PART THIRTEEN: Family Ties
CHAPTER ONE, Queen Bitch
It would be an overstatement to say that nobody liked Cherie Mosswell. Lots of people liked her. They just didn't like her for long. Though they didn't want to admit it, her family was pretty much in the same boat. The day she moved out of the house was a blessed day for one and all.
"Where is everyone?" Cherie demanded as she started toward the stairs, her stout little face set in a determined glare.
"Hey, Cher." Tillman emerged from the upstairs hall just straightening his tee shirt and wearing a smile much larger than Cherie would normally warrant. "What's up with you? Get fired?"
"It's summer time you fool!" his sister exclaimed, hands on her hips. "I get vacation just like everybody. Two weeks." She stared her brother down as he descended the steps two at a time. Her lower lip stuck out defiantly, giving her round face a look of comic hostility.
"You better start working out, Tilly," she said. "Little hop down the stairs got you sweating. You in damn poor shape."
"Yeah, well you could do with some exercise, too," he retorted, knowing he shouldn't get into it with her right at this moment.
She glared at him as he passed her, looking poised to strike. She was five foot two, a round woman with a round face and round breasts that seemed to have been attached as an afterthought to her round body. Her backside was round and then some. All of her body was firm, and there was nothing really fat about her roundness. She was just built round.
Tillman looked at her in a different light now. She wasn't unattractive. No, on the rare occasions when she smiled, she was quite pretty. And her body was something that most men would like to tussle with at least once. He began wondering what she was like sexually, and what she liked to do. No, the question would be what she would be willing to do. He couldn't picture her doing anything in bed without lengthy negotiations and downright begging.
"Where's Daddy?" she asked.
"Downstairs, I think," Tillman said, casually. "Should be up in a minute. Mom's upstairs. I think she was taking a shower, or something."
Cherie began walking up the stairs. "I'd have been here sooner 'cept for the damn road construction. I'll just go up and . . ."
"You staying for the whole two weeks?" Tillman asked quickly, stopping her at the second step.
"I'm not spending my vacation here, fool," she snapped at him. "I'm just stopping in on my way to New York. Why in hell would I want to spend time here?"
"Because we're your loving family," Tania said as she emerged from the upstairs hall. She was belting a robe and wearing her slippers, but, thought she'd brushed it, her hair was still a bit frazzled from her recent activities.
"Yeah, sure, Mama." Cherie kissed her mother when she got down the stairs, her nose crinkling just a bit. "Guess you haven't showered yet," she said.
"No, I was just about to," Tania said sourly.
"Still little Miss Tact, aren't you Cherie?" Tillman laughed.
"Shut up, you fool." She rolled her eyes and turned back to her mother. "You don't mind putting up with me for a couple days, do you? I'm gonna meet a girlfriend in New York this week. Be back here for the weekend. That okay?"
"Of course," Tania said. "Are you hungry?"
"I stopped for a burger when I was driving around through all that damn construction. Took me a good two hours extra. Always fixing but it never gets fixed."
"Well, you've got to learn to read a detour sign," Tillman said.
"Hey, kitten," Robert said as he came out of the kitchen, forestalling Cherie's retort to her brother. "Moving back in?"
"God, Daddy, you should be so lucky," Cherie said, smiling for the first time. When she looked at her father, she was always in a better mood. Not necessarily a good mood, but certainly better.
"Yes, we should." Robert gave his daughter a big hug while winking at his wife over her head. "Come on and I'll rustle up something for you to eat."
"That would be great, Daddy," she said, following him to the kitchen.
Tania eyed her son closely. "Be nice," she said. "No matter what, be nice."
CHAPTER TWO, A Good Day's Work
Terry Carter kissed her husband at the front door at a quarter to eight on Monday morning, bidding him a good day at work as he left. Once he was out of the house, Terry hurried to dress the children, Kyle and Kristy, and then called Jennifer Peterson.
