After a quick trip to the bathroom to wash her hands, scrub the dirt and tear tracks from her face, and attempt to wrangle her hair into something at least somewhat approaching presentable, Rhen and Missus Johnson piled into her red SUV and set out for dinner. Some twenty minutes later they pulled into a parking spot out front of Papa Italiano’s, a modestly priced, family-friendly Italian restaurant. It wasn’t exactly the fanciest place to go out to eat, but the food was tasty and just then Rhen felt hungry enough to eat a horse.
She’d certainly worked up one heck of an appetite from playing tag and hide-and-seek all that afternoon.
The restaurant was loud and crowded as they pushed their way inside, filled to the brim with the cacophony of clinking silverware on plates and music being blasted from unseen speakers overhead, while people talked and laughed over all the noise. Moving through the din, she couldn’t help but blush and squirm a little bit as she thought about the image that she and her boss must have made as they sat down side-by-side on the little padded bench next to the reservation stand.
Surely the two of them must have looked like the spitting image of a mother and her young daughter out for a quiet dinner together as they waited to be seated. Especially with the way Missus Johnson kept clucking disapprovingly at her for fidgeting as she sat wedged in close beside her on their narrow perch.
Even with a well-padded seat to help, sitting was still very much an unpleasant experience for Rhen as the heat in her bottom continued to simmer and throb beneath her.
Thankfully though, whether by some miracle of happenstance or the woman manning the reservation stand taking pity on her and her clearly sore bottom, they managed to get a table after only a relatively short wait of about ten minutes. But as she showed them to their booth and they sat down, they must have indeed looked very much like a mother-daughter pair to the woman. Because as they’d settled into their respective sides, their waitress had laid out a kids menu and a packet of crayons in front of Rhen with a friendly smile rather than the laminated adults menu she offered to Missus Johnson along with the wine and dessert lists a moment later.
“Um, excuse me,” the younger girl piped up, the twinge of pain in her rear end as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat acting as a keen reminder to keep her tone civil and polite. “Can I get a regular menu instead, please?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie. I just assumed you’d be more comfortable with the kids menu,” apologized the young woman acting as their waitress, not sounding the least bit remorseful at all as far as Rhen was concerned.
The girl looked like she was just barely out of high school, but even so, the chest and hips straining against the black and white pinstripes of her uniform more than put Rhen’s own shallow curves to shame. It was no wonder she’d pegged her as a tween who’d be ordering from the kids menu. She certainly looked the part just then, especially when compared to her and her boss.
“If you don’t mind waiting for a while, I can go get you a regular one instead,” she offered with an insincere smile that bore an unmistakable edge of condescension to it. “I’d do it now, but I’ve got four other tables to take orders for first. Do you think you can you be a good girl and wait patiently for me while I take care of that?”
“What?” demanded Rhen, feeling the tips of her ears starting to heat up with righteous indignation as she glared at the still sweetly-smiling girl standing beside her.
Be patient for her? Sweetie?
Oh, she was so going to put this bitch in her place!
“Listen here, you-”
“Don’t worry about it, dear, she can just use mine,” cut in Missus Johnson smoothly, preempting her before she could really let fly with some choice words and flashing the younger woman an apologetic look as she waved her hand dismissively. “She’s just being cranky because she got a spanking before we came to dinner tonight. I’m sure you understand how kids can be sometimes.”
That certainly stopped Rhen’s tirade in its tracks, the words dying on her lips before she’d even had a chance to spit them out at the stupid waitress. She was still seething at being treated like a child, but the look her boss flashed her from across the table was a clear warning that there would be another trip across her knee right there and then if she didn’t behave herself, and she took it to heart.
“I’m sorry!” squeaked Rhen, looking away from the two smirking women and staring down at the kids menu in front of her with newfound interest.
“That’s okay, sweetie pie, I forgive you,” chirped their waitress, practically the living embodiment of smugness now as she turned to focus her full attention on Missus Johnson.
