without discussing it with me. No, I was getting it loud and clear.

Ari and I sat, silent, as Daddy and Pam talked. The conversation was a bit stilted at first, as Pam continued glancing at us with an expression that was an interesting blend of sympathy and humor. She even tried often to soothe Daddy’s temper – as well as to try to get us off. (I REALLY liked her, did I mention that?) But, as I said, Dad can be very charming when he wanted to, and he could be very focused. He’d gotten control of his anger and had laid out at least the initial steps of how he was planning to deal with us and this situation. As far as he was concerned, the issue of Ari and I was settled. He wasn’t going to need to address it again until it came time for execution – no pun intended – of our sentence. So, he was fine ignoring us, and focusing on Pam. Again, that little corner of me flared with hope. Maybe he really would relax and enjoy having dinner with Pam, talking with her, seeing her for the first time. Exactly how does one pray when facing the eventuality of having several layers of skin removed from their bottom?

Nothing was going to happen between Pam and Dad if we stayed there. And, more than that, I wanted to be home. Whenever I was miserable, that’s where I wanted to be more than anything. I needed to be home. So, I finally peeked my head up and glanced at Ari questioningly. She must’ve been thinking the same thing, and waiting for me to catch up to her, because she nodded at me awfully quickly. So, I waited for a break in the conversation and cleared my throat very softly.

“E-excuse me, please?” I barely heard myself speak, but Pam and Daddy both turned to look at me. Having interrupted their conversation, I suddenly hadn’t any idea what to say. I just wanted to throw myself at Daddy, curl onto his lap and sob out apologies. I looked at him for a moment, just blinking, while he patiently waited for me to say something, and Ari saved me with a simple sentence.

“May we be excused from the table, please?”

Pam covered her mouth briefly – was that a grin? Daddy just nodded. “You may.”

Ari and I both slowly stood up but before we stepped away I looked at Daddy. “Daddy? C-can Ari and I . . .” I hesitated, not remembering ever having been in this much trouble and not wanting to push him further, but needing to. Finally, I looked up at his face. “Can we go to your room to wait? Please, Daddy?” I ended in a whisper.

Ari was nodding before I finished, and added her own, “We promise we’ll go right home and stay there. Please?”

Daddy looked at us both for a moment. “You remember what you were told: no television, no phones or games. You two just get yourselves on my bed and wait.”

We nodded fast at him. “Yessir,” almost synchronized.

“Alright. You can go to my room.” He opened his mouth to say something more, looked at Ari, and shook his head, as though deciding against it.

I grabbed my purse, pushed in my chair and hesitated. Emily Post doesn’t exactly cover this situation. What is the etiquette in saying goodbye to a woman you’ve only just met, and that you’d deceived into meeting your Dad? Especially when said woman knows that you – an adult – are going home to wait to get spanked like a child by that same Dad. Once again, Ari rose to the occasion. “It was nice to finally meet you, Pam. I – we – I …” her voice trailed off, then she rallied. “I’m sorry, Pam. We were just thinking about Daddy, and didn’t think everything through.”

See how she did it again? ‘We’. Ari’s ready to take the blame for what isn’t her fault. She’s so incredible, my sister.

“It’s not Ari’s fault, Pam. Daddy’s right that I plotted this without thinking about your feelings at all.” Somehow, I managed to look at her face. Well, sort of. I looked at her chin. “I’m dreadfully sorry to have … played with your life.” Now I was desperate for her to understand, so I did look in her eyes, and was shocked and gratified to see both humor and soft understanding in her look. “I really didn’t mean for you to be hurt or embarrassed in any way, Pam. We like you, we really honestly do. That’s kind of why we did this. But, we – I mean I – just . . . “

Pam saved me. “You were thinking about your Dad, and how much you love him, and that got in the way, didn’t it? You girls forget: I have grown children of my own. This isn’t the first time my life has been ‘played with’. Just the most talented time.” Her grin finally showed through. She opened her arms to me, and I gave her a tight hug, relaxing a small little bit.

