Chapter 15

[Rachel & Naomi] Early September

The late evening was not at all the usual time for new residents to enter the Tee. Norma was waiting, naked, to meet Rachel and Naomi, as she usually did for new entrants. She had also recruited Mary Hall to join her. It had been decided that the two newcomers would just be taken to their rooms, leaving all of the introductions and the tour until the next day. With a little shuffling of room assignments, mother and daughter were able to be housed next to each other.

The interesting and surprising thing was how easily both Naomi and Rachel were able to strip and enter the women's section. Discussing it with the staff later, Julia surmised that it was because of the subjugation they had lived under for so long. They had learned to do what they were ordered to do, suppressing any emotional reaction. There was brief speculation as to whether the Reverend had included humiliation and exhibitionism as part of his domination of his wife and daughter. Julia cautioned them against that leap of logic, though.

Both of the Matthews women were attractive. The Reverend himself was a tall, striking, well-built man with very manly features. With his force of personality, he had been able to woo and win Naomi, undoubtedly the loveliest among the daughters of believers in his little circle.

In her early fifties, Naomi was still slender. Her problem was that she appeared too slim and the cares of her beleaguered life had given her a slump and a slackness that was not flattering. The lines on her face were not laugh lines.

Rachel had received the best genes from both parents. Her problem was just as Cy had described her to Caz on the phone. She could very well have been Cy's little sister most of the time, rather than his mother. The cares of her beleaguered life did not seem to have affected her much.

Julia would later deduce that events around her pregnancy had caused Rachel to almost check out emotionally. Her own father had forced sex upon her numerous times. She carried a child when she should still have been enjoying childish things. She was forced to lie against someone she considered to be a nice boy, although she barely knew him.

Those emotional shocks plus the veritable straight-jacket of her home life had developed in Rachel a detachment that protected her from most of what went on around her. The two exceptions in her life were her baby and her mother. Actually, she had hated her mother for quite a while after the rapes - hated her for not stopping the rapes. It took almost until Cy was born for her to realize that there was nothing that Naomi could have done to stop it. Realizing that they were co-sufferers brought mother and daughter very close by the birth.

As she got older, Rachel was aware enough to appreciate the hell it must have been for Naomi to see her husband neglect her to bed her barely pubescent daughter. That realization strengthened their bond even further.

For her part, Naomi never resented her daughter for 'stealing' her husband's attentions. Rachel had had any little flirtatious trait beaten out of her so often as a little girl that there was no way she could have done anything to try to intentionally attract the Reverend's interest. Quite to the contrary, Naomi knew that Rachel feared and detested her father.

Seemingly oblivious to the pleasing sight her naked body presented, Rachel walked zombie-like toward their rooms until they walked past the hot tub area. Because of the very real concern over extreme trauma to the women, not only were all of the men absent, but the other female residents had been asked to stay in their rooms. It was not a great sacrifice, considering the late hour.

When Rachel saw the hot tubs, she stopped in her tracks, showing the first signs of awareness since she had started to undress. "Could ... could I?" she asked timidly, waving her hand toward the tub.

Thrilled at any sign of recognition, Norma led Rachel right into the tub, with Mary and Naomi following. That took care of the plan, and the rest of the late evening took some strange turns.

"Do you no longer consider yourself a believer, Mary?" Naomi asked after they had soaked for a few minutes.

"Oh, I have not given up or renounced my faith at all," Mary answered quickly. "You have to remember that I was forced here as an alternative to standing trial."

Naomi responded "I have to admit that I am only here to prevent William, Jr. from running away and taking his chances on the streets. I honestly believe he would have done that."

"Have you no confidence that you will be helped here?" Mary asked.

"This place is filled with un ... it is a totally secular place," Naomi said, thinking out loud. "I certainly don't expect to find any spiritual strengthening here."

"I want to say this carefully," Mary said, "as I have already overstepped my bounds once. One of the hardest things for me to accept here at the Tee was the way that so many people who do not profess to be believers demonstrated so much of what we think of as the love of Christ. It was particularly hard when we did not always see that love, or any love, from fellow Christians."

That comment caused Naomi to be quiet for a while, joining Rachel who really had not said anything since sitting down in the tub. Watching the younger woman, Norma thought that she seemed like a robot, just following along with everything that happened.

"Rachel, if you're concerned about your son, let me assure that he's in good hands. Did you know that Lindsey, the girl the place is named after, is Mary's daughter and my future daughter-in-law?"

"Oh. H ... how was it named after her?" Rachel managed to ask.

"It was her idea to start it and she is giving a great deal of money toward it," Norma explained.

"So you folks are wealthy?" Rachel asked Mary.

"No, not at all," Mary corrected, "but Lindsey is. She is a country music singer and she has had some very successful songs."

