Chapter 7

About the time President Carl Garrett was pondering the pressures of his office in the relative quiet of Camp David, Bert saw his mother heading for the master suite and hurried to speak to her.

"Mom, I don't think you should come to my room tonight. I mean, I love having you next to me, but I'm worried about you and Dad."

"You're right, Honey. You gave me what I needed last night, and that was so important to me. Thank you." She punctuated that with a quick kiss. "Tonight, I need to, uh, well..." Her flush said what her words could not.

Because of Win's behavior since the whole thing blew up, in her weaker moments, Eleanor had found herself almost hoping that the matriarch would expel her from the family for appearing nude at the upcoming picnic. That thought never lasted long. The current heartache notwithstanding, she liked her life. She knew that she would continue to work at making her marriage work as she had for all of the years.

By sheer dint of his lust, she had extracted an unusually high pre-nuptial out of Win. Although she would not live in a true mansion such as her current home if they divoreced, she would be very comfortable.

Besides enough money, she could probably have Darryl. The relationship between Eleanor and Darryl was as unusual as the man himself was. The respect between the two was enormous, but it had never gotten physical. From his side, the love was also enormous. In her darker moments, Eleanor mused that she got sex from Win but love from Darryl. That was not really fair to Win, though. She was sure that he did love her in the best way that he was able.

It was difficult for her to admit that she was more than a little confused about love. It truly was more than just the money that had drawn her to Win. He had a dash and a flair that attracted her. At the time, even his arrogance and his cynicism added to his appeal. The best she could decide from her extensive reading was that she loved the idea of Winston Parkhurst.

Being married to Win had been far from a trial. She had been able to mold him into a very good lover and a generally satisfactory husband. Over the years, she had managed to keep his interest in her alive and thriving. Although philandering husbands were not unheard of in the Parkhurst clan, a man had to really want it to put up with the grief he would attract.

And the children! She could hardly have ordered two better ones had she been granted that boon. A modern, sophisticated woman she certainly was. Given that, the best of motherhood had not evolved out of her through the generations. If the worst happened to her marriage, Molly and Bert would still be an achievement that validated her life.

From their very first coupling, Eleanor had vowed to herself that she would never withhold her favors from him, no matter how angry she might be. She honestly did not do it just to protect her meal ticket. She had once read that withholding sex was one form of abuse available to a woman, and she wanted no part of that.

Now, naked and grieving over her lost daughter, Eleanor realized that she was on dangerous ground with Win. Pride, ego, possessiveness: parading her body - his body - was not something he could easily reconcile with those emotions. It looked to be putting the most strain ever on their marriage.

Yet, she was not doing it for show. In her mind it was the one way to at least publicly signify her desire for atonement. Although the mistakes might never be rectified, she would do what she could.

Right then, the immediate problem was Win, and softening the animosity that had built up. It would not be the first time she had to use sex to soften him up and pull him from some kind of funk - not by a long shot. Fortunately, it always worked.

Ordinarily, a seduction such as this called for the use of some of the expensive slutwear she had acquired just for that purpose. She thought briefly of it now, but it would be breaking her vow to herself. Her body, unadorned, would have to be enough.

She was fairly sure that Win did not know she had left their bed the night before to sleep beside Bert. Win had been asleep when she left and when she returned in the morning. He was already in bed when she entered the room this night, but still awake. That called for a grooming show.

Showering with unaccustomed speed, she came back into the main room and sat at the vanity to brush her hair. Carefully positioning herself so he got a good oblique angle, she exaggerated the movement of her breasts as she stroked her hair. Keeping her arms above her head elevated them nicely, offsetting the settling of the years, which she had not had surgically corrected.

When she was finished with her hair, she applied lotion all over her body. To do each leg, she placed her foot up on the bed, giving him a clear view of her pussy. The whole lotion sequence took about ten minutes, and when she finished, she was becoming worked up herself. It made the seduction much easier when she did not have to fake it.

It was going to be an interesting session. Win had not said a word, and he had pretended not to notice her. That he had indeed noticed was evidenced by the rise in the sheet over his crotch. Also, he had stayed on his back, not his normal sleeping position.

So, he was going to be a brat. That just made it more of a challenge. Then, she reminded herself that that was not really fair to Win. It was genuinely hard for him to have his wife expose herself that way. With just family, it had been one thing. Involving the male employees took it another step. Win had not yet figured out that she would be going naked to the picnic on Sunday, and she needed to keep that from him at least until she had accomplished tonight's purpose.

