Crystal is Crazy: The Cleaning Caper Part 5

Father and daughter sat together for several minutes, neither wanting to move. Finally James gave a last, gentle squeeze to his daughter's shoulders and then stood up. With his voice wrecked with emotion he barely managed to speak. "It's time, Crys," he sighed.

With a sob his beautiful daughter nodded, barely capable of doing so because of the pain it caused her. James turned and grabbed his strap hanging by the barn door. A single tear worked its way down his cheek before he forced himself calm down.

Normally for something like this he would bend his daughter over a hay bale but there was no way he would do that to her this time. Instead, he took a seat on another bale next to the one he and Crystal had previously occupied.

"Come on over here, baby girl," he sad forlornly. "Across my knees, like you would for the brush." Even though confusion etched her petite features she slowly got up from her seat and with some slight hesitation placed herself over her father's legs.

With a sigh James lifted his daughter's skirt until it rested the tips of her long, golden tresses. He slowly untied the drawstring keeping her bloomers up, baring her bottom. With a trembling hand he took the strap and raised it.

Given the circumstances he felt it only fair to give her warning. "Okay babe. We're going to begin." She gave an unintelligible response which James took to mean "okay." He took a deep breath and brought the elevated strip of leather down reasonably hard across her full portion of her bottom.

Crystal couldn't believe the awful pain. To begin with, she was still slightly tender from her strapping just the night before. But worse, the pain in her head seemed to extenuate all of her senses, including, apparently, the sense of touch. She screamed, the sound of which pierced her head.

James' heart was breaking but he dutifully raised the strap again and brought it down, not quite as hard, on her sit spot. As the red stripe surfaced on the pale globes his daughter's thin wail echoed off the barn walls. Tears were running down both father and daughter's faces as James let loose the third stroke.

Meanwhile, back in the house, Julia had called Danielle down to help her clean up. As much as she didn't want to, she figured tonight was NOT the night to protest. "Yes, Aunt Julia," she sighed reluctantly.

Julia was too preoccupied to notice the tone and smiled up at her niece. "Hey sweetie. Just help me clear here, first, okay?" she asked.

Danielle nodded and carried the plates gingerly between thumb and fore-finger. She made several trips as such without a problem but on the fourth the plate fell from her hands and broke into several pieces. Immediately she started crying large crocodile tears.

"Oh, Aunt Julia! I'm so SORRY!" she wailed. "I just can't seem to do ANYTHING right today! Even though it's not my fault Crystal handed me the soap and basin.."

Julia, who had been picking up the pieces of the fallen plate, trying to calm herself down, suddenly stopped. "WHAT did you say, Danielle?" she asked in a cold tone.

"That I'm not doing anything right today!"

"No. Not THAT part. What came NEXT."

"Uhh.. That it wasn't my fault Crystal handed me the soap and basin.." she said uncertainly, wondering where this was going.

"That's not what you told us this afternoon, Danielle," Julia said tersely.

"I'm sure you're mistaken, Aunt Julia," Danielle replied nervously.

"Oh, I'm sure I'm NOT," she snapped. Not when it would have meant a different.. And harsher.. punishment for Crystal. You know what you told us? That she ran off toward the barn, mumbling something about water and soap."

Danielle paled. How could she have forgotten?

Julia stood up and quickly had her finger in her niece's face. "It's time you start talking, girl."

"I.. I just got confused Aunt Julia," she tried lamely, but was cut off by a sharp slap to her cheek.

"What the?!" she shrieked, a hand going up to nurse her smarting cheek. Suddenly a second smack landed on the other one.

"I suggest you start telling the truth, Danielle," Julia said, her voice steely.

Danielle didn't know why but she was compelled to tell the truth. Softly, she started to speak. "I.. I kinda lied to get Crystal in trouble."

Julia's face grew red with anger. "Why? Did she do something to you?"

Looking back, the preppy girl wished she'd thought well enough to lie and say something to that effect, since it would get a little of the heat off of her. But by this time she was scared shitless. She simply shook her head no, unbidden tears springing to the corners of her eyes. To her surprise she felt her earlobe being tightly pinched by her irate aunt and then was being drug out the door.

"Ooooow!" she whined, struggling mightily to get free.

"You'll be 'ow-ing' plenty soon enough - save your breath," Julia spat as she raced toward the door. The woman nearly dragged her niece all the way to the barn as she hollered at the top of her lungs.

"JAMES! JAMES STOP! DON'T!" She was only halfway there and already she could hear her daughter's gut wrenching howls. It was those very cries and screams that kept James from hearing his wife.

