Chapter 5: Absolutely Legal

Bill and Lynn Parham had followed through on their threat and filed suit against Absolute Arms and Marla Tanner for ‘Discriminatory practices.’ Mary Jerkins had sought to use the real estate firm’s corporate lawyers for the legal matters leading up to and including the court case, but it turned out that Lynn Parham was the sister-in-law of one of the partners of the law firm, and the firm had recused itself from the case based upon a possible conflict of interest. Mary had run through the legal director of the county looking for representation; she discovered many law firms had represented the Parham corporations or the family itself and were ethically prohibited from participating in the case going forward.

Mary and Marla Tanner were walking the grounds of the Absolute Arms condo complex discussing the matter when Marla’s attention was drawn to the pool. Sheila Dunphy and Susan White were lazing on two foam pool floats enjoying the afternoon sun. To them, it was still a workday at the office. The pair of lovers had converted the walk-in closets in their apartment into a law library and they were practicing law from their home until they might afford an office downtown. Being absolutes and having little need for closet space the women found the situation both space and money-saving. Their practice had been limited to wills, pre-nuptial contracts, and civil rights matters involving gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and absolute rights.

“Susan, Sheila, a moment of your time, please?” Marla called. The pair acknowledged her and paddled the rafts to the pool’s side, exiting via the deep-end ladder. Introductions were made and Mary and Marla briefly reviewed the pending matter with the two female lawyers. “Can you recommend anyone who might take on this case?” Mary asked the pair.

“If you ask, of course, we will, we may live here, but we are not obligated to you or your firm professionally or personally, and facing the Parham family lawyers would be good for our practice. It seems to be a frivolous lawsuit. Let us review the case and then we’ll meet and decide how to proceed,” Sheila assured Mary Jerkins.

While Mary Jerkins was taking care of her legal business, Kirsten Lovett and Tammy Tanner were celebrating Toby Lovett’s eighteenth birthday with the birthday boy. A lunch at Toby’s favorite restaurant, a pirate-themed place called Captain Buff’s, had ended with all the serving wenches, naked save for aprons, bringing the cake to the table and singing Happy Birthday

“We have a present for you as well,” his sister told her younger brother.

“You two are just getting started yourselves, the cheering school, the apartment, and everything. You didn’t have to buy me a present,” Toby smiled, “I hope you didn’t spend a great deal on it.”

Tammy giggled, “Oh, we didn’t. You are looking at your present, Toby. Kirsten and I are giving you, well, me, for as long as it takes to make me pregnant.”

“Look, little brother, this may sound weird to you; however, we have decided that we want a child that is from both of our bloodlines. You have never made any secret of the fact you are hot for Tammy. Rather than the clinical approach of you spilling your seed into a jar and some medical technician using a turkey baster to put it into Tammy, we are asking you the favor and giving you the gift of impregnating my mate for us.” Kirsten watched the shock on her brother’s face turn to amazement and then back to shock.

“It’s a lot less weird than my father sleeping with your sister, which is the only other way we could accomplish having a child that would come from both sides of the family,” Tammy added.

Toby had to ask for another cup of coffee and remain seated to wait for the excitement evident in his crotch to subside. “I don’t know what to say, I mean this may not happen on the first try and I go back to school soon, so when am I supposed to do this?”

“Tammy will be fertile two days from now. You can try it then. When you come home for winter break, you can try again, if this attempt doesn’t take. Spring break and summer vacation next year are possibilities if your swimmers don’t latch onto a life raft before them. No matter how long it takes you will be the baby’s daddy and Uncle Toby will be his or her godfather.” Kirsten told her brother, and she then kissed him on the cheek. Tammy added a full kiss on the lips, which intentionally held the promise of bigger and better things to come. Toby once again was reluctant to rise and leave Captain Buffs due to his stimulated state.

On the northern sector of the core city business district, Gloria Parham, age nineteen, daughter of Bill and Lynn Parham, sat in a very different coffee shop than Captain Buffs. Here the wait staff dressed in copies of mid-Twentieth Century diner clothing. Sensible shoes, white hose (not pantyhose but the old white seamed garter belt held up stockings) shirtwaist dresses on the females that came to mid-calf and had a high ruffled collar. The men were in starched white shirts with bow ties, black pleated pants, and vests that matched the waitress’s dresses in color and material.

Gloria was dressed in a knee-length pencil skirt, matching business jacket with peplum, silk blouse ruffled high neck buttoned at the throat, and her underthings were white silk lace consisting of a chemise brassier, and panties that were a full high cut trunk that did not require her to trim her pubic hair at all. The silk stockings she wore were smoke-colored and held by real garters at mid-thigh. A pair of gray silk two-inch heel pumps, gray gloves, and a gray pillbox hat with a demi veil completed her attire.

Gloria had never shaved her legs, armpits, or pubes, as her parents considered such grooming to be part of the deviant culture that had resulted in the Absolute movement. Nor had she stylishly cut her hair allowing it to grow so that now it would hang, reddish-gold and lush, well below her backside. She had it trimmed to even it and rid it of split ends twice a year.

