As Victoria turned the minivan into the mall’s lot, Keith pointed past the nearby Denny’s restaurant to the unmistakable shape of a drive-up espresso booth. There was a large neon sign on top that announced ‘BBB’ was the name of the place. “Hey, I didn’t know they had a coffee stand here. Maybe we could get something before we go in for the show. We’re early enough.”

Vic looked at her younger brother in suspicion. Surely he realized ... No. He was clueless. She had always been able to read him like a book. She glanced in the mirror and saw that her sister-in-law was not paying much attention. Jan was in the passenger side, center seats of the minivan beside Vic’s fourteen-year-old, Matt. Keith and Jan’s daughter was further in the back listening to her mp3 player. Shelby was fourteen; almost exactly the same age as Matt and they usually had a joint family birthday party. Then they had separate ones for their own friends. Fourteen? Ok, they were old enough. Vic smiled as she aimed the vehicle towards the drive through. It was time to shake up her rather bland family. Again. “Kids? Want a fruit smoothie?”

Now that she had Matt and Shelby’s attention, she pulled into the drive up lane. There was a mid sized pickup on the far side of the stand at the other window. Jan was just looking up and Keith was suddenly realizing what was going on. “Mom? It says ‘Pastries and Pasties’. What’s a pasty?”

Victoria answered her son as she stopped the van at the large service window. Glancing inside, she said, “Well, in England, it is a kind of meat pie. Like a pocket pizza, I guess. In America, nowadays though, well, just look inside for the first bright red things you see. Those are pasties.”

Vic had been here before. She enjoyed the mild titillation from watching the antics of the girls inside. Well, to be honest, she just plain enjoyed looking at hot women, nearly as much as looking at hot men.

“Welcome to Bawdy Bikini Baristas. I’m Kim. What can we get started you, Hon?” The girl in the window was young, maybe twenty at the most. She was a very fit and curvy Asian girl wearing some sort of bondage outfit of black leather straps that surrounded her tits, ass, and pussy without really covering anything. The minimum coverage required by law to work in an espresso stand was actually provided by lacy, black panties and a pair of bright red pasties that covered her nipples. The pasties were red band-aids crossed in the shape of a big plus sign. Well, not that big. You could see the edges of her areolas by the difference in skin color in the corners of the crosses. Kim’s glossy black hair was tied back in one long ponytail.

Vic saw that the girl at the other window was a black girl wearing a silver bikini bottom and, well, she saw nothing else, as the girl’s back was to her and her back was bare from the top of the bikini bottom all the way to her hairline. Her dark brown hair was pulled back in another ponytail bound in a silver ribbon that matched her bikini bottom.

Vic was grinning at Kim. “It’s such a hot day. We need some cold drinks. I’ll take a large iced coffee with whipped cream. Keith? Tell the cutie what you want.”

Before Keith could recover, Jan spoke up from the back. “Victoria. Do you really think this is an appropriate place to bring the family?”

“Hey, Keith picked the place but I don’t have a problem with Matt being here. Matt, tell her what you want.” She turned in her seat to look at Matt who, as expected, was staring with his mouth open. “Don’t stare, dear. You may look, and you may appreciate her good looks but, don’t stare. And drooling just makes you look uncool.”

He snapped his mouth closed, swallowed and spoke up, although his voice cracked a bit. “Kim, I am sorry if I was staring. Uhh, I would like a large raspberry smoothie, please.”

“Sure thing sweetie. And she’s right. Polite guys are so much sexier.” Kim leaned out a bit more to meet his eyes, giving him an honest smile, a sexy turn of her voice and even more breast exposure. She glanced at the other two in the back but then she looked at Keith again. “So what can I get for you, handsome?”

“I’ll take an iced mocha latte. Large.” Keith was closer to Kim than Matt, with a more direct line of sight down Kim’s cleavage, an equal libido, and his composure was suffering.

Kim looked back towards the back seat. “How about you ladies?”

Jan stiffly asked for a small iced coffee but Shelby wanted a small banana smoothie and conversation. “Do you make good money on this job?”

“Shelby!You are not getting a job here.! Jan turned to glare at her daughter, who looked like a younger, redheaded version of herself.

“Don’t worry honey. We can’t hire her. Minimum age is eighteen. As to her question, well, we’re not supposed to really say but I only make minimum wage here. The real money is in the tips.” She started lining up the materials for the drinks. “I work part time around my college classes and I can get about three hundred a week extra in the winter. In the summer, I work full time and I get about a thousand a week in tips.”

