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From: "Gina Marie Wylie" <gmwylie98260@hotmail.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Laura Alban Hunt Ch 30 {Gina Marie Wylie} (Ff, cons)
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Date: Wed,  2 Feb 2005 20:10:04 -0500
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<1st attachment, "Laura Ch 30.doc" begin>

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	The following is fiction of an adult nature.  If I believed in
setting age limits for things, you'd have to be eighteen to read
this and I'd never have bothered to write it.  IMHO, if you can
read and enjoy, then you're old enough to read and enjoy.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	All persons here depicted are figments of my imagination and any
resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly a blunder on my
part.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	Official stuff:  Story codes: Ff, FF, Cons.

	If stories like this offend you, you will offend ME if you read
further and complain. Copyright 2004, by Gina Marie Wylie.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	I can be reached at gmwylie98260@hothothotmail.com, at least if
you remove some of the hots.  All comments and reasoned
discussion welcome.

Below is my site on ASSTR:
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Gina_Marie_Wylie/www/

My stories are also posted on StoriesOnline:
http://Storiesonline.net/

And on Electronic Wilderness Publishing:
http://www.ewpub.org/

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Laura Alban Hunt

Chapter 30 -- Time Spent Poolside

Maria came out of the house carrying a cordless phone.  "Laura,
your daughter."

I thanked her and watched her walk back to the house.  If it had
been Susan who'd brought me the phone I'd have thought nothing
about it.  My, how different your perspective becomes, when you
pay for something!

"Hello, Susan," I said into the phone.

"I told her that she shouldn't bug you, if you're tired."

"That's all right, Susan.  I'm tired, but otherwise okay."

"That girl too?"

I sighed.  "Susan, you are going to have to get used to some
things.  The woman who answered the phone is Maria.  The girl
who's been sick is Rachael."

"I think I messed up," Susan said, evidently wanting to get all
of the bad news in at the same time.

"How is that?" I asked.

"The other day you told June that we were going to have a pool
party this Saturday.  We invited people."

I wanted to laugh.  The hanging, unasked question was should she
call up her friends and cancel?  With all the apologizing that
entailed... not to mention the occasional question.  On the other
hand, I could ask her to postpone a week -- then maybe I could
kill two birds with one stone.

"No, that's okay.  We'll have it there," I told her.  "Then, say
just in time for your birthday, a housewarming here."

"You know we've already had more parties in the last month than
we had in the last couple of years back in New York."

I admired Susan for the breezy way she said that, as if New York
didn't carry any particular baggage for her.

"The weather has something to do with it, I think," I replied.

"It's nice.  It's kinda warm in the afternoon, but the pool makes
it nice," she agreed.

"Is Sherrie there?" I asked.

"Soon, she said about five."

"How about you getting out dinner fixings?  Surprise me."

"Dinner for how many?" she asked.

My prosaic Susan!  I'd taught her well!

"You and Sherrie, Elena and I and I'll see if Rachael wants to
come.  She's not up to eating much just yet.  Fix chicken."

"I thought it was going to be a surprise?"  There was a pout in
her voice.

"Oh, all right, surprise me.  But nothing heavy, okay?"

 Susan laughed.  "As if!  When do you want to eat?"

I looked at my watch.  It was after five.  "Call it seven
thirty."

"Okay, it'll be ready!"

I picked up my glass and carried it and the phone back to the
house.  I had to ask Maria where the phone went, and then I went
to check on Rachael.

She was still sleeping, but Elena arrived just then, burdened
with a half dozen shopping bags from a couple of different
stores.  The rattle of the bags, I think, woke up Rachael.

"What's that?" she asked.

"New clothes," Elena told her.  "Well, I hope they are new
clothes -- that's assuming they fit you."

Rachael looked at her in disbelief.  "You went out and bought
clothes for me?"

Elena laughed.  "I've bought clothes for all my friends.  I work
in a boutique."

"I'm hard to fit," Rachael said, a little petulantly.

Elena laughed harder.  "I hate shoes!"  She kicked hers off.  For
the life of me, I had no idea what she intended.  She dropped the
bags; that covered the slight dip as she flexed her knees a
little.  Abruptly she jumped straight up, flipping upside down as
she moved, then put her feet on the ceiling for an instant as if
she was standing upside down, before landing with a light thump,
her knees bending and her hands returning back to her sides.

"I can," Elena said with a straight face, "do a lot of things you
don't expect."

"Jesus fuck!" Rachael exclaimed, stunned.

Elena laughed again and nodded at me.  "Right now, I'm waiting
for Laura to take you to the woodshed for language."

