RP 21
	
by Sebastian X

The invitation to the new bishop's inaugural garden party had been endorsed, "Be there, Sebastian, or else   " in red ink.

I had phoned the bishop's palace to confirm that there had been no mistake and was told that, "someone in authority had gone to considerable pains to acquire your address." So I accepted but I had no success when I tried to find out who had issued the invitation with its veiled threat.

After our reunion, Phoebe Howard was pleased to meet my two live-in lovers. She was not at all put out by their presence in our bed on that night. She had punished Rebecca for the trouble that possessive little lesbian's jealousy had caused and was at peace with the world. My old English mistress stayed for a few days before re-embarking on a promotional tour for her publisher. As she left she thanked me for my understanding attitude towards her inadvertent attachment to Rebecca and also for putting her on the road to fame and fortune as a writer. She said, due to the three of us, she had enough material for her new book. The yet-to-be-written block-buster was tentatively titled, I Was Pack Raped by Teenage Lesbian Sadists a bit of an overstatement for what had been a fun, if exhausting, evening or two of group sex, I thought  but that's artistic licence for you.

I dressed conservatively for the garden party in a tan lightweight linen suit and my old school tie, last used to secure Phoebe Howard's wrists prior to encouraging her, with a riding crop, to fellate me. The coloured polyester rag brought back fond memories of my wicked youth. I sighed as I recalled that in a few days I would be eighteen and, although technically still a teenager, I would also be legally an adult and fully responsible for my actions.

Not sure what one took to a garden party, I settled for a wallet full of cash and condoms and was therefore well prepared for most eventualities. As it turned out I needed neither.

The garden party was held in the cathedral close a walled enclosure in the centre of the city given to the church a century or so ago and now worth squillions of dollars per square metre. The inner walls of the close were lined with rhododendrons and azaleas. The plants hid the rough brickwork and gave the impression, with the lawns around the building, that the ugly Victorian gothic cathedral sat in a remote, lush, green meadow surrounded by flowering shrubs and not slap bang in the middle of the CBD.

I was duly checked into the close by security staff and issued with a clip-on badge with "Sebastian" printed on it. I was offered a choice of orange juice or a wet fruit salad masquerading as a punch. I took the juice and looked around. I guessed that I should pay my respects to the new bishop. As I hovered nearby he was ambushed by a group of large women in floral hats. He smiled and nodded at me as I drifted past but it was clear he had no idea who Sebastian was, nor why he was present. 

A string quartet playing was playing light classical music. The sun was shining. I wandered around the garden looking for whoever it was who had insisted I attend.

The Chief of Police was there. I recognised him from frequent photographs in the local newspaper and on TV. He was chatting to our own Mr White as though they were bosom buddies. The old boy raised his glass to me and smiled. I had once done him a favour and, to give credit where it is due, he had repaid me twice over. I wondered if he was the bigwig who had insisted on my presence but it seemed unlikely. He could see me anytime. I worked for him.

I bumped into newly promoted Lieutenant Judith in a pristine police dress-uniform. She was wearing the Police Medal on her shapely bosom, and an automatic pistol in a highly polished holster on her Sam Browne. Judith was escorting another old acquaintance and former "lover" Joy. The Lieutenant scowled at me as I greeted the couple pleasantly. Joy was wearing a floppy hat very much like the one I had permitted her to retain (with her shoes and stockings) when I last obliged her to strip for me. It was unfortunate that, as we spoke, the band began to play selections from Mozart. For one moment I thought Joy was going to start gyrating her hips and begin to peel off her pretty floral dress. I grinned. She blushed. She was saved further embarrassment by two small children, a boy and a girl, who in pursuit of a persecuted cat, cannoned into the flustered Joy before tearing off into the shrubbery yelling, "Puddy, puddy, puddy!" Their mother, following in their wake, apologised to Joy and then turned to me.

"Sebastian!" she said. "This is a pleasant surprise." She smiled at Joy and the tall lesbian cop.

"My husband told me you lived in the city. May I take him?" she said.

The woman accepted Judith's scowl and Joy's nervous giggle for a "yes."

