bed. “He can go. I’ll do it.” Lying back to prove my point.
“Open the towel,” she instructs.
I’d kept it wrapped around me.
Looking up at the ceiling, I open it.
“Now open your legs.”
“Ethan can leave. I’ll do it.”
“You’ll do it regardless.”
Ethan steps to the foot of the bed. I guess he wants a front-row seat.
I glance once at his mother and know it’s pointless to ask again, and I won’t beg. I open my legs. The doctor says something to Mrs. Scafoni in Italian, and she kindly translates.
“Pull your knees up.”
I do. And I’m wholly exposed to them, and all I can do is lie there and stare up at the ceiling and fist the bedsheets as the doctor conducts his examination, the instruments he pushes inside me cold, his old fingers poking me and just when I think we’re done, he’s given another instruction I don’t understand, not until I watch him smear lubricant onto his thickest finger and poke at my other hole and when I tighten up, it’s Ethan who speaks.
“It’s easier to take something up your ass when you’re relaxed,” he says. “And what I’m going to put in there will be much thicker than the doctor’s finger.”
Is this part of Sebastian’s punishment? This utter humiliation, this being taken down about a hundred notches?
My face burns as the doctor pushes his finger inside me. I don’t understand the point, but there isn’t one. It’s to humiliate me, that’s all. And he does. And when he’s done, I’m given a shot. The birth control, I guess.
When it’s over, he stands and takes off his gloves. Mrs. Scafoni approaches and, her eyes on me, has a discussion in Italian with the doctor. A moment later, the same girl who rolled in the cart returns and rolls it out. I reach for the towel.
“Roll over onto your stomach.”
I glance from her to Ethan, who is grinning, his hand on the erection evident through his jeans. I swear he’s not right.
“Why?”
“Ethan.”
She doesn’t even entertain my question, and I roll onto my stomach before he can lay his hands on me.
A second later, before I can process the whooshing sound, a line of fire burns across my ass, has me gasping, jumping from the bed.
But Ethan pounces, and I’m desperately covering myself as he roughly grabs hold of me, dragging me back down.
“You’re owed three more for your refusal to do as you’re told,” Lucinda informs me. “He can hold you down, and I’ll double it, or you can submit on your own and take the three. Decide.”
“What refusal? I did what you said!”
“That’s another strike. Ethan.”
I shake my head, but I know Lucinda won’t give me another chance. She likes this too much, and Ethan too, and I watch, helpless, as two cuffs, attached to the headboard, are exposed.
“No!”
But he, like his brother, is too strong, and my arms are bound and I’m on my belly and he takes hold of my ankles and has me stretched tight.
“Eight more since I’m doubling. Next time, you’ll know to submit immediately.”
And with that, I receive the first caning of my life, because that’s what the stick she’s holding is. A fucking cane.
Only once growing up did my parents lay a hand on me, but this pain, it’s different. Eight strokes in addition to the one and I’m sobbing by the second, sobbing and begging her to stop, hating her, hating myself, wondering how something can hurt so badly, wondering if she’s ripping through skin. Wondering if Sebastian ordered this too.
When she’s finished, she’s out of breath. Ethan releases my legs. I don’t turn to look at them. I bury my face in my arm instead.
“She should take care of this,” I hear Ethan say to her.
I don’t know what he’s talking about, but then his mother answers, and I think I do, I’m sickened.
“Soon enough. Get one of the girls from the kitchen for now,” Lucinda says.
I hear him leave. The bed depresses, and sharp fingernails scratch along my buttock, touching every line she just whipped into me, before combing into my hair, pushing it from my face.
I don’t want to look at her. I can see her victorious grin in the periphery of my blurry vision.
But she takes my hair in one hand and pulls my head back, turns it painfully, so I have to look at her.
“You’re pretty, but so was your predecessor when she came here.”
I know she means my Aunt Libby, but I didn’t realize Lucinda was here during