With Apologies to Sandra Dee
Fox Mulder sat on the sofa, nursing his beer and
listened to his 'dad' reliving a spectacular play
from the Redskins game they had attended that
afternoon. Walter had somehow obtained four seats on
the fifty yard line and had invited Fox, along with the
two other Skinner brothers, Joe and Andy, to go with
him.
When Mulder had asked how Skinner had obtained such
great seats, he had replied mysteriously, "You're not
the only one who has 'sources', son."
Mulder thought to himself that he was extremely
fortunate that the tickets for the game were for this
weekend and not the previous weekend, since last week
he had been on a punishment tour and would not have been
allowed to attend. The timing couldn't have been
better.
A burst of laughter interrupted his musings.
"Thanks Walt. I really needed this. It's been a hell
of a week." This from Joe, who was lounging in the arm
chair.
"Is everyone all right?" Walt asked.
"Health wise, everyone's fine. It's just that Kathy
came home for spring break and decided to cop a 'Jean
attitude'. I finally had enough and we had a
'serious discussion' about the situation this morning.
That's why I was almost late meeting you guys."
Walt and Andy nodded their heads knowingly. Mulder was
the only one who wasn't sure what Joe was referring
to.
"What's a 'Jean attitude'? And what do you mean you
had a 'serious discussion' with Kathy? I thought the
girls in this family were exempt from 'serious
discussions'."
"What made you think that?" Andy asked.
"Well, I don't know... I just... I mean I've never seen
any of them in trouble so I assumed they didn't get..."
Walter grinned. "Spanked? Fox, Dad decided long ago
that while he didn't think using the persuader on Jean
was appropriate, she would still be spanked if she did
anything unacceptable. And, as you know personally, his
hand can be pretty 'persuasive'. Believe me, Jean
got spanked plenty of times when it was called for,
just like the rest of us. Her punishments were just
always done privately. "I'm pretty sure Mom handled a
lot of Jean's punishments, too. I remember one summer,
when Jean was about thirteen, that it seemed like she
spent most of her time at the sink doing the dishes.
Mom was pretty good at picking the punishment most
suitable to the culprit. And Jean's always hated doing
the dishes." All the Skinner brothers laughed at that
remark.
"But what's this 'Jean attitude' you mentioned?
What's that about?"
Andy took up the story.
"When Jean was a sophomore in college, she was accepted
into this sorority that consisted of girls from pretty
wealthy families. After hanging around that bunch for
most of the semester, she came to the conclusion that
she was much too sophisticated to spend her time in
Danville. She was suddenly too important to waste her
time on us poor peons. She called to tell Mom and Dad
that she had made other plans for Thanksgiving. She was
going to stay with one of her new rich friends and go
to some kind of fancy gala or something."
"You sound like you were jealous, Andy," Mulder teased.
He knew Andy had been especially close to Jean when he
was growing up.
Andy snorted derisively. "Get real, Fox. It's just
that I liked Oliver, a lot, and I thought Jean was
taking him for a ride. They'd been going together
since her freshman year of high school. They were even
talking about marriage. They went to different
colleges, but she knew he was going to be visiting his
folks for Thanksgiving and she didn't even care. I
figured she was getting ready to dump him and didn't
have the nerve to tell him to his face."
Joe interrupted Andy's diatribe. "Look Andy, you didn't
know the whole story there. You were only fifteen at
the time and as I recall you had a pretty serious case
of hero worship going there for Oliver. I hate to
burst your bubble, kid, but Oliver had a bad time
coming, at least as far as Jean believed. He talked to
me a little over that Thanksgiving weekend. He said
that he'd been tutoring some girl from his dorm. It was
strictly casual on his part, but this girl was wanting
to make it into something more. Then Jean made a
surprise visit and caught this girl with Oliver in his
room. She was all over him, trying to convince him
that they could be more than just friends. Jean walked
in at just the wrong time and ran out without giving
Oliver a chance to explain. Let's be fair to Jean,
here, she was pretty hurt by the situation. I think
that's probably why she got involved with that stupid
sorority crowd to begin with. You can't really blame
her for wanting to get even. And that's just what she
did. Big time. But, of course, Oliver won out in the
end."
"Yeah, but that wasn't until Christmas." Andy turned to
Mulder. "See, even though Mom and Dad were pretty
upset, they went along with Jean not coming home at
Thanksgiving. But they put their foot down about
Christmas; said she had to come home then, or else. I
could only hear Dad's side of the conversation, but I
wish I could have seen the look on her face when he said
he'd drive up there to get her, throw her over his
shoulder and carry her home if he had too, after, of
course, she spent some time over his knee. I guess,
faced with that kind of threat, that she knew Dad
wouldn't hesitate to carry out, she had to give in.
But when she got home, boy was she impossible."
"This sounds like some old Sandra Dee movie, Gidget Gets
Even," Mulder joked.
When the three Skinner brothers looked at him in
silence, each one sporting a smirk, he felt forced to
defend himself, "Not that I make a point of watching a
lot of Sandra Dee movies or anything, but sometimes
that's all that's on tv... late at night, I mean."
