Foster Forest (6): Stress and Strain

Three days had passed since Peter had first suggested to Becky that he was going to take Elizabeth to his house to help him unpack. When he'd gotten up to her room that day and opened the door, the little girl had been curled up on her side, her arm tucked around a book. She had been fast asleep. Because Peter hadn't had the heart to wake her and begin the war all over again, he had allowed her to sleep, had slipped from her room, and had gone on about his business.

As far as Peter was concerned, the three days in between had been hell. Becky told him that the behavior was normal for Elizabeth, but his insides were churning with the desire to change what was "normal" into something a lot better than what he was seeing. Toward him, Elizabeth was surly and unpleasant. She disrespected everything he said and was unmanageable to the point where Becky had allowed Peter three days off to work on getting himself established in his own home. In other words, she had separated them. Toward Becky, Elizabeth was simply disrespectful, and although she obeyed almost everything the young woman told her to do, Peter decided that he'd given Elizabeth a distinct advantage in what appeared to be an ongoing war between them.

His days off had been spent deciding how he was going to handle the "situation" that was Elizabeth. Normal children did chores and weren't allowed to disrespect their parents. As strict as Becky was, Peter decided that she was also too sympathetic to Elizabeth, and he knew that would have to change before there were more than one children in the house. If these were to be difficult kids he couldn't imagine the chaos that would result from such a serious lack of discipline. Elizabeth's attitude would change, and change for the better. Otherwise, what he knew to be Becky's mission at Foster Forest would fail.

On the fourth day Peter arrived at the house in time for breakfast, but not to make it. He still wasn't "on duty" until that evening, but he wanted to have some time to spend with Becky and Elizabeth, since he'd been so hard at work getting the furniture set up and creating his studio in one of the upstairs bedrooms of the house. He was hoping for a good morning, and when he walked into the house and smelled bacon and eggs cooking, a smile spread across his face. He'd let Becky know he'd be here, so he was certain there would be enough.

"Shit!" He heard Becky's voice coming from the kitchen, and broke into a jog as he tried to get there quickly. He wasn't sure how often the woman swore, but given that he saw it as an unattractive trait in a woman, he had made it up in his mind that this very attractive woman didn't swear very often at all. Something serious must be going on to make her curse.

Rounding the corner, Peter saw that Becky had her finger tucked into her mouth, sucking on it. He let out a short chuckle in spite of himself. "What happened?" he asked, putting his hand on hers and pulling down so that he could take a look. "Burn yourself?" he asked when he saw the small red mark. Peter sighed and sat down at one of the kitchen chairs, pulling Becky along with him. He took a good, long look at the burn and then nodded. "Let me get you an ice pack, and I'll finish up breakfast. Cooking isn't my strong suit though, I'll warn you!" He grinned, and then winked at Becky as he went to the freezer and pulled an ice pack out, handing it to her.

"I'm not either," Becky confessed, and he could hear a hint of regret in her voice. He turned from where he'd gone to the sink. Her eyes were still following him around the room, and Peter felt a strange flush creep up his face. He nodded his head and quickly pulled the scrambled eggs off the griddle before they burned. "I was pretty much done," Becky said. "The bacon and hash browns are in the oven. If you just want to throw some toast on, I'll go get Lizzie."

"Where is she?" Peter asked, turning over his shoulder to take a look at Becky, his eyebrows raising. It seemed to him that the girl should be here, in the kitchen, helping with the preparations. At the very least she could be rinsing the dishes that were used in cooking and putting them into the dish washer. There was no reason for a ten year-old not to have some chores of her own, and he hoped that she was maybe out feeding the horses or maybe cleaning her room -- or the library, for that matter. It didn't matter what the chores was as far as Peter was concerned: what mattered was that she had some of them to learn responsibility.

"She's in the library... Reading." The words were spoken in such a way that Peter knew that his employer was aware he wouldn't be happy with the situation. When he looked toward her, Becky's eyes were averted. "I can't... Force her to do anything she doesn't want to do," Becky said. "And I haven't got the heart to fight with her," she added.

