6 comments/ 60021 views/ 6 favorites Brashey Family Story Ch. 01 By: BossySon21a NOTE: This starts slow... MOTHER DAUGHTER CHAT "Shake it, baby!" came the catcall from the construction worker, having their lunch in a local outdoor café. Whistles and other comments came as well, and Sarah glared at them for a moment before turning to continue regally on her way, a grin playing at the corners of her mouth. She didn't really mind the catcalls, heck, at 47 it was kind of nice to get catcalls from guys in their 20s. In contrast to her pretend outrage, she put a little more swing in her step as she walked. Sarah was by no means unused to admiring glances and the occasional crude comment, she worked out regularly at the local health club, and nature had been kind to her when the genes for looks were passed out. She stood 5'10" in her bare feet, with blonde (well, blonde and some gray, but thanks to Ms. Clairol she might as well have been all blonde) hair that she wore down past her shoulders, and a figure that she knew how dress to show of without looking slutty. Just then she was dressed in a maroon skirt that stopped just above the knee, snug but demure white blouse, dark hose and heels, with her makeup and jewelry all just so. She glanced down at herself as she returned to her office from lunch, and sighed. Her figure was good, but she did wish her boobs didn't droop quite as much as they did. Oh, she was repeatedly told by her boyfriends that they were fine, but she just weren't as perky as they had been when she was twenty, and that was just a fact that her mirror refused to compromise about. Maybe they looked OK for having nursed three kids, but she still couldn't help wishing they stood out as proud as they had in her teens. Returning to her desk in private office, the 45 year old stock broker sat down to review her work for the afternoon. She was just getting into the latest information about the ongoing bear market when the phone rang, and she picked it up and idly said, most of her attention on her work, "Hello, Sarah Brashey speaking, may I help you?" Then her face lit up as she heard a familiar voice saying, "Hi, Mom, it's Leanne!" "Honey!" Sarah exclaimed, putting down her paper work to give all her attention to her oldest daughter. "It's so good to hear your voice! Where are you? Are in town? I thought you were with your husband in Miami!" "I was, Mom," Leanne replied, her sunny grin somehow coming through the land line. "But plans changed at the last minute, so I was kind of left at loose ends. I don't really want to go back to Peoria yet, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in letting your poor, lonely little girl stay with you for a few days." "Oh shut up, you!" Sarah laughed. "You know I'm always eager to see you! Where are you right now?" "Actually, Mom, I'm kinda in the lobby of your building. I was sorta hoping you'd say that, so I came by as soon as I got into town and- "I'm coming down, stay where are, girl!" Five minutes later, Sarah entered the ground-floor lobby of the 23 story office building where her business rented space, and looked around eagerly for her eldest. After a moment she spotted Leanne, standing over by the plate-glass front still holding her cell phone and looking out at the street. Sarah's heart swelled, she hadn't seen Leanne in person in over a year, and her daughter was a feast for a mother's eager eyes. "Lee!" Sarah called, and the younger woman turned and saw her and a moment later the two blondes were hugging each other tightly, Leanne's head on her mother's shoulder and Sarah almost rocking her grown daughter in her delight at seeing her again. "It's been so long, Baby! So long!" "I know, Mommy," the 31 year old said. "Not since the reunion last February. And wasn't that fun!" Sarah sighed as she stepped back, though her memories of that fiasco were not much different than those of her daughter. "Do you have your bags with you, Lee?" "Yeah, Mom," she said, gesturing at the single suitcase. "Such as they are!" "Good," Sarah replied. "I'll call us a taxi, and we'll get you over to my place." "But it's only 2 in the afternoon, Mom," Leanne protested as Sarah went outside to wave down transportation. "Don't you have work to do?" "RHIP." Sarah said, spelling out the letters, as a taxi pulled up. "Huh?" Leanne replied, as she and her mother led her out the door with the single suitcase. "What's that mean?" "Rank Hath Its Privileges," Sarah grinned. "My company, I own it, I can come and go as I please! Which means I can take you home and get you settled in right now if I want." "Must be nice," Leanne grinned at her mother. Leanne was not as tall as Sarah at 5'8", though she was otherwise built much like her in a younger version. Dressed in snug blue jeans, a tight sleeveless top, and flip-flops, Leanne was a casual contrast to her mother's elegance. Neither woman paid the slightest attention to the interested male glances as they walked out to the cab, their blood relationship was obvious at a glance, and both women were beauties. "It is," Sarah agreed, as the taxi started off toward her home. She leaned back, turned her head to look at her daughter, and grinned again, letting her eyes drink in Leanne's simple presence. Sarah loved her three children, and she saw them all too seldom anymore, even her youngest son. When she with one of them with her she tended to want to just revel in the fact that they were there. Even when she knew perfectly well that something was wrong, which was definitely the case now. Mother and daughter chatted about nothing throughout most of the trip home, but Sarah's attention, and her maternal instincts, were focused on little else but her daughter's face, tone of voice, and body language. She hadn't raised three kids without learning how to read them, and she could tell that under her daughter's forced cheer, something was very wrong. She saw it in the slight tension in her daughter's body, in the way she couldn't quite bring herself to relax. She heard in her voice, a hint of nervousness. She could practically feel it in the air. If I didn't know better, Sarah thought to herself in a maternal worry, I'd say she's about to break down crying! They arrived at Sarah's house, and it suddenly hit the older woman with a certain amount of dismay that this was the first time any of her kids had actually seen it! She'd lived there since shortly after the divorce, and none of her kids had ever actually visited it, though a standing invitation was open to them all. Between Leanne and Amy's own lives, and her son's military assignments, they just hadn't been there. She'd visited both her daughters' homes, but the last few times she'd seen Kyle had been either at his father's apartment or some other relative's place. It wasn't any specific reason her kids hadn't been there until now...just life working out that way. It still left Sarah feeling as if she might cry herself for a moment, but she shook it off as her daughter got out of the taxi. "Wow!" she said softly, "Mom, this isn't a house, it's a mansion!" That was exaggerating things, Sarah thought, but it was a nice place. Two stories, a large wrap-around front porch with ceiling fans, a high fence on three sides for privacy around a huge yard with trees, and the open side of the yard facing a lake. They were about fifteen minutes outside the city...and it was quiet and peaceful enough that they could have been in another country. "Not quite a mansion, dear," she laughed. "Just the fruits of my hard work, I like to tell myself. But no, it's not a mansion. Mansions have servants, but this place just has you and me! So let me get you bag, Madam!" Sarah added with a teasing laugh as she picked up the suitcase. "No, Mom, let me carry that, please-" "Nothing doing," Sarah said. "I'm not feeble yet...and this thing barely weighs anything! What do you have in here, just a change of underwear?" "Well...actually that's about all I do have in there, Mom," Leanne admitted as mother and daughter stepped through the front door into the expansive and well-appointed living room. "A second pair of jeans, a clean shirt, two pairs of socks, and two panties. And that's all I have left." Suddenly the chipper, cheery expression was gone, and there were tears running down her face as she said, "Mom, Gary and I are over!" Then Leanne broke down sobbing and Sarah hugged her close, rocking her in her arms and whispering in her ear, "Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry, so sorry." "It's his fault, not mine!" Leanne sobbed, "he's the one who's a bastard, he's the one who cheated on me, how come I feel like it's all my fault?!" "I know, Baby," Leanne sighed. "It's not something you