Sera

Steven

"Judging by the gatehouse," Ashleigh related, "I naturally assumed I'd arrived at a retirement community. None of you have to imagine my surprise at what opened up when I got around that first bend in the trees. Wow, did I ever feel out of place on my old hog, blattering through these quiet, picturesque country lanes past all the impressive mansions of our neighbors. When I got here, there was a little old man at the gate, holding it open for me. He was about five feet tall, skinny as a whip, stooped and as sour looking as last year's milk, visibly wincing at my racket as I idled into the courtyard.

"By the time I'd gotten off the bike and removed my helmet, he'd closed the gate and shambled back to me, looking up at my mirrored aviator shades with a squint. He didn't look too pleased, his tone backing up his expression when he spoke simply in a Spanish accent."

"The Lady of the house will see you now."

"I followed him through the front door and he walked me through the house, straight out through the back door and to the rear patio. The house was a little different back then, but she was the one who'd commissioned the gardens and, if her front yard impressed me, her backyard blew me away. But, even that was nothing next to the woman who was waiting for me.

"I was always under the impression that, looking so much like Dad, my height and body came from his side as well, but I was wrong. When she stood to greet me, I saw this right away. And she looked phenomenal, that age defying trait we all share keeping an odd appearance of youth even in her, even at seventy-two, yet nobody could miss the experience and wisdom in her eyes. She's also where Sheila got her pretty face, where Kathleen got her striking hazel eyes, and where you, Kitten, got that beautiful, golden brown hair.

"So, there I am, gawking at this incredible woman with my body and my little sister's face, the only one of my like that I'd come across since Mum and...

wow.

Her bright eyes were so dark in that subtle way our eyes are, yet ablaze with their lively colour, and her smile was a pure delight. I could immediately read her sincere, good will towards me as she came closer and the first thing she did was look me square in the eyes.

"I didn't want to, despite how she came off, but it would have seemed impossibly rude under the circumstances if I didn't look back. And I was so glad I did. It suddenly was as though a part of me left my body to join hers, floating weightlessly and surrounded by her love for me. We'd only just met, but that love was there for me and mine was there for her. It was almost like something that didn't have anything to do with me, or even Grammie, but something else that was much bigger. It was like... like being reunited with a hand, or a leg once it's been removed for years. Probably not a good analogy, but it was bigger than my ability to describe.

"When I got back to my own head, all I could think about was how much I loved my Grammie Sammy and how she turned me on. Oh yes, I was very much enthralled with her after that little place she took me within her mind.

"Anyway, we both hugged one another tight, already familiar in this weird way and, when we separated, I watched her unbutton my vest with a curious expression, opening it up after. I thought she was checking out the fat girls in my little black T-shirt, but I'd forgotten about the grip of my H&K, snuggled beside my left tit in its shoulder holster. She looks at the pistol and..."

Here, Ashleigh started laughing, although a tear ran from the corner of each eye. She wiped them, sniffed a little and went on.

"She kinda peers at me and asks like it's some corny cop show from the seventies, "Why you packing the heat, sister?"

After a little more silent laughter, Ashleigh explained, "You see, Grammie was a little... eccentric. A beautiful person, mind you; so warm and loving. Sure, she could kinda get on a person's nerves at times, and there were other times when she needed a little help in making a sound decision, but she didn't have a malicious thought in her head. Plus, she knew this about herself to some degree and I think it was one of the reasons she was so glad I came. Even she knew that servants can only be trusted so far and, no matter their intentions or loyalties, there are some capacities where they simply can't serve. So anyway, regarding the gun, I told her that I'd been on the road for the last few years and that a girl can't be too careful."

"On the road?" she asks, looking at me kind of funny.

"I've been travelling," I explained.

"Where?" she inquires, like people just didn't do that.

"All over. Canada and down the states."

"On your motorcycle?" she asked.

"Yes."

"With a gun?"

"Yes."

"Oh my, how

exciting!"

"Turned out that Grammie was a bookworm. Most of the books in this library are hers, and most of them fiction. She was an avid collector, called them her children and actually stipulated their preservation in her will. Yeah, she'd choose a nice place inside, or maybe outside, and escape to her own little preferred realities. She loved smut and romance, but also adventure stories, and she wanted to hear all about mine but, once we were seated here in her library, her first question was of Mum.

