Disciplining Little Abby (26 page)

The park was covered with skaters. At last half a dozen stood waiting their turn atop the half-pipe. On the opposite side she saw a band set up, and beside them what looked like a radio station truck. As she carved around the park to the other side, she heard Julia calling her name. Spotting her near the radio station truck, she quickly made her way over.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you got all this put together!” Abby squealed and hugged Julia until her sister begged for air. “This is amazing!”

Julia smiled. “I couldn’t have done it without Amanda.”

“Or me.”

It took Abby a second to realize the boy next to Julia was the one she’d told her to call about finding bands. It took her another second to realize there was more going on between the two than just party planning. The idea rendered her speechless. He was attractive enough, tall and lanky with big brown eyes and well defined shoulders and biceps, but if he’d told her he was over twenty-one, she would have demanded to see ID.

Abby waited until he left before staring at her sister with her mouth open. “I just meant for you to ask him where to find a decent band!”

“And he was extremely helpful,” Julia said smugly. “I cannot begin to count the ways.”

“Better not let mom see him,” Abby warned. “She’ll call you a cougar.”

Julia rolled her eyes. “She can call me whatever she likes. By the way, she’s here. With Eva.”

Abby’s stomach twisted into a knot. She’d made her father promise to come, but it never occurred to her that her mother might make an appearance.

“You can blame me,” Julia said. “I asked her to cater. I guess Eva decided she wanted to help as well.”

Before Abby could react, she heard a familiar voice behind her.

“Mallory.”

Turning around, she saw her mother standing there, looking uncomfortably out of place in an elegant ivory linen dress and sling back heels.

“Walk with me.”

Abby shot Julia a death glare, then turned to follow her mother. She’d already been a bundle of nerves before she’d seen the huge crowd. The last thing she needed was another lecture from her mother.

They walked in silence for almost half a block before her mother finally came to a stop. Reaching into her purse, she pulled a pack of cigarettes out. Abby watched in surprise as her mother delicately tapped one out and raised it to her lips with a shaking hand. Never before had she seen her mother smoke. As far as she’d known, Elizabeth Joan never touched a cigarette in her life.

“When I was a little girl, I loved frilly dresses and pretty shoes,” she began, her words sounding forced and reluctant. “My mother put my hair in ribbons and even let me play with her lipstick from time to time. I had dolls, oh so many dolls, and Mother made dresses for them that matched my own. I was a beautiful child, a beautiful little girl, back then.”

Taking a long drag she held it in for several seconds, then let the smoke out in a long, low exhale. “Back then there was an older man who lived down the street from us. He didn’t have any family of his own, so he became something of an adopted uncle for the children in the area. Always offering to babysit, always letting us play at his house if our parents needed to run an errand. He just loved children.”

Abby’s throat tightened as she realized where this was going. She wanted nothing more than to cover her ears and run away, pretend the conversation never happened, but her feet were frozen in place, and all she could do was listen.

“He had a special fondness for pretty little girls in frilly dresses with ribbons in their hair.” Her mother stared off in the distance, her jaw clenching as she took another drag. “Back then people didn’t discuss such things. Children were raised to respect their elders, to be seen and not heard. Or at least we were in my family.”

Elizabeth Joan finally turned back to face her daughter, and Abby realized her mother was on the verge of tears. “I grew up telling myself that if I ever had a daughter, she would never, ever be a source of attraction to a man like that. Imagine my hell when I had not one, but three beautiful little girls. Eva was easy. She wanted nothing more than to be just like mommy. And Julia wanted nothing more than to please. But you?” She dropped her cigarette on the sidewalk, grinding it out with the tip of her shoe. “You were so independent, so imaginative, so free spirited. The harder I tried to protect you, the angrier you became. Every time I turned around you had ribbons in your hair and that stuffed dog in your hand, and all I could think… all I could think…”

Abby quickly put her arms around her mother and held her tight as the older woman struggled to hold onto her composure. “I was so afraid for you, Mallory. I thought I was protecting you, but instead I ruined our relationship.”

“Mom, it’s okay,” Abby said awkwardly. All her life she’d viewed her mother as a sort of iron woman, unyielding and unreasonable. It had never occurred to her there might be a reason why her mother had demanded her daughters act like grown-ups since the day they were old enough to walk.

Elizabeth Joan pulled away and straightened up. Inhaling deeply, she pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed her eyes with it. Abby watched as she willed away the emotion she’d allowed to break through, and wondered if her mother ever truly let her guard down. The thought made her heart ache and made her appreciate what she had with Chris that much more.

“I wanted you to know that the changes in you over the past few months have not gone unnoticed,” she told Abby, sounding as strong and steady as ever. “If someone had told me six months ago that you would quit that dead end job and buy your own business, I would have laughed myself silly. Granted the business caters to teenagers and gives you an excuse to dress like, well, like this,” she sniffed, waving her hand at Abby’s hip riding cargo pants and chain belt. “But I
am
proud of you, Mallory Dawn Willis. And I promise I will work harder to improve our relationship.”

