Only Consenting Adults

[Author's note: months after the blackmail and extortion racket has been disbanded, how has it changed the Staunton family? Will Gerard finally accept his polyamorous bisexual fuck-up of a daughter? Do Aidan and Rosa have a second chance?

What has Mara Fey (

PBH08

) worked out about the meaning of life?]

---

THE VICTORY OF LOVE

Jen looked out through the open French doors at the garden. It was strange now to see it, the intimate familiarity of her childhood home, sitting on the daybed with her son nestled up to her breast, feeding quietly. She looked down, watching his tiny face, his eyes closed as he suckled. A tiny hand was wrapped tightly around her finger as if to tell her that he wasn't done yet and she was going nowhere until he got what he wanted. Jen smiled: just like his father.

"I brought you some tea."

Jen looked up as her mother entered the room, cradling a couple of steaming mugs.

"I was going to use the nice cups and saucers, but caution got the better of me."

"Could you put it down on the side, please? I don't want him to knock me."

"Of course."

She put the mug down on the side table and sat down in the armchair opposite her daughter. Jen smiled her thanks, her attention drifting back through the doors to the garden. The lawn was just as she remembered it, the low shrubs around the pond. Despite everything that had come between them in recent years, she had only happy memories of the garden, playing carefree in it when she was young and innocent. Her mother followed her gaze.

"Gerard has booked a man to come around next week. We're going to put wire netting over the pond."

"I think James is a little way off needing that," Jen replied.

"Maybe, but Millie isn't."

Her mother curled up in the armchair with her legs under her, sipping tea. There was a comfortable silence between mother and daughter, for the first time in years.

"How's Dad going? He sounds busy."

Her mother nodded, absently.

"Yes, there's plenty going on. His star is still on the rise."

Jen frowned. "Really?" she said, "I thought...?"

"No, the opposite. When he changed the legislation, it actually gave him the reputation that he's a man to do business with, rather than some fixed idealogue. You'd be surprised who he's been taking meetings with."

James disengaged, licking his lips. Jen tucked herself back into her bra and lifted him upright.

"Do you want me to burp him?" her mother asked.

"Uh, ok."

"I still remember how. God knows I did enough of that with you. You did like the breast, Jen. You were voracious."

Jen watched on as her mother set her mug down and got up. Gently, she took the drowsy infant and laid him on her shoulder, patting his back patiently.

Jen looked up at her mother's face, feeling a little pang of discomfort, but her mother was smiling at her as she settled back down into her chair.

"There's a new movie showing down at the theatre, did you know? The War Against Love. That Mara Fey woman is in it, I believe she also wrote it."

Jen shook her head, uncertain where the conversation was leading.

"I'm going to see it with Harriet."

There was a strange look in her mother's eyes, and Jen realised that it was nervousness.

"What about Dad?"

"He's coming too. He booked the tickets. We're going to dinner after."

"That's a big step, for Dad at least."

Her mother shook her head.

"He's a lot more versatile than you give him credit for. It's one of the reasons I'm still married to him."

"But why?" Jen asked, "Why now?"

The other woman shrugged. "You, I suppose."

"Really?"

"I'm not talking about us all moving in together, replicating your arrangement. That's too far."

"And Dad's okay with all this? What about his career? What about...?"

Before she could finish, her mother interjected. "He is," she said, "There are still limits. Things haven't changed."

Jen frowned in confusion, baffled by her mother's admission.

"But, Jen, they are changing. I don't need what you have. I'm at a different stage. We've talked about it, and Gerard wants to find out what I need, how much change is enough. He knows I've denied myself all this for years."

"Do you know?"

Her mother laughed.

"After twenty-odd years, a movie and dinner is enough. At least for now. Ironically, once again, it's all about your father. He's more important to me, our marriage is more important to me, and if I had to choose again, like I did all those years ago, it would be the same choice and I wouldn't regret it."

She sighed, cradling her grandson in her arms.

"But as your father told me, maybe now, so long as we're discreet, it doesn't have to be a choice."

"That's a long way from where he was."

Jen grinned at her mother, who laughed.

"Oh, he's known Harriet almost as long as I have. We were at their wedding, we went to her divorce party. I have my suspicions that he's secretly harbouring plans."

The way her mother said it made Jen's eyes go wide, and she laughed too.

"Mother!"

"Daughter!"

"That's... uh...."