“How much?” Jan demanded in shock. She glanced back at her daughter in alarm.

The sound of the various drinks being made drowned out any further conversation. Grinding ice for smoothies is NOISY.

Kim and the black girl had a nicely timed ‘bawdy’ routine that never resulted in any dropped drinks or wardrobe malfunctions but, there was a lot of indiscriminate touching and unnecessary close-quarters sliding past each other during which they usually slowed down so that it seemed extra sensuous. The two guys in the pickup were enjoying the show and it took a bit before Vic noticed that the black girl had small silver cones covering just her nipples. They had little white tassel ribbons poking out from the tips. She suddenly recognized them and blurted her discovery. “They’re Chocolate Kisses!”

The girls looked over at her and winked. As Kim brought over the first drinks and collected the price from Vic, she dropped a little verbal bombshell through the window of the van. “I do so love chocolate, I just have to eat some every day.” Vic heard a groan from Keith, and a sharply gasped breath from Jan. As Vic handed Matt and Shelby’s smoothies into the back, she noticed Matt trying to keep his hand covering his lap. She smiled after she turned back to the front. She was more than tolerant of gays but she was still glad that her son at least seemed to be well and truly on the ‘definitely likes girls’ track.

As she passed the last of the drinks in, the pickup from the other side finally left and she started to look for cash for a tip. All she could come up with in cash was a five and she was having way too much fun shaking up her family for that to be enough. “Keith? Give me another five, please.”

Keith pulled out a bill and then announced, “You’ve been messing with me, Sis. It’s my turn.” He had raised his voice enough for Kim to hear him.” Hey, Honey?” He grabbed the five from his sister’s hand and instead, he quickly dropped a lengthwise folded ten spot into the front of her lacy v-necked top, where it disappeared down into Vic’s cleavage. “Double or nothing if you go in after it! No hands.”

Everyone suddenly got very quiet, except Jan. “Keith Barlow! What in the world do you think you are doing?”

“Uhh.” Keith seemed to just now remember that he was not alone in the car with his sister.

Vic thought for just a moment. Why the hell not? She set her drink in the holder, leaned back the seat a bit to make room, squeezed her arms to her side and shoved forward her chest, plumping out her boobs and making it even more obvious that she was not wearing a bra. She leered at Kim. “Works for me.”

Kim and Chocolate Girl looked at each other and then Kim said “Hold me!” She leaned out the window and started to slide her head and shoulders into the minivan. Her friend grabbed Kim by the leather hip straps and leaned her own body up against Kim’s butt to keep her inside. Her stomach was up against Kim’s ass and her cone shaped breasts were lying atop the small of Kim’s back. It was the first time that the three in the back had gotten a really good look at her costume, or lack thereof. Even focusing on the window, Vic could sense the tension from the back seat. She hoped Matt was having a good time. She would probably find another abused pair of her panties in the laundry hamper tomorrow morning. Idly, Vic thought of presenting him with a pair when she next gave him a talk. No, probably too embarrassing to him. Besides, there were some connotations there about it being his mother’s panties. Maybe she could get a pair of Jan’s. She smiled at the thought of telling Jan.

The resulting grin seemed to be a trigger for Kim. She grabbed the van door, pulled and slid across the window counter almost ending in Vic’s lap. Her exotic face was inches from Vic’s. “Hi. I’ll just be a minute.” Then she turned her face to look down into Vic’s cleavage. Her left arm was holding on to the steering wheel for stability and her right hand was on the top of the car door. That left only her head for any manipulative work. She nuzzled against the single top button of the camisole, undoing it with her nose and then she tried to push the front of the cami away from the breasts. When that didn’t work, she brought her head up and used her lips to pull down the nearest spaghetti strap from Vic’s shoulder. Then she leaned across Vic’s chest and went after the other one. Using her tongue and her chin, she tried and failed to get the far strap fully down.

“Daddy, if you were a gentleman, you would help her with that,” spoke up Shelby.

“Shelby, be quiet. Keith, don’t you dare!” As far as Vic was concerned, Jan was still in ‘Mom needs to be conservative’ mode. Well, that was pretty understandable, really.

She was a bit shocked to hear her son saying, “I’ll help,” before she felt his light touch pulling the strap down past the point of her shoulder. Well!

