Chapter 14: Preparations - and the Astronomy Club Meeting Begins

Having nothing better to do for the first time in several days, Nate wandered home -- and ran into his mother on arrival. Tabitha gave him a look and grunted, "Wonderpussy dump you, did she? Tol' ya!"

"Nope. She's havin' dinner with her Daddy. Been on the schedule since Monday," Nate replied.

"Well, la de da!" Tabitha retorted derisively. "You tell her 'bout me?"

"Yeh."

"Sure ya did!"

"I did. Didn't matter."

Nate's matter-of-fact attitude penetrated his mother's disbelief. "So, when am I gonna see Wonderpussy?"

"When you wanta?"

Tabitha thought about it. Tonight was Thursday, which was a pickup day for the weekend. Friday and Saturday nights WERE the weekend, and on Sunday, johns that failed to catch an amateur on Friday and Saturday were hunting out of desperation. Between business, partying, and a little sleep... "Monday. It can wait 'til Monday. IF you can cough her up!"

"Okay."

"After school. Won't last long, I'm sure." She eyed him, clearly still unconvinced. "If you lied, her Daddy'll fix your wagon wit' her tonight, Boy!"

"I ain't stupid!"

"Awright. I'm goin' ta work. There's a little money in the jar -- get some groceries." Tabitha hitched at her push-up bra, which managed to make her saggy, wasted tits presentable.

Nate was surprised; if Mama was talking about groceries, the rent was paid! "You pay the rent?"

"Yeh."

"Want me to buy any REAL food?" Nate rasped.

"Not unless you gonna cook it." One of Tabitha's failures was her inability to do anything resembling cooking. The Adams subsisted on pre- packaged convenience foods when at home. Nate just nodded. Tabitha stalked out, leaving him to examine the mess. Best start in the bathroom...

Twenty minutes later, there was a heavy hammering at the door. Nate shucked his rubber gloves and threw it open to reveal George, the landlord, a huge shambling black with a cigar. "Since ya'll are rich an' famous, why don't you give me THIS month's rent!"

"Don't gimme that shit; Mama paid you already!" Nate growled. He could afford it; he'd long since figured out how to take out the big stupid bastard if he had to.

"That was last month's," George argued.

"No... I paid you for last month -- last month! Go lookit your books an' git outta my face!"

"Somethin' fucking wrong..."

"Yeh. You're caught the fuck up! THAT's what's wrong! We actually PAID for this fleabag!" Nate hadn't practiced righteous wrath in days, and it felt kinda good; Nora was makin' him mild-mannered. But it was worth it... Nate ended the conversation by turning back to collect his gloves, swatting the door so it closed in George's face in the process. George went away grumbling, chewing his stink-weed.

"Honey, are you all right?" Beth Ann Nevins tapped on her daughter's door.

Darla Jean's eyes popped and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Dammit! She'd been making noises again! And she was SOOOO close... She snatched her hand away from her burning clit and got it back above the covers, snapping the cap on the liquid K-Y she'd been using to stretch her natural lubricant for what was turning out to be a marathon masturbation session and tossing it in her open night table drawer. "I'm fine, Mother!"

Beth Ann frowned. She KNEW she'd heard her daughter whimper. "Honey, are you sure?" The forms had been obeyed; she could open the door... Darla Jean was lying in bed, looking a little flushed. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

Darla Jean rolled her eyes. 'Like what? Get out of here, so I can finish getting off?' "No, Mother, everything's fine. I just..." Darla Jean looked around. She'd been GOING to say 'sneezed', but her mother might decide she was getting a cold and retract her permission for tomorrow night! "... banged my arm on the damned drawer!"

"Don't curse, Dear." Beth Ann stood there a moment. They'd had these little confrontations before, and Darla Jean refused to open up and tell her what was bothering her. Well, maybe when she slept over with Mary Nally, the girls would talk... "All right..." She turned to leave. "If you're sure..."

