Chapter 18: The Mothers' Story

MRS. H AND MRS. D HAD OUR complete and undivided attention in the cool of the following morning on the shaded patio outside the breakfast room. The girls, especially, wanted the whole story right now, but the mothers were going to tell it their own way, that was obvious. So Oscar sat on Persephone, metaphorically, of course, and I did my best to restrain Hebe. Rick was attentive, and silent. He had his eyes on Mrs. D, especially, and I remembered the story Persephone had told me about a summer afternoon a year or so ago when Oscar and Rick had double-teamed Mrs. D to her complete satisfaction and their total exhaustion. Persephone herself hadn't been there, but she'd heard about it afterwards from Oscar. She sounded a little jealous.

"I called your father immediately when Sam and the others first told us what had happened, Persephone," Mrs. D began. "He didn't seem very worried about the whole thing. That's his usual style, you know. He saves the theatrics for what he considers the right time, which apparently can be whenever he feels like it.

"So after talking with your mother," she looked at Hebe, "we decided we'd give him time to adjust to the whole idea. I'm not sure what we were thinking, exactly, but we at least wanted to see if the search turned up anything. When it didn't, we went back to him."

"Together," added Mrs. H.

The two women had bonded early on, despite their separate relationships with the father of their girls, and their friendship deepened as the girls grew older. Neither woman was celibate. I knew Mrs. D continued to have relations with Mr. Z, somewhat to the consternation, or perhaps it was amusement, of Persephone, and I knew she'd been with others, including Rick and Oscar.

As for Mrs. H, I wasn't her only lover. I was pretty sure Mr. Z continued to visit her, although not often. Mrs. H broke into my thoughts when she continued the story.

"We showed up at the restaurant without calling ahead. He tried to pull that macho bullshit 'I don't have time for you right now' act he does, but we weren't having it. I'm not going to say he's a teddy bear under all that bluster, because he isn't." She paused and looked from one to the other of us, probably wondering how much we knew of Mr. Z's rather colorful past, and apparently decided it didn't matter. "But he loves Persephone and Hebe and that means he's got to pay attention even if he doesn't want to."

Mrs. D snickered. "And if he ever wants to see me again."

"Or me," Mrs H added.

That got a laugh from Rick and Persephone.

"So," Mrs. D continued, "we laid it out for him. Either he helped us, or we'd make life miserable for him."

She paused for a moment to look first at Persephone, then at Mrs. H.

"You know," Mrs. D continued, "we've always suspected he had some kind of relationship with Harry's family and their farm. It's never been clear to us, but he's tried for a long time now to engineer some kind of match between Harry and Persephone. I've asked him why, more than once, but he refuses to go into it."

Mrs. H took up the story.

"After we'd given him the what-for, he said he'd do what he could to help. I wasn't convinced, but I figured we'd gone about as far as we could that afternoon. We didn't want to let him off the hook entirely, so your mom," she leaned over to Persephone and kissed her cheek, "invited him to lunch at the farm."

We all turned to Mrs. D. I had an inkling of where this might be going, and I was right.

It was Mrs. D's turn to laugh.

"I figured we'd done the stick part so I'd be the carrot." She waggled her eyebrows, which got a laugh from all of us. "So I was the tastiest carrot he could imagine."

Persephone's chuckle turned into a snort.

"Go, Mom!"

Mrs. D patted her cheek.

"You bet, sweetie.

"It wasn't hard, that's not really news to anyone, and we had ourselves a fine picnic and swim that afternoon. He didn't know that I'd arranged for H to show up."

"And I walked in at the right time," Mrs. H added. She quickly held up her hand. "Uh uh, not what you think. Our Mrs. D here was wrapped up in a towel and Mr. Z had a small one over his midsection. He was in the right frame of mind, though, thanks to you," she said as she turned to Mrs. D.

"Long story short," said Mrs. D, "he realized there wasn't any solution to this and no way at all to get Persephone to accept Harry by using force. He should have known better, anyway, knowing Persephone."

Persephone shook her fist in the air.

"Yeah, sweetie, that's about it," said her mother. "The upshot was he said he'd do what he could to bring things to an end. We knew that meant he'd tell Harry to knock it off. We still have no idea how he communicated with Harry, but the result is what you saw. Persephone back safe and sound and Harry, well, who the hell knows where Harry is."

The soft knock at the door came late that afternoon while I dozed and Hebe, comfortably curled up in an easy chair on the other side of the room, continued to work on Second Shot, which she'd started as soon as she finished First Drop. Charlie Fox was in trouble because she couldn't figure out who the players were and what they wanted. I saw some similarities to our situation.

Hebe uncurled herself and walked over to answer the knock.

"Hi, Mom!"

The two embraced. Mrs. H held Hebe close for a moment and whispered in her ear. Hebe laughed.

"Sure!"

Hebe turned to me.

"See you later, Sam."

With that she put her book under her arm and left. She closed the door behind her. Mrs. H put the security bar on and turned back to me. She smiled. In another moment she'd crossed the room and stretched out beside me and kissed me.

Her lips and tongue explored mine as I held her head, and when we stopped for air I moved to the side of her neck. I managed to get the knit shirt Mrs. H wore over her head with only a little bit of muss. She wasn't wearing a bra, and her breasts fit my palms perfectly. She purred and murmured something, I couldn't exactly tell what, but it didn't matter and I kept on doing whatever I thought might keep her purring. Her shorts and panties were next, with her help and a little squirming.

When I started to move down from her breasts to her tummy she pulled at my t-shirt. I took the hint and stripped it and the rest of my clothing off. This time when I moved between her legs she didn't stop me. I kissed her slowly, her belly, her thighs, and back to her belly, my hands holding her buttocks. I nuzzled my way through her curls, neatly trimmed, now increasingly fragrant with her arousal, to her lips. She jumped when the sweep of my tongue hit her clit, but I didn't stop there.

Slowly I slid one finger, followed by a second, inside her and crooked them. That put her over the edge and she cried out as she climaxed. I waited until she grew quiet, my fingers at rest. I heard a little sigh as I withdrew them, once more slowly, and before I moved up her body I gave her pussy one last slow lick with the flat of my tongue.