Ok, better nip that in the bud but, not too hard. “Thank you Matt, but this is her tip. She needs to get it by herself. Sit back and relax.” Vic was starting to wonder what in the world she was doing. She had a nearly naked girl on her chest and whoops! Now she had her top being pulled down by Kim’s teeth. Her left breast popped into view and Kim’s face went solidly down Vic’s cleavage as she snapped her teeth at the bill. Kim pulled it up and laid it across the top of Vic’s right breast. Releasing it, she turned to Vic and gave her a whole-hearted, open-mouth kiss. Vic found herself returning it in kind for several seconds.

“I wonder if any more tips are down there,” quipped Kim. She released her grip on the steering wheel and slid her hand between them and inside the gaping top. Her fingers slid across Vic’s ribs while her eyes stayed locked onto Vic’s. When no protest was detected the fingers gentle cupped the free breast and lifted it fully into view. Her lips opened as her face moved into position. Everyone gasped as her tongue reached out and teased the white creamy skin. “Chocolate is nice but cream is nice too.” She slid the tip of the nipple with her lips and tongue and Vic felt herself becoming very aroused as her nipple started swelling. “Strawberries are nice too.” Kim slipped the entire nipple into her mouth and slid her tongue around the edges to touch the white skin.

Jan’s harsh voice from the back splashed a little sanity back into the vehicle. “Keith, I think she has earned that tip. Don’t you? Now get her another ten so we can leave this place! “ Poor Keith was in so much hot water.

“Uhh, I don’t have anything small, just a fifty,” he mumbled.

Vic saw Matt in the rear view mirror. She could barely focus, as her breast was being fondled and sucked. “Keith, pay the girl before you and Matt have an accident.” She had seen her brother’s swelling groin out of the corner of her eye and Matt was positively squirming, with his smoothie pressed down into his lap. “And maybe me too.”

Keith tentatively tucked the fifty under the ‘back strap’ portion of the bondage leather. When he reached to take the ten from its position atop Vic’s bare breast, his momentary hesitation before touching her gave Jan time to growl under her breath, and he wisely backed off. Kim released the breast and picked up the ten in her lips as Chocolate Girl tried to pull her back in. Vic had to help and it was just coincidence that she ended up by supporting both of Kim’s breasts out of the window. Vic popped the seat up into position and moved back into her driving posture. She ignored the little groan from Matt.

“May we leave now?” Jan’s voice was positively smoking.

Before Vic could accelerate away, Chocolate Girl leaned out from the window and she looked directly at Jan. “Next time you let Blondie drive and come to my side. We’ll make a naughty latte mocha together and I can guarantee you she’ll enjoy the whipped ... cream.”

Vic decided to leave with nothing more than a final smile and a wink to the girls. She heard Jan in the back. “As if I would ever...”

“Why not, Mom? She was awfully pretty. Are you prejudiced?” Shelby had a way of asking inappropriate but logical questions about almost any topic.

“Of course not. And yes, of course she was pretty. But some things are just not done.” That last was aimed at Vic, of course.

“Why not? In the Confederacy pickups almost all the girls do things like that. And Kim and Aunt Vic looked pretty hot, even from the back seat.”

“This is not a Confederacy pickup.” The fire and ice in her tone of voice finally silenced Shelby, for now.

“Mom?”

“Yes, Matt.”

“Could you fix your top, please? You’re distracting the other drivers.”

Since there were no other drivers in the vicinity, Vic knew that he meant ‘Please, cover up your tit before your son blows his wad in his pants!’

“Of course, sorry.” _____

The movie was called ‘Death on Neptune’, and it was based on an incident at a colony called Trident that had been destroyed by the Swarm a few years ago. The system was called Neptune, although no one on Earth could figure out why. We already had a Neptune in our own solar system and Neptune did not fit the Confederacy’s colony naming conventions. Nonetheless, all of the authorities claimed that the name was accurate. Of course, this gave lots of ammunition to the ‘It’s a hoax’ crowd. There were picketers outside the mall entrance but they were not allowed into the hallway that acted as the multiplex theater’s outer lobby.

