Sissy Shopping Nightmare - Part 4 of 4

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare

By Karen Singer

 

Part 4 of 4

 

Right on cue, his cat purse gave a ding and he had to stop, put down his package of diapers, and dig the phone out.  Yup!  Message:  You’re looking sooo pretty now.  Those earrings really suit you.  But you’re not done yet.  On the lower level, there’s a store that sells all kinds of things for young girls.  Find this hairbow, buy it, and put it firmly in your hair so that it won’t fall out.  The picture showed a large girl’s hairbow.  Pink…of course.

 

 

He couldn’t believe it.  Couldn’t he just die right here and now?  No!  If he died, then they would kill Jimmy.  He had no doubt in the world about that.  Resigned, he put his phone away, picked up his bag of diapers, and trudged his way through the mall to find the little girl’s store.

Ribbons and bows and necklaces and bracelets and…so many different things.  All of it things that would bring delight to any and every girl on the planet.  Not to him though.  But then he wasn’t a girl.  Especially not a little girl.  Despite how he was dressed.

He had to look around to find the bow.  As he did, the store owner watched him carefully.  And yes, when he walked into the store, she outright laughed at him.  But after that, since he appeared to be looking, she left him alone.

There it was.  He checked the picture.  An exact match.  The darn thing was a bit bigger than he thought it would be.  So be it.  It made no difference, especially in light of everything else he was wearing.  Two minutes later, he had paid for it.  One minute later, he was standing just outside the door, trying to fasten the stupid thing into his hair.

“Can I help you?”

“What?” Bruce gasped, looking around.  The store owner had come out and was standing behind him.

“Can I help you?” she asked again.  There was no doubting the amusement in her eyes.

He was about to tell her no, tell her to go away, but he had already been through enough.  Too much!  “Sure,” he told her.  “I’m supposed to put this in my hair so that it won’t fall out.”

She took it from him.  “Turn around,” she told him.  He did and he felt her doing something with his hair.  He couldn’t really tell what she was doing, but she was doing a lot of pulling.

“Is this for some kind of bet?” she asked.

“No,” he replied.  “More like ransom.”

“Ransom?” she asked.

He remembered then that he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about his son being kidnapped.  And he knew for a fact that they were definitely watching him closely.  Too closely.  In fact, maybe she was one of the watchers.  “Um…never mind.  Maybe I just want to do this.”

“That was another guess,” she told him as she finished.  “There.  All done.  You’re real pretty now.”

“Ha-ha,” he said as he walked away.  He turned back towards her though and said, “Thanks.  I appreciate it.”  Then he turned and kept walking.  He soon realized that with every slight movement of his head, he could feel the trailing ends of the bow moving against his neck.  It was without a doubt, an absolutely maddening feeling.

His phone dinged, but instead of another message, it was another picture.  This time of the back of his head, complete with the large pink hairbow.  Yeah, they were still watching him closely.  He didn’t even bother trying to look around to see who it might be.  Someone was there.  In fact, they were everywhere.  Everywhere and everyone in the entire huge mall.  Or was it the world?

It was longer this time before another message came through to his phone.  Once again he set his bag of diapers down so he could dig the phone from his little girl cat purse.  The message was different:  I can tell you’re getting tired.  You’re almost done with your shopping.  At least as far as what I want you to buy.  When you’re done, you’ll still have to stay there and shop.  Just two more things I want you to buy to complete your pretty new outfit for the new and improved you.  Both of these things are in different jewelry stores.  Find them, buy them, wear them.  The pictures were of a necklace with a shiny pink stone, similar to the ones in his earrings.  The other picture was of a bracelet containing the same pink stones.  Jewelry stores again.  How expensive were they going to be?

 

  

 

There were three or four jewelry stores in the mall.  He walked slowly along the concourse, feeling stupid and totally humiliated while everyone in the world seemed to be noticing him and the way he was dressed.  Was there a cure for his problem?  Yes, a gunshot to his head.  That’s what he would like to do.  But if he did that, it would leave Jimmy alone in the world with no parents at all.

His mind went to thoughts of his dead wife.  Actually, knowing her, she’d probably be laughing her head off at him right now.  Yeah, she would, even though nothing about his situation was funny in the least.  Especially because of what they had done to Jimmy, and what they still might do to him.  Maybe do to them both.

It would actually make more sense if they killed both him and Jimmy.  He prayed they wouldn’t.  He had done everything they had asked of him today.  Everything!  Especially after sending that video of them breaking Jimmy’s finger.  That had been too much.  Too horrible.  Just the thought of it made him sick.  If Jimmy’s finger was forever disfigured or the least bit of trouble at all, he had only himself to blame.  He had no doubt that Jimmy would blame him too.

