Punishment with Kisses Read Free

Today was no different.
    “Oh yes, must not upset the frigid bitches of the society pages—” Ash began. She clearly didn’t care about the Junior League, and I was surprised that Father hadn’t already surmised it.
    He cut her off. “That’s it. You’re out of the house. If you’re going to behave like a pig, you can move into the pool house. Let’s see how you like living in eight hundred square feet with no one to serve you.” Father made the pronouncement as though sentencing Ash to the confines of a small shed, not a vacation cabana with its own Olympic-size swimming pool. That’s the way things worked when you were the golden child. If these were criminal proceedings, Ashley Caulfield would have just been sent to a ritzy, resort-like white-collar minimum security prison. If the shoe was on the other foot, and it was me in that position, I’m certain the ruling would be completely different. I’d be sent straight to Sing Sing.
    Ash stared at him for a minute, as though pausing to catch up with what he was saying, or simply planning out her summer of fun. Then she turned and left, casting one last snide comment over her shoulder. “Oh, Father, don’t be silly. I won’t have any problem finding someone to service me.”

    *

    The next day half a dozen people arrived and began moving Ash’s belongings into the pool house. I was still pissed off at Ash for ruining my homecoming and for putting a kibosh on any chance of the two of us bonding before I headed to grad school or out into the real world—I wasn’t exactly sure yet which course I was going to take. Ash’s acts of selfish defiance also effectively eliminated any chance I could have the summer I’d dreamt of, lounging by the pool myself.
    With her banishment to the cabana Father established a no-fly zone, a walled East Berlin in the center of our property. To cross the border between our house and the pool would now be seen by Father as an act of treason, an announcement of my alliance with his sworn enemy. The retaliation would be swift and severe. And with the pool house already occupied by his favorite child, God knows what would happen to me. I imagined being kicked to the curb, sent away in a cab, never allowed to return.
    It was too dangerous to risk, even for a summer of deep tanning and refreshing dips in the cool blue-green water. But I was still pissed. This was my last summer at home and now I was stuck spending it all indoors, trapped inside with a pissed-off father and Tabitha, the stepmonster, who I’d never managed to get close to, even though we’re not that far apart in age.
    Within hours of Ash’s dramatic departure from the main house, there was a wild party raging by the pool. From the balcony of my second-floor room, I could not help but see all the beautiful people wandering in and out of the pool house, some drinking, others just sunning themselves. I didn’t need to find Ash in the crowd to know there would be people bunched around her, toadying all over her.
    I stepped back into my room and shut the sliding doors. Ash could have her little tantrums. I was going to ignore her and her escalating war with Father by thrusting myself into all the novels I’d brought home with me. Dorothy Allison, Jewel Gomez, and Michelle Tea. These authors were like good friends I could call on for all-night gab sessions. Their words gave me the kind of excitement I wasn’t finding at home and reminded me why I loved to be immersed in fiction instead of real life. A good novel is like a current that sweeps you up and carries you away from the real world to a magical land where you get to let yourself go and delve into the lives of people far more interesting than you.
    With Michelle Tea’s Valencia in hand, I stretched out across my four-poster bed, nestled in the down comforter that should be too hot for this time of year, but somehow felt cool beneath me, and let the story pull me into a fantasy world. For the first two days home I