He sighed. He knew he was in for a lot of kidding in
the future over this. "Just go on with the story.
Okay? Christmas break, right?"
Joe cleared his throat. "Right. Jean brought this guy
home with her. He wasn't a college student. He was
maybe eight or nine years older than Jean. She met him
at that gala she went to at Thanksgiving and started
seeing him after that." He turned to Andy, "What was
his name?"
"How could you forget? Carson Clive Throckmorton
Rutherford, III."
"You made that up," Mulder said solemnly.
"Nope, swear to god. That was his name."
"Probably still is... poor bastard," Joe joked. "There
may even be a fourth, by now."
Andy couldn't stop a shudder. The thought of that guy
reproducing was way too much for him to handle.
"Come on Andy, he wasn't that bad." Walter had kept
silent until now, but felt he had to set the record
straight. "He was a little stiff but..."
"A little! I've seen corpses that could loosen up more
than that jerk. Besides he was..."
"What?"
"He was just plain evil."
"Aren't you exaggerating just a little?"
"No! He was okay around the rest of you. He could put
on a pretty good show, but when he was alone with me...
I mean..."
Mulder's radar went on full alert. "What did he do to
you Andy?"
"It's not exactly what he did... it's more the way he
acted when he knew none of the rest of the family was
around. I was just a kid, so he didn't have to waste
his time trying to impress me. There was just... I
don't know... something about him that was off."
Andy was frustrated. He had suddenly regressed to that
awkward, tongue tied fifteen year old again, trying to
make the grown ups believe him. He knew the guy was
bad news, but he didn't know how... he couldn't put into
words exactly what was wrong with Rutherford. The
adult Andy was having the same problem.
"Just trust me on this. Jean had a very lucky escape
from that guy."
Since Andy's instincts were pretty reliable, Mulder made
a mental note to do a little checking into Mr. Carson
Clive Throckmorton Rutherford, III. "So what
happened?"
Andy continued. "Well, here's where it got interesting.
Jean comes home with this pompous jerk, parading him
around like he was an early Christmas present or
something. It was obvious Rutherford was out of his
element in Danville. He'd walk around with this
superior smirk, like some lord of the manor looking
down on the lowly peasants. And there I was trying to
make someone, anyone, believe me about him. Of course,
nobody actually liked him, but they still didn't see
him for what he was. I couldn't get anyone to listen
to me until finally I talked to Oliver. He'd seen Jean
with Rutherford in town and he was the only one who
believed me. He and I set out to do something about
it."
Judging by the surprised looks on their faces, it was
obvious this was news to Joe and Walter.
"Go on. What happened?" Mulder thought this story beat
a late night movie any day.
"I knew Jean was planning to take this guy to the party
place. You remember, where all the kids went to
drink."
"I remember," Mulder said grimly. He also remembered an
extremely painful session with the Persuader after his
visit there. "What did you do?"
"Well, there was this big party planned for the kids
coming home from school for the holidays. All the
local kids were going to be there too. Of course, I
was considered too young to go, but that never stopped
me before and this time I had to be there. And it's
not so much what I did, although I certainly got the
ball rolling, but more what Oliver did. "
He faced Joe and asked, "Do you remember Bambi Martin?"
Mulder who was taking a drink of his beer, choked.
After he got his coughing spasm under control, he
asked, "Bambi? This is getting better and better.
Beach Bunnies meet Terminator Gidget."
At the identical look on the brothers' faces, he decided
his sarcastic comments weren't appreciated. He tried
to look remorseful. "Sorry."
"ANYWAY, as I was saying. You remember what a sl...
uh... she was...." Andy was trying to be diplomatic,
but there was really no diplomatic way to say it.
"Bambi liked men. A lot. Jean always hated Bambi, so I
figured she would be perfect. See, since I wasn't
supposed to be there, I was hiding in the bushes at the
side of the clearing, where I could see everything.
Oliver knew I was there, but he never told anyone."
Walter was fast losing patience. "Andy, what did you
do?"
"I sort of sicced Bambi on Rutherford, when Jean wasn't
looking."
"You WHAT?"
"I had to make Jean mad at Rutherford, so she'd be more
inclined to listen to Oliver. And Bambi was just drunk
enough to not only be interested, but aggressive, when
I got her pointed in the right direction. It was a
perfect plan. Even Oliver thought so."
"I bet." Mulder mumbled.
"So, to make a long story short."
"Too late for that." Mulder decided this was taking way
too long.
"Oliver sent Susan over to drag Jean away from
Rutherford for some 'girl talk' and while Jean was
occupied, I sneaked over to where Bambi was and pointed
Rutherford out to her. I just kind of brought to her
attention how good looking, how eligible and how rich
Rutherford was. It was way too easy.
Since Rutherford couldn't lower himself to talk to
anyone without Jean around, he was standing by himself.
