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Call Girl Cheerleaders - Part 3
By Richard Bissell (address defunct)

***

A guy falls into a relationship-for-money with a high 
school cheerleader that soon grows into a group thing 
that then flowers into a romantic relationship between 
him and the girls. (M/f+teens, bi, mast, oral, anal, 
orgy, prost)

***

Author Notes: Adults only, no prudes. If you don't like 
sex stories containing teenagers engaging in weird 
perversions, or you can't separate truth from fiction, 
get lost. The author does not advocate or condone 
anything that goes on in this story. 

This story is mine. You can repost it or archive it 
only if 1) you don't change it, 2) my name and this 
disclaimer remain attached, and 3) you aren't making 
money off it. That includes posting it on some slime-
ball banner farm web site. Yes, that means you! 


CHAPTER THIRTY
--------------

Whatever Giselle's parents were thinking, neither of 
them showed up at the house again. Giselle settled in 
as well as could be expected, and my concerns about 
worsening Hayley's mood proved unfounded. She didn't 
improve, mind you--but neither did she get any worse. 

I did my best to make sure she knew we all cared about 
her, and I kept telling myself that it would simply 
take time. She might have been on the cusp of womanhood 
(sixteen was older nowadays than it had been when I was 
her age), but she had undergone a couple of major 
upheavals, and it was unrealistic not to expect her to 
be affected. 

Marianne fell happily into her role as the "mama-san" 
of the household, taking over some of Elizabeth's 
responsibilities toward Hayley and working to keep 
everything running smoothly. Giselle, for her part, 
carried her end of the load. Recognizing that it was 
important for her self-esteem, I accepted the twenty-
five bucks a week she insisted on giving me out of her 
salary from working at a nearby pharmacy. It might have 
been lunch money for me, but it meant something to her, 
so I took it. 

A couple of weeks later, Hayley asked me to come to a 
pep rally at their school to watch her cheer. The 
school's basketball team had just made the playoffs, 
and both squads would be there. So Friday morning, I 
took a couple of hours off and drove over to their 
school. 

I wasn't sure what to expect, but when I got to the 
gym, I saw a small group of parents sitting at one end 
of the bleachers. I found a seat near the top. Luckily, 
Giselle's father didn't appear to be there. 

The J.V. squad came out first, and Hayley led them in a 
series of cheers, doing their best to rev up the 
students. I noticed her smiling at me a few times, and 
when they were done, she gave me a little wave. 

Marianne and the varsity girls came out next, and as 
she was leading the squad in a cheer, I had a sudden 
flashback to my own high school days. Sitting on a 
bleacher much like this one, forlornly watching Beth 
Dunbar dance and prance around our gym. Knowing that my 
feelings for her were pathetic and pathetically 
unrequited, but unable to control them. I didn't know 
what to call it now--irony, poetic justice, or 
coincidence--but here I sat having both her daughters 
madly in love with me and eagerly climbing into my bed. 

I wondered, not for the first time, if I should ever 
tell Marianne the whole truth. I wanted to, simply 
because I didn't like keeping secrets from her, but I 
had no idea how she would react. A sister-sister trio 
appeared to be no big deal to her. Mother-daughter 
would probably be something else, even if I had never 
so much as laid a finger on Beth Dunbar, on her shiny 
Marcia Brady hair and her overloaded sweaters. I had 
*wanted* to, that and so much more, and that might be 
the important element to Marianne. 

I came out of my retrospection to realize that someone 
nearby was glaring at me. It took me a moment or two to 
recognize him: Randy, Marianne's ex-boyfriend, who sat 
a few rows down. He maintained the glare for another 
second or two, then looked away. 

When the pep rally finally broke up, Marianne gave me a 
wink and ran off with the other cheerleaders. She and 
Hayley knew better than to approach me in front of 
everyone -- we had discussed the importance of 
discretion -- so I wasn't disappointed with their 
limited attentions. I filed out of the gym with the 
parents and student and went back to work. 

I had a very demanding job, and I normally ate lunch at 
my desk, even on days when I hadn't spent two hours out 
of the office on personal business. I was buried in a 
pile of SEC disclosures and due diligence reports 
around twelve-fifteen when my intercom buzzed. 

"Yeah?" 

"Steve, there's a Tiffany Michaels here to see you." 

Whoa, I thought. Some kind of emergency? 

"Send her back." 

Tiffany appeared in my office about a minute later. She 
wore jeans and a spandex cowl-neck T-shirt, but more 
importantly she also wore a sly grin that eased my 
concern, whatever she was doing here in the middle of 
the day. She closed the door behind her. 

"Hi, Steve." 

"Tiff. Dare I ask what you're doing here this time of 
day?" 

"I'm here on orders from your girlfriend." 

My jaw dropped slightly. 

"Oh." 

"I asked her to give me something really wild and 
daring to do. A slave thing, you know? So she told me 
to come here and give you a bj. And I have to carry 
your cum back to school in my mouth and show it to her 
afterwards." 

I gulped. 

"I'm pretty busy here." 

She stepped around my desk and pushed her way between 
my thighs. 

"I'll be quick." 

Not waiting for anything else, she dropped to her knees 
and unzipped my slacks. I glanced at the door, then at 
the windows to my office. I had a big corner suite with 
floor-to-ceiling windows, but thankfully the outside 
was heavily polarized. My real concern was someone 
walking in on this. 

Tiffany found my dick and sucked it into her mouth. I 
was completely limp at first, still half in shock, but 
she went to work getting me up. I leaned back in my 
chair and put my hands on her head. As I began to 
erect, she worked on me more purposefully, long smooth 
strokes to the back of her throat, holding it there 
until she started to gag, then dragging her teeth over 
the underside as she withdrew. Up and down she went 
like that for several minutes. She held the base of my 
erection with one hand and played with my balls with 
the other. 

As she felt me growing close, she began doing a little 
dance and flutter over the head with her tongue, 
spinning it around, then plunging back down as far as 
she could go. I groaned, my hands turning to fists in 
her hair. She withdrew a little, holding just the head 
between her lips and tongue, and began sucking and 
bobbing rapidly. This eager lingual massage soon had me 
on the brink. I gasped, convulsing in my chair, and 
spurted off into her mouth. She sucked it up as it 
came, pumping out the last bits with her fist. 

She leaned back, smiling, and returned my deflating 
dick to my pants. She zipped me up and stood. 

"Thanks," I gasped. She smiled as best she could with a 
mouthful of semen, gave me a little wave, and left. 

I had caught my breath after a few minutes and tried to 
get back to work. At two-fifty, my intercom buzzed 
again. 

"Marianne," the receptionist said. She knew about our 
relationship, just not how young my girlfriend really 
was. I picked up the phone. 

"Hey." 

"Did you like your little present?" 

I laughed softly. 

"You could say that." 

"She was jonesing for me really hard this morning, you 
know, doing her slave flirting thing. She wanted me to 
give her something daring to do. So I thought of you." 

"Did she really go all the way back to school with, 
um..." 

She giggled. 

"Yep. I told her to come back with a mouthful of cum or 
it didn't count. I don't know how she managed to do it, 
but she did. That was her lunch today. That and a Diet 
Coke. She didn't get back in time for anything else." 

"Jesus." 

"She had fun. She really gets off on this stuff." 

"I've noticed." 

"I'll let you go. I've got to get to class. I love 
you." 

"You too, Kitten." 

I got home that night to find the three girls making 
dinner. I kissed each one in turn and got myself a beer 
from the fridge. Marianne looked up from the salad she 
was making. 

"Babe? You know that our Spring Break is in a week, 
don't you?" 

"You're going up to see your mother. There's no 
discussion about that." 

"I know, but you're coming with us, right?" 

"You need some quality time with your mom. I don't want 
to get in the way of that." 

She and Hayley looked at me entreatingly. 

"Babe, you know she lives in the dorm," Marianne went 
on. "We can't stay with her. We have to get a hotel 
room anyway. Can't you just come with us, just to be 
there? You won't have to do anything." 

"Clear it with your mom first. And don't lean on her 
about it." 

"I already did. She doesn't mind. She wants to see you 
too. I called up there and found us a room near the 
campus." 

"I can stay here and housesit," Giselle said. "I won't, 
like, throw a party or anything." 

"Okay. I guess that will work." 

Marianne and Hayley both smiled. 

"Thanks." 

After dinner, I called the hotel Marianne had found and 
got a suite with enough room for all three of us. I 
also called Elizabeth to touch base, and she assured me 
that she didn't mind having me up there. I wondered how 
she had gotten to this apparent friendliness from 
initially wanting to castrate me. It occurred to me 
that it might be some form of rationalization, since 
having me in her daughters' lives allowed her to free 
herself from hers and pursue a long-suppressed desire. 
Then again, she might just like me after all. 

That Friday, I returned home to find Marianne, Hayley, 
and Tiffany lounging around the den watching 
television. 

"Where's Giselle?" 

"She and Ashley went out," Marianne said. "What do you 
feel like doing?" 

"I'm a little punchy. I'd rather just hang out at home 
tonight." 

"That's cool," Hayley said. "We couldn't decide what to 
do either." 

"Wanna order a pizza?" Marianne asked. 

"Sure. Go for it." 

I went upstairs to change clothes, and when I returned, 
Marianne and Hayley hadn't moved, but Tiffany was on 
the floor in front of the TV set, poking through the 
adult videos. She looked up when I came in, face tinged 
ever so slightly with embarrassment. 

"Porno night?" I asked. 

"Could we?" 

"I'm down with it," Marianne said. "Pick something 
out." 

I squatted down next to Tiffany and rooted through the 
collection. Given her predilections, I had an idea 
about what might be good tonight. Buried in the back, 
as I hadn't watched it in years, was Andrew Blake's 
"House of Dreams," a random, artsy exploration of BDSM. 

I put in the tape and sat down on the couch between 
Marianne and Hayley. Marianne pulled me back to lie 
against her chest, and Hayley lay back against me. 
Tiffany took the chair across the room as the tape 
started. 

The movie was framed as long dream sequence, with the 
main female character moving from one kinky encounter 
to the next, fantasizing about being both a Domme and a 
sub. Marianne and Hayley found it amusing, Hayley more 
than Marianne, but Tiffany was positively transfixed. I 
nudged Marianne about a third of the way through. She 
smiled and hugged me. 

"Knew it," she said softly. 

The pizza arrived while the movie was still going, and 
we ate as we watched the rest of it. It finally ended 
just before nine. 

Marianne sat up behind me and stretched. She turned 
slowly toward Tiffany and leered. 

"Did you like that, slave?" 

Tiffany glanced over at us, and though she was already 
very turned on, I could see the aroused flush on her 
chest deepening. 

"Yes." 

"Go get into uniform. I need you tonight." 

Tiffany practically jumped off the chair and went for 
her purse. She carried it into the downstairs bathroom 
and shut the door. Hayley watched her leave and then 
looked back at us, eyes wide with fascination. 

"What is she doing?" 

"You'll see. Do you want her?" 

Hayley quivered very slightly. 

"You mean--" 

"Do you want her to fuck you? Eat you out? Something 
like that? She will if I tell her to." 

Hayley gulped. 

"Um. Sure." 

"Get up. Stand over there." 

Hayley got off the couch and stood in the center of the 
room. Tiffany emerged a few moments later, having 
stripped completely naked. She wore nothing but the 
nipple clips, her clit leash, and a deeply aroused 
flush. 

She came up to the couch, but Marianne waved her off. 

"Give your leash to Hayley." 

She did. 

"Now undress her." 

Tiffany helped Hayley out of her clothes, and Hayley 
was soon as naked as she was. She grinned at us 
nervously, then turned to Tiffany. 

"Eat me." 

Tiffany dropped to her knees in front of her. Hayley 
spread her legs a few inches, and Tiffany reached up to 
take Hayley's butt in her hands. 

Marianne and I lay together, watching Tiffany's tongue 
working busily in Hayley's blonde pussy. Hayley was 
soon groping at Tiffany's head and moaning, rocking her 
hips back and forth. Tiffany was short enough that she 
had to tip her head back to get her tongue in position, 
and that gave us a perfect view of what she was doing. 

We watched for a few minutes as Hayley grew closer and 
closer to orgasm. The scent of arousal, Hayley's and 
Tiffany's, was thick in the air, as thick as Hayley's 
ragged breathing. Marianne squirmed under me, and I sat 
up. She wriggled out of her top, then her jeans, and 
got to her feet. 

Hayley cried out, legs buckling, holding Tiffany's face 
tightly against her sex. She shook in orgasm for as 
long as she could stand it before staggering backwards 
and collapsing into the armchair behind her. Tiffany 
smiled, wiping her mouth quickly, and looked toward 
Marianne. 

"My turn. Come here." 

Tiffany turned around and crawled up in front of 
Marianne. Marianne stepped forward over her mouth, and 
Tiffany was soon back to work. 

I stood and removed my clothes, watching Marianne 
groping at her breasts, hanging her head back and 
gasping at what Tiffany was doing. I glanced at Hayley, 
who was resting in the armchair, watching them 
languidly. 

Tiffany's tongue was blur against Marianne's clit and 
labia, and she brought her to orgasm in a only a minute 
or two. Marianne struggled to remain standing, gripping 
Tiffany's hair in her hands, refusing to let her stop. 
Finally she jerked away, lost her balance, and dropped 
unsteadily to the floor. 

"Shit. Shit." 

Tiffany glanced at me, grinning at what she had done 
and waiting to see what I wanted. I had a feeling that 
Marianne had some kind of script in mind, so I stayed 
where I was. I could see between Tiffany's thighs from 
where I stood, and she looked so wet and turned on that 
she was probably dripping onto the carpet. 

Hayley slid to the floor and crawled up next to 
Tiffany, sitting back on her ankles as Tiffany was 
doing. She ran her fingers through Tiffany's hair a few 
times, then leaned forward to kiss her. Tiffany let 
her, not moving, but returning the kiss. Hayley leaned 
further forward, pushing Tiffany onto her back, and 
crawled above her. 

She broke the kiss after a few more seconds, and slid 
down to suckle at Tiffany's pierced nipples. Tiffany 
moaned softly and put her arms over Hayley. 

Marianne rose up on her knees and slithered over in 
front of me. 

"Having fun?" 

"Always." 

She took my erection in one hand and pulled it to her 
mouth. She sucked on me rapidly, tormenting me 
mercilessly with that damned stud in her tongue. She 
looked up at me the entire time, watching my reaction 
to what she was doing. I had to grit my teeth and 
tighten the muscles in my legs to keep from losing my 
balance. 

Behind her, Hayley had descended between Tiffany's 
thighs, and was now doing her best to return the favor. 
Her tongue fluttered slowly but steadily over Tiffany's 
bald sex, flicking at the stud, pushing it back and 
forth. Tiffany was writhing on her back, pinching and 
pulling on the studs in her nipples. 

