Her Doctor's Orders (7 page)

Something about Chloe saying “Am I important to you?” made Kendra feel like she couldn’t say no. Levi wouldn’t understand, she knew, but one day of getting wasted with Chloe wasn’t going to hurt. Chloe lived a mile away, and the exercise would make up for what Kendra was going to do to her body. Girlfriends needed to get wasted with one another, as long as they did it safely. No one was going to be driving, and Kendra would actually probably keep Chloe from driving by going over there.

“Okay,” Kendra whispered. “I’ll bring the vodka.”

“I knew I could count on you!” Chloe said. “You’re the best, Kendra.” The warm feeling she got from Chloe’s words seemed to tell Kendra she was doing the right thing.

Kendra put the phone down and started to think about how to go about deceiving Levi. She had promised to start looking into options for going back to school, but clearly that wasn’t going to happen now, and she needed an excuse. It was 8 a.m., and Levi would probably want to get her up for breakfast soon. She lay down and pulled the covers up to her chin.

When Levi knocked, five minutes later, Kendra called back, in a weak voice, “Come in.”

Levi poked his head inside. “Do you want breakfast?”

Kendra tried to look as tired as she could. “No, thanks—I don’t feel very well. I think I’m going to stay in bed—maybe even call in sick for work. Is it okay if I start working on the school thing tomorrow?”

“What’s wrong?” Levi asked. “Stomach?”

“Yeah… and a really bad headache.” Actually lying to him turned out to be a lot harder than Kendra thought it would be. Guilt nearly got the better of the deception, as she fought the urge just to tell him what was going on.
He rejected me
, she thought, to steel herself against his kindness.
How much can he really care?

“Alright, let me grab my bag, so I can take your temp. You probably don’t have a fever, but we should just be sure.”

“Okay,” Kendra said, unable to come up with any other response. He wasn’t going to give her another full exam, was he? To her surprise and dismay, Kendra found herself hoping he might.

Levi was back in a moment, and, as if he could read her mind, he said gravely, “You’ll be happy to know you can keep your clothes on this time.”

Kendra giggled nervously. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s great.” Her words came out sounding strange to her, and less confident than she meant them to sound. Suddenly she felt so shy that as he approached with the thermometer, she found she had pulled the covers around her as she sat up, even though she wore the T-shirt he had given her, which covered everything. What did he mean by making that reference to her not taking off her clothes? At the thought that maybe he meant he had reconsidered the romantic possibilities, Kendra found the guilt rising again, but as she put the thermometer under her tongue she said to herself,
He’s just playing with me. Asshole.

She knew that was unfair, and probably completely untrue, but she stuck to that story as he left the room. She lay back with the thermometer in her mouth, thinking despite herself about what it would be like to be examined by him again… without a stitch of clothing on…

Asshole
, she thought again.
Stop playing with me. I’m going to show you.

Levi came back into the room and took the thermometer from her mouth. He looked at it.

“Well, that’s good,” he said. “No fever.”

“I’m sure I’m okay,” Kendra said weakly.

“Me too,” Levi said, “but stay in bed today. We’ll see how you feel in the afternoon, but plan on calling in sick, and I’ll bring you some comfort food when I get home. Do you like chicken soup?”

Kendra nodded, hoping the intense guilt this simple gesture—really, only the offer of a gesture—by Levi made her feel didn’t show on her face. She realized, though, that her ‘Kendra sucks’ defense mechanism had kicked in, as she suddenly started to think of it:
Stop playing with me. I know you don’t really care. Kendra sucks, and that’s the way it is, so don’t try to tell me I’m worth bringing chicken soup home.

She looked into his eyes, and felt the twinge of guilt pass off her face and the hardness come back into it. Levi looked back at her with concern, his brow slightly furrowed and his eyes narrow.
That’s right
, Kendra thought,
puzzle over the broken girl. Well, this broken girl’s going to get wasted with her friend today.

“Sure,” Kendra said. “That’d be great.”

“Alright,” Levi replied. “I’m going to grab some breakfast on my way to work, so the smell doesn’t get to you. Stay in bed, okay?”

“Okay,” Kendra replied.

