Chapter 4: Gran Knows
Jill was never sure what exactly set her daughter off, but she suspected it might have been Clair’s Psychology advanced placement class. Perhaps a discussion of family life, or sexual fetishes, or some similar topic. But for sure, when Clair came down after school that day, Jill could see that she was deep in thought, quiet and perhaps sad. “What’s wrong sweetheart?”
“Oh nothing,” Clair said.
“You may be a senior in high school, but you’re still my little girl and mommy knows when something is bothering you …” at which Clair just burst out sobbing.
“I thought I was getting used to… all this” Clair said while waving her hand around indicating the whole basement setup, but it just hit me today how totally weird it is… I mean, I must be the only girl in the world whose mom is a naked prisoner in her own basement! “
“Well, I might be,” said Jill, “but I can assure you that your father and I are NOT the only people in the world who do BDSM and certainly not the only people in the town of Chain. I know from things you’ve said in the past that you’ve found some BDSM porn online, so who exactly do you think creates and watches all that?”
“Our family is just so, I don’t know, different?” Clair sobbed.
“Look sweetheart, I know we’re ‘different’ but that’s not bad if it makes your Dad and I happy, is it? I think you need to talk to someone else about this.”
“OH NO,” Clair almost shouted, “I’m not telling my school counselor my mother is chained up in the basement!”
“I agree,” laughed Jill, “that would be a really bad idea. But how about we Facetime Gran, your Dad hasn’t let me talk with her on his phone in a few days.”
“Facetime!!!” Clair exclaimed, “Does Gran know?”
“Hmmm, well let’s find out.” Jill said with a smile, “my phone only calls you and Dad, so you’ll have to call her on yours.”
Clair put the phone on speaker and made the Facetime call. After a few rings, “Well hello Clair, good to see you, it’s been a while.”
“Hi Gran, sorry about that, it’s been pretty busy at school and with the softball team.”
“Looks like you’re in the basement, your mom said you usually came down to visit after School”
“Hi mom,” Jill said loudly.
“So, uhh, you know about ‘the program?’” asked Clair.
“Yes, and I guess you two have had an argument, since your eyes are all red. It looks like you’ve been crying. Calling Gran to help arbitrate are we? Want to turn the phone so I can see both of you?”
“Uh… mom’s uh …” studied Clair.
“Naked,” interrupted Gran with an amused look on her face, “she hasn’t got anything I haven’t seen before dear. So, what’s going on with you two?”
Jill started, “well mom, you remember that summer I came home my freshman year, and you were chained up in dad’s tool shed?”
“I seem to remember you wanted to call the police on him! So is Clair trying to call the police?”
“No,” injected Clair, “Mom and dad explained what they were going to do before… wait… THE TOOL SHED?”
“That’s right dear, I know it’s hard for you to picture your old, wrinkled, gray haired Gran chained up naked in Grandpa’s cement block tool shed, but I wasn’t always this old. And like my daughter and my mother before us, I could never control my weight any other way.”
It got real quiet in the basement for a few heartbeats while Clair processed all this.
“Great Grandma too?” she finally asked.
“Oh yes dear, it was my Mother who started this family tradition. Although nudity wasn’t a part of their ‘program’ as my father would simply chain her to the cast iron stove with a chain that was just a tad too short for her to reach the root cellar or the pantry. That way he could give her the ingredients and let her cook dinner for the family, under supervision of course. After we all ate, he would decide what and how much she could eat.”
“But you are right,” said Jill, “that Clair is having a problem reconciling our ‘weight loss program’ with the ‘real world’ outside the house. I thought it might help if she talked to you and learned a bit of family history.”
“So how,” Clair asked” did the nudity, the forced exercise and the blender food get into the program.”
“Well,” answered Gran, “the nudity was my idea. You see your grandfather, my George wasn’t really on board in the beginning, I had to encourage him a bit. For one thing he liked… well… he liked sex dear, and he was afraid if I was chained up in the tool shed, he wouldn’t get as much. Then there was the farm work. We were raising and training horses in those years and feeding, grooming, and mucking out the stalls was a lot of work. He thought he might have to do it all. So, I made him a deal, he could keep me naked and, you know, ‘visit’ any time he wanted, and I couldn’t say no.”