Marianne suddenly withdrew. 

"Go fuck her." 

"Who?" 

"Hayley. Right now." 

She pushed me toward her sister and then crawled over 
toward Tiffany. As I positioned myself behind Hayley 
and slipped between her firm thighs, Marianne threw her 
leg over Tiffany's head and squatted down on her mouth. 

Thus I got to watch this daisy chain in front of me as 
I thrust into Hayley, Hayley eating Tiffany, Tiffany 
eating Marianne while still punishing her nipples with 
her fingers. Marianne was facing me, and her eyes bored 
into mine, trying to join with me through the bodies 
between us. Hayley was soon bucking back at me, and 
Tiffany began to thrash between the two blondes. She 
shrieked and came hard, but only broke her rhythm 
eating Marianne for a few seconds. I felt Hayley's 
fingers brushing my balls as she played with herself. 

Marianne suddenly leaned forward over Tiffany, pushing 
her head down next to Hayley's. The two girls were now 
eating Tiffany in unison, two tongues thrashing at her 
clit from different directions. It only lasted a few 
more seconds though, before Marianne reared back again, 
gripping her big breasts, and came all over Tiffany's 
face. 

That was too much for me, and I cried out myself, 
pounding Hayley's butt from behind. I shuddered, 
spurting off inside her, just as I felt her coming 
around me. I pushed her forward onto Tiffany as I 
coasted down, and Marianne leaned forward to kiss me. 
She frenched me deeply for a few seconds before 
giggling. 

"That was fun." 

I could only grunt at her. I pulled out of Hayley and 
rolled over onto my back. Marianne flopped down next to 
me. I watched as Tiffany pulled Hayley up to her mouth 
and lapped up the cum that was oozing down her thighs. 
When she had it all, she dug her tongue into Hayley, 
seeking the rest of it. Hayley giggled, shivering over 
her. 

Marianne leaned over to whisper to me, smiling. 

"Tiff is under standing orders not to let your cum go 
to waste. If you don't come in her mouth, she's 
supposed to clean it up from wherever you did." 

I laughed softly, watching her work. When she was done, 
Hayley flopped over and lay across my chest. Tiffany 
got up and went to get a bottle of water from the 
refrigerator, which we then passed around. The 
satisfied grin on Tiffany's face told me more or less 
what I needed to know, that whatever she was getting 
out of this weird relationship with Marianne, she was 
clearly enjoying herself. 

Marianne stood up and stretched. 

"Let's go upstairs." 

The rest of us got up and followed her up to the master 
suite. I lay down on the bed watching them, and Hayley 
sat next to me. Tiffany stood in the center of the room 
awaiting instructions. Marianne seemed to have 
something in mind, so I stayed where I was. 

She motioned to Tiffany, who dropped to her knees and 
closed with my girlfriend. Marianne reached down to 
caress Tiffany's head as she began eating her again. A 
little tremor ran through Marianne's body, but she 
remained where she was, smiling at me. 

Suddenly she stepped back. 

"Go get on the bed, on your hands and knees next to 
Steve." 

Tiffany complied at once, climbing onto the mattress 
and kneeling on all fours. Marianne came around the 
side and lay down, reversing herself next to Tiffany. 
Getting the point, Tiffany crawled above her so they 
were in a sixty-nine position. The two of them 
immediately began eating each other. 

I glanced at Hayley, who was just grinning in 
amusement, then back at Tiffany. I lay on my side to 
watch her eating Marianne. She pulled her hair around 
to clear my view and positioned herself so I could see. 
Her tongue spun and fluttered around Marianne's clit, 
and she used a free finger to fuck her gently. I 
couldn't see what Marianne was doing, but she had her 
hands up on Tiffany's butt, holding her closely. 

A minute or two of this show was enough to restore my 
erection. I pulled on Marianne's legs, trying to get 
the two girls diagonal on the bed. Marianne seemed to 
know what I had in mind, and she squirmed over a few 
feet. Tiffany moved with her. I crawled up between 
Marianne's legs, and Tiffany took my cock and guided it 
into Marianne. I twisted myself to the side to allow 
Tiffany room to continue what she was doing. Marianne 
let out a groan from between Tiffany's thighs as I 
slipped into her. 

I had forgotten about Hayley until she jumped off the 
bed, giggling, and ran into the dressing area. I had no 
idea what she was up to, and I was too distracted from 
the feel of Marianne around me (not to mention the 
sight of Tiffany licking busily away at the pussy I was 
fucking) to think much about it. 

About a minute later, Hayley reappeared, and I let out 
a laugh. She was wearing the strap-on dildo, and she 
climbed onto the bed at the opposite end. I heard 
Marianne laughing, but she helped Hayley slip the dildo 
into Tiffany. 

Now I was fucking Marianne, Hayley was fucking Tiffany, 
and Tiffany and Marianne were frantically eating each 
other. I grabbed Marianne's buttocks, lifting her up as 
I thrust at her, and Hayley vigorously pumped Tiffany's 
ass, making her head bump against my abdomen. Watching 
this perverse scene in front of me was too much, and I 
rapidly lost myself in the sights and sensations. 

Marianne began thrashing in orgasm not long into it, 
and Tiffany joined her moments later. I looked up at 
Hayley, whose face was fogged in arousal. She seemed on 
the brink of orgasm herself, and a second later I saw 
why. Marianne had one hand up between Hayley's legs, 
obviously fingering her as she fucked Tiffany. Hayley 
and I stared at each other as we neared our release, 
and when she cried out, pounding Tiffany's buttocks, I 
groaned out loud and poured myself into her sister. 

One by one, we fell away from this mass coupling. 
Tiffany moved up the bed, crawling around between 
Marianne's thighs to lap up the cum that oozed out of 
her. Marianne lay motionless on her back as Tiffany 
licked and probed at her sex, holding one hand on 
Tiffany's head. But when my cum had all disappeared 
into Tiffany's mouth and she slowed her attentions and 
tried to withdraw, Marianne stopped her. Getting the 
point, Tiffany went instantly back to work. Marianne 
whimpered, pulling her closer, and after a minute or 
two of rapid tongue-lashing, she lifted off the bed one 
last time in orgasm. 

We rested for a few minutes, laughing over what Hayley 
had done with the strap-on. The girls eventually got 
dressed, and I went in to kiss Hayley good night while 
Marianne showed Tiffany out. 

"That was a lot of fun," she said. 

"You doing better? Not so sad anymore?" 

She nodded slightly. 

"I still miss my mom." 

"We're going up to see her next week. You'll have all 
the time with her you want." 

"I know. Thanks for coming with us." 

"How are things at school? Giselle mentioned a while 
back that you're getting some teasing because of our 
living arrangements." 

She looked away from, shrugging. 

"It's no big. I can deal with it." 

"You know I'm around whenever you need me." 

"Yeah. Thanks." 

I kissed her and went back into the master bedroom. 
Marianne was lying in bed with a conflicted look on her 
face. 

"Something up?" 

She didn't look at me right away. Then she rolled on 
her side to face me. 

"I'm having an 'X-Files' moment. But I should have 
expected this." 

"Something bad?" 

"That depends on your perspective. It's... a 
complication more than a problem. It's kind of neat in 
a way. But it's still a complication." 

"Enough. Spill it." 

She sighed. 

"Tiffany... just now, on the way out... she told me she 
loved me." 

Now I got it. 

"Oh." 

"Right. Not friend-love, you understand. Love-love. 'I 
want to jump your bones for the next fifty years'-kind 
of love." 

"She meant it?" 

"I saw it in her eyes. She meant it. I guess this 
little mistress- slave thing we have going has really 
gotten to her. I think I've pushed some serious buttons 
inside her with it." 

"How did it happen? What did you tell her?" 

"We were just at the front door, and I was going, 'I'll 
call you tomorrow' or something, and she took my hand 
and squeezed it. Then she looks at me all puppy-dog 
eyed and says, 'I love you.' I was in shock at first. 
She knew she had caught me by surprise, so I don't 
think she was hurt by that. But what *could* I tell 
her? Of course I told her I loved her too." 

"Do you?" 

She rolled on her back and exhaled in frustration. 

"God. As if I don't already have to divide my emotions 
between you and Hayley and Giselle. I certainly love 
her in a best-friend, I've-known- you-since-grade-
school kind of way. Beyond that... I don't know. This 
routine we've gotten into is a lot of fun, and I enjoy 
being with her. God knows I don't want to hurt her. But 
love... that's a whole different story. I've never been 
in love with a girl. How do I even know if I am?" 

"I don't know if it's significantly different than 
loving someone of the opposite sex. Not that I have any 
experience at it myself." 

"But you know what love is, right?" 

"Love, to me, is a willingness to take direct action to 
place someone else's happiness above your own. To make 
real sacrifices for their sake. It's not just a bundle 
of feelings." 

She smiled. 

"That's how I know you love me and Hayley." She laughed 
softly. "And I guess that works for Tiffany loving me. 
I don't know. I need to think about this." 

"But it doesn't bother you?" 

"No. Why should it? Like I said, it's kind of neat. I 
just need to decide what I'm feeling." 

I hugged her. 

"Okay. Sleep on it." 

She stayed in my arms, and I turned out the light a few 
minutes later. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE 
------------------

Spring Break began a week later. After school that 
Friday, we left Giselle in charge of the house and 
drove up the coast to Santa Cruz. This was Spring Break 
week for U.C. as well, and the roads were clogged with 
students fleeing both the campus near our house and the 
one in Santa Cruz. I had gotten us a room in a resort 
in the hills above the city, overlooking Monterey Bay. 

We checked in just before seven and called Elizabeth 
from the room. She was going to meet us for dinner in 
the main building, and the girls spent the next half-
hour or so getting ready. I could tell from their 
excited chatter and concern over their look for the 
evening that they were really looking forward to this, 
and I had to stifle a sensation of guilt. But was I 
really keeping them away from Elizabeth? This crazy 
living arrangement of ours was her damned idea. 

When we reached the lobby, Elizabeth was already there 
waiting for us. The girls ran to her with a squeal, and 
the three of them hugged each other tightly. I came up 
more slowly behind them, not wanting to intrude. They 
hugged and kissed and clucked over each other for about 
ten or fifteen seconds before finally letting go. 
Elizabeth put out her hand. I extended mine, and she 
squeezed it. 

"How are you, Steve?" 

"Good. You?" 

"Wonderful. It's so good to see you guys." 

Hayley and Marianne each took one of her hands, and we 
walked toward the restaurant. I had made reservations, 
and we were soon seated at a corner table overlooking 
the bay. 

For most of the dinner, the women were engrossed in 
each other, and I stayed out of it. Marianne was 
clearly happy to see her mother, but it was Hayley who 
displayed the most dramatic change, beaming and 
giggling and laughing about everything they talked 
about. I thought again about my suggestion to Marianne. 
About moving up here. Marianne wasn't the one who 
really needed this; it was Hayley who was simply too 
young to be separated from her mother. Marianne was on 
the verge of going to college herself, and absent my 
involvement, would probably have moved out fairly soon 
anyway. 

It would be a big step. I had understated the effect 
that moving would have on my job. I would, most likely, 
have to leave the firm I was with, or at the very least 
change my relationship with them. I was not quite 
wealthy enough yet to retire, not the way I wanted to. 
And the nice real estate in this area was not cheap. 
But--I kept coming back to the feeling that I owed it 
to Marianne and Hayley. God knew they had given enough 
of themselves to me. 

We stayed at the restaurant very late and then wandered 
aimlessly around the hotel grounds. Only when Elizabeth 
insisted that she was exhausted and needed to sleep did 
the girls agree to let her go home. We made plans to 
get together the next morning and then went up to the 
room. 

I had, at Marianne and Hayley's request, gotten a 
single king bed. They flopped onto the mattress 
together and continued discussing their mother and what 
they wanted to do this week while I got undressed. 

For the next few days, the girls visited with Elizabeth 
while I explored Santa Cruz on my own. Marianne 
initially wanted me to come along with them, but she 
didn't need much convincing that they deserved some 
time alone. 

While they were with their mother, I was checking out 
the local real estate. I quickly discovered that what I 
really wanted was simply out of my price range right 
now. I had always had this dream of retiring to a ranch 
somewhere along the coastline, where I could sit on the 
porch and watch the sun set over the ocean, and, just 
maybe, watch my future wife and children riding a horse 
around the yard. That was still a ways off, and if I 
wanted to move up here, it wasn't going to happen now. 
The hard part was that if I left my job to move to 
Santa Cruz, I might never get to the point of being 
able to afford that ranch. 

What had I told Marianne? Love was a willingness to 
take direct action to place someone else's happiness 
above your own. How much did I really love the two of 
them? Enough to give up that dream? 

As much as I tried to fight it, I knew the answer was 
yes. 

Thursday afternoon, I was taking a nap in the sun on 
the patio outside our room when I was awoken by the 
feel of someone's lips pressing against my own. I 
opened my eyes to see Marianne standing over me, 
kissing me. 

"Hi." 

"Hey. You guys get back already?" 

She smiled. 

"No. Mom and Hayley wanted to go shopping down by the 
boardwalk. I told them was too tired, which is true. 
But I also wanted a little time alone with you." 

She sat in my lap and leaned against me. I put my arms 
around her. 

"What have you been doing all this time while we've 
been out with Mom?" she asked a minute later. 

"It's a secret." 

She giggled. 

"I love secrets. Tell me." 

"You can't tell Hayley. Not yet, not until I'm sure 
this can happen." 

"What is it?" 

"I've been pricing the local real estate." 

She sat up, amazement spreading across her face. 

"Really?" 

"Really. But there is a problem. I wasn't entirely 
truthful with you about my job. If we move up here, 
I'll probably have to leave. At the very least, I'm not 
going to be making the same amount of money I am now." 

Her forehead creased slightly. 

"Would it be that much less?" 

"It depends on a few things I would have to work out 
with them. But we're talking about anything from a 25% 
cut in pay to being completely unemployed. I could, 
conceivably, transfer to the San Francisco office and 
commute from down here, in which case my job wouldn't 
much change. But that would be tough on all of us." 

"That's a long way." 

"Some people do it. But it is." 

She sighed and looked past me toward the ocean. 

"I'd be seeing more of Mom and less of you." 

"Right. Possibly a lot less." 

"What would happen if you quit? Or found something to 
do for less money?" 

"We would still be comfortable. But there's another 
issue." 

I explained about my retirement idea, and what I wanted 
to do with the ranch. Her eyes took on a wistful glow. 

"That would be pretty neat. I'd love to live in a place 
like that. I know Hayley would too. We would have 
horses and animals and stuff like that?" 

"That's the idea." 