Since it was plenty warm in the house, she did not hesitate to pull back the light cover he had over him. When he was being grumpy, words, kisses, or hugs were not very effective. There was only one productive point of attack, and she knelt on the bed next to him and took him in hand. Wanting no chance for an objection, she cupped his balls in one hand and extended the middle finger of that hand to begin rubbing behind his sac. With the other hand, she she began stroking his partially-hardened shaft.

Eleanor had learned that for some reason, she could not start right off with a blowjob. When he was out of sorts, that level of intimacy was too much for him right away. Thus, she started with her hands.

Win's athletic background was still evident on his body, and attending to his cock had never been a chore for her. Even so, she could not help imagining her son's beautiful body laid out before her and in her hands, instead of her husband's. The benefit of that unbidden thought was her lubrication that began to flow freely.

When the stiffness in her hand was satisfactory, she straddled him and impaled herself. At that point, she knew that she was victorious. Once she had him inside of her, she had never failed to bring him around. He still had not said anything, and he did not want to look at her, but it would all play out like a script from now on.

Sure enough, she felt him getting close twice, but slowed the pace of her up-and-down motions. When she did it a third time, he growled and in a move that would be a credit to a wrestler, he flipped them over so he was on top. She expected a pounding, and he did not disappoint, driving hard into her for longer than she thought he could last.

After he held out for a few minutes, she sensed that he wanted her to come, so she slipped her hand between them and began teasing her clit. His move of flipping them over always got to her, so her arousal was already pretty high. She managed to let loose first, taking him along with her.

From many, many repeats, he probably knew that she liked his full weight on her afterwards. It was probably an instinctive concern for his mate that made him start to roll off every time. She had learned to clamp her arms tightly around him to let him know that she wanted him there.

She was hoping that he would initiate a kiss. He didn't, so she sought out his mouth and got him to respond after a bit of nibbling and teasing. The past stressful week had seen less than their usual sex, and she really wanted to satisfy him. Starting by stroking and squeezing his buttocks, she soon had her fingers running down his crack, teasing from his anus to his sac. Doubles were not too unusual for them, but he had just come. She wondered...

"You can't tell me it hasn't gotten you worked up seeing me naked all day, can you?" she said in as seductive a voice as she could manage. If he wasn't going to say anything, she was. "Hasn't it gotten kinda tight in your pants? Do I need to shave my crotch smooth so you can see my pretty pussy every time you look at me? What do you think Jorge would thing of that?" She had almost said 'Darryl', but held up at the last moment.

The twitch in his previously spent penis told her that she had found a hot button. This was risky territory, but she had to go for it. "If I shaved down there, I'm afraid poor Bert would be following his hardon around all day - it might never go down. And he wants to have some of his football friends over to swim. How do you think they would like it?"

This whole topic was a little disturbing, actually. But for right then, the objective was to fuck away his bad mood, so any weapon was welcome. "I don't know if I could really shave it, though. I mean I know I've been naked today, but I would feel even more naked, then. Everyone would see where my lips come together down there, and they would see how nice and thick the lips are. I don't know if I could stand that. And have you noticed? My clitty is never completely hidden. If people saw it peeking out, I would be so embarrassed I ... ooof!"

When Win wanted to fuck, he was very, very good at it, and right then, he really wanted to. Somehow, he had regained stiffness quickly, and Eleanor could not have been happier. Her original purpose was to drag him from his funk, but it had moved beyond that. The soreness she would feel in a while would be therapeutic. Tension had been building in her all week, and this was the best release in the world. She would not have to use her own finger because it would take him a while. As he started bouncing her seriously on the mattress, she gave up all thought and scheming and just went with the feelings.

Hours before Eleanor set out to seduce her husband out of his angry mood, Curt ran out of patience with sitting around and waiting.

When everything had finished at the police station after their 'rescue', they had gone briefly to Pritchard's estate, then had been taken by corporate jet to the estate of a friend of Jason's a few hundred miles away. Jason did not want to risk them being found in the unlikely event that a warrant was actually obtained. Jason and Gwen were with them the whole time.

Once they had met their hosts and gotten settled in, Curt sat down with his laptop and got online. "Can't you just relax for tonight?" Gwen asked her son?

"I've lost too much time already," Curt answered. "You know the famous short attention span of teenagers? Well, I need to start talking to people and stirring things up before the broadcast is old news."

"But you can't really get to very many people, can you?"

"Jason has some people who really know the net. They are setting up a ton of ads."

"How long will it take for them to show up?"

"For the right money, they can be running in a few hours. You saw how fast things happened yesterday, didn't you?" he answered. "Besides, for what we want, simple is better."