"I glanced at the old Spaniard who stood there hawkishly eying me, suddenly wondering when the little gargoyle would go away, but began speaking in answer to her question anyway. I could only assume she had these things under control, right? Anyway, I gave her the story about Mum, why I had to leave and what had happened before I could get back. She was staring into the fireplace by the time I was done and, for about two minutes after, she continued doing that, her state of mind totally unreadable."

"Camilo, please get me a nice glass of cognac," she tells the bent little guy. "Sweetie pie, would you like something?"

"Triple rum and coke, please," I told him with a polite smile.

"That polite smile may as well have been used on a stone. Without a word, he turned and went to see to his task, looking back at me once."

"Don't mind him, he'll come around," Grammie hisses at me with a wave at his bent and retreating form. "He's been with me since forever and he's overprotective because... I'm afraid he's fallen for me, the poor thing. I keep telling him he's too old, but he insists on watching me all the time, even when I masturbate."

"Oh. Uh... is he...?"

"Oh yes, everyone here is. That's just the way of things."

"After we had our drinks in hand, Camilo again eying me suspiciously, she draws a heavy sigh and starts talking about Mum. Mum was one of the very few subjects that could bring Grammie's sunny and loving attitude down, and the change in demeanor was dramatic. If I thought I had guilt issues over what I'd left behind when I ran away, Grammie was the reigning queen of guilt, but here's basically what she told me.

"Mum, like I said, had it all when she was growing up here. Grammie saw to it, but Grammie saw something else as well, and that was a lot of her mother, my great grandmother, in her daughter. See, Grammie knew she was different from other people because, having bonded with her mother as our like should, she'd been told all about our birthright at an appropriate time. However, she came from a different era where women didn't occupy the place in society that they do now and, while her mother overcame that, she was never quite able to do the same, perhaps

because

of her mother. So, out of self-preservation, she stayed here where she always knew she'd be safe, eventually outliving her mother and giving birth to Marie. Here, she didn't have to give a shit about the outside world or much of anything at all,

except

for Mum.

"As soon as Mum was old enough to think for herself, to compare the eccentric lifestyle her mother led with those of others, such as her friends' parents, she knew there was something off. Grammie never told me this directly but, in so many words I got that Mum was embarrassed by her. The woman never went out, never had any visitors, instead preferred staying home, drinking and reading her life away. None of Mum's friends ever once even saw her, yet she was still somehow embarrassed by her and grew to dislike her mother as a person. Grammie knew what would happen to Mum if they didn't bond, knew it from the things that her own mother had told her, but the dislike and the acidic attitude from Mum started early enough that there was no chance for them to ever bond in any way.

"Now, growing up without a father and considering the family sex drive, Mum must have twigged in to how her mother was using her staff at some point. She confronted her about it, and Grammie had to explain to her about how her drive forced her to do the things she did without telling the rest of the truth of what we are that would have made it understandable. To make matters worse, Mum's drive hadn't kicked in at the time, so there was just no way she could have understood what Grammie was trying to tell her, but when Mum asked who her father was..."

Here, Ashleigh stopped, looking pointedly into her glass as she swirled the ice around, clearing her throat uncomfortably as though she didn't relish whatever came next.

"Okay, so who was he?" Sheila prodded.

"Yeah, who, Auntie?" Kitten encouraged.

A short, somewhat uncomfortable laugh escaped Ashleigh's throat. Pointedly looking both my aunt and my cousin up and down, she finally replied with a somewhat uncomfortable expression.

"Kind of Ironic that

you

two would ask. Uh, if you'll remember my description of Camilo...?"

There was another pause, this one much heavier as Mum slowly covered her face with her palms. Sheila and Kitten's jaws sagged while Ashleigh went back to staring into her glass. She tried hard not to smile, but my laughter forced a restrained chuckle from her.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my

god!"

Mum groaned into her palms.

Taking her hands away, she regarded Ashleigh as though she'd just informed her that she was going to have her legs amputated because wheelchairs seemed like a lot of fun. Seconds later, Ashleigh was laughing as hard as I was and Mum now regarded both of us like we were as crazy.