"Look, do help me stop those little horrors before they catch that poor animal and get scratched." And so saying she grabbed me by the hand and dragged me into the surrounding greenery. She was panting when we reached the wall, out of sight of the polite gathering. The attractive blonde woman backed against the bricks and spread her gloved hands either side of her hips. She looked the picture of threatened innocence. Her firm, generous, bosom heaved under the bodice of her pale yellow dress. Her eyes were big and round under the broad brim of her beribboned straw hat.  She said, quietly enough so the noise of the garden-party would drown her plea, "Oh, God, Sebastian, please don't rape me." 

It was Mary, the wife of the chaplain of the Juvenile Detention Center I had been assigned to after my first marathon rape of the red-headed Joy. The last time I had seen Mary she had been asleep, exhausted after a night of sexual excess. She had been sprawled naked next to her daughter, Sophia, who she had bound with thongs and straps and insisted I fuck instead of her. Mary had kissed my balls goodbye as I finished raping the young woman. She got a close-up of my cum spilling out of the teenager's cunt.

"Please, don't," she whispered as I lifted the hem the silky yellow skirt.

"Oh, no!" she panted as I caressed the smooth, and slightly moist, fine cotton covering her plump cunt lips. I pushed with my finger and rubbed the bud of her clitoris through the thin fabric.

"Not here. Not with everyone so close!" she sobbed without meaning a word of it. Only once in our long association in the JDC had Mary admitted I was her lover and that she relished every inch of my impressive cock. Pretending she was being ravished gave her an "out" if  I had been caught fucking her. The fantasy also used to turn her on. Apparently, it still did.

I ripped the flimsy cotton knickers off her firm sweetly curved hips and unzipped my pants. I kissed her on the neck as my erection firmed in the fresh air. Mary reached for my growing cock with one hand and wrapped the other around my neck. She began to rub the head of my cock up and down the length of her pussy.

"On your knees. Bitch!" I growled, after a pleasant while. "Suck it!"

"Later," she panted as she slid onto my rigid dick.

"Oooh," she cried. "Oh, please spare me," then she jumped up and engorged my cock entirely as she wrapped her legs around my waist. I staggered forward a pace or two until her back fetched up against the wall, then, as she locked both hands behind my neck I tried to bang Mary through the brickwork until she came and came again.

I thought her cries of satisfaction would attract the attention of one or another of the punch drinkers but if anyone heard Mary's,"Oh my god don't! Stop! Don't! Stop! Don't stop, don't stop. Oh, Christ almighty! Sebastian," they probably, given the venue, mistook it for a prayer to the soldier saint.

There wasn't very much to clean up. I had cum deep inside the avid victim. Mary attended to me nicely and wiped herself dryish with the tattered remains of her pants. Then we went, hand in hand in search of the cat-hunters.

"Whose kids are they?" I asked as we emerged from the rhododendrons and began our hunt among groups of the new bishop's guests. I knew her husband was impotent and infertile so I was a bit surprised when Mary looked me straight in the eyes, grinned, and said, "Mine, of course, Sebastian."

"Ah," I said, surprised. "A.I.D?"

"I certainly had some help," she said. "There they are. Over by the drinks table. Oh dear!" Mary abandoned me and hurried over the vast expanse of lawn calling out to Sophy and Alexander that pussies do not drink orange juice or punch.

***

"Sebastian," said a quiet voice behind me. "It's time you and I had a little chat."

Standing behind me was Mary's husband, the former chaplain of the institution for young offenders I had spent a mere six months of a much longer sentence. He was dressed in an ankle-length black cassock with cloth-covered buttons and his long, thin, face and sparse brown hair looked no different from when I had last seen him over two years ago. He smiled with his mouth.

"I'm glad you accepted my invitation. I'm sure Mary did too. Please come with me. What I have to say won't take long." He turned and led the way into the grey bulk of the cathedral. I followed. I tried to let Mary see where we were going but she had her hands full.

I followed Mary's husband into the administrative building attached to the cathedral. He opened the door to the Dean's office, ushered me inside and shut the door. There were just the two of us and I guessed my old JDC padre was the new official I had read about in the local rag.

"Congratulations, er, Dean?" I said.

He smiled and motioned me to sit in a chair facing an imposing, highly polished, wooden desk. "Thank you, Sebastian," he said. " But I couldn't have done it without you."
I looked puzzled. I was puzzled.

"Let me explain. You know as well as I do what liberties I permitted you to take with my wife while you were in detention. And why. You knew I was a hopeless voyeur. You showed that you knew when you deliberately entertained Mary in the bedroom. The room where Smee had rigged one of his clever little cameras so I could observe her pleasuring herself."