Instead, just barely containing his own sobs, he slapped down the eighth stroke. He had already decided that every sixth strike was to be rewarded with some time for Crystal to catch her breath, otherwise he would have been much further along than this. Even with that first break though he could barely detect a change in her sobbing.

Crystal, for her part, felt like she was one large lump of pain. Her own screams hurt her head horrendously but she couldn't hold them in. All of a sudden the barn was flooded in light. The girl could only think that maybe she had gone to heaven, but no, the pain was still there. She suddenly feared she'd gone to hell but suddenly she heard voices: her parents' voices, and someone else's terrified sobs.

"JAMES!" Julia cried out desperately, and finally her husband heard her.

"So it wasn't good enough knowing the girl was being punished? You had to come and see for yourself?" he spat angrily, completely livid. "You want to see Crystal punished, fine! Here!" With that he raised the strap high, tears streaming down his dirty cheeks. To his surprise, though, a hand clasped his wrist.

"Don't!" Julia sobbed desperately. "There.. There has been a mistake."

"You know, I seem to remember saying something to that effect earlier," James snapped sarcastically.

"James, I know. Please.. Later. We'll take it up later. PLEASE."

James finally realized he'd do much better to help his daughter so he nodded, conceding. Gently, he drew his daughter's bloomers up and lowered her skirts before helping her up so her head wouldn't be hanging down any longer. He eased her onto his lap, trying to get as much of her already bruised bottom and thighs off his legs as possible.

Immediately she threw her arms around him, gasping with gut-wrenching sobs. While doing his best to comfort his daughter, James suddenly realized his niece was in the barn.

"Why on Earth is she in here?" he asked rather annoyed, but keeping his voice down for Crystal's benefit.

"Well, I think you'd better here this one out of Danielle's own mouth. And don't you dare sugar coat it, miss," said Julia, a definite edge still in her voice.

Danielle sobbed again but finally related everything to her uncle. Crystal at first believed she was hearing improperly. She couldn't believe that her bratty cousin was ACTUALLY CONFESSING!

By this time Julia was crossing over to her husband and child and sat down next to them. She began to caress Crystal's back and hair and finally took her in her own arms so her husband could stand. He quickly strode over to his niece and grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip.

"So you think it's funny to set your cousin up, do you?" he roared, causing Crystal's sobs to escalate as her head pounded even fiercer.

Danielle began shaking her head rapidly, despite her own confession just minutes before. James chuckled.

"Well, we'll see how funny you find it when YOU are in her position. You are getting what she was supposed to get but the extra six awarded her is twice that. Over that hay bale. NOW!"

Danielle stood frozen in fear, never expecting this. Suddenly Julia spoke up. "James, we'll do it later.."

"Oh, and just how long do you want to put this off?" Her husband asked sarcastically. "You couldn't put it off for Crystal."

Julia sighed. "I.. I know. But it's because of Crystal I want to wait. We're going to put it off until she's better and well enough to watch." While Danielle blanched Crystal cracked the first smile since that afternoon.

"Please Uncle James!" Danielle pleaded. "Don't!"

The stern but loving man shook his head. "I've decided, Danielle. And you will wait however long it takes and you will have it done in front of your cousin. It is only fair."

With that he went and scooped his suffering daughter off of his wife's lap and carried her back to the farmhouse and up to her room.

"I'll let your ma come help you get changed while I'm getting the injection prepared, okay, sweetie?" he said softly as he left her in her mother's charge. He hurried back downstairs where he prepared the large hypodermic of morphine. (Back in those days they not only knew what the cause of the headaches were, they didn't know that painkillers not only didn't help the actual headache, but they also frequently made the headaches worse)

Then he went and moistened two cloths for her, grabbed the bottle of alcohol and grabbed one clean, dry cloth for himself and headed back up to Crystal's room. By this time she had just gotten into HER bed on her stomach, prepared for her painful injection.

James came in and handed Crystal one of the wet cloths for her forehead, then lifted up the hem of her nightgown to reveal her slightly bruised rear end.

James looked away a moment, barely able to believe he had done this to her when he had so desperately not wanted to. When he looked back he tried desperately to find someplace new and untouched but even after ten lashes everything was at least a bright red.

"This is gonna hurt more than usual, babe... but at least everything'll stop hurting quite so much as soon as the serum takes effect." Crystal gave a muffled sob but bravely nodded. James finally just swabbed the muscle near the hip and inserted the thick needle.

It took a while but soon she was all done. James gently lay the second wet cloth on her swollen cheeks then lowered her nightgown. After this he pulled up her desk chair and sat with her until she was asleep, and praying over her for quite some time after.