Chapter 3: The Final Prickly Situation

The sun was already well above the horizon when a tearful Lisa flopped into the front seat of her mother's car. "Mom, he threw us out." She sniffed.

"Yes, he did." Dora admitted as she started the car.

She had to drive very slowly because the rising sun was still so low that it was right in her eyes, so she took the time to think about the situation. She quickly realised that she wasn't as upset as Lisa. In fact she felt that Dan's decision to send both of them home was something that she should have expected.

She couldn't help chuckling at her own feelings. The chuckle caused Lisa to stare at her in surprise.

"What's funny about being tossed out?" Lisa demanded.

"Well, I think he was very aroused so he was right, this probably hurts him as much as it does us." She smiled. "Most men would have had one or both of us in bed by now. Actually, I like the fact that he's sent us away as a punishment, it means he took our offer seriously and I'm almost sure that he's thinking about it on a more permanent basis than I initially expected."

"I don't understand?"

"Well, he's accepted the fact that we've offered ourselves to him, but at the same time he's making us accept his dominance. That's really important because I think it means he's not just thinking about either of us as a one night fling."

"Do you really think that he's thinking about both of us?"

"That's a question I can't answer. What would you feel like if he did?"

"I don't know." Lisa sighed."But, doesn't the idea that he might want to do it with both of us seem strange to you?"

"Yes and no." Dora sighed as she pulled up in front of the apartment building where they lived. "But right now, I'm so tired I can hardly think. I've been up for too long and I need sleep."

"Okay Mom. We can talk later." Lisa sniffed as they rode the elevator to their floor.

Dora grabbed a quick shower and both of them went to bed. While Dora was so exhausted from her night's work as well as their contretemps with Dan that she slept soundly, Lisa found that she hardly slept at all.

Finally Lisa simply gave up. She sat on the couch in the living room, staring at the screen of the muted television, worrying about the situation. That was where Dora found her when she had to get up to go to the bathroom. She sat beside Lisa and hugged her lightly.

"Can't you sleep?"

"Unh uh." Lisa sighed deeply. "Everything seems to be so screwed up, and I just don't know what to do. I was so stupid."

"Stealing the cactus was stupid. Getting yourself caught for it was stupid. Letting him know that you found him attractive wasn't stupid, even if it meant you felt you had to do a strip tease." Dora chuckled. "I wasn't exactly brilliant though. I should have helped you to decide on a way to let you finish seducing him."

"But Mom, you're the one who said that until I was eighteen..."

"Unh uh." Dora laughed and held up a hand to stop Lisa's protest. "You were already guilty of several other things; would it really have hurt to lie about four days? It's not as if anyone would have been injured by your sleeping with him."

"Then why did you have to offer to take my place like that? Was it really necessary?"

"Maybe not." She snorted softly. "At the time I felt it was though. For some reason I wanted to be completely honest about everything."

"But why?"

"First, I was obeying the law. Although it wouldn't have been a tragedy if you ignored it, I am responsible for your actions until you're eighteen. Secondly, he reminds me of both your father and your grandfather, but at the same time, he's different. Thirdly, he's a hunk and I'd like to make love with someone like that."

"So what are we going to do?" Lisa sighed. "Do you think we should both go to bed with him?"

"Well if we do, I hope he doesn't want us both in bed at the same time." Dora smiled wryly. "For now though, I think we need to go by his rules. You need to take a cactus back to him today and when you do, I'll get you to take along a note to let him know my work schedule, if you don't mind?"

"I can do that." Lisa smiled and snuggled.

"Thanks, there's a copy of it by the phone. Right now, we both need sleep."

"I don't think I can."

"Just give it a try." Dora suggested. "Go to bed and try to put your worries away for now. Try thinking pleasant thoughts, maybe you'll at least get some rest. If you're lucky, you'll fall asleep and have pleasant dreams."

So they went back to bed, but Lisa still couldn't sleep. Finally, she decided she just had to see Dan.

Dan was awakened by his doorbell. Pulling on his jeans and cursing under his breath at being disturbed, he groggily wove his way to his door. When he opened it, he was looking into Lisa's tearful face. She never said a word, instead she held out her hands and offered him the cactus she was carrying, now in the straggly bloom stage. He looked at it and frowned, then lifted his eyes to her.

"Oh, thanks." He grunted as he took it out of her hands, then began to turn to go back inside the house.

"Is that it?"

"Look. I couldn't get to sleep for a long time after you and your mom left. Now you've awakened me to return my cactus after the blooming period is almost done. I'm trying to be civil, but you aren't making me exceptionally happy."

"Oh." She whimpered. "I am sorry."

"Unh, yeah sure." He grunted again and once more started to turn.

"Oh, I have your towel too. I forgot it last night, because I had it around my hair."

By balancing the plant pot against his hip with one hand, he managed to take the towel from her with his other hand.

"I have a letter for you too. It's from Mom."

"I don't want a letter." He mumbled. "I'll call on the phone, later."

"The letter is just Mom's work schedule."

"And why do I need that?"

"She thought you might want to talk to her, so she thought you should know when she was going to be at home." Lisa whispered.

"Oh."

As he tried to shift the towel so he could take the envelope from her, but both the towel and the pot slipped from his grip. Although the porcelain pot landed on the towel, it still shattered into hundreds of pieces. He sighed deeply, then turned to regard Lisa again.

"I think you should leave now." He managed to hold his annoyance at bay. "Please bring all the other plants back later in the day, after four in the afternoon. That way I can try to get some more sleep today and be guaranteed that you won't wake me tomorrow."