She didn't say anything for a few moments. 

"I don't want you to give up that dream for our sakes." 

"I don't want you to give up your mother for my sake." 

She curled back up on my chest and took my hand between 
hers. She kissed it softly. 

"We don't have to decide now, do we?" 

"I guess not." 

We lay together for a few minutes before she began 
kissing my neck. I rolled over, holding her beside me, 
and kissed her nose. 

"They'll probably be back soon," she said. "So if you 
wanna..." 

I grinned. 

"I wanna." 

She giggled, and I kissed her again. We were much too 
exposed on this patio, so after a few minutes, I picked 
her up and carried her inside to the bed. We wriggled 
out of our clothes in a few minutes, kissing and 
fondling each other. I played with her big breasts 
until I had her nipples standing out like little 
pebbles. She took my erection in her hand and stroked 
it softly as I explored her body. 

She sat up suddenly beside me and bent down to take me 
in her mouth. She bobbed slowly, working her tongue and 
its stud against me. Her breasts hung down as she bent 
over me, and I reached under her to tweak her nipples. 
When I reached further in, finding her moistening 
blonde mound, she giggled around my cock and withdrew. 

"I love you so much." 

"I love you too, Kitten." 

I rolled her on her back and kissed my way down her 
body, suckling each nipple once, greeting the kitten 
tattoo at her bikini line, then finally settling 
between her thighs. She let me lick at her for only a 
minute or two before pulling at my arms, wanting me on 
her and in her. I obliged. 

I sank slowly into her wetness as she wrapped her legs 
around my butt. I kissed her deeply as I filled her, 
making her whimper through her nose. 

Having her mother around had changed the mood for our 
first few days in Santa Cruz, and we had not made love 
in almost a week. So this was simple, take-out sex. I 
could hold off only until I felt her back arching under 
me, felt the tremors of her sex around my erection. I 
drove into her as far as I could go, spurting deeply 
inside her belly. 

She sighed contentedly as I lay on top of her. 

"Mmm. I missed you." 

"I missed you, too." 

She looked up at me, smiling. 

"I will live wherever I have to, as long as I have 
you." 

"I think that's my line." 

She laughed softly. 

"We'll work it out. Somehow." 

We cleaned up and got dressed none too soon, for Hayley 
and Elizabeth arrived soon afterward. I saw Elizabeth's 
nose wrinkling when she walked in the room, and I 
watched the corners of her mouth crease slightly in 
amusement as she glanced at the bed (which was still 
made, but now rather rumpled). We exchanged a look, but 
that was all. 

The next day, we all went down to Monterey to the 
Monterey Bay Aquarium. The Aquarium was housed in an 
old cannery building, and the local environmentalists 
liked to showcase the place as a successful transition 
from industry to eco-tourism. We spent an hour or two 
walking around and looking at the exhibits before going 
out back to watch the staff feeding the sea lions when 
the tide came in. 

I stayed near the back with Elizabeth as the girls 
pressed in with the other spectators to watch. I 
quietly explained my idea about moving up here, but she 
was shaking her head before I even finished. 

"No, Steve. I can't let you do this. Buying them cars 
is one thing. Even that is far more than you ever 
needed to be doing for them. But I cannot let you quit 
your job and sell your house just for them." 

"You can see how they are. They really miss you. Hayley 
especially." 

"I know that. But there are things in life you simply 
have to deal with. I knew this was going to be a 
sacrifice. So did they. I would not have done it had 
they rejected the idea." 

"Marianne wants to go to school up here. What do we do 
then?" 

"I don't know. I have nowhere to put them. I am living, 
very frugally, off a part-time job and my half of the 
proceeds from our house. I cannot afford even a two-
bedroom apartment, not the kind of place the girls 
would tolerate living in." 

I thought of offering to help, except that I knew she 
would never accept it and that even making the offer 
would offend her. 

"You know them pretty well now. Do you think they would 
be happy going from your house to sharing a bedroom in 
a ratty little apartment outside campus?" 

That much was obvious. 

"No." 

"I need for them to stay with you, at least for now. 
They may not realize it, but it's for their own good." 

"We could move to San Francisco. Or somewhere closer 
where I wouldn't disrupt my job." 

She shook her head again. 

"No. I'm sorry." 

I sighed. 

"Okay." 

She rubbed my shoulder and then leaned in to kiss my 
cheek. Despite everything that was going on at that 
moment, a million things that were more important, the 
seventeen-year-old Steve in the bowels of my mind 
turned a cartwheel. ("Beth Dunbar kissed me! She 
finally kissed me!") But I did my best to ignore him. 

"It means a lot to me that you'd make the offer. But I 
can't let you do it." 

I nodded, watching Marianne and Hayley squealing and 
laughing as they were splashed by one of the sea lions. 
Maybe some of this happiness would come back with them. 
Maybe. 

That night, after eating dinner with Elizabeth in the 
hotel restaurant, the three of us were lying in bed 
watching television. Hayley lay beside me, head on my 
chest, while Marianne painted her toenails. 

"When are we going back?" Hayley asked. 

"Sunday morning. You guys have got homework to do." 

"I wish we could stay." 

Marianne glanced at me. 

"Me too," I said. "But your mother needs to be able to 
concentrate on school." 

Hayley didn't catch, or wasn't watching, the concerned 
look in Marianne's eyes. I shook my head at her slowly, 
and she looked back toward the television a second 
later. 

"We can come up again this summer, right?" 

"Definitely." 

Hayley was quiet for a few moments. 

"Do you think we could ever move up here?" 

Marianne's head shot back around. 

"It would be tough, Little Kit. I don't know what I 
would do about my job." 

"You've got a lot of money already, don't you?" 

"I do. But not enough to retire on." 

Marianne finally spoke up. 

"It would be really hard to make it work, short stuff. 
And Mom needs her space right now." 

Hayley whimpered, frowning, and I tried to hug her. But 
she pulled away from me and rolled over to her side of 
the bed, curling up and staring away from us. I glanced 
at Marianne, who rubbed my leg sympathetically. 

The phone rang about ten minutes later. I reached over 
toward the nightstand and picked it up. 

"Hello?" 

"Steve? It's Giselle." 

"Hi. What's up?" 

"Have you been checking your messages today?" 

"The voice mail? No." 

"Well there are about six messages from some guy from 
your work. I think his name was Jake. He was really 
excited about something." 

"Whoa. What did he say?" 

I heard her rustling around the phone. 

"I tried to write this down, but I don't know if I got 
it right. It was about something like Nesterm or 
Nestern." 

My heart skipped a beat. 

"NexTerm?" 

"Yeah, that was it." 

"Oh, God." 

"What's wrong? Is it bad?" 

"Uh, don't worry about it. I need to go call him back. 
Thanks." 

"No problem. Bye." 

I hung up and jumped for my Palm V organizer. I didn't 
know Jake's home number off the top of my head, but I 
found it soon enough. When I went back, I noticed 
Marianne staring at me strangely. 

"What was that?" 

"I need to make a phone call." 

It would have taken too long to explain. This was 
either very good--or very, very bad. 

Jake answered on the third ring. 

"Hey, Jake, it's Steve. What's going on?" 

He laughed. 

"Oh, man, did you hear?" 

"No. I'm on vacation. I haven't been in touch." 

"It's about your little project, the one you told me 
about and I stupidly neglected to buy in on." 

"What happened?" 

"Cisco is buying them out, man. They made the offer 
this morning." 

"Oh, Jesus." 

"'Oh, Jesus' is right. You know what the damn offer 
was? Forty!" 

Oh, my God. My million-dollar investment had just 
turned into four overnight. 

"You think they'll get it?" 

"No way in hell. It's shot up twenty points already. It 
closed at thirty-three and three-eighths this 
afternoon." 

"Holy shit." 

He laughed. 

"I should have listened to you, man." 

"I guess so." 

"If you don't mind my asking, how much have you got?" 

"Uh, about a hundred thousand." 

"Damn. That should be some nice pocket change. Be 
enough to pay off your mortgage, I bet." 

I realized what he was thinking. 

"Uh, Jake, I was talking shares, not dollars." 

Silence. Then-- 

"Are telling me you have a hundred fucking thousand 
shares of NexTerm?" 

"Thereabouts." 

He laughed in disbelief. 

"Jesus *Christ,* man! What were you thinking?" 

"I don't know." 

"Well, you hit the fucking lottery, Steve. You just hit 
the fucking lottery." 


CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 
------------------

"What was all that about?" Marianne asked when I 
finally hung up the phone. 

I shook my head as if it wasn't anything important. It 
was way too soon to tell them about this. 

"Some problem at work. I'll deal with it when we get 
back." 

Saturday was our last full day there, and I could see 
Hayley falling back into her depression as the day went 
on. I tried to comfort her, but she wasn't in the mood 
for it and avoided me. We spent much of the day walking 
around the Santa Cruz boardwalk and then had dinner 
back at the hotel. 

Not wanting to risk generating unrealistic 
expectations, I managed to avoid spilling the secret 
about NexTerm. But if Hayley was in a funk about having 
to go home, I was in a lather of anticipation about 
what would happen on Monday when the market opened. 

Sunday morning we got up early and packed in silence. 
Hayley spoke to me only once, when the "express 
checkout" statement appeared under our door. She picked 
it up and walked over to me with it. 

"What is this?" 

"The bill. So we can just sign off on it and go." 

Elizabeth showed up to see us off, and the girls cried 
and hugged her repeatedly before we finally left around 
ten. Hayley went straight to her room when we got home 
and stayed there until dinnertime. Marianne spent the 
rest of the day working on accumulated homework while I 
tried to digest the development with NexTerm. 

Cisco was unlikely to get them for forty or anything 
close to it. For a buyout like this, the NexTerm board 
of directors would most likely insist on a price higher 
than it had ever traded at, which meant at least 63. 
The problem was that that might be more than Cisco 
wanted to spend. 

I got up early Monday morning to check the market 
activity in New York. NexTerm was already up to 35 1/4 
and trading heavily. I could bail out now and make a 
tidy profit of about two-and-a-half million, although 
the capital gains taxes would take a chunk of that. I 
wanted more, though. 

I sat there staring at my computer screen, watching the 
prices scroll along the bottom. Cisco was up too; the 
analysts seemed to like the acquisition idea. If I held 
on, and the deal went through, it would probably 
involve some kind of stock swap, and I would end up 
with a pile of Cisco in exchange, which was a pretty 
nice thing to have these days. I had a bunch of it 
already. 

"What are you doing?" 

I turned around to see Marianne behind me in her 
nightshirt, blonde hair sticking in every direction, 
rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. 

"I just needed to check something before I went to 
work." 

She turned around, still half-asleep, and went back to 
the bedroom. I got up a minute later and began getting 
dressed for work. 

I came home that afternoon to find Marianne and Tiffany 
lying out by the pool. Both of them were topless. 
Marianne had on a bright yellow thong, and Tiffany sat 
next to her in patterned bottoms, rubbing suntan oil 
over Marianne's chest. 

"Guys." 

"Hi, Steve." 

I kissed Marianne hello, and she looked up at me with 
amusement in her eyes. 

"I decided that it's time to start working on my tan 
again. Tiffany came over to help." 

"Don't get burned." 

"I have Tiff to rub sunburn lotion on me if it 
happens." 

They exchanged a look, and I knew then that what 
Marianne had told me about a few weeks before was true. 
A slight linger in the glance, something secret passing 
between them, a little curve to Tiffany's lips. Then 
Tiffany looked up at me, eyes bright and full of life. 
The studs in her nipples glinted in the sun. 

"Do you want me to get you anything, Steve?" 

"A beer wouldn't hurt. I need to go change." 

She hopped off her chair and preceded me into the 
house. When I came back down to the pool, there was a 
Sam Adams waiting for me on the table beside Marianne. 
I lay down in the chair across from Tiffany as she 
finished oiling up my girlfriend. 

"You guys should be hearing about college soon, right?" 

Marianne nodded. 

"Any day now." 

"Marianne and I applied to some of the same places," 
Tiffany said. 

"I think we've settled on UCSC as the first choice?" I 
asked. 

"Yeah," Marianne said. "However we work it out." 

"Wouldn't it be cool if we both got in together?" 

She glanced at Tiffany, smiling. 

"That would be pretty cool. I wonder if they have a sex 
slave sorority we could join." 

They both laughed, but when the laughter subsided, they 
noticed me watching them. Tiffany's face darkened 
slightly. 

"Um, Steve, look. I'm not trying to muscle in on your 
thing with Marianne. She told me that you're number one 
with her, and I can accept that." 

I exhaled slowly. 

"Okay." 

"I don't want to break you up. I know she loves you and 
that you make her happy. I'm not trying to take her 
away from you." 

Marianne took her hand and then mine. 

"We had room in our lives for Giselle. Don't we have 
room for Tiffany, too?" 

I laughed softly. 

"She'd have to sleep on the couch. I think we've run 
out of bedrooms." 

"I didn't mean like it that. I meant--" 

"I know. But I think so. If it's what you want, we can 
make it work." 

"It is." 

"Thanks." 

Tiffany came over and hugged me. 

"Thanks, Steve." 

Tiffany stayed for dinner, and with graduation two 
months away, she and Marianne appeared to be in no mood 
to bother with their homework, what little they had. 

"I feel like doing something weird tonight," Marianne 
said after the dishes were done. 

"Like what?" 

She grinned slyly. 

"Do you remember that first afternoon I came over here, 
when you mentioned something about a strip bar?" 

"Oh. Yeah. Why?" 

"Could we go?" 

"We?" 

"You, me, and Tiffany. It's eighteen and over, right?" 

"Well, not the topless bars, but the nude bars, yeah, 
since they can't serve alcohol. You really want to do 
this?" 

"I think it would be cool. Me and Tiff could get 
dressed up and all these guys would be drooling over 
us." 

My stomach did a flip-flop. 

"I don't want you spontaneously tearing your clothes 
off. Never mind that we'd get thrown out, I'm not 
interested in exposing you in a place like that." 

She smiled again. 

"Not me. Tiffany. I'll dress classy, but I'm going to 
dress her in full slut mode, on her leash. It will just 
be a tease. We won't do anything stupid." 

"Does she know about this?" 

"We talked about it. She's hot for it." 

"Monday is going to be a slow night." 

"I know. That's cool. That way we won't be totally 
outnumbered." 

I chuckled. 

"Okay. Let's do it then. This sounds like fun." 

Marianne found Tiffany, and I went up to Hayley's room 
to tell her we were going out. She was a little shocked 
at the idea, but displayed no disappointment at being 
left out. She claimed to have too much homework to do 
anyway. 

I found Marianne and Tiffany in the master suite. 
Marianne was down to bra-and-panties, and Tiffany was 
nude. They were poking through Marianne's clothes and 
deciding what to wear. 