'Go, Mother, go!' "I'm sure."

Beth Ann let herself out, closing the door quietly. Why Darla Jean wouldn't tell her what was bothering her was beyond understanding...

Darla Jean puffed out a sigh. If Mother ever figured out she was grunting and whimpering her way to orgasm rather than crying, she'd FREAK! Maybe if she chewed a pillow...

Ironically, if the pair of them could have gotten past the revelations, Beth Ann would have sympathized. Andre, her husband, was a wonderful man, and a better than average lover, in Beth Ann's opinion, but he wasn't keeping up... Beth Ann was just hitting her peak, but Andre had peaked some time ago -- if it weren't for his staying power lasting longer than his ability to have multiple orgasms, Beth Ann might not have been able to control the urges that rushed upon her periodically. As it was, she'd slipped a couple of times...

Darla Jean decided not to attempt to continue; Mother was on the alert, and fear had largely replaced desire as her primary emotion. Besides, she'd gotten four cums already -- fairly quickly, too! The fantasies that anticipation of tomorrow night's activities had generated had her going like a house afire! How she was going to keep her cool tomorrow night was beyond her understanding, even though she KNEW she'd manage to lock up like a statue if anything were to really happen. Still, it was a blast to fantasize... She'd bury both hands in Randall's kinky hair and drag him to her itchy crotch and let him lick and suck and work her clit with his tongue... About that time, she realized that she was at it again, her right hand toying with her nether lips, rolling her clit between two wet fingers while her left tugged a nipple. The idea of a boy finally touching her was so seductive that she just couldn't resist... This time, a pillow corner muffled her moans as she stiffened and shook her way through another pulsing roller coaster of an orgasm, dampening her sheets with sweat and vaginal fluids. It took three MORE wild cums before, exhausted and sated, she drifted off to sleep.

Mary Nally spent the evening planning and laying in supplies for Friday night. If they managed to keep things fairly quiet, Mom wouldn't have any reason to come busting in like she had last Sunday morning. The only reason she'd done it was because she'd expected to find Mary in a blue funk from the dance... This weekend, all things being equal, Mom would leave her alone, particularly on Saturday morning, when she habitually slept in. The boys would be up and out before Mom had any idea she was awake... Mary hit the cupboards in the kitchen for party goodies, under the guise of restocking her kitchenette. Beer -- well, she'd have to hope Stick didn't drink her whole supply of the good stuff...

Stick was on his second night of relative boredom, while Teddy was recovering from the excesses of the previous evening. Both boys were looking forward to Friday night... If Stick had realized that both Nate and Draper were on the loose, he might have planned something, but communications between the boys were down; in the past, they'd laid their plans right after school, but taking girls home screwed THAT up!

Friday morning dawned kind of iffy; windy, with low clouds scudding quickly along. The forecast called for a thirty percent chance of showers, which might cause issues for the planned observation -- but no one involved expected much, anyway, with the possible exception of Darla Jean. When Teddy's mother brought it up, Teddy responded, "Worst case, we'll all hang out at Jimmy Hightower's pool house." Given that she knew that she tended to be over-protective of her only son, Teddy's mother left it at that; a night with the boys was a night with the boys, inside or out. Darla Jean had no such worries, officially; a trip to Mary's wasn't weather-dependent. If the observation was cancelled, though, she might be at loose ends. THAT would be par for the course...