"Look at you, suddenly all shy about discussing your mother's love life. I'm joking, really, I'm just joking."

"Okay."

Her mother rose from the chair and began to walk around the room, jiggling up and down, patting her grandson's bottom in a steady cadence as he began to drift off. At the open doors into the garden, she turned back to look at her daughter.

"Or am I?" she said, and stepped out into the garden.

---

Rosa had suggested it, that they go to the movies. Aidan had asked what was playing but he already knew what Rosa would want to see. When she had suggested 'The War Against Love' Aidan had simply smiled and acquiesced. As an afterthought, he'd suggested making it a couples' night, and Rosa agreed. It was over and done with in a matter of minutes, leaving Aidan with a strange sense of relief that his wife wanted to see Mara's film. He took out his phone and messaged Indi and Jaden to see if they were free.

Aidan got the tickets for the four of them, and they met up at a burger bar next to the cinema beforehand to eat. Walking to the cinema, they naturally paired up into couples, with Indi and Jaden in front and Aidan following along behind with Rosa. Indi was holding hands with Jaden, and Rosa gave him a little nudge, saying nothing.

In the cinema, they filed into their seats, with the girls in the middle and the boys at either end. Indi had to edge carefully along the row, her swollen belly brushing against the seats in front. Aidan took his seat next to his wife and Rosa slipped her hand into his. Next to them, Indi and Jaden were chatting, holding hands too.

"Popcorn?" Aidan asked, holding up his box.

The girls declined, but Jaden nodded, reaching across to take a handful. He nodded back, in a curiously deferential way, then settled into his seat. Aidan understood; the situation was a little awkward between them, with Jaden on a night out with his bosses, but Indi had insisted that he come along. She shifted in her seat, trying to get comfortable, smiling at her boyfriend.

They looked happy together, and Aidan had to admit they were well suited. Both of them were a little reserved, both quite conscientious. When Rosa had offered Indi a job at the gym, Aidan had told her it was only a matter of time before the two of them got together, and he'd been right. He squeezed his wife's hand. He'd been right about other things, too.

The lights went down and the curtains opened. Suddenly, Indi squealed and grabbed Rosa's hand.

"Now," she exclaimed, pulling her top up to expose her belly.

Indi pressed Rosa's hand against her skin.

"Just there. Wait. There, again, did you feel it?"

Rosa's hand jerked back, her eyes flaring in surprise. Then, carefully, she placed her hand back on Indi's rounded stomach. A wide grin spread across her face.

"He's strong," she murmured, happily.

"Maybe he's just excited about the movie," Indi replied, grinning back.

Rosa laughed again. "Wow, he kicks like his Dad."

She looked across at Aidan, and her expression mellowed fractionally. Aidan knew what it meant, and in the dark, he felt a strange surge of pride and gratitude. Rosa's last precious golden marble: Indi's gift to them both.

The movie started.

Mara Fey walked down a corridor in some hotel somewhere, staring into the lens, a grim smile on her face. It was unnerving, like she was looking straight at Aidan, like she had done in the bar in the hotel in Tokyo, looking over the darkened skyline. All at once he was half a world away.

"What's the point of life?" Mara asked, then she shrugged and grinned into the camera. "Wanna find out?"

She stopped, seizing a door handle and swinging it open, sauntering into the hotel room in wickedly high heels, wrapped in a short tight skirt with sheer, dark stockings. She sported a crop top, showing off the sculpted abdominals that Aidan had helped her attain. A man was standing in the middle of the floor in a suit. She brushed her long blonde hair out of the way and leaned in for a kiss.

"So, baby," she said in a low, sexy murmur, "I'm all yours for the evening. Where do you want me to start?"

She pushed, and the man fell back onto the bed. Above him, hand cocked on her hip, Mara Fey began to grin.

Rosa shuffled in her seat next to Aidan. She leaned close, her lips brushing his ear.

"She looks like a porn star, she's incredible."

"She's okay."

"Okay? Seriously?" Rosa exclaimed, then continued, "So that's what you gave up?"

Aidan paused, then turned to his wife, watching the way her eyes glinted in the reflected light of the big screen.

"Yeah, babe, I gave all that up for you."

Rosa smiled, her eyes wide and soft. "She's awesome."

"Yeah," Aidan agreed, "But you're awesomer."

Rosa curled her fingers tightly around Aidan's hand.