A perfect target for Bambi. Oliver
waited until Bambi had herself wrapped around Rutherford
good and tight and then he joined Susan and Jean. He
knew if he joined them, Jean would immediately go back
to Rutherford. It worked. But what Oliver didn't know
was that Jean was drinking pretty heavily that night."
Both Walter and Joe frowned. "Jean was drunk?" Walter
asked, somewhat menacingly.
"I think the statute of limitations has run out on that
little crime," Mulder said jokingly.
Andy determinedly plowed on with his story.
"Jean looked at Oliver like he was a bug on a pin and
turned to go back to Rutherford. That's when she saw
Bambi, clinging like a leech to the jerk. She stormed
over, peeled Bambi off of him and let him have it."
"How did she let him have it?"
"It's kind of funny. As she was standing there yelling
at him, he tried to put his arm around her and he
accidentally, I guess, put his hand on her breast.
That's when she doubled up her fist and knocked him on
his ass."
"Really?"
"Hey, Jean didn't have three brothers for nothing. She
could always fight with the best of us."
"Then what happened?"
"Rutherford was on the ground, holding his jaw, trying
to get Jean to listen, when Oliver went over to them.
That's when Jean went off on him... Oliver, I mean.
She was yelling that it was all his fault. I got the
feeling that Oliver was the one she really wanted to
knock on his ass. Anyway, Bambi was crying, Rutherford
was still holding his jaw and mumbling something about
it all being a big mistake, and Jean was yelling at
Oliver when he just grabbed her and kissed her."
Andy was silent for a moment. He remembered that when
he saw Oliver kissing his sister, he'd had two
thoughts. First, that she was his sister and he didn't
like the idea of any guy kissing her like that; and
second, that he was going to have to seriously practice
his technique if he ever wanted to get the response
that Oliver was getting.
Andy's silence was more than mildly irritating, so Joe
interrupted his brother's reflection and growled,
"Okay, okay, get on with it."
"Well, I gotta tell you guys, that must have been some
kiss, cause when it ended Jean just stood there for at
least a full minute, with her hand on her lips. Then
she hauled off and slapped him so hard, I thought his
head was going to fall off his shoulders. Then she
turned and stalked off. That's when it happened."
Andy paused. Again.
"WHAT happened, Andy?" Walter asked.
"I swear if you do this again, Rutherford's not the only
one who's going to end up on his ass," Joe muttered.
This time, Mulder kept his remarks to himself.
"Oliver just lost it. Totally. He grabbed Jean from
behind, turned her around and threw her over his
shoulder before she could let out a squeak. He carried
her off into the woods. I guess by that point he had
forgotten about me, cause he headed in my direction. I
just sort of ducked down behind a bush while he stormed
past me. By this time, Jean is hitting him on the back
and yelling that he was a two timing s.o.b. and she was
going to kill him. Oliver didn't say a word. He
carried her over to this log, sat down, put her over
his knee and spanked her."
"So we've got a little John Wayne thing going too, huh?"
Mulder interjected.
Once again, all Skinner eyes were on him. "Didn't you
ever see Donovan's Reef? McClintock?"
Silence. Another sigh. "Never mind."
"Man, I tell you, I think Dad could have taken lessons
from Oliver. I don't think Oliver had ever spanked
anyone before, but he sure handled it like a pro. He
pushed her coat out of the way and he starts smacking
her butt like there's no tomorrow. He smacked her so
hard I'm surprised they didn't hear it at the party.
She's yelling that he's a brute, and he's yelling that
he loves her and she should have known better than to
believe he could ever cheat on her, and who is this
jerk she's been hanging around with and then she starts
crying and he's still spanking her and then finally he
stops. But she's still crying. Then he turns her over
and sits her up on his lap and he's holding her and
letting her cry on his shoulder and then he kisses her
again."
"Well, go on... what happened then?"
"Then I left."
"WHAT?" This came from all three listeners.
"Well, yeah. I didn't really want to see what was going
to happen next. I mean, for god's sake, she's my
sister. I can tell you though that about an hour later
they came back to the clearing, holding hands and making
eyes at each other. So I guess the spanking worked
cause they got married a year later."
"What happened to Rutherford?" Mulder had to ask.
"Funny thing. Nobody ever saw him again. Nobody saw
him leave the party. Nobody saw him get his things
from his room at the house. His things were gone. His
car was gone. He was gone. But nobody saw him. Kind
of weird, huh?"
"Sounds like an X File to me."
Walter spoke up. "You can get that idea out of your
head. Leave the poor guy alone, Mulder. This happened
years ago. Let it go. I mean it."
"Yes, sir." Mulder was pissed. What if this guy was a
vampire or werewolf or something. He decided that
Walter just meant HE couldn't follow up on this. That
didn't mean the Gunmen couldn't explore a little. He'd
talk to them tomorrow. He also decided that a change
of subject would be very beneficial right about now.
"So what about the rest of the Skinner women? Do they
get the 'treatment' too?"
Andy and Walter both shook their heads. Walter had
never found it necessary to spank Sharon and Andy had
certainly never spanked Eileen. Joe froze as the
other three looked at him inquiringly.
But that's a story for another day.