by W. Arthur
Tyler Conway punched his brother in the arm for no reason.
"Dude!" Jacob Conway shouted, rubbing his left bicep. "What the fuck did you do that for?"
Tyler flashed his twin brother a sinister smile. "I felt like it."
"Well, don't do it again."
"Or else what?"
"Or else nothing," Jacob said. "Let's just say you'll be sorry."
Tyler laughed. "I've heard that shit before."
For the brothers, it was their third day home from college and they were bored already. Sitting side by side on the long sofa in the family room, they appeared identical, except that Tyler wore gray shorts with a white tee shirt while Jacob wore black shorts with a gray tee shirt. Tyler wore his brown hair in a buzz cut while Jacob's brown hair touched his ears and partially covered his forehead.
Although they went to separate colleges, they each were majoring in business administration. They both planned to work for their father's accounting firm when they graduated. They also had summer jobs working for a landscaping company, but weren't scheduled to start until the following Monday.
Tyler fingered the remote to the seventy inch HD television. He pushed buttons until a baseball game appeared on the screen.
"I don't want to watch baseball," Jacob said, reaching for the remote.
Tyler held it away from his brother. "Well, I do."
Jacob made a clumsy attempt to snatch the remote. Tyler blocked him with his right arm. Jacob grabbed the arm and both brothers tumbled off the sofa onto the floor. There they began a lively wrestling match, knocking over a table lamp in the process.
"Boys!" came a shrill female voice from the doorway.
The boys stopped their wrestling and sat up on the floor.
A middle-aged woman with short graying hair and wearing a yellow housedress entered the room and stared down at Jacob and Tyler. "What is this all about?" she asked in the same shrill voice.
The boys looked at her, then looked at each other.
She folded her arms in front of her and scowled. "Well, if you've got nothing better to do, I've got some work you can do that will keep you out of trouble."
Both boys groaned at the same time. "We're sorry, Carolyn," Jacob said, winking at his brother.
"Yeah," Tyler said.
Carolyn, their fifty-year-old stepmother, gave them a very hard stare. "I've heard that before," she said. "You two are bored. And when you get bored, you get into trouble. Jacob, you go outside and trim the hedges. Tyler, you clean out the garage."
The boys groaned again. While it was true they were bored and prone to trouble, they certainly didn't want to work around the house.
"But... we've got plans," Jacob protested.
"What plans?" she asked.
Jacob looked at Tyler, but his brother had a blank look on his face. "Uh... we were going to go to the mall."
"Yeah," Tyler added quickly.
Carolyn shook her head. "Well, you can forget that for now," she said. "I simply won't have you wrestling in the house, especially with your father away. Now, do what I told you to do."
Both boys stood up and hung their heads. Carolyn wasn't exactly a tyrant, but she was a no-nonsense person who expected others to toe the line. Since she had been their stepmother for the past eight years, Jacob and Tyler had excelled in school because she had demanded it, occasionally reinforcing her demands with punishments of various kinds.
"Yes, ma'am," Jacob said.
"All right," Tyler said.
They split up and went off to take on their assigned chores. Carolyn watched them go and smiled to herself.
Later that afternoon, after their chores were completed, Jacob and Tyler met in the backyard. Each held a can of Coors. Tyler looked over his shoulder as if to check for spies. "We can't let her get away with that shit," he said.
Jacob nodded and took a swallow from the can. "You said it, bro. But what can we do?"
"I don't know, but we've got to do something to get her back."
They both swallowed nearly half their beer, then put their heads together for a serious discussion on how to exact revenge on their stepmother. Neither twin was mean by nature and they definitely didn't want to risk doing something that would result in permanent damage, or anger their father, who had always been a strict disciplinarian.
They talked for nearly fifteen minutes, sometimes laughing at the various suggestions they floated back and forth. Finally, they agreed on a strategy and clinked their beer cans as though they were performing a fist bump.
Just then, Carolyn called out that dinner would be ready in thirty minutes. Both boys hurried into the house to clean up after their afternoon work.
After a dinner of spaghetti and meat sauce, Carolyn rose from the table in the large kitchen. "I'm going to leave you boys to clean up the dishes. I've got to take a bath and get ready for my bible study group."
"We'll take care of everything, Carolyn," Jacob said. "Then we're going to the mall. Okay?"
Carolyn shifted her gaze back and forth. "Okay. But I'll expect you home by ten."
"Yes, ma'am," the twins said at the same time.
Once their stepmother was gone, the boys rushed through the kitchen cleanup. They were finished in ten minutes, then went upstairs, listening for the sound of running water. When they heard it, they set about executing the plan they had formulated earlier in the day. Working quickly and quietly, they were finished before Carolyn was out of the bath.
They smiled and nodded to each other as they met in the garage. Then, after a brief scuffle over who was going to drive, they got into their father's older BMW and took off for the mall.