can think through, your heart feels what it feels, believe me I know." An hour later, Sarah and Leanne were sitting at Sarah's little kitchen table, sitting hot coffee, and Leanne was haltingly explaining what had happened to her mother. She wasn't crying now, she'd cried herself out earlier, and now she sat, red-eyed, holding the coffee mug in her hands as she spoke. Sarah sat around the corner from her, facing her, wishing Leanne were still a 5 year old with a scraped knee that she could easily fix for her. She knew all too well, from her own acrimonious divorce ten years before, that there was no easy way to fix something like this, even if her maternal instincts screamed for some way to make it better, to make her daughter stop hurting. It seemed that Sarah had discovered that Gary was cheating on her...again. From what Leanne told her surprised mother, Gary had cheated with two other women during the course of their marriage, that she knew about, and she'd taken him back both times. The third one, though, had been the last straw, both because it was the third one, and because he'd been so blatant about it, doing her in their own house and bed, and most of all because the other woman in question had been a good friend of Leanne's...or so she had believed up until she caught them together. Apparently Leanne had stormed out of the house, taking only time enough to throw a handful of clothes in the suitcase, and gone off without really thinking about where she was going or why. "He didn't even have the grace to be embarrassed, Mom," Leanne complained. "I mean, I caught them in the act, he was fucking her, and he told me it was my fault, and that he wanted a divorce!" Sarah sucked in her breath at the rage and pain in her daughter's voice. She'd never heard Leanne sound so hurt. She was pretty sure her daughter didn't even entirely realize she was still there, much of the outrage pouring out of her was self-absorbed, in her mind Leanne was back in that scene. "I mean, yes, I know we'd been having out problems," Leanne was saying in a rush of words, "yeah, I know he thought I was sick, but I'd been trying, I was ready to meet him halfway, heck, I'd have met him 3/4s of the way, but no he had to get that dumb slut from his office. I mean he couldn't at last have asked me for a divorce first, could he? At least that would have been the respectful thing to do! Most men would have been happy to have a woman who-" Leanne suddenly blushed scarlet and seemed to remember that her mother was sitting there. "Most men would have been happy to have a woman who what, Lee?" Sarah pressed, very gently. "I-ah, Mom you see-I kinda-Mom, I can't talk about it now!" No matter how hard Sarah tried, she couldn't get anything more on that subject out of her daughter, though she had the distinct feeling that Leanne wanted to tell her. It puzzled the older woman no end, especially since Leanne kept blushing every time the discussion veered that direction, but she knew from experience that Leanne had to be ready before she'd say something she wasn't sure she wanted to say. Eventually, after hours of talking, sometimes about Leanne's troubles, sometimes just about their lives in general, Leanne began to yawn, and her eyelids were heavy. "Honey, I think it's time you got some sleep," Sarah finally said. "Well...I am tired, Mom," the younger woman admitted. "I've been awake for almost 24 hours." Sarah led her daughter up to the guest room directly beside her own bedroom, connected to it by an adjoining door, and Leanne grinned as she saw it and said, as she went into the attached bathroom to change, "Your guest room is way nicer than Gary and my bedroom, Mom." "Go ahead and get in bed, Sweetheart," Sarah said, "and I'll find some stuff of mind that'll fit you until we can go shopping." "I hate to be this much troubl-" Leanne's yawn cut off her words, as she emerged from the bathroom in her pajamas. "Sorry." Sarah took Leanne's face between her hands, gently, and said, "Honey, you are my daughter. We're going to get through this, and until we do you can stay with me and I'll be happy to have you here. If you want, I'll be more than happy to have you move back in with me on a permanent basis. Don't ever think you're trouble to me, please, Baby." "Oh, Mom," the younger woman said, sinking into another hug and letting her mother hold the way she had when she was a teenager in the throes of some crisis. Sarah hugged her tightly, wishing as she did that this problem was as easy to deal with. Sarah actually tucked her 31 year old daughter into bed, ignoring her laughing protests, and kissed her good night. She turned out the light as she went to the door, and looking back she saw that her exhausted daughter was already mostly asleep. "Sleep well, Baby," she whispered. Sarah went next door to her own larger bedroom, and picked up the suitcase her daughter had brought. Popping it open, she examined the very limited supply of clothes she'd brought, and sighed. She was just enough taller than Leanne that most of her clothes wouldn't fit the younger woman right, but she was able to run through her wardrobe and pick out a few things that she might be able to wear. They'd have to hit the stores tomorrow, Sarah decided, and make sure Leanne had some clothes. It was 500 miles from her daughter's home, or former home, so going back there to get things didn't seem practical...and Sarah was sure Leanne wasn't ready to face her husband or her husband's mistress just yet. She put some of the items she found in a stack on her bed, planning to put them in the suitcase and leave it on the floor of the guest room for her daughter to pick from in the morning. As she was about to put the items in, though, her eyes fall on something odd. There was a squarish shape in the lining of the top of the suitcase, not very thick but wide and flat, as if something had been stuffed into the lining. Sarah ran her fingers over it, and felt what seemed to be some kind of large thin book. A moment later she found the slit where the lining had been cut to permit the item to be inserted there. What on Earth?! Sarah thought, debating whether she should look at it. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she slid the item out, discovering that it was a flat pad of drawing paper, the kind artists used. That wasn't a bit surprising to Sarah, Leanne had been an amateur sketch artist since she was in her early teens, and she was quite good at it. There was a hand-drawn, and very true-to-life, framed sketch of her ex-husband and herself sitting on her entertainment center. Leanne had drawn it when she was fifteen, and she'd only improved since then. But why had she hidden these sketches? Why take them with her when she fled her husband and his new mistress? Sarah flipped open the cover, to the first page, and gasped. The sketch was superb, Leanne's skill was of professional quality now, Sarah realized with one part of her stunned brain. The rest of her was in shock, not at the quality but at the subject matter. The drawing was of a nude woman, superbly rendered, on her hands and knees, and the bare legs and feet of another woman were visible in the picture. The kneeling woman was kissing those feet! The work was done in colored pencil, and red pencil strokes showed the marks of a beating on the nude woman's bottom and back! Sarah flipped the page, to see another kinky scene: a woman in a skirt and sweater was sitting on a stool, with a man over her lap, she was spanking him! His pants and underwear were down around his knees, again Sarah found herself torn between shock at the subject and amazement at the skill. She flipped the page again, to see several women, nude and kneeling, and a man standing in front of them, naked as they were, peeing on them! The women didn't look as if they minded, to judge by the facial expressions Leanne had put into the drawings! Sarah flipped through the book, finding about 20 scenes of kinky sex or just plain kinkiness, the rest of the sketchbook was blank. What on Earth? Why is Leanne drawing stuff like...this?! Sarah flipped back through it again, looking more closely...and realized something else: her crotch was getting wet! Seeing the her daughter had made was getting her hot! She snapped the book shut and started to return it to its hiding place, but a shuffling sound at the adjoining door caused her to look up to see Leanne standing there in her pajamas, eyes wide and hand over her open mouth, blushing to a shade of red one rarely saw outside of a glorious sunset. "Honey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" Leanne didn't wait for her mother to finish, she slammed the door shut and Sarah found it locked. On the