Learning to Be Billy Ch. 2

Isabel’s eyes flitted between blankness and a sorry understanding of where her stepmom was going. In mere seconds, she ran through what she believed to be her stepmom’s logic, and each time she reached the same conclusion; her mind would start over at the beginning, like a calculator asking it’s operator if she really meant to divide by zero. She didn’t know whether to scream or laugh and did neither, blankly looking back at her stepmom, mouth not quite agape.

“Billy wears diapers. Billy needs his diapers. And you thought it would be funny to steal his diapers knowing he might need a new one while he was away from home. In fact, you probably hoped he would because it wouldn’t be funny to you otherwise, and you didn’t think for a moment what that might mean for Billy and how it would make him feel.”

“Mom …”

Mrs. Klein talked right over Isabel. “As a consequence for your prank, you’re going to learn what it feels like to be Billy by wearing diapers for the rest of Christmas break.”

Even though she saw it coming, the final confirmation provoked a shriek of, “Mom, no!” She was no longer cognizant of anyone else in the room. Not Billy, unabashedly smiling; not Cara with her inscrutable expression and her arm still around Billy; not her friends in the family room, agog at the sentence Mrs. Klein just handed down.

“You can’t, I won’t, and I please. Please! Just ground me! I’ll do anything else. Take my phone; take my car; I’ll do all the chores, I’ll change all his diaper, anything! I’ll …”

Mrs. Klein leaned forward and swatted her stepdaughter’s butt through her Christmas jammies, intending the sharp smack to stop Isabel’s tantrum in its tracks. It worked; Isabel let out an “Eep” and fell silent, reaching her hand back to rub her butt. She knew her stepmom was serious, shattering the already minute shard of a doubt in her mind, born more by hope than belief.

“Empathy is an important life lesson, a heckuva lot more important than anything you’ll learn in that Introduction to Basket Weaving course you signed up for for next semester. I have zero problem extending your consequence all through next semester if that’s what it takes for you to learn your lesson. If you want me to believe Christmas break is enough, you need to cooperate right now, or you’ll be home and diapered through the end of summer break. Which will it well be?”

Isabel managed to get out a “I’ll cooperate” around the lump in her throat.

“Good. You will wear diapers like Billy; you will use diapers like Billy; and you will get treated like Billy. What happens to Billy when he gets in as much trouble as you’re in right now?”

“Mom,” Isabel whined, getting three syllables out of the word. She hadn’t whined like that in years; already she felt younger and smaller than her years. Like what she imagined Billy felt like.

“Bella,” Mrs. Klein asked, the word coming out as a question, entirely rhetorical, laden with warning.

“But I’m too old for a spanking.”

“Billy got spanked just yesterday, and he’s older than you.”

“And he’s too old for it too. Mom, come on!”

“Nonsense; if he’s not too old to be in diapers, then he’s definitely not too old to be spanked.”

“But he is too old to be in diapers!”

“You are not being a cooperative little girl right now.” She paused to let that sink in; Isabel started to say something else and stopped, and she cast her eyes down silently. “Let’s get this over with. Been a very long time, but I know you know how this works.” Mrs. Klein took Isabel by the elbow and started marching her to the kitchen table.

“Not in front of my friends!”

“If your friends think less of you because you need your bottom warmed, then they’re not really your friends. I’ve known them most of their lives, and I don’t think any one of them are that kind of person. Are you girls?”

The three girls sitting in the family room mere paces away, wide-eyed yet making no move to excuse themselves or go home or intervene, answered in the negative with a collection of certain (“Of course not.”) and uncertain denials (“Um, no?”).

“But Mom,” Isabel tried again. She had a death grip on the waistband of her pajama pants. She was no stranger to spanking. Billy got one about once a week, and he got it wherever, whenever, and in front of whomever the misbehavior took place. The only exceptions were in public, where he’d get taken to the ladies’ room, a dressing room, or the car for short, sharp preview of the trip he’d be taking over the knee when he got home. And public meant public; it did not include relatives’ houses, friends’ houses, or, for that matter, public places with no one around to see. Billy had gotten his bottom toasted behind a sand dune at the beach on their last family trip and up a trail at the park just before the weather turned cold. There wasn’t a person in the house who hadn’t seen Billy get it, and Isabel suspected, because it was just too weird to actually ask, Cara had had Billy across her lap before more than once.

As for Isabel herself, she hadn’t gotten anything more serious than the pop on her reset button, like one she’d gotten moments ago, in years, and she hadn’t been spanked since … She couldn’t even remember her last spanking.

“I’ll wear the diapers! Mom, I’ll wear the diapers! Just please don’t do this!”

“Isabel,” Mrs. Klein said calmly, “you need to calm yourself down right now and take a deep breath. Deep breath, right now.” Isabel took a deep breath, tears already running down her cheeks as she silently cried in embarrassment. “That’s a good girl. You are learning what it’s like to be Billy, and Billy gets his bottom spanked when he’s naughty. Please let go of your pajama bottoms.”

“Lemme keep ‘em on, please, Mommy. I promise I’ll learn my lesson. You don’t need to take them down, I promise. I’ll be good, I will.” Mrs. Klein did remember the last time Isabel had gotten a real spanking, and understanding of her stepdaughter’s plight as she was, Mrs. Klein was surprised to see Isabel more resistant and panicky at eighteen than all those years ago. She seemed to be going through a time machine, the prospect of spanking even turning Mrs. Klein into ‘Mommy’ again.

“Billy gets spanked on his bare bottom. It would hardly even get his attention to get spanked over his diapies.”

“But I’m not wearing a diapie,” Isabel moaned.

“And I’m not going to put you in a diaper just to take it right back down again to spank your fanny. Now, let go.”