“Abby,” Abby said. “My friends call me Abby.”

“Don’t push it.”

Laughing, Abby put her arm around her mother and together they walked back to the party.

By the time they made it back to the skate park, the band was in full swing and the crowd of skaters had doubled in size. Amanda caught up with her and brought her up to speed. They’d talked several area businesses into donating gift cards and various prizes, and Amanda had put the word out that every person who liked
Three Sixty
’s new Facebook page and followed them on Twitter would get entered into drawings for everything from free pizza, to hundred dollar gift cards, to a local custom skateboard shop. The result had been over four hundred new likes on their Facebook page, with more coming in every hour.

The newly designed magazine was a huge hit as well, especially the cover, which featured a long legged blonde in the middle of a McTwist. Amanda had come up with the idea to do a feature article titled 972 Skater Girls that featured skater girls from that particular area code. Once word got around that
Three Sixty
had a photographer at one of the skate parks looking for female skateboarders, girls of all ages quickly showed up. They’d also shown up at the relaunch party, and Abby was tickled to see the boys grabbing copies of the magazine and asking the girls to autograph their photos.

A few even asked for her to sign her photo. Amanda had located the original photo that had appeared back when Abby was sixteen, and had run it in the new issue beside the editorial Abby had written.

She was just handing a signed copy back to a boy when she spotted Chris making his way through the milling crowd. When she spotted what he held in his hands, she squealed and bounced up and down.

“Mr. Jingles! You brought him! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Chris grinned and caught her as she jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist. Hugging him tightly around his neck, she kissed his cheek.

“Thank you Daddy,” she whispered in his ear.

“You’re welcome, babygirl,” he said, squeezing her tightly before prying her arms from his neck and setting her back down. “Mr. Jingles says thank you too.” He held the stuffed blue dog out and waited, watching Abby as she studied him.

Abby couldn’t believe how good he looked. He was still old and his fur worn thin in spots, but he was cleaner than he’d ever been and there was nothing to indicate she’d once torn his arm off in a tantrum. He even had a pretty purple ribbon tied around his neck.

Abby froze as she took a closer look at the ribbon.

“Abby Willis, will you marry me?”

One of the ribbon’s bows looped through a ring, a platinum one with a massive pear-shaped diamond. Peeking over one side of the diamond was a tiny Hello Kitty head, with two pink diamonds for her bow.

Abby’s hands flew to her mouth. Glancing up, she realized the crowd around her had fallen silent, all eyes on her as they waited for her response. Behind Chris she saw Julia and Amanda giving her a thumbs up sign, and to his left she saw Kali bouncing up and down with excitement.
When did Kali get here?
she thought wildly. Her eyes returned to the ring around Mr. Jingle’s neck, and without thinking, she untied the ribbon, pulling the ring off and slipping it on her finger.

“Oh yes,” she whispered, looking up at Chris with shining eyes. “I will.”

All around her cheers broke out, and then Kali was grabbing her hands and jumping up and down with glee. “I made him wait until I got here,” she giggled.

As Chris wrapped his arms around her and buried his fingers in her hair, Abby closed her eyes and held him tightly. So many things had changed since she met him, so many things were finally falling into place. Her heart had gone from broken to overflowing with happiness and love, and she owed it all to Chris.

The End

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Disciplining Little Josey

Josey Tate has always felt like a little girl lost in a grown-up world. She has muddled through for years, but her unhappiness with her body, her work, and her life in general have continued to build, and when her boss suggests that she make an appointment with a man by the name of Mr. Green—telling Josey only that the appointment can help turn her life around—she decides she has nothing to lose.

Expecting a weight-loss or self-help clinic, Josey is surprised when Mr. Green promises to match her with a “daddy”. She is far more shocked the next day when, after having disobeyed all of his instructions, she finds herself back in Mr. Green’s office for a long, hard, bare bottom spanking from Richard Black, her new daddy. Before she knows it, Josey finds herself blushing red as she is bathed, intimately examined, and dressed as a little girl.

Josey soon learns that motivation and discipline are only the beginning of what a firm daddy can provide, and under Richard’s strict but loving guidance she blossoms in a way she never would have thought possible. Even as she comes to love her new life, though, she realizes that she needs much more from Richard than just a few days a week together… she desperately needs her loving daddy to claim her as his little girl forever.

You can keep up with Serafine Laveaux via her blog, her Twitter and Facebook pages, and her Amazon and Goodreads profiles, using the following links:

http://serafinelaveaux.blogspot.com/

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https://www.facebook.com/SerafineLaveaux

http://www.amazon.com/Serafine-Laveaux/e/B00ANIBZIA

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6979200.Serafine_Laveaux