“TMI, TMI” Clair said, but with a smile on her face as she pictured her ancient grandparents in their youth.
“He could also come get me every morning, put shackles on my ankles, give me a burlap dress and take me to the barn to work. That’s how I got MY exercise, shoveling shit!”
“A burlap dress?” asked Clair.
“Yea,” added Jill, “I tried one once, years ago and I don’t know how she stood it, do you know what that stuff feels like rubbing across your nipples all day!”
“It’s true, I couldn’t wait to take that thing off… I much preferred naked!” Gran said emphatically. “And it didn’t cover much anyway. It was made out of a single burlap feed bag with a neck hole, your grandfather had cut it down the front almost to my navel and cut it under the arms down to my waist, so it was really just a few strips of burlap that covered my breasts and hung over my shoulders. The skirt part was so short it just barely covered, uhh, shall we way essentials.”
“At the end of the day your great grandfather would hose me down, sometimes he’d even let me use a bar of soap, but the water was always cold! Then he would feed me and put me back in the tool shed for the night.”
“It was your dad, the spreadsheet guru,” said Jill, “who added the exercise machines, the point system and the scientific diet.”
“Three generations of happily married, fulfilled, healthy women who found something that, although unusual to most of the world, works for us,” concluded Jill.
“So, any other questions?” asked Gran?
And almost seamlessly the conversation changed to one that almost any family Facetime call would include, how school was going for Clair, Gran’s latest doctor appointments, Jill’s weight loss progress. When the call ended, Clair had almost forgotten why they had called Gran in the first place.
Days merged into weeks and weeks merged into a month and life seemed to evolve into a rhythm in the household. There were times when Clair thought that her Mom was a bit down, or when she complained about being incredibly bored. But Clair could also see the physical transformation in her mom! The weight was falling off and her arms and shoulders were especially showing tone and muscle definition.
Jill was very surprised and a bit worried one night, when her dad went to the basement to deliver Jill’s ‘dinner,’ she heard muffled shouting. She had heard her parents fight before, what kid hasn’t, but this was loud enough to be heard through two closed doors. Clair couldn’t hear the words, but she could hear her mother’s angry voice. Funny thing, she didn’t really hear her Dad’s voice. And when Bob came back upstairs, he was still carrying Jill’s uneaten diner and he had a subtle grin on his face.
“uh, everything all right down there?” asked Clair as she set the table for the two of them.
“Oh yea, you mother’s just finally ‘hit the wall’ as I call it. Took a lot longer this time than before, I guess your daily visits have been a stabilizing factor.”
“What do you mean ‘hit the wall’?” asked Clair.
“As she explained to you during our family meeting, she finally reached the point where she wants out. REALLY wants out.” Bob explained. “And, of course, I won’t let her. It’s usually a combination of things. She’s hit a plateau in her weight loss, that happens usually when the body realizes that this diet is going to continue and so the body goes into preservation mode and really cuts the calories it’s burning. ‘The Program’ is designed to deal with that, since your mother gets less ounces of her ‘milkshake’ when she isn’t losing weight. But that makes her even hungrier, or ‘hangry’ as we used to say when you were a hungry toddler and would throw temper tantrums.”
“So that was a temper tantrum I could hear?” asked Clair.
“Yep, a good one. I suspect that not losing much weight this week, you having softball practice this afternoon and not visiting her and then, feeling sorry for herself because she kicked the bed and really stubbed her toe. So when I showed up with a smaller ‘dinner’ she just exploded. Nothing I haven’t heard before, including that she was going to call 911 on her emergency phone if I didn’t unchain her RIGHT NOW.” Bob laughed.
“She won’t do that!? Will she?” Clair asked with panic in her voice.
“No kid, she won’t. She’ll storm around on her hurt foot, yell and cuss some more, and then she’ll calm down and go to sleep. I’ll arrange her punishment tomorrow.” Bob said as he plated their dinner.
Clair didn’t ask what ‘punishment’ would entail; she really didn’t want to know right then.