Hiding his anger, Peter turned back and began to rinse the cooking dishes, putting them away in the dish washer and then adding the soap and running it. It was full now. "Go get her," he said. "She and I are going to have a talk today. She's going to help me to unpack the rest of my things over at the house. I'm not afraid of her Becky, and if there's going to be a fight, so be it. Her behavior isn't normal for a child her age and she needs to take on some responsibility. End of story."

Peter didn't leave any room for argument, and Becky got up straight away and returned several moments later with Elizabeth. Peter had already gotten the table set and had put the plates together, one at each setting. He pulled out a chair for Elizabeth and waited while she got into it, then tucked it up to the table and took his own seat. For a long time he regarded her coolly. Becky said a prayer over the food, and breakfast began.

There was silence for about five minutes. Elizabeth and Becky both seemed to eat slowly, though Peter wolfed down his food and pushed his plate aside. He was eager to get the argument he knew was coming out of the way. Clearing his throat, Peter looked directly at Elizabeth. "You're going to come over to my house today to help me get the rest of my things unpacked. Then Ms. Becky has the night off tonight, so if she wants to go and do something other than hang around here, it will just be you and me." He hadn't meant to sound harsh, or demanding, though even Peter had to admit that the look of exasperation Becky was giving him was probably well deserved.

"I don't want to," Elizabeth said, scooping some hash browns into her mouth and chewing slowly. She didn't meet Peter's eyes, and he had a feeling in his gut that meant she knew he was going to win this argument even before it started.

"It's interesting," Peter said, feigning thoughtfulness. "I don't remember asking. You are going to come over and help me to get something done, and then tonight we're going to talk about proper chores for you to do around here. I'd like to see this place be as close to a family as possible, and in a family, everybody pulls their weight."

"Yeah? Well this isn't my family!" Elizabeth snapped, her brown eyes blazing as she looked up to meet Peter's gaze. She pushed back from the table and stomped off. Listening, Peter determined that she hadn't gone upstairs, and he suspected that meant the library.

Clenching his jaw, Peter picked up his plate and went to scrape it into the sink. He turned on the disposal and let it run for a moment before putting his plate into the dishwasher, along with his utensils. He was spending the necessary time cooling off, and he didn't so much as turn to look at Becky while he performed all of these menial tasks. He knew what he had to do, and he was going to carry out the necessary work, especially if she was unwilling herself. He shot Becky a glance as he left the kitchen and headed for the library. Peter could only hope that Becky didn't start picking up after Elizabeth. He realized now that because he had picked up the library after her he'd given a very definite wrong impression.

In the doorway of the library, Peter stopped and put a hand on his hip. Elizabeth was curled up in a chair with a stack of books on the end table and another book in her lap. He glanced at the stack, feeling his anger rising, but he pushed it back. At least the books weren't strewn all around the room, and since his standards were so high he couldn't impose them on everybody else or he'd have Elizabeth scrubbing baseboards every couple of weeks. That would be slave labor, and far from fair.

Peter could tell from the shift of her body language that Lizzie knew he was there. "Elizabeth Moore," he said in a steady but cool voice. "Look at me." Peter felt that he was being more than fair in giving the little girl a chance to talk to him before he made his point. But this was her last chance, and if she didn't cooperate with him this time, she was going to be miserable.

"What?" the ten year-old snapped, looking up at Peter with anger in her brown eyes. "What do you want?"

"What I want," Peter stressed, "is for you to follow the rules. You know full well that a new one has been added regarding cleaning up after yourself. There is also a rule about respect that you've been disobeying as I understand it the entire time that you've been here. Now I have a breaking point, and my mother always said that my fuse was short. So we're going to deal with this right here and now so that hopefully we won't have to deal with it later on today, when you are at my house helping me to unpack," he emphasized.

"I already told you! I don't want to go and help you with your stupid unpacking!" Elizabeth snapped.

