Chapter 30

It only took a couple more discussions with Cal and one with her parents before Cheryl wrote her acceptance letter for the scholarship. It was Cal who rather forcefully convinced her to talk with Hal and Darlene, and it went better than Cal could have expected.

Hal had netted nearly half a million dollars from the insurance settlement. Marty recruited only the best as her associates, and Robert did a masterful job. Predictably, the Carsons invested the money and did not spend extravagantly. Two newer vehicles, one of which was badly needed, and some new furniture were the only obvious evidence of his compensation.

Obvious, that is, to those who did not know Hal well. To his family and to Cal, a number of changes had occurred since the injury. Previously, Hal's self-reliance had been almost frantic. Coupled with his extreme rigidity, it had made him seem irrational at times.

Spending time completely dependent on the help of others had taken a little of the edge off of his need for control. Right after the injury, it had seemed as though Cheryl and Cal were trying to subjugate him. It did not take long, though, for their sincere efforts to make his life better to be noticed. Cheryl's bold exposure of him on his first day home had led him to fear her dominance. When, at least as far as he knew, she never again saw his privates, the fear eased quickly.

More than anything else, the additional future security guaranteed by the expansion to their savings brought a calmness to Hal's whole demeanor. His overall attitudes did not change significantly, but his reactions to things he disagreed with became much more moderate.

Hal's moderated personality was a boon to the whole family, and a great relief to Cheryl. One of the hardest parts of leaving for college was her fear for her siblings, and that fear abated considerably. For the first time, Cheryl had started paying some attention to her mother as more than just a household slave to her father. The stressful, embarrassing sexual lessons Cheryl had conducted made her view Darlene in a much more human way than ever before. In most respect's, Cheryl's mother was still a stranger, but there were many more emotional connections than ever before.

The other thing about Darlene that was unmistakable was the physical change. Buried for forty years by family culture, her athlete's body and spirit were making a belated appearance. Her posture and her walk had changed enough that her siblings who had not seen her for many months expressed their surprise.

Probably the biggest change for Darlene was acknowledging her awareness of the appearance of her own body and of the bodies of others. Her time at the health club had become almost religious for her. From the early days when she had felt a flash of guilt when she happened to see her reflection in the ever-present huge mirrors, she now watched herself closely as she worked out. It was a flash of long-delayed narcissism, but nothing serious. It was a faze that most women go through in their teens, but it had been denied her at that age.

After a few months at the club, Darlene had even allowed herself to notice the bodies of other women, and compare them to her own. That had generated more guilt at first: guilt because she felt proud of how well she compared. Except for breast size, she found few things in other women that made her envious.

The first swimsuit that Cheryl had nearly forced her mother to buy was still in use at every workout. It had cup construction that disguised her nipples, no matter what condition they were in, and the legs were not cut high. Other than that, it was revealing enough that Darlene had been barely able to drop her towel to get into the water the first time. She had felt like her bottom was totally bare because of the elasticized material.

Back in the locker room after that first swim, she had happened to check out her back in the mirror, and her knees had nearly buckled. Her ass crack was as obvious as if she was just wearing panties! She could not go out like that again!

At her next session, she was ready to shower and leave without the swim, but Jeremy interceded. Whether it was on purpose or just from luck, he caught her on her way to the locker room. "Darlene! It was great to see you swimming the other day. I'll wait here and give you some tips when you get in the pool today."

"But, I... I was just going home today. I..."

It was probably instinctive for Jeremy, and it worked. "No, Darlene. You're making great progress, here, and swimming will make it that much better. Go on. Get your suit on and I'll be at the pool in five minutes. Don't make me wait." His voice and posture had just the right mix of politeness and command, and Darlene was helpless to do anything but comply. She was shaking even worse than the first time when she dropped her towel, but Jeremy's presence left her no choice but to get in the pool.

It took many laps and borderline exhaustion that day before Darlene stopped feeling a tingle of shame that her bottom was all but bare to Jeremy as she swam. When she climbed wearily from the pool, Jeremy was holding a towel for her and started in with 'body talk'.

"Darlene, you don't know how much of a thrill it has been to watch your progress. I thought when I first saw you that you had a potentially great body, but I had no idea!" As he had expected, Darlene reacted in shock.