Isabel knew she lost – and that pointing out the illogic of her stepmom’s last statement would only get her in more trouble – and let her stepmom move her hands to her sides. With the pull of a string, the bow tied at the waist of Isabel’s pajama bottoms came undone. Mrs. Klein needed only to tug Isabel’s PJ bottoms to her hips, and gravity took them the rest of the way to her ankles, exposing a pair of worn, pilled Christmas-themed underpants. “Looks like you need some new undies anyway, sweetie. How old are these?”

“I like them,” she pouted.

“You can have them back when you’re out of diapers.” She patted her knee twice and guided Isabel to her right. Isabel panicked at the last moment and was going to pull away, but her fuzzy Frosty the Snowman socks slipped out from under her. On the hardwood, and she tumbled across her stepmom’s lap. As she came to a stop, her hands on the floor and her feet in the air, time slowed down enough for her to process what was happening.

She looked up and saw Billy at the other end of the table with Cara; she pictured how she must’ve looked just then to the rest of her friends, her bottom pointed right at them. She’d seen Billy in the same position from the same angle before, and with a gasp she tried her hardest to squeeze her thighs shut, hoping her friends in the family room hadn’t noticed her exposed vulva.

Mrs. Klein had a routine when she spanked Billy’s bottom for him. She’d take down his pants, open his diaper, wipe off his diaper area, and lay him across her lap. It he wasn’t already crying the way Isabel was, he’d be sniffling the way Isabel also was. She’d tell him why he was getting spanked.

“Isabel, you are getting this spanking because you played a very mean prank on your brother. You ruined his time with Aunt Sally, and you ruined her shopping trip.”

She would explain to him how serious his misbehavior was. “That was very naughty. Mommy has no choice but to spank your bottom.”

She would warn him it would hurt. “It’s going to hurt. Your bottom is going to get red.”

She would remind him what was about to happen. “I’m going to give you one spank for each year of your age. You need to try to hold still for Mommy.”

And she would tell him what was going to happen after. “It’s okay to cry. When your spanking is over, Mommy is going to hold you until you're done crying, and then we’re going to talk about what you’re going to do differently in the future.”

All the while, Mrs. Klein was rubbing Isabel’s bottom. When she raised her hand, an electric bolt of reality shot through Isabel before the first spank landed: O my god – she’s going to spank me and make me a wear diapers FOR A MONTH!

Seized by panic, Isabel struggled to get off her stepmom’s lap, kicking her feet, arching her back, bucking her hips and pulling at the floor with her hands. Billy would usually hold still once he was over her knee; when he didn’t, Mrs. Klein always managed to keep him and his bottom where they needed to be to keep him from flopping off her lap or hurting himself despite his being much taller and heavier than her. Mrs. Klein held the girl tight to her hip and brought her hand down on Isabel’s pert bottom, keeping her in place with ease.

It was over in less than a minute, eighteen smacks to seat of the eighteen-year-old, not that she responded to her consequence anything like one might expect of a girl her age. You’d have though Mrs. Klein had spanked her back to toddlerhood the way she was crying, sobbing, and kicking. Observing from the family room, Isabel’s friends were looking away out of embarrassment not at seeing her privates, which Isabel had forgotten to hide as soon as the first spank was on its way, but at the way she took her spanking, the way one would expect of someone a third or even less of her age.

“Her butt isn’t even that red,” one said whispered.

“More like pink,” another replied.

Cara gave Billy a firm, attention-getting pat on the outside of his thigh. Mrs. Klein was gratified to hear her warn him, “I know you’re happy Bella got spanked for pranking you, but we don’t laugh when people get spanked. One more chuckle out of you, and I’m turning you over my knee right here in front of everyone. Understand?”

“Mhmm … Sorry.”

Mrs. Klein heard the sound of a caregiver planting a good boy kiss on her Billy’s temple. She was so pleased with Cara and the way she took care of Billy, so gentle and kind but never afraid to give him a refresher on right and wrong.

“Shhh shhh,” Mrs. Klein cooed to Isabel, “shhhh. You’re okay. Your spanking is all over now. You did a very good job.” She never admonished Billy for the times he just couldn’t hold still for her; she understood his emotions getting the better of him and coming out physically, and it was no different for Isabel. She did most of the work of lifting Isabel upright. Isabel, still crying hard, instinctively buried her face in her mom’s shirt, wrapping her arms tight around her and having the rest of her cry.

“There there. I know that was very scary and hurt a whole lot, baby. I want you to remember how you feel right now the next time you’re tempted to make a naughty choice.” Isabel cried until she was done crying. She sat up partway straight, not quite done sobbing, a random cramp in her diaphragm cutting her breath short a few more times as she listened to her stepmom.

“Right now is how Billy feels when I need to spank his bottom. It’s not fun at all, is it? That’s how you’re going to learn empathy, by feeling how Billy feels. You’re going to be treated just like he is for at least the next four weeks. Do you understand?” Isabel nodded and sniffed back her runny nose. “That means if you don’t make good choices, if you’re naughty, Mommy is going to have to spank again, and just like Billy, all your babysitters will have permission to spank if they need to; they all know where I keep Mrs. Hairbrush. But I don’t think it’ll come to that because you’re going to be such a good girl for everyone, aren’t you?” Isabel nodded again.

Cara’s hand appeared over Mrs. Klein’s shoulder, offering a tissue. “Thank you,” Mrs. Klein said and gently dabbed at the tear streaks on Isabel’s face. She folded it and held it to Isabel’s nose. “Blow for me.” The girl did as she was told; later, she’d tell herself it was only because her nose was so full she could hardly breathe.

“Do you have any questions?” Isabel shook her head. “Then it’s time to get you into a diaper. C’mon.”