other side, she could hear her daughter sobbing. Getting no response to her pleas for Leanne to unlock the door, Sarah pulled out her key ring and used the master key to unlock the door. She found Leanne, still in her pajamas, lying face-down on her bed and sobbing. She made no response as Sarah approached, and continued to sob, her face buried in her pillow, as Sarah sat down beside her and put her arm over her daughter. Leanne tensed, but Sarah didn't back off, instead she hugged her close. "It's OK, Lee, I'm sorry, I had no business snooping in your drawings," Sarah apologized. "It's OK, please, Honey, I'm sorry." "Yo-you're not mad at me?" Leanne asked softly, tears still running down her face. "You don't think I'm some kind of sicko?" "What?! Lee, I wasn't born yesterday! This isn't the first time I've seen such things! Granted, I was surprised to see them from you, but no, I'm not mad at you! Why would I be?" "Gary says that only si-sickos think about such things," Leanne burbled, close to breaking down again. "He said that's why he had to cheat on me, because I was so sick and demented! He wanted a real, normal woman, he said, not some pervert!" Suddenly Sarah saw it, what Leanne had been about to say earlier in the evening, and why she couldn't finish it. Her daughter's words came back to her: '...most men would have been happy to have a woman who-'. "Honey," Sarah asked softly as she and Leanne sat on the bed, "how long have you had these fantasies?" "A long time, Mom," she confessed. "Ever since I was a teenager, I don't remember just how long it's been, but way back. I don't know why, I just have them, I never wanted you to know about it!" "And Gary knew about it...?" "Not when we got married," Leanne admitted. "I was too nervous and scared to tell him, and I figured it would go away after we got together and I had a normal marriage, but it didn't! I told him, one night after we'd been married for a couple of years, I hated keeping that part of me secret from my husband...and things were never the same after that. He told me I was a pervert, that he would never have married me if he'd know how bad I was-" Leanne broke down again at the memory. As she hugged her miserable daughter, Sarah thought back, two years after they got married, that would have been about five years before...Sarah remembered that for a while, every time she'd seen Gary and Leanne, her daughter seemed to be on eggshells, nervous, and she'd wondered then if they were having problems. Brashey Family Story Ch. 02 NOTE: This story is slow-paced at first... BARBARA JENNINGS' OFFICE... "Hello, Sarah," Barbara Jennings said, standing up to give the blonde woman a quick hug. Barbara and Sarah were old friends, going back to their college days, but it had been a few months since they'd seen each other, between Barbara's law practice and Sarah's investment business. Both women had serious full-time careers that left them with a limited amount of free time to socialize. 'I need to work on that,' Sarah thought to herself as she sat down in Barbara's well-appointed office. 'There's more to life than work, even when you're divorced with grown kids!' "Hi, Babs," Sarah said. "I'm glad you were able to make time to see me so soon!" "For you? It's no problem," Barbara replied. "I saw your name in the papers the other day, by the way, when you won the Businesswoman of the Year award. They actually got a good picture of you for the story, and that's saying something." Sarah grinned. "Did they get a picture of the look on my face when they announced that I'd won it?" "Nope," Barbara replied. "I take it you didn't think it was going to be you?" "My executive assistant and my personal secretary knew, and they lied to me about it," Sarah said with rueful affection. "The awards committee wanted it to be real surprise for once, and they got my employees to help them out, so I was stunned when they announced that I'd won, it was the first hint I'd had!" "Did you fire your secretary and your assistant?" Barbara asked, knowing her friend too well to believe she would be so vindictive. "Just to make a point?" "Moi?" Sarah laughed. "No, but I did give them a lot of extra work over the next week to pay them back for the lies," she admitted. "Of course I also threw a party for my whole staff and paid for a wet bar, so they have no complaints coming." The two women chatted for a while, about their lives, their work, their romantic doings or lack thereof, politics national and local, and their personal lives again, their kids, all the things old friends talk about when they get together. As they did, Sarah sat back in her seat and took a longer look at her friend. Barbara looked good, healthy and well-rested, the strain that had been in her eyes a couple of years before nowhere evident now. Her long brown hair was shining, her blue eyes bright. Dressed in office-appropriate skirt and blouse, Barbara looked every inch the successful divorce lawyer she was. 'She's really turned her life around,' Sarah thought fondly. 'She looks so much happier now than she did a couple of years ago!' It was about the middle of the afternoon on a Friday, and Barbara had set aside some time for a talk when Sarah called a few days before. Sarah knew her friend was curious, because she still was not sure exactly what was up. Barbara surely knew that it was more than just a friendly chat, Sarah could have had that on any weekend, this was presumably business. But it couldn't very well be a divorce, since Sarah had been divorced for ten years. Barbara had handled that divorce herself, and Sarah was aware that her friend knew that she still had not entirely gotten over it, for all the surface appearance to the contrary. "Babs," Sarah finally said, "I'm thinking that I'd like to hire you. Or rather, I know someone who's thinking about hiring you, she's divorcing her husband and she needs someone who's good. Someone who'll really push." "A stone cold bitch, you mean?" Barbara asked with a grin. Sarah shifted uncomfortably, remembering those exact words from ten years before, hearing herself say she wanted a 'stone cold bitch' to take her then husband Phillip to the cleaners. At the time, the phrase had captured her mood perfectly. Now, ten years later, looking back, she was somewhat more ambivalent. "Well..." Sarah said slowly, "yes. That's exactly what we need." "Who is 'we', Sar?" Barbara asked. "And why are you representing 'them'?" "Well, 'we' is actually my daughter Leanne," Sarah said. "She's planning on divorcing her husband, and she's looking for a good lawyer..." "...but?" Barbara said, resting her chin on her folded hands. At 45, her face looked disconcertingly youthful, she could put on an 'innocent' look that was a very useful tool in her work. More than one opposing counsel had been utterly undone by that sweet, harmless expression. 'Course, it didn't work on Phil's lawyer,' Sarah remembered. She thought back to the galling moment when her ex-husband had driven away in her convertible, the car that had been her present from her own father. Her husband's lawyer had been able to get that in the divorce, in spite of Barbara's skill. 'Damn but he was sharp!' "So why isn't Leanne here?" Barbara asked. "She is," Sarah replied. "I'm just...opening the discussion. I'll be paying your fees, too, unless you want to try and take the money out of Gary, that is, out of my son. I'd really like that, if you do it, by the way. We want to make him _hurt_." Barbara leaned back, and looked at her old friend thoughtfully. "I still don't see why she isn't here, if she's the one getting the divorce." "She's here," came a female voice from the door, and Sarah looked up to see Leanne, dressed in a new pantsuit that really showed off her figure and firm C-cup breasts, without revealing a thing. Her blonde hair had a new style, and was a little longer than it had been two weeks before when she'd suddenly come back into Sarah's daily life. "I was just, ah...waiting." "Come in, and sit down, Mrs-?" "Norris," Leanne replied. "for a very short time longer, I hope!" As the younger woman took a seat opposite the lawyer, beside her mother, Barbara looked hard at her, and said, "I remember you, you were the one who called me, let's see...'that sleazy piece of shit' in front of the entire room." Sarah sucked in her breath, this was the first she'd heard of that! Leanne blushed red, but she met the lawyer's eyes and said, jaw set, "Yeah, I did say that, didn't I? I guess I was kind of angry about something that day. Like maybe the way you'd just accused my father of, what was it, oh yes, 'neglecting his family'? When you knew _damned_ well that wasn't true!" Sarah winced, suddenly wondering if bringing