"Oh, come on, Darlene! There's nothing to be shy about. We build bodies here. We're proud of the results, and you're one client we're very proud of." He was going to get more specific about her development, but he sensed that he had said enough at that point.

The evening that Cheryl talked to her parents about the scholarship, Darlene had gone to the club, which she now did almost every day. It had been a breakthrough day. Jeremy had met her as she went to the locker to get ready to swim. He had handed her a tank suit.

"You are swimming very well, Darlene, but I think your suit is hampering your movement. Wear this today."

"Oh, no, I... it shows... no, I just couldn't!"

"Look, Darlene, as strong as you are swimming, you must be chafing in your crotch, from the shoulder straps, and under your arms when you finish, aren't you?" He knew that saying the word 'crotch' would alarm her, but he had to make his point. Her wide-eyed nod told him that he had done it correctly.

"This is the kind of suit that competitive swimmers wear. You've seen them on TV, haven't you?" Again, she nodded wordlessly. His authoritative tone and manner were triggering her submissiveness, just as he assumed they would.

"Just put this on, please. No one is going to think badly of you. You have a great body! So what if someone sees more of it than you are used to?" By that point, Darlene had no choice, and in a few minutes, she once again emerged shaking so badly that she could hardly walk.

Jeremy was bemused by Darlene's discomfiture. He had worked with a number of women who were very body-shy, but she set the standard in his experience. His feelings toward her were somewhat divided. He was a committed dominant and active in 'the life'. Initially, she had appeared to be an ideal target: older, naive, potentially very attractive. Somewhat to his own surprise, he was feeling some pity and more than a little affection for her. She just seemed to have that effect.

Jeremy felt no sense of hurry with Darlene, and he knew that he could not rush her anyway. He had plenty of subs available to him, so if she took a year or more of 'prep', that was fine. Despite his unaccustomed ambivalence, he stuck with the plan he had devised when she first joined the club.

When Darlene stepped from the pool for the first time in the tank suit, she did the classic cover-up with her hands. As he stepped up with the towel, he took the hand covering her breasts and pulled it away. "Darlene, every woman in this place has breasts with nipples. They're not secret and they're not sacred. Everyone knows that they are there. Yours happen to be very attractive. Forget the covering up. The suit is all the covering you need here." It was said in the tone that he had learned she could not resist. She did not relax, but her hand dropped to her side.

"You have a couple of choices with your crotch," he said, and waited for her stunned reaction to subside. No one but Cheryl had every talked about her crotch to her. "As it is now, you have trimmed your pubic hair so that none sticks out the sides. That's good. What remains is quite thick, and makes a bit of a bulge in the suit."

He waited a few more moments, hoping that the blood would return to her face, which it eventually did, abundantly. "If you shave off your pubic hair to reduce the bulge, though, the suit will show your labia more clearly, and you may not want that. What do you think?"

What Darlene thought was that she was about to die of shock and embarrassment. He let her simmer for a while before going on. "Please don't be upset, Darlene. Remember how I said we work with bodies here? Well, that's all just part of your very nice body. Think of me almost like a doctor, OK? Why don't you take the suit home and see what you think?"

That Darlene was rather distracted as Cheryl talked about her scholarship later that day was no surprise, given what had happened at the club. Cheryl and Cal just wrote it off to her typical non-involvement in matters of decision that she considered Hal's business.

After the teens had left, it seemed to Darlene that Hal took forever to get to bed. Even after he was down, she was reluctant to use the master bath, which was open to the bedroom, so she used the hall bath. Jeremy had insisted that she take the tank suit with her, and she put it on and spent many minutes looking at herself in the mirror, wishing that it was full length. After much tugging and pulling on the crotch, she could not decide what to do, so she left her pubic hair as it was.

Thinking back to her emergence from the pool that morning, she stepped into the shower with the suit on and got it thoroughly wet. Seeing how clearly her breasts and distended nipples were displayed through the wet fabric almost made her stumble as she came out of the tub shower.

Her mind initially screamed that she could never wear such a suit again. That resolution died aborning, however, when she pictured Jeremy telling her to put it on and get in the pool. The unmistakable throbbing in her pussy reinforced Jeremy's expected demand.