"So, what will you advertise?"

"They've set up a website for me that I want people to come to. There's a blog and several email addresses, too. Mom, I'm worried about the kids that are going to be hurt by this. Now that Molly has shown me that website, I'm not just against the Program because of human rights any more. Some schools start Monday, you know. Just imagine if Jordan got picked!"

"Oh, my! You're right. But what can you do?"

"First of all, I want to make sure they know what they might be getting into. That's mainly for new schools this year, but there are a lot of them. I am going to encourage them to just drop out of school before it starts. If they start, they can be forced to continue."

"Is it legal to just drop out?"

"I guess that varies from state to state. I wish they could all flee like Molly and I did."

"By the way, where is Molly?"

"I think she is talking to her brother again. They seem really close," he explained.

"So, Honey, what do you think of Molly? You two had to have about the strangest introduction on record," Gwen observed.

"That's for sure," he agreed, with a chuckle. "You mean, am I interested in her as a girlfriend, don't you?"

"Of course."

"When we first met, I couldn't help being attracted to her," Curt admitted. "But I don't know. She's kind of, uh, out of my league. You know, both brains and money."

"Does she really give you that impression?" Gwen asked, a bit stunned by his comment.

"Oh, she doesn't do anything specific to make me think that," he admitted, "but she is scary smart. And what do you even do with a girl that rich on a date? I mean, I'm happy with the life you and I have. I just don't think I would fit into hers."

There was a lot more Gwen wanted to say, but this was probably not the time for that discussion. Molly was the kind of girl her son deserved, in her opinion.

Later in the evening, Curt began to get lots of hits on the website and more emails than he could deal with. To get a start at things, he scanned quickly through the emails for 'kill', 'end it', 'suicide', and 'die'. He wanted to see if he had gotten responses from any kids that he thought were in true mortal danger.

There were several messages that had his key words, so he replied, first of all asking when their school started. He also encouraged them to meet him in a chat room.

While he was screening the emails, Gwen and Molly joined him and just watched. After a while, Gwen went to fetch Jason. "So you think they might be potential statistics?" Jason asked.

"I need to talk to each of them to find out," Curt answered.

"Do you think we could have professionals screen them?" Jason asked.

"Well, the reason they replied now is my personal credibility," Curt said. "I could try to hand them off, but I would hate to lose any of them."

"Any idea how many are critical?" Jason asked.

"I've only chatted with seven, but I would say three of them are deadly serious," Curt told them. "One of them says if he just doesn't register for school, his parents will back him up after hearing the broadcast. I guess that means he's safe. The other two, a boy and a girl, sound like they may try something before school starts."

"Do you think these are kids with serious problems even without the Program?" Gwen asked.

"Some of them, definitely," Curt opined. "That won't make it any less tragic if the Program pushes them over the edge."

Molly had been just listening, but spoke up now. "From the website, most of the suicides - the breakdowns, too - happened after the first day in the Program. Also, a high percentage happened in the first few weeks of implementation at a school."

"From the evidence of the emails and your chats, we could get them under professional care," Jason pointed out. "I believe that exempts them automatically, doesn't it? Oh. I assume you are journaling the chats." Curt nodded.

"Now you have given me a real moral dilemma," Curt complained. "Narcing them for their own good: isn't that the kind of argument the whole Program is justified on?"

"Being realistic, Curt," Jason said, "is there really anything more you could or should do. Just look what you've accomplished already!"

"And just what have I accomplished, as far as helping kids?" Curt demanded.

"I believe you have started a process that could lead to the elimination of the Program," Jason assured him.

"If Molly is right, and I suspect she is, the damage will be done before there is any chance of shutting it down. And realistically, what are our odds? Are you saying that some more casualties in the meantime are inevitable? I guess I can't just sit back and let that happen. I'm not made that way." Gwen was hugging Curt from behind as he sat in his chair when he said that.

There was silence among the four of them for quite a while before Molly asked "Jason, do you really think we started the end of the Program?"

"In politics, it's hard to tell," Jason replied. "What you have done is bring some very emotional negatives about it to light. With the Administration's posture on concern for people and on human rights, it is the worst possible kind of attention. If it becomes enough of an embarrassment, it will be gone."

"OK, so how do we keep the pressure on? How do we increase the embarrassment?" Curt asked.

"I think the key is waking up individuals and families to what is going on," Jason said. "Then, getting them willing to do something about it. We have to get people out of the passive mode."