"What is this place like?" Tiffany asked. "I've never 
even been near something like this." 

"Picture twenty men staring catatonically at some 
bleached blonde with breast implants and no pubic hair 
as she dances around exposing herself. That's about all 
it is. It's far less exciting than you might think. 
Half the time it's as erotic as watching a pelvic 
exam." 

"You mean the guys aren't hooting and hollering and all 
that?" 

"Never seen it. I don't know what it is about those 
places, but I've never seen anyone really go crazy. 
They just sit there and stare at the girls." 

"Wow." 

"Have you been to a lot of them?" Marianne asked. 

"Now and then, when I got lonely and horny. But it's a 
bad habit. I probably went about once or twice a year 
before I met you." 

"The girls just dance around on the stage?" 

"That and they'll do private dances for another fifty 
bucks. You go in the back with them and they'll writhe 
around with you on a couch." 

"That's not illegal?" Tiffany asked. 

"I think it is some places. Not everywhere. The idea is 
that they can touch you, but you can't touch them. In 
reality, a lot of mutual touching goes on. It all 
depends on how comfortable the girls are about it." 

Marianne was pensive a moment. 

"Do you think they'd do a private dance with us?" 

"With a girl? I bet some of them would. They certainly 
have no problem doing two-girl private dances." 

Tiffany giggled. 

"You did that?" 

I tried not to blush. 

"On occasion." 

"What do they do?" 

"Depends on the girls. Some of them will just simulate 
having sex, others will really get into it." 

"Seriously? They'll eat each other out right in front 
of you?" 

"Sometimes." 

They giggled nervously at each other before returning 
to the clothes. They fiddled around in the closet for 
another few minutes before settling on Tiffany's 
outfit. Marianne began with black stockings and a 
garter belt, then a black leather microskirt that 
stopped right at the stocking tops. If Tiffany stood 
perfectly still, the stockings were not really visible, 
but if she moved at all--let alone sat down-- they 
immediately came out from under the leather. 

Tiffany grew more and more excited as Marianne dressed 
her, and I watched her chest flushing and her nipples 
growing hard around their silver studs. 

Marianne examined her for a moment longer before 
reaching into the closet. She extracted a green silk 
blouse, which she had Tiffany put on and tie up under 
her breasts. The fabric was thin and clingy enough to 
make Tiffany's nipples and her piercings blatantly 
obvious. Marianne fastened one button so that Tiffany 
was not completely falling out of it. 

"What do you think?" 

"Nipple clips." 

"You think so?" 

"Why not?" 

Marianne found the nipple clips and reached into the 
blouse to attach them. Now Tiffany had a silver chain 
suspended across her cleavage. 

"Perfect," Marianne said. "What about me?" 

I thought for a moment. 

"What about those white stretch pants you have? And 
that leather top with the tassels?" 

"Mmm. Good idea." 

She stripped off her bra and replaced her panties with 
a tiny little thong. Once back in her closet, she 
donned this pair of stretch pants I had seen her wear a 
few times. The fabric was some cotton-lycra blend, 
tight enough to define the crack of her butt, and they 
were low- cut enough that her kitten tat was visible 
just below her bikini line. 

The top was a sort of tan leather corset/vest that 
laced up across her breasts, pushing them up and 
together. It reached down only to about the bottom of 
her rib cage, but dozens of little leather tassels hung 
across the front. It was a good Domme look without 
being completely out there about it. The two of them 
finished up with their hair and make-up, and we left. 

This strip bar was in the seedier section of town, well 
away from the tourist and retirement areas near the 
beach. It wasn't far from the University, and I knew 
(from prior experience) that they got a lot of traffic 
from the students. 

I stopped on the way to get a big wad of cash, but we 
got there just after nine. The bouncer gave Marianne 
and Tiffany (and her clit leash) only a mild glance as 
I paid the cover. 

Tension lined the faces of both girls as we stepped 
into the club, however much they were trying to act 
nonchalant. The lights were low except around the pit, 
and loud, thumping dance music overlaid everything. 
Only about ten or fifteen men were inside, nothing like 
the crowds they got on the weekends. Up on the stage, a 
thin brunette with painfully huge breasts (they looked 
about to burst from the implants) danced around the 
pole. She braced her leg on the rail and used one hand 
to pull apart her labia for a man at the edge. He 
stared at her blankly. 

Out in the club, a half dozen of the girls moved 
around, dressed in slinky outfits, soliciting private 
dances. A few of them noticed us, smiled, and went back 
to work. 

One by one, the men in the club noticed Marianne and 
Tiffany. I saw no discernible reactions in their faces, 
but several of them stared openly, especially at the 
silver chain running from Marianne's hand up under 
Tiffany's skirt. 

A waitress appeared and guided us to a table near the 
pit. There was a two-drink minimum here, and I ordered 
two bottles of mineral water and four Diet Cokes. 

The girls sat rigidly beside me, eyes fixed on the 
stage. 

"Is anyone staring at us?" Marianne asked quietly. 

"A few. But don't forget you're not naked. You aren't 
the reason they're here." 

In truth, by this point, most of the men were looking 
back toward the pit. We still got idle glances and 
occasional stares, but that was all. 

"No one is going to bother you," I said. "At worst, 
they'll just keeping watching us." 

Gradually, the two of them began to relax and look 
around. Tiffany got into it faster than Marianne did, 
but soon they were bobbing their heads to the music and 
watching the girls on the stage. I watched the dancers 
circulating in the club, and though most of them looked 
in our direction from time to time, none of them came 
over. 

The girls would dance down to their thongs for one 
song, then naked for another. After each song, you were 
supposed to tip them a buck or two, and I gave Marianne 
and Tiffany a roll of ones for tips. I wasn't sure if 
this was turning them on at all, but they seemed to be 
having fun, whispering comments to each other or 
giggling when the dancers got close or bent over to 
expose themselves to us. 

"You know, you're right," Marianne said after we had 
been there about ten minutes. 

"About what?" 

"The guys here. They're like, all stoned or something. 
I can't believe this." 

"I told you." 

I looked back up at the girl in the pit. She was a cute 
blonde--maybe twenty or so--with a trim, athletic body 
(and no implants, which I liked). The gold ring through 
her clit twinkled in the blinking lights above. 

She was working her way around the pit, giving each 
patron a good look at her, and when she got to us, she 
smiled broadly--a fairly genuine smile, which told me 
she had probably been doing this for a while. She 
crawled up to the rail in front of Tiffany, leaning out 
of the pit, and stuck her tits in Tiffany's face. 
Tiffany watched her, wide-eyed, but didn't move. 

The girl glanced down at us, and I saw her eyes 
widening at Tiffany's clit leash. Then she rolled over, 
spreading her legs almost ninety degrees apart in front 
of Marianne. She stared directly at my girlfriend--who 
was watching raptly--and fingered herself for a few 
seconds. Then she rolled over again, stuck her butt in 
my face briefly, and moved on to the next patron. 

When her dance was over, we all tipped her. She smiled 
and thanked us, then went into the back. 

We were watching another dancer about five minutes 
later when the blonde girl reappeared at our side, 
dressed in a long, sheer gown. She leaned in between 
us, smiling. 

"Hi. I'm Kathy." 

"Steve. This is Marianne and Tiffany." 

"You guys having fun?" 

I noticed a stud in her tongue as she spoke. 

"So far. This is their first time in a place like 
this." 

She laughed. 

"So what do you think? Pretty wild, huh?" 

Marianne giggled nervously, but Tiffany answered. 

"I like it." 

"Would you guys care for a private dance?" 

The girls glanced at each other. 

"With us?" Marianne asked. 

"Any of you." 

"What about all of us?" 

She smiled. 

"It's one at a time. But if the other two of you wanted 
to watch, that would be okay." She looked at me. "Have 
you been here before?" 

"Yes. I know the rules." 

"Okay. Who's it going to be?" 

"Tiffany," Marianne said. 

Kathy smiled at her. 

"Cool. I like all those piercings you've got. I'm 
guessing that leash is attached to one?" 

Tiffany smiled nervously. 

"Yeah. Thanks." 

Kathy reached for the leash, and Marianne handed it to 
her with a grin. She led us to the back, where a 
curtain concealed the private dance cubicles. We stood 
in a clump waiting for the current song to end. Kathy 
examined the leash for a moment, then gave it a playful 
tug, making Tiffany giggle. 

For the first time, I saw looks of real interest from 
some of the men, and I knew they were wondering just 
what we were about to do. Frankly, I was wondering that 
myself. 

When the song ended, Kathy pulled the curtain aside and 
led us into the back, still holding Tiffany's leash. 
The cubicle we ended up in was about eight feet by ten 
feet, with a cheap vinyl sofa taking up most of the 
space. On the opposite wall was a mirror. I peeled two 
hundred- dollar bills off the roll in my pocket and 
handed them to Kathy, who smiled. 

"Four dances?" 

"Take your time." 

She guided Tiffany to the couch and had her sit down. 
Marianne and I stood back to watch, and she took my 
hand. Kathy pulled off the sheer gown she wore, and 
climbed onto the couch to straddle Tiffany's legs. She 
was saying something to her, and though I couldn't 
quite hear it over the music, I knew the gist of it: 
Relax, let me do everything. 

Tiffany leaned back on the couch, still tense, but 
excited, as Kathy began to writhe against her. She 
kissed her tenderly, moving her hands over Tiffany's 
breasts. She spent the first few minutes just rubbing 
herself against the other girl or bracing her leg on 
the back of the couch to display her shaved pussy. 

As the first song began to end, Kathy slid to the floor 
in front of her, and reached up to untie the knot in 
Tiffany's blouse. She undid the one button and spread 
the blouse open. Marianne's hand squeezed mine tightly. 

Kathy extended her tongue, exposing the stud, and 
wiggled it over Tiffany's left nipple, clicking their 
studs together. Then she sucked nipple and stud into 
her mouth. She looked back at us, smiling around 
Tiffany's tit, then withdrew. She performed the same 
operation on Tiffany's other breast. 

Tiffany was breathing heavily now, eyes closed, arms 
spread out on the back of the couch. Kathy continued to 
suck on her nipples or play with her breasts for about 
a minute. Then she withdrew, and reached down to spread 
Tiffany's legs. Marianne squeezed my hand again, and I 
was getting some serious butterflies in my stomach by 
this point. 

Kathy spread Tiffany's thighs widely apart, and pushed 
up her skirt. When she saw that Tiffany had nothing on 
underneath, she looked back at us, pretending to be 
surprised. She turned back to Tiffany, who was panting 
in agitation now, and reached out to tweak her clit 
stud. She removed the leash, and then, very slowly, 
bent forward, watching our reaction the entire time. 

She couldn't really be about to do this, I thought. 
Even if I had seen a lot of the girls here eating each 
other out. Tiffany was a customer. That should have 
made a difference, right? 

But she did it anyway. 

Extending her tongue into a point, she began to lick 
Tiffany's clit very lightly. Tiffany let out a soft cry 
at the first contact. Kathy wiggled Tiffany's clit 
stud, pressing her tongue stud against it. She gave it 
a long, slow, lick, then began eating her more 
deliberately. 

I realized, from Kathy's cool manner, that this was 
just a show to her. I had no doubt that she didn't 
intend to get Tiffany off--except that she hadn't 
reckoned with Tiffany's state of excitement. Less than 
thirty seconds into this, Tiffany convulsed, let out a 
squeak, and shuddered in orgasm. I saw a tiny spark of 
surprise in Kathy's eyes, but she was good--she didn't 
stop. She pretended to be into this, and did her best 
to finish Tiffany off. Then she withdrew, climbing up 
to kiss the other girl. 

The second song had just ended, and Kathy stood, 
smiling at us. She extended her hand to Marianne, who 
gasped slightly. She glanced at me, and I nodded. 

Kathy led Marianne to the couch, where Tiffany was 
still recovering. Tiffany slid to one end but stayed 
there. Marianne was still in a state of shock at what 
she had seen, and Kathy caressed her face and hair, 
trying to calm her down. She kissed Marianne softly, 
then took Marianne's hands. She held them against her 
breasts, and though she let Marianne feel her, she kept 
her hold on her wrists. 

Then she began moving against Marianne, rubbing her 
naked body against my girlfriend. Marianne's head had 
fallen back, and her breathing was rapid and heavy. 
Kathy caressed her breasts a few times, squeezing them. 

Toward the end of the third song, as she had done with 
Tiffany, she began to unlace Marianne's top. Marianne 
was shivering nervously by now, and when Kathy took one 
of Marianne's big breasts in her mouth, she let out a 
little cry and put her arms around Kathy's shoulders. 

By now, my cock was so hard I thought it might explode. 
But there was nothing I could do. 

Kathy suckled Marianne's breasts for nearly a minute, 
and I wondered if she was going to pull Marianne's 
pants off and eat her like she had done with Tiffany. 
But she apparently had something else in mind. 

I noticed, probably well after it happened, that one of 
Kathy's hands was now between Marianne's legs, rubbing 
her firmly through the fabric of her pants. She 
continued to suck on Marianne's nipples and caress her 
with her other hand. 

Maybe this sort of thing went on a lot with the male 
customers (I recalled that on prior visits, some of the 
girls had tried to give me vague handjobs through my 
pants). Maybe getting Tiffany off had set a precedent. 
Maybe Kathy was just getting into this. But she 
definitely appeared to be trying to bring Marianne to 
orgasm. 

It didn't take a lot of work. Marianne was soon humping 
her hips up at Kathy's hand, and Kathy responded by 
rubbing faster. She looked over at me, licking her lips 
lasciviously as her hand moved rapidly between my 
girlfriend's legs. Finally, Marianne began to shudder 
and her legs began to shake, and a second later, she 
came in Kathy's arms. 

Kathy had somehow timed this perfectly. As Marianne 
coasted down, the last song came to an end. She 
withdrew from Marianne and stood. 

"Would you like another one? Maybe for you?" 

I looked down at the two drained girls on the couch. 
Marianne wiped the sweat from her forehead and tried to 
catch her breath. Though Kathy was certainly very 
pretty, what I really wanted to do was take Marianne 
and Tiffany home and fuck the daylights out of both of 
them. 

"I think we're good. Thanks." 

She smiled and helped the girls to their feet, pulled 
her dress back on, then led us out. She gave each of us 
a peck on the lips. 

"Thanks. Have a nice night." 

The two girls clung to my arms. 

"What now?" Marianne asked. 

"Home. I'm so hard it hurts." 

She giggled, and we went straight out to the car. As 
soon as we were on the road, Marianne reached into my 
lap to fondle my aching erection. 

"Poor baby. Having to watch all that with no one to 
help you. I bet I know what you need." 