"This house has a lot of things," I said, trying to repress my
own surprise... that and an urge to giggle. "But no woodsheds. 
I've told Rachael about how I don't like that particular form of
exclamation mark.  In this case, I'm reminded of another kind of
punctuation."  I bowed slightly towards Rachael.  "Ditto."

Rachael shook her head in wonder.  "You're f..." she stopped and
coughed.  "You're weird, really weird."

"Yep!"  I turned to the main point of my interest.  "If you feel
up to it, I'd like to take you over to the other house for
dinner.  You can meet my daughter and my boarder.  You'll see a
lot more of them in the next few days."

"I'm much better now."  Rachael sniggered.  "But yeah, I can
probably not puke tonight.  I'm not sure how much I can eat."

"As little or as much as you want.  Your stomach is probably
still tied in knots."

"The ginger ale helps," Rachael admitted.  She waved at the bags.
 "Whatcha got?"

Elena put the bags on the bed, and we went through the things
she'd bought.  I grabbed up the sales receipts and promptly wrote
Elena a check while Rachael went through the things.  Then she
went into her bathroom and Elena and I went into the living
room.

A few minutes later Rachael came out, wearing a simple pair of
jeans and a t-shirt with hot air balloons floating over the Grand
Canyon.  She looked at me and I looked back at her.  Finally
Rachael turned to Elena.  "Thanks."

Elena nodded.  "And you're welcome."

"You two are gay, right?"

"Happy and carefree, anyway," Elena told her.

"Does that bother you?" I asked Rachael, curious.

She shook her head.  "No.  Except they aren't supposed to put
foster kids with gays."

I considered that for a second.  Was Sanchez just stupid or
setting me up?  I decided it didn't matter, because I'd never
been asked and had been forthright about our relationship when
I'd asked for forms for Elena to fill out.

"I don't think it came up," I told her.  "The question now goes
back to you.  Is it going to bother you?"

"Are you going to convert me?"

I chuckled.  "No.  A year ago I was a happily married woman. 
Then, abruptly, I was a widow.  I moved here because New York
City has too many bad memories for me.  Now..." I smiled at her.
"I am what I am, with no apologies.  You are quite safe here."

Rachael shrugged.

"Rachael... my daughter is gay, her friends, most of them, are
gay.  My boarder was, but recently discovered guys.  Most of my
friends, these days, are gay.  You, Rachael, are you.  Just that.
 No one's going to try to convert you."

"That's because of the clap, right?"

I stared at her in mild disgust.  "I'll grant you, that's not a
selling point.  You're not ugly, Rachael.  Gain a few pounds,
start talking a little better and you'll have people following
you around, their tongues hanging out."

"All the same to you, I'd just as soon stop fucking."

"By all means," I told her.  "Rachael, I have things I want for
you.  School and learning top the list.  The 'clap' is something
that the doctors will treat."

"What if I had AIDs?"

I sighed.  "It's treatable.  Life, Rachael, isn't a bowl of
cherries -- at least, not all the time.  We have good times; we
have bad times.  We have to learn to deal with it."

"Like, you learn running away from problems?" she said, staring
at me.  "Your husband dies and you can't stand to be there
anymore?"

"He was killed on 9/11," I said.  I realized I'd made a mistake
as soon as I spoke.

Rachael walked up and stood in my face, pushing her face right up
to mine.  "Listen, lady!  People I knew died all the time! 
Friends!  At least, what passed for friends!  Not every day, but
often enough.  Run away?  Where would I go?  How would I get
there?  Why?  What would be different about someplace else?"

She waved around her.  "This place, it's like a dream.  But you
know what?  I have no faith, none.  All my life, things have
gotten good, then gone to shit.  Things have been shit, and then
turned good.  Mostly, things were what I made of them... but
since I didn't give a fuck, I got what I got.

"That's what scared me the other day.  I realized I didn't care
any more.  One day or another... what was the difference?

"Well, here I am!  I can tell the difference!"

"Can you tell I want to help?" I asked her.

"You want to help people because you can't think how to help
yourself.  It's a cheap fix, one you don't have to think about."

I started to lift my hand to slap her, but realized what my
intent was almost the instant I moved.  I turned on my heel and
walked away, appalled at myself for thinking about hitting her,
even for the millisecond I'd thought about it.

Behind me Rachael called to my back, "Run, run, run!"

I stopped.

I turned around and walked back.  I stopped a few steps away from
Rachael.  I regarded her without talking for several seconds.

"Going to hit me?" she asked.  She gestured at Elena, who'd been
standing mute throughout all of this.  "You going to hit me, eh?
Dissin' your honey?"

Elena chuckled.  "Girl, you are barking up the wrong tree!  Laura
can take care of herself.  Me?  I learned about faith from my
father.  He's a priest."