"And Mary wrote the lyrics for one of those successful songs," Norma added.

"I told you on the phone what we did to drive Lindsey away, didn't I?" Mary asked. "Well, while I was doing that, Norma," and Mary gestured at Norma, "showed my daughter what a mother-daughter relationship should be like."

"So, your son is engaged to Lindsey?" Naomi asked Norma.

"Yes, you'll meet him in the morning," Norma said, knowing the impact that statement would usually have on a newcomer.

"Oh, my!" Naomi said, flushing brightly, looking around somewhat frantically, and instinctively raising her arm to cover her breasts.

"Don't worry," Mary said. "Mark is the nicest young man you will ever meet. And Norma will be right with you for a few days."

"You ... your son ... you mean... ?" Naomi stammered.

For a while, the discussion concerned family nudity. Before long, though, Norma and Mary managed to move the subject toward more general topics about teenaged children. It was clear that even that subject was painful to Rachel, especially, so Norma kept introducing other subjects that a group of women should have been able to enter in to.

As it became more and more clear how limited and restricted the mother and daughter had been in their lives, Mary was filled with sympathy for them and some anger at what her own life had been like. But thinking about how she lived right then, she was confident that the environment of the Tee and the interaction with the other women would bring the same kind of change to the lives of Naomi and Rachel that she herself had benefited from.

The conversation continued long after the group of women had to leave the hot tub. Seeing the newcomers' thirst for simple conversation, Norma had a warm feeling that the Tee was about to 'fix' two more very troubled women.

[Cy] Early September

Cy's shock at entering Lindsey's Place for the first time was almost as great as that of his mother and grandmother upon entering Transformations. The place was unrestrictedly coed. Given that it was approaching midnight and that there were almost no rules concerning attire, his initial entry was a real eye-opener.

One of the three girls who greeted him was much more shy than the others and wore a bright crimson blush and a light robe. She hung back behind the others. The other two wore grins and sleep shirts, leaving Cy to wonder if that was all they wore. One boy that greeted him had on boxers and a T-shirt.

The ultra-strict home environment and his grandfather's constant harangues to 'be holy' had not driven Cy to rebellion as might well be expected. Instead, he had developed exceptional self-control for a sixteen-year-old boy. Ever since he could remember, he had realized that his mother was very needy and his natural instinct was to protect her. He knew that her mothering left much to be desired, but there was never any doubt about her love for him. In a house where displays of emotion other than the Reverend's 'righteous anger' were treated as sin, Rachel was very affectionate to her son.

Predictably, Cy's exposure to sex in any form was almost completely eliminated. Some of the things that the Reverend railed against to his grandson and from the pulpit, Cy had to try to find out about to even understand the sin that was being talked about. Given the strictness of his school environment and his inability to access such common things as the public library or the Internet, his research attempts were difficult at best.

Fortunately, the other boys in his school had more normal home environments than his - virtually every teenaged boy in the world did. Although often embarrassed, Cy asked enough questions to learn some of the basics.

As he walked into Lindsey's Place for the first time, Cy was only thinking that right then, his mother was naked. No amount of harangue could prevent a teenaged boy from wondering about his mother's body and fantasizing about seeing her naked. That Rachel was so attractive just made it more difficult.

It seems that all teenaged girls have attractive legs. After the trip in the limo, thinking about his mother naked, just the innocent view of the two girls clad in their sleep shirts caused Cy's penis to inflate. Muriel, the housemother, saw his predicament instantly and moved herself between Cy and the other kids to give him a hug. By the time she had pulled back to introduce herself, his embarrassment had overwhelmed his arousal and Muriel proceeded to introduce the other kids.

When Muriel came to Leah, the girl in the robe, she and Cy gasped simultaneously and shouted each other's names. They were classmates at the church school! Leah was barely able to explain their reaction to the others, but finally, the introductions were completed.

"I think you will find everything you need in your room," Muriel told Cy. Then, she joked "It won't take long to put away all of your belongings, will it. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I imagine a shopping trip is in order. There are plenty of suits around if you want to take a swim or soak in the hot tub for a while. I'm going to bed. The other kids can help you with anything else you need tonight."

Muriel hugged Cy again and walked away. He stood in total confusion, looking at his watch to see that it was midnight. One of the girls, Connie, told him "There really aren't any rules here, Cy. I can see by your expression that just like the rest of us, you've had enough rules to last ten lifetimes."

"I could use a soak," the other boy, Ted, spoke up. "Come on, Cy, let's find you a suit."

Cy's next challenge came when the girls joined them in the hot tub. Leah's two piece suit was quite conservative, but still showed lots of her furiously blushing skin and some very nice curves that Cy never suspected from seeing her at school and church. Connie and Libby had opted for bikinis. He was glad that he was already under water when they appeared.