Seeing that she’d managed to squash the impending temper tantrum before it had a chance to take root, Missus Johnson cleared her throat and went on, driving one final nail into the coffin of Rhen’s humiliation.
“Besides, I’d rather have something to keep this one occupied with while we wait on our meals. She has a tendency to get kind of antsy when she’s bored. Isn’t that right, Rhen, honey?”
“Ugh. Yes, ma’am…” grumbled the petite sophomore, scowling at the two of them and hardly believing her ears.
She was definitely still tempted to say something sharp and biting, but the frosty twinkle in her boss’s eyes and the unspoken warning not to test her, kept her mouth shut tight as she looked down at the piece of paper in front of her again and blushed.
That seemed to amuse their snotty waitress all the more, and she laughed right along with Missus Johnson as she pulled out a pad of paper and a pen and took their drink orders. Rhen asked for a Diet Coke, doing her best to ignore the clucking from her boss about how the caffeine would keep her up all night, again, before she too ordered one for herself. Their waitress jotted the easy order down, told them that she’d be back in a few minutes, and then turned around and flounced away.
Part of Rhen burned with the desire to give the smirking woman sitting across from her a piece of her mind, but the tingling warmth in her nether cheeks kept her from doing much more than scowling petulantly as she leaned across the table to snatch up the adults menu. Missus Johnson didn’t protest as she dragged it over to her side of the booth and flipped it open. However, after spending only a few minutes squinting through all of the entrée choices, Rhen found herself frowning and fighting off another blush as she set the menu aside and picked up the piece of paper in front of her that had the kids entrée options printed on the back of it.
“Not, a, word,” she growled to her boss good-naturedly.
“Not a word,” agreed Missus Johnson with as low laugh, retrieving her menu and folding it open.
True to her word, their waitress returned around five or so minutes later with their drinks. She set the tall glasses of soda down on top of small square napkins in front of each of them, offering Rhen the choice of a regular straw or one of the Papa Italiano’s branded crazy straws, before pulling out her little pad and pen once more to take their food order. Rhen felt her insides boiling at the amused smirk on the other girl’s face as she took her order, which just so happened to be the macaroni and cheese with chopped up slices of hot dog from the kids menu. She wisely decided to keep her temper in check however, and instead quietly ground her teeth as Missus Johnson took her time asking about the house specials for the night, before finally settling on the grilled salmon and roasted peppers with a lemon glaze.
“Careful there, cutie pie,” she cautioned after their waitress had sashayed away again, keeping a pleasant smile fixed on her face that took on a decidedly teasing edge to it as she leaned in a bit closer over the table.
“If you keep on pouting like that, you might not get dessert.”
In spite of the fireworks her boss’s words and expression set off inside of her stomach, Rhen couldn’t resist the urge to stick her tongue out at the older woman.
“Meanie!”
She just laughed at her however, and then they both smirked, each acknowledging how silly the whole situation was as they settled back to wait for their meals to arrive.
—
Much to her own annoyance, Rhen quickly found herself getting more and more bored as time seemed to crawl by at a snail’s pace for them as they waited. She’d been so flustered from her earlier spanking in the backyard at the daycare that she hadn’t even thought to grab her phone from her backpack on their way out the door, and now was left with seemingly nothing to entertain herself with as her stomach growled.
Huffing and pouting as she stared out of the corner of her eye over the twists and turns of her crazy straw at the piece of paper she’d shoved as far away from her as she could, she blew some annoyed bubbles into her drink and then caved. She snatched up the plastic-sealed packet of crayons from beside her along with the kids menu as fast as she could, just like she was ripping off a Band-Aid, and flipped it over to the side with the maze and word search printed on it.
If I’m going to be treated like a little kid in this stupid restaurant, then I might as well enjoy myself, at least.
She’d just finished circling the second to last word on the surprisingly challenging word search (it was “risotto”) when their food finally arrived.
And it smelled delicious.
Well, at least hers did.
