Chapter 7

I swept the crowd for Kat's lithe form.

"Fuck..." I took off my glasses and rubbed my blurry eyes. I should have taken a couple of hits on my bong. Why was I on edge like this? It was a foregone conclusion that I'd be having sex with one or more women. I was up for it; I knew that after going three times with Kat the other night.

I made my way through the crowd in the Gallagher's ultra lavish home where many of the movers and shakers in our fair city were gathered. Kat had warned me about this, saying the real party would begin after most of the partygoers left.

But where the fuck was Kat? It seemed she'd evaporated and been absorbed by the milling throng surrounding us. I mean, one minute she's by my side, the next, she's disappeared.

I heard loud, passionate laughter — it sounded like her laughter — coming from a dark corner of the room. I blinked my eyes several times and they cleared. The room mercifully shrank.

My temples pulsed, and I realized that sensed a perfume from the past. Why would I fix on such a thing? I was looking for Kat, but the aroma was one that I couldn't let go off. I stood in place, sniffing hungrily and looked all around me. A moment later I realized I had an erection.

What the fuck?

A full-figured older woman bumped into me.

"Hello, Ned. How lovely to see you again. It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

I'd heard the voice, but the woman's mouth hadn't moved. I blinked my eyes, I'd thought they'd cleared but obviously they hadn't. But now they did and I saw another woman standing behind the full-figured one. She was nursing a tulip glass of white wine that echoed her graceful figure. My eyes moved slowly from her rounded hips to her narrow waist up to her full breasts, so much bigger than her ribcage, to the delicate cup at the base of her throat where a solitary diamond outshone the obnoxious colored lights flashing over our heads.

The lady turned suddenly and her friendly, moon-shaped face filled my vision.

"Tippy, is that you?"

"Hello, darling! I'm sooo glad to see you. No, don't even think about how long it's been. Too long. It's been too long. Let's just leave it at that."

"Well," I said, "you look ... fantastic! I would have recognized you anywhere."

"Don't tell me I haven't aged, Ned. It would only remind me that I have, and the trials and tribulations of trying to stay young. You on the other hand, look wonderful!"

"Thank you, Tippy, but..." I tried to formulate the right words to compliment her breasts, which were considerably larger than the last time I'd seen them in the backseat of my Chevy four months after we'd graduated from high school.

I began to lose strength in my knees as she licked her lips discreetly after taking a sip of her wine.

What in the world is wrong with me tonight? I thought to myself, on the verge of panic. I haven't reacted to a woman in public like this ever since I was in middle school.

A strange female voice broke my train of thought on the matter.

"Is this the one?"

"Yes, this is Ned. He lives on the Westside of town. I believe he's retired," Tippy replied.

"And sooo young," I heard the older woman say under her breath.

"Ned," Tippy said cheerfully, "this is Celeste, our hostess."

"Hello, I'm pleased to meet you. You have a lovely home," I managed to get out in a rush.

"Oh, I'm sooo glad you could come tonight," the full-figured woman gushed. Tippy's told me sooo much about you!"

I was stunned. "She has?" I gulped in surprise and accepted Celeste's chubby hand as she raised it to my face and pressed my lips to it.

She cooed and fanned her face enthusiastically. "I do like your manners, Ned. Perhaps we'll see more of each other later." And she wheeled away and approached another couple half way across the room.

Not if I can help it, I said to myself, as Tippy's sensuous perfume reentered my nostrils and I turned back to her.

"So you've told her about me. How did that happen, if I may ask, Tippy?"

Her intensely black, almond-shaped orbs were painted to enhance them even more, and I was caught up in them for a long moment. I felt my belly tingle as her full, red mouth curled into the palest ghost of a grin. My cheeks felt hot and beads of sweat formed underneath my armpits and on my forehead as I watched her slowly part her lips as she lifted the wineglass to her mouth. Her eyes, still glued to mine, fell to half mast as the translucent liquid passed her lips. After she swallowed she said, "I believe you know, Kat."