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re forgiven, MJ,” she whispered into my ear. “You’ll have to face your Dad, I know. But, you’ll survive. And he loves you.” That started me sniffling. She set me back from her a little and gently touched my cheek. “Now, let me hug your sister and say goodbye so that your Dad and I can spend some time talking.”

I had no idea what she said to Ari, but soon she was sniffling again, too. Oh, yeah, I liked this lady. She’d be good for Dad. I looked sideways at him to see him watching Pam with a little half-smile on his lips. That little spark of hope flared again at his expression.

Just as Pam and Ari stepped back, I turned to Dad, unsure again. “Daddy, I –“ I had no idea what to say. He was angry with me and horribly disappointed in me, and rightfully so. And knowing it was tearing me up inside. I wanted to say something to make it better, but my conscience was screaming at me that I didn’t have the right. I didn’t know how to fix this at all.

Like always, though, Daddy knew what to do. He stood up, too, reached over and pulled me into a tight hug. I burrowed against him, feeling that tight clamp in my chest ease as he put his arms around me and held me. I had no idea how we looked, and I didn’t care. Daddy held me tight while I started to cry again. When I calmed down a bit, he kissed the top of my head and held me back from him just enough to look in my face.

“I love you, MJ. Don’t ever worry on that front. Nothing you can do is going to make me stop loving you.” He turned to pull Ari into the hug with us, and kissed the top of her head before continuing. “Nothing will make me stop loving either of you. You’re in a world of trouble, and you won’t like any of it.” How he managed to combine a loving tone with a growl, I’ll never know, but Daddy was talented. “I’m hoping you hate it, in fact. But you’ll survive it, and you’ll remember it, and I’ll love you when it’s over as much as I love you now.”

He kissed my forehead again and I murmured a soft, “Love you, Daddy.” He did the same with Ari, and then we stood back. We were still in trouble – BOY were we in trouble! – and I could still see the vestiges of his anger along with the disappointment. But, I was okay now. Or, at least, I didn’t feel as though my world were ending. I glanced at Ari and saw that she was a little better, too, so we backed up and made our very embarrassed way out of the diner and out to my car.

I put on my seat belt, but just sat there for a minute. I felt like a truck had run over me, backed up and finished the job. “Ari.” My voice broke. “Sissy, I’m sorry.”

“Shut up, MJ.” Ari sounded as forlorn and miserable as I did. I looked over at her to see her staring at me. “I could’ve stayed out of this. At any point, I could’ve told you to stop. I could’ve made you stop, even, by threatening to tell on you. I knew we were going to get into trouble. Really bad trouble. But I didn’t bail. So don’t go feeling like this is your fault. I got into this on my own. I’m your sister, but I’m a big girl, yanno.”

I grinned very weakly at her. “I know. You got it more together than I do a lot of times.” What she said sank in. “Really bad trouble. Yeah. Sis, I knew it’d be bad. I think … I think I just convinced myself it wouldn’t be THAT bad.”

“Ya think?!” Sometimes I regretted introducing my sister to the joys of sarcasm.

I cut in before she could work up steam to point out my idiocy in detail. “No, I mean we both know that I convince myself that it’s not going to be as bad as it is. That’s going to get me killed someday. It’s always worse than I almost believed it would be. But this …” my voice trailed off. “I’ve never seen Daddy look at me that way before.”

“Me neither. And I never EVER want to see it again.”

We sighed and then sniffled, almost in unison, and I finally started the car for the much too short ride home. I pulled into Daddy’s drive, killed the engine and again we sat for a few minutes. Finally, we climbed out of the car and headed to the house. If I never before knew the image of the word ‘trudge’, I knew it now. Because we slowly trudged into the house, dropped our bags at the closet and went right for Daddy’s room, climbing up onto his big bed to huddle and snuggle against his pillows.

