Real Life Stories - Entries for January 2012

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Returning home from dining was an event I came to dread. If her mood, the lateness of the hour, and the degree of privacy we enjoyed would allow, Anna would drag me from the car, though the parking lot, and into her building by my hair or my necktie. Once inside her condo, I was told to sit, ordered to fix her a drink, or (in her bitchiest moods) literally thrown over an overstuffed easy chair in her living room. Though I lived there also, it was always "her" residence. After she changed clothes, Anna would emerge from her bedroom with her arsenal - a 36" 3/8" cane she called her "schoolboy", and the heavy wooden paddle she referred to as her "board of education". The cane was simply a woodworker dowel from the local hardware store, the paddle I purchased for her at Leather Man in NY City. Anna didn't believe in mincing words or warmups, if I was already bent over the chair she simply began, if I weren't she would simply tell me to "get over here".