Rather than attend the Central University West Hamlin campus with its steep discounts for residents; Gloria had been sent, at age seventeen, to Saint Martin of The Lakes College for Women. As one of the few single-sex colleges left in the nation, and one that still adhered to its strict religious foundations, there was no Absolutism or NIP on the campus. Gloria had been accepted early, skipping her senior year at West Hamlin High, as she was eligible for the NIP mandatory participation then and her parents wanted nothing to do with that.

The Sisters of Mercy who proctored the living of the women on campus made sure that even same-sex nudity did not occur on campus. Cubicles around each gym locker, long robes, cubicles in the showers, swim dresses with mid-thigh skirts for aquatics, and every dorm room a single room maximized the enforced shame that being caught in public with a single bit of exposed skin would cause.

The student body was not allowed off-campus without being part of a group of three with a chaperone. A parent was required to drop the student off for the semester beginning and retrieve that student at the semester’s end. No girl was allowed a car, bicycle, or any other form of transportation that would allow her to range outside of the campus. Twelve-foot walls of native stone and cement encircled the campus. Three gates locked and guarded by a nun each night allowed access to the campus. Five hundred young women housed in four dorm buildings rested each night knowing their virtue was protected.

The most embarrassing part of campus life was the ritualistic physical at the start of each semester. Then and only then were the students naked, and a nurse and two nursing nuns did a full examination of everything from warts and boils to a visual and physical inspection of intact virginity. Young women of good breeding were expected to protect the maidenhead as if it were a national treasure. Several had been placed on probation during Gloria’s two years at Saint Martin’s when the hymen they had the semester before was now missing. Each time, when a sports activity such as horseback riding, surfing, or bicycling was found to be the cause (proper documentation from a physician or parent was required) that activity went on the prohibited list for students. The expulsion resulted when verification could not be provided or when a girl admitted to surrendering to the passions of a boy’s arms, lips, and members.

Gloria prided herself on doing nothing to blemish her virginity. She also prided herself on not doing anything to besmirch the Parham name. Her courses of study would lead her to a Business degree and she would, of course, enter employment with and be groomed to take over one of her parents’ various businesses. A marriage to a suitable young man of a family in a similar status as the Parham clan would be arranged. She would allow sex for procreation only and then for only as often as it took to produce a male heir. Such was the plan for her life as laid before her by her parents and the nuns responsible for her education.

Harlequin Cheerleading & Gymnastics was across the street from the diner. Gloria watched the naked girls and boys troop in for whatever they did inside and was thoroughly repulsed by the sight. Only the basest of people could allow their children to parade about nude all day every day, and the parents who escorted the smaller children were every bit as disgustingly naked as their spawn. One woman, pushing a stroller with a toddler seated therein, dropped off her daughter who appeared to be eight or nine years old, and when she came into Gloria’s full view looked to be seven months pregnant with another child.

Gloria could not imagine any woman waddling about pregnant and naked for anyone to see. First, it was an admission the woman was having sex with a man. Second, that disgustingly bloated belly was on view. Gloria planned to take to her bed as soon as she began to show. Oh, wait, the mother was sitting down on the bench by the bus stop and her toddler was suckling upon her right breast. Shivering with disgust Gloria turned away from the sight, paid her bill, tipped her server, and left by the door nearest the lot where her Prius was parked.

Harlequin Cheerleading & Gymnastics was located in a building that had once housed a discount clothier. Tammy and Kirsten had moved their school off-campus from CUWH after graduation and the second trip to Nationals, where both cheer squads had placed number one in the nation. Tammy and Kirsten were still hands-on coaches and had a staff of fifteen working with them. Five part-time high school cheerleaders worked with the three to five-year-olds and six to nine-year-old classes of gymnasts to develop the tumbling and dance aspects the children would need to move on to competitive cheer team activities.

Three college-age cheerleaders, two women, and one man coached the middle school activities. Tammy and Kirsten circulated and made suggestions to the staff on the younger levels, and concentrated on the squad of high school age kids.

Many of the girls and boys who trained and practiced at Harlequin went on to do gymnastics or cheer at the school they attended. For this reason, Harlequin’s team practices were restricted to the coaches and team members. Otherwise, everyone would know the show routines the team would use in competition before the meet season began. Tammy and Kirsten remained the head coaches of the high school level team.

To Tammy and Kirsten, the most troubling competition was the team called the Tylerville Titans. The Titans had come in a very close second to the West Hamlin Harlequins in the last National Championship. What had almost won the competition in the ‘unclothed’ division for the Titans was their body art. All had tattoos of mythical creatures, such as the angel wings on the backs of some girls and the knee-to-hip phoenix birds on the team captains, one male the other female, and each of the high school-aged cheer team had a Norse god tattooed on the left shoulder.

These had impressed the judges with the aspects of team spirit and team solidarity, much more than the spray-painted Harlequin body art. It had almost won the day for the Titans. The final trick of the base catchers while the fliers were in the air had garnished the Harlequin team enough style and technique points to carry the competition, but the margin separating the two teams had been in the hundredths of percentiles of points. Tammy and Kirsten worried about the Titans, but the most serious threat to the cheer academy would not come from the Titans this year but the Absolute-hating Parham family.