I nodded. It was true.

"I enjoyed your fun and games and, quite honestly, envied you your youth and vigour. Too much envy is bad for one's soul. That is why I arranged for your early release. On your last night of imprisonment, however, you outdid all previous performances. Not only did you impale my wife and step-daughter in what, even for you, Sebastian, must have been a marathon performance, but you cleverly contrived to implicate Mary in your ruthless plundering of Sophia's innocence. Had I known what was on that last tape before you departed I would have insisted you served out your full term."

"Yes," I interrupted. "But remember, we had been drinking and  "

"Not as punishment, Sebastian. I wanted to see more! Looking at the three of you on my wife's bed " he sighed. "As it was, your departure saved me from myself," said the Dean, sadly. There was a pause as the pensive clergyman gathered his thoughts.

"Do you know, Smee attempted to blackmail me?" he added.

I shook my head, appalled. I had suggested Smee get a tape of the then chaplain when he abused himself, while he watched tapes of his wife as she writhed in ecstacy, as an insurance policy. Never did I think for a moment that mild-mannered Smee would try anything like blackmail.

"In exchange for all copies of all tapes and discs of my wife, daughter and yourself I'm sure he didn't cheat me I set him up in business. My money, his know-how. We are now both doing very well, financially. Talk about the 'wages of sin'." He gave a short laugh.

"You understand, Sebastian, I have all the tapes. Including the one showing you as you rape Sophia. It isn't clear from the tapes that Mary is fantasising. She was always careful to cry 'rape'. In the wrong hands the tapes, carefully edited, could put you behind bars for a long time. But we neither of us want that, do we?"

I shook my head slowly and wondered where this mad conversation was going.

"Does Mary know of your, er, viewing habits, Dean?" I asked.

"No," he said. "She remains in blissful ignorance. After your departure she reverted to solitary masturbation or indulged in a shameful, but infrequent, incestuous lesbian relationship with Sophia. Your menage a trois activity awoke Sophia's hitherto dormant libido. She is, I'm delighted to say, almost as randy a bitch as her mother. Recently, of course I have had no opportunity to observe them at their leisure. I plan to change that."

"Oh," I said.

"Have you met Sophy and Alexander? My children?" He fixed me with an icy glare.

"Not really," I began, wondering about the emphasis. "Look like nice kids. Twins are they? How old are they?"

"Not twins, Sebastian, although that is what everyone believes. Sophy is Alexander's niece, he, her uncle. They are nearly two."

I'm not very good at mental arithmetic but using the fingers on both hands I managed the sums.

"You mean Mary  and Sophia  Oh. That night, my last night at the JDC, that was the only time with Sophia "

I was at a total loss for words.

"When it became clear they were pregnant Mary spun me a story about them both being drugged and raped by a gang of young offenders old inmates of the JDC bent on mischief. Sophia remembered only one. She could not describe his face and her description of the physical attributes she could remember were, to anyone who hadn't seen you in action, Sebastian, fantastical. Sophia also recalls that, on the night in question, she was frequently, er, entered from the rear. She said she believed her mother's gang-rape story. Mary said that they should have reported the crime but she felt the notoriety generated by reports of the incident and the part she had been forced to play in the affair, although drugged would  affect my career. She offered to leave me, taking Sophia with her."

"I didn't know," I said.

"There was no need for you to know," said the Dean. "I pretended to believe Mary. By then abortion was out of the question. When their time was near we all took a long holiday in Thailand and returned with my twins. Sophia was glad to be quit of responsibility for little Sophy and Mary was happy to look after both babies. A year later, the position of Dean at this establishment became vacant. After the previous incumbent's activities it was not to be filled by a sexual deviant. So they chose me the proud new father of two lively brats and possessor of a most attractive and talented wife."

"Who you like to watch being fucked," I said.

"A fact known only to you and my business partner. Smee will say nothing and, Sebastian, neither will you."

"You are warning me off?" I said intelligently.

"In part, Sebastian. You are to have nothing to do with the children."

"Fair enough," I mumbled and wondered why I felt that he had taken something of value from me rather than removing an onerous responsibility.

"Good," he said, "That being understood, Sebastian, I'm inviting you to assist Mary with the cathedral choir. They practice at least once a week and you will be able to help my wife sort out the music room afterwards. I know you will be discreet. You understand me?"

