Chapter 48

In the basement exercise area, Susan, redirected the conversation, wanting to know more about the girls being raped. "You say you were raped? All three of you?"

The girls nodded their heads.

"Oh, my. You poor darlings," she said as she stood and tried to gather them all in a group hug. Eventually she took each girl's face in her hands and touched her forehead to theirs. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." After a while and many tears between them, she sat down again, still occasionally dabbing at her eyes with the tissue that Whitney had gotten from the bathroom. "Are you okay ... I mean..."

"They checked us out at the hospital and said we were fine. They gave us something that would keep us from ... well, you know..."

"So you wouldn't be pregnant?" Susan quietly supplied.

"Uh huh," from Nat.

The girls pulled up seats of their own, as close as they could all get to Susan. "So you think Jeff, uh, Major Matthews, killed this person who raped you?"

"Yeah, that's what we overheard from two of the guys talking. Captain Madison was there, too. But we didn't see him much," Nat said.

"Captain Madison? How do you know he's a captain?"

"Because he flies a plane for Mr. Wainwright. He's captain of the plane," Whitney said matter-of-factly.

"Oh. So Jeff and this 'team' came to rescue you?"

The girls looked at each other. "We're not sure," Nat said. "They seemed surprised to see us. We think they were after the doctor and just found us."

"We kinda think it has something to do with Jill. We heard Jill thanking Captain Madison for killing the doctor, but we think she's wrong. We think it was Major Matthews who did it. Everybody did what Major Matthews told them to do, and when we got back to that base, some of the people there saluted him and called him Sir, really loud. We heard this other man who was dressed differently, tell Major Matthews, 'well done.' One of the people there told us that the man was a colonel."

"And how do you know that Major Matthews was to take care of you, and that this general sent you here?"

"Because Kayla told us so," Nicki said. "She said Major Matthews was to be our guardian, and he told us the same thing. But we came down here to ask you something," she went on before Susan could ask any more questions.

"And just what might that be?" Susan said as she smiled at them.

Nicki looked at her sister, then at her friend. "You do it," Nat said.

"Yeah," from Whitney.

Nicki hesitated, then leaning forward, "Uh, can we call you Meemi, like Arlene and the other girls do?"

"Sure," Susan said without hesitation. "I think that would be fine."

"Ask her," Nat said.

Nicki looked embarrassed. "Uh, that didn't come out just the way I wanted it to. I didn't say all of it. Uh, you know we're orphans. We've never known our mother or father. A lot of the other kids there are the same way. There are some, though, who knew their parents, and the kids wound up in the orphanage because their parents died and there was no one else in their family to take care of them. I guess that would be worse than not knowing your parents at all. I mean, they used to have a family and stuff, then their mom and dad got killed and they wound up with us. Those kids were always sad. But..."

"Ask her," came from an impatient Whitney.

"I'm getting to it. I'm getting there. Just wait." Nicki turned back to Susan, took a deep breath and said, "Diana is going to be our mother, and Major Matthews is going to be our father. Uh, we've never had a grandmother either. Could you ... I mean will you... be our Meemi?"

Susan opened her mouth to say she had already answered that when it dawned on her that they weren't asking if they could call her Meemi, they wanted her to be their Meemi. "Well, I, uh ... I'm only going to be here a couple of weeks. I..."

Susan sat staring at the three girls sitting before her — all now leaning intently forward. They were obviously very stressed, their faces showing deep concern and a longing that tore at her heartstrings. "Babies," she said, unknowingly calling them the same thing Jeff had, "I won't be here. I live in Miami. I transferred down there from Georgia after my husband died. I couldn't stand to live in the house with all the memories. It took quite a while to even fly from Miami to Denver. I got there late last night then stayed in a hotel until this morning. What good would a grandmother be that is so far away?"

The girls' look of anguish progressed to a look of sorrow. Tears again trickled down their cheeks. Susan stood and pulled them up into a hug again. "I have to go back. That's where my job is," she said, staring each one in the face. "I received a little insurance money when my husband died, but we had bills ... Uh, Diana has sent me a lot of money, but I just put it in another account and left it. I can't spend it. It isn't right. Jeff and I have never really gotten along. It seems wrong to take his money. So I have to go back to my job when my vacation is over."

"But, but ... We could write to you, and maybe talk to you on the phone every now and then, couldn't we?" Nicki asked. "Please be our grandmother. Arlene was so happy when she realized it was her Meemi in that car coming up the driveway. You'll be just as far away from her as you are from us. If you can be her grandmother, why can't you be ours?"

Susan hesitated a moment, her mind awhirl, then, "I'll..." She took a ragged breath, "I'll be your Meemi. I'll be proud to be your Meemi. We can talk on the phone. I have plenty of minutes on my cell phone and it won't cost anything to talk to you. We can e-mail, too."

The door quietly closed behind them as Meemi stood hugging her new granddaughters.

Diana started into their suite just as Jeff was coming out the door. She put her hands on his chest and said, "Back up."

He did so, laughing. "Okay, what's up? I'm just headed to run a few miles on the treadmill. I'm tired of busting my ass trying to run in the snow. No matter how many times I use the plow, there is still packed snow left. I can't sand the whole mountain. And besides, even if I did, I would have to do it again in a couple of days. I'm not getting enough exercise, so I've psyched myself up to using that damned treadmill again. Those things are boredom personified."

Back in the sitting room of their suite, "Not now. You need to wait awhile. Sit; we need to talk."

Jeff did his evil grin imitation as he sat on the couch. "That little phrase got your ass in trouble, remember?"

"You want something to drink?" she asked, ignoring him as she went over to the refrigerator.

