Erin didn’t have any clock, but she had been paying attention to the television she could overhear, and she believed that she’d been standing there for about two and a half hours. Her legs and arms ached from standing still too long, and she was periodically shivering. Thankfully, the water had dried off her for the most part, but the vent was still very cold to stand in front of with almost nothing on to keep her warm. Her posterior was feeling remarkably uncomfortable as well; it was beginning to become itchy from being dirty so long.
She heard a door open. Her father was home! Maybe he would convince Mary to end the punishment early. She rarely started a punishment when he was home, but once it had already started, she was likely to continue it unless he said something about it.
She heard him come up behind her. He had to see the sorry condition she was in; half naked, messy, and holding the remainder of her mess in the swimsuit bottom in front of her.
“You need to behave for your mother when I’m not home,” he said, and headed upstairs.
Erin was crushed. At that point, she knew in her heart that her father loved her stepmother more than his daughter. Here she was, miserable and exhausted, and he wouldn’t even stand up to Mary on her behalf.
He’d even called Mary her mother! Mary wasn’t her mother! Her real mother would never treat her like this!
Erin didn’t cry, but she came as close as possible without letting any tears slip. Suddenly her physical condition didn’t seem so important anymore, and she ignored her aches, shivering, and uncleanliness. She’d known her father was drifting away from her ever since he married Mary, but the extent of the gap hadn’t struck her until now. Her situation was hopeless; Mary certainly wasn’t likely to lose her obvious antipathy to “the girl,” and her father wasn’t going to stand up to Mary.
And yet, she knew that she still loved her father; she was disappointed in him, but he was still her father, the only biological parent she had left. But Mary was not her mother, either by definition or behavior, and Erin was free to hate her. It was all Mary’s fault that Erin’s father was becoming distant from her; and thus, Mary deserved to be at the receiving end of Erin’s hatred, even if her hatred rarely manifested itself outside Erin’s thoughts.
And yet, as much as she disliked Mary, Erin needed Mary’s attention at the moment. Her body had finally managed to interrupt her thoughts again, telling her not only of her discomfort, but of her need to urinate. Mary hadn’t told her she could move, but she also doubted Mary wanted a yellow stain on her towel.
“Mary, I have to pee,” she pleaded.
Mary made an obvious effort to sigh loudly, utterly failing to convince Erin that Mary was really that inconvenienced by her. “Wait there, and don’t move,” she ordered.
Erin heard Mary open the door to the basement stairs behind her, she came back up a moment later, and reaching around Erin’s legs, placed a mop bucket on the floor in front of Erin.
“I don’t want you getting shit all over my toilet seat. Turn around, and you can squat over that bucket.”
If you’d let me clean up earlier, you wouldn’t have to be concerned about me getting the toilet seat dirty, thought Erin. But she said nothing. This treatment was humiliating, but she didn’t dare refuse it, as Mary probably wouldn’t give her a second opportunity to pee anytime soon. She squatted over the bucket, being careful to maintain her balance as she continued to hold her messy swimsuit bottom in front of her. She finished as quickly as she could and stood back up.
“Now empty out your dirty swimsuit and that bucket into the toilet,” said Mary. Erin complied, lifting the seat and dumping as much of her mess out of her swimsuit as she could, following up shortly with the bucket.
Mary produced a sponge from behind her back. “Now fill up that bucket and use this sponge, and clean that dirty ass and swimsuit of yours off.”
Erin gave Mary an incredulous look. “But… I just peed in that bucket!”
“Then you’d better rinse it out well,” retorted Mary. “And don’t let me catch you pouring dirty water down the sink; it goes in the toilet only. Fill at the sink, dump in the toilet.”