The next three hours would be indelibly etched into Cy's memory. They all went from the hot tub to the pool, back to the hot tub, to the kitchen for a snack, then to the casual chairs in a nice sitting area. Before they gave up from sheer exhaustion, he had heard a summary of the other kids' stories.

When Connie laid down with her head in Ted's lap and he affectionately stroked her hair, they could all read Cy's look. "We're not a couple or anything," Connie said. "At home, I could never do anything like this with my brothers. I like Ted and I feel comfortable with him. Now, I can show it."

Just before they broke up, Cy could not help asking "Don't they really mind if we stay up like this?"

"The way I heard it explained is this," Ted answered. "The philosophy here is that we manage everything ourselves. That will only change if we show that we can't do it well. This is the first time we have stayed up this long, but it's the first time a new person has arrived in the middle of the night. I don't know about the others, but I would never do this on a school night."

The shocks from the first night were nothing compared to the next day. Libby knocked loudly on Cy's door at about nine. "Come on, Sleepyhead! The mall opens at ten and you need some breakfast."

When Cy arrived in the kitchen area, Leah was cooking eggs. Ted explained "Breakfast is the one meal we do for ourselves, plus any snacks. For lunch and dinner, we get the same food as the people in Transformations. Of course, a lot of lunches are at school. The sandwiches they make for us here are far better than anything at the school cafeteria."

At mention of school, Cy froze. If he went back to the church school, would his grandfather try to force him to come back? "Don't worry, Cy," Ted said, as if reading Cy's mind. "You'll get all enrolled on Monday. It's an OK school."

The surprises just kept piling up when Libby grabbed some car keys from a ring in the kitchen and they all piled into a minivan. "You have a car here?" Cy asked incredulously.

"Oh, no. It belongs to the house. They want us to have as normal a living experience as possible, so they will have a car for every four or five of us. Like everything else, it's up to us to decide who gets to use it, and when." Libby laughed, and added "I guess they figure if they stick with used minivans, there won't be much risk of racing or anything like that."

"Libby!" Leah admonished. "You know it's because they can hold lots of us." That brought a laugh from all of them.

"Do you have your license, Cy?" Connie asked. He just snorted in answer. "Don't worry," she told him. "They've got an approved school all lined up. I was the only one with a license when I came here."

"So you've all been here for a month or two?" Cy asked.

"I was the first," Connie answered. "It was pretty strange being here alone for two weeks with construction still going on and everything. Still, it was better than home. When Ted arrived, it got a lot better. I can't wait until this place is full."

"I don't have much money with me," Cy lamented. "I'll have to buy just a few things for school. I don't think my mom and grandma have much with them, either."

Connie waved a credit card at him. "We're under orders to see you fully outfitted. We'll be your style consultants, won't we, Girls?" That made all three girls giggle.

Shopping, shopping, and more shopping, then lunch in the food court. It was all a little disorienting to Cy, but he loved it. When the others led him to the theater after lunch, he was about to object. It was Leah, showing unexpected boldness, who took his hand and said "I felt the same way the first time. Just enjoy it. It won't send you to hell."

By the time the group returned to Lindsey's, as the kids had dubbed it, Cy was suffering from almost non-stop culture shock. Around the table, he asked "Did all of you have trouble with your parents trying to get you back?"

The other four recounted what had happened to them. "Don't worry," Libby said. "The lawyers have it all figured out. I had a PI accompany me to and from school for several days until some kind of restraining order was issued against my parents."

"My situation is weird," Cy told them. "You know Mom is right next door at Transformations. My grandfather will have gotten home by now and he will go crazy with all three of us gone."

"Who is your legal guardian?"

"Mom is."

"If your grandfather is not your guardian, there's nothing he can do," Libby opined.

"Libby's our 'jail-house lawyer'," Ted said with a chuckle.

"He may not have any legal right," Cy said, "but that won't stop him from making all sorts of trouble."

"Where is your father?" Connie asked. At seeing Cy's sad and confused expression, she quickly said "Sorry. Guess that's none of my business."

"No. No. If ... if you're willing to listen, I'd like to tell you all about it." This part of his story had not come up the night before.

Cy insisted that they all go to a seating area before he started his tale. Then, he told them everything he knew, up to his conversation with Caz.

"You sound like you don't believe the rape story," Ted observed. When Cy nodded, Ted went on "They'll get you a lawyer, here. Maybe you can get a paternity test to find out. I can't imagine how hard it would be not knowing something like that."

Since he had heard the rape story so many times, Cy had accepted it. When he inadvertently saw 'Carter Calloway' on his birth certificate, Caz became an object of hatred. In the last few years, however, he had experienced an uneasy feeling about the whole situation.