"Yeah, I guess. Just give me some water," he answered, a little concerned when she didn't respond to his remark.

Diana took a bottle of water out for him and a small bottle of grape juice for herself. After handing her husband the water, she sat beside him, although she was wont to sit in his lap almost every time she had the chance. Jeff noticed that, too, but said nothing as he popped the cap off his bottle, then tossed the cap seemingly negligently across the room to land in the waste basket. He took a big slug of the water and waited.

Diana opened her grape juice and put the cap on the coffee table in front of them, but sat staring instead of taking a sip. Finally, "I walked into a conversation a few minutes ago when I went looking for my mother."

Jeff chuckled and crossed his legs. "She's badmouthing me about all the women I'm abusing?"

Diana seemed to ignore him again, then, "She just agreed to be your new charges' grandmother. Wasn't her idea, though. They practically begged her."

"I'll bet that went over well," he joked. "I remember her starting that Meemi thing when Arlene was just a baby so Arlene wouldn't grow up calling her Grandma, or Granny. She surely didn't want to be a grandmother then."

"But she has been," Diana broke in. "She's been an excellent grandmother."

"Yeah, I agree. No doubt about that. Let's see, she had you when she was what? Sixteen; I think I remember her saying that. Then you had Arlene when you were thirteen, just shy of fourteen. I guess she didn't want to be a twenty-nine-year-old grandmother. The Meemi stuck, though. What did she say to the girls?"

"Oh, she gave them some excuses, but she accepted before long. They were all hugging each other and crying when I left, but ... it's those 'excuses' that I want to talk about."

"What excuses? What's the problem..."

"My mother has been lying to me. And she's been doing a good job of it, too. Heck, I thought she quit her job when she got Dad's life insurance money and she moved to Florida. Then we sent her money right after we got out here. I've checked her bank account regularly, as you know. When it begins to get low, I've transferred money into her account."

"Yeah, I know all that, Di. What's the rub?"

Diana turned to fully face her Prime. "She hasn't spent any of the money we've sent her. She apparently somehow realized that I was checking her account balances. Heck, she gave me her passwords so I could transfer money into her account. I guess she figured I would check on her balances. She's been transferring the money we sent her into a separate account."

"So? It's her money. What's wrong with that?"

"Like I said, she hasn't spent a dime of it. She's just put it into another account. She's still working for the same company. She got them to transfer her to their Miami location. She never worked until Dad died, so her job doesn't pay well. She's little more than a clerk. Jeff, she's struggling. I heard her say — well, imply — that she spent most of the insurance money on bills she and Dad had. I think she lied about how much the insurance was, also. I suspect it was a lot less than I thought. I guess she didn't tell us because she thought ... Oh, heck, I don't know what she thought. My mother isn't living the life I assumed she was. While we're living here in this ... mansion, she's still working a clerk's job and living on that little bit of money."

"Why in the fuck isn't she using the money we sent her?"

"Because it's your money we sent her. I heard her tell the girls that the two of you never really got along, and it wouldn't be right to use your money because of that."

"But why didn't she just say so? Why go to the bother of transferring the money to another account?"

"I suspect she was keeping the money separate so she could give it back to us. Jeff, I check her account regularly. She doesn't just transfer the whole thing at one time. I would have noticed and gotten suspicious. She obviously thinks I'm checking on the balance, because she moves the money out in small enough increments and spaced over time so I won't figure out what she is doing."

"But why would she do that? It doesn't make sense."

"Pride, My Love. Pride," Diana answered, the sparkle of tears in her eyes.

I do not understand women, Jeff thought.

As if Diana could read his mind, "Think about Jesse and what we're doing to get him to accept something from us. And we're still worried that when he gets the truck, he will be so mad at us that he'll never come around us again. So don't start with that 'I don't understand women' thing you always spout off about."

"Di, you scare me when you do that."

"Do what?"

"Fucking read my mind."

Diana giggled at him. "Oh, I wish I could. I would love to know what makes you tick, but instead I just know you. When you get that look on your face, I'm usually pretty sure what you're thinking. And right now, You're thinking about relieving some of the pressure in these," she said as she pulled up her top. "See, I'm a mind reader," she giggled as his mouth soon tugged at her right nipple. "Oh, shit, that feels good."

A little later, the Queen lay with her head in her husband's lap, "I've been thinking."

"Thought I smelled something burning."

Diana smiled up at him. "Seriously, we need to get Mom to stay with us."

"Gun battles at dawn in the long hallway," Jeff chuckled as he pretended to look into a crystal ball. "That woman really does not like me. Plus, she has new ammunition to feed her anger. Now, I'm screwing her granddaughter, not to say anything about cheating on my wife with a bunch of hussies."

"Well, four of those 'hussies' are near and dear to her. She's been with Ann, Melissa, and Jennie so much over the years that I suspect she loves them almost as much as she does Arlene. She certainly isn't going to get any sympathy from them when she starts to criticize you for having multiple wives, plus ... she would be criticizing them as well. She's also been friends with Laura a long time; had to be as much as she took Ann around with her. So there's actually five that she dare not say too much about you in front of. And she knows I'll get my panties all bunched up if she says too much about you where I can hear."

Diana moved her head back and forth in his lap feeling his hard cock with the back of her head. Jeff adjusted his dick through his jeans, thinking it was bothering her.

She pulled a moue. "I was enjoying that."

Jeff chuckled. "Resting your head on a hard lump in my jeans can't be comfortable. Now what are we going to do about this?"

"Well, we could go in the bedroom and I could lean over the bed," she deliberately misinterpreted.

Jeff tweaked her nose with a couple fingers, chuckling. "That's not what I mean and you know it."