Before she could react, Peter had Elizabeth hauled over the arm of the easy chair she'd been sitting in. With some effort, he yanked down her jeans, a low growl in his throat as he did so. Quickly they were followed by her panties, and this time Peter pulled both all the way down to her ankles. His purpose wasn't to humiliate her, though he knew that a spanking from a man would have that effect on a ten year-old. He also didn't intend to really hurt her, though he knew the pain of a spanking would do her a great deal of good. "Since the last spanking I gave you was so ineffective, Peter said, "we'll see if another warming doesn't do the trick to convince you that I'm in charge here, and not you."

Peter's hand came down rapid fire on Elizabeth's bottom, his hand smacking down hard against her bare flesh. There was still a reminder of the spanking from four days previously, a little hint of red that told Peter he had, in fact, left bruises on the child's bottom. He was spanking hard and furiously, and not saying a word as Lizzie's legs kicked out behind her and she began to wail. Behind him, he could sense the presence of Becky, but he kept going on with the spanking, not letting up at all. He was determined to make an impression on the girl, and not even aware that he was making the wrong one.

When Peter had to pause to catch his breath, Becky spoke up. He didn't turn, but he could smell coffee, and Peter suspected that she had a cup for him as well. "I think you two have gotten off to the wrong start," she said with despair in her voice. "I'm sorry that it has to be this way." Then her presence left the room.

Lizzie was sobbing hard, and when Peter's attention was diverted, she scrambled into the chair and curled up tightly. She'd kicked off her pants and panties in the fight, and now she peered at Peter with wide, unhappy eyes. Peter shook his head and then pointed a finger at her. "Get your clothes fixed and come into the kitchen. Rinse your plate and put it into the dishwasher. You can do that much at least."

With that, and not knowing what else to do, Peter simply picked up the cup of coffee that Becky had left on the table and went back to the kitchen to talk to Becky. She was in the kitchen, scrubbing the rest of the dishes from breakfast. When he entered, she turned over her shoulder to give him a glance, and he shrugged, sitting down at the table with his coffee and drinking it black, just the way he liked it.

"This isn't... her," Becky said, her voice sad as she turned from the sink and put her hands on her hips, watching Peter. "You two have really gotten off to a bad start and I feel as though there's something I should be doing."

"She was humiliated when I walked in on her spanking that first time I came out here," Peter shrugged. "She's acting out because of that, no doubt." He shrugged. "You could try to talk to her about it, but it would probably only make the situation worse. Just let it work itself out."

"You also changed the rules on her," Becky said pointedly, tossing the blame ball back into his court.

Peter's mouth set in a grim line as he looked at the young auburn-haired woman. "No. I didn't change the rules. I told her to do something and she refused. She suffered the consequences of disobeying me, and then the rules were changed. Don't take responsibility off of her, Becky. That isn't fair. It isn't fair to her."

"No," Becky said thoughtfully. "Maybe not. But it's going to be hard for you to get to know her if you're constantly laying down the law. She's not going to want to come within ten feet of you if every time she sees you she winds up bottom's up."

Peter sighed and took a sip of his cooling coffee. "No," he said. "Perhaps not. But I don't see what I'm supposed to do. Just let the rules slide, because she doesn't know me so well?"

Becky watched Peter for a long time, and he began to feel uncomfortable. He shifted, then guzzled the last of his coffee and took the cup to the sink, giving Becky a gentle bump of his hip to move her out of the way so that he could rinse the cup out. He was about to put it in the dishwasher when he heard that it was running. He'd started it himself. Exasperated, Peter began to run the sink full of hot, soapy water. "Elizabeth can wash her dishes by hand. It's a fair punishment for her insolence," he growled as he washed out his mug and put it on the draining rack to dry.

When he turned back toward her, Becky had Elizabeth tucked up in her arms. The child was still sobbing, and Peter felt his heart sink immediately. He'd been too angry, and he'd dealt with her too harshly. He could see that immediately. Just the way that she sought comfort from Becky made him feel terrible, and he wanted to reach out to the little girl but even as he began to do so, Becky shook her head with a stern expression on her face.

"Lizzie," the woman said, gently guiding the little girl away from her so she could look into her face. "I want you to do what Mr. Peter asks you to do. Right now you need to pick up your plate and wash it in the sink, then put it on the draining rack. You know how to do that, don't you?" Becky asked. Her tone was much more gentle than Peter's had been, and he found himself kicking himself for being too harsh.

