by Kay Wilton
Daryl Ford hadn't meant to do it. In a way he put it all down to getting that early Christmas present. A nice bit of tech, it was a tablet whose camera had an astrological setting. You could use it as a telescope and it would outline the constellations, which made it unique among cameras, and unique was worth showing off. But if he tried to show it off and he failed to do it right the first time then he'd look like a fool. Just like when Randal had tried to show off his new super huge cloud account without knowing that he needed a different password to download over a public network. There was nothing more embarrassing than saying "Everyone watch this," and following that with "Okay, I think it might work now, no, okay this time it might. Oh, no, that's not it."
Which was why Daryl had been outside that night. With the lights from his house blocking out the stars he had moved to the edge of the property, to the privacy fence separating it from the Donaldson home. There he was, trying to film the stars, when Old Mr. Donaldson came out carrying a trash can, speaking loudly to his wife as he did.
"... forget it," Mr. Donaldson said in an angry voice, clearly mid sentence. "She can just forget it. If she doesn't pull that GPA up then Christina Ann Donaldson's going to learn she ain't too old to go over my lap. No, being in college doesn't mean she's too old for a pants downer with the belt. Not if her grades don't..."
The closing of the door cut off Mr. Donaldson's words, but the damage was done. There was now a video of the night sky with Old Mr. Donaldson ranting about taking the belt to his daughter. One that ran until Daryl recovered enough to stop it. He wasn't sure what he would do with it, but there was no way he was going to linger here. If Old Mr. Donaldson didn't think his daughter was too old to spank, and that girl was old enough that she had sometimes babysat Daryl, no, it just wouldn't do for Old Mr. Donaldson to think that Daryl had been spying on him.
The night sky forgotten, Daryl headed to the privacy of his room to think.
"... doesn't mean she's too old for a pants downer..."
Daryl paused the video, trying to get his head around its words. It wasn't like Christy Donaldson (who was only called Christina when she was in trouble) was some girl just out of high school. No, she was in her third year at university (the same university was where Daryl should be, and would be, if not for needing to spend two years in grade 12 to qualify for admission). Daryl thought that she might even be legal to buy booze.
There had even been a few times that she had babysat for him. She hadn't sat often because of the narrow age gap, but there were times she had been called in sometimes as an emergency sitter when others weren't available. Those times she had been the adult, the authority figure telling him what to do. To think of cool, good-looking Christy Donaldson getting the belt, that seemed impossible. The pants downs part, that he could picture, but not the smacking.
But to be honest, the only reason he could picture Christy Donaldson with her pants down was that she sometimes sunbathed in her backyard. Not that she did it nude, but there had been times last summer when Daryl had crawled up to the attic to peer through a window over the fence at her as she lay there in a very skimpy bikini. One that showed almost all of her delightful hiney. What he wouldn't have given to see Christy Donaldson with that bikini yanked down.
Not that he had ever suspected that her pants were ever yanked down. The Donaldsons had been his neighbours all his life and Daryl had never suspected that the couple spanked. They were older than his folks, Christy being their youngest by at least five years, and he had always thought of them as more of his grandparents' generation than of his parents, so maybe it made sense that they had old fashioned views on spanking. Views that they didn't talk about with their neighbours. Thinking back, he tried to remember if Christy Donaldson had threatened to spank him those few times that she had sat for him. Daryl knew that he would remember if Christy Donaldson had actually tried to spank him (the way he would never forgot how that bitch Melissa Kingston had actually landed a hard swat on the seat of his jeans the last, very last, time she had ever sat for him) but had Christy Donaldson even hinted that she might spank him? Daryl didn't think so, but he couldn't say for sure. It was just so long ago. Four, no, more like six years, and who could remember that far back?
Musings about ancient history were soon replaced by a fresh line of thought. Now that he knew Christy Donaldson's cute hiney had reason to fear a belt, well, what to do about the knowledge? And he more than knew it, he had proof. He had a video. Should he post the video? Share it with friends? Tease her about it? And just what would Christy Donaldson do to keep that video off the net?
That thought went racing through his mind, chased by the memory of how beautifully Christy Donaldson filled out the seat of that bikini. Right and Wrong warred in his soul, battling until Rationalisation stepped in to offer him the answer he wanted.
"Is it blackmail if I don't ask for anything?" Daryl asked himself. "No, of course it isn't. And if she offers me something to keep quiet then that's on her, not me."