When they entered the house from the garage at five minutes before ten, the house was quiet. They jostled each other moving toward the family room; both Jacob and Tyler wanted to get to the remote first.
However, they were stopped by Carolyn's shrill voice. "Jacob, Tyler... come into the living room please."
The boys looked at each other. "Shit!" Tyler mouthed to his brother.
As they entered the formal living room, the first thing they noticed was that the heavy curtains were drawn completely over the picture window. The second thing they noticed was that Carolyn was sitting in the middle of the long sofa. On the coffee table in front of her were several items, including a car key, a cell phone, three library books, and a leather-bound bible. Last in line was a wooden hair brush with a large oval head and long handle.
The boys shuddered at the sight. They had seen all these items before, including the hairbrush.
For a long moment, Carolyn remained where she was, glaring at her stepsons. She took a deep breath. "Do you recognize the stuff on the table?"
"Of course," Jacob said, trying to look surprised at the question.
"And when did you see the stuff last?" she asked.
Tyler tried to effect an indignant, or at least indifferent, look. "How should we know? I think all that stuff came out of your bedroom."
She nodded. "Well, it should have," she said. "Because that's where it all was this morning. But when I got out of the bathroom, I couldn't find any of these things."
Both Jacob and Tyler swallowed hard but tried to maintain expressions of ignorance. "Well... sometimes things get misplaced," Tyler offered weakly.
She flashed them a sinister smile. "Yes, they do," she said. "And sometimes they have help getting misplaced. I searched for more than two hours before I found everything. The car key had somehow found its way into my underwear drawer. Now, how do you suppose that happened?"
"How should we know?" Jacob said.
She scowled again. "I had to miss my bible study class. I was supposed to be the class presenter this evening. I couldn't even call to tell them I wasn't coming because I couldn't find my phone. Ten people were counting on me and I had to let them down because of your stupid prank."
"But... Carolyn," Jacob started. "We didn't do anything."
Her brown eyes widened and flashed anger. "Don't lie to me, boy," she said. "You know you did it. I know you did it. God knows you did it. Now you need to be punished for it." She paused and fingered the hairbrush.
Realizing her intent, both boys shook their heads and began to back away.
She held up her hand. "No," she said. "You're not getting out of this. Now, we can settle this tonight or I can tell your father when he comes home tomorrow and he can settle it. Also, I can tell my brother. I'm sure he'll be happy to hear about it."
The twins looked at each other and recognized the magnitude of the threat. They both knew that their father would no doubt side with Carolyn and administer a punishment far worse than anything she could mete out. Plus, Carolyn's brother Phil owned the landscape company they were set to work for. They could lose their jobs or, at the very least, get the most miserable assignments if Phil found out what they did to his younger sister.
As Carolyn had said, there was no getting out of this. The relatively innocent prank that seemed so clever in the afternoon didn't seem nearly so clever now that they were faced with the consequences. They both stopped backing away.
Carolyn held up the hairbrush. "You know, this beauty belonged to my mother. She gave it to me when I married your father. As far as I know, she never used it on her hair, but that doesn't mean she never used it. Neither my two brothers nor I was the perfect child by any stretch of the imagination. But we all turned out pretty well, partly, I believe, because of our rather frequent encounters with this particular hairbrush." She stopped and looked at her stepsons. "Now, you both know I have spanked you before when you've needed it and your father wasn't around; but never with the hairbrush. Now, it's time we got serious."
Jacob shuffled his feet. "Look, Carolyn... we're sorry, okay," he said. "Hiding your stuff was a stupid thing to do."
"But," added Tyler. "I guess we were just mad you made us go out and work. We're sorry you missed your bible study class. We weren't thinking clearly."
"I have no doubt you're both sorry now that you're facing punishment," she said. "But you can't apologize your way out of a spanking." She gripped the handle of the brush tightly in her right hand and patted her lap. "Now, get your pants off and come over my lap. I don't care who goes first, but don't make me wait or repeat myself or the consequences will be much worse, I assure you."
The boys looked at each once again. As a recently retired middle school principal, their stepmother had an air of authority that couldn't be easily denied or ignored. The boys had learned that lesson the hard way years ago.
"I'll go first," Jacob said, unbuckling the belt on his jeans.
Tyler nudged his brother and shook his head. "No, I'll go first. It was mostly my idea."
Jacob pushed Tyler and continued stripping out of his jeans. "No... I'll go first."
Tyler grabbed his brother's arm and twisted it. Jacob grimaced and was about to hit his brother when Carolyn held up a hand. "Stop, both of you!" she shouted. "It's that kind of crap that gets you into trouble. My god, you can't even agree on who's going to get spanked first." She looked at each of them. "Do rock, paper, scissors. Whoever wins goes first. Do it now!"
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