"Right!" Rachael said, laughing.

"No, he is," Elena told her.  "I have a favor to ask of you,
Rachael."

"What?  Lay the fuck off?"

"No, nothing like that.  Next time you decide to talk to Laura
like that, I'd like to sell tickets."  Elena came up next to me
and rested her hand on my shoulder.  "I'll bet on Laura and make
a mint!"

"Real soon now," I said with as much control as I could muster,
"my daughter is going to wonder if we're coming for dinner or
not."

Rachael stared at me.  "You were angry, a second ago."

"I was," I told her.  "Then I realized you have been watching me
like I've been watching you.  The worst person to lie to,
Rachael, is yourself.  I bet you have a lot of practice... but
then, you've pointed out that so do I.  I'm not a puppy or a
kitten, but the lesson works just the same: have your nose rubbed
in it, and you pay more attention."

I felt Elena squeeze, and I looked at her and made a silly face.

"I love you," Elena said quietly.  "In so very, very many ways."

"You're still runnin' away," Rachael said darkly.

"Walking, dear, walking," I told her.  "Come to dinner, Rachael.
Our problems aren't going to go away anytime some.  They'll still
be here later.  At least we can feed our faces."

Elena chuckled.  "You have adapted well to the Southwestern work
ethic, Laura!  Manana!"

"On the East Coast," I joked, "we call it the Wimpy factor: I'll
gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today."

I got solid hugs from Susan and Sherrie when we arrived, and then
I did the introductions.

Then we sat down to eat what Susan had cooked.  She'd fixed
meatloaf, something I didn't normally fix because it took more
preparation than I usually wanted to put into dinner.  Moreover,
Susan had shown a little whimsy, baking the meatloaf in a shaped
cake pan that I'd inherited from my mother -- it was in the shape
of an elephant.  I grinned; my mother had used the one shaped
like a camel for my fifth birthday and I'd hated it.

I looked at the meatloaf and laughed.

"I was going to use food coloring on the mashed potatoes," Susan
told me.  "Except Sherry wouldn't let me.  I was going to make
them blue."

Sherrie giggled.  "You were not -- you were going to use
yellow."

Sherrie turned to me.  "I found it's really easy to make crummy
cornbread."

I looked over the table.  "I don't see any."

Sherrie grimaced.  "I couldn't get it out of the pan in one
piece.  It's in a million pieces."

"Or ten," Susan shot back.

"Excuse me," Rachael said and stood up.  "Is that the kitchen?"
she pointed at the door to the kitchen and I nodded.  I wished
she'd asked about a bathroom, but I guess if you gotta go, you
gotta go.  She walked slower than I would have expected and went
through the door.

"I hope you left it neat," Elena told Susan.

Susan lifted an eyebrow, then Rachael came back and sat down,
passing a small bowl filled with corn bread crumbs to me, after
taking some for herself.

I took some and handed it off to Elena.

"Cornbread's hard to do," I told Sherrie.  "That and you need to
put some oil in the pan."

"It says it's nonstick," Sherrie replied.

"Except for cornbread," I told her.  "Once, I tried cupcake
papers.  The only way to eat the cornbread turned out to be to
eat the cupcake paper, too.  Ick!"  I made a face and everyone
laughed.

Rachael waved in the direction of the kitchen.  "They cleaned
everything up."

Susan giggled.  "It's in the dishwasher, waiting for the rest."

"Except the cornbread pan, which is soaking in the sink," Sherrie
added.

"I like cornbread," Rachael said simply.  She waved a piece. 
"This is a little dry, but okay."  She nodded at Sherrie. 
"Thanks."

Rachael turned to Susan.  "Cool meatloaf!"

Susan grinned.

"You're sure about the pool party Saturday?" Susan asked out of
the blue.

"I'm sure," I told her.  "Here, not at the new house.  Saturday
afternoon.  Sunday we'll start moving to the new house.  Take
clothes and stuff at first.  Then anything else."  I turned to
Sherrie.  "You can stay here or at the new house."

"You'd have trouble renting this place if I stayed here," she
told me.  "I don't mind.  I don't have much here besides clothes.
 It will all fit in my car, one trip."

"Well, I was thinking you could stay here until I decide to rent
or sell this place.  Sort of a house sitter."

"I'd rather stay with you," Sherrie said, her eyes on me.

I sighed.  Life was going to be much more... interesting... with
more people around.  It wouldn't be very smart to do all the
bedroom swapping we'd been doing for the last few weeks, with
Rachael and the staff around.  Was I willing to give all that up,
to help Rachael?

I checked over Susan's homework, then I gave Susan and Sherrie
one last hug, told them that tomorrow they should plan on dinner
with us at the other house and headed back.