"Oh yes, Dean, I understand you," I said. "No doubt you've had Smee check the music room for surveillance devices?"

"Quite so. Also, Sebastian, I should warn you that Sophia too has an interest in the choir. We are planning to do a production of 'The Sound of Music' this Christmas. Both Mary and Sophia would probably appreciate some help with breath control. I believe you taught Mary some techniques during the JDC production?"

That particular bit of fun when I had tied 'Sister' Mary to the altar in the chapel, having disabled the security cameras, and indulged in some unholy communion had not been caught on tape or disc. I wondered how he knew. I nodded.

"Good," said the Dean. Then I can see nothing to keep you from enjoying the garden party." He raised an eyebrow and I was dismissed.

* * *

I decided to have a look at the music room before going home. The room was in a mock gothic annex to the cathedral and was laid out like a small theatre, complete with proscenium arch, orchestra pit, heavy velvet curtains and a generously sized stage. It would have been very easy for Smee to install all manner of cameras among the lights that festooned the walls in both the auditorium and above the stage. I guessed that anything that moved would be recorded for later editing. I went backstage. The house curtains were closed and the stage was bare apart from a huge four-poster bed illuminated by a soft warm light. I had decided to go home when I felt the pressure of something hard and cold in the nape of my neck.

"It's a gun," a female voice whispered. "I know how it works and I'm going to use it to blow your balls off."

"In that case," I said after clearing my throat nervously, "you're pointing the thing in the wrong place."

I retained some consciousness after the first blow and was aware, as she swung the gun at my head for the second whack, that my assailant was Sophia a rounder more mature Sophia than I had last seen, bound and naked, and well fucked. Now she was dressed, like her mother, in a summer dress and large bonnet.

"Nice hat," I said.
		
***

When I recovered consciousness I found I was sitting on the soft mattress of the four poster, propped against one of the solid oak posts that carried the tent-like canopy and draft-excluding curtains. My head ached and I was naked. I discovered that my arms were handcuffed behind my back and around the post. There were loose ropes attached to my ankles. I was alone and would have called out but someone Sophia I guessed had slapped a wad of sticky tape over my mouth. I heard a door open and voices, and footsteps as the talkers approached the bed.

"What is it, Dear? Why have you dragged me in here and why do you have those sexy things?"

"You'll see, Mary."

"I see a big curtained bed what naughtiness do you have in mind, Sophia?"

"It's a surprise."

"Really, Sophia, I don't have time just now for fun and games. And the Dean has the key to the music room so we can't lock the door even if I did want to play. You may be feeling horny, Dear, but  "

Sophia drew part of the bed-curtain aside with a dramatic flourish. Mary saw me and her jaw dropped. Sophia put down the sports bag she was carrying with a solid thump. I guessed the gun was in the bag with the 'sexy things' Mary had been rabbiting on about.

"You recognise him, don't you?" asked Sophia. "He's one of the ones who raped us. The main one. He sodomised me. He nearly split me open. He beat me with a swagger stick. The bastard made you use our dildo on me and nailed you while you were deep inside me. God, how that hurt!"

"Yes, Sophia, I do think you're right," Mary gasped at last.

"Just look at the size of that   that " Sophia said.

"How did you find him Sophia? I think he's called 'Sebastian'. How did he get here, like this?"

Sophia smiled slyly. "His label said, 'Sebastian'. I saw him talking to the Dean," she said. "They went into Daddy's study. No doubt he told a pack of lies about turning over a new leaf. The sort of crap the Dean swallows by the font full. While they were having a little chat I found a gun, and some handcuffs. I followed him when he said goodbye to the dean. He came in here, probably to see what he could steal, and I hit him. Hard. Twice."

"You found a gun?"

"Yes. The woman police officer, the one with the medals, she took her little friend in the big straw hat into the rhododenderons. She took off her belt and jacket so as not to mark her lover's tits with buckles and buttons. Neither of them saw me as I slithered the belt away. They were far too busy making love. Made me sort of horny too."

"His head is bleeding," said Mary. She sounded weak.

"More than his head will be bleeding before we've finished with the rat," said Sophia harshly. "It's too late for us to report the rape but if we keep him here until nightfall then take him to the harbour I can blow his balls off before dropping the body into the outgoing tide."