Leanne and Barbara back into contact had ever been a good idea. Memories of how angry Leanne had been during her divorce from Phillip came pouring back, she realized she'd blocked some if it out. Memories of things Leanne had said to her during the divorce, and now this new thing she'd just learned. To her surprise, though, Barbara was smiling, she didn't seem angry. "Would it surprise you if I told you I agree with you about my actions that day, Mrs. Norris?" Leanne blinked, and Sarah wondered if she should hide her own smile or not at the surprised look on her daughter's face. Of all the things the lawyer could have said, it was clear that this was the last thing Leanne had expected. "I suppose it would," Leanne admitted, looking confused. "I don't understand." "There's no reason you would, I guess," Barbara admitted. "Mrs. Norris, ten years ago I was 35 years old, a hotshot divorce lawyer, with one of the most successful track records in my firm, I won five cases for every one I lost, winning being defined as getting what I set out to get for whoever my client was, without regard for anything else. I was making a lot of money, respected in my circles, and as far as I was concerned I had the world by the tail. "Of course, I was full of it," Barbara went on. "I also had a failing marriage of my own, in large part because I'd become so consumed by my career that I'd let everything else slide, a young son I almost never saw because I spent almost all my waking hours at the office, the law library, or in court, and a reputation for being a 'shark' that I was foolishly proud of at the time." "At the time?" "Since then, you might say I've grown up a bit. I managed to avoid a divorce myself, by the skin of my teeth I might add, just a couple of years ago. Your mother was a big help to me then, too." "I told you the other night, Lee," Sarah put in, "that I was ashamed of my behavior during the divorce. I wasn't kidding, and it wasn't just Babs' idea to say the things we said about your father. I was right in the middle of it and pushing it, I completely got caught up in my war with your father, to the point that I was ready to accuse him of neglecting you and Amy and Kyle. All bullshit, as you said at the time, if I recall." "Yeah, I think I did," Leanne said a little ruefully. "I meant it, too." "You had reason to be angry, Honey," Sarah admitted, "and so did your father. What started out as a...well, I won't say a friendly divorce, since I'm not sure such a thing is possible, but at least a civilized one, turned into a civil war. Your father fought dirty too, you remember." "Yeah, and I said some things about that, too," Leanne pointed out. "He tried to portray you as an irresponsible party girl, and claimed you'd tried to hide assets from him, and accused you of deceiving him about the family finances. That was crap, too! It was like you'd both gone insane!" Sarah winced at the remembered pain she heard in her oldest daughter's voice. Leanne had been 21 at the time of their divorce, barely an adult really in a lot of ways, and she'd had a ringside seat for what had gone from a cool but civil divorce to a home-grown version of the Hatfields and the McCoys, with her and her siblings caught squarely between. There had been a period when Leanne was hardly speaking to either of her parents because of her anger and hurt over what she'd seen them doing to each other. "I know," Sarah said, unable to meet her daughter's blue eyes, the same eyes she saw in her own mirror every morning. "I think maybe we were a little nuts, by the end of it. But-" Sarah paused, and looked up at her daughter, and continued, "-your father only resorted to fighting dirty after we did. Every thing that went wrong, each escalation, it was Barbara and me that initiated it, your father and his lawyer only responded in kind. It doesn't make his part in it all right...but keep in mind that I was the one who escalated it into a war." Sarah swallowed hard and blinked back moisture, for a moment she felt as if she might bawl in front of her friend and her daughter, but she regained her self-possession and continued, "Your father kept trying to...well, to lower the temperature, too. I recall three different times he and Mr. McDonald, his lawyer, contacted us and tried to cool things down, made peace overtures. But somehow it always caught me at a moment when I was eaten up with anger and I slapped them down, and it just got worse and worse and worse. There were moments when I wanted to ask for a truce, too...but I didn't have the maturity or maybe I just didn't have the guts to ask for it. Maybe I had too much pride. "So don't be too hard on Phillip, Honey. We both took part in the war but he didn't start it and he tried more than once to end it before it got to the finish line." "It wasn't all your mother's fault, Mrs. Norris," Barbara put in, having remained tactfully silent during Sarah's sudden and unexpected confession of responsibility. "We were...goading each other on, I guess you could say. I was a young hotshot lawyer and I wanted to prove I was a match for Mr. McDonald, I was sure I was, I thought he was a hayseed amateur. Your mother and I were always friends, and we always pushed each other to go for the brass ring, to settle for nothing but first prize...and that wasn't a good attitude under those circumstances. We went too far." Leanne looked uncertain, her former righteous anger was now mixed with something else. "This isn't quite what I expected to hear from a divorce lawyer," she said. "Next thing you know you'll be telling me I should try to save my marriage!" "I have told some clients that, in recent years," Barbara admitted. "I don't see every case as a chance for the 'shark' to feed. Sometimes I try to discourage a divorce, if I think it's avoidable, or foolish, even if it means I don't get my money, I learned a few years ago that being able to look myself in the mirror is worth a lot of greenbacks." "It doesn't apply to your case, Darling," Sarah said reassuringly. "Your father was a good man caught up in a nasty situation, one he might have contributed to but that basically wasn't his fault. Your husband is neither good nor a man." Leanne blinked, and then giggled. "As low as my opinion of Gary is now, Mom, I have to say from first hand experience that's he's definitely a man. I know the anatomical signs." "All that makes him is a male, not a man," Sarah said with a sad, bitter smile. "A real man doesn't behave the way he's behaved, he doesn't treat his wife, or anyone else for that matter, with the casual disregard he's shown for you! A real man doesn't manipulate people that way, or try to destroy his wife's self-respect for his own convenience! "No, your father was and is a man, one of the best I've ever known," Sarah went on. "Your husband would have a hard time passing the qualifiers for boy, much less man, I've met many a teenage boy who was a better human being, closer to being a man, than your husband is at 32." As she said that, Sarah thought back over their many talks during the previous two weeks since her daughter had come to her. Leanne had told her many details of how Gary had treated her, a hundred little things that were individually mostly innocuous, but which added up, in Sarah's opinion, to emotional abuse. She had no doubt that everything Leanne had told her was true, she had years of experience in 'reading' her kids and none of them had ever had any luck at trying to lie to her. On top of that, what Leanne said 'meshed' with what Sarah had observed over the years too well. Even if Leanne had been trying to lie to her about her husband, there would have been no way she could match her story up so perfectly with things Sarah had seen Gary or herself say or do over the years. "No kidding," Leanne said grimly. "The more I think back on it, the more I can see just what he's been doing to me all these years." "Tell me the story, Mrs. Norris," Barbara said. "Just the high spots, if I take the case we'll get into the fine details later, but I need to know the big picture now." Sarah mostly sat and listened as her daughter told Barbara the story, pretty much the same things she'd told her mother over the previous two weeks. The story was more condensed now, more ordered and clear, because Leanne had had time to boil it down to the basics out of her emotional furor, but hearing it laid out clearly and concisely in some ways only made it more ghastly. Leanne told of the affairs, of his controlling ways with their money, insisting that she pay her wages into a checking account in his sole name, of his efforts to minimize her contact with her family, and many other things as well. When Sarah had first heard Leanne telling her about how Gary had tried to cut her off from her parents and siblings and friends, she'd actually given a moment's thought to buying a gun and just blowing his head off, her anger had been that extreme. Sanity had returned a moment later, but she still shook with fury at the idea whenever she thought about it. Of course the bastard hadn't presented it to her little girl that way, oh no, that wasn't his style. He'd framed it as protecting her family from her 'perversions'. That thought made Sarah smile bitterly, thinking of her own and her ex-husband's interests, but of course it had never been about that anyway. It had been about making Leanne as emotionally dependent on her manipulative spouse as possible. He'd managed to cut her off, more or less, from her relatives, her friends, everyone. He'd done it so subtly that nobody had quite realized he was doing it, not even Leanne herself. Sarah knew she hardly ever saw her daughter anymore, but somehow she'd never made any sinister connection to it, she'd just been sad at how busy and disconnected everyone was! 