A jewelry store.  Hip, hip hooray.  Even though he felt no sense of happiness at all.  He went in and looked all around, but didn’t see the necklace or the bracelet.  Of course not.  It couldn’t be that easy.  More than likely they would be in stores as far from him as they could get, just so he’d have to parade himself past as many people as possible.

It was twenty minutes before he found the necklace.  He paid for it, then right there in the store, he tried to put it on.  The woman who had helped him took the necklace from him and fastened it around his neck for him.  She couldn’t seem to stop giggling the entire time she did it.  He didn’t blame her, even though it wasn’t funny in the least.  “Thanks,” he told her gratefully.  When she suggested he look in the mirror so he could see the necklace on him, he had declined.  “No thanks,” he said.  He knew it would be bad.  It might actually look nice, but no matter what, in this situation it would still be bad.  He still had to find a bracelet.

The bracelet was in the next jewelry store he came to.  Once again, after buying it, he struggled to fasten the damn thing around his wrist, and the saleswoman helped him.  He didn’t need a mirror to see the bracelet.  It just flopped around on his wrist, moving every time he moved his hand.

He walked back out into the mall concourse.  According to the last message, he was done.  No more messages, no more shopping.  No more buying humiliating things to add to all the humiliating things he was already wearing.  He was done.  Except he wasn’t.  They wouldn’t be picking him up until nine thirty tonight.  He still had hours to spend walking around the mall feeling humiliated.

He was actually surprised when his phone dinged again.  He put down the bag of diapers and dug the phone out of his cat purse.  No picture this time, just words:  Go back to the food court and get yourself something to eat and a large drink.  Sit at one of the tables.  Finish everything.

It was maybe one of the easiest things they had asked him to do.  He hadn’t eaten anything all day, but the way he felt, he doubted he could eat.  Still, he didn’t want to take any chance at all that they might hurt Jimmy more than they already had.  Resigned, he wandered his way back to the food court.  He stood in line and grabbed a single slice of pizza and a large drink.  He managed to carry it all to a table where he sat down.

He looked at the drink in the huge cup.  No doubt they wanted him to wet the stupid diaper he was wearing again.  How bad would the thing be then?  It had been a misery all day.  He had a feeling it was soon going to be even worse.

He took two bites of the pizza when he heard a sound from the phone inside his cat purse.  A different sound.  He dug the phone out and realized that instead of a message, someone was actually calling to talk.  “Hello?”

“Oohh.  Don’t you look sooo pretty now,” a woman’s voice crooned teasingly.  “Did you enjoy yourself all day?  Do you love the outfit we picked out for you?  We went to a lot of trouble to put it all together for you.”

“No.”

The woman laughed.  “Too bad!” she said sternly.  “That was the point.  Maybe now you’ve had just a little taste of what your son did to someone else.”

“What?” Bruce begged.  “Who?”

“Your son Jimmy and his friends beat up the son of the woman who hired us.  They beat him badly, then they stripped him naked, put a diaper on him, put a dress on him, and paraded him all around the school, before beating him again so badly that he wound up in psychiatric care, where he’s still traumatized.”

“My Jimmy did that?”

“Yes, you moron!  Your Jimmy!  And we punished you too because as his father, you should have raised him better, so he’d know better than to do anything like that.  So it’s not just his fault, but yours as well.”

“I…I didn’t know,” Bruce admitted.  “I had no idea.”

“Of course not, because you’re a bad parent!  Actually, you’re lucky.  The boy’s mother wanted us to kill your son and you too.  But instead, she hired us to punish you both.  Since you behaved, you both will live, but we doubt you’ll ever forget this.”

“Who was the boy?” Bruce asked.  “Who was the mother.  I want to apologize.”

“No!  You’ll never know.  There can never be the slightest chance that we can be traced.  We made sure of it.  We just decided that after what your son did to the other boy, this was the best punishment for you both.  He got beaten to within an inch of his life, and you got the humiliation that he experienced when they paraded him past all his classmates in the school.”

“But…I never knew,” Bruce told her.  “I had no idea!”

“Because you’re a bad parent!” she told him.  “Nine thirty!” she said.  “Stay in that mall and shop and accept your punishment until nine thirty.  Then the van will be back to pick you up.”

“And you’ll take me to Jimmy?  And then home?”

He got no answer.  The line was dead.

Jimmy…his son…had beat up another kid, and humiliated him badly?  It just didn’t sound like something his son would do.  But evidently, he did.  If so, then the woman was right, he was a bad parent.  He hadn’t taught his son well enough at all, and he hadn’t had a clue what his son had really been up to.

He finished his slice of pizza and sat there sipping on his large drink until it was gone.  He got up, threw the trash into one of the trash cans, grabbed the big awkward bag of diapers in one hand, and the little girl cat purse in his other hand, and began walking again.