"It won't be dark for hours," said Mary. She had turned pale at the thought of her daughter as a bloodthirsty killer. "Perhaps we should just punish him a little and then let him go?"

Sophia shook her head. "We'd never be sure he wasn't lurking in the shadows ready to pounce. Besides, he could report us to the police for what I've done so far, let alone what I'm going to do next."

The young woman reached behind her and unfastened the zip at the back of her dress. The wispy garment slid down her body and pooled at her feet. She was wearing a simple cotton bra and a white cotton thong that barely cupped her plump vagina. Her dark stockings were lacy grip-tops and her small feet were shod with pink pumps decorated with pink rose-buds that matched the flowers on her hat.

My cock twitched as the young woman unclipped her bra and let her breasts larger and more mobile than I remembered bounce free. Sophia climbed onto the big soft mattress.

"'Sebastian', is it?" she said.

I nodded. My head throbbed.

"I'm going to rape you, Sebastian, you sadistic phallocratic chauvinistic bastard." She gave my scrotum a reassuring squeeze before busying herself with the ropes attached to my ankles.

"Mmh!" I grunted, through the makeshift gag.

Mary looked from Sophia to me and back again. She fixed me with a meaningful stare that I interpreted as, "Hold on. I'm sure to think of something." Then she too quickly shed her dress and bra and joined us on the bed. Sophia didn't notice that Mama had been knickerless but responded with a growl of pleasure as Mary caressed her pendent breasts and stroked her hairless plump-lipped pussy.

Sophia attached the ropes on my ankles to the bed posts at the foot of the bed. She pushed a pillow or two under my backside then knelt on my chest. Mary adjusted the handcuffs so my shoulders would not be dislocated when she removed the gag and sat on my head. This she did as soon as I showed that I understood any untoward noise, or use of teeth, would be severely dealt with. At first it was impossible to see what the two women were up to with my mouth athwart Mary's moist cunt with my tongue up her slit or coddling her ass but one or more hands roughly encouraged my erection at all times and once just before Sophia began to slowly impale herself four hands and two mouths were paying homage to my throbbing cock.

I did my best not to ejaculate. By remaining rigid I gave Sophia and her mother something to aspire to. I feared what the vengeful teenager would do if I should cum and go floppy. It was a difficult thing to achieve, because she had a tight little cunt and slid up and down my vertical erection like a pole-dancer on Ecstasy. I reckon she experienced four climaxes of about five on the Richter scale before she swapped places with her mother. 

They kissed and fondled each other as they changed positions. Both women were thoroughly aroused. Sophia's nipples were more prominent than her mother's. She played with her tits before she straddled my bloody head and began to fuck my face. Mary demonstrated her superior skill and soon had me jerking and spurting as she rode my bucking hips like a jilleroo at her first rodeo. She kept her seat by taking a firm hold on my ball-bag and gripped tight with her knees and vaginal muscles. As I gave a final shudder Mary slid off my softening cock.

"It'll be a good ten minutes before he's hard again," she said. Then added, hastily, "I guess."

"Huh," snorted Sophia, after I had tongued her to her fifth orgasm. "Let's see if a vibrator up his ass will help. I need to clean up a bit. Then I'll get the strap-on. You keep the swine occupied, Mary."

Sophia slid off the bed and I heard her footsteps cross the stage going, I assumed , towards the toilets. Mary stretched her warm body over mine and kissed my neck.

"What can I do?" she whispered.

"Get the policewoman," I hissed back.

"But she'll arrest Sophia."

"No. She'll be so relieved to get her gun back before your homicidal daughter uses it on me that she'll do nothing."

"You can't be sure of that."

"I know her. Trust me," I begged. "Go as soon as Sophia gets back."

"I don't know," said Mary as she knelt, once again, astride my head. "Make me cum again, Sebastian. Rape me with your tongue." She grabbed my hair and pushed her swollen pinkness into my face. Her pussy was swimming with the juices of my recent ejaculation. As I plied my tongue vigorously she smeared my face with scum. 

"I'll think about it." she whispered. "If I can't think of any other way  Oooh! You're good at that."

When Sophia returned she climbed onto the bed. Mary, after demonstrating a convincing clitoral orgasm, yielded her position astride my head to her daughter and slipped away. I couldn't see whether she took her dress with her but hoped she had.

