Punishment with Kisses by Diane Anderson-Minshall

at each other constantly, both of them drunk off their asses. The air around the whole estate felt pregnant with disaster. I didn’t know what was going to happen, I just had that terribly foreboding sense that something had to give. I just hoped I would be okay in the wake of whatever storm was brewing.
    Tabitha and Father lived in different rooms now, the three of us eating solo in the kitchen by turn. Maria had learned to make my favorite comfort foods: grilled cheese, mac and cheese, cheesecake. Without Shane, I turned into a pudgy cheese-freak. We hadn’t talked since that horrible night in the pool house. She never called me again, not even an attempt at an apology. Even worse, I’d seen her out at the pool with Ash and Cynthia. The three of them, skanking around like whores.
    I couldn’t bear to watch it anymore. I kept my shades drawn at all times, squirreling myself away in my novels, reading one after another, cramming my head full of words and other people’s lives so I wouldn’t have even a second to dwell on my own miserable one.
    I desperately needed to get out of this place. Maybe I’d go to grad school or spend a year backpacking across Europe like my college roommate. I didn’t know, maybe getting a job and moving to the city would be good. I just wanted to do something to get away from my whole family. They were all nuts.
    The only problem with the options I came up with was that they all required some kind of planning. And I couldn’t find the energy to do any of it—not searching job ads, not filling out graduate school admission applications, not even shopping for backpacking gear. I felt tired all the time; I ached all over; I burst into tears every few minutes.
    Maybe I should just go on vacation somewhere far away, somewhere like Florida or the Cayman Islands, somewhere with frozen tropical drinks that could help me forget—everything. Somewhere I could get my head together and figure out what to do with my life. If only I could get Daddy dearest to loosen the purse strings so I could book a flight immediately.
    In all these years I’d never even had a credit card in my own name. I wasn’t an adult. I was a child. A foolish, gullible child so desperate for love she couldn’t even tell when she was being used. I thought Tabitha was stupid, but at least she seemed to know exactly what she was exchanging for what.
    The putter of a small engine pulled me from my thoughts. I envisioned Shane’s motorcycle coming up our drive, and I couldn’t help but reminisce about her touch on me, her whole effect on me. Shane was my first real lover—not just those college kids and the few tumbles in dorm room beds. She was the first person I’d ever said the L-word to. But now I couldn’t stop imagining Ash and Shane together. Every time we were together, was Shane imagining I was Ash? Ash was probably right. It was better to use people than to be used by them.
    I was going to change my life. I was never going to let someone get that close to me again. I resolved to begin my new sentimentality-free life in the morning. I dozed off fantasizing about how great it would be to be aloof and in control.
    Although I was never much of a television junkie, my secret vice was falling asleep to the sound of crime shows playing in the background. Law & Order, CSI, if it had cops, I could fall asleep to it. I’m not sure what it said about me that nothing lulled me to sleep like the noise of sirens, running feet, and gunfire. I think I can blame it on Mother, who used to read Edgar Allan Poe aloud as bedtime stories: “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Pit and the Pendulum.” I don’t know why. I guess there’s something twisted in our genes.
    So it didn’t shock me when I heard the scream. I assumed it was the television, that the sleep timer hadn’t clicked in and turned it off yet, but then, just before I closed my eyes again, I realized that the room was dark. Pitch black. There was no telltale glow from