"But, that wasn't my fault." She began to cry and started to bend down as if to pick up the bits and pieces.

"Don't... touch... that!" He growled. "Just leave. Now!"

He turned on his heel and tossed the letter onto a chair as he went inside to get a broom, and a dustpan. By the time he came back to clean up the mess, Lisa was slowly walking away and he could see she was sobbing as she walked. Suddenly he was angry with himself for losing his temper. There was no way that she could have known that of all the plants he had, that one had a very special meaning to him, but he knew there wasn't much he could do about it now. With a deep sigh, he proceeded to clean up, keeping the cactus itself separate from the soil and the pot shards.

He couldn't force himself to simply throw the cactus away even though it was damaged. It wasn't that it was a rare specimen or anything of that sort; instead it had been a gift from a friend who had been dying of cancer. For sentimental reasons, he decided to try to salvage it so he spent almost an hour repotting it in hopes that it would survive.

When that was done, he finally found his way back to his bed. Once more he didn't sleep well, but at four in the afternoon he was sitting in his kitchen, sipping a coffee when the doorbell rang.

"Hi." Dora said as he opened the door. "Lisa is really upset, you know, and it doesn't seem to me that she's at fault, at least not this time."

"She isn't, I suppose." Dan sighed, then he frowned. "Wait a minute, what are you doing here? I thought I said I wanted to be left alone."

"You did. I didn't believe you though." She smiled. "Now I'm certain of it because the way you look, you didn't sleep any more than Lisa did. Both of you are frustrated as the dickens."

"Hmmph." Dan grunted, not daring to say anything else.

"I could give you a prescription for a sleeping potion if you'd like?"

"What would that be? That you and I go to bed?"

"Well, that would probably work. Only I need to go to work soon, so that idea isn't too good." She shook her head. "I was going to suggest that you might call Lisa and have her return another cactus today. I could drop by and give her a ride home after I get off work. Of course that wouldn't be until around one in the morning."

"Wait a minute, are you suggesting that I forget about the punishment altogether."

"Oh no, I agree that both of us need to be punished. However after what Lisa has been through today, I'd say she's had a good start on punishment now. It might be time to give her a little bit of a reward instead." She smiled. "Surely you've heard of using both the carrot and the stick to make a stubborn donkey work."

"Wait a minute, last night you were talking about being responsible for Lisa until she was eighteen. Have you given up on that?"

"No. I'm still responsible for her transgressions until Monday." She took a deep breath. "However if she wanted to fudge her birthday by a day or two and I wasn't told about it until afterward, I can't see that it's anyone else's business. If that did happen, you could punish me for that too."

"What do you mean?" Dan frowned.

"Oh come now! Just think about it." She smiled, then turned on her heel and walked to her car.

Dan just stared after her in astonishment.

"I'll see you around one in the morning." She called over her shoulder as she got into her car and drove away.

When the phone rang, Lisa was lying on the couch, her face still streaked with tears. She really didn't feel like talking, but thinking that it was probably her Mom and that she might have forgotten something, she grabbed the receiver.

"Hello." She sniffed.

"Hello Lisa. It's Dan." She heard his voice and even listening over the telephone, she could feel herself reacting. "I was pretty hard on you earlier and I phoned to say that the broken pot wasn't really your fault. I'm sorry that I got angry with you."

"Oh. Thanks." She didn't know what else to say, but just hearing him apologise for being a jerk meant a lot to her.

"I was thinking that if you're not doing anything, you could bring back another cactus and we could at least talk for a bit."

"Unh, okay." Lisa was suddenly flustered. "But I'm a mess, I need to clean up first."

"That's okay. I'm not going anywhere." He said softly.

"If I come by in an hour, is that okay?"

"That's fine. I'll see you then."

After she had hung up the phone, Lisa was suddenly bouncing around the apartment in a flurry of activity. She had to shower and do so many things, but she only had an hour and she knew it would take fifteen minutes to walk to his house carrying a plant.

With her heart in her mouth, she raced through her preparations. Then she couldn't decide what to wear. She changed clothing twice and still wasn't satisfied. Finally she grabbed a thin summer dress that she knew looked great on her, The only problem was that it clung to her shape so well that it showed her bra and panty lines; even a tiny thong showed lines that she didn't like. Well, that was a repairable problem.

When she rang the door at Dan's house, her heart was in her throat, yet the expression on his face as he looked at her certainly did a lot to relax her. The rapid swelling in his shorts did a lot for her ego too. It gave her back the confidence to demand that she be the one to carry the plant through the house and return it to his back deck.

When he walked to the sliding doors and then paused there, she made a decision that would affect the rest of her life. Standing with her feet slightly apart, she bent from the waist to slowly and carefully place the plant in position. Her face flushed slightly as she realised that her short skirt was riding up her hips and she hoped he couldn't see that she was dripping wet. Suddenly deciding that it might be okay if he did see the evidence of her feelings, she paused in that position long enough to adjust the plant so the best side faced the sliding doors. She thought the improvement in the effect of the display would be worth it, even though it meant she had to shift her feet slightly further apart and bend forward even more.

She stood slowly, then turned to face him. The look on his face and the way he held the sliding door in a grip that whitened his knuckles brought a satisfied smile to her face that she couldn't hide.

"There, it's safely on your deck." She let her voice drop to little more than a whisper. "Now, I think you said that you wanted to talk?"