"Right," Ashleigh managed when we were all ready to go on after that little bomb, "so just imagine Mum's reaction, eh? 'Not good' was a terrific understatement. According to Grammie, she just stood there looking like she was boiling over. That's the expression Grammie used, too. Then, Mum's on top of her, punching, scratching, kicking, swearing... Grammie didn't get too far into it, but she got it across that she had to run from her in the end. Mum had just recently turned eighteen, and I guess she gave poor Grammie one hell of a beating.

"After that, Grammie was understandably afraid of Mum and, obviously, this didn't improve their relationship, or Mum's behaviour. She became pushy, threatening, a bully that Mum feared, but also loved as her only daughter, no matter the sperm donor. But even if she could have made the decision to get rid of her, she wouldn't have known how except by the only means available to her. Again, understand that Grammie was basically a shut-in, not the type to ever hurt anyone or anything. I mean, I was so afraid when I walked into that house, but the reason she brought me into herself upon our greeting was so that she could make sure

she

was safe with

me

. That's not to say that she couldn't have dealt with me. Picture a shy, innocent old woman growing flowers out of the barrel of an assault rifle. She well knows the weapon's intended use

and

how to use it, but thinks it's much prettier with daisies sprouting from the breech. That'd be Grammie.

"So, the situation comes to a point where Mum is ruling the house, running around like a little Nazi in her private school uniform and abusing the hell out of the staff, knowing every single one of them have been at her mother. She'd even taken to using some colourful references to her with them that I won't mention out of respect for Grammie, things that railed against the loyalty that Grammie had woven into them. In a nutshell, Mum was driving things to the breaking point.

"And then came the day when she pushed Camilo, her biological father and influenced servant down the back stairs. The Ambulance had to come- that's what happened to his back, by the way- and Grammie herself had to speak to the authorities to cover up what Camilo told her had really happened. Things changed after that. She was forced to deal with the outside world, forced to lie and forced to influence a few people in order to keep her world intact and her daughter out of trouble.

"Grammie took to staying behind a locked door in her private apartments at all times with three large men who'd been previously on the grounds keeping team posted at her door in shifts, heavily influenced to make sure that Mum never got past them no matter what. The problem with that was that the real problem still existed. Her house was being run by Mum, and she knew it and, once her booze and meals stopped being delivered, she knew why.

"It took her three days to come out, but she did. The first thing she learned of was the terrific amount of physical abuse that Mum had inflicted on each of her guards in their admirable duty to her safety. They'd been instructed not to harm Mum in any way, and they'd paid a heavy cost for that. The rest of her staff hadn't fared much better and, for her, the true horror of it all was that they stayed and put up with it because of their influenced love and loyalty to Grammie.

"She told me that, for the first time in her life, she knew true anger. She flew into a rage at what had happened, mostly at herself for being everything her daughter accused her of and allowing things to come to what they had. When she found her, Mum took one look and ran, but she didn't get far. With Grammie hot on her heels, the first servant they met immediately responded to her order to apprehend Mum.

"There was another fight, but this time Mum was the one who was scared.

This

time, Grammie slapped the shit out of her and, as soon as Mum locked eyes with her... (Ahem) ... She told me about something she did then, something, among many other things, that she taught me later on. She grabbed her crotch and looked deep within her and saw... a very ugly side of what we are in Mum. As I've said, she'd seen it before in her own mother, but not like this, not from the perspective she then had as a matured and well-practiced woman of our like.

"She gave her an orgasm. She did it just to do it, to cheapen her, to make her feel the way she'd been making her loyal and beloved staff feel, for how she let her do it to them. She held her there in her influence, utterly hating her for those long moments, sticking her fingers right up her slit while Mum acted like she was having a seizure, orgasming over and over until her senses were so mixed up...

"She said that by the time she'd come down from her anger, when she finally let her go, Mum got up and walked like a drunk about halfway down the main hall, turned left and staggered straight into a wall before collapsing right there. Grammie's uncontrolled anger was now replaced by great concern as she hurried to her daughter. When she got there, Mum started screaming, not normal screaming, she said, but screaming that really frightened Grammie to her core. The word she used to describe it was 'unnatural'.