Randall was phlegmatic when braced with the issue. "Jimmy has this remote-control setup that runs down the hill to his pool house, and the scope can be computer controlled, if things get too cold or whatever. Worst case, we can go over the latest Saturn data from JPL -- we can get that from the net." That settled THAT, particularly when Jimmy nodded confirmation while playing with a rook. Jimmy and Randall were playing chess, and Randall was two pieces ahead. Amy was there, looking unGodly happy, it seemed to Darla Jean, rubbing Jimmy's back while gabbing away at FrankenThelma, who was ALSO looking surprisingly mellow with her narrow frame parked on the lap of Danny the Wop. What a Mutt and Jeff pair THEY made! But Danny was rubbing on her in that invasive way that broadcast 'We're having sex', and Thelma seemed to be soaking it up instead of hissing and scratching, so... Darla Jean couldn't fathom how FrankenThelma had managed to attract ANY man; she was skinny as a stick figure, had virtually NO tits, a droopy nose that made her look like the Wicked Witch of the West, and a nasty temper to top it all off. That SHE had a man, and Darla Jean didn't was as close to an indictment of reality for its injustice as anyone was likely to get... "We have setup to do before dark, so, about six?" Randall queried.

"Okay." Nothing else apparently needed saying, so Darla Jean wandered off. The guys seemed to be including her, after a fashion, so maybe this wasn't just a joke at her expense...

Jimmy waited until she'd disappeared and he'd moved the rook to comment, "Nice. Now, we'll have to set up the remotes, of course..." Jimmy and Amy were in on things, to be sure; Amy was all for seeing Darla Jean get some dick, as long as it wasn't Jimmy's. And if torrid necking with Jimmy would make Darla Jean brave, well, that was just another reason to do it, the first being the obvious benefit of enjoying Jimmy's attentions.

Amy turned to Thelma, "Are you going up there?"

Danny answered for the pair, "Naw, looking at tiny white lights gets boring, quick. We're gonna stay down the hill in the pool house with the walkie-talkies. If ya'll need help with the other thing, I'll turn it on so you can catch Thel's scream when she cums..."

"Danny!" Thelma squealed in outrage, and tried to get in a swat, but it was like an ant attacking an elephant. Danny just grinned and collected her hands, then attacked her neck with his lips; very quickly, Thelma moved on to a contented purr.

The day went fast. Everybody at school was looking toward the weekend, even the teachers, so there was a full-court press to get things done and over with. At lunch, Nora brought Mary up to date on the weird happenings at her father's house and his grand plan to reunite the family. "Shit! For real? What's your Mom gonna say?"

"She'll freak, undoubtedly. I would, if I was her. But Daddy gets his way, almost all the time, and he's pretty firm about this. I'm not too worried for me; Daddy and I appear to have an understanding that doesn't involve sex. But Mom's in for a helluva couple of weeks, I think, before she caves and does what Daddy tells her to do -- and she will..."

"So you'll be moving?"

"Up to the north end. It won't affect school, and Daddy says it won't affect Nate; for the record, I believe him. I think he's done making us pinch pennies, too -- there could be substantial bribes in the deal, if you know what I mean..." Nora winked and Mary laughed.

"If your Daddy hears THAT, it might backfire!"

"Or it might put an idea in his head..." There was another shared titter.

After school, Nate and Nora rushed to Nora's, burned their way through homework, and headed off to a movie; there was a loose plan to meet Tenisha and Draper Travis at the theater, if possible. Nate had relayed his mother's demand for an audience, and Nora had shrugged, and said, "Fine. You've survived this long -- she won't kill me."

No sooner were they out the door than Armand called. After the preliminaries, Armand kicked things off with, "Have you thoroughly debriefed our daughter on her visit yet?"

"Yes. I'm amazed -- it's as awful there as I'd imagined," Sharon replied.

Armand chuckled. "My point about keeping her away until now is made, then. However, she handled it VERY well, and now that you're braced for it, I believe you can visit me here, too. Why don't you come to lunch tomorrow? Say, twelve? I'll have you retrieved by Jorge."

"Why? We just..."

"... Had sex? That's irrelevant. Well, not quite, perhaps, but it would seem to operate in your favor. We need to discuss our daughter's future."

"All right," Sharon agreed reluctantly. She smelled a trap, but then, Armand's presence was ALWAYS a trap. What did she have to lose? All she had left was her sanity and her life; Armand had been chipping away at the former for decades, but seemed uninterested in the latter...

