Chapter 1
When Maisie Lott was in her late teens, her mother Emily sat her down, looking serious.
Maisie braced herself for a lecture about the birds and bees and wondered if her somewhat out-of-date mother would then invite her front-running daughter, in terms of reading knowledge, to be informed about how the modern woman behaves in bed or on the kitchen floor or even spread over the dining table.
But not to be.
Emily said, "There now, I have given you a glimpse of the window of life that you will begin to experience in your twenties, and not too early I would hope, this being the latest mother-to-daughter talk as approved by Pastor James.
Maisie was left wondering just how lacking in enlightenment was her mother.
There had been no mention of self-generated sexual gratification, back-door sex, cutting loose at a sex-driven party of just females, the essential list of joy-toys for girls in their late teens, and how to roll on a condom with one's teeth.
Also not covered were other essentials to educate what lay ahead for a daughter entering the age when hair around her pussy was turning into a fucking jungle while worrying when the day would arrive when she'd have to shave her top lip practically daily.
How stupid.
Her mother should have just tossed her a sex education video and said something like 'get your teeth into that, my darling' and waited outside the door for her sensitive little darling to come running to her screaming that she wanted to start living in a convent,
"Oh yeah," giggled very well-read Maisie.
Maisie' long trend of bringing home new girlfriends began changing with her age development.
She remembered how that subtle change occurred.
Pete followed her into the house and Maisie's had called out, "Hi mum, I'm home from school with a friend. We are ready for food and juice."
Emily came into the kitchen in her Sunday Best as she wore every late afternoon in the hope one of the church ladies would phone and suggest she'd drop in for a cuppa.
Taking one look at the new friend, Emily had yelled, "What are you doing in MY house with MY daughter?"
Peter just reacted like any normal young guy; he just shrugged.
"Get out of my house before I sweep you out with a broom."
"Mum, stop cavorting in a brainless mind over-flow. Pete just happens to be the first boy I've ever brought home for an afternoon bite. No, stay Pete, and stop looking terrorised as that will only provoke my mother."
"What language are you using?" Emily said, looking agog. "I've never heard you speak like that before."
"It's nothing really mum, it's just that I'm 6-months into being at a State school after all those years after being at a convent-run school until I was expelled for proclaiming to the class that it was impossible for a virgin birth to have had occurred, that the Scripture writers must have been smoking pot when they wrote that bit. I now attend a real-world school where modern education really means that."
"Omigod."
"Yes mum, and He probably exists at State-run schools too. Sit Pete and mum, may we have the food and drink we are hanging out for, please."
"Oh, of course," Emily said and walked in a trance-like state to the cake tins.
Maisie clearly remembers Pete, these days a Med School graduate, looking at her in awe and saying, 'F-fucking shit, Maisie, you handled your out-of-her-tree mother like an a-accomplished lion-tamer'.
It was also Pete who suggested, in apparent total sincerity, that her name Maisie was adorable.
"Adorable name, really?" Maisie can remember saying and thinking she could hear Angels chorusing 'Hallelujah'.
Maisie shudders whenever dialling up the memory at the end of her first day at university, taking Freddie Holmes home with her for dinner. Freddie had ungroomed red hair down to his shoulders, red stubble as he was attempting to grow a beard, a dirty white shirt and his zip had been jammed opened and there were embarrassing tell-tale stains on his pants around the dysfunctional zip.
Her father Owen, gaped at Freddie as if he were the Second Coming while Emily just fell straight to the floor and broke her nose.
Freddie just left without being asked to leave, as if his awesome intellect told him that the welcome mat had been pulled indoors and he was forever a banned visitor to that home.
Four years went by.
Maisie remembers it was, for her parents, as if Auckland had frozen in time as their lovely daughter and her lovely gay friend Madeline, who they adored without knowing the girls were actually consummate lovers, walked together on-stage together as joint winners to receive the Fellows Award for graduating top of their class with honours in studying for their Master's Degree in Education.
Maisie spent the next day in bed in grief over the loss of her best-ever friend. Madeline had left late the previous evening, flying to England with her parents where she was soon begin up-grading her qualification there to permit her to begin teaching at the girl's boarding school where her mother and grandmother had both been pupils and then returned to teach.
During that day, Emily had come into the bedroom to comfort her daughter and said, "Maisie, I can't understand why you are grieving so hard over the loss of Madeline. I know that you lived your last three years at university in shared accommodation and did practically everything together, but we all know as we grow up that friends come and go."
"But mum, we were closer than close," Maisie sobbed.
Emily asked what did that mean.
"For almost every day for three years, Madeline and I copulated."
Amid her shock and sobbing, Emily pondered and finally said, "I was aware that you two were called gay but it assumed that merely meant happily compatible. Um, now can I say this but to come right out with it, "Where you two in a lesbian relationship?
"Yes, and heavily," Maisie sobbed, tears running.
"Oh, my darling, now I understand; you have lost a dear lover," said Emily, unaware that she'd just jumped into the 21st Century of General Knowledge.
"Yes mother," Maisie wailed and Emily began patting her, shedding tears also.
Next evening, mother and daughter were sipping gin and tonics together while Owen cooked dinner on the outdoor barbecue, Emily said, "You know Maisie, you young devil. You began shocking me from an early age and yet yesterday, when I learned what your total relationship with Madeline really was, I was little more than mildly shocked. It appears you have finally worn me down until I'm almost conditioned to expect anything from you."
"Um, will it be difficult to find a replacement err, girlfriend lover?"
Maisie sniffed, "Not particularly difficult. Opportunities are practically everywhere."
"That can't be so, darling."
"Oh yes, mother. Even within your church."
"That definitely can't be so," Emily blurted, spilling gin and tonic over her dress front in shock at hearing such an allegation.
"Mum, I suggest you carefully ask your pastor's wife what is her relationship with Mrs Bennett."
"Oh, for goodness sake, Maisie. Don't be so absurd."
"Fine mother, you are entitled to your beliefs even if at times they may blind you."
They sipped in silence until Eve said shakily, "I believe you Maisie. You have rarely lied to me and I finally accept you are telling the truth over Matilda and Irene. Omigod, how the world in changing."
"In some ways, perhaps it could be changing for the better," Maisie said.
They giggled.
"Ho-ho, what's the joke?" Owen said, coming in to say dinner was ready, with his wife eyeing gravy spills on his apron.
"You would be disgusted, dad."
"Oh no," he said, backing out of the doorway fast. "Keep me away from discussion about periods."
The women laughed and Emily said, "We'll both miss you terribly darling, when you decide to leave home."
"Is that a hint, mother?"
"Oh goodness no, Maisie," her mother said earnestly. "Who else could I have conversations with about topics such as periods."
