Chapter 25
Adriana flinched as Mary swatted her daughter’s bare butt with a stick again.
Cindy screamed from floor.
“This is hurting me more than you,” Mary explained. She counted the strikes out loud. “Three … four … five. You are too willful … six. You need to obey, not question.”
With each strike, Adriana felt more and more anxious. She felt responsible. After all, if she hadn’t convinced Cindy to open the box, Cindy wouldn’t have told her mother about it.
Adriana caused this. If anyone should be beat, it was her.
With such a psycho as Mary, Adriana should have known not to make waves. Everything must be smooth around people like that or else they get out of control, just like her ax-throwing father. Adriana went through years of training to be as a mouse in a corner, hardly making noises, unnoticeable, stuffing away her feelings. She should have known better than to cause commotion around Cindy’s parents.
“Nine … I know what’s best … ten. When I say give me something, you give, and don’t play with niggers … eleven. Damn to hell all those fucking niggers!”
“Please, Mommy,” she cried, “stop.”
Adriana moved the small box that had been hidden under her leg to her left, then used her knee to slide it behind her. She reached for it and held it in her hands which were still tied behind her back, tracing her fingers over its smooth carved sides, wondering what everyone saw inside to make them crazy.
Mary set down the stick and retrieved a leather whip from the bin under the booth seat. She drew it back and whipped her daughter’s apple-red butt, her body shaking from the effort.
A scream of a new level rose from Cindy. This sound equaled the force behind the lash, as though its leather end continued up through her spine and out her mouth.
Adriana had learned from her teacher that a whip makes such a loud twack sound because the end actually breaks the sound barrier, traveling faster than the speed of sound, faster than 768 miles-per-hour.
“You will not tell me what to do young lady.”
Twack!
“Two. You have to learn your place, and because of backtalk, you’re getting five of these.”
Adriana was surprised to see tears in Mary’s eyes.
“I’m a God-loving Christian, and I know that someday you’ll thank me for setting boundaries in your life.”
Twack!
“Three ... and enforcing them with proper discipline. The world would be a happier place if we all did this.”
Twack!
“Four. I was disciplined by my parents and have no complaints. In fact, I’m glad they had the courage to do what was necessary.” Twack! “Five. It made me who I am today.” Twack! “Six.”
She could no longer watch. She drew her leg up and hid her teary eyes behind her knee. She wanted silence, innocent beautiful silence. But Cindy’s cries and her mother’s words pried deep into Adriana’s ears.
“Shut up,” Mary screeched. “You earned this!”
Cindy put her hands over her mouth to try to quiet herself.
Adriana didn’t know how to stop Mary. She thought about throwing the box at her, but then Mary would have it, and Adriana would lose whatever hope it might offer. Mary would go back to beating her daughter anyway.
Twack!
The leather whip against her friend’s soft skin also marked Adriana’s heart.
Mary was no longer talking but whipping faster. Twack! Twack! Twack! No longer keeping count, her eyes entranced on her daughter’s bloody rear, and her body taking on a mechanical horror.
Adriana missed the counting because without it, Mary might never stop. She was already past twelve lashes and was in some kind of hypnotic rage.