We got there and Rachael was starting to nod off to sleep.  I
expected her to head straight for bed, but instead, she asked if
we could talk.

We went in the huge living room, with it's view of the mountains
and sat down in chairs, facing each other.

"Sometimes I want to pinch myself," she told me.  "I wanted to
get off the street.  I thought it would be a lot harder.  I
thought I'd get detention or maybe a crappy foster home with
twenty other kids.  Instead it's like a dream.  It seems too
easy."

"You have a short memory then," I told her.  "Or does the last
few days not count?"

"It counts.  Yeah, for sure it counts.  Someday I'm going to be
married to some guy in the suburbs, raising little suburb kids...
and I will pretend this was all a dream.  A really bad
nightmare."  She grinned slightly.  "You have no idea how much
I'm going to love those kids, talk to those kids, do things with
those kids... you know, like you do with your daughter."

"You won't get bored?" I asked, knowing some would.

Rachael sniggered.  "I've done exciting.  Been there, done
that... I got the little bugs wiggling in me to prove it.  Better
than a t-shirt, right?"

"No."

"You're right.  I don't want to mess up, okay?  It seems like
it's simple, but it's not.  A party?  You want me to go to a
schoolgirl party?  I don't know how to act at something like
that.  The last couple of years when I went to a party, everyone
got wasted and then fucked their brains out.  I don't even know
how to swim."

"You can go and watch," I told her.  "Or you can sit with me and
help with refreshments and the like.  You could even stay here
and pass on the whole thing."

"I'll try," she said quietly.  "I need to learn things.  I don't
want to go back on the street; I really need to learn things. 
Which is what I really wanted to talk to you about."

I wasn't sure what she meant, and she waved vaguely at the
outside.  "I saw you looking over Susan's homework."

"I do that," I agreed.  "It's not that I don't trust her, mostly
I just check it over to see if I can spot any mistakes.  To let
her know I care."

"Yeah, well, when I was her age I didn't give a shit about
school.  I went, they made you go, pretty much -- but I didn't
learn anything.  I read some; mostly I watch TV.  What do I have
to do?  I don't want to grow up stupid."

I shook my head.  "I don't think you're stupid."  I thought for a
second.  A prescription for failure would be to put Rachael in a
regular classroom.  It would have to be with kids much younger
than her and that wouldn't be good for either the others or
Rachael.  The worst thing would be to try to put her with her
peers.

"I'll ask some friends.  They home school their daughters.  My
daughter wouldn't like that, she's too social... she wants to be
a cheerleader."

Rachael made a face.  "I just want to learn things, things I need
to know."

"Well, like I said, I'll ask my friends -- their daughters are
Susan's age.  They are pretty smart, but much younger than you. 
Even so, you would get stuff aimed just at you.  As fast as you
can deal with it."  I thought about it for a millisecond.  "I
think I'll help out, too."
 
I looked at her for a second; I could see wheels going around in
her head.  That was a good thing, I thought.  Thinking about life
and living is a good way to get ahead.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" I asked her.

She shrugged.

"You talk about getting married and living in the suburbs. 
Leading a dull life."

"Well, I figure life is what you make of it.  I can maybe learn
golf or something," Rachael told me.

I nodded.  "My husband played golf, he kept talking about
teaching me, but we never got around to doing it.  Maybe one of
these days, we can learn together.  No, I was curious.  You lived
on the streets; I don't think I can begin to understand what that
was like.  You talked about waking up and realizing how badly
you'd been abused.  Everywhere, you said."

Rachael nodded again, her eyes on me.  She wasn't wary; maybe
curious was a better description.

"Yet you talk about getting married."

"You're wondering why I don't hate guys, right?" she asked.

"That's about it."

"I hate some guys.  My asshole pimp; if I were to see him again,
like as not, I'll try to kill him again.  A couple of other
mother fuckers like that.  But if you think girls on the street
were much nicer to me, you're crazy."  She patted her leg, and I
remembered her stab wound.  "A guy didn't stick me, trying to
steal my jeans.  It was a girl, a stuck-up, self-important piece
of shit, who wanted everyone to kiss her ass.  I don't kiss ass,
I don't take shit from anyone.

"I hate some people; most people I just don't give a shit about.
You know, the ones that used to walk past me when I was on the
street, their eyes averted, trying to pretend I didn't exist. 
There were a couple of people on the street I trusted.  Some
male, some female.  I tried to hold up my end, too.  It was
tough, a lot of time.

"When you need the stuff... you gotta have it.  You don't know
what it's like.  Most of the people out there would steal your
stash when they got like that.  My friends and me... we didn't
steal from each other.  If we had some stuff, and someone was
hurting, we'd share it.  There weren't many people I could trust
like that, and sometimes they got hurting so bad, they didn't
care who got fucked."