The little girl looked over at Peter, her eyes puffy and red from crying, and nodded her head. He couldn't determine what the expression on her face meant, so he simply moved out of her way so that she could get to the sink and take care of her dishes from breakfast. It was going to be a long day; Peter was sure of it.

***

Two hours later, Peter was standing in front of the stove in number seven. No work had gotten done, but at least Elizabeth wasn't sulking too badly. He'd told her upon their arrival at his new home that she could spend some time reading only after she'd done the tasks that he had set out for her. There had been a tantrum, with Elizabeth upset because Becky had allegedly told her that she would never use books as a punishment; that she would never take them away. Trying to be patient, Peter had explained that he wasn't taking the books away and that he wasn't punishing her. He was showing her the necessity of prioritizing your tasks. It hadn't gone especially well until he pointed out that Becky didn't take a night off unless she knew that Lizzie was settled in, had eaten, and was taken care of. The same went with the horses. She didn't ride unless the horses had been fed and Elizabeth had been given her breakfast. He even used himself as an example until Lizzie was either tired of listening or understood the point and let up on him.

Peter had been very relieved when that moment had finally come.

Now they weren't fighting, but they weren't speaking, either. No work had been done, and noon had come and gone. Hungry, Peter had headed into the kitchen to work on fixing something up for lunch. He would have just slapped together a sandwich with cold cuts if he'd been alone, but he thought that Lizzie might enjoy a hot lunch, and he had some tomato soup and the fixings for grilled ham and cheese sandwiches in the fridge. That much he could manage. He turned the griddle on and buttered the bread before poking his head out of the kitchen to check to make sure that Lizzie wasn't reading a book. Since she hadn't brought one with her, it seemed rather impossible that she could be reading. Of course, she wasn't. She was sitting on the living room couch seemingly staring off into space. Peter could tell she was crying again.

Standing in the kitchen doorway, Peter faltered on what he should do. His instinct told him to go and give the little girl a hug, and to hold her for as long as she needed to be held. Common sense told him that if he didn't get back to lunch, something was going to burn. Sighing, Peter went over to where Lizzie was sitting and put his hand heavily on her shoulder. "Come on into the kitchen," he said, wording it carefully so that she would know he wasn't making a suggestion. "I'm not much of a cook, but you're ten years old and it's plenty time you learned how to throw together a grilled ham and cheese sandwich."

"I'm not hungry," the ten year old said. There was no sass, and no real emotion in her voice at all.

Peter didn't know anything about the food issues that Elizabeth had already shown, and her apparent lack of appetite meant nothing to him in terms of her emotional state. He only shrugged and turned back toward the kitchen. "There's no reason you can't learn. Come on."

He headed back into the kitchen and made the sandwiches up, dropping two of them onto the griddle. Peter figured that if Lizzie didn't want one, he could easily eat two of them. He opened the can of soup and slowly poured it into the pot on the stove.

"So... What?" came a voice from behind him, a hint of curiosity tinged around the edges. "You just make the sandwiches and stick them on there?" When Peter glanced over Lizzie was poking at one of the sandwiches with her finger, and then she looked over at him. He felt a silent wave of relief at the thought that perhaps she was willing to try to relax a little bit and give him a chance.

Peter took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he glanced over at Lizzie. "Yeah. You just butter the bread, build the sandwiches, and then throw them on the griddle. You sure you don't want one? You could make it yourself."

The little girl looked thoughtful for a moment, and then shook her head, poking the sandwiches again. Peter pulled a spatula out of the drawer and handed it to her. "They're about ready to flip," he said. "I'm going to finish off this soup. You really ought to eat something." He wasn't pressuring her, in large part because he didn't think that there was any reason to. Even so, Lizzie didn't put together a sandwich of her own, but sat down at the kitchen table.