Kendra waited until Levi had been gone for ten minutes, and then she got up and took a very quick shower. She put on a T-shirt and jeans, grabbed her little purse and the key Levi had cut for her the day before, and walked out the door, being careful first to make sure the key fit, and then that the door had locked behind her.
Won’t give you a chance to blame me for a robbery, at least
.

A part of her, truly not buried so very deeply, knew that she had suddenly started to do absurd emotional gymnastics for the sole purpose of making herself feel okay about making stupid decisions. That part had been born only a few days before, though, and the part of her that knew she had to show Chloe that Kendra was a good friend had been around for a lot longer.

Kendra started walking toward the liquor store three blocks away, in the exact direction of Chloe’s little apartment complex.

Chapter Seven

As Levi watched Kendra try the key and test the door behind her to make sure it had locked, he pondered what to do. He had pulled his car up the street and parked across from the liquor store where Kendra would have to pass on her way into town, and where he had a suspicion she might be headed. When Kendra started walking, her footsteps carried her in precisely that direction, too, so if he were going to stop her, she would soon give him a golden opportunity.

Should he stop her? Of course—but he needed to figure out what he would say, and how he could make sure that the lesson got through. Levi had no doubt that the spanking the previous day had a beneficial effect: he had been able to tell especially at dinner that Kendra’s positive emotions had received a boost, and although she had seemed a little troubled when he picked her up from her shift at work, she had still chatted very happily.

Something must have happened, Levi was sure, for Kendra to deceive him this way. He had to get to the root of the turnabout first and then he would need to spank Kendra again. He knew the positive result from the spanking the day before hadn’t been an illusion, but still, he wondered if the idea of punishing her should be a little less attractive to him, should arouse him a little less.

When he stopped her, should he do it before she bought the booze, or after? He decided on after, so that they wouldn’t have to waste time arguing about what exactly she had been planning on doing. Kendra, Levi knew already, was not a dishonest person, but even the most trustworthy people will lie when something else is at stake and their backs are up against the wall.

After he had called the office to cancel his appointments for the day, Levi watched Kendra enter the liquor store. She remained inside for only five minutes, and came out carrying a large bag. So it couldn’t just be for herself, Levi thought. She started walking toward the center of town. Where was she going? God help her, and him, if it was toward her boyfriend’s place. Levi pulled his car up two blocks and parked it there. He got out of the car and stood for a moment, watching her walk, noting how the positive energy of the day before had given way to the hardness he remembered from that first morning. She moved like she didn’t care who she might walk over, and her jaw seemed permanently set a few degrees to the left, as if to say that nothing anyone could say to her made any difference.

“Kendra,” he called, not very loud, because the street was neither wide nor busy.

Kendra stopped walking and stood there for a long moment. She turned to him, as he crossed the street to stand opposite her. Levi simply stood there, silently, waiting for her to say something. The first thing Kendra said, he knew, could tell him a lot about what was going on inside her.

“I’m going to see Chloe,” Kendra said with defiance, but also with a hint of despair that seemed to mean that she knew she had gone about it all wrong. “I’m bringing vodka because she told me to.”

“Why did you tell me you were sick?” Levi asked.

“Because I’m going to be with Chloe, so I can’t do my stupid go back to school stuff today.” The defiance in her tone grew and became the dominant note.

Levi thought for a moment, then said, hoping to apply a crowbar to a crack in the story and open up her real motivation, “Were you planning on killing Chloe with that amount of vodka, or was the real plan to get drunk with her?”

Kendra made a nasty face that told him he had got it right. “And if I was planning on getting wasted with my friend because that’s what friends do, why do you care?”

“Let’s pretend it doesn’t frustrate me beyond words to hear you say that you somehow can’t remember the conversation we had about exactly that.”

Kendra had made her ‘I’m worthless so fuck off’ face again. It was starting to make him want to spank her right there on the sidewalk.

“So the reason I care. The reason I care is that at this point I’ve invested a lot of time and effort, frankly. I could also say it’s because I care about you more than you realize—” Kendra started at that, her eyes wide. Then her face fell and became angry again. “Even if you consider yourself to be without value, my investment has made you valuable to me, so you’re going to cross the street and get in my car, and I’m going to take you home and punish you.”