When she returned to the bedroom, Darlene was disappointed that Hal was already asleep. Even if he had been awake, she reminded herself, initiating sex was his prerogative, and she might not have gotten any relief, anyway.

For the first time, she brought herself off in bed beside her sleeping husband - twice. What got her over the top was visualizing herself walking from the locker room to the pool with her pussy lips clearly displayed for Jeremy by the thin, snug suit. There was absolutely no question that she would be back at the club in the morning, and that she would wear the suit.

All teenaged girls seem to be incurable matchmakers, and the trio of Cheryl, Rebecca, and Tessa were certainly not exceptions. The three had gotten to know and like Jean del Prado, and they remembered the casual interaction between her and Jared Cociscue at the New Year's Eve party. They decided that Jared was going to take Jean to the prom. When Bobby first heard of their scheming, he got fully into the act, wanting the best for his close friend Jared.

With all of that firepower brought to bear, Jared did not have a chance. Two weeks before the prom, he was terrified, but shopping for a tux. The four couples would share a limo, eat dinner together, and share a table at the prom. The Walts and the Banners had gotten together, and set up for prom night. The Banners would entertain all of the parents, and the teens would have the run of Teri's house afterwards, rather than having to rent a hotel room.

As if the tux rental was not bad enough, Rebecca and Tessa dragged Jared home three different times for dancing lessons. He thought his embarrassment would be terminal when Tessa sat him down and lectured him about inevitable male reactions and females' response to them. He did manage to pick up enough basic dancing skill to avoid crippling poor Jean.

For Rebecca and Bobby and Cheryl and Cal, there was no reason to go to a hotel, since they regularly slept together with their parents' full knowledge. Although Tessa and Vick had not fully consummated yet, a place to get together was never a problem for them, either. It was arranged that Laz (Lazlo) Cociscue, Jared's father, and Rosalia del Prado would work out a way to leave a car for Jared to get him and Jean home.

A week before the prom, Tessa caught Cal at school and asked him to stop over that evening, giving him no clue as to the purpose. When he rang the bell after supper, Tessa met him at the door, took him by the hand, pulled him to the family room, sat him on the couch, and plopped right on his lap. Puzzled, stunned, concerned - all three fit Cal very well at that moment.

While Cal was trying to resist hugging her, she pre-empted him by throwing her arms around his neck and laying her head on his shoulder. "Prom night," she said, with no further explanation. When Cal did not respond in any way for about thirty seconds, she added "Vick and I are going to make love Prom night."

No less in the dark than when she had plopped in his lap, Cal instinctively responded "You didn't have to tell me that."

"Yes, I did," Tessa insisted. "Look, Cal, we have been afraid of each other since I decided on Vick. I understand why, but I hate it! I want to get back some of the closeness we had before - I mean before I got in the shower with you that first time. If we could at least be like you and Rebecca, I would love that. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

"You mean, so a spontaneous urge to hug each other wouldn't scare us?" he asked.

"I knew you'd understand!?" she exulted, threatening to choke off his air. "Maybe the sex play we did makes it harder, but I still wouldn't trade it for anything. You're still my closest male friend. Vick and I are getting there, but you and I have a lot of years of friendship. Can you do this, Cal? Please?"

"I guess I've been concerned about Vick and Cheryl and what they would think," Cal explained.

"I've spent a lot of time talking to both of them. Vick trusts you like no other man he knows. I've told him everything about what you and I did. He knows how our fear of each other hurts me. Cheryl knows how it hurts you. They trust us, Cal.

"You know me well," she went on. "When I give it up on Prom night, to me that's like wedding vows. I will be faithful to Vick from then on. I want you to be my big brother again. I want to share my happiness with you, and you with me."

"Big brother? But..."

"Don't try to change the subject, Cal Banner!" she said with a play swat. "I want to be just as close to you as Rebecca is, OK?"

"So, I'm the last to hear about this changed relationship, huh?" he teased.

She pulled back and stared at him and said "You trying to talk me out of this?"

Seeing that this was not the right time for levity, for the first time, he took the initiative and hugged her tightly. "I love you, Tessa. I always will. Thank you for getting us back to where we should be." That, of course, unleashed a flood from her, and he was not totally successful at keeping his eyes dry, either.