Daddy’s room was the oddity in the house. Most of the house was bright and airy, with white walls and bright curtains. Unlike the rest of the bedrooms, Daddy’s room was on the first floor, with its own bathroom. His bedroom was darker, with wood paneling on the walls, room darkening blinds and dark green curtains and the bathroom done in shades of ivory and brown. He called it his cave, even though it wasn’t nearly that dark. It was just very masculine. It was also the room where punishments were meted out. Whether it was Ari or I in trouble, or his original kids, Daddy did the lectures, scolds and spankings in that room. Being sent to Daddy’s room was something to be heartily avoided; being allowed to be in Daddy’s room was a privilege to enjoy. And yet, that room never felt dark or forbidding to me. It was, and is, my favorite room in the house. Even when I knew I was in trouble, there was a deep sense of security in that room. So, there was no question that Ari and I would want to be there while we waited for our doom.

We talked a little bit, chattering on about nothing really, but we had no interest in conversation. The chatter just kind of died, and we simply curled up together, thinking. Lost in our thoughts, Ari and I jumped with the house phone rang. I looked around, but the phone in Daddy’s room was missing. Kim probably had it in her room again. We looked at each other, and I shook my head. I wasn’t getting off of that bed, except to go to the bathroom, until Daddy got home. He hadn’t said we couldn’t answer the phone, but I wasn’t taking chances.

We could hear the answering machine in the living room, though. The sound of Daddy’s low, gravelly voice in the impersonal greeting made us both smile a little. But then we heard that same voice leaving a message on the machine.

“I’m calling for a couple of reasons, girls, and I know you can hear me. First is to tell you again that I love you.” I started sniffling and felt Ari grab my hand, squeezing it. “I think you both need to hear that right now, so hold onto it. I’m disappointed with your choices and your behavior, and we’ll deal with that. But I love you more. Now, the other reason I’m calling is to tell you that Pam and I are enjoying dinner and we’ll probably go for coffee after. Which means that I’ll be getting home later than I’d thought.” I dared to look at Ari with the first smile since Daddy had walked into the diner. Sure, we were going to be dead, but Daddy was actually enjoying the dinner! “I want you girls in bed at 10. Faces washed, teeth brushed, lights out and in bed. MJ, you’re in Mike’s room. Ari, you’re in Kim’s. This is NOT the usual sleepover anymore, so no one is crashing in the living room. In bed at 10. I love you. And delete this message for me. I’ll forget.”

We heard the phone disconnect and turned, squealing to hug each other.

“Go for coffee!!!”

“Enjoying dinner!!!”

We practically were bouncing in place, the dread of our upcoming punishment nearly forgotten in the excitement of the moment. We flopped back onto pillows, grinning foolishly at the ceiling and lost in our own little daydreams of what was going on with Pam and Daddy.

But, eventually, reality had to intrude. We were both ecstatic that things were going well, at least so far, on Daddy’s date. But no matter how great it went, he’d be home at some point.

“He’s going to kill me.” My grin had faded, and I was still staring at the ceiling.

“He’s not going to stop with you.” Ari’s voice sounded as miserable as mine had.

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t done anything if I hadn’t pushed.”

“So what? I did it, didn’t I? That’s all he’s going to care about.”

We bickered about fault, but our hearts weren’t in it. Either way, this was definitely not going to be a good weekend. Weekend. I suddenly remembered that we all had Monday off, and Ari and I had planned to be here through Monday night. Great. Daddy had three days to make us regret every single step of my “brilliant” plan.

“Maybe he’ll enjoy himself so much that he’ll forgive us?” Even I, the queen of self-deception, didn’t believe that. Ari’s snort was her only response, and a fitting one.

I looked at the clock and was shocked at the time. It was already after 9. My, how time flies when you’re contemplating your death. I poked Ari lightly and pointed to the clock. Wordlessly, we left Daddy’s room, and headed to bed. There really wasn’t much to say anymore, anyway.

I didn’t think I’d sleep at all, but the mix of a highly emotional day and the pure boredom of lying in a bed in a dark room put me right out. I don’t know what time it was when I felt the covers that I’d kicked off being tucked back up. I blinked into the darkness and felt Daddy’s hand brushing my hair back. That brought it all back, and I squirmed to turn over and sit up. He just gently pushed me back down and rubbed my back for the few minutes it took for me to fall back asleep.