'Oh, you're slick, you bastard,' Sarah thought again of her son, 'but the party is over!' When Leanne finished her story, Barbara nodded. "I think there's definitely grounds for a case here, Mrs. Norris. Three separate affairs, which you say you can document, is that right?" Leanne laughed sourly. "Oh yes. I've got photographic proof of one instance, and I can find several witnesses to back up the other two. That's the affairs that I know about, mind you. I have reason to suspect others, but no proof of them." "We can work on that," Barbara said, making a note on a yellow legal pad. "The more the merrier, if we're going for divorce and maximum impact. If there were others there are probably witnesses who can verify them, if he's been as careless as you describe." "He's hardly made that big a secret of it," Leanne said bitterly. "I can't believe I kept taking him back!" "That could be a slight problem, depending on how slick his counsel is," Barbara warned. "They may try to portray you as having consented to it, since you admit to having known of at least some of the affairs. He may try to claim that you knew what he was doing and that he had your approval." Leanne blinked. "Could that work?" "I've seen it tried," Barbara said. "Sometimes it flies...and sometimes it's even true. There are some men who get off on seeing their wives with other men, and some women who are the same way. There are also some couples who just don't give a damn what the other spouse does out of their sight. The important thing for us is that we not let them try to spin this that way. So for the record, you did not give you consent, is that correct?" "I did not! He never asked me!!" Leanne said hotly. "If he'd asked me, maybe I'd-" Leanne started to go on, but then she suddenly she fell silent. Barbara looked at her sharply, but said nothing. Then she nodded. "All right, you did not give consent. Now, I need to ask you a few personal questions, please believe me that I need to know! They're important to your chances of coming out of this with what you want." "All right," Leanne nodded. "Ask." "You say you decided to divorce upon discovering your husband in the act of sexual congress with another woman, two weeks ago, is that correct?" "Yes," Leanne said grimly. "Up until that time, during the course of your marriage, were you ever sexually unfaithful to your husband?" "NO!" Leann snarled. Barbara blinked at her vehemence, and smiled a little. "Good, that helps. If fact, it's potentially crucial. Now, since then, I assume you have not had sexual contact with your husband?" "Hell no," Leanne said. "I haven't even been in the same room with him since that night, all our communication has been by phone, and I'd sooner screw a cactus than touch him now!" Sarah blushed a little at her daughter's frank words, she certainly was anything but a prude, and she knew her children were adult snow, but hearing such language from her daughter still caught her by surprise. Then she giggled, considering how minor that was compared to something else that had recently happened. "All right," Barbara said with a slight smile as she made some more notations. "As of now, I need you to make sure that all further communication, and I do mean ALL, is either through me or with my knowledge, for Heaven's sake don't go behind my back with anything! You'd be amazed what trivial things can sink a suit like this, all right?" "No problem," Leanne nodded. "I want as little direct contact with the sleaze as possible." "Now, since your decision to divorce, have you had sexual contact with anyone else?" Barbara blinked, because for some reason Leanne and her mother both suddenly blushed scarlet. For a moment she wasn't sure Leanne wanted to answer, then she said, "Yes. One time." Brashey Family Story Ch. 03 THE BRASHEY FAMILY STORY 3... NOTE: This story develops gradually... AMY AND MILES... Miles was still gasping for breath, regaining his self-possession, and with the release of the intense sexual frustration he was suddenly acutely aware of his somewhat embarrassing position: tied spread-eagle to their bed, nude and helpless with his wife Amy lying atop him, his warm cum trapped between their bellies. The ringing telephone had jarred them enough that he'd lost his self-control before either were ready, and now Amy was lying atop him talking on the phone as if nothing unusual was happening. Which it wasn't, he reflected with a little grin, not really. He and Amy had been playing these games since before they were married, it was just that this particular situation had never before arisen. "No, no, you're not calling at a bad time, Lee," Amy was saying into the phone, though she exchanged rueful glances with her husband as she did. It had taken his wife several moments to 'shift gears' from 'teasing sexy slut' to 'middle sister', and apparently the confusion had come through to Amy. 'I'll bet Amy would freak out if she could see what was going on here,' Miles thought in a mixture of embarrassment and amusement. 'She's always so prim and proper, and here her little sister has me all tied up!' In spite of the fact that he'd just came a few moments before, the weight of his nude wife on his body, the feel of her soft breasts against his chest, the warmth of her skin touching his, even the slight humiliation of having sprayed cum on their bodies, it was started to excite him again. But his momentary excitement was checked by the sudden change he heard in his wife's tone. "Really? Oh Sis I'm so sorry," Amy was saying, "are you sure?" Amy's eyes had gone distant, any hint of sexual excitement gone from her mannerisms. 'Uh-oh,' Miles thought, 'has there been an accident or something? She looks like she just got really bad news!' "Oh Lee, I'm so sorry to hear that, I never knew you and Gary were having so many problems...he WHAT?! Three times?!!" As Miles listened to half the conversation, he tried to piece together what was going on, from the sound of it there hadn't been a death in the family, but it certainly didn't sound good. As the discussion went on, he had a sudden hunch that his sister was getting a divorce. It was the only thing that seemed to fit the half the discussion he could hear. The conversation went on for over an hour, and when Amy finally hung up, her husband saw tears in his wife's eyes. "Honey?" "Lee and Gary are breaking up," Amy told him. "Apparently the creep cheated on her three times!" 