Rhen couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose at the scents of sizzling salmon and peppers wafting up at her from her boss’s plate across the table. Even so, they began to dig in with gusto, both of them famished from a long day’s work.
After a few minutes of near-silent chewing, save for the occasional question of how each other’s meals tasted, Missus Johnson sighed through her nose and set her utensils down on either side of her plate.
“Rhen, honey, I’m really sorry to say this, but I don’t think I can keep you on as my assistant.”
Even though she’d had a feeling that this was how things were going to turn out, the news still hit Rhen like a punch to the gut.
Swallowing hard, she set her own spoon down beside her plate, finding much to her embarrassment that she could already feel the beginnings of tears prickling at the corners of her eyes as she did. She’d certainly had enough first-hand experience with the sensation today to know what it felt like by now.
“Please, Missus Johnson,” she begged, actually bringing her hands together in front of her in a supplicating gesture. “I really need this job.
Please, please, please can’t you give me another chance? I know I screwed up really badly today, but I promise I won’t ever be that late again. I’ll be the best assistant you’ve ever had, just give me another shot!”
Taken aback by the sincerity and desperation in the younger girl’s pleading, Missus Johnson found herself automatically reaching out across the table to comfort the poor thing.
“Honey, honey,” she soothed, wrapping her hands over Rhen’s smaller ones and giving them a reassuring squeeze. “It’s just a silly summer job. Really, it’s not a big deal. You’re a wonderful girl and I’m sure you’ll find another one eventually.”
She heaved out another long sigh and shook her head sadly.
“But even though I really like you, dear, there’s just no way that I can let you be my assistant.”
“But why?” whined Rhen, not even caring how childish and petulant she sounded just then as she forced herself to meet her boss’s dark eyes. “I know I messed up, but come on. It wasn’t that big of a deal, was it? And besides, didn’t I do a really good job keeping an eye on everyone this afternoon? All the kids seemed to really like me! Shouldn’t that at least count for something?”
Missus Johnson felt the corners of her mouth twitching up into a half-smirk at the display before her. She should have known that what this silly girl needed was another dose of Auntie Dana’s tough love to get through to her.
“Well, if you really want to know,” she said, pursing her lips into a disapproving frown as she squeezed Rhen’s hands again before letting them go. “The truth is, you’re a child, Rhen.”
Seeing the look of hurt outrage on the younger girl’s face, she quickly clarified.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. You’re clearly a very smart girl from what I’ve seen on your transcripts, your school sent them over with your application, and you’ve got a wonderfully bright and friendly personality that, quite frankly, I think is just adorable, but when it comes to being an actual mature adult, you still have a lot of growing up to do.”
Rhen felt her back stiffen at the sharp accusations, only the apologetic look in the older woman’s eyes dulling their sting enough to not make them painful and cruel. She opened her mouth to argue that she was in fact plenty mature enough for the stupid job she was being fired from, but Missus Johnson held up a hand to keep her quiet as she plowed forward with her dressing down.
“I see you’re about to argue with me, so let me lay it out for you, hon,” she said, keeping her voice stern, but not cruel, as she began to tick off points on her fingers. “For starters, I personally consider being well over an hour late on your first day of work to be a very big deal, young lady. Especially when it was just because you’d went to bed way too late the night before and slept through your alarm. Before we cleared up our little case of mistaken identity, I was this close to calling your university and giving them hell for sending me someone so flaky.”
She held up her thumb and forefinger in front of her, barely half an inch apart.
“That kind of crap would never fly in the real world, and you’re damn lucky that a little spanking and some time in the corner was all you got out of it. A bad referral like the one I was planning to give you would have definitely not made finding a new job nearly so easy, I can tell you that for a fact, missy.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am…” mumbled Rhen, unable to meet the other woman’s gaze anymore as she stared down at her half-finished macaroni and tried to ignore the roiling going on inside of her stomach as the first hot tear trickled down her right cheek.