Peter glanced over at the little girl. He wasn't sure what he should say to her, so he kept his thoughts to himself. When the food was ready, he took it to the table and sat down with it, eating slowly. He didn't know Lizzie well, but it seemed that she was awfully quiet, and what he wanted most was to draw her out of her shell and to get her to talk to him. It didn't seem normal to him that a child -- particularly a girl child -- would be so quiet all of the time. Whenever he saw her she seemed to have her nose stuck in a book, or she was sleeping with a book, or she just plain wasn't talking. He could see that she'd opened herself to Becky, so why should it be any different for him.

"So..." Peter said, trying to start conversation flowing. "What do you think of this place?"

The little girl just shrugged.

Peter waited for a moment, hoping that she would say something, but when no words came he felt a heat rising to his cheeks. He wasn't sure, yet, whether he felt more anger or humiliation, but he swallowed it back and took another bite of his sandwich. Lizzie was staring out the sliding glass door at the outside, where the trees were now fully green and the warmth was just on the edge of where it would become oppressive. Peter followed her gaze and caught sight of a doe with her fawn. He couldn't help but smile, and he was about to say something when Lizzie turned back to him, her eyes blazing once again.

Shocked by the suddenness of the child's anger, Peter flinched. "Well," he said. "I like it just fine. My house is beautiful, the home where you live is well suited to take care of youngsters like you. I guess if I was in your shoes, I just wouldn't fight the system. You're acting too stuck up," he said, pushing away from the table to take his plates to the sink. He hadn't finished, and he tossed half of his uneaten sandwich into the garbage before rinsing the plates and putting them in the dish washer. "A little ungrateful, I think."

"What's there to be grateful for?" the little girl fumed at Peter.

He could feel the tension coming off of her, and when he turned his head to look, her hands were balled up into tight, angry fists. Peter's eyebrows rose and he reached up to run a hand through his shaggy blonde hair. "What's there to be grateful for? Hmm... Let's see... Food in your belly... A roof over your head... All the books that Becky lets you read... Those all seem like plenty good reasons to be grateful to me."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, and Peter had to clench his teeth. It was a disrespectful gesture that he absolutely abhorred.  Alright, he thought to himself. Obviously this isn't going to be an easy conversation. He'd left the paddle at the children's home, which meant that if things went in the direction he suspected they were going to go, he was going to have to find another way to handle the situation. Almost without thinking, his hand went to his waist, testing to see if there was a belt there. He thought he would never use it on a child, but the knowledge that he was wearing one was somehow comforting.

"You don't argue like this with Becky."

"So?"

Peter's jaw set in a grim line, and he closed his eyes, trying to decide whether or not they should proceed at all. He'd been hoping to give Becky some kind of a break from taking care of Elizabeth, who clearly could be quite difficult. She'd been working so hard since the beginning that Peter thought she deserved a day off here and again. He hadn't imagined that things would go this badly. Not in a million years.

"Okay," Peter said after a moment. "Clearly this isn't going well. I get that you don't like me very much, but I also get that there's nothing I can do to change that. So how about we get to work on unpacking these boxes, and then we can go back to the home, have dinner, and you can spend the evening in your library, reading."

"She said she'd never use my books as a punishment." The child wasn't moving to come into the living room and help with those last few boxes, but was standing near the table with her hands on her hips, an angry expression on her face.

"Well?" Peter asked, not understanding what the issue was.

Lizzie stomped her foot in clear aggravation. "Well! You said I couldn't read until my chores were done!"

Confused, Peter cocked his head and raised one eyebrow at the young girl. "And...? Your point is?"

I clear exasperation Lizzie threw her hands up. "My point is that you're taking my books away for not helping you!"

"Okay," Peter said, reaching out and taking Lizzie's hand. He'd about had it with her behavior, and now he walked over to the couch in the living room and sat her down on it, putting himself on the coffee table and looking at her squarely. "Here's the deal. It is normal for kids to have chores to do. It is normal for you to be required to help out around the house, with cleaning up after yourself or with coming over here to help me out. I'm not punishing you. I'm trying to help you learn how to manage your time and to prioritize. If you were in school right now, what would come first, your reading time or your schoolwork?"