'That she knows about,' Miles thought to himself, but he didn't say it aloud. He'd never cared for Gary Norris, his sister's husband. He paused to wonder what term applied to the spouse of your sibling-in-law, then dismissed that with an irritated mental shrug. Not important. What was important was that Miles wasn't surprised at all that his sister was finally breaking up with Norris, he'd actually thought it would happen years earlier. He'd always liked his wife's older sister, she was pretty and vivacious and smart, and he'd never quite seen why she had married a man like Norris. Miles was a private security officer, not a guard but a professional responsible for security for a branch of a corporation, part of his job required sizing people up. From the day he'd first met Norris, his gut instinct had been 'bad news'. He didn't know anything about him to justify that reaction, just a professional's hunch, something about his mannerism, the way he seemed to watch everyone and everything without ever fully interacting. Miles had watched him with his sister and he was certain Norris was a controlling bastard, Lee often seemed like a puppet on a string when the two were together...and they were rarely seen apart. Miles thought back and realized that in recent years he'd seen his sister-in-law only a handful of times, rarely with her spouse more than a few feet away. Husband and wife talked for quite a while, and decided that it would be a good idea to go pay a visit on Sarah and Leanne soon, under the circumstances. Miles had some vacation time coming, so it was no problem to go, and he was looking forward to seeing hiss. Though the stereotype was that mothers-in-law and sons-in-law weren't supposed to get along, he'd actually always liked Sarah. "Aren't you going to untie me?" Miles asked his wife, as they settled down to sleep. "Why would I?" she inquired, a smile appearing on her pretty face for the first time in hours, since she'd taken the call from Leanne. "Uh..." Miles replied, caught off-guard by the question. "You're not uncomfortable, are you?" "Well, no, but-" He wasn't. Amy had tied him with ropes that had some slack in them, he was spread-eagled but quite comfortable, he could even shift position a little bit. He suddenly suspected that his wife had been planning this all evening. "Good, I don't want you to suffer, baby!" "But I-" "Shhh!" Amy said as she snuggled close to her husband, not bothering to clean the drying cum off their bellies. "No more talking, slave!" Miles shivered, there was something about hearing Amy call him 'slave' that always had that effect, even if he didn't want it to happen. He thought about snapping his fingers. He knew Amy would release him immediately if he did...but she looked so comfortable, lying against him with her head on his chest, arm around him, eyes closed...and the submissive part of him was reveling in his predicament. He kept putting off making her let him go...and he was still tied to the bedposts when both husband and wife fell asleep. THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY... "So what's on your agenda for today, Honey?" Sarah asked her daughter. It was a Saturday morning, and both women were free for the day. "Besides being horny as a hoot owl?" the younger woman laughed, as mother and daughter faced each other over the breakfast table. The warm morning sunshine poured in through the back patio doors, giving a wonderful view of the lake. "Lee!" Sarah said, trying at least sound scandalized. Though it might seem to be locking the door after the horses escaped, Sarah couldn't shake a sense that she should be restoring a few boundaries with Leanne. "I can't help it, Mom," the 31 year old said, ignoring her mother's pretended discomfort. Ever since the one time they'd set aside their inhibitions, she'd been unable to bring herself to pretend that she was shy with Sarah, at least verbally. "Barbara said I shouldn't have any sex until the divorce goes through, and I can see why, but just the fact that I'm not supposed to do it makes me want it!" Sarah smiled softly. "Also known as the chocolate ice cream effect." "Eh?" Leanne said, as she took a bite of scrambled eggs. "Chocolate ice cream," Sarah explained, "normally I eat it maybe once a month, and don't miss it the rest of the time, but the moment I decide to cut back or go on a diet, it's all I can think about." "Yeah, I know that feeling," Leanne replied between bites of eggs. "With me it's barbecue-flavor potato chips. The moment I go on a diet I can just feel them calling me!" "Like you need to watch what you eat," Sarah laughed. She was a little envious of her daughter on that score, actually, Leanne had inherited her father's metabolism, and could eat anything she wanted for the most part without gaining weight. "Since when do you diet?" Leanne paused, looked down, and then grimaced. "Actually, Gary used to tell me he thought I was-" "Say no more," Sarah replied through grinding teeth. "He thought you were too fat?" "Or too skinny," Leanne nodded. "He was always subtly on my case about my looks, I was always getting a little too fat or a little too skinny, or getting too much sun or too little, he'd tell me he was worried about me, and I'd believe him. I was an idiot!" "So help me," Sarah muttered, "I'd like to stuff your husband into a cannon and fire him into a concrete wall! I've never really hated anyone in my life like I'm starting to hate Gary!" Leanne giggled. "I know, it'd kind of fun to watch!" Then she suddenly sobered, and added, "Very flattering, too. Gary had me convinced that he was the only person who cared for me, the real me, with my 'perverted' fantasies and my 'weight problems' and my 'artistic pretensions' and the rest. He had me convinced that if you and Daddy and Amy and Kyle knew the real me none of you'd ever want to speak to me again! It's so...I don't know, a relief, a joy, to find out otherwise! Knowing that you care enough about me to get mad at him...it's like a balm on a burn, or cold water on a hot day!" Sarah looked at her daughter with moist eyes. They had just gotten up from the breakfast table as Leanne said this last, and Sarah took three strides over to her daughter and grabbed her and held her close. The maternal hug went on for several moments, and Leanne basked in it, there were tears on her face too. "I love you, I love you, I love you, little girl," Sarah whispered in her daughter's ear. "Never forget that, never listen to anyone or anything who tells you otherwise, man or woman, young or old, never! I could never turn you away, not the way Gary had you thinking, nothing and no one mean more to me than you do! Knowing what that...that...MONSTER had you thinking, it just makes me want to hold you like this for the rest of my life, keep you right beside me forever so you can never doubt my love for you again!" "Mom..." the crying younger woman said. "Thank you. I know I must seem like a regular weeping willow these days, but-" "Shhh..." Sarah said, holding her close. After a moment the two stepped back, both of them sniffling a little. "Mom," Leanne said, "what we did, a couple of weeks ago...I'm not sorry at all, but I can live without ever doing it again...not that I'm saying we won't. When that divorce decree comes through, I intend to do whatever I feel like, and if you're willing I wouldn't mind trying that again." Sarah blushed, part of her still felt she should be trying to dissuade Leanne, that she had some duty to insist it could never be repeated...but she didn't really want that, and she knew it. Part of her badly wanted to do it again, a part of her she'd never imagined existed until two weeks before. The very idea that she'd had sex with Leanne still shocked her...but the memory excited her every night when she replayed it, bringing her to more orgasms than she'd had in ages. "But I don't think I could live without your hugs, now that I've got them again," Leanne said. "Whatever happens, Mom, I don't ever want to let anything come between us again! I've missed you so much, and I didn't even realize it because I didn't realize Gary had separated us so much!" "You're not going to have to, Baby!" Sarah assured her. "Heaven help anyone that tries to come between you and me again!" "You've got that right," Leanne replied with tearful determination. For a moment the two women looked at each other, four hands together, and then Leanne said, "You asked what I had in mind for today?" "Yeah, what's on the agenda?" "Daddy is back in town," Leanne said, "and I think it's time I paid a call." "You're sure he's back, Honey?" Sarah said as they carried their dishes to the sink. "Yep," Leanne replied. Sarah ran a sinkful of hot water and suds, and washed their breakfast dishes as Leanne dried them. It brought back many a memory of earlier years in the little house where she'd raised the kids, though Leanne was far readier to pitch in and help with the dishes now than she had been at 10! "I saw him last night, as I drove past his apartment building." "You didn't speak to him?" Sarah asked as she scrubbed the bacon grease off the pan. "I didn't have time, Mom," Leanne replied. "I was in traffic and he was walking in the front door, and I was past him before I had time to so much as honk my horn. So I thought I'd go by there today and surprise him." "Do you want me to come with you?" Sarah asked. "Well...I guess I wouldn't mind, at that, Mom. Moral support and all that, for when I have to tell Daddy how stupid I've been." Sarah sighed. "Hon, he won't be mad at you, I promise." "I sure hope you're right," the younger woman replied, sounding uncertain in spite of her mother's reassurances, leaving her mother to curse Gary Norris yet again, though she did so silently. The two women chatted about everyday things as they went out to Sarah's car, Leanne trying visibly to hide her own nervousness. As they drove across the