His conscience mollified, the wrong decision made, the rest of the plan raced together. First the video joined countless other clips on Daryl's laptop where it was edited slightly, returned to his new tablet, then a quick trip out to connect to a different WiFi system.
Sitting in the shadow of the library, Daryl created a new gmail account. One carefully typed message later he was smiling, knowing that there would be no way to trace the email beyond the library's hotspot. Daryl was almost proud of the message, which obliquely referred to the subject of the attached video. That way he didn't even have to type the word 'spanking'. Now all he had to do was wait until Christy Donaldson answered the message.
Which wasn't long. Her response came the next day. One line long, all it said was that exams were hell and she couldn't answer his email until she got home at Christmas. Which was a fair answer. Daryl kept his eye out for her return to her parent's house, checking his new email address every day at the library, hoping for an update from her, but the days dragged on with no sign of her answering.
As he waited on her reply, Daryl kept searching his mind, looking for any memory of those few times that Christy Donaldson had sat him. He knew he wasn't the only one she had sat for, and that she had sat for others far more often than she had sat for him, but he couldn't recall any mention of her smacking any of the kids she sat for. Which didn't mean it didn't happen, just that he hadn't heard about it happening.
Christmas Eve was as always, a school free day, one that Daryl planned to spend in his Christmas pyjamas(a Ford family tradition dating back to when the kids spent the entire day playing under the tree; everyone in Daryl's family still got a new pair each Yule and could wear them around the house all Christmas). The rest of the family might be busy, and even his siblings had last minute shopping to do, but Daryl felt like lounging around doing nothing. He wasn't even sure if he was going to get dressed and head for the library to check for a reply from Christy Donaldson, but if he did that then that would happen sometime in the afternoon. He had a school free morning to goof around on and he intended to enjoy himself.
Alone in the house, Daryl was in his room when the doorbell rang sometime around 11 AM. Daryl was tempted to ignore the chiming of the bell, but what if was a last minute delivery from the FedEx man? One with a great gift that could be for him? Grumbling, he slid jeans over his PJ bottoms and tossed his top off. Taking a T-shirt with him, he pulled it on as he raced barefoot for the door.
Opening it, Daryl felt his mouth drop. It wasn't the FedEx man, the UPS man, or any other deliveryman. No, Christy Donaldson was standing there with her purse over one arm and a large Tupperware container in her hands.
"My mom asked me to drop off some of her Christmas baking," Christy Donaldson said as she walked past him.
"My mom's not home," Daryl said, closing the door behind her.
"Yeah I know, I can see her car's gone," Christy noted, walking on towards his kitchen. "She can drop her stuff off later. Or maybe she already sent it over. I don't know how they work things. All I know is that my mom asked me to drop this off on my way to the mall. As if I didn't have enough to do today. God, the mall's going to be crazy this year."
Christy kept up a steady stream of small talk as she made her way to the kitchen and deposited the Tupperware container in the fridge. Daryl let her walk back towards him, his thoughts elsewhere. He would dress, race to the nearest hotspot, and see the reply to his message. If there was no reply, well then he would just have to send a reminder message to force her to react to him.
"So everyone else is out," Christy Donaldson finally said, making it more of a statement than a question. "Well I suppose that's fine."
"It is?" Daryl replied, his mind still elsewhere.
Christy turned and looked her neighbour in the eyes. "Yeah, it means we can have that talk," she said, and smirked.
"Um, talk?" Daryl asked, not sure where this was going.
"Yeah, the talk about that email," Christy said firmly.
"Um, what email?" Daryl squeaked, knowing that there was no way she could know who had sent that email.
Still smirking, Christy reached into her purse. Taking out a folded piece of paper, she handed it to him.
Daryl's mouth went dry when he saw that it was a printout of the email he had sent, complete with the headers and routing info. There at the bottom, covered with yellow highlighter in case he missed it, were the words: Sent from Daryl Ford's new unregistered Acme 8000 tablet. Remind Daryl Ford to register his Acme 8000 tablet today.
Daryl could only stare at those words.
"Gmail doesn't normally show sigs," Christy Donaldson told him, her voice cutting though his rising panic. "You have to click to expand them to see the sig. But yeah, I clicked, then I printed it off, and now we can have that talk."
Daryl's eyes went to his feet. He couldn't face her. He could feel his face turning bright red and he couldn't think of what to say. He had made his move, gotten caught, and that was all there was to say.
"Yeah, so let's review the situation," Christy said.
Not to be reposted, reproduced or distributed, in part or whole.