"Hi, it's Terry," she said to her friend when she answered. "I know it's short notice, but I got called in to do some short term subbing at the school. They're just starting the summer session and a teacher broke something or other. Their bad luck is my good, I guess. I was hoping you might be able to watch the kids today. I'll line up something else for the rest of the week. No, no, you don't have to do it. I couldn't impose on you like that," she said, countering Jennifer's arguments for her to baby sit all week even while hoping she might do just that. Finally, after arranging for Jennifer to come over in about ten minutes, she ran to the quickly to get ready for her day.
Terry had prepared for her day by taking a room at the Comfort Inn with two medium suitcases containing what she felt she might need for a few days. That would allow her to leave the house dressed like a school teacher and still be able to look the part of an escort once at the hotel without having Jenny see her leave carrying suitcases.
She was checking her hair in the bathroom vanity when Jenny Peterson knocked and entered. "Hello! Your cab is here!" she called.
"Oh, goodness," Terry said, sounding flustered as she hurried out to greet the other woman. "Thank you, Jenny. Thanks a million."
"No problem. And, if they keep you on, don't you worry about it. Summer school is only a month or so anyway, right?"
"I suppose so. Thanks again." On impulse, Terry placed one hand on the side of Jenny's face and kissed her on the lips. "You're a life saver."
"Get going so you aren't late," Jenny said, shooing her out the door. "I'll see you later."
And so Terry escaped the house carrying a briefcase that contained her special cell phone and the appointment list she'd jotted down on her pad as well as the hotel room key. She got into the cab and asked to go to the airport.
It only took twenty minutes to get to the airport. Once there, she took the shuttle to the motel and entered through a side entrance and went directly to her second floor room. It was nine o'clock.
Terry tore off her teaching disguise and hung it quickly. A garter belt was out, but she put on a pair of lace top stretch nylons and sheer panties as well as a low cut maternity bra. Then she took a maternity dress from her case and held it up to herself before the mirror. She wasn't looking for sexy. The underwear would do that. She was hoping to emphasize her pregnancy with a dress that was just a week or so too small for her. When she put it on, her breasts swelled up at the scoop neck and her belly filled the skirt so much that it didn't hang even at the hem but rose in front about an inch.
Terry smiled. She couldn't look any more pregnant than that.
She took a double bed sheet out of the other suitcase and spread it on top of the hotel comforter. There was no telling what germs were on that thing. Besides, she imagined that call girls would have to cover their beds in something if they were to have any great number of clients in a day. They couldn't spend all their time changing sheets, could they?
She was ready by nine-twenty. Stepping into a pair of flats, Terry paced the room a moment before going down. She didn't want to be waiting in the small lobby. Pregnant or not, loitering might attract the wrong type of attention.
Okay, let's get busy.
#
Laurel Cassidy carried her suitcase down from their suite at nine twenty-five that morning. The twins were lagging behind, of course, and her father and already taken Sharon and Gail down to pay the bill. It was time to take the plunge into a new life.
It was going to be a very interesting life, maybe not to her liking, but interesting anyway. The whole concept of group sex was a bit frightening to her. And sex outside her family was more frightening still. She hadn't done it with anyone but her father or brothers in nearly a year. If she didn't need to risk disappointment, why bother? It wasn't as if boys were beating her door down to get at her pussy.
She got into the mini van with Sharon and sat beside Gail strapped into her chair in the back seat thinking that maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Danny and Tillman were very nice, after all. Even if they didn't find her body alluring, they'd at least be kind about it.
"Ready to go?" Sharon asked.
"As ready as I'll ever be," she said, trying to sound chipper. It was the truth, after all. She wouldn't know how ready she needed to be until after she got there. Then it would be too late to do anything about it.
#
Elaine stood at the counter in Forget-Me-Not florists and waited for someone to come through the door. She'd already done the watering and cleaned the counters. All she needed now was someone to order something. Her boss was busy in the back making an arrangement of flowers for someone's sick room, but that was it so far for today. The business worked like that: you were extremely busy until you weren't, and then you were extremely bored.