city toward the expensive apartment house where Phillip Brashey lived, Sarah thought back over the years since she'd first met that annoying, lovable man, when they were only fourteen years old. They'd been freshmen in high school, and they'd hit it off right away, Phillip and she had been inseparable within a month of their meeting. It hadn't been exactly love at first sight, but it had been darned close. By the time she was sixteen, they'd managed to do what both of them had vowed never to do, she was pregnant and had been forced to have her baby while still in high school. She was hardly the only girl in their class to have that happen, but unlike some of the other guys involved, Phillip Brashey had not exercised the amazing supernatural power of dematerialization that some of his fellows had displayed, instead he'd remained with Sarah when Leanne was born and they'd gotten married as soon as they graduated. They hadn't been made of money, of course. Both attended college and worked as they did, Sarah's parents contributing babysitting for little Leanne, and then little Amy, and finally little Kyle. Sarah had studied finance and accounting, Phillip mechanical engineering, and by dint of incredible amounts of hard work and luck, both had successfully completed college and gone on to successful careers in spite of their earlier errors. 'Maybe that was why we ended up divorcing,' Sarah mused, 'we were fine as long as we were fighting together, struggling together, but when we started to 'arrive' we didn't know how to handle that.' The divorce had come just as both had really begun to achieve some success, and to her dismay looking back Sarah still could not quite put her finger on any single thing that had started it. It just seemed to gradually come out of nowhere. Bit by bit their arguments grew more heated and longer, their good times shorter and less satisfying, they picked at each other, they bickered, they chewed away at the glue that had bound them together since their teens...and it had finally snapped. The divorce had started out 'civil' and degenerated to the point that they were at open war with each other, their three kids caught up between, and it had all gone on for over a year. Sarah sighed, knowing that the scars in their kids were not yet healed ten years later. Luckily, after it was over, she and Phillip had managed to find something of their former good will as friends, they even had dinner together often. Not that there weren't still some sore points left between the two of them. One such sore point was resting in a reserved spot in the parking lot of the apartment house where Phillip now lived. It was a sleek convertible, a 'classic car' that had been a gift from Sarah's own, now deceased, father to her on her 23rd birthday. It was red, fast, and handled like a dream, and Sarah had loved it...and somehow Phillip's lawyer had convinced the judge to award it to him in the divorce! She still wasn't sure how that had happened, and she still resented it, too. As the two blondes walked past the car, their heels clicking on the pavement, Sarah paused to look hungrily at what had once been her car. It was still in excellent condition, she had to admit that her ex-husband had taken very good care of it. Still, as far as she was concerned it was rightfully her car, and she resented the fact that Phillip had it. "Come on, Mom," Leanne said with a grin, "drool over Daddy's convertible later!" Sarah glared at Leanne, but followed her toward the lobby of the apartment building, cast a last few longing looks back at her red convertible. Someday, somehow, some way, she vowed for the millionth time, she was going to get that car back! Phillip's luxury apartment was on the 20th floor, with a glorious view across the city. Sarah had been there a few times, and she had to admit that Phillip had really decorated the place tastefully, it was a far cry from the tiny house they'd lived in together through most of the years before their divorce, where they'd raised Leanne and Amy and where Kyle had spent the first half of his life. After the divorce, Kyle had ended up living with Phillip, so he'd spent the second half of his childhood in this very apartment building, along with the last few years of his middle sister's youth. Sarah had agreed that Phillip should have custody of Kyle and Amy for personal reasons, it was never a lack of love but rather the suspicion that they were better off with him just then. She still wasn't sure she'd made the right choice, but one thing she'd never doubted was her ex-husband's love for their kids. These days, with Kyle in the Army and Leanne and Amy grown and gone (until very recently in the former case), Sarah knew Phillip lived alone. She and her ex-husband were on good terms, and sometimes had dinner and went to a movie together, but she was sure there were other women in his life. She didn't know any of them, but she wasn't so foolish as to doubt they were there. When they reached his apartment, the door was unlocked, and Sarah and Leanne went inside. The maid was just finishing up the cleaning, which was why the door had been opened, but she recognized Sarah and Sarah and Leanne sat down to wait for Phillip to return from wherever he'd gone. Leanne had a quick look around her father's apartment, almost as impressed by his place as she had been by her mother's, and then they sat on the balcony overlooking the city, and Sarah was enjoying the view and the company when they heard Phillip's voice in the hallway...and someone else's. The other voice was female, laughing and smiling, and Sarah and Leanne exchanged looks. "Uh...maybe we should have called first?" Leanne said uncertainly. "Could be," Sarah admitted. The two women stepped inside the apartment from the balcony, and Sarah said, "Tell you what, we'll go outside and meet them as they come around the corner, it'll be less awkward that way, if this is what it sounds like." "Good idea, let me just get my purse, I left it in the bedroom." Leanne disappeared into the bedroom, and a moment later Sarah realized that they were out of time, she could hear her ex-husband's voice as he rounded the corner outside the door, and the voice of a woman with him, and it definitely sounded like they were more than casual acquaintances! She ducked into the bedroom, seeing her daughter picking up her purse, and on an impulse that she would later question the sanity of, she pulled Leanne into the closet with her. Later it would seem like something out of a sitcom, but at the time it was the only impulse in her head, and Leanne was looking in surprise at her mother. "Mom," she whispered, "what on Earth-?!" "Shhh!" Sarah whispered in the shadow of the big clothes closet, finger to her lips. "We'll wait till they go to the kitchen and then we'll slip out. Your Dad's on a date and this probably isn't a good time!" It wasn't a very smart plan, Sarah would later admit to herself, the smart thing to do would have been to show themselves, apologize for their timing, and explain that they'd come for a family visit. But somehow the circumstances seemed to banish rational thought! Brashey Family Story Ch. 04 Note: Story proceeds gradually... LEANNE and AMY... "Mrs. Norris has no desire for any such settlement," Barbara said. Leanne looked up from where she was sitting, at a table in a nearly empty court room, a few feet from where her lawyer Barbara Jennings was presenting the latest response in her divorce proceeding against her husband Gary Norris. The older woman was standing in front of a bored-looking judge, who did at least look the part. Thick silver hair, in his early sixties, or so Leanne would guess, and he looked 'distinguished' in a way that suggested he would have been rather handsome in his youth. "What aspects of the settlement offer trouble your client, counsel?" "My client paid for nearly half of the cost of the house," Barbara was saying, "and set aside her own college education in the process of helping her husband establish his own career. Yet now it is suggested that she could be paid a lump sum of less than half of the house's value-" Leanne zoned out a bit. It was not that she wasn't closely concerned with the outcome of the divorce suit, which had been going on now for over a month, but at the same time the 31 year old simply had a low tolerance for 'legalese' of any sort. Whenever Barbara, and Ms. Rossi, her husband's lawyer, began to get into the nuts and bolts of the arguments, she tended to find her attention wandering. Damn! Leanne thought to herself, as she watched Barbara walking back and forth a little as she made her points, going from a stack of financial statements to a flip-sheet covered in receipts and