Damien seemed to be aggravated with himself. Before he tried to speak again, he took a deep breath and blew it out as if he was blowing out the candles on a cake. He was so tense that his shoulders were all the way up around his ears and his eyebrows were nearly touching.
Much slower he asked, “Are you going to spank me?”
I tried to lighten the mood with a little joke, “Only if you want me to.”
He looked alarmed and shook his head hard enough to scramble his brains and twist his head right off his narrow shoulders. It made him dizzy and he swooned in his chair.
For a second I thought he was going to fall out of his chair, but he recovered by grabbing hold of the table to steady himself.
“Be careful little man!” I said.
Boy did his eyes light up when I called him that. I mean, he perked right up and even managed to smile. We finished our dinner and Damien disappeared while I washed up our dinner plates. When I finished, I went to wipe off the dining table and push in the chairs. That’s when I saw the puddle on the hardwood floor beneath the chair where Damien had been sitting. The seat cushion was absolutely soaked with pee and the thought ran through my head that if Damien had my sister as a baby-sitter tonight, he would be in for it! But tonight he has me, and I am slightly reluctant to admit that I was more than a little pleased to see the mess.
It took me a minute to locate a mop and get the floor cleaned up. The seat cushion was a different story altogether. I had located several towels from the basement laundry room. They were lying on the floor, so I assumed that they had not been washed yet. I dabbed at the cushion until I couldn’t get any more wetness to appear on the towels, then I poured two cups of water on the cushion and started dabbing it dry again. I did this two more times to be absolutely sure that there was no urine left in the cushion and that it was as dry as I could make it before I felt that the task was done.
After dropping the towels into the washer and starting it, I went looking for my little pants wetting buddy, however, I couldn’t find him right away. I’d searched the entire first and second floor and was starting to worry that he might have gone outside when I heard a crash in the basement.
“Now what did he do?” I said aloud to myself and then raced down the basement steps.
At first, I couldn’t find him downstairs either, but then I caught a whiff of the kid and followed my nose. The basement was only partially finished off as living space and when I went around, what I saw was the furnace room. I found a large area that was totally unfinished. It was filled with boxes, old Christmas and Halloween decoration and some unused furniture. On the floor, in the middle of this area was the remains of what looked like a blue ceramic table lamp.
I sniffed the air and cleared my throat.
“I didn’t do it!” Damien cried out from some unseen location.
“Well, was it an accident then?” I asked.
“I didn’t do it!” he cried again.
“Can you help me clean it up?” I asked.
“No, you will spank me!” he said softer.
“I said I wouldn’t, and I won’t.” I reassured him.
For his age, the little devil in boyish form was smart. He said, “Then Grandma will when you tell on me.”
“No I won’t!” I said as cheery as I could, but I was slowly getting tired of this boy.
“Liar!” he called out.
Before I could say something else, he said, “And you will tell on me for…” his voice trailed off without finishing his thought.
I guessed that he was going to say for wetting his pants at the dinner table, so I finished for him. “For getting your grandparents nice chair wet and wetting on the floor too?”
Damien was silent except for his panicked breathing.
I cleaned up the chair and floor for you so they won’t ever know that anything ever happened. And I am washing the towels too so they won’t be able to smell the pee in those either.
He still didn’t make a sound.
Not sure what else I could say to reassure him, I went to where I had found the mop and took out a broom and dustpan to clean up the shards of glass.
Damien must have thought I had gone back upstairs because he’d come out of hiding and was rooting around inside a box. He was nearly upside down inside of the box with both feet off the concrete floor. His body was sort of teetering on the edge of the box. I stopped and watched for a couple of seconds before the devil got into me too. It only took a slight tap on his shoe with the broom to send him toppling into the box.
“Aaaaahhhhh! HELP! HELP! PLEASE HELP ME!” Damien bellowed loud enough for someone on the moon to hear him.
His legs and feet were kicking about wildly, but he was truly stuck upside down in the box, unable to free himself. I took several steps back out of that part of the basement and did my best to pretend that I was calling from upstairs.
“Damien where are you?” I said.
Damien screamed harder and louder for me to come to his rescue, so I did, but not until I let him panic a bit more first. When he was good and horse form screaming; then, and only then did I make myself known.
“Oh there you are!” I said as thought I’d only just found him. “I heard you calling for help but it sounded like you were upstairs. I looked all over, even under all of the beds.”
“Please, please get me out! Please!” Damien cried.
“Stop kicking and hold still.” I instructed.
Damien stopped thrashing about but still pleaded, “Please, please, help me!”
I took hold of either side of his waist and lifted him from the box. I suppose a nice person would have flipped him over and set him down on his feet, but I didn’t. Instead I lowered him headfirst to the floor and held onto him tightly.
“Let me go!” he cried, “Please don’t spank me again!”
“I said I wouldn’t spank you, but I didn’t say anything about not putting you down.”
Holding him upside down, I made him walk on his hands over to where I’d left the broom and dustpan. I knew that my shirt was getting wet by holding onto him like I was, but I didn’t really care. I had formulated a plan and I was committed to making Damien clean up his mess. I made Damien pick up the dust pan and then carried him back over to the where he’d broken the lamp. One by one, Damien picked up every single piece of shattered ceramic and placed it on the dustpan.
“Is that all of it?” I asked.
“Please let me down now!” was his reply.
I didn’t let him down. Instead I twirled him in my arms so that he was upside right and facing me. I could see that he had been crying and his face was nearly as red as ketchup.
I don’t think he knew what to do or say, or maybe he was dizzy from having been upside down for so long. Shocked isn’t strong enough of a word for how I felt when he leaned forward, rested his head on my shoulder and wrapped his arms around me.
Remember what I said before about not letting your guard down around Damien? I allowed myself to actually believe that Damien was hugging on me, but he was just grabbing on so that I didn’t drop him when he kicked me right in the main bean machine.
“Ooooooh!” I screeched and fell to my knees. Tears began to fill my eyes as I crumpled into a ball holding myself.
I have no idea where the little fiend went to and I had no plans on going to look for him again. He beat me this time and all I wanted to do was get out of the house, go home and lick my wounds… so to speak.
Damien stayed in hiding the rest of the evening and didn’t show himself until Bill and Gladys returned. As a matter of fact, aside from going to the basement one more time to put the towels in the dryer, I did nothing but sit in the living room and wait for their return. When they walked in and asked how things went I lied and said that Damien had been a little angel and had been playing quietly in his room most of the evening. Damien came into my line of sight and I fired daggers at the monstrous dwarf while Bill paid me for the evening. I was thanked profusely as I was leaving and Gladys gave me a piece of Strawberry Shortcake that they had brought home for me.
When I got home, I went straight to the bathroom, stripped off all of my clothes, tossed them into the hamper and lowered my aching balls into a tub of cool, pain relieving water. I swore to myself that tomorrow, if I was able to walk, I would find my sister and punch her dead in the face. After all, it was her fault that I ended up having to go over and watch Satan’s little bastard child. As destiny would have it, the next day would present me with an opportunity for some payback for both my sister and that horrid, rotten, beastly spawn from the deepest, darkest parts of Hell that even Steven King wouldn’t dare to write about. At least that is how it all would start, but the end results would be more than I could have ever imagined or expected.