As Tiffany watched, wide-eyed, from the back seat, 
Marianne bent over into my lap and began freeing my 
penis. As soon as it was exposed, it disappeared into 
her mouth. I grunted, gasping. I had been too turned on 
for too long to stand very much of this, and Marianne 
was not trying to hold me off at all. She bobbed 
rapidly, massaging the stud in her tongue against the 
head, doing all the little things she knew I liked. 

I had to pull off the road. I cried out, grabbing at 
her hair as she sucked on my cock like she wanted to 
take it off. The cum boiled in my groin, and then it 
was erupting out of me like Mount St. Helens, one 
painful spurt after another. Marianne continued sucking 
at me until it was all out, until I could finally stand 
to have her stop. 

She leaned back, swallowing, and smiled as I melted 
into my seat. 

"Better now?" 

I nodded weakly. 

"Uh-huh." 

She giggled. 

"Take us home." 

As it happened, the three of us were too drained by 
that adventure to do much of anything when we got back, 
and Tiffany went home about an hour later. Marianne and 
I went to bed. 

The next day, NexTerm was up to forty-one, and Cisco 
and the board of directors were reported to be in 
negotiations. I spent most of the day trying to work 
without checking the NASDAQ quote marquee on my 
computer screen every ten seconds. 

At three o'clock, my intercom buzzed. It was Jake. 

"Steve, you got your TV on?" 

I had a television in my office because I often needed 
to check CNN or Financial News during the day. 

"No." 

"Get it on, CNN, now." 

I found the remote buried under a pile of crap in the 
corner of my desk. I switched on the set. 

"--had no immediate reaction to the offer. A Cisco 
spokesman complained that IBM was coming in, quote, 
'Much too late on this deal,' and that their 
interference might prevent the entire transaction from 
closing." 

"What?" I asked Jake. "What the hell is IBM doing?" 

He laughed through the intercom. 

"They made an offer of fifty-four for NexTerm. Cisco is 
having a cow." 

A bidding war. Dear God Almighty. 

"Fifty-four? Did I hear that right?" 

"Yes. Check your ticker." 

I glanced at my screen. A few seconds later, 5,000 
shares of NexTerm rolled past at 49 3/8. 

"Jesus." 


CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE 
--------------------

Somehow I got through the rest of the day without 
losing my mind. NexTerm closed at 56 5/8. Marianne and 
Hayley were out by the pool when I got home, but I gave 
them scarcely a glance as I ran up to my office. I 
logged into my company network and prepared a sell 
order for the next morning. 

I sat there with my finger on the mouse, trying to make 
myself send it in. But I couldn't do it. The deal could 
still fall apart, leaving me with nothing. But if it 
went through, it would happen at a lot higher than 
fifty-six. I could be losing a million bucks or more 
with one click of the mouse. 

After a few minutes, I canceled the order and shut off 
my computer. Marianne appeared in the doorway, wearing 
nothing but her yellow thong. Her perfect breasts were 
already tinted a pale pink with sunburn. 

"Is something wrong?" 

"Not exactly." 

"You know, you've been acting really, really weird ever 
since we got back from Santa Cruz." 

"I know. I'm sorry." 

"So what is it?" 

"I can't tell you now. Right now, it's nothing. I don't 
want to get your hopes up." 

Her eyebrows creased. 

"Is it bad?" 

"No. It's potentially very good, but it hasn't happened 
yet." 

"But you can't tell me about it?" 

"I'd rather wait until it's solidified more." 

She pursed her lips. 

"Okay." 

I reached for her. 

"Come here." 

She climbed into my lap, straddling me and putting her 
arms around my neck. I played with her breasts for a 
couple of seconds. 

"You're getting a little burned here." 

"I burn, then I tan. I don't want any tan lines this 
year." 

I slipped a finger under the waistband of her thong. 

"What about this, then?" 

"I can live with that. But I don't want lines around my 
back and shoulders. That way I can wear those slinky 
dresses you like." 

I kissed her, then pulled a breast up to my mouth, 
tasting suntan oil. 

"How's your sister doing?" 

"Still depressed. But maybe a little better." 

"And you?" 

"I'm happy. It was nice to see Mom, but I understand 
how it has to be." 

I kissed her other breast, making her squirm. A little 
giggle escaped her lips. I reached under her with one 
hand, pressing a finger against the bottom of her 
thong, where her labia bulged against the fabric. 

"Mmm. I like that." 

"I know." 

I hooked my thumb under the elastic, pulling it aside. 
A prickly nest of blonde pubes was soon in my hand. My 
middle finger slid slowly inside her. She inhaled 
sharply, pressing her forehead tightly against mine. 

"Where is Hayley?" I managed. 

"Still down by the pool," she gasped. 

I undid my slacks with my free hand, and Marianne 
reached for my erection as soon as it was exposed. She 
pulled it into place and settled down onto me as I held 
her thong to the side. We both groaned as I sank into 
her, and then she was kissing me passionately. 

She rode me eagerly, rolling her hips back and forth, 
making the chair rock against my desk. I pulled her 
breasts to my mouth, sucking on one, then the other. 
She held my head close to her chest, moaning. Her 
movements sped, and little whimpers were soon flowing 
out her nostrils. I held her tight butt in my hands, 
trying to help her (since she had me pinned down quite 
securely), and within a minute or two she was 
shuddering in my arms. She bit at my shoulder as her 
climax peaked. Then she let out a long breath, relaxing 
against me. 

"You didn't come," she said after a few moments. 

"No." 

She held my shoulders, leaning back. 

"On the floor." 

I half-stood, still connected, and picked her up. We 
lay on the floor, and I began driving rapidly into her 
as she bit at my ear and whispered random perversions. 
I let out a groan and erupted inside her very quickly. 
I lay on top of her as she stroked my back. 

"Steve?" 

"Hmm?" 

"This summer... once school is out... could Tiffany 
move in with us?" 

I lifted up to look at her. 

"How? Where is she going to sleep?" 

She glanced timidly around my office but said nothing. 
I sighed. 

"Oh." 

"There's room in the bedroom for your desk and your 
computer, isn't there? We could put it in the sitting 
area by the window." 

"Giselle *and* Tiffany?" 

"Would it be a problem?" 

"Was this your idea or hers?" 

"Ours. We were just talking about it." 

She stared up at me with her pretty blue eyes. 

"Steve, I've realized that I do love her. I really 
would like to have her living with us." 

"This isn't a change in our relationship?" 

"No. Tiffany understands that. She'd just be another 
kitten for our cathouse." 

I laughed weakly. 

"Oh, God." 

I reflected that if this NexTerm thing went through, 
the circumstances were going to be very different 
anyway. 

"Okay. I'll give it some thought." 

She hugged me tightly. 

"Thanks." 

NexTerm opened at 58 the next morning and continued 
climbing. At noon, Cisco came back with a counteroffer 
of 65, which was three points more than NexTerm had 
ever traded at. We were in serious deal territory now, 
and I suspected that it would close one way or another-
-if it was going to--very soon. 

It did. 

Cisco, IBM, and NexTerm apparently stayed up through 
the night fighting it out, and early the next morning, 
when I turned on CNN, I found myself watching an 
impromptu press conference outside the NexTerm offices 
in Sunnyvale. Cisco had prevailed. The deal had closed 
at 85, all of it to be paid for with Cisco stock. A 
high price maybe, but from one perspective it was 
nothing but paper anyway. Cisco certainly had enough 
market value to swallow a company like NexTerm without 
burping. 

I didn't really come back to earth until I realized I 
was sitting out by the pool in my boxer shorts, and 
Marianne was standing in front of me trying to get my 
attention. 

"Steve? *What* is going on? You are going to tell me 
now!" 

I looked up at her dizzily. 

"Sit down." 

She did. I tried to explain as best I could. Her face 
got very pale as she listened to me. 

"So what does this mean?" 

"It means... that in a few days, I am going to get 
almost nine million dollars in Cisco stock transferred 
into my account. Stock that is probably going to 
increase rapidly in value in the future." 

Her eyes swelled. 

"Nine million dollars?" 

"Yes. It means I can retire. We can buy the ranch and 
the horses and everything. We can move to Santa Cruz 
and do everything we talked about." 

Her jaw was shaking violently now, and a tear ran down 
her cheek. She gasped for breath against her agitation. 

"We can?" 

"Yes, Kitten, we can." 

She let out a joyful squeal and threw her arms around 
my neck, hugging me so tightly that pain shot down my 
back. A moment later, she pried herself free from my 
arms and jumped up, taking my hand. 

"We have to tell Hayley." 

She dragged me upstairs in a half-run, and we burst 
into Hayley's room. She had just emerged from the 
shower and wore nothing but a towel. She jumped back in 
surprise. 

"Hey!" 

Marianne ignored her look of outrage and grabbed her 
arm. The story rushed out in a flood, and Hayley's eyes 
grew to the size of dinner plates. 

"We could move?" she said softly when Marianne finally 
stopped to catch her breath. 

"Yes!" Marianne said. 

"To a ranch?" 

"Yes!" 

"It's what I'm thinking of," I said. 

"Could... could we get a horse?" 

"A half-dozen of them if you want. That's the idea." 

She began to cry. 

"We could move." 

"We'll be near Mom," Marianne said. "I'll go to school 
there, if, please God I get in, and Steve will retire. 
Everything will be perfect." 

Hayley hugged her, sobbing in joy, then hugged me. I 
saw something out of the corner of my eye and realized 
Giselle was standing in the doorway. 

"What's going on?" 

Marianne excitedly explained what had happened. 
Giselle's face dropped slightly, and she looked at me. 

"You guys are going to move?" 

"But you can come with us," Marianne said. "We'll get a 
really big house and you and Tiffany and Mom and all of 
us can live together." 

I laughed, holding up my hands. 

"Whoa. Wait. Let's not run too far ahead of ourselves 
here." 

"But Steve, she's living with us now anyway. You said 
Tiffany could move in. What difference would it make if 
we're here or in Santa Cruz?" 

She had a point. 

"At the very least, I don't know what your mother will 
want to do." 

"But could she?" 

"I guess so. I really don't know if she'll be 
comfortable doing it, though." 

Hayley squeezed my hand tightly. 

"But if she does, can she, please?" 

I laughed. 

"Okay. Yes." 

She squealed, hugging me tightly. I just shook my head 
in amazement. 

April flew by in a blur. My NexTerm stock converted to 
Cisco, which shot up another five points after the 
deal. I was now worth just over thirteen million 
dollars. I called an estate realtor in Monterey and 
asked him to begin looking for potential ranches for us 
to buy. I gave notice at work, telling my boss I would 
retire in June. 

Elizabeth went into shock at the news, but after I 
explained my reasoning and that I had planned this for 
a long time, she broke down and cried. She said she had 
to think about moving in with us, but that it was a 
possibility. 

Marianne got into UCSC, provoking a hysterical phone 
call to her mother. Tiffany got in a week later. 
Giselle had planned to go to the Cal State campus 
nearby, but she began looking into the possibility of 
going to school up north. Ashley had already applied to 
Stanford (the Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, as it 
happened, was a friend of mine from B-school, so I 
wrote her a nice letter of recommendation), and if she 
got in, she would not be very far away. 

Hayley simply bounced giddily around the house, forever 
about to burst with happiness. She called her mother 
frequently to gush over what had happened and had 
already picked out a name for her horse. 

The prom came and went, and the girls mutually agreed 
to simply blow it off, not wanting to create a scene by 
bringing me. Blowing it off created something of a stir 
anyway, but not as much as my showing up at the dance 
would have. 

The first weekend in May, we drove back up to Santa 
Cruz to see the properties the realtor had found for 
us. I had told him $4-5 million, 40+ acres, horse-
ready, with at least seven bedrooms, views optional but 
preferred. With that sort of price tag, we got the red 
carpet treatment from the moment we arrived. Elizabeth 
met us at his office, where we found a limo waiting for 
us. 

The first place we went was, well... nice. Nothing 
special, but nice. The house was big but worn-out and 
needed work, and the land was pretty but just didn't 
turn me on enough. The second place was simply too 
small. Also nice, but just too small. 

After lunch (which the realtor paid for), we looked at 
another property near the beach, which was the most 
disappointing of all. It had good views of the ocean, 
but they were disrupted by all the commercial 
development along the water. Not something I wanted to 
spend my retirement looking at. 

We set out for the last place just after three o'clock, 
driving out of Santa Cruz and into the hills. All of us 
were feeling a little down after three straight 
disappointments, and I detected an edge of panic in the 
realtor's voice, as he sensed his six-figure commission 
slipping away. But he seemed excited about this last 
possibility or was at least trying to act that way. 

We finally turned off Highway 17 onto a little back 
road that ran through several stands of coastal 
redwoods. A mile down the road, we stopped in front of 
a tall stone gate, where a bearded, heavyset man in 
overalls waited for us, standing beside a mud-
splattered pick-up truck. 

"That's the caretaker." 

He leaned out of the limo window and talked briefly to 
the man, who then went back to his truck and opened the 
gate. 

"This place belongs to an old California family," the 
realtor went on. "The matriarch apparently just passed 
away. They're having to sell it because of the estate 
taxes and because her kids couldn't agree on what to do 
with it." 

I nodded vaguely, as he had been telling us stories 
like this all day. We followed the road up through the 
redwoods, and when the trees finally thinned out, we 
got a good look at the property. 

"Oh, wow," Hayley said. 

Elizabeth leaned against the window, sighing. 

"Oh, my." 

What else to say? It was love at first sight. 

The property was a good fifty acres, and we couldn't 
see all of it right away. The road ran through a broad 
meadow, wooden ranch fences on both sides. The land 
looked almost virgin -- uncultivated, unmolested, 
unspoiled. Up ahead was the ranch house, a sprawling 
two-story building that looked like something out of 
"Bonanza." Behind it was the horse barn and what looked 
like a guesthouse, and around the other side was a six-
car garage. Beyond the house, the land rolled downhill 
into another stand of virgin redwoods, and the Pacific 
Ocean glittered off in the distance. The view at sunset 
had to be breathtaking, and it was awe-inspiring even 
now. 

"There's a creek that runs through this place, 
apparently," the realtor said. "There's supposed to be 
a nice waterfall toward the back of the property." 

The girls bounced around in the limo, trying to take it 
all in at once. We pulled up in front of the house, and 
they burst out of the side door. Hayley ran up to the 
fence and climbed up on the lower rung. 

"Look at all this! This is huge!" 

Marianne half-ran, half-jumped around the side of the 
house to look at the barn. 

"Where are the horses?" 

"There aren't any here now," the realtor said. "The 
family has pretty much moved everything out. But I 
think the barn has space for eight or ten of them." 

