It was Sunday evening. Pete sat on his back balcony, sipping a scotch and soda and watching the sunset. He had a broad smile on his face. 'Pete,' he thought to himself, 'life is good. In an hour, you are going to get to spank the three prettiest girls you know.'
Pete was in his late forties. He had been a widower for ten years, having lost his wife to cancer. She got sick before they could start a family, and losing her had been hard. But he had fallen back on his work, and had buried himself in building his business. It had paid off handsomely enough that he was able to pay off the mortgage on his house and buy the property next door, turning it into a rental. In looking for tenants, one of the things he tried was posting a notice on the housing bulletin board of the local college. That got him a string of more or less completely unqualified applicants that he rejected. But then, he got a call from Laura.
Laura said that she and two other girls had decided that rather than get efficiency apartments that they wanted to pool their resources and rent a nice house. She explained that they had met while perusing the bulletin board and discovered the remarkable coincidence that their names all began with "L" - the other two were Lana and Linda. They decided that the coincidence was an omen and called themselves "the house of 'L'" for fun.
Pete chuckled with her and outlined the basic terms. In the past, his telling his potential younger applicants the amount of the rent and required deposits usually was the end of the conversation, but Laura explained that because the three of them were pooling their money, that that amount was going to be no problem. They made an appointment to check out the house. They met the following Saturday afternoon.
All three of them looked quite similar - all of them were five-foot-six or so, and very curvy, Pete thought. Laura was a strawberry blonde with blue eyes and just a few freckles. Linda had auburn hair and brown eyes, and Lana had jet black hair and brown eyes. He thought they looked particularly cute together, roaming around the house, peeking into cabinets and looking at all of the rooms.
When he gathered them all together, he asked them if he was sure they'd be able to pay the rent on time, and live together. They assured him that there would be no problems. They all agreed, signed the lease, gave Pete their deposits and the first month's rent and moved in.
That was last fall. The rent was never late, and for the most part, things seemed uneventful. Pete would occasionally need to visit to fix something, or perform some maintenance on the house, and when he did, he saw that the girls were keeping up the place nicely. They were basically friendly neighbors. From what Pete could tell, they spent a lot of time studying, and not much time socializing. They did, however, spend quite a bit of time arguing between them.
Since the three girls had gotten to know Pete fairly well, they all regularly talked with him, and he slowly became their confidant. Hardly a week didn't go by that he'd bump into Lana and she'd complain about Laura not doing this chore, or Laura would complain to him about Linda leaving the living room a mess, or Linda complaining about Lana playing her music late... Pete listened patiently and tried to dispense fatherly advice.
It all came to a head last week. Pete was just putting away his dinner when he heard a plate break next door and a shouting match started. He quickly ran next door and knocked on the door. When he did, the shouting stopped and Lana answered the door. Pete asked what the problem was and the three of them all simultaneously started talking and pointing fingers. Pete closed his eyes and shouted, "Girls! That's enough!"
The three of them stopped in mid-sentence and just stared at him. He then told them all that over the last few months, all three of them had come to him outlining their petty disagreements. He had heard about it all and that all three of them were acting childishly. He ended his diatribe saying, "Now I want you all three to clean up that mess." He pointed to the broken plate on the kitchen floor that had been the flashpoint for this current spat. "And then come over to my house in fifteen minutes to discuss this." With that, he turned around and left the dumbfounded girls staring out the door.
He got back to his house and pondered the situation. Separately, he had been acting as an impromptu therapist to all of them, trying to help them get along. He recounted their litany of complaints - all over such childish things. If it wasn't for that, everything would be perfect. All they needed was a little discipline and they'd get along perfectly.
He stopped in his tracks. And smiled.
He spent a few minutes arranging four chairs in a circle in his living room - three kitchen chairs for the girls and a large, oak chair for him. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. He went to answer it. His three tenants stood outside. They were quiet, and all of them had a little bit of a mixture of worry and guilt in their looks. He ushered them inside to the circle of chairs.
"Girls, you are excellent tenants. You pay the rent on time, and you mostly take care of the house well. I'm very happy with all of you. But I'm worried that if you don't all cooperate with each other more, you're going to drive each other crazy. None of us want that - you girls obviously just want to get along with each other, and I don't want to have to look for new tenants if you can't. All of you have told me about the little things you all do to drive each other nuts. So I've got a simple solution. When one of you has a problem with what another is doing, then go to the third person and have them be the judge. Let them decide the disagreement. And whoever loses gets a demerit. And that will end the arguing. And once a week, you count up the demerits."
Lana spoke up, "Well so what? What are these demerits supposed to do?"
Pete said, "Well, what do you girls think? What should the consequence be for whoever has the most?"
The girls looked pensive. Laura spoke up, "Well, when I was a kid, I got spanked."
The other girls looked incredulously at Laura. Pete spoke up, "Well, what do you all think?"
Lana chimed in, "Would we spank each other?"
Linda answered that one, "No way! I don't trust any of you to do it. We need someone neutral."
A moment later, the three of them almost simultaneously looked at Pete.
Pete put a scholarly look on his face, "I would be happy to step up for you ladies, if you all agree."
The three of them looked at each other, then back to Pete, and nodded. Pete smiled warmly. "Alright, then. I think we should make a weekly appointment."
They discussed their schedules and all agreed that Sunday evening was the best choice, since all of them had classes Monday morning. 8:00 would be the time.
Pete said, "One more thing: I think that to start off with a clean slate, and so all three of you know what this is going to mean, I think that for the first session all three of you should be spanked. I think that's only fair. And after that, every week whoever has the most demerits will know what's to come."