"Yeah, babe, I'm awesomer," she said.

It felt unreal, holding hands with his wife, watching his ex-lover twenty feet tall on the screen, revealing the plotline that he'd proof-read and commented on with her, seeing her vision come to life. As far as he knew, if the gossip mags could be relied on for such things, she was still single. She must have pulled the pin on Andrew after all. Aidan smiled to himself and settled into the movie.

It ended as it began, with Mara's character walking down the corridor, staring into the camera. But it was a different corridor now in a different place, a small smile playing on her lips and her chin raised defiantly.

"What is the point of life?" she mused, "What is the point of any of this? It isn't what we have, it's not all the things we amass, or the house we have or the holidays we take. No, it's what we feel."

She paced forward, the camera tracking back, keeping her in frame.

"A gentle hand, a landscape under radiant sunshine, the first cry of a tiny voice, a smile on a deathbed."

Mara stopped, and the camera continued to track away from her, making her smaller and smaller now.

"This," she said, "This is the point."

She looked down at Aidan and gave her trademark lopsided grin.

"Such is life," she smiled.

---

Jaden made his own way home, but they dropped Indi off at Tony's house. Kora had taken her into the fold, giving up her spare room in exchange for another willing pair of hands in the house. Indi liked being part of a family, and having someone to talk to as she went through pregnancy, someone who had been there before, had brought the two women even closer.

Aidan watched from the car until she was inside, then they pulled away, driving back to the apartment.

"What did you think of it?" Aidan asked, his hand in hers.

"I thought it was good."

"Just good?"

"Oh, the plot? Yeah, that was good, and her performance was excellent."

"You're very complimentary."

"I don't want to disparage."

"So there's a but."

"Yeah, okay, but," Rosa replied, "I think she was wrong."

"About what?"

"About love."

Rosa didn't elaborate, but her thumb stroked the back of Aidan's hand as they drove through the streets. After a while, Aidan broke the silence.

"How was going out to the movies?"

"Good, I enjoyed it."

"It wasn't too much?"

Rosa paused.

"Ah, too much," Aidan continued.

"It's just, I guess, sometimes."

"You did good though, Cassie thinks you're progressing."

"Yeah, today the movies, tomorrow what? Dancing on tables with friends like we used to?"

"Baby steps."

"Yeah. Talking of which, I felt the kick, Aidan. It was, I don't know. Feeling there's a baby there, that Indi's, uh...."

She trailed off.

"Indi's doing fine. You went to the doc with her, right? You were there. It's all good."

"I just," Rosa said, faltering, "I get scared."

Aidan chanced a look across at his wife.

"Me too, but this time, it's gonna work."

"It's gotta."

"It will, you'll see. It's all gonna work out."

Rosa lapsed into silence again, and they didn't speak all the way home, driving hand in hand through the darkened streets back to their apartment. Aidan opened the front door, letting Rosa go in front. She wandered into the living room and settled onto the couch.

"You okay? Really?"

Rosa looked up at him and then patted the seat next to her. Aidan flopped down next to his wife, putting an arm around her shoulders. Rosa snuggled into him for a while, not saying anything, then she reached for the zipper of his jeans.

"Sure, if you want," Aidan told her.

Rosa unzipped him, slipping her hand into his jeans, pulling out his manhood. She bent down, nuzzling him as he began to stir and thicken. She looked up at him, her eyes wide, then took him into her mouth, sucking gently until he was rigid. Aidan's hand rested on her head, his fingers entwined with her hair as she bobbed up and down on him.

"Good?" he asked.

"Mm-hmm."

Rosa began to relax, applying herself to the task of giving him attention, as if it was soothing her. Rosa's lips popped off the tip of his cock with a wet slapping sound.

"Do you want to cum in my mouth?" she asked.

"Up to you."

Rosa plunged down onto him again, tongue swirling in her mouth as she applied suction. Aidan moaned under his breath. When she popped off him again, he felt a pulse of bliss ripple through him at his wife's ardent attentions.

"I'm a good cock sucking slut," she purred, "Aren't I?"

"You're great, Rosa," Aidan agreed.

She took him deep, until he could feel his tip pressing against the back of her throat. He looked down at his wife as she lost herself in the act of giving him an exquisite blowjob. He understood the implications of her actions, the change in her after everything she had been through. There was a twinge of guilt within him, that he was cooperating with her behaviour, but that's what Cassie had spoken to him about: baby steps.

