Rei slipped through the front door of her house as quietly as she could and slipped off her shoes. She stopped for a moment and just listened, trying to see if she could tell where her mother was. Hearing nothing, she carefully peered into the living room, expecting to perhaps see her reading on the couch. Nothing. On tiptoes, Rei made her way to the kitchen and looked through to the dining room beyond. Nothing. The downstairs bathroom was empty too. The car had been in the driveway, though, so Rei knew her mother was home. Maybe she had gone to bed early?

Feeling uneasy, Rei crept up the stairs. She didn’t even know for sure that she had anything to fear from her mother; maybe Professor Lewis had managed to quell her fears without revealing that Rei was taking exactly the kind of class her mother had told her not to. The kind that put ideas in your head, according to her mother.

Relieved to see the second-floor hallway clear of her mother, Rei breathed a sigh of relief and opened the door to her room. A gasp caught in Rei’s throat as she registered she was unexpectedly not alone in her bedroom. Then her eyes caught up to her panicked brain and that panic faded and sunk into dread. Her mother was sitting on the edge of her bed; sitting on the bed beside her were some of Rei’s school books—specifically the kind that taught feminist theory.

The two looked at each other in silence as the moment stretched on forever for Rei.

“Mom…what…?” Rei finally managed to force out a few strangled words.

“How was class today, Rei?”

“Uhm, okay, how was your day?” She replied, trying to redirect.

“Tell me again, what classes did you have today?”

“Uh…” Rei chewed on her bottom lip nervously, knowing she was caught and unsure how best to minimize the damage.

“Stop chewing your lip, Rei, and answer the question.”

“I had class with Professor Lewis and Professor Slater today,” evasion, she had decided, was her best bet right now.

“Uh huh, and what class, exactly, does Professor Lewis teach?”

Damn, that didn’t work.

“Rei! I’m tired of telling you, stop chewing your lip and answer the question.”

“English.”

Ms. Akiyama clicked her tongue and shook her head; she had hoped her daughter would come clean, but instead she had lied through her teeth right to her own mother’s face. Who was her daughter becoming? Whoever it was, Ms. Akiyama didn’t like it, and she wasn’t going to let her daughter go down a bad path.

“So, you are reading,” Ms. Akiyama picked up one of the books on the bed next to her, “The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir for English?”

Rei nodded; she was committed now, and the only way out was through.

“I see,” Ms. Akiyama set the book down and picked up the next, “Gender Trouble by Judith Butler?”

Rei nodded, her eyes wide, glossy discs.

“And A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft?”

Rei kept lying, but there was no light at the end of the tunnel yet.

Ms. Akiyama sighed and set the books down. “Well, don’t you worry; you won’t be needing these books anymore. I called the school today and withdrew you from that English class.”

“What? Mom! That’s not fair!” Rei was trying to keep her voice calm, but she couldn’t help but let it crank up a few decibels. Her heart was suddenly beating way too fast, and she felt vaguely beside herself with frustration and anger.

“Life isn’t fair, Rei,” Ms. Akiyama spat back. “And you don’t just get to do whatever you want without consequences. When I agreed to let you continue going to college, you promised me wouldn’t be taking courses like that. You don’t need to be filling your head with the kind of dreck these classes teach! It is bad enough that you took that class after I had expressly forbidden you from taking any such classes, but then you sat there and lied to my face about it. You abused my trust, Rei; you have to learn there will be consequences to this kind of behavior.”

“I wouldn’t have had to lie about the class if you would have just let me take it in the first place!” Rei shot back impotently. Tears were threatening to run down her face, and her hands were balled into fists at her side.

“Excuse me, young lady? Are you saying it’s my fault you lied?”

“No, that’s not what I meant!” As upset as she was, even Rei had the sense to know when to back pedal. “It’s just…” her mouth worked for words her brain wasn’t providing.

“Just what? What do you have to say for yourself to justify this behavior?”

“Just…ugh! Why can’t I just take the stupid class? You don’t even know what we learn in there!”

“I have a good enough idea, young lady. And I’ve already told you, I don’t want that school filling your head with all sorts of ideas about what the world could or should be; the world is what it is, and you have to accept that! You have to live in reality, Rei; don’t you understand I just want what’s best for you?”

“You don’t know what’s best for me!”

Rei saw the look in her mother’s eyes and immediately knew she had said the wrong thing.

It all happened so quickly that Rei’s brain had to race to keep up with her body. Ms. Akiyama’s hand shot out, catching Rei’s wrist in an iron grip, and tugging the small girl forward and across her mother’s lap. On Ms. Akiyama’s end, the motion was surprisingly instinctive despite it having been the better part of two decades since she had needed to perform it.

“Mom!” Rei protested as she realized what was about to happen. “I’m sorry!”

But her pleas fell on indifferent ears.

Ms. Akiyama flipped her daughter’s skirt up, yanked down her cotton panties, reared back, and smacked her daughter hard enough to fill the room with a thunderous clap that nearly swallowed Rei’s pained yelp. Then she did it again. And again. And again.

By the fifth hit, Rei had started kicking her feet, desperately trying to get away, but Ms. Akiyama held her firmly in place. By the fifteenth, Rei’s yelps had turned to cries, quickly approaching sobs. By the thirtieth, all the fight had gone out of the girl, and she lay limply across her mother’s lap, tears cascading freely down her face, praying it would end soon. By the fiftieth, Ms. Akiyama had to help her shuddering daughter get up off of her lap and stand on her own feet.

“I am your mother, Rei, I will always know what is best for you,” Ms. Akiyama held her daughter by her shaking shoulders as she looked into her tear-filled eyes. “You, Rei, are a child and do not understand how the world works. You do not have the experience, knowledge, or maturity to make these kinds of decisions. I had thought that maybe, just maybe, you were ready for that responsibility, but this whole fiasco demonstrates very clearly that you do not. So, from now on until you grow up and can make important decisions yourself, I will be making them for you. I will make your decisions because I know what is best for you. And what is best for you is that you never go to that class again. Do you understand?”

Rei nodded weakly.

“Say the words, Rei. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mom, I understand.”

“Now, I think you should thank me for allowing you to continue going to all your other classes, don’t you?”

A fresh round of sobs racked Rei’s body, but she nodded, “t-thank you,” she managed to get out.

“You’re welcome.”

Ms. Akiyama let go of her daughter’s shoulders, and the girl crumpled to the ground. Without another word, she gathered up the now confiscated feminist texts and walked out of the room, closing the door gently behind her.

Rei lay on the floor for a long moment after that, but eventually crawled over to her discarded backpack. She grabbed her cell phone from the front pocket and opened her texting app.