Well after midnight, Molly woke up in the strange room. Curt had still been chatting away on his laptop when she went to bed a few hours earlier, and she wondered if he had finally given up. His mother was in the other bed in the large double room with her. Quietly, she got up and crossed over to Curt's room, where the door was open and the light still on.

She tapped lightly on the open door and walked in when he turned and smiled at her. She felt a quick panic at the thought that she was in her night clothes, but had to laugh to herself at how silly that was, given the time that she had spent naked with him.

"Are you going to keep at this all night?" she asked kindly.

He threw his shoulders back and circled his head around trying to get the kinks out of his neck. "I don't know, Molly. Some of these kids don't want to stop talking. I'm really worried about a few of them."

"I don't know if I'd be good at it, but I could try and chat with a few of them," she offered.

"Why wouldn't you be good at it? You have as much credibility as I do. Here are the names of two girls that I'm sure would love to chat with another girl - especially you."

Molly crept back into her room and got her laptop, then rejoined Curt. For the next hour and a half, the two of them worked with several kids who were very distraught about the prospect of having to go naked in school. When Molly could barely keep her eyes on the screen, she said "How do you keep going, anyway?"

"I don't know. I just can't cut them off when they're so afraid. I just keep thinking about Jordan and how rough it would be for her. I have to help them?"

"Jordan? Is that your girlfriend?" Molly felt a pang of jealousy as she said the word. Then, she chided herself. They had met less than 48 hours earlier.

"Long-time friend. I took her to Prom and on a couple of dates. Nothing romantic there."

"Tell me about her. Why are you worried?"

Curt described his friend, her shyness, her lack of physical maturity, her extreme intelligence. "You two would probably get along great," he said. "She's scary smart, too."

That was not at all what Molly wanted to hear. Her brainpower had been scaring boys off ever since she began wishing that it wouldn't. She felt a sudden rush of combined anger and sadness. Curt had made more of an impact on her than any boy she had met. Now, it looked like he had categorized her as unattainable. Damn!

To hide her reactions, Molly made a show of yawning and stretching, then went off to her own bed. Curt was too absorbed to suspect anything about her feelings.

As she lay in the bed, Molly suddenly felt very alone. She had always prided herself on her mental toughness, and she in no way regretted the gift of intellect that she had been given. Never in her life, though, had she been subjected to the emotional jolts of the last week.

Curt had rescued her from the people trying to take her back home. They had done the unbelievable naked broadcast together. He had held her through the night of their captivity. This was the first time in her life that she had needed major emotional support, and he had been the most prominent provider of that support. The way she had heard it, he had told her that he was not interested in her 'that' way. How was she supposed to fall asleep to that?

Curt had eventually run out of kids to chat with and had slept for a very few hours. Without even an alarm, he was awakened early by the thoughts churning through his mind. He went in search of Jason, and found him outside in the crisp early morning air.

With hardly a 'hello', Curt said "I've got this crazy idea to help high-risk kids and stir up a lot of controversy at the same time." Jason was all ears to that.

"We would have to get some good legal advice, and you and your friends would have to spend some big, big bucks. The logistics may even be impossible."

"Curt, when selling, never lead with negatives or cautions."

"Oh, I'll probably never sell anything," Curt joked. "My idea was to provide a refuge from the Program for high-risk kids. Or maybe it would take lots of refuges. I don't know at this point."

Jason just stared at Curt for several seconds, then said "Define refuge."

"A place the kids could go to live to get away from the Program."

"So, it would have to be room and board, schooling, the whole works?"

"That's what I was thinking about," curt admitted.

"How would they get to these refuges?"

"Transportation would have to be arranged."

"How many kids?"

"That is very hard to say," Curt conceded. "Obviously, not everyone who wanted to escape the Program could be taken. How we decide who is high-risk enough I haven't figured out. I guess we would just decide how many we could handle, then start with what we decide are the most critical."

"You're right about one thing, Curt, it sure would stir up controversy."

"Would that kind of disruption be worth the money?"

"I should think so. I should think so," Jason said thoughtfully. "You're right about needing legal opinion, too. I'll get some folks working on the idea right away."

"Oh, I had one other idea," Curt said. "Do you think we could somehow find out beforehand who is up for the program each week at each school?"

"Every school? Wow! I don't know about that one. Let me get some folks started on the refuge idea and we'll talk some more."

Jason was back in about ten minutes. "Now, why would you want to know the Program list for the week ahead of time?"

"Well, if we had enough people, we could check with all of them and try to catch any high-risk ones," Curt explained.

"Even if we could get the information, wouldn't the schools catch on?"