(Author’s note: see Neptune, by Duke of Ramus)

The movie supposedly had real combat footage and was almost entirely done by editing actual internal security footage. Some scenes had been ‘reshot’ by having the computers use the data to change the point of view at the whim of the director, some unknown by the unlikely name of Duke Ramus. It was getting great reviews but the sci-fi crowd complained about the lack of flashy effects. The pre-release info had claimed that no actual humans died on camera because, well, they were real people with real families. Earthbound actors had reprised those roles and then the footage had been altered in various ways. However, the Sa’arm gore was supposed to be real. The motion picture rating was the new NC-14. No thirteen-year-olds or younger were allowed. Supposedly nudity was endemic in the movie and some sexual acts were portrayed. In this multiplex, it was playing at various start times on three screens.

Security in the actual theater lobby was visible and reassuring to Vic. The tickets, drinks, candies and popcorn raised the total cost of the outing, including the $60.00 barista tip, to nearly two hundred dollars. Still, except for Jan’s distress, it was well worth it as far as Vic was concerned.

After the trailers and opening credits the show opened to lots of near nudity. A brothel scene. Centurion David ap Rhys was introduced and the story started to unfold. _____

After a while, Vic found that her earlier urge to consume the iced coffee as well as a large diet soda had resulted in a need to visit the ladies’ room. She was pretty certain that she would be able to return before the climax. The show had another thirty minutes, at least.

As she prepared to return to the theater, she glanced into the lobby. It was between show start times and relatively quiet. She popped out to the front to buy some chocolate kisses. After Jan had cooled down a bit, Vic would need something to tease her with. Looking around, she noticed something had changed with the security firm. There were more of them. Well, it was later in the day. Maybe they put on more for the evening shows. These guys were all pretty large and young looking, plus they were positioned better now, and they had different patches on their blazers. She grinned and approached one who seemed to be quite alert.

She had to look up over twelve inches to meet his eyes. “Is it Sergeant, or Corporal?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Never mind. But if you were to decide to lock down this theater for some reason I would really hope that someone would first go out in the parking lot to the triple B espresso stand. Tell Kim that ‘Tip Girl’ really wants to see them. And that Blondie will probably be helping Chocolate Girl with that mocha. Oh, and make sure they keep their costumes”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” The man said but he had a small smile trying to escape at the corners of his lips.

“That’s ok, Hon. My family doesn’t always understand me either.” And Vic went back into the theater to find her family. _____

As soon as the show was over Vic stood up. “Ok, we need to go.”

Keith looked up in surprise. “But you always stay for the credits. You say it’s only polite.”

“New show is starting. We need to get good seats.” She said cryptically. “Now come along or I might leave you here.”

As they fought their way to the hallway, Matt crowded up to Vic so he could whisper to her. “Mom? Is everything ok?”

“I think so Matt. We’ll see when we get to the lobby.” They heard a lot of vocal alarm from the lobby, including yells and shrieks. “Yup, I’m pretty positive everything will be just fine,” she said with a smile.

The lobby was a scene of pandemonium. There were people getting naked and several large uniformed men were standing on the non-glass portions of the counters. “Stay together; stay with me!” she told the others. Walking up to the same man that she had earlier approached, she got his attention. “Did you get them?”

“Actually, yes, Ma’am. They aren’t here quite yet. We popped them directly up to the ship, and now we’ll bring them down to here. Corporal Duggan tried to claim them but I said you get first offer. I am Staff Sergeant Cooper. How did you spot me, anyway?”

“Body language. Six years as a navy JAG lawyer after law school. Then eight years as a criminal trial lawyer. There are far too many really fit, young and huge security officers, all standing in an ‘at ease’ posture. Also, you replaced the ones that were here before and the patches changed a little. Do I need to listen to the spiel? I want to settle my family.”

“No, Ma’am,” the Marine sergeant said. “Just pay attention.” He handed her a CAP card reader as he spoke.” Just stick any CAP cards into this slot. Also, my Commander would like to talk to you aboard ship, after you get settled in.”

“Of course, Staff Sergeant. Thank you. Please convey my compliments to the Commander and I would be honored.”

Vic collected her family and slipped over to a corner where she had spotted two backless, padded lobby couches. She pulled her wallet from her small purse and brought out her CAP card. “Kids, please sit for a bit and don’t interrupt. We don’t have much time and this is a very important moment.” As Shelby and Matt sat down, Vic turned to Keith and Jan. She knew that Jan really was mildly conservative at the core, with a very conservative outer crust but, neither one was a complete prude and Jan’s views could be changed through debate and other means. In general, Vic approved of her sister-in-law as a person, as the wife of her brother and as the mother of her niece. Jan was neither rabidly anti-Confederacy nor anti-sex. On the other hand, she was defensive and a bit jealous.