“You should be, and I’m glad to hear you say it,” sighed Missus Johnson, waving off her apology. “But I forgive you, and it’s in the past now. More to the point, even if you had been on time today, you’re unfortunately way too young, and pardon me for being blunt but it’s the truth, immature to be riding herd on a bunch of grade schoolers.”
“What? But I’m nearly twenty-one!” protested Rhen, her indignation overcoming her embarrassment enough to force her to look back up at the older woman sitting across from her, still frowning.
“I know you are, but parents get antsy about who’s watching their kids, and unfortunately you just don’t fit the bill for what they’re expecting in a care taker.”
She sighed again, and this time flashed Rhen an apologetic look of her own as she shrugged. The gesture seemed to convey the message that she didn’t like it either, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
“But even if that weren’t the case, there’s no way that any of those kids would ever take you seriously as an authority figure. Not when at least half of them look like they’re a year ahead of you in school. To say nothing of the fact that most, if not all of them, had a front row seat for your trip across my knee this morning and your time reflecting on your bad behavior in the corner. A bright red bottom and a sobbing face, a person to listen to do not make, I’m afraid.”
She paused again, this time to enjoy the sight of Rhen’s adorably cherry-red face as she took a long sip from her drink, savoring its flavor and the cute little dimple that formed between the younger girl’s eyebrows whenever she scowled. She really was such a cutie pie. It was a shame that she wouldn’t be seeing her again after tonight. She would have enjoyed getting the chance to mother her some more.
To say nothing of getting her hands on that cute little caboose of hers again.
“I’ll at least admit that you’re right about how well you did with the kids this afternoon, they definitely liked you. But unfortunately it’s all too clear to me now that you fit in far better as one of my charges than you ever did as my assistant. I’m sorry to say it, hon, but that’s the long and the short of it.”
“But… but…” spluttered Rhen, more tears gathering at the corners of her eyes as she stared desperately at the woman sitting across from her who’d just so thoroughly fired her. “You don’t understand. I really, really, really need this job!”
“Hey, hey, it’s just a part-time gig, kiddo,” soothed Missus Johnson, moving on instinct to slide over into Rhen’s side of the booth and wrapping an affectionate arm around her trembling shoulders. “There’s no need to make such a big fuss about it. I’m sure you’ll find another one sooner or later. You’re a clever girl. You just weren’t a good fit for me is all.”
“But… but you don’t understand,” moaned Rhen miserably, feeling all of the pent up anxiety and pressure from the last few weeks finally catching up to her all at once as hot tears started pouring down her cheeks in earnest.
She turned in her seat and clung to the older woman, not caring how childish it made her look or feel just then as she buried her face into her ample bosom and sobbed.
Missus Johnson squeezed her gently and rubbed her back, rocking her softly as she waited for her to calm down. Clearly there was much more to this silly sophomore’s story than met the eye, and she was going to get to the bottom of it before they had dessert.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?” she suggested a few minutes later when Rhen’s crying had finally subsided to just the occasional sniffle.
Still leaning against the older woman’s side for support, Rhen heaved out a long and tired breath before she began to explain her situation to her in a mumbling, embarrassed, little voice.
To say money was tight for her was the understatement of the century.
She’d received a scholarship to attend her university that covered her tuition and books, but not much else. With her grandma’s limited finances and no parents in the picture to speak of, she was the very definition of a lean and thrifty college student. Thankfully though, she’d been able to avoid one major expense up until now, rent. She’d been allowed to live in the dorms rent-free ever since she’d started school, but now that she was about to be a junior, she’d been told that she’d accumulated too many credits and had to move out to make room for newer students.
She’d known that this was something she’d have to take care of at some point ever since the start of fall semester the year before, but she’d kept putting it off and hadn’t done anything about it ever since she’d gotten the email informing her she had to move out by the start of August the following year. Her plan had been to take care of it somehow during winter or spring break, but she’d been distracted by tagging along with some of her friends to go get wild and loose, and hadn’t figured anything out yet.