Kendra’s face crumpled at that. “Levi…” she said pleadingly. “I really need to go and be with Chloe. Her asshole boyfriend walked out on her, and… if I don’t go… I mean, if something happens…”

“What are you worried would happen?” Levi had a feeling he knew, but he hoped Kendra would be able to put it into words herself.

But Kendra shook her head. “I don’t know. Something. Please let me help my friend, Levi. It means so much to her.”

Levi understood a great deal better, now, and it softened his anger considerably. Kendra’s feeling of worthlessness clearly tied into her guilt about not having been able to do anything about her mom’s drinking. Whether Kendra knew it or not, Chloe’s pressure invoked that same guilt.

“Alright,” he said. “We’re going to go over to Chloe’s together and see what we can do to help. I already cancelled my appointments. There isn’t going to be any getting wasted, but I think it will help both you and Chloe to be together as long as I’m there to make sure you don’t do anything foolish. Then, sometime soon, we’re going to talk about the kind of responsibility you take on for other people.”

“You have to let me at least sit with her while she has a couple of drinks—please, Levi. She really needs it, and it’s so important to her.”

Levi nodded. “A couple of drinks—that she will drink by herself. Okay.”

Kendra clearly got little satisfaction from this solution, but at least her defiance didn’t return. As they crossed the street again and got into Levi’s car, he said, “You went about this the wrong way, though, Kendra. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, Levi.” The way she breathed the word, so quietly, caused his breath to quicken a bit as he realized the effect the thought of being spanked by him was having on her.

“And what do you think I have to do?”

Kendra sighed, but Levi could tell that the thought of having the boundary set did not strike her entirely badly. “Spank me, I suppose,” she declared with a false sounding note of bravado in her voice, as if she didn’t care—though clearly she did.

“Exactly,” Levi said. “You can expect to have my belt across your backside when we get back to my house.”

“Your belt?!”

“Yes, Kendra. My hand apparently didn’t do the job adequately.”

He glanced quickly from the road to her face and saw there a stricken look, as though he had just turned into a cockroach and that she hoped someone would squish him for her. As she visibly moved nearer the window, he reached out with one hand and took her resisting one in his own. “Hey now. It’s going to be okay. I realize you’ve probably never been spanked with a belt before, but you need to trust me. You’re going to be a sorry girl when I’m done with you, but I will make sure you’re safe and that it’s not too much.”

They rode in silence the rest of the short distance to Chloe’s little apartment complex, except for Kendra’s directions.

“Ah, shit,” said Chloe, when she opened the door to find both of them there.

“At least I brought the vodka,” Kendra said, giving Chloe a hug. “I’m so sorry he did this to you.”

“Chloe, I don’t think we’ve met,” Levi said. “I’m Levi Hunter.” He held out his hand, and Chloe took it in a careless way. “I know this won’t make you happy, but I’ve told Kendra she can bring you the vodka and sit with you while you have a couple of drinks.”

Chloe led them into her filthy living room, where a stained couch and a broken-down chair faced the TV. Some sort of entertainment device had clearly been recently disconnected, since the cable for it lay exposed on the rug.

Chloe looked down. “I told him to take the fucking video game thing and have sex with it.”

Kendra laughed. Levi chuckled, too. “At least that’s something,” he said drily.

“Hey,” Chloe said, “you’re not so bad, I guess, Dr. Hunter. And you’re just as handsome as Kendra said.”

“Chloe!” Kendra was blushing a little.

“Anyway, who wants a screwdriver?” Chloe said.

“Can I just have some orange juice?” Kendra asked.

“Same for me, please.” Levi said.

“Oh, come on,” Chloe said.

Levi looked at Kendra. She said, “I’m not drinking these days.”

Chloe’s mouth twisted sourly, and she went to get the drinks. When she returned, she handed them their glasses of orange juice and said, “To freedom.” She raised her glass, apparently not expecting anyone else to toast, and threw it back. Levi looked at Kendra to see her reaction, and was happy at least to see that Kendra didn’t look pleased about Chloe’s behavior.