She looked positively gray and bleak.  "I went through shit to
quit.  But if someone came in with some stuff right this second."
 She looked at me steadily,  "I like to think I'd be strong and
walk away.  I don't know if I could, though.  I don't want to go
back, I swear to God I don't want to go back.  But you get to
wanting it so bad, it twists you.  Twists you and twists you. 
Any excuse works.  'Just a little, then I'll stop.' 'Just this
one last time.'  'I'll wake up tomorrow and never do the shit
again.  One last time is all.'  There's a million excuses you
give yourself.  And one day turns into another, and it's all a
blur."

Until, I thought, you "wake up bleeding from every hole in your
body," one day and decide it was time to quit.

"I'll do everything, anything I can, to help," I told her.

She laughed.  "Then let me go to bed!"

She headed for her room and moment later Elena came up behind me
and rested her head on my shoulder, wrapping her arms around my
waist.

"You're a saint, Laura."

"I read the Good Book, Elena," I told her.  "I'm just an
apprentice, a wannabe.  You read the words on a page or on a
computer screen and they just don't mean the same thing as when
there's a living, breathing person in front of you who's been
there, been through it."  I wrapped my hands around hers.

She kissed my neck.  "You're exhausted," she told me.

I giggled, and lifted her hands up to my breasts.  "Yeah, but not
that exhausted!"

We turned out the lights and spent an hour making delicious love.
 Elena played me like a musician with an instrument, bringing me
close to completion, then slowing down or changing her target. 
She sucked my nipples, my clit, even the back of my knee.  It's
amazing what turns you on and how much something simple can do
it.

Then she brought her mouth down on mine, two fingers penetrated
me and she started to kiss and frig.  I was ready and then some,
coming and coming, then sliding down a steep slope of happy,
caring bliss into sleep.

Elena started nibbling my nipples much later.  I slowly surfaced;
feeling more refreshed and relaxed than I'd felt for a couple of
days.  I reached out and ran my fingers through her hair and she
all but purred.  Then I reached out and pushed her away, pushing
her back and started doing unto her as she'd done unto me.  I
love kissing her exquisitely shaped brown breasts; her dark
nipples fascinating me in ways I don't pretend to understand.  I
parted her pubic hair with my fingers to access her clit, and
then started flicking it with my tongue.  She arched her back,
her fingers digging into my shoulder as she shuddered and came.

A few minutes later in the shower we traded grins.  "Tonight is
going to be a lot of fun!" she told me.

"Why's that?  Why in particular?"

She grinned.  "We're going to stay at the other house, right?"

"It'll make getting ready for the party a lot easier," I told
her.

"Exactly!  We'll let Rachael stay in Sherrie's room, Sherrie can
sleep with Susan and of course, you and I will be together."

"And if Rachael wonders what's going on with Susan and Sherrie?"
I asked, mildly concerned.

"Since the only thing that goes on there is Sherrie watching
Susan masturbate -- at most she'll think Sherrie is weird.  Even
Sherrie thinks that."

I sighed.  "When we're all here, life's going to be a bitch."

She put her finger on my mouth, hushing me.  "Don't you go
learning bad language habits!  That's one thing I love about you.
 You are about the only person I know who doesn't cuss."

"You don't," I told her.

"Around you I am on my very best behavior," Elena told me.  "I
feel much more lady-like.  It will help, I think, next year when
I'm teaching.  I need to practice saying things without what was
it that you said?  Punctuation marks?  In my speech."

Elena left for work and I went into the kitchen and made some
bacon and eggs.

Maria came in around eleven and we talked about things for a
while.  "Mr. B, he was nice, but his wife just dropped her
clothes and expected them to be picked up the next time she was
in the room," she told me.

I nodded.  "I told you I'm gay."  Maria nodded.  "I think it
best, for the time being, if you let me pick up and clean my own
bedroom."

"My husband and I talked about it.  About you all being gay." 
She looked me in the eye.  "The Bible says it's not right.  But
it's not up to us to judge."

I smiled slightly.  "Maria, have you ever read Leviticus?"

She looked a little puzzled.  "It's in the old Testament, the
third book of the Bible, right after Exodus," I tried to clarify
for her.

"No, I never read that book.  Sometimes the preacher at our
church uses a verse out of it for a sermon."

I nodded.  "When I was going through my confirmation, I had a
crisis of faith.  I started asking questions."  She looked at me,
obviously not understanding.

"Do you have a bible?" I asked and she nodded.  "Go ahead and
read the chapter.  It's awfully boring, really, but it's the laws
God gave the Israelites through Moses.  The addenda to the Ten
Commandments."