Hayley ran up beside us, and the two girls ran across 
the yard to look into the barn. The realtor turned to 
Elizabeth and me. He seemed to have assumed that we 
were married, and, not wanting to have to explain 
things that were none of his business, I hadn't tried 
to change his mind. 

"Shall we go inside?" 

It was everything I had fantasized about -- not the 
trendy "ranch-style" furnishings that were in vogue 
these days but real antique furniture and decor, and 
all of it very well-maintained despite its age. The 
front door led into a broad two-story foyer with a 
staircase leading up to the second floor. To the left 
was the huge main room with a vast stone fireplace and 
windows looking out on the pasture. Three elk heads 
hung on the walls. To the other side was the dining 
room with another fireplace and enough room to feed 
twenty people at once. 

The main room led into a library and study with floor 
to ceiling built- in bookcases on every wall. To my 
surprise, quite a few books were still on the shelves. 

"Is the family going to move this stuff out?" 

He shook his head. 

"What you see is what you get. Apparently they don't 
want a lot of this. My understanding is that they've 
already removed what they want. As you can probably 
imagine, most of this furniture wouldn't really work 
anywhere else." 

"It's beautiful," Elizabeth said. 

He nodded in his solicitous realtor fashion. 

"Isn't it?" 

Beyond the library was a hallway leading to the rear 
wing, where we found three large bedrooms with more of 
the same. In the back of the house, behind the library 
and kitchen, was another sitting room with windows 
facing the barn and the back porch, which led to a 
swimming pool, the guest house beyond that, and looked 
out onto the trees and the ocean. 

My one concern with this place was the kitchen, which I 
feared might be something out of the 1940's, but my 
fears proved unfounded. It had been remodeled within 
the last few years, and did not look to me to need any 
more work. It already had enough modern equipment to 
feed an army and a nice little breakfast nook that 
looked onto the meadow outside. 

Hayley and Marianne came running across the backyard 
and burst into the rear den a moment later. I could see 
bits of hay all over their clothes. 

"You should see the barn," Marianne gushed, "it's so 
neat. It's got all this old farm stuff all over the 
place." 

"And it has a loft and like ten stalls for the horses," 
Hayley said. "We climbed up there and looked out. You 
can see like forever." 

Elizabeth and I exchanged a glance, which the realtor 
caught and probably thought he understood. 

The upstairs was just as nice, and the master suite was 
simply beyond description. It had a large sitting area 
between the bed and the bathroom, and its own 
wraparound deck above the rear porch. The view from the 
deck was worth the purchase price alone. Marianne 
hugged me as she looked out across the property. 

"Is this it?" 

"I think this is it." 

We looked at the rest of the property (it did indeed 
have a pretty creek and waterfall back in the trees, 
and we found yet another building--the caretaker's 
cottage--around behind the barn), but we were more or 
less sold on it already. The sun had begun to set by 
the time we were ready to leave, and we stood on the 
rear porch watching it go down. 

"Should I tell the owners you're prepared to make an 
offer?" the realtor asked. 

I nodded. 

"Yeah. Let's do it." 

We went out to celebrate that night, and the girls 
chattered non-stop about all the things they wanted to 
do. Hayley pestered Elizabeth about living with us 
until I patted her arm to get her to calm down. 

"Let's take one thing at a time." 

"It's a beautiful place, honey," Elizabeth said, "but 
there's a lot I need to think about." 

I got Elizabeth alone after dinner after the girls 
decided they wanted to take an evening swim in the 
hotel pool. We walked around the grounds looking down 
at the lights of Santa Cruz. 

"You don't have to decide about this tonight or even 
this month. But you really are welcome to move in with 
us." 

She sighed. 

"I would like to. But I keep feeling like there may not 
be room for me in this thing you have going on with 
Marianne and her friends." 

"It's up to you. I'm fine either way. But you know the 
girls would like to have you." 

"It's just that I only know how to live with them as 
their mother. Not as part of this household you're 
putting together." 

"Marianne is really the one putting it together. 
Somehow I woke up one morning to discover that half her 
friends were moving in with us." 

She smiled and touched my arm. 

"I know. I'm not passing judgment on you. I have a 
rather unconventional lifestyle myself right now." 

We walked another minute in silence when I had an idea. 

"You know... if you wanted... you could live in the 
guest house. 
Make it your own place instead of having just a room in 
ours." 

She stopped short, and I watched her jaw dropping 
slowly as she digested this proposal. She didn't say 
anything for a few moments. 

"I could do that." 

"Would that be enough of a boundary?" 

"Yes. But still very close to Marianne and Hayley." 

"You're welcome to it. Even with Tiffany and Giselle 
living with us, we're still going to have four spare 
bedrooms in the main house." 

"I think... I think I would like to do that." 

"Then it's done." 

She smiled broadly. 

"Thank you." 

We unveiled the idea to Marianne and Hayley when we 
returned to the room, provoking a lot of shrieking and 
excitement. I went over to the realtor's office the 
next morning and filled out my formal offer for the 
property. He called back that night with a counteroffer 
from the owner's agent, which I told him I wanted to 
sleep on. 

We said good bye to Elizabeth and went home that night, 
since the girls had school the next morning. I called 
the realtor from work with another offer, and he called 
back after lunch to tell me it had been accepted. He 
Fed Ex'd the sales agreement to me the next morning, 
and we closed the deal at $4,250,000. I liquidated the 
funds out of my investment account and sent it to the 
escrow company. After capital gains taxes, moving 
costs, new furniture, and various and sundry other 
minor expenses (not to mention the horses and a certain 
sports car I was now thinking of buying), I would have 
just under eight million to retire on, most of it in 
Cisco stock. 

Enough to live a pretty good life. 

And, just maybe, raise a family on. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR 
-------------------

Graduation arrived in June, and Elizabeth came down 
from Santa Cruz. With Giselle now living in the 
guestroom, Elizabeth got a hotel room nearby. We had 
closed escrow on the ranch a few weeks before, and she 
had already moved into the guesthouse. She and I had 
been coordinating the cleaning and furnishings with a 
decorator I had hired (and whom I had scouring flea 
markets and swap meets all over Northern California to 
find antiques to match what was already in the house).

The only significant change I was making was rewiring 
the phone lines with a multi-terminal DSL connection 
and adding recessed wiring and speakers for a house-
wide stereo and entertainment system. 

The school held graduation on the football field, and 
Elizabeth, Hayley, and I took our seats in the 
bleachers with the other parents and family. The 
graduates wore bright blue gowns, and when they filed 
in, the girls waved to us on the way to their seats. 

My eyes glazed over through most of the speeches, but 
we cheered wildly when Marianne finally got her 
diploma. She waved at us again as Elizabeth shot off 
about ten pictures in a row. 

Finally it was over. Marianne ran excitedly around the 
field posing for pictures with us, her friends, and 
other random students. I met Tiffany's parents, who 
didn't seem particularly fazed about her moving in with 
us. I expected she hadn't filled them in on a lot of 
the details. I watched for Giselle's father but didn't 
see him. 

We went out to lunch, and Marianne then went out for 
the afternoon with her friends while the other three of 
us went home. Elizabeth and I spent a few hours going 
over the details for the house while Hayley listened or 
watched television. 

"What are we going to do about the horses?" she asked 
around four- thirty. 

"I don't know, Little Kit. I haven't had time to give 
it much thought. I'm sure there are some ranches up 
there we can look at once we're there." 

"Well, see, I was thinking. I heard about this service 
that rescues horses that are going to be destroyed. You 
know, like old racehorses or ones that can't work 
anymore. I thought that would be better than buying new 
ones. So those horses could retire like you're doing 
instead of being killed. It's not like we're going to 
do anything but ride them around, right?" 

I exchanged a glance with Elizabeth, who was smiling. 

"I think that's a great idea. Find out what you can, 
and I'll give them a call." 

Hayley hugged me quickly. 

"Thanks." 

With graduation and school behind us, we began the 
laborious process of moving up to the ranch. Although 
there was no point in rearranging my office now, 
Tiffany moved in anyway, sleeping on the couch for the 
few days it would take us to pack up and leave. The 
girls had their rooms packed up fairly quickly, and we 
spent the remaining time sifting through twenty years 
of bachelor junk and deciding what to take and what to 
trash. 

I threw out more than I might have expected, as I 
realized that I wanted to replace a lot of it. Most of 
the china, glasses, and silverware, old mismatched sets 
I had had for ten years or more, went to charity, as 
did most of the sheets and towels. I finally threw out 
my old college beer bottle collection. The neon 
Budweiser sign I had been saving for years stayed--I 
wanted to hang that in the barn. 

The further back we got, the more time we spent 
reviewing memorabilia from my college days, laughing 
over pictures of me with long hair, wearing this Black 
Sabbath T-shirt I had to be surgically removed from one 
summer, or posing with my friends and a few bongs at 
some party. 

"I can't wait for college," Giselle said wistfully at 
one point. 

"Me too," Marianne said. "It's going to be so cool." 

"It's not all parties," I said. "I did have to study 
and go to class now and then." 

They giggled, but I could tell they didn't believe me. 
They would learn soon enough. 

By the third day of packing, we were down to the odds 
and ends, most of which we threw out. That afternoon, I 
finally called a halt to the operation. 

"I think we're done here. What's left is trash. Go 
relax; we've got a big day tomorrow." 

The girls high-fived each other, and all of them, 
except Marianne, went out to the pool. With shrieks and 
laughter, they all jumped in wearing their clothes. I 
got a beer from the refrigerator and leaned against the 
counter to rest. 

Marianne followed me in, hopping up onto the counter 
under the window. 

"I can't believe this is really going to happen. 
Tomorrow night, we're going to be sleeping at the 
ranch." 

"Yep." 

"Are you excited?" 

"Definitely. I've waited a long time for this." 

"You've earned it. Hayley and I are getting you a 
housewarming present, but it's a surprise." 

I chuckled. 

"Thanks. I can't wait." 

"I hope you like it. I think it's really cute." 

"I'm sure I will." 

I took a swig of beer. 

"There's something I want to do today, and I'd like you 
to come along." 

"What is it?" 

"Another surprise. It's basically a present to myself." 

"Ooo. Now?" 

"I want to get cleaned up first. This isn't something I 
can do in this state." 

"Okay. I'll jump in the shower really quick too." 

We went upstairs, showered, and dressed. When I was 
done, I looked out the window to see that Hayley, 
Tiffany, Ashley, and Giselle had stripped out of their 
clothes and now cavorted nakedly around the backyard. I 
wavered for a moment, thinking about going down to join 
them, but I knew I had to do this today or wait at 
least another week. 

Marianne emerged from the dressing area in a white 
cotton blouse, knotted at her waist, and a denim skirt. 

"Is this okay?" 

"Wonderful." 

We descended to the pool, where I explained that we 
were going out for a few hours. 

"You guys behave, okay?" 

That remark engendered a lot of giggles and glances. 

"Have fun, whatever it is you're doing," Giselle said. 

Marianne followed me out to the garage, and we got into 
my Mercedes. 

"Are you going to tell me what this is now?" 

"I'm buying a new car to go with the new ranch." 

Her face lit up. 

"Oh, cool! What?" 

"You'll see." 

She giggled and bounced around in her seat as I drove 
down toward the beach. When I pulled into my 
destination, a very upscale and exclusive European 
dealership, she let out an excited squeal. 

"I knew it! What are you going to get?" 

"Something I've wanted since I was your age." 

We pulled into a parking space, and Marianne hopped out 
of the car. This was primarily a Jaguar dealership, but 
they also carried several other lines of European 
sports cars. Marianne's eyes bulged as she looked 
around at the Porsches, Ferraris, and (a few) 
Lamborghinis lining the lot, and to honest, my heart 
was beating faster in my chest the longer we were 
there. 

I was only interested in the Italians, and that was 
where we headed. A salesman came out to speak to us a 
few minutes after we were there. 

"Can I help you with anything?" 

"I have an appointment. Steven Chandler." 

"Certainly. Just a moment." 

He went inside, and about a minute later, the salesman 
I had talked to a few days before emerged from the 
showroom. Since this place sold cars costing upwards of 
$250,000, they didn't like to deal with people right 
off the street, and they were certainly not about to 
let someone test drive any these frightfully expensive 
exotics without checking them out thoroughly 
beforehand. 

The salesman shook my hand and smiled warmly, but 
professionally, at Marianne. 

"Mr. Chandler, good afternoon. I'm Bill Jabobs. We 
spoke on the phone the other day." 

"This is Marianne." 

"Nice to meet you," she said. 

"And you. I believe you wanted to look at the 355 and 
the Diablo?" 

"Right." 

With Marianne following us, he took us to the 
Lamborghinis. They had only two, and though they were 
extremely sexy cars, something about them just didn't 
grab me. 

After looking over the two cars for a few minutes, I 
glanced at Marianne. She seemed excited, but not 
precisely thrilled. 

"This is a little over the top, maybe," I said. 

She nodded. 

"It's not really you." 

"Let's look at the others," I said to Jacobs. 

He nodded and led us across the lot to a row of 
Ferraris. He gave us a little spiel about the car, then 
let us climb inside one. Marianne got into the 
passenger seat, so flushed with excitement that I 
thought she might burst. 

I moved around to get comfortable, inhaling the scent 
of the leather. Oh, boy. I was actually going to do 
this. I took the steering wheel in my hands and gripped 
it tightly. 

Jacobs handed me the keys. 

"Start her up." 

I did. A deep, throaty rumble ran through the car. I 
pressed on the gas a few times, and the engine whined 
as it revved up. 

"This is quite a car," he said. 

I nodded. Marianne giggled, wanting to say something 
but unable to get anything coherent out. 

"Could we look at the others? I'm not sure about this 
color scheme." 

"Sure." 

I shut off the engine, and we climbed out. They had 
five 355s on the lot, two of them convertibles. One of 
the Spyders was cherry red, the other one shameless, 
in-your-face, banana yellow. I stopped next to the 
yellow one, and Marianne beamed. 

"Kind of the same color as mine." 

I nodded, swallowing hard. Jacobs went inside and 
returned with the keys. 

Marianne took a few deep breaths once we were inside 
it. 

"This is your car and your thing, but... it would be 
really, really neat if you got a convertible." 

Jacobs showed me how to put the top down, and I 
stretched out in the seat. Goddamn it, but this was a 
great car. 

"Can we take it for a spin?" 

"Sure." 

I started it up and backed carefully out of the space. 
Giving myself a *lot* of spare room, I pulled out into 
traffic. The shifter took some getting used to, since 
it was mounted in a very narrow gate, but I soon had 
the car up to speed. Marianne put her arms above her 
head, letting her hair fly loose in the breeze. 

"Woo!" 

The Ferrari handled differently from anything I had 
ever driven before, seeming to cling to the road and 
transmit every bump and seam in the pavement through 
the steering wheel. The slightest pressure on the 
accelerator sent the engine howling into the upper 
reaches of the tachometer. 