Her grandma had told her that she could help her out a little bit with the first month’s rent and a security deposit on an apartment, but she wasn’t exactly well off to begin with and what little she said she could provide wasn’t nearly enough to cover getting a proper lease anywhere.
Not to mention the fact that she had no idea how to even go about finding an apartment to live in in the first place.
Up until now, she’d either just lived with her grandma, or had been told where she would be staying by the university. How did you even start looking for an apartment that didn’t cost an arm and a leg? She’d tried searching for places close to campus on the internet, but all of the listings she’d found had been for luxury student housing that was way outside of her non-existent budget.
So Rhen had taken to fretting and worrying whenever she laid down to go to sleep at night, while during the day telling herself that everything was fine and that she still had plenty of time to take care of things later.
Whenever she’d felt that little twinge of worry about the future in the pit of her stomach, she’d pushed it down by repeating to herself that she was just way too busy with classes and exams to stress out about anything else.
That had worked fine for a while, but now summer semester was almost over, and to her absolute horror it had dawned on her that she was about to be homeless in only a few short weeks if she didn’t think of something, and fast!
Last Monday morning, she’d run in a panic to the Student Employment Center and picked the earliest available job offering they had on hand so she could at least start saving some money. But now that she was fired, that plan had fallen apart, and she was terrified that she’d ran out of time and options, and wasn’t going to have anywhere to stay next semester.
One of the girls working at the Employment Center had suggested she look into maybe getting a student loan, but unfortunately that wasn’t something she had any chance of securing in the short amount of time she had left before the semester was over. She’d have to drop out of school and return home to live with her grandma, so close to finishing her degree, but now with no hope of actually ever graduating; at least, not any time soon.
“Oh honey…” cooed Dana Johnson, patting the back of Rhen’s hair and rocking her gently in her arms. “There, there, it’s going to be alright, I promise.”
She could feel her heart breaking for the poor thing, even if she’d largely brought her situation down onto herself with her procrastination.
Despite that though, she hardly felt like she could just turn this little waif of a college student out on her own without forever feeling horrible about herself.
From what she’d seen and heard from the time she’d spent with Rhen that day, she was a very clever and well-meaning girl, but she was also in desperate need of someone to rein her in with a very firm hand. And as that thought bubbled up in her mind, a plan began to form. One that would solve Rhen’s little housing troubles, give her the structure she so clearly needed, and would allow Dana to have more than a little fun with the cutie pie nestled in against her chest for a long time to come.
“I like you a lot, kiddo,” she said, tipping Rhen’s head back to look at her with a delicate hand under her chin and flashing her a reassuring grin. “You’ve got plenty of heart and spunk, even if you are a total sass-mouth.”
Rhen smiled in spite of the tears still marring her red-rimmed eyes, looking just as cute as a button to Dana.
“So how about this? How would you like to stay with me next semester, and every other semester too for that matter if you’d like?”
She raised an eyebrow and hoped very much that the other girl would say yes.
“I would just love to have you around as my ‘niece’ if you’re up for it.”
“What, really?” asked Rhen, sitting up a little bit straighter and feeling the first real glimmers of hope sparkling within her in what felt like forever. “But… what about the daycare and all that other stuff?”
She felt herself blushing, but she knew that she had to keep going as she plowed on.
“You know, the spankings and all the other kids who think I’m one of them?”
“You mean the spankings you one-hundred percent earned with your bratty behavior today?” clarified Dana, her voice taking on a decidedly stern tone as she fixed Rhen with a disapproving look. “And the friends you had so much fun playing with all afternoon?”
“Um, yes?” squeaked the younger girl, looking away as her blush deepened even more, only making her cuter. “So, uh… where would those fit in to all this?”
Dana smirked.
From the embarrassed look on Rhen’s face as she chewed at her lower lip, it was pretty clear to see that she wasn’t nearly as upset about the possibility of another trip across her knee as she was trying to make out.