He felt like such a fool, but now he knew that he deserved it.  But his son didn’t deserve the kind of beating they had given him.  He didn’t deserve to have his finger nearly ripped off.  His Jimmy may have done something bad, but he didn’t deserve that kind of treatment at all.  Whoever these people were, they belonged in jail!

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

Phyllis watched Bruce slowly walking through the mall.  He looked a sight, even though the outfit she had put together for him was actually quite pretty, and it…almost suited him.  She had spoken to him in such a way that he would think it was someone else who had hired her to do this to him and his son.  He would never know that in reality, it was her son Jason who Jimmy had beaten and humiliated so badly.

The police would never find them.  Neither she nor any of her friends would ever be caught and punished for what they had done today.  They had been that careful about everything.

“Phyllis,” Larry said.  “Jason’s here.”

“Let him in,” she replied.

A moment later, her son walked into the room.  “Hello Darling,” she greeted him happily.  She hugged him tightly.  “How are you?”

“Fine Mom,” he told her.  “Did you do it?  Did you punish him?”

“Oh yes!” she replied.

“Can I see?”

“Yes,” she told him.  “But be prepared.  In order to make sure he’d remember this and never bully anyone again, we had to beat him really badly.  Jason, I’m afraid he looks…disturbing.  Very disturbing.  He’s going to need a hospital when we let him go.”

“I don’t care!  I’m glad!  I want to see him.”

She nodded, then turned to Larry.  “Put Jimmy up on the main monitor.”

The picture on the large screen that had been showing the mall was replaced with a picture coming from the camera in a nearby room.  It showed Jimmy, still tied to the chair.  His head hung limply.  There was blood everywhere.  If you looked closely, you could see the broken finger and the strange angle it was at.

Jason looked closely.  “Who’s that?” he asked.

“That’s Jimmy now,” Phyllis told her son.  “The one who did all that to you.  He just looks a lot different now because of the beating we gave him.”

Jason looked closer.  “Uh Mom.  That’s not Jimmy Falco.  That’s Jimmy Falletti.  He’s one of the good kids.  He’s one of my friends.”

Phyllis was shocked.  “That’s not the kid who bullied you?  You said Jimmy Falco.”

“Yeah.  But that’s not him.”

She looked at the man on the mall’s security video.  “And that’s not Jimmy Falco’s father?”

“Mom, the only time I saw Falco’s father, he was a big hairy guy with a beard.”

Phyllis looked back and forth from the screen showing Jimmy who had been beaten so badly, to another monitor showing the boy’s father Bruce.  She had kidnapped and punished the wrong kid.  She had kidnapped and punished the wrong father.

“Oh shit!” she muttered.

“Mom,” Jason said.  “What are you going to do?  Jimmy Falletti is my friend.”

“I don’t know,” Phyllis replied.  She turned to Larry.  “Shut it down…now!  Shut it all down and pack it all up.  We’ve got to get out of here.”

There was sudden commotion everywhere as everything in all the rooms was shut down, packed away, and removed from the building.  As they were finishing, Phyllis pulled her phone out again and dialed the only number that phone had ever contacted.

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

Bruce was very annoyed when once again his phone rang.  He had to set down the big package of diapers again, and dig into his cat purse to pull the thing out.  “Yeah?” he said into the phone.

“Bruce,” the woman’s voice came urgently.  “I’m so sorry.  We just found out that we kidnapped and punished the wrong people.  It wasn’t your son who did the damage, it was another Jimmy.  We’ll be gone from here in a minute.  As soon as were away I’ll phone the police and an ambulance for your Jimmy.  I’m afraid you’ll have to make whatever arrangements for yourself that you can.  This phone I have will be destroyed so it can’t ever be traced.  Nobody will ever be able to trace us.  Again, we apologize for our mistake.  Oh, you might want to change that diaper before you do anything else.  It appears to be sagging a bit.  Just a thought.  Sorry again Bruce.”

Bruce was stunned.  The wrong Jimmy?  All of this was…a mistake?  At least whoever it was said they were going to call the police and an ambulance.  But what was he going to do now about himself?  He realized something, yeah, changing his diaper might not be a bad start.  He ran back to the food court and the men’s room there.  Five minutes later, he came out wearing a fresh diaper and feeling much better.  The only thing on his mind was getting to the hospital to see Jimmy.  But how?  A cab?  Uber?  The police?  He grabbed the phone and called a cab company.

As he waited outside of the mall for the cab, he couldn’t help it.  After that large drink he had consumed, he wet his fresh diaper.  Shit!  Now the damn thing would show under his dress again.  Damn!  But he was still going to the hospital first.  He was still going to see his Jimmy.  Getting to his injured son was all he could think about.  Telling Jimmy how much he loved him was the most important thing in the world that he could do.

To hell with the way he was dressed.  His son was all that mattered.