"Okay," she said, obviously unsure what I was talking about.

"There are all kinds of rules in that book, Maria.  The Jews, the
observant Jews, try to follow all of them.  You will find, as you
read them, that a lot of those laws are no longer being followed.
 For one thing, most of us no longer have goats or sheep; God was
big on fining people goats or sheep for breaking the law.  'Eye
for an eye and tooth for a tooth,' that's in there too."

She just shook her head, still not understanding.  "My priest
solved my crisis of faith by telling me that I wasn't old enough
to understand things, that the Old Testament was filled with a
lot of allegory and that I should accept the teachings of the
church on faith until I got older and understood things better. 
That I was better off reading the New Testament.  I was twelve
and a good, obedient girl.  I did what I was told.

"I got to college, where everyone, absolutely everyone who taught
our classes was secular.  They made fun of my faith, my church. 
I didn't like it, and mostly ignored their comments.  It was
pretty clear that if you spoke up, your grades would tank.  I was
anal about grades."  I decided I needed to find a better way to
describe being obsessive.

"Yet, there was one professor, who taught a law history course,
who told us to read Leviticus and then try to trace what happened
to some of those laws.  Technology happened to the word of God,
as given to Moses.  We didn't need to be careful about mixing
milk and meat products any longer.  We have pasteurization and
refrigeration.  We don't need colored plates and specially marked
pots to tell us what we can cook in them.  Ten thousand things we
no longer do.

"And the laws about contracts and torts?  We've come a long way
since then.  God, in either Testament, didn't know about jury
trials.  About preponderance of evidence versus beyond a
reasonable doubt.  In those days they didn't have lawyers, rabbis
interpreted God's Law.  The Jews still do it that way, although
they also respect what they see as secular law."

"You're saying it's okay... to be like that?"

"I'm saying I'm an adult who's not hurting you.  I sleep with
people I love, and if it's not what is traditional, well, times
change.  Traditions change.  Maria, a hundred years ago, women
had just won the vote.  The income tax was unconstitutional, as
was voting for your senators.  A hundred years ago, blacks rode
at the back of the bus and had their own water fountains and all
of that."

She drew back as if I'd slapped her.  "It's not the same thing."

"No, it's not," I said, agreeing her.  "What we did to blacks,
and our Native Americans, in this country was unconscionable. 
The way we treated women was little better.  Great people, Maria,
people like Martin Luther King and Susan B. Anthony and a host of
others no one ever heard of, they worked to change things.  They
did.  They raised our consciousness about particular injustices
and we moved to change them.  It hasn't been fast, it hasn't been
steady, it hasn't been anything like fair.  But steadily, day by
day, things have gotten better.

"All I ask is that you give me the benefit of the doubt."

She nodded absently, obviously reflecting on what I said.  "It
just goes against all I was taught."

"The Kluxers said the same thing about people of color.  The
original Constitution didn't give women the right to vote. 
Kluxers were taught wrong and most of them know it now.  The
Constitution was wrong and we changed it.  Try to keep an open
mind, Maria.  Judge us for who we are, not what we are.  Just
like you want people to judge you."

"I don't hold with being gay is a civil rights thing, like rights
for blacks."

"It's not," I told her, "it's about conscience, not so much civil
rights.  When does society get to tell someone that they are bad
because of who they are and what they do, and when should society
butt out?"

She smiled slightly.  "Mr. B. smoked.  His wife purely hated it.
She made him smoke outside."

"That's not a bad analogy," I told her.

I finished up breakfast and started on the list of calls I had to
make.  A little later Rachael was up.  She was dressed and
smiling, although I was a little worried when she packed away a
ton of food for breakfast.

"Up to a little shopping and some errands?"  She nodded and we
headed out.

It was a long day, tiring for both of us.  Still, at the end of
the day, I'd done a lot a little things.  I had a bank account
for the house, I made sure the utilities were switched over, just
a million things.  Rachael had some clothes that she got to
choose, as well.

In the early afternoon we stopped in at the doctor's and this
time.  Doctor O'Brien wasn't at all like I imagined, having
talked with her on the phone.  She could have been a Viking
Princess, easily.  Not that she was blonde -- she was a redhead.
Easily six foot two and as they say, "large-boned."

She examined Rachael, with Dr. Donovan a few feet away, watching
her, not saying anything.  I'd had inoculations and shots before,
but I was unprepared when Dr. O'Brien explained to Rachael about
how penicillin was the drug of choice to start the treatment of
her STDs.  It looked like pink jello, thick and viscous.  I'd
never liked shots, but for the first time ever, my stomach was
queasy and I looked away.  Worse, Rachael got shot in the bottom,
once on each side.