"I want you," he told his wife as she sucked him energetically, bobbing eagerly up and down on his rigid shaft.

The effect on Rosa was immediate. She pulled up off him, wiping her chin with the back of her hand, then got up off the couch. There was a nervous energy about her now, the melancholy mood of a few minutes ago dispelled by the act of giving him head, as it always seemed to do.

"Give me ten minutes," she murmured excitedly, and left.

Aidan's head rolled back onto the seat rest, his rigid cock glistening with his wife's attentions, counting down the minutes until he was allowed into their bedroom. His thoughts drifted to Mara, staring down at him from the screen. He had enjoyed the story, seeing the little hidden things in it that they'd talked about as she'd written the screenplay, seeing how Mara had managed to bring it all to life. There was a part of him that still missed her in some way, but he'd long ago acknowledged the impossibility of building a life with a figure who was used to being twenty feet tall on a screen or a billboard. Hardy had been right, in the end. Despite the long road back to normality still ahead, he had been granted a re-do by the god of second chances. Heaving himself off the couch, he went to find his wife.

The bedroom door was closed, so he knocked once. There was no response. He took a deep breath before he turned the handle and slowly opened the door.

Lying peacefully on the bed was the glossy black shape of a doll. The curves of her body gleamed, side lit by the bedside lamp. His eyes travelled up her body, from the shapely, toned legs wrapped tightly in the shiny latex, over the crotch adorned with a metal zip, up the flat torso to the pert globes of her breasts, lifted and constrained into perfect domes by the full-enclosure bodysuit.

The folds of the transparent breath hood rose and fell, inflating and deflating as his wife sucked in a breath through the tiny hole in its front, or exhaled with a low susurration. He watched the hood balloon and then contract until the vacuum forced it tight against her head, revealing every contour of her face beneath the slick latex.

"I'm here," he said.

Rosa nodded, her expression a little unsure.

"Did I keep you waiting?" he asked.

"A little."

"I was just outside, waiting to come in. I didn't go anywhere."

He stroked her neck through the latex.

"I'm not going anywhere, Rosa. Ever. You know that, right?"

"Yeah."

Each time they did this, it became a little easier. Cassie had talked him through it all, showing him what it meant. Lying in her latex suit on their bed in their bedroom, with Aidan standing over her, was forcing her to relive the moment over a year ago when she had come into this same bedroom in the same tight black latex to find that he'd left her. Cassie's advice was simple: to revisit that moment and change the ending, building it into something pleasurable and eventually erasing the hurt. Baby steps.

Aidan began to strip, watching her. Rosa didn't move or acknowledge his presence, but she never did at this point. She was waiting patiently and expectantly to be used. Once he was naked, he climbed onto the bed, kneeling next to her, running a hand over the glossy black skin, as he always did. There were words that were needed as well.

"Beautiful," he murmured, "Perfect. You look incredible, Rosa."

That had been the advice, to use her name, subtly steering her. He ran a hand over her chest, teasing his fingertips over the glossy black surface of her breasts until he could feel the stiff buds of her nipples beneath the latex. He caught one between finger and thumb, rolling gently. Rosa's breathing quickened.

"No, no," he murmured, "Just concentrate on your breathing, you don't want to run out of air."

His fingers sought out her other nipple and tweaked, a little harder. The glossy black shape squirmed. Aidan brushed his hand up between her breasts, cupping her cheek, stroking it through the latex hood.

"I love you, Rosa," he told her.

Beneath the transparent latex, her eyes met his, making contact. Aidan smiled down at her, acknowledging the progress they had made.

"Do you want me inside you, babe?"

The eyes explored his face.

"I need to hear you tell me," he prompted, "I want to hear you decide."

"Yes," she whispered, the hood inflating with her breath, "I want you inside."

Aidan cupped her face in his hands and bent over her to kiss her on the lips, sealing the little breath hole in the mask. He felt the tip of her tongue wiggle through the hole as he clamped his mouth down on hers. He felt the latex contract over her face, but he maintained the kiss, breathing through his nose even as he denied his wife air. Her tongue wriggled feverishly and he felt the first constrictions of her chest as her body began to run out of oxygen, but he waited, maintaining the seal until he felt her hands on his body, fluttering across his skin, an unconscious reaction as she pleaded to be allowed to breathe.