Chapter 12

"Mother, are you really happy now?" Margret asked as she sat at the kitchen table while Teresa dried and put away the last of the lunch dishes. Taking the last cup of coffee from the pot, Teresa sat down across from her daughter.

"I assume you are talking about either my man, your sisters or the new baby. Probably all three," she smiled softly.

"The simplest answer is yes. I am happier than I have ever been before in my life." She paused and took a sip. "But my guess is you are asking how I could be happy with all this and that's not quite so simple.

"I suppose to begin with there is Marlin," she said as her eyes went slightly out of focus and a dreamy smile settled lightly on her lips. "I'm not sure how I can describe him. He's kind, loving, passionate and smart. Oh my God, Maggie, you can't know how smart he is! You know all those books stored in your old room? He's read every one of them and remembers everything he read! It's actually kind of scary sometimes. Tess says he has the most beautiful mind she's ever felt. She will sit there for hours rubbing his face or his hair ... You know that's how she gets the clearest picture, don't you? Anyway she'll sit there for hours feeling his mind as they talk about everything under the sun."

"That's just not natural ― a grown man spending that kind of time talking to a seven-year-old," Margret muttered.

"He's not just talking to her, Maggie. He's teaching her," Teresa pointed out after taking another sip. "She asks him questions and he does his best to answer her. He tells her right up front that there are some things she just isn't ready to understand even if she knows the facts about them, but he goes ahead and does his best to explain it to her anyway. Let me tell you they get into some subjects I cringe to think about trying to explain ... But he seems to do it easily. He is a natural teacher. If this world were fair he would be in a classroom somewhere and not roaming all over this God-forsaken place looking for recruits for that Agency of his."

"That's another thing I don't understand: how you can ever talk to him let alone ... sleep with him knowing what he is," Margret frowned.

"It's because that's what he does and not who he is, honey," Teresa smiled. "He has no more choice in doing what he does than you did when you were raped."

"I don't want to talk about that," Margret snapped.

"I know, dear. But that's part of what he does with us," she said calmly. "Everything is talked about; nothing is hidden. He says that by talking about it you demystify the subject and make it easier to deal with. You don't make it go away and you can't always solve it but you can take some of its power over you away.

"But enough of that. He told us not to push you on that subject at all and if he found out I was talking about it with you I just might find my bottom blistered like Melody did the other night. I don't care what he says about not spanking a pregnant woman."

"He hits you?" Margret started to get angry. "He hit Mel?"

"No, dear," Teresa finished her drink. "He spanked her. She was extremely nasty and spiteful to you the other night and he reminded her of proper manners. True it is her ... troubling time of the month but that didn't make it right. She knew she was wrong and she knew she deserved it."

"What? When she said he should declare me over the limit and send me to the Agency?" Margret was momentarily distracted.

"He really hates that part of his job and he refuses to joke about it and to use it out of spite ... She will apologize once she gets back to being herself, I'm sure."

"But he hit her? For that?" Margret blurted out.

"No, he spanked her like the ill-mannered child she was," Teresa replied calmly.

"I hope she smacked him from here to tomorrow for even trying that," Margret harrumphed.

"No, but she did get a little ... excited," Teresa chuckled. "I'm not sure if he will ever realize that it's not quite the punishment he thinks it is. Or maybe he does and he does it because of that. It really is only for a reminder, after all.

"But that's getting a little too close to very private matters that are only for the four of us," Teresa continued. "Let's just leave it that I am very, very happy about how everything is going between us and I believe your sisters feel the same way."

"We damn well know he's happy about it," Margret muttered.

"We certainly hope so." Her mother's smile disturbed Margret. It was too much like what she would have expected from some slutty school girl that had just been laid by the entire field-ball team.

"Now, as for the little darling in here," Teresa chuckled and patted her still flat stomach. "I'll admit I was a bit flustered at first. After all, starting over with the baby-making when my youngest is already a grown woman took a few minutes to get used to. But..." Teresa's eyes glistened and a single tear slid down her cheek as she reached out and grabbed her daughter's hand, hard.

"I'm going to break the rule again damn-it," she sniffed. "And if my bottom has to pay for it later, then so be it." She took a deep breath and said slowly, "When you were pregnant with Tess the thing I regretted the most wasn't that you had been raped and that monster had made you with child but that you never got to feel what it was like to carry inside of you the baby of the man you love.

"Every time I think of this little darling I think of the man that put him or her there and how much I love him and how much he loves me..." She paused for a moment to sniff and collect herself. "And I love this little thing so much it hurts sometimes. Am I happy about the baby, Maggie? No. I am so far beyond happy I don't even know what to call what I'm feeling."

"I ... I don't understand," a very pale Margret croaked hoarsely.

"I know my darling and that make me so very sad." Teresa tried to smile. Suddenly the outside kitchen door opened and Marlin stomped in followed by a grinning Malinda.