"I do."

"She's my daughter, Ned."

I suddenly felt as if all the blood had left my brain. Not another mother, daughter act!"

Tippy followed that by bestowing me with her most intimate smile and licking her lips so there was no mistaking where this conversation was going.

"I ... I had no idea," I blurted out.

"I can see you're getting hard. Are you thinking about fucking me or Kat ... or both of us?"

I had no answer to that and said nothing, since it's the best defense when no other is apparent.

Tippy took a deep breath and her full, heavy breasts rose and fell slowly in her impossibly tight strapless dress, and my mouth watered. I pushed away the thought of licking the skin of her shoulders and then sliding my tongue in between the scented cleft of her cleavage...

I forced myself to think back to the previous night. What had Kat told me? I had demanded details.

I remembered a strange glint in Kat's eye, but hadn't paid much attention at the time, now I was wondering...

"Oh, she's something else, Ned," Kat had gushed in her praise for Mrs. Gallagher.

It came to me then, Mrs. Gallagher was none other than Tippy, my old flame from high school. Small world, isn't it?

Tippy was a nickname. Everyone called her Tippy, but Tiffany was her real name, but no one every used it, not even her teachers. And I'd been fucking her daughter. But then, so had her father ... unless Tippy had remarried after having Kat with her first husband. I found myself hoping that was the case. This was perverted enough, and as much as I wanted to fuck Tippy again, I knew I couldn't, not if she was allowing, no mandating, that her daughter become a fucktoy for her and her friends.

"I ... I need to know, Tip, is Gallagher Kat's father?"

"No, Ned, he's not. And I would add that, and you can feel free to ask Kat yourself, I have not coerced her into having sex with anyone. She's just a horny, very horny teenager."

"She told me she loves going down on you," I said unable to look at her.

"As I said, and you already know, Kat is a very horny teenager."

"She is, and I expect her mother is as well."

Tippy gave me a benevolent smile.

"The thing is, Tip..." I paused, wanting to phrase my words carefully. "I've done the mother – daughter thing, it was fun, but complicated and I don't want to go there again."

"You don't mean that, Ned!" she said, turning red.

"I do, please excuse me," I said as I did an about face and walked out the front door as the full-figured woman stammered, "But he was going to eat me! You promised, Tippy!"

"Oh go fuck yourself, Celeste!" I heard Tippy snarl as the door closed behind me.

Okay, my reason for leaving was simple enough. I'd been set up from the beginning. Tippy, or whoever was running their bizarre arrangement, must have known I'd be at the Smalltoe's party. I realized then that since Kat worked part-time for them that she might have mentioned me or her mother had looked me up and after asking around, discovered that the Smalltoe's had me as a client. Whatever the case, she had set her daughter up as bait to draw me into her circle of friends.

I felt sorry for Kat, but she was what she was. I wasn't going to go to the authorities and complain. I couldn't. But I didn't have to be complicit in dragging her further down than she already was.

I called Jiggs, found him in a strip joint and joined him. Seventy-five bucks later I was home alone sampling my own product.

The next four days went by rather quickly. I tended my plants, went for my daily swims – morning and evening – and managed to avoid Kat's repeated phone calls. I called the Smalltoe's, got Kevin and told him essentially what had happened, and warned him about Kat and her mother.

That afternoon I couldn't get rid of an erection that came up while watching the weather girl on Channel Four and decided to work it off by swimming a few extra laps in the pool.

As it was only 6:30 or so, I was ahead of schedule in that I usually -- read always – swam around eight at night to enjoy the cooler air. But it had been a real scorcher of a day. The temperature was close to a hundred and I figured the extra laps wouldn't hurt me; but as I was about to dive in I heard the phone ringing inside the house.

Business is business, I thought, and went to answer it only to find it had stopped ringing by the time I entered the house. I was on my way back to the pool when the door bell chimed. I silently swore that it had better be something important and went to open the front door clad in my swim trunks.