Getting the Carsons to accept the Banners' Prom night invitation was more difficult than even Cheryl expected. It finally took one more of her forays into dominant mode to get them to go, something she really hated to do. It turned out that it was just the believable threat that she would go dominant that got Hal's reluctant agreement.

She did not actually order them to go, but she told them "There is a chance that someday Elaine and Martin could be my in-laws. I like and respect them both. There is no good reason for you to decline. It would be very discourteous and a slap in the face to them if you did."

Hal could feel his daughter on the verge of ordering them to attend, and he knew he could not resist her. To him, that would be worse than the actual party, so he caved. Darlene, of course, had little say in the matter, though she found herself incredibly curious about Cal's parents.

Cheryl timidly approached Elaine and Martin and warned them about what to expect. Elaine grabbed her in a hug and told her "Honey, we have a good idea what to expect. Your job is to forget everything else and have a blast at your last prom."

"My only one, as far as I'm concerned," Cheryl murmured into Elaine's shoulder.

"Well, Martin and I and Teri and Rick will guarantee that your parents leave here happy that they came."

"That's a tall order with my dad," Cheryl cautioned.

"We can handle it. Promise."

By agreement, the parents all brought their offspring to the Banners', where a little photo studio was set up. Cal and Jean alternated taking the photos, with Teri subbing for the pictures of the whole group.

As a goodwill gesture, with Cheryl's full agreement, Cal had arranged to take pictures of all comers at the prom itself. He had to agree to letting Jean do at least half of the photos. Rosalia and Laz packed up the necessary gear and took it to the school before returning to the party. They would also retrieve it afterward, leaving Cal and Jean free to ride the limo.

It turned out that the teacher who sponsored the photography club volunteered his time and freed up the teens for more dancing. Cal insisted on taking a lot of the shots, though. Given the kinds of feelings against him that had occurred over the last year, he wanted to build some bridges to his fellow students.

Even with Cal's picture taking, there was plenty of time for dancing, and the four couples exchanged partners several times. Cal and Tessa were able to dance enthusiastically on the fast songs and closely on the slow songs without any undue emotions. It was a significant breakthrough.

Back at the parents' gathering, the delicious catered foods were a great ice-breaker, and Martin and Rick started a relaxed but continuous effort to engage Hal Carson. Because of his real estate development business, Martin was familiar with a number of projects that Hal had worked on. Being careful not to divulge anything confidential, he dropped some tidbits that Hal might never have heard otherwise. It was obvious that the information was much appreciated by Hal.

Laz was a help with Hal, also. Being the semi-pro handyman that he was, Laz kept peppering Hal with questions about construction techniques and technology. Being put in the role of expert took away most of Hal's remaining concerns about the party.

It was interesting watching the three single parents who were present, Rosalia del Prado, Emily Smaak, and Laz Cociscue. Unlike his son Jared, Laz was quite personable and gregarious. Although his son and Rosalia's daughter were prom dates, it was Emily who responded most strongly to him. Perhaps it was their shared Eastern European heritage, but by the end of the evening, Elaine wondered if the spark of a romance might have been ignited. With Vick headed for college, it would be good for Emily to have a distraction from her loneliness.

Elaine had asked everyone to bring swimsuits, and while the five men were playing pool and relaxing downstairs, she told the other five women to join her in the hot tub. Emily and Rosalia agreed reluctantly, but Darlene had purposely not brought a suit. With Cheryl having told her all about Darlene, Elaine practically dragged her to the master suit where she almost forcibly dressed the blushing woman in a modest two-piece. Elaine had no idea that the suit showed more of Darlene than had ever been displayed outside of her house.

In the hot tub, Elaine and Teri started immediately bringing Darlene into the conversation. The other women seemed to pick up that she was a project and they all helped. Even after all of her visits to the club, and even though they were all women, the level of intimacy still frightened Darlene. With five against one, however, she was holding her own in conversation before they all reluctantly left the tub after forty-five minutes.

While the teens were enjoying the prom and the parents were relaxing at the Banners', things were far less pleasant for Cal's Aunt Laura. Elaine had tried hard to get her sister to join them that night, but with her daughter Jolie not going to the prom, Laura just did not feel right about being there.