"How is it?" 

"Incredible." 

She squealed, gripping my arm tightly. 

"This is the hottest thing I have ever been in. You 
have to get this. 
Please." 

"I think I'm going to." 

She shook with excitement, laughing and squealing at 
the same time. The traffic cleared up ahead of us, and 
I used the opening to swing around and return to the 
dealership. By the time we got back, I was basically 
sold. 

Jacobs was waiting patiently. 

"How was it?" 

"Great. I, uh... I think we're going to do it." 

"Wonderful. Congratulations." 

He shook my hand, and Marianne let out another squeal, 
hugging me tightly. We went inside to close the deal. 
Though it took some time to work out the details, 
particularly trading in my Mercedes, about ninety 
minutes later I walked out as the proud owner of a new 
Ferrari 355 Spyder convertible. 

We climbed back into the car, Marianne still giggling 
in excitement. 

"I can't believe this," she gushed. "I cannot believe 
this. I've never even sat in a Ferrari before, let 
alone known anyone who owned one." 

"I can't believe it either." 

"Do you... um... think I could ever drive it?" 

I laughed giddily. 

"I don't know. We'll see." 

She leaned across the middle and hugged me again. I 
started the car and drove off the lot. 

I didn't want to go home right away. I took the car 
down to the Pacific Coast Highway and opened up it, 
racing north out of town. Marianne beamed at me as we 
drove along. The sun was starting set in front of us, 
and I thought that if there was a better place to be at 
that moment, I didn't know where it was. Owning a car 
like this should be enough. Driving it around with a 
girl like Marianne in the passenger seat was just too 
much--"gilding the lily" was a phrase that popped into 
my mind. 

The engine was loud when we were up to highway speeds, 
but it was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. 
Everyone we passed craned their heads around to get a 
good look at the car, slowing down or speeding up to 
come along side. Marianne laughed at this and stood up 
in her seat, grabbing the windshield to steady herself. 
Her hair streamed out behind her. 

"Be careful." 

She laughed. 

"I love you!" 

"I love you, too." 

I pulled her back into the car and pressed down on the 
gas. Good God-- this thing had so much power to spare 
that it was almost obscene. I had never experienced 
this much top-end acceleration. I downshifted, and the 
Ferrari leapt forward like a gazelle, roaring past a 
hundred in about two seconds. Thank God the road was 
straight, because I almost lost control of the car with 
that little maneuver. I eased off the gas, shifting up, 
and I could hear the engine popping as it slowed down. 

Marianne laughed, looking behind us at the cars we had 
raced past. 

"This thing is really fast." 

"No kidding." 

Not wanting to get a ticket or crack the thing up half 
an hour after buying it, I dropped back to a more 
sedate speed. The sun was just about to hit the water 
off to the west, and I realized we were passing through 
the state park north of town. I swung off at the next 
exit. 

"Where are we going?" 

"I feel like parking and watching the sunset." 

She smiled at me and rubbed my thigh. I drove into the 
park, and within a few minutes I found a spot 
overlooking the beach. I could still feel the 
vibrations of the engine running through me even after 
I parked and shut off the car. Marianne reached over 
and took my hand. 

"The next sunset we watch will be from the back porch." 

"Yep." 

"I keep thinking that something awful has to happen. 
It's not fair to be this happy." 

"You've gone through a lot. You deserve it." 

She leaned over and laid her head on my shoulder. I put 
my arm around her and held her as we watched the sun 
sinking beneath the horizon. 

"Babe?" 

"Hmm?" 

"Do you ever think about the future? Us, I mean." 

"All the time." 

She nuzzled me. 

"What do you think?" 

"I want you in my life. I don't want to lay a lot of 
expectations on you, though. You're still young, and 
you have your whole life ahead of you." 

"I was just thinking. I read something once about how 
guys who aren't married at forty probably never will." 

My stomach twitched. 

"I want to get married someday," I said. "I do. I would 
have done it, I just never met the right girl." 

"You've dated a lot, though, right? So you pretty much 
know what you want now." 

"She's sitting right beside me." 

She made a contented little noise and pressed herself 
against me. 

"But what if you had met me when you were eighteen? If 
you felt the same thing, but you hadn't had all this 
experience. How would you know what you wanted to do?" 

She was talking about herself, obviously, but I went 
along with her scenario. 

"It's a tough question. Perspective is worth a lot. I 
guess I'm a lot more secure in how I feel for you 
because of it. But I would have loved you just as much 
as eighteen. I'm just not sure what you would have 
thought of me." 

She laughed softly. 

"We would have hooked up somehow. I know that." 

She sighed. 

"One moment I'm sure I want to spend the rest of my 
life with you. Then I get scared because I feel so 
young for such a commitment. And then I feel guilty for 
thinking things like that when I love you so much." 

I hugged her. 

"It's normal. I'm not asking you for a life-long 
commitment tonight. We can do that when, and only when, 
you feel ready for it." 

She was quiet for a few moments. 

"Thanks." 

I squeezed her again. 

"Anytime." 

We drove home about ten minutes later, and Marianne ran 
in the house to tell the other girls about the Ferrari. 
We found them largely dressed, whatever they had been 
up to while we were gone, and they ran back out to the 
driveway, shrieking and gasping over the car. I 
promised to take them all for rides when we got up to 
Santa Cruz. 

Since all the food was packed up or thrown out, we 
ordered a couple of pizzas for dinner. Ashley spent the 
night with Giselle in her room, and Tiffany slept on 
the couch. Marianne and I finally went to bed after 
eleven. When I climbed under the sheets, I discovered 
that she was naked. She cuddled with me, pressing her 
body against mine. 

"I though you'd be tired," I said. 

"I am. But it's our last night in this house." 

We snuggled together, warm under the covers. We fondled 
each other for a few minutes, just enjoying our mutual 
nudity. Marianne giggled when I reached between her 
legs. She was already quite wet. I rolled her on her 
back, sliding under the blanket. I took a breast in my 
mouth as my fingers played between her thighs. Another 
squirt of moisture emerged onto my hand, and I began 
masturbating her slowly. She moaned, then pushed my 
head off her breasts, down her abdomen. 

I resisted at first, kissing my way down, licking the 
kitten at her hip. She pulled my head between her 
thighs and pushed her wet sex up at my mouth. 

I sucked her clit between my lips, making her convulse, 
then slipped my tongue into her. I tried to make love 
to her with it, pushing it in deeply and wiggling it 
around, tasting her sweet fluids. Then I pulled it out, 
sliding it up against her clit. I repeated the action, 
tongue deeply into her, then up between her labia. She 
whimpered, clawing at my shoulders, as I fell into a 
rhythm. Her hips rolled under me, moving with me, and 
her breathing was now rough and ragged. 

A few minutes of this were all it took before I felt 
the tremors beginning her abdomen. Her stomach muscles 
twitched once, twice, then her hands clamped down on 
mine. Her back arched, and a low feline whine escaped 
her lips as she shuddered under my attentions. As it 
peaked, she pushed me away with a soft cry. I kissed 
her sex one last time and slid up beside her. 

She hugged me briefly before disappearing under the 
covers to return the favor. I felt her bobbing slowly 
over me, working her lips against the head and her 
tongue stud against the underside. One hand held the 
base of my cock, the other gently pulled on my balls. 
She rolled her head around to increase the friction as 
she bobbed over me, and I had to reach down to hold her 
head. 

She would have taken me all the way had I wanted to, 
but I needed to be inside her. I pulled her off, and 
she straddled me immediately, sitting back to swallow 
me into her belly. She pulled her knees up to my side 
and lowered herself down to kiss me, smiling. 

"Hi." 

"Hey, Kitten." 

She squeezed me slowly, rhythmically, but didn't 
otherwise move. 

"You meant what you said tonight?" 

"All of it. But what do you mean?" 

"That you do want to get married some day?" 

"As long as it's to you. But remember what I said. No 
pressure. Nothing until you're ready." 

She looked down at me, eyes as full of love as they 
could ever be. 

"If I could... I would stay like this forever. This is 
all I ever need. You and me, together." 

"Me too, Kitten." 

"I love you so much." 

"I love you too." 

We made love slowly for another hour, then slept. 

The moving truck arrived at seven a.m., and I did my 
best to direct traffic. Marianne went down the hill to 
Starbucks to get some coffee for everyone, and the 
other girls did what they could to help. 

We were about halfway done, and I was in the kitchen 
checking the cabinets for anything we missed when I 
heard Hayley shouting from the front of the house. 

"What?! No! Let go of me!" 

I dropped what I was doing and ran out to see what was 
going on. The reality of it was clear immediately--
there was really no arguing with the image that was 
burning into the back of my brain--but it took a few 
moments for it to really register. 

An unpleasant-looking woman I didn't recognize was 
standing in the foyer trying to take Hayley's arm. 
Hayley was having none of it, trying to back away. 
Standing with the woman were a pair of police officers. 
Marianne was trying to get to Hayley, but the woman was 
holding her off. 

The woman saw me and pointed. 

"That's him." 

The two officers approached me. 

"Are you Steven Chandler?" one of them asked. 

"Yes. What is this about?" 

"I have a warrant for your arrest. Violation of Penal 
Code section 261.5." 

"What the hell is that?" 

"Unlawful sexual contact with a minor. Statutory rape, 
in other words." 


CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE 
-------------------

The officers handcuffed me and took me out to their 
cruiser as Hayley and Marianne went into hysterics. I 
was in shock until I looked back toward the house and 
saw the officers and the woman physically dragging 
Hayley, gone completely berserk, out the front door. 

I had never been a particularly emotional person--I was 
never the sort of guy who wore his heart on his sleeve. 
All my life, I tended bottle up my emotions, only 
letting them out with people I really trusted. 

Marianne was one of them. Hayley was another. And when 
I saw the two officers struggling with her and finally 
shoving her down onto the front lawn to handcuff her, I 
lost it. Some primal protective impulse, something 
rising out of the brain stem, took control of my body. 
I thrashed around in my seat. I rolled on my back and 
kicked at the side window. I screamed at them--I didn't 
even know what I was saying, if I was even doing 
anything other than howl in powerless outrage. 

Outside the car, Marianne had jumped on one officer's 
back, trying to get him off Hayley. He reared back, 
throwing her onto the ground. The other officer had 
succeeded in handcuffing Hayley, and he dragged her to 
her feet and over to the woman's car. She looked toward 
me in desperation, eyes pleading for help, and had I 
been physically able to burst out of the squad car 
after her, I would have. 

The other officer was threatening Marianne, who lay on 
the ground holding her arm in pain. He shook his finger 
at her angrily, and only now did he notice what was 
going on in their cruiser. 

He stalked up to the window I was still kicking at. 

"Knock that shit off, goddamnit!" 

I heard sirens approaching, and another squad car came 
screeching up to the house a minute later. Marianne was 
still lying on the lawn crying, and Giselle and Tiffany 
had come out of the house to help her. The two officers 
stood warily in the driveway watching them as two more 
burst out of the backup unit that had just arrived. 

By now, the neighbors had emerged from their houses to 
watch. The woman, whoever she was, stood by her car, 
and I stared at her murderously. She met my gaze only 
once, giving me a look of disdain before turning away. 
The situation had calmed down now with both Hayley and 
me locked up, and the four officers milled around 
discussing what to do. I waited for them to arrest 
Marianne for attacking one of them, but they seemed 
content with a stern lecture. Finally they began 
packing up to leave. 

Marianne struggled to her feet and came up to the 
police car, still crying, and pressed her face against 
the window. 

"Call your mother!" I yelled. "Call your mother, okay?" 

She continued sobbing against the window, incoherent 
with grief, until we pulled away from the house. 

They took me downtown, booked me, then let me call 
Brian. They stuck me in a holding cell, where I sat for 
several hours with some other unsavory characters. Just 
after three o'clock, the deputies abruptly let me out 
of the cell, telling me that I was being released. I 
found Brian waiting for me when they returned my 
possessions. 

"Man, I tell you, I've seen some lame cases in my day, 
but this one takes the cake." 

"What did you find out? What's going on?" 

"You've been released, for now. The D.A. is still 
trying to decide whether to file charges." 

"Seriously?" 

"Seriously. But let me ask you something. Do you know a 
kid named Randy Donahue?" 

I groaned. 

"Oh, shit. Yes. He's Marianne's ex-boyfriend." 

"Well, he is alleging that you confessed to having sex 
with Hayley, to him." 

"What?!" 

"That's what the ADA I talked to said. Apparently he 
went to the Family and Child Services office downtown 
and reported it earlier this week. They assigned that 
uptight bitch who grabbed Hayley--I talked to her too, 
and Jesus, I feel sorry for that woman's husband, if 
she's got one--and she sent the SWAT team over to your 
house." 

I followed Brian to his car as he explained all this. 

"Do you know what they did with Hayley?" 

"No. They won't tell me. DFCS has her, and I don't know 
what they're going to do with her. I called your house 
and talked to Marianne, who is still a mess. She said 
their mother is on her way down, but I get the distinct 
impression that DFCS isn't going to just release Hayley 
to her." 

"What do you mean?" 

"That woman seems to have a major bug up her butt about 
your living arrangements. All she told me was that she 
wanted talk to Mrs. Mulcahey." 

I got into his car, and we drove back toward my house. 

"What's going to happen now?" 

"I'm not sure. Normally, the ADA would have gone to the 
grand jury to get an indictment by now. She's 
apparently still weighing her options, which is why 
they let you go. They have to charge you within 48 
hours or turn you loose, and I guess she needs more 
time than that. But this is going to be ugly however it 
comes out." 

I sighed. 

"It's ugly already." 

When we pulled up, Marianne came running out of the 
house and jumped into my arms, sobbing. I held her 
tightly, trying not to think too hard about everything 
crashing down around our heads. 

The move, obviously, was suspended, although the movers 
finished loading their truck and left. It was that or 
have them unload everything, and I saw no point in 
that. I was probably in denial, but I couldn't bring 
myself to make that decision. Marianne, Giselle, and I 
went to a hotel, and Tiffany went home. 

Elizabeth arrived at seven, and despite an hour on the 
phone, was unable to get a straight answer out of 
anyone about where Hayley was. The woman on the case 
refused to tell Elizabeth anything until she talked to 
her the next day. Elizabeth and Marianne then cried in 
each others' arms for twenty minutes. 

I half expected Elizabeth to blame me for this (and it 
was my fault, right?) but instead she seemed to be 
blaming herself. She went with Brian the next morning 
to talk to the woman at DFCS, and they returned two 
hours later without Hayley. Elizabeth went to her room 
to cry without saying a word, and I sat down with 
Brian. 

He shook his head slowly. 