What Bob hadn’t told Clair, because it really would have been TMI, was that one of the threats Jill had made was that he, Bob, would NEVER get laid again if he didn’t unchain her right then. Through all of this, Bob had remained calm, somewhat amused, and resolute. After all, this wasn’t his first rodeo as the saying goes and at least once in every use of ‘the Program’ Jill had hit the wall. Sometimes it happened more than once if the program went on for months. And so, when Jill threatened to cut him off, he just calmly informed her that the next meal she would get would be a load of his cum down her throat, and that she would sincerely and convincingly beg for it.
Bob was right, Jill did calm down, realized that she had only made her situation worse as she would spend that night and perhaps the next day even hungrier, and that yes, she would beg, convincingly, for his cum. In fact, she was already rehearsing her words and it was making her incredibly wet, although she didn’t dare do anything about it, she was already in enough trouble!
Clair had a fantastic day at school the next day. She aced a math test, got lots of complements on a new outfit and met a boy who had just moved into town at lunch. She couldn’t wait to tell her mom about her day and so, without even stopping to fix her usual after school snack, she threw her backpack down, bounded down the basement stairs, threw open the door to the back part of the basement and exclaimed “Hea Mom, you won’t… .Oh!”
What stopped her short was the sight of Jill, naked as always, on her knees. Her hands were cuffed behind the steel foundation support pole to which her chain was always attached. Her ankles were also cuffed behind the pole, keeping her on her knees. Then Clair realized that she was kneeling on uncooked rice that had been spread all around the pole. What was also obvious was that Jill had been crying, probably a lot. Her eyes were all red and there were little “crusties” of dried tears down her cheeks. She looked exhausted.
But then the smell hit Clair, the unmistakable musk of female arousal. Clair recognized it from her own, increasingly frequent masturbation sessions. But this was STRONG and there were also unmistakable slick spots down the inside of Jill’s thighs. Jill was exhausted, in pain and horny!
Clair might have rushed to her mother to comfort her. She might have cursed her father for being so cruel. She might have done a lot of things, but the fact that her mother, her soccer mom, PTA officer, mother was turned on, caused Clair to freeze. In spite of her pain and discomfort, Jill realized what a sight she must present and what a shock that was to Clair. So, without really thinking, the first thing out of Jill’s mouth was: “Hi Sweetheart, how was your day?”
Several heartbeats later both women burst into laughter at the total absurdity of the situation. Although Jill didn’t laugh for long, as the jiggling of laughing reminded her very quickly that her knees were in agony, her shoulders ached, her wrists and ankles were chaffed and she REALLY, REALLY had to pee! “Would you please call your Dad?” Jill asked. “I really don’t want to get into any more trouble, but I don’t think I can stand this until he gets home, not that I have a choice if that’s what he wants.”
Clair had her phone out almost before her mom finished asking. It rang for a long time, and they were both getting worried that Bob wouldn’t answer.
“Hi Clair, I’m glad you called, I just stepped out of a meeting that is going on forever. I’m not going to get home early like I hoped. Have you been to the basement?”
“I’m in the basement now and, uh, Dad, you could have warned me! Mom is really suffering, can I let her up?” Clair asked.
“I’m sorry kid, I really thought I would get home before you did. Let me ask you,” Bob asked, “how is your Mom’s attitude? Is she angry, contrite, what?”
Jill could hear enough of the conversation to interject “Oh Bob, I’m so sorry. I really am. I just let my emotions get away from me and I said some horrible things and I’m SO SO sorry!”
“Did you get that Dad?”
“Yea, so you can unchain her from the pole, but after you let her stretch her shoulders for a few minutes I want you to cuff her hands behind her back again. I have a good idea how being chained up all day like that has affected her and I want to remove all temptation.”
Clair didn’t ask “temptation to do what,” she was pretty sure she knew!
So, mother and daughter talked for a while, and Clair did get to tell her Mom all about her day and the new boy who had just moved into town and registered at her school, his name was Fred. And before she went back upstairs, Clair picked up the handcuffs and handed them to her Mom, who without comment put them on behind her back. Much to Clair’s surprise her mom clearly looked directly at the ankle cuffs then looked at Jill. The message was clear to both of them, even though Bob had not asked them to, Jill should cuff Jill’s ankles too; and so she did. And without either of them saying another word, Clair left the basement.