Peter didn't know he'd just stepped on a land mine, of course. He'd wind up talking to Becky about that later on, and it wouldn't be a pleasant conversation when it happened. It would involve a lot of raised voices and threats to leave. It would not be pretty.

"Well, I won't have any more homework to do now, will I?" Elizabeth spat at Peter. She didn't make to stand up, but he could see that her hands were clenched tightly on her knees. He wasn't sure whether what he was seeing was anger or desperation.

"Oh?" Peter asked, his voice edged with tense anger. "And why is that?"

"Because I was expelled!" Lizzie yelled, pushing up out of her seat and making a rush for the door.

Peter caught up with the ten year old double-quick, his arm gripping her around her waist. "Well then!" he said, perhaps a bit too harshly. "I can't say I'm surprised to hear that, but it's beside the point! I want an answer to the question, young lady. What would you do first if you had homework? Reading time, or homework?"

"Homework!" Lizzie shrieked, struggling to pull her way out of his grip.

Peter had no idea why the little girl was fighting him so hard, and he quickly let her go. "That's enough," Peter said, his voice firm. "If I hadn't been spanked myself growing up I'd think you liked it," he said, taking hold of her wrist and pulling her back toward the kitchen. Still holding onto her, he began to dig around in the drawer until he came up with a wooden spatula. He was almost sneering as he turned on Lizzie and plopped down in the kitchen chair, quickly putting his hands on the waistband of her jeans and tugging them down to her ankles for the second time that day. "It's clear to me that nothing good is going to come out of our relationship with one another, but by God, Elizabeth Moore, I will teach you how a proper lady behaves!"

Without another word, Peter yanked down Lizzie's jeans. Since the girl wasn't fighting him, it was easy enough to make her panties go south along with the jeans. Almost instantly he had her positioned over his left knee, her legs pinned behind his right. There was still a pink tinge to her bottom from the earlier spanking, but Peter paid it no mind as he picked up the spatula. Tapping her bottom with it, Peter said, "You aren't going to speak to me that way, or to Ms. Becky. I expect a full apology and one for Becky as well. You make her look bad when you act like an uncontrolled brat."

They were words like what his mother would have used when he was growing up, and it never occurred to Peter that the words might sting the little ten year old girl more than they had stung him at her age. He also didn't stop to think that perhaps words like that had hurt him more growing up than he cared to realize. Right now Peter was very upset, and he didn't have the compassion -- yet -- to understand that Elizabeth was as well.

Instead, Peter set to work without a word. The wooden spatula smacked hard first against Elizabeth's right cheek, then her left. He went back and forth like that, working more quickly than he had with the paddle, but using a good deal of force. When the child started to squirm, he tucked her body up tighter against his own and kept on with what he'd been doing. Her bottom came up a brighter pink almost immediately, and then Peter really laid on the force. The house was silent other than the sounds of the spanking, the steady cracking sound of the spatula against bare flesh and the squeals of a child who was trying very hard not to cry.

It took nearly four minutes before Peter wound down and tossed the spatula aside. "Come on," he said to Elizabeth. "Straighten your clothes and I'll take you back to Becky. We're done here. Obviously."

Sobbing, the ten year-old tumbled off of Peter's lap and painfully pulled up her panties and jeans. Peter could see from the expression on her face that it hurt her a great deal to do. Then she stood in front of him, her eyes and nose running, while he stood up, took her tightly by the upper arm, and marched her out of the house. There was still some anger left, and he was going to make sure that Becky knew what he thought of the lack of discipline that Elizabeth had displayed.

The unhappy pair were halfway back to the children's home when Becky came rushing up to them. "There's someone coming!" she cried, and her face was bright with excitement. Even as Peter realized that she registered their misery, her own happiness didn't fade. "We have another arrival, and he should be here in less than an hour. Lizzie, get into the house and wash your face. Peter, if you would meet me in the great room so I can brief you, that would be terrific!"

There was a brief pause, and then Becky went on: "I don't know what happened between the two of you this time, and I'm not in the mood to hear it. We'll talk about it later," she said, giving Elizabeth a quick squeeze and then gesturing for them to head back to the home ahead of her.

(To Be Continued....)