"Jorge will be along at eleven-thirty." Click.

"Always the last word..." Sharon muttered to herself.

The Knob was cool and breezy, damp leftovers from the midday rain shower adding a bite to the wind. Darla Jean arrived with her backpack, carrying a sleeping bag, to discover the boys tinkering with the telescope and various attached electronics, including a camera pass-thru. Randall looked up, "We're getting GPS data for the drive motors. Why don't you give your stuff to Amy to stow in the cave?" Darla Jean nodded and circled to the cave entrance. It looked like she was going to have to get on with forgiving Amy; maybe she'd done her a favor, anyway. "Hi, Amy. Where's Mary?"

"She and Teddy couldn't make it," Amy replied, hiding a smile with some difficulty. "She said don't worry, you're still covered. She had to stay home for something." 'Two dicks!' went through Amy's mind. Jealousy didn't go through her mind -- neither black boys nor multiple sex partners were her gig, although the latter might be vaguely interesting... She just considered the whole thing to be racy and strange.

Darla Jean wondered for a moment why Amy seemed preoccupied before Randall yelled, "You done? I could use a hand with the wireless controller!"

Darla Jean nodded at Amy and turned back to the boys; obviously, that comment was meant for her, since Amy was merely decorative, here... "Coming!"

Thirty minutes later, Randall was in full lecture mode: "The CCD and its digital zoom actually offers us a better resolution than through the eyepiece. Watch the screen!" He fiddled with the scope and the laptop screen lit with a surprisingly robust image of a nebula. "This is a little tiny thing in the eyepiece; we'd have to have three times the scope to get this kind of detail directly. Come here and take a look." It was early, yet. They were looking at objects to the northeast because the sun was still blanking the western sky, despite the fact it had set a bit ago. Jimmy was laying out items like a red-lens flashlight, watching the pair (inadequately) surreptitiously.

Darla Jean got up and crossed to the scope. "Try not to touch it," Randall admonished, "we're inadequately stable. Someday, we'll put in a pedestal on a concrete mount..." Darla Jean bent over the eyepiece and Randall got on with the point of the exercise, "Let me hold your hair..."

Darla Jean froze while Randall collected every strand with clumsy fingers. Was this... innocent? For a few moments, even after he was done, a double supernova in the eyepiece would have gone unnoticed. This wasn't much, but it had to be the closest a boy had ever come to intimacy. Finally, she managed to get in focus, mentally, "Uh, yeah, I see..." It WAS pretty tiny.

"Of course, we STILL have to make raw adjustments at the scope. There is an automated tracking system built in, but it is... imprecise." Randall wasn't certain how he managed to say anything intelligent with a handful of that silky stuff to play with...

"I see..." Should she move? Maybe... Darla Jean stepped back into Randall before the thought was complete. Randall let go of her hair to catch her. "Oops! Sorry!"

"No problem..." Randall released her immediately, as protocol dictated, then started shaking like a leaf. Damn! Settle down, Man! Don't hyperventilate! He'd had his hands... Well, one around her waist, and the other on a shoulder, but still...

Darla Jean was working through HER analysis of the action, moving slowly from her release point. Randall had been... perfunctory... with his answer to her insincere apology, but her ass had taken the imprint of an iron bar along the crack during the moment they'd been in contact. So, what was real? What HE said, or what his COCK said? Darla Jean turned a glance upon Randall to find him looking back with a strange expression, one he hid quickly by turning away in obvious embarrassment. Beyond him, Jimmy was looking on with a positively evil grin on his face. "I-I'm going to check on things in the cave," Darla Jean stuttered. "You guys need anything?"

Randall wasn't really capable of rational thought, yet, so he merely shook his head, rather than adding to the load on his mental processes. Jimmy murmured, "A Coke, maybe? In the cooler..."