"I live here, Ginger." Sarah said quietly, a small smile beginning. "I had no idea Clarice was your daughter. Leboux is a fairly common name. I guess there is some similarity when I think about it. Why don't you sit down before you fall down." Ginger took her seat where Sarah indicated. "The girls are about to break out the blender and make daiquiris or pina coladas or some sort of drink. Lou and I can't imbibe of course." she added, rubbing her massive belly. Ginger looked at Lou and noticed her belly was as large as Sarah's.
"Uhh, I knew you were pregnant but not Lou. I thought it was invitro fertilization or something." Ginger said.
"Nope, just good old fashioned humping. I suppose you already guessed Derek is the father." Sarah said, her smile widening. " I never made a secret of that. You just have not seemed to be around much when I stopped by the past few months. We live here now."
"How do you two know each other?" Clarice blurted totally shocked at this development. She had never seen her mother defer to another woman this way. Ginger was almost cowering.
'Oh we go way back." Sarah said. "What? Twelve years? Maybe a little more." Ginger nodded. "Yeah back to the time Aunt Ethyl was still around. I was just out of grad school when we met." Derek knew something was going on. Ginger was nervous as the proverbial cat in a rocking chair factory. He stepped to the fridge to get himself a beer and turned to watch the show from across the room. He looked at Lou who had a slight smile on her face as well. Their smiles was not a friendly, welcoming smile. It was one a predator might have if it could smile. Obviously, she knew the story.
"Do you want to start or me?" Sarah asked. Ginger opened her mouth but only a weak croak came out. Sarah turned to Caroline, "Why don't you get the drinks started? Our guests are gonna need a few. It looks like our afternoon barbeque has turned into a full party." Sarah looked over at Derek and grinned. Derek thought the grin for him was friendly. "Okay, I'm guessing Clarice and Bev here knew their mother is lesbian. Well, bi at one point since she has them. She was in a pretty tight relationship with my Aunt Ethyl years ago. It lasted a while. Of course probably not right out in front of the kids who were just about to hit puberty or a little younger I would imagine considering the time. Right, Ginger?" Ginger nodded. "Well twelve years ago Aunt Ethyl developed Non Hodgkins lymphoma. Now they have decent treatments for it but back then they were not so good and she did not respond to any of them. Aunt Ethyl died eleven years ago. Despite their supposedly close relationship, Ginger here did not spend much time with Ethyl towards the end. I know because I was there."
"I couldn't." Ginger protested. "I had two kids at home. Eleven and thirteen. You know that. We talked about it many times since then and I thought we reconciled."
"Oh we did." Sarah said. "I am just giving a little background to the story. Why don't you all get yourselves a drink? I'll have iced tea." Derek heard Clarice whisper to her sister asking if she knew any of this. Bev shook her head. Sarah got up saying she had to pee again. "It's been a whole thirty minutes. My bladder is being squeezed like a lemon!" Lou rose out of her chair as well and followed her. Drinks were made and served by the time Lou and Sarah returned. "Do you want to continue the story?"
"Please." Ginger said. "I'd rather leave it there. You know I'm sorry for what I did. Can't we leave the rest of it just between us?" Sarah shook her head and Ginger's shoulders slumped. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere else but sitting in that chair. Derek wondered why she did not just get up and walk out if she felt that uncomfortable.
"Okay fast forward to a couple years ago. Ginger has her business going, one kid about to graduate college and the other a few years behind. Her business was solid, but not going gangbusters. Like most, the business owed a little money but did not carry a big debt. Then it got a major contract. To fill it Ginger had to overextend her credit to retool a portion of her production line. She was more concerned with that than she was examining the contract itself. The person who secured that contract was another girlfriend. Whether the woman did it deliberately to screw Ginger or it was an accident, some of the figures in the contract got transposed from the original proposal. Instead of a profit, the contract resulted in a significant loss. Ginger here did not do what is called due diligence. She should have had others inspect the contract letter by letter. Accounting, legal, all that. But she didn't. By the time she realized she was producing parts at a loss plus trying to pay the debt of re-tooling, it was too late. She tried to get out of the contract but couldn't. The buyer sued for specific performance to force her to comply with the contract. It was not their fault the final contract offered a price far lower than the original proposal. So they won. Ginger needed money to bail herself and her company out. The girlfriend was now long gone." Derek could already guess the next part. "The sharks were circling to take her failing factory and buy it for a song. Everybody else had turned her down and she was desperate. She came to me. She finally convinced me to bail her out and I did. She kept her factory and it is now back to being profitable. You don't regret my help do you Ginger?"