Sophia was holding a large pink-coloured latex and plastic vibrator in one hand and the automatic pistol in the other. She forced the dildo into my mouth. It tasted of disinfectant. She switched it on. Nothing happened.

"Damn!" she said, "The batteries must be flat." 

The young woman slid off the bed, rummaged in the sports bag, then scrambled back onto the yielding mattress. I was happy to see she had left the gun behind.

"Don't say a word," she said.

She took the vibrator out of my mouth and replaced two dead batteries with live ones. The machine gave a squeal then settled down to a steady thrum. The head of the thing rotated as it pumped. Sophia climbed over my prostrate body and sat back on my tumescent cock. I felt it twitch and begin to grow again. She slowly inserted the vibrator in her well lubricated pussy and began to rotate her hips. She smiled at me as she masturbated. It wasn't a friendly smile. The fleshy round cheeks of her buttocks massaged my burgeoning erection. I grew stiffer. After a while, Sophia felt my cock grow between the cheeks of her ass. She reached behind her and seemed gratified by what she felt.

"A bit over ten minutes, Sebastian. Mamma was right," she said. She frowned. "How did she know that?"

She leaned forward and fed the tip of my erection into her anus. I was surprised at how easily she took the first few inches up her ass. I could feel the machine in her vagina throbbing in close proximity to my rapidly swelling cock. Sophia leaned back. I slid deeper inside her. A few strands of blonde hair had escaped from under her rosebud trimmed hat. She closed her eyes and rocked gently backwards and forwards.

"Oh, dear God," she moaned as she bent her back further. She roughly pulled at her nipples as if to milk herself and at the same time struggled to rise off my growing, blood filled, rope-veined, cock while the vibrator clicked and whirred in her cunt. 

Sophia's eyes were tight shut and she was near to a climax when I decided to give her a helping hand. Summoning up as much energy as I could, I flexed my abdominal muscles and drove up into Sophia's butt as hard as possible. I ripped into her until I felt my pubic hairs press hard against her rump. She came. She screamed. She struggled to wriggle off my impaling prick and because I was tied to the bed succeeded.

She glared at me as she eased the vibrator out of her pussy and switched it off.

"Don't go away," she said and slid out of the bed. I could hear her rummaging again in the sports bag and was relieved when she scrambled back onto the bed to see she was not holding the automatic. Sophie had put on a black leather harness that buckled around her hips. The harness had a fitting between her thighs for a variety of dildos. Sophia offered me a choice between the vibrator she had recently employed or a fatter longer metal phallus with no moving parts. I chose the smaller. She grinned and screwed the larger implement into the fitting provided and thrust the mechanical marvel into my mouth. It no longer tasted of disinfectant.

"It's a bit bigger than you are, Sebastian," she said as she compared her metal monster with my glistening cock. "So you'll know what it felt like that night in the Juvenile Detention Center when you tied me to my bed and sodomised me for the first time. I'm going to enjoy hurting you, you evil swine, and will as soon as I adjust these ropes."

The young woman set to work and, although I was as uncooperative as possible, before long she had me on my stomach draped over a pile of cushions and bolsters with my ass in the air and a plastic dick playing merry hell with my taste buds. She teased me by pumping my erection and squeezing my balls before setting the spherical metal head of her strap-on dildo against my anal sphincter and beginning to push.

At that point the curtains on the far side of the bed were whipped aside and Mary, breathless and as bare as before scambled on to the bed.

"Where have you been?" her daughter asked.

"Where's the gun?" panted Mary.

"In the bag. I'm not going to use it yet. You were right about the ten minutes. The rat is as big now as he was when we started. Why don't you  "

The curtains on the other side of the bed were parted. It was the Lieutenant. The policewoman was holstering her automatic."I'm sorry to spoil your fun at this crucial stage," she said, "but I would like my handcuffs back as well."

***
As I dressed I thanked Judith and assured her that Sophia would certainly keep mum about lesbian lovers in the rhododendrons. There need be no investigation into the loss of a police weapon. Of course I wouldn't press charges. It was, after all, just a merry prank on Sophia's behalf, a high-spirited young woman who would shortly be studying law at the same university I would attend. Mary just happened to be showing me the music room when Sophia played her joke on us, I explained. I was sure the Dean's wife was as embarrassed as the Police Lieutenant. Mary and Judith nodded solemnly.

I nearly wept with relief.

And that's how it ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.
