House RulesStepmom posts a list of rules, and rule one is obey her

The story

Look who is home: the stepson, back for a week, finds his stepmother Veronica already waiting at the door. Dad is traveling for work, she says, so the house is theirs alone, and she would like to share her ground rules. Rule one: obey her every order. Rule two is no calling his girlfriend today. The girlfriend, as it happens, texts that she is coming to visit tomorrow. Veronica suggests the hot tub, then a shower in ten minutes. She also reminds him not to make her wait.

The twist

Episode 2 starts with him late. She says she can start without him. He insists he has a girlfriend and that she is his father's wife. By morning she has a robe, a new rule about pretending not to hear and a doorbell ringing: the girlfriend is outside.

Developing story

The paid episodes will tell whether the house rules survive a visitor on the porch, and whether the rulebook has a final chapter.