Chapter 6: Complications

They kept their jobs at the theater after they had reported their findings to their client. Al wanted them to keep their cover for a while. He told them that the client was going to confront his wife that day and begin divorce proceedings. Evidently she had done this before and the client had proof of her prior 'mistakes'.

After they arrived somehow Michael, the leading man, had gotten Barbara alone again. He hadn't even said hello! His lips had found hers and, for Barbara, her well meaning wish to be true to Ken crumbled again! He had backed her into a dark corner near the front of the theater. Indiscreet was not even a close description.

To Michael, it seemed laughable that this obvious neophyte had escaped him before. Now he had her against a wall with her legs around his waist. Her loose fitting silk underwear was lying at his feet. His manhood was pressed rather snuggly at her entrance. He wasn't going to wait for a comfy couch to break this one in and she didn't seem to want to wait!

For Barbara, everything felt centered on the emptiness she felt deep in her belly. It wasn't the hunger that many others felt in their stomach that were without jobs. No it was much different but no more important than the need for food. It was to be the beginning of her womanhood. It was to be the event that most women regard with great expectation and some with responsibility. It was an event that many thought sacred and to be done only with their husband. Maybe she would try to blame her mother for her present weakness later. Right now she was ready and she had held her breath waiting for the inevitable pain of entry from a man who wasn't even her boyfriend.

A calamitous opening of the front doors of the theater interrupted their expectations. Light suddenly shone brightly into their nook. Rapidly they undraped themselves and prepared to meet whoever was coming through the doors.

It had been enough of a shock at being interrupted so it was no wonder that Barbara almost fainted when her mother suddenly appeared in front of them. Michael wasn't an actor for just the money. He had talked himself out of worse situations than this. Here was the famous Cornelia Crown. Only Mary Gifford was more famous on the Silver Screen! How glamorous she looked! Her red hair shone in a new hairstyle. Her gown swept the floor but was slit up the left side so that some of her left leg was visible from the knee down. Her breasts had a braless look but they didn't sag as most women's did. Her dress clung to her tightly enough so that anyone that knew female anatomy could see it all at a glance.

Michael was very happy to see her but was astonished that she raced by him and embraced the young thing he had been about to diddle. When she hugged Cornelia back and called her 'mother' he didn't know whether he should be happy that he didn't complete what he had tried or remain on course to finish what he had almost begun.

With that statement Michael now saw the resemblance and recognized that 'it' must have been what had lured him from the time he saw her. When she had fallen for him in his dressing room he had thought that he could have a quick affair and then dump her when he left in a couple of months for the west coast. Now he wondered if her daughter was so passionate maybe her mother was too. Usually he seduced the mother before the daughter but he didn't care which of these two were first.

Cornelia had heard reports about the play opening for a long time. It had been a talk with Mary Gifford that had decided whether she would travel back for a try out. Mary really wanted the role where she had been just lukewarm to it and the director. Another thing was she had heard about Michael. She had made a mistake once. It wasn't that she had had an affair; it was that she had been very indiscreet. She had been paying for it since. Michael was the type of man that had his affairs 'on the edge'. She hoped she had arrived in time for she had heard about Mary's fling way out on the west coast. Her friendship was something that had grown over the years so that she felt like they were sisters. Then she had walked into the theater and interrupted what could have only been a 'quickie' in the shadows of the stairwell. That the poor girl who might have been getting Michael's attention was her daughter just about buckled her own knees.

Cornelia almost ran over to her and hugged her close to her breast.

"Darling", she whispered to Barbara, "what in the world are you doing in the shadows with a swine like Michael? You're so pale. Please stay with me. I need to find Mary and talk with her. She and Michael have been –well you're a big girl now especially if Michael has gotten his way with you."

"Mother! I-", Barbara was angry with her for a split second then remembered that she would have been humiliated if she had been discovered with her legs wrapped around Michael's rump.

"I- well, thank you for arriving when you did. Luckily, I'm still not quite the big girl that Michael wanted me to become or you seem to think."

Her sentence of reassurance was more thoughtful than usual for her daughter. Cornelia looked more closely at her and raised her eyebrow. Then she hugged her again but this time deftly pulled Barbara's skirt down in back. In Barbara's haste the hem of her skirt had gotten tucked in the rear waistline of her panties.

Cornelia thought naughtily, 'Haste makes waist!'

Barbara's face turned from a pasty white to a very embarrassed pink.

"Thank you again mother. Are you staying long?"

"I think I will be dear. I hear Mary may be in trouble. I want to do what I can to help her out of it. She and Douglas are good people. They should stay together. Your father and I- well that's water under the bridge-I just want to help them."

Barbara's face was not that of an actress. Her relief was palpable. Cornelia was suspicious that her stay may need to involve her daughter too. Her daughter had never liked the theater. Her mother suspected Barbara was up to something but she needed to be close by to find out about that something – or somebody!