"Watch out everybody, Mr. Grumpy-Bear is home," Malinda announced.

"Bad trip, dear?" Teresa asked.

"Yes," he replied curtly and then sighed and hugged her from behind giving her a kiss from around the side. "Which is not a reflection of the company I had, by the way."

"He had to send someone on to the Agency," Malinda filled in.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Honey," Teresa patted his hand where it came around her. "It wasn't someone we knew was it?"

"Trish, we know just about everybody here in the shire," Malinda chuckled. "How could it not be someone we know? Anyway it was one of the Hempfield boys; the oldest I think. That was Mike, right?"

"I believe so," she agreed.

"Anyway I told this big idiot that Mike was happier than a pig in shit to be heading to the capital and not mucking out some sty for the rest of his life but he won't believe me," Malinda poked Marlin in the side.

"Still doesn't make it right," Marlin muttered. "He has no idea what he's getting into."

"Maybe not but he sure as hell knows what he's getting away from," she poked him again. "And at least it's not the army press gangs scooping him up."

"There is that," Marlin grumbled an agreement.

"Anyway it took five whole minutes wiggling my ass in his face last night before he ... Oops, sorry," Malinda quickly covered her mouth with her hand when she realized Margret was in the room.

"You always were the shire slut," Margret sneered and Marlin started to protest.

Malinda uncovered her mouth and gave her sister a sad smile while placing her hand on Marlin's shoulder to stop him.

"You're right, Maggie," Malinda continued while standing up straight. "I was the shire slut and I was even worse than that in Brighton. I hated men so much for what they did to you I did everything I could to hurt them back just as much or more. I lured them in with my Talent and I used sex as my weapon. I hurt them ― oh God did I hurt them ― but you know, I hurt myself as I was doing it even more.

"So you're right; I was that slut but I'm not that person anymore," Malinda nodded to herself. "I met a man that didn't care about the slut, the bitch, the whore. He looked inside of me and saw there was someone there that was worth saving and he saved me..."

"You saved yourself, Mandy," Marlin said softly as he stood up and put his arms around her.

"No, my darling, my love, my life," Malinda gazed back at him. "You saved me. You were tricky and manipulative and sometimes downright deceitful but you saved me. If it weren't for you I would probably be dead right now or wishing I were.

"And you see, Maggie," she looked back at her sister. "He saved me knowing everything I was and while he was saving me I fell in love with him. I am doubly blessed in that as I was falling in love with him he was also falling in love with me.

"I've had sex with so many men so many times I couldn't begin to count them. But you know? I've never had sex with Marlin, never. Every time I'm with him it's been making love. It may sometimes be really loud, nasty, raunchy making love but it's still making love," she said with a crooked grin. "Call me a slut if you want; I don't care. That's what I was, not what I am and not what I'll be in the future. What I'll be is his wife and hopefully the mother of some of his children. Which I would have been the first," she leaned over and nipped his ear, "if he hadn't knocked up mom."

"I think Melody would have had something to say about that," he winced.

"Yeah, well, I'm older and bigger than she is," Malinda boasted with a grin letting go of him.

"So big sister, call me anything you want. I don't care. There are only three people who I give a crap what they think of me and you ain't one of them. Four, I suppose, if you count Tess and I guess I have to but then she knows me better than I know myself even if she does cheat.

"And by the way," Malinda leaned over the table putting her face close to her sister's. "I haven't told you this yet but if you ever try that witchy shit with my man again you're going to be gumming your food for the rest of your life because I'm going to knock every fucking tooth out of your head."

"Malinda!" Marlin gasped.

"Oh! Am I going to get a reminder tonight? Goody!"

"I told you it isn't the punishment he thinks it is," Teresa whispered as an aside to her shocked eldest daughter.

"Please be nice," he sighed and shook his head. "It wasn't her fault and you know it."

"Like I care about fault," Malinda sniffed and flipped her hair over her shoulder. "I'm going to take a shower and get some of this road dust off me." Looking back over her shoulder she batted her eyes at Marlin and asked, "Would you care to join me, Mr. Servant of the Empire?" With that she strolled out of the kitchen rolling her hips with cat-like indifference to who was watching her.

"Can I ask you a question?" Margret had come up behind Marlin as he was laying boards out on the ground preparing to fasten them together into a new barn door.

"Sure," he answered without looking up. "I may not answer any particular question depending on what it is but I don't mind if you ask anything."

"Fair enough," she nodded. "How bad do you really think this investigation thing will really be?"

"Good question," he said putting down the drill as he finished the pilot holes in the cross supports. "I'm not sure I can answer that. It depends on how you feel when you think of your attack now."

"I don't think of it at all," she responded grimly. He glanced up at her and then went back to working on the door. Changing the bit in the drill to a screw head he asked, "Even in your nightmares?" When she didn't answer he looked up and she was shaking with rage. He sighed and began hand threading the screws into the tiny holes.