Ch. 11: Preview #5

Amir gasped, looking to Jen in deepest gratitude, as if she’d just fulfilled all his life dreams.  Which, lol, she probably had.  She wore a big smile on her face as she brought Nora aside, in sight of Amir but just out of earshot.

But then her happiness clouded.  “Damn, why can’t my teammate be that easy?”

“Givin’ you trouble, is he?” replied Nora.

Jen explained how paradoxical her Mouse had been: near-perfect all day, then crabby and belligerent when they got to the studio.  Similar unpredictability yesterday, and the day before.   Frequent quick changes in attitude without an apparent rhyme or reason.

“Typical,” Nora laughed.  “In my experience.”

“In your experience babysitting?”

“Yeah.”  She leaned in slyly.  “You know, it’s tempting to treat the grown-ups different than the younger ones … but over time, you start to see the patterns.  They’re not all that different from each other, many times.”

Nora babysat older men sometimes.  That fact was maybe not quite as crazy-sounding to Jen anymore.  But … “Surely they’re not that alike.”

“Fair enough: sometimes the grown-up ones behave worse,” said Nora with a wistful chuckle.  “I can’t get too mad at ‘em though.”

Jen shook her head.  “But they’re exactly the ones who should know better!”

“True, but they’ve also had longer for toxic male culture to infect their brains.  It ain’t easy to fight that.  It just keeps cropping up.”

She told Jen about a fellow just the other day, who in private was every bit as excited to see Nora as Amir was.  Delighted to have Nora take charge of everything, and gladly told her so.  Even did well in public – that is, until they happened to meet his old roommate from college.  Then suddenly he got all ‘puffed up and full of bluster,’ as Nora described it. 

Another guy, the week before, asked Nora to do impressive feats of strength in her backyard: crush a watermelon between her palms, rip a stack of magazines right in half, toss him high in the air.  On and on; he couldn’t get enough.  But later, at a park, some bigger guys playing football laughed at him for happily letting Nora carry him on her back.  Nora had been sure his gentle personality would shrug this off, no problem – only to return from the bathroom minutes later to find him playing tackle football with these much larger guys, pushing and shoving them and giving in to every taunt.  She stepped in and swatted them away just seconds before he got totally creamed.

“Both of them were the sweetest, mildest mannered guys you could ever dream of,” Nora insisted.  “Totally Amir-like, on the surface.  No clue they would act like that.  But even the best of boys can have these primitive male impulses that will set them off.”

Wow, that was blunt.  “Just guys?  What about women?”

“Oh, we can get temperamental too.  But it’s way stronger in guys; they’ve lived through decades of bad cultural norms, backed by millions of years of alpha-male primate B.S.  We ladies don’t have that.  It’s why we’re better leaders, frankly.  And why so many guys are struggling with these types of issues.”

Jen frowned uncertainly.  “So, what, am I just supposed give him a free pass then, if he can’t help it?  What if he does it on stage?”

“Oh, that’s exactly where he’ll do it, when the pressure is highest.”  Amidst Jen’s dismal frown, Nora reassured, “But there’s one tried and true method to help that never happen!  The one thing strong enough to cut past those bad instincts and form new, better habits: a good, ol’ fashioned spanking.  Which, after our chat the other day, I assume you’ve already tried.”

Jen blushed.  “No.  I was holding off on that.”

Nora gasped.  “Jen!  Why not?  Oh gosh!”  She put a hand to her forehead.  “At least now your next step is clear!”

The Panther huddled with Jen for two minutes, doling out firm advice and impeccable instructions.  She mapped out every second of how it should go, down to each word and precise physical detail.  Jen felt reasonable confidence now in her ability to spank him properly, if she did it.

But did she want to?

Crucially: did she have a choice?

She planted a quick kiss atop Amir’s head then started walking, weighing pros against cons, feeling more nervous with every step.  Spanking a grown man; her own ex-father … Was she really about to do this?