You will enjoy this series more if you read the first three instalments. The characters are all over 18 and there is some activity involving bodily functions. If that bothers you, read no further.
*****
Susan's life was definitely on the uptick. She was in love with Brad, whose self-confidence combined with the interest he obviously shared with her in including some dominance and submission in their private time pushed her attraction to him over the top. Her mother had reformed, so to speak, in that she no longer made Susan's life miserable by scolding her about everything and then spanking her.
After the sessions with Susan's aunt and cousin, which her mother had initiated, Susan had a very different feeling about her. Mary was in her late 40s but retained the figure and mien of a younger woman. She did not have to work so she did do volunteer service and in fact, managed one organization, a responsibility that occupied a great deal of her time.
Susan thought that the pressures her mother experienced just from this volunteer work may have caused Mary to let up on bothering Susan about everything: whether her room was clean or her clothes were put away, or...and now Susan began to wonder about what had happened, because she realized that her mother no longer insisted on inspecting Susan's panties to see if she had stained them.
Susan had regarded this practice as by far the most humiliating aspect of her home life with her mother. Here she was home from college with a good job and she had to stop everything and lift her skirt and pull down her panties for her mother to check whether there were pee or poo or period stains in the crotch.
One evening after the two had enjoyed a pleasant dinner at home, Susan decided to open the subject, not that she was looking to change what had become a very improved situation but merely to satisfy her curiosity.
"Mom," she said very matter-of-factly, "I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated everything you did to rectify that awful situation with Aunt Charlotte and Pamela. It meant a great deal to me. In fact, I think it has made my whole outlook so much more positive and that is reflected in my work."
She smiled as she told her mother than she was being considered for a major promotion at work and would definitely receive a large salary boost and a bonus to boot.
"That's wonderful, Susan," her mother replied, "and you have my congratulations, unless you feel they are arriving prematurely?"
"Not at all," Susan answered with confidence. "I may not get this particular job, but I'm in line for something better and it won't take long, of that I'm quite certain."
"Well, that's all to the good," her mother said. "I am also happy that those get-togethers with Charlotte and Pamela turned out so well. I see that Pamela has been quite solicitous of your opinion as she pursues her own career."
"Yes, mother," Susan said, "she has called and come by for lunch. I confess that she seems an entirely different person. Instead of wondering too much, I've decided to accept her for what she is, or has become."
"A wise course, my dear," Mary responded with approval. "I should say, by the way, that I do owe you some recompense myself for how I treated you when you first came home. I really don't know what came over me that brought out that rather bitchy side of my character when it came to dealing with you, but it was not right and I'm very very sorry, Susan."
Susan was only slightly taken aback by how her normally quite assertive mother had gone so far as to confess that she had been at fault in how she had treated her daughter.
"I'm happy to accept that apology, Mother," she answered coolly, "and I hope that our present situation continues to be as nice as it has become. I should tell you that my relationship with Brad is progressing very well and I won't be surprised if it develops into something more ensuring quite soon."
"Susan," her mother interjected. "This all sounds wonderful but you would tell me if you were pregnant, I hope?"
Susan's face blanched and she looked at her mother with a feeling of sadness more than annoyance.
"Mom, I'm a big girl now and you needn't fret about that," she said with a bit of an edge in her voice.
"I'm sorry, Susan," her mother answered, anxious to cool the fire she had inflamed, "I shouldn't have said that. Maybe it's the lack of regular male company that I'm missing these days."
"Do you think that that was what caused you to behave so awfully to me over the months after I came home from university?" Susan asked. "I chalked it up to your still seeing me as a teenager and that you would treat me as one, but perhaps this was what was bothering you?"
"I guess so," her mother said in response, showing an uncertainty that Susan found quite uncharacteristic of her normally assertive and quite sure-of-herself parent.
"I think you need to start dating again," Susan suggested. "I'm sure there are some men you like with whom you come into contact at your organization."
"There are," Mary said haltingly.
Susan acted on her intuition. "Mom," she said, "I think something happened to you. Did you have a bad experience recently?"
Mary, again very uncharacteristically, looked to her daughter as though she might start to cry.
"Susan, I just told you how I missed regular male company," she began. "Let me be direct with you because I know I can trust you and because I know you share some similar interests with me. More about that later."
"I had something of an ongoing relationship with a lovely man before you came back from university," she related. "It was so good that I should have started asking myself how it could be that good."
"Susan, I'm going to get a bit graphic and I hope that's all right with you," her mother said somewhat shyly, especially for her.
"Mom, I think we can cut through some of that by now, can't we?" Susan said brightly and firmly. "So you were getting fucked early and often and you enjoyed it, correct?"
"Yes, Susan," her mother sighed. "I'm glad we've reached the point where we can speak so directly even if I'm not used to it."
"So what happened?" Susan went on.
"He had been very honest with me in one respect," her mother replied. "He had told me that his wife was away and from the way he spoke, she was away indefinitely. She was being treated for something serious, and while I really kept myself from thinking the worst for her, I couldn't help wondering how things might be if she wereβout of the picture for good."
"So what happened?" Susan repeated her question.
"She's back home," her mother said in a dead voice. "She recovered, but only partially. He has to take care of her. But it looks like she will improve, and in the meantime, he's lost to me."
"You ran with the married men," Susan commented, "and even though he had a good story, it may turn out that he was honest and didn't know what would happen, so he played the odds and...you lost. So you found one man, you can go back and look some more or see who your contacts set you up with."