Of course, the Reverend had often referred to the rape publicly, glorifying himself by the magnanimous way he had handled everything. Perhaps because his negative feelings toward his grandfather were so strong, Cy was loathe to believe anything the man said. Add to that the strangeness of his home situation and by the time they fled the Reverend's house, Cy was no longer sure what to believe and who to hate.

During the conversation with Caz when Caz had claimed that he could not answer Cy's questions, Cy became certain that everything he had been told was false. Suddenly, finding out the truth about his origin became a mission.

"How could I pay for a lawyer?"

"You don't have to. It's part of the service."

"Where is all this money coming from?"

"From Lindsey. I'm sure she'll tell you her story and explain why she is doing this. The interesting thing is that her mother and dad come with her when she tells it. Her home life was as bad as most of ours, but now, her parents have turned completely around. It's because of Transformations." Libby had explained all of that.

"I ... I thought Transformations was just a place where Mom and Grandma could be safe for a while. Maybe it will really be a help to them," Cy mused. "Who do I talk to about a lawyer?"

"Muriel will handle it," he was assured.

"Um, Cy," Leah asked timidly, "do you want to go to church tomorrow?"

"Oh, I couldn't go back there," Cy answered quickly.

"No, not your grandfather's church. Now, I go to the one where Lindsey and her parents and Frank Schermer's daughters go. It's like all of the good things about our other church without the ... the..."

"Without my grandfather's screwed up views, you mean?" Cy said bitterly. "You said Frank Schermer's daughters? Are they involved here?" That led to a very animated telling of the whole Schermer saga. At the end, Cy asked "What if my grandfather tried to take me back? Is it safe for me to go anywhere, now that he's home?"

"Tell Muriel and she'll have an escort. She'll even drive us."

"Then, I'd love to go. I wish Mom and Grandma could go, too, but that won't happen."

[Rachel & Naomi] Early September

Saturday was no less of a shock to Naomi and Rachel than it was to Cy, just different. Their exposure to the other women came first. It was very hard on Naomi, but Rachel seemed to be still in her 'zone' and took it all without much reaction. Next came the exam by Ryan. As usual, his lab coat and professional demeanor seemed to take much of the shock and embarrassment away.

The initial picture session with Mark was, as usual, the first major traumatic exposure. As had happened a few times before, Naomi, in particular, was so consumed by the thought of Norma so nonchalantly naked with her son that her own exposure shock was somewhat muted.

Meeting the rest of the male staff, initial workout sessions, massages - all of the standard Tee activities took their toll, and by dinner time, even Rachel was looking glassy-eyed.

Early in the afternoon, Mary Hall had sought out Julia and asked to speak to her. "I know they're supposed to stay naked for the time they are here," Mary said, referring to Naomi and Rachel, "but I have a concern.

"Their faith and going to church have always been the center of their lives. Naomi, in particular, has a sense that by coming here she has, um, turned away from her faith. I think if I could take them to church with me and make sure the boy came along, it would have a very positive effect on them."

Julia sat pensively for a few minutes, then responded "Mary, that is an excellent analysis, and I appreciate your mentioning it. I had already been thinking about how we might allow some interaction between the women and Cy. In their situation, it doesn't seem appropriate right now to force them to meet with him naked."

"My guess is that after they're here a while, naked with the other guys, they will want to do that with Cy," Mary observed. "What about church?"

"I don't think I can make a permanent exception, but for tomorrow and maybe the next few Sundays, I think your suggestion is right on. There's another angle that is important," Julia pointed out. "By going out in public, it should give them much more confidence that they really are out from under Matthews' thumb. Encourage them to identify themselves when asked. Do not tell them that we will have a couple of Carl Plonske's people shadowing them."

"I've got to do some quick clothes shopping, then," Mary said, not even mentioning reimbursement. As Mary walked away, Julia experienced one of those treasured moments when she could clearly see the positive results of the radical program she had undertaken.

Mary chose to inform Naomi and Rachel in a fairly dramatic way. Leaving the dinner table a little early, she laid out the clothes she had gotten for them on each of their beds, along with a Bible. When the after-dinner conversation broke up, she took them back to their rooms, showed them the clothes, and explained what had been arranged. When she mentioned Cy, Rachel's zone was broken into for almost the first time, and she collapsed in grateful tears.

Lindsey and the Schermer sisters were on tour that weekend, so it was just Mary, Floyd, Naomi, Rachel, Cy, and Leah in the group that went off for church.

Cy had waited outside the entrance to the Tee and engulfed his mother in a huge hug when she came out. Still hugging Rachel, he wrapped an arm around Naomi as well. Then, he introduced Leah.

"You're Norman's daughter, aren't you?" Naomi gasped. It turned out that Leah's father was an elder in the church. Somehow, the girl's presence made a real impact on mother and daughter, emphasizing the change in life that they had chosen.