"No Ma'am." Ginger said, softly.
'MA'AM?' Derek thought. Something else was going on here.
"You never told your daughters about any of this did you?" Sarah asked."I'm guessing all they knew was you had financial problems but not the reason nor how much trouble you were in." Ginger shook her head. "Why don't you tell them now. Tell them what you agreed to in order for me to help you. What you offered as you BEGGED for my help."
"Please, Ma'am." Ginger pleaded softly. "It is too embarrassing.'
"Embarrassing?" Sarah asked. "Clarice has been worried all week about how you would react to seeing her home life. She has been humiliated by her own imagination wondering what you would think of her as a slave and knowing how slaves are used. We have other mother daughter teams here." Sarah began introducing the women in pairs. Rhonda and Caroline, Lisa and Kat, and finally Wanda and Bonnie. "Now Bonnie is free. She is about to go back and finish her senior year and then she plans to move here for graduate school. But all have watched the others performing sex acts. It has been embarrassing for all of them. I think you need to come clean to your daughters." Ginger began to cry softly. Sarah told her to stop. " No crying. We are going to clear the air here today. Total transparency. Then we are going to get on with life."
Derek got another beer. He told Sarah to hold on as he had to check on the meat to make sure it was not burning but did not want to miss a thing. Lou laughed at him. He grinned back. Once back inside he said, "GO!"
"I think I'll have Ginger tell the rest." Sarah said. "What our agreement entailed. She knows better than to cut corners. I want details. Right, Ginger?" Ginger nodded. " I may interrupt to clarify a point here and there but I am sure she will relate the story properly." Derek knew Sarah well enough to know she was issuing an order rather than a suggestion.
"I needed a lot of money. The business was going to go under. I had fu.... uhh, screwed up. Not only would I lose the business but the house and everything we owned. Total bankruptcy. I had no other place to turn. Sarah was not real happy to see me. I can't blame her. I did not do right by Ethyl. I knew what I was did was wrong back then. I'm not going to go into just why I did not stay by her side at the end. Having two kids at home was a partial reason. But that is still no excuse. I just couldn't bear to be there. I was a coward. Anyway Sarah agreed to talk. Well, after some major begging on my part. I had the impression she would have loved to beat my ass but didn't." Ginger took a few minutes. "Finally she agreed to bail me out of trouble. I gave her thirty percent of my company. But she wanted her pound of flesh. I entered into a deal where I would be her unofficial, uncollared slave for ten years. According to our agreement she could do anything to me she could to a real slave except sell me. She has me agreeing on video and in writing. As long as I agreed to obey her I'd have a fairly normal life. But to add teeth to the contract she can indenture me as a full service indentured slave at any time during those ten years for any reason for the full legal term of five years. The financial requirements of an indenture contract have all been met and approved. She can collar me at any time." Ginger said, looking down.
You could hear a pin drop in the room. Sarah took over. "I really had no idea Ginger was related to our Clarice. I was almost as surprised as she was when she walked in the house. We have met several times but I have not touched her in almost a year. Not since I met Derek and we started our relationship. Now I will tell everybody here, I do have some bones to pick with the woman. I'm not sure if you caught on earlier, but she has been avoiding me when I visited her factory the past few months. Most of you know I visit all my business interests frequently. I am guessing she sneaks out the back or just hides. As pregnant as I am I was not going to go out of my way to find her. I usually wanted information about how the business was going so talking to the staff was good enough. I simply decided to deal with that issue later." Sarah grinned and looked directly at Derek. "Today we are going to have a little barbeque. We or rather you all are gonna drink and have fun. Lou and I are gonna do our best to just stay comfortable. Like we always do. Okay?" Everybody nodded, even Ginger.
Sarah told Derek he better attend his meat. The slave girls giggled at the double entendre. He went outside followed by Clarice. She wanted a minute with him. "Do you feel any better?" he asked. She shook her head.
"I'm not as nervous as I was. Now it is anger. I'd like to kick Mom's ass for not confiding in us." Clarice said. They noticed Bev had followed them. Bev said quickly she agreed with her sister. She was upset with her mother not trusting them enough to divulge the reasons for their financial problems. Neither girl mentioned the unofficial slave agreement.