"It hurts," the doctor told her.  Rachael was standing stiffly,
trying, I thought, not to cry.  "Now I want to make it hurt more.
 Lean over and try to touch your toes."

Rachael leaned over and nearly fell over.  It took three tries
before she was able to bend at the waist without help.

"The motion helps get things moving," the doctor told Rachael. 
She'd pretty much ignored me throughout the examination.  "It
hurts like the devil, though.  You'll have bruises there
tomorrow.  Monday we'll do it again.  Probably Thursday too. 
With luck, that should do it.  I'll still have you on
antibiotics, but oral should do."

Rachael nodded, still squirming uncomfortably.

The doctor turned to me for the first time.  "My office people
said you're uninsured."

I smiled.  "I imagine Donald Trump is uninsured, too."

"Get some insurance," she told me.  "It's not as expensive as you
think.  Marybeth told me not to worry."

"Does she have insurance?" I asked, curiously.

"None of your business.  Still, she's retired Civil Service. 
What do you think?"

"I expect she has insurance," I replied.  "Why?"

"You figure it out.  I'll have them give you my fee list before
you leave."

Put like that, I didn't need to see the fee list, not that I
could avoid it.  Doctor O'Brien, Marybeth and myself were cut
from the same sort of mold... really hardheaded.

When we returned to the house Rachael went straight to her room
and crashed.  A little while later, Susan called and said Sherrie
was there, and Elena was in the kitchen fixing something for
dinner.

"Tell her I think we won't be there until around seven or so, we
just got back from a long day of errands and Rachael's asleep."

I'd just put the phone down when Maria came up, Vivian in tow.  I
hugged Vivian and she hugged back.  "I put her suitcase in one of
the unused bedrooms, Mrs. Hunt," Maria told me.

"It's Laura, please," I reminded her.  I turned to Vivian. 
"Suitcase?"

"Angie asks please, if you don't mind, could I stay the weekend
with you?  I told her you have lots and lots and lots of spare
bedrooms."  Vivian met my eyes.  "Grandma has been coughing and
wheezing the last couple of days." Vivian blinked back tears. 
"I've been trying really hard the last few months to stop being a
pain.  But... she gets on my case about something and after a
while, I say something mean back and..."

"I understand," I said with a sigh.  There were two kinds of
pig-headed animals in the world: pigs, for whom it came
naturally, and human beings who build their own blind alleys.

Vivian wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse.  "That
girl... how is she?"

"Sleeping.  She's much better."

Vivian nodded.  "I looked it up on the internet, what it's like.
There was a time when I was thinking about it.  I smoked grass a
couple of times, got high.  I got drunk a couple of times."  She
grimaced.  "It was the getting drunk; I puked, I felt like shit.
I decided it wasn't worth it.  No, I had a bad attitude; I didn't
care about things.  Miss Peggy fixed that.  I wish I could make
Grandma understand that I understand now."

I remembered the dim house, the curtains drawn.  And even so, the
soft glow from Angie when she was with Peggy Sloan.  "Angie will
help, don't give up."

"I won't."

"Marybeth said I should bring a bathing suit.  Could I go
swimming now?"

"Sure," I told her.  I considered it.  I was a little tired, but
not overwhelmingly so.  "That's a good idea.  Why don't we both
change and get wet?"

We went out to the pool together, and I stood on the edge. 
Vivian just jumped right in, turned and looked up at me.  "Come
on!  It's not that cold!"

I chuckled.  "No, I was just looking at how far away the other
end of the pool is.  I've been swimming laps at the other house,
but I don't think I'll swim as many here!"

I dove in and headed for the other end of the pool, Vivian
trailing along behind.  I was trying to calculate how much longer
an Olympic-sized pool was than the one in the backyard of the
other house.  Olympic pools, I remembered from the sales pitch
for the house, were fifty meters long.  If I'd heard the size of
the other pool, I'd forgotten it.  Still, thinking about it I
decided that it was about thirty feet long, thus ten meters or
about a fifth the length of this pool.

I usually swam up and down three times, six laps.  I was faced
with a choice: stop at the end, not as far as I would usually
swim, or keep going and swim a lot further than I usually did.  I
decided I was a little tired and a little out of practice and I
would stop at the end.

Vivian, though, wasn't constrained by such things and less than
halfway she went over to the side and stopped, hanging her arms
over the edge of the pool.

I reached the end, pulled myself out and walked back to where she
was.  "Goodness!" I told her.  "That's a long ways!"

Vivian grinned.  "I can't believe you swam the whole thing!"

I sat down next to her, and slipped into the water without much
of a splash.  "You okay?" I asked, coming back to take up
position next to her.
"Yeah, it's just longer than I'm used to."