That was good. It was nice to see that she too, at least on some level, saw the appeal and need for her to be taken in hand.
“Here’s the way it’s gonna be, cutie pie,” Dana explained, keeping her voice stern, but still kind, as she tipped Rhen’s chin back again so that she had to look her in the eye. “I’m more than happy to have you living with me. I’ve got a spare guest room nobody ever uses that would be just perfect for you, and I make more than enough money between my daycare and my side business as a design consultant to cover anything that you might need. But if you do decide that this is what you want, then there’s going to be rules, and you best believe that there’ll be consequences too.”
She paused long enough to make sure that Rhen was fully paying attention now before she went on.
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re far closer to thirteen than you are to twenty when it comes to your behavior, and if you decide to come live with me, then that’s exactly how I’m going to treat you. I mean it, kiddo.
From that point onward, you’re not going to be a twenty-year-old college kid who gets to make all her own decisions anymore. You’re going to be thirteen, and I will be keeping you in line just like I have been all day today. I’m not going to charge you any rent, and I’ll be happy to do whatever you need to make sure you do well in school, but the moment you say yes, you’re going to officially become my bratty little niece.”
She let that all sink in for a few moments, running her free hand down Rhen’s back and giving her well-rounded caboose a hard squeeze through her shorts.
“And as you found out today, Auntie Dana runs a very tight ship, doesn’t she?”
Rhen gasped and squirmed in the other woman’s clutches, trying not to moan as she winced from the fresh pain her fingers digging into her tender flesh elicited.
“But… but… Um, won’t that be weird? I’m in college for crying out loud!” she whined, realizing only after the words had tumbled out of her that she wasn’t actually denying that she could or should be spanked and treated like a naughty teen, but instead just complaining about how embarrassing it would be.
“And what about your husband?” she added quickly, hoping to distract the broadly beaming woman from thinking too hard about turning her over her knee again anytime soon. “Don’t you need to discuss this all with him first?”
Dana couldn’t help but snort and roll her eyes at that.
“Rhen, honey, you already pass for thirteen without even trying to.
In fact, I bet with the right outfits, and a couple other adjustments, I could get you looking closer to twelve, easily.”
She released the younger girl’s chin, but deliberately chose to keep her other hand right where it was on her backside as she gave a dismissive wave of her free hand toward the discarded kids menu and the half-finished plate of macaroni and cheese, winking at her.
“Besides, you’re just too damn adorable not to spoil and spank. And as far as being concerned about what others might think, well… I know it may not be the popular norm for a lot of kids these days, but nobody is going to bat an eye at a bratty teen getting her just desserts over her auntie’s knee when she’s in trouble.”
“Humph. I guess…” conceded Rhen begrudgingly, not quite willing to admit that the other woman had a point or to acknowledge that today had easily been one of the most simultaneously exhilarating and relaxing days of her entire life.
She knew that she should be upset about being treated this way, or at the very least offended that she was being talked down to like this, but…
the prospect of being this vivaciously charming older woman’s young
“niece” (and all that would entail) was just too tempting.
“And as to your other question,” continued Dana, interrupting her thoughts with a tinkling laugh. “There is no Mister Johnson. Well, at least not anymore, there isn’t. We got married right about the time I was your age, and then divorced eight months later. Johnson is actually my maiden name, and as to the title, well…”
She shrugged and flashed Rhen an impish smirk.
“I decided to hold onto that one when I started the daycare. You know, for marketing reasons. Parents really do prefer a more homemaker, married type of woman to look after their kids, you know.”
Rhen couldn’t help but chuckle at that revelation, the laugh carrying away with it the last of her anxieties and fears from the previous weeks.
She swallowed hard, realizing that she’d already made her decision. Now all she had to do was say it out loud.
“If you’ll have me, ma’am, I think I’d really like to live with you.”
Missus Johnson, now for all intents and purposes Rhen’s Aunt Dana, gave her right cheek an affectionate squeeze and they both smiled.
“Oh honey, I would love that.”