"She ran straight back to her rooms in fear of what she'd done, in fear of what was lying out there, and by the time she finally dared to come out again... Mum was gone."

Kitten

Auntie stopped talking. Both Auntie Kathleen and I were silent and still, like when you're at the end of one of those films, waiting with your heart in your throat for the deranged killer to pop up and strike one final time. I didn't look, but I heard nothing from the other chair either, nothing at all other than the sound of the huge, tick-tocking old grandfather clock until she finally broke the silence.

"Just gone. None of the servants saw her leave and she didn't appear to have taken anything from her rooms, but the property was searched and she was never found. Grammie had the property searched many times in the next few months, sometimes at random and all out of fear that Mum had never really left. In time, she was able to settle down to her old life of escapism, though now with the worried thoughts of Mum and her wellbeing preying at the back of her mind. She could have hired someone, she told me, but the awful fact was that she didn't want her back. She made up a story in her head where Mum was living happily somewhere and came to believe in it just to put it out of her mind. Who could blame her? She just wanted her peace and to not be afraid in her refuge from the outside world, and if you'd had the pleasure of knowing her, you'd understand when I say that she deserved to have it.

"But, she never heard hide nor hair of her again until I showed up. When she learned of Mum's institutionalization, she wasn't surprised and actually expressed relief in knowing that she was at least alive and being taken care of."

Again, Auntie Ashleigh leveled her eyes on Auntie Kathleen. At first, I thought she was looking at me, but Auntie's subtle squirming told me differently and I again wondered what was up there.

"This was Grammie's way of looking at it," she went on, taking her eyes from her youngest sister, "and what better of Mum could be said? She was... what she was. For all the people who'd suffered, the prices our family had paid because of her, truly, what else could be said?

"(Siiigh) ... Obviously, I never told Grammie this,- maybe I didn't have to- but... I believe that, in her anger, she'd done something to Mum that day. I think that, if Mum weren't like us, she would have turned out like Sir did after I messed up his mind, but the curtain of our minds are much heavier, more restrictive and resilient to our more harmful influences. Mum shouldn't have had any abilities as early as she did, let alone the power and control she had by the time I had to run away from home. Something went very wrong with her that day, and it turned the childlike, cruel and vindictive person Mum was by nature into the nightmare she eventually became for myself, Sheila and Kathleen. Quite frankly, I'm surprised she was able to hold herself together as long as she did. Hell, Sheila was lucky to survive at all, considering she looks exactly like Grammie."

"So, anyway... Grammie's in a bit of a funk at that point, but she insists that I stay the night. Of course, I obliged. As soon as I do, she tells me that she'll see me tomorrow, and she leaves. I thought it was a bit odd, if not rude, but I didn't know her then. I didn't realize that she was upset and wanted to be alone for a while, like she's used to. Once I got to know her, I became familiar with all of her odd little ways and loved her all the more for them.

"She died in two thousand six," Auntie reported with a sad smile. "One of her servants came down from her rooms one morning and told me. She went in her sleep and, after spending almost twenty years with her, I was shocked to find myself so... alone. Again. To say that I missed her dearly is a terrific understatement, and I still do. ... Besides me and the priest, the only others at the funeral were her eighteen staff members, all of whom were quite distraught and none of whom returned here after the burial. They all just disappeared, leaving their belongings behind in the servant's building and without explanation.

"Needless to say, I was lost. And angry. Yes, I'd inherited everything, but I was left utterly alone with it. Even her accountants and lawyers had her files sent to the house along with written notices of their 'discontinuation of services'. Just try to imagine me all alone with the yellow pages in the kitchen, eating a raw wiener- not the type I'd come to expect- and looking for an employment agency. It took a while, but I finally acquired my own people and, in so doing, I became much more familiar with the estate and the financial might that sustains it. I necessarily made them mine as I was forced to devote all of my time and energy to see that all aspects were properly seen to by competent and trustworthy professionals. I imagine this is most likely why Grammie saw to it that I was left on my own after her passing. She may have been eccentric and a little confused at times, but she certainly was shrewd in her own little way.