I nodded.  "I'm so used to everyone being in cheerleading and in
good shape..." I told her.

"Yeah.  I tried that for about five minutes, I couldn't do any of
it."

"You are in crummy shape, Vivian.  You do need to exercise more,"
I told her.

She stuck her tongue out at me.  "Not everyone needs to be able
to swim a mile."

"The pool isn't a mile long, it's about a hundred and sixty
feet."

She got a sudden devilish grin on her face, and I felt her hand
between us, moving across the front of my suit.

I shook my head and she pouted.  "If it was dark and there was no
one here but us," I explained, "then I'd think about it.  I have
a housekeeper, a handyman and a gardener.  All of whom are good
Christians who would be shocked at seeing two lesbians going at
it -- and I seriously doubt if they would be understanding if
they saw someone my age with someone of your age."

"That's no fun," she replied, but moved her hand.

"I know.  I'm thinking of working out something for them.  Like
maybe flex time.  Four ten hour days or something."  Vivian shook
her head, obviously not understanding.  It was pretty esoteric, I
supposed.

"Could we sit on the side and talk?" Vivian asked and I nodded.

She pulled herself out right where we were, dangling her legs in
the pool.  I did the same thing.

"The other day, I talked about founding a church," she told me.

"The First Church of Peggy, Reincarnate," I said, remembering.

"I wasn't kidding."

I looked at her and nodded.  "Vivian, I never thought for a
second that you were kidding."

"Doesn't it seem -- weird -- to want to found a church with
yourself as the head?  Presumptive to want to be the deity?"

"Think about it for a second," I told her.  "Jesus knew he was in
charge... he knew everyone looked to him to tell them what he
believed.  The same is true about Mohammed and Buddha and
Confucius.  And those are the famous, historical religions. 
Every modern cult has a leader whose followers come to them in
the belief that what they are being taught is something very
special."

I reached out and squeezed her fingers lightly.  "You have to
separate out in your mind from the very first: how you see
yourself and what other people are going to think.  People who
follow you are going to believe you are special; thinking
yourself special can quickly go to your head.  Then there will be
those who don't believe in what you have to say.  Most will
politely categorize you as a nut.  Considering that you will
probably be preaching girls making love to girls, that too won't
be popular."

"And women and girls," she said.

"Even less popular.  If you keep a low profile, if you don't
flout your beliefs and way of life, people will, mostly, look the
other way.  It was no secret that David Koresh of the Branch
Davidians had a thing for young girls and multiple wives.  The
government squished him like a bug, when he started breaking the
gun laws."

"I don't see any need for guns!" Vivian said, shuddering.

"You know Marybeth and Nancy Howland.  Have they ever talked to
you about a woman they knew?  Terri Farmer?  She was the
cheerleading coach at Scottsdale before Nancy was."

Vivian looked at me and shook her head.  "I've heard her name a
few times, she and Grandma were close, for a while.  But they
never talked about her much."

I sighed.  "I'll talk to Marybeth.  If you're going to do this,
you need to read the Good Book.  All of it.  I've read about
half, and skimmed through about half the rest.  It's really
important that you see it."

"I thought it was about how to keep cheerleaders and teams
together and stuff like that."

I shook my head.  "That's like saying the bible is about honoring
your mother and father and keeping the Sabbath.  There's a lot of
history as well, and the history is there to make the same points
as the rules and laws.

"Terri Farmer was one of the girls your grandmother helped.  The
first of very many.  But like any person, Terri Farmer was
special in many ways.  And Terri had a special friend her own
age, named Celia.  Celia was black."

Vivian shrugged.  "Your great-grandmother's friend in school was
black, too," I added.

"I never understood the prejudice thing," Vivian said.  "It seems
pretty stupid to me."

"You won't hear any argument from me about that either," I told
her.  "But that's because of how we were raised."  I waved back
towards Scottsdale and Phoenix beyond that.  "Those people are
raised to think women together or men together are bad or wicked.
 Me too.  But I was also taught to be tolerant of other people's
views and when it came time for me to face my early teachings, I
had no problem putting them aside."

"Let's just say, I never had any teaching that it was wrong,"
Vivian said with a wicked grin.

I nodded.  "And more and more people are learning tolerance and
more and more are never being taught that it's wrong in the first
place.  But it wasn't always so.  That's what Peggy was all
about."

Vivian nodded. "That much I know."

"Things we take for granted now... in the past it wasn't always
so.  You need, Vivian, to understand that you, in your own way,
want changes just as big as those people wanted.

"Let me tell you a little about Terri Farmer and her friend Celia
Howard."

<1st attachment end>


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