"When this all over, I'm going to buy that woman a new 
broom, because she's wearing out the one she's got very 
fast." 

"What happened?" 

"They won't tell us a thing about Hayley except that 
she's being held somewhere in protective custody. Can 
you believe that shit? Protective custody from her own 
damn mother." 

"They think she's in on this." 

"Essentially. They don't like the fact that she was 
letting Hayley and Marianne live with you." 

"What do they know?" 

"They know shit. All they've got is that kid, but 
unfortunately, that's enough to grab Hayley 
temporarily. My guess is that they may hold on to her 
until the trial." 

"Can they do that?" Marianne asked. 

"Yes. They can. Once they get an indictment, they have 
good cause to keep her away from the rest of you. 
They'll have to let me interview her before the trial, 
but they don't have to let anyone else see her unless 
they feel like it." 

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. Hayley was being 
punished the worst here, and she was supposedly the 
victim. 

"So what do we do?" 

"We wait. I need to talk to the ADA. Assuming they file 
charges, I suspect they'll be amenable to some kind of 
deal, if that's what you're willing to do." 

Marianne jumped in before I could respond. 

"No! No deals! Steve didn't do anything wrong. Randy is 
just doing this to get back at him, and me, for dumping 
him." 

Brian looked at me, and I nodded slowly. He sighed. 

"Okay. No deals. But you realize that if you get 
convicted, you are looking at some serious jail time 
here? Because of the large age difference." 

"Yes. I know." 

Brian went back to his office, and the four of us sat 
numbly around our rooms. Nobody seemed inclined to talk 
about what had happened. 

Brian called me the next morning to tell me he had met 
with the ADA on the case. She was apparently a woman he 
had faced before. 

"She's a pro," he said, "but that's good. She'll play 
it straight, which some other ADA's I've worked with 
might not have. We could have done a lot worse." 

Nothing much happened for several days, during which I 
had to have the movers put my stuff in storage, since 
none of us could go up to Santa Cruz to let them into 
the new house. Four days after my arrest, Brian called 
the hotel and asked us to come down to his office for a 
meeting. Marianne, Elizabeth, and I showed up at one, 
and he showed us into his conference room. 

"Okay. We have had a very odd development here. You 
recall what I said about the ADA going to the grand 
jury to get an indictment?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, she's not going to do that. She has, instead, 
asked for a preliminary hearing." 

"What's the difference?" Elizabeth asked. 

"A lot." He looked down at his legal pad and tapped his 
pencil a few times. "To back up a little, in any 
criminal case, the ADA has to get a ruling that there 
is probable cause for a trial before they can go any 
further. That's essentially what an indictment is, and 
there are two ways of getting it. The first, and most 
common, is going to the grand jury, where the ADA can 
put together whatever case she likes, present whatever 
evidence she wants, without our participation. We have 
no right to be present or to introduce evidence, and 
though you are not required to testify, if you chose to 
do so, you have no right to have an attorney present." 

"That's so unfair," Marianne said. 

Brian nodded, grinning. 

"Speaking as a defense attorney, I'll agree with you. 
But that is how it's been for several hundred years. 
The idea is that since your guilt is not in question, 
only the issue of probable cause, you don't need as 
many protections." 

"But she's not doing that?" I asked. 

"No. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, she would, but 
this time she's not. It's two ways of skinning the same 
cat, but a preliminary hearing is a completely 
different animal. It's conducted more like a mini-
trial. The rules of evidence and procedure are still 
significantly relaxed, but we will get to cross-examine 
her witnesses and present our own exculpatory evidence, 
and the ruling will be made by a judge instead of a 
bunch of naive housewives and retirees who'll believe 
anything the ADA tells them. It's a much fairer 
proceeding, which is why ADA's hate them. Since 
California brought the grand jury back a few years ago, 
the preliminary hearing has almost become extinct." 

"So why is she doing it?" 

He paused again. 

"This is only speculation, mind you, but I get the 
distinct impression that she is not wild about this 
case. We may be dealing with a matter of internal 
county politics. You have to understand that the DA's 
office and the DFCS usually work very closely together, 
not just on molestation cases but custody issues, child 
support, and a whole raft of other things. We've come a 
long way from the witch-hunt mentality of the 80's and 
early 90's, but that much hasn't changed. The ADA is 
not going to piss them off if she can avoid it. So 
rather than just declining to prosecute a lame case, 
which this is, she'll do the hearing. That way, if the 
judge says no deal, she can blame him instead of taking 
any responsibility for dropping the case." 

My head began to buzz. I answered him more intensely 
than I meant to. 

"So you think this is all just a sham?" 

He shook his head. 

"No. That is not what I'm saying. She will do her job 
and do her best to get an indictment, and if she gets 
it, she will put you on trial. I am just saying that I 
sense she won't be too heartbroken if she loses." 

"What makes you think she doesn't like the case?" 
Marianne asked. 

"Statutory rape tends to be very simple, because there 
is usually one issue and one issue only. Did Steve have 
sex with a minor? Everything else, consent, intent, who 
thought what about whom, all of that is irrelevant. 
That Hayley is under 18 isn't in dispute, so all the 
ADA has to do is prove he slept with her. Right now, 
all she has is Randy. Because I know, and I will bet 
you any amount of money, that Hayley is not 
cooperating. 

"The ADA has to have talked to her by now, and it's 
obvious as hell that Hayley won't tell them what they 
want to hear. If she had, we would not be sitting here. 
That would be the whole case, and the ADA would have 
already gone to the grand jury. The fact that we are 
doing this hearing tells me that she hasn't got much 
else to go on. That, and the fact that they won't let 
us at her." 

I realized what he was saying. 

"They're leaning on her to get her to cooperate," I 
said angrily. "She's the *victim,* and they're leaning 
on *her* to confess." 

He nodded slowly. 

"It's been known to happen. Oh, I'm sure they've 
rationalized it by telling themselves that she's in 
denial and that they're trying to help her escape from 
the spell you have her under, but my distinct feeling 
is that they are doing just that." 

Elizabeth let out a sob and began crying into her 
hands. 

"Oh, my God! My baby!" 

Marianne tried to comfort her, and Elizabeth leaned 
over to cry on her shoulder. I had to take a few 
moments to collect myself. 

"So what do we do now?" 

"I'm going to get to work on preparing for the hearing. 
You won't have to testify, and I strongly advise you 
not to even consider it, but Marianne and Elizabeth 
will almost certainly be subpoenaed. Probably Tiffany 
and Giselle also. They'll put Randy on the stand and 
Hayley too, though my guess is that they'll save her 
for last. Partly because she's the main witness, but 
also because it will give them the maximum amount of 
time to get her to crack." 

"Jesus." 

He nodded. 

"This ground zero of our justice system, Steve. No one 
ever said it was pretty." 

The hearing took place a few days later. Brian had 
prepped us all thoroughly, and I had talked with the 
girls myself in private. I pointed out that Brian 
thought only that I was sleeping with Marianne and knew 
nothing about anything else that had gone on. Since all 
of them would have to commit perjury to get us out of 
this, that fact could not change. If Brian knew the 
whole truth, he would have no choice but to withdraw 
from the case, since he could not ethically allow the 
girls to get up on the stand and perjure themselves. 

I dressed in my best suit, having to dig it out of 
storage, and I went with Brian into the courthouse and 
up to the courtroom. The others would have to wait in 
the hallway to be called as witnesses. 

The ADA was a pretty blonde woman of about thirty-five. 
Her shoulder length hair was pinned back with a silver 
clip, and she wore a trim navy suit. Beside her, at the 
prosecutor's table, was the woman from DFCS. We 
exchanged steely glares when I entered the room and 
thereafter ignored each other. 

The ADA got up first and gave a short opening statement 
about what she intended to do and what evidence she 
had. Brian followed by pointing out that the whole case 
rested on hearsay testimony from someone with an axe to 
grind. 

A few days before, I had had what I thought was a 
revelation about Randy's testimony, namely that, as 
Brian was now explaining, everything he said was 
hearsay. Brian calmly informed me that that didn't much 
help us, for a couple of reasons. First, hearsay was 
admissible in a preliminary hearing, and second, even 
if it weren't, his testimony fit into an exception 
known as admissions against interest -- the idea being 
that I wouldn't have made such a statement to Randy 
were it not the truth. I tried to point out that that 
said nothing about whether Randy was making the whole 
thing up, but Brian explained that the question of 
Randy's veracity was an issue for the jury, not the 
judge. After that, I just gave up and let him do his 
job. 

As Brian had predicted, Randy was the first witness. He 
gave me a barely concealed glance of triumph when he 
took the stand. 

The ADA began with a few foundational issues, then 
turned to the case. 

"How do you know Mr. Chandler?" 

"He's dating my ex-girlfriend." 

"Who is your ex-girlfriend?" 

"Marianne Mulcahey. Hayley's sister." 

"When did you first meet Mr. Chandler?" 

"I don't recall the exact date. It was some time last 
September." 

"And what was the occasion?" 

"I was angry about Marianne dumping me. I went over to 
tell him to stay away from her." 

Brian glanced at me, and I nodded. He had told me that 
the ADA would almost certainly explore Randy's 
motivations before we could do it, as a means of 
defusing any impeachment of his testimony. 

"You were angry with Mr. Chandler?" 

"Yes." 

"Did you go his house again?" 

"Yes." 

"When?" 

"About a month or two later." 

"And what was the occasion?" 

"Pretty much the same thing. I was upset at losing 
Marianne. I went there to yell at him." 

"Was there another time you went to Mr. Chandler's 
house?" 

"Yes. Back in March." 

The hairs on my neck rose. Randy had not been back to 
my house since that drunken incident last fall. I took 
Brian's pen and wrote "B.S." on his legal pad. 

"Why were you there?" 

"I had heard some things about what was going on. That 
Marianne and Hayley had moved in with them. I was 
worried about them." 

The ADA's face tightened slightly, and I could tell she 
didn't quite believe that. But she went on. I noticed 
that Randy was now carefully avoiding my gaze. 

"What occurred when you arrived at the house?" 

"Mr. Chandler answered the door." 

"Was anyone else there?" 

"Yes. I saw Hayley standing behind him." 

"Did you see anything unusual about her?" 

"Yes. She appeared to be wearing nothing but her 
panties and a short T- shirt. Like she had just gotten 
out of bed." 

Brian jerked back in his seat. 

"Objection. The witness has no personal knowledge of 
that fact. That is pure speculation." 

"We're in a preliminary hearing here, your Honor," the 
ADA said. 

The judge nodded to Brian. 

"The point is made, counsel. Proceed." 

She turned back to Randy. 

"Did Mr. Chandler say anything to you?" 

"Yes. I told him what I thought of him, that he was 
just using the girls, and he laughed at me. He said 
'Yeah, I use them every damn night.'" 

"Those were his exact words?" 

"Yes." 

"And what did you take that to mean?" 

"That he was having sex with both Marianne and Hayley." 

"Did Hayley have any reaction to that statement?" 

"No. She didn't act like it was anything unusual." 

Brian spoke up again. 

"Objection. We're back into the speculation again, your 
Honor." 

The ADA just turned back to Randy. 

"How did she react, if at all? Specifically." 

"She didn't react. She just stood there smiling at me 
like she--" He stopped, glancing at Brian. "She seemed 
to think it was all funny." 

The ADA stepped back. 

"I have nothing further." 

She sat down, and Brian got to his feet. 

"Randy, you don't like Mr. Chandler, do you?" 

"No." 

"You're mad at him because he took Marianne away from 
you, aren't you?" 

"Yes." 

"You would like to see him in jail, wouldn't you?" 

"Yes." 

"You were intoxicated on at least one of these 
occasions when you showed up at Mr. Chandler's house, 
weren't you?" 

He glanced at the ADA, whose face darkened. She 
apparently wasn't aware of that fact. Randy gulped. 

"Yes I was." 

"And you aren't old enough to drink, are you?" 

"Um. No." 

Brian paused and glanced down at his legal pad. 

"I want to talk about the alleged conversation you had 
with Mr. Chandler in March. Do you recall the date on 
which it occurred?" 

"Yes. It was March 28th." 

Several sets of eyebrows went up around the courtroom. 

"You recall that specifically?" 

"Yes. Because it was right before I went on vacation." 

"What time of day was it?" 

"Nighttime. Maybe eight o'clock." 

Brian glanced at me, then the ADA, then back at his 
pad. He sat down. 

"That's all I have." 

The ADA stood up again. 

"Randy, were you intoxicated when you visited Mr. 
Chandler's house on March 28?" 

"No, I wasn't." 

She gave us a triumphant glance and sat down. I looked 
at Brian, who rolled his eyes in defeat. So much for 
that point. 

The next witness was the woman from DFCS. She gave me a 
steely, disdainful glare when she climbed into the 
witness seat. The ADA spent a few minutes going over 
who she was and what she did before getting to the main 
issues. 

"Can you describe your first meeting with Randy 
Donahue?" 

"He showed up on the afternoon of June 12th, telling 
the receptionist that he had to speak with a social 
worker about something important. They sent him into my 
office." 

"How would you describe his manner?" 

"He was nervous. This clearly something that had been 
eating at him for a long time." 

I gritted my teeth. No shit, I wanted to say. 

"And what did Randy tell you?" 

"He told me about Mr. Chandler, and that his ex-
girlfriend and her sister were living with him. He said 
that Mr. Chandler had confessed to having sex with both 
of them." 

"And what did you do in response to this?" 

"I explored the issue with him for about an hour. 
However disgusting I found Mr. Chandler's relationship 
with Marianne, I told him we could not do anything 
about that, but that any contact between Mr. Chandler 
and Hayley was illegal. The more he told me, the 
angrier I got, especially when he explained about their 
mother having left the girls with Mr. Chandler. I 
realized this was a situation we had to act on 
immediately, for Hayley's sake." 

"And what action did you take?" 

"I contacted the Sheriff's Department and discussed the 
case with them. We went out there the next day. They 
arrested Mr. Chandler, and I removed Hayley from the 
household." 

"You've had an opportunity to examine Hayley, have you 
not?" 

"Yes. She's clearly traumatized by her experience with 
Mr. Chandler. It's going to take a very long time for 
her to recover from this." 

"What do you base this opinion on?" 

"She's still in denial about what she experienced. 
She's been very hostile and uncooperative." 

"Is such behavior unusual?" 

"Not at all. Quite often in such situations, especially 
when the victim has been living with her abuser, she 
will initially deny everything in an attempt to protect 
him." 

"But you are confident that Mr. Chandler was having 
sexual intercourse with Hayley?" 

"There is no doubt in my mind about that fact." 

The ADA smiled at us. 

"I have nothing else." 

Brian stood up as she sat down. 

"Ms. Marcus, you were not entirely accurate when you 
d