documents, but Babs has a terrific ass! It was not, perhaps, the most relevant thing in the world to be thinking about her own lawyer, but Leanne found that she couldn't quite help it. It was true, after all. Barbara was wearing an office-appropriate skirt that was a little snug, and Leanne could tell that the older woman had a very nice rear, both concealed and revealed by the snug cloth. As Barbara walked, her bottom swayed and Leanne had to fight to hide her interest. Yeah, she thought, very nice. Round and firm, almost as nice as Mom's behind... She shook her head, trying to get her mind off her counsel's butt, but it wasn't easy. It had been nearly three months, after all, since the last time Leanne had had any sort of sexual contact with another human being, and she was getting...well, there was no ladylike way to put it, she was horny. Really horny, and being bisexual, she found herself fixating on both the guys and the gals around her pretty steadily. Idly, Leanne wondered what her lawyer would think if she knew her client was sitting behind her, fantasizing about what she'd look like naked. It's her own fault anyway, Leanne mused. She told me 'no sex' until after the divorce was finalized, and I've done it, or rather not done it, so she can hardly blame me if I'm wanting it now! I'm only human! Leanne looked around. It gave her a little relief, her lawyer was by far the hottest person in the room, male or female, but there were some other people who set her mind to working. The judge was not a bad looking man for his age, Leanne mused, and the clerk was a cute little twenty-something with big boobs...she turned her head, trying to find a safe place to rest her eyes. After a moment she found it, her eyes came to rest on probably the least sexy person she could imagine in the world: her husband Gary. At one time, Leanne had hardly been able to take her eyes off Gary Norris. A confirmed bisexual, Leanne had been happily prepared to give up all other men and all women, to settle down with this one man, and if he'd kept his side of the bargain, she mused, she'd have been happy to remain that way for the rest of her life. Unfortunately, the man she ended up married to had turned out to be a different person than the man who had so avidly and eagerly courted her. Oh, he'd been smooth, clever, he'd not missed a trick, she mused. He'd twisted her around his little finger, cheated on her repeatedly, belittled her, controlled her, cut her off from her family and her friends, undercut her dreams, and he'd had her convinced it was all for the best, that she was the reason things were the way they were. If he hadn't finally pushed her a little too far, she'd probably still be with him, playing doormat for him and his bimbos. You bastard, she thought angrily, you at least don't turn me on anymore, all I have to do it look at you and the mood goes away. Just thinking about touching you nauseates me! Leanne turned her attention back to the discussion, where her husband's lawyer was now replying to Barbara's salvo. "-my client earnestly disputes Mrs. Norris' claim that she was in any way responsible for his business success. Indeed, we are prepared to show that Mrs. Norris' actions were a problematic issue, and that my client's patience with her behavior cost him materially in terms of time and-" You lying bastard, Leanne thought poisonously as she glanced back at Gary. He looked her way as well, and smiled a smile that made Leanne's stomach churn. It was a familiar smile, a grin of...not gloating, exactly, though that was a part of it. It was...it was confident, it was that grin he'd always get just before he turned whatever she was complaining about, or objecting to, or just disputing around so that it was her fault. It was the grin of a man who was absolutely sure that she could not go against him, that she would not, that her will was so broken that the dispute was over before it began. Why wouldn't he think that? Leanne asked herself sourly. It was always true before! Leanne remembered her first meeting with Gary face-to-face after she'd stormed out of the house. It had come about six weeks afterward, in the company of their lawyers, and she could still remember the look on his face when she'd refused to come home with him even after he 'explained' why things weren't the way she thought they were. When he'd realized that his wife wasn't going to snap to heel this time, he'd come close to losing his temper in public, but he'd restrained himself, and insinuated that her mother had been a harmful influence on her since she'd gone to live with her. Then it had almost been Leanne's turn to lose it, when she'd heard the contemptuous, sly tone of his words when he mentioned her mother Sarah. Sarah had been Leanne's rock ever since her farce of a marriage had finally come apart, taking her into her home, welcoming her daughter back into her life with open arms, giving her strength to stand up for herself after her husband had spent years weakening her. Leanne had forgotten, until lately, how much she loved her mother, and now she had a very low tolerance of criticism against her, especially from low-life like her husband. So far, the divorce had remained above the muck. Her husband wasn't contesting the divorce in itself, but he was stalling it, and Leanne knew that he was working from the assumption that if he just drew things out long enough, eventually she'd crumble and come back to him, and things could go on the way they had always been going on. He would have his loyal, supporting little wife back, his affairs on the side, things would get back to 'normal' for them. That is soooo not going to happen, asshole! she thought as she glared at her smirking husband. At last, the judge gaveled the session closed for the day, and Leanne and Barbara had a quick chat as they headed outside. It was 5:00 pm on a hot, heavy Friday, thick grey clouds covered the sky and a distant rumble of thunder could be heard as the two women emerged from the courthouse into the swelteringly close evening air. "He's just stalling," Barbara was saying. "Just like you said he would. I don't know what he hopes to gain, though. With the physical evidence we've got about his affairs, plus the testimony from your accountant about how he tried to hide assets from you, it would be very nearly impossible for him to stop the divorce, or even hope to contest our demands. The most he can do is drag it out and that's just making his own legal bills bigger." "He's an arrogant, sleazy bastard," Leanne said, as they walked toward their cars. "He's thinking that if he just holds out long enough, I'll fold up, crawl back to him, and he can pick up where he left off." "Surely he's had time to realize by now that you're not going to go along with that plan?!" "You don't understand what a prick he is, Babs," Leanne said. She was still amazed at how much she had come to like Barbara Jennings since the woman had taken her case, she'd spent ten years more or less hating her for her role in her own parents' divorce, but now she found herself comfortably on a first-name basis with her mother's lawyer and friend. "I don't think he can quite believe he's pushed me too far, it's outside his mindset. His ego won't let him accept the concept that I might have opened my eyes." "Well, if I read the signs right," Barbara said, as she paused to unlock the door of her own car, "he's going to have a rude awakening in another week or so. I don't think he can drag this out much longer, Judge Conrad isn't a fool and he can see what your husband is doing. I can tell that his own patience with the stall is wearing out." Leanne took a deep breath. "A week? I could really be free of the creep in just another week?" "I can't guarantee it, Lee," Barbara said, "but I think it's likely that this is just about over." "Oh, I can hardly wait," Leanne said to her counsel as the older woman got into her car. "See you on Monday!" After she watched her lawyer drive away, Leanne headed for her own car. She was suddenly very tired, it had been a long day and she was exhausted with that kind of drained feeling that comes from sitting in one place all day, doing nothing and being bored and frustrated. Her muscles were tight, she felt hot and sweaty (the air conditioning in the court house was not all that effective on such hot days) and her feet hurt in her high heels. Damn, I wish I could see Mom right now! Unfortunately, she was a long way from the town where her mother Sarah lived, and where she supposed she lived too now. She'd had to come back to where she'd spent her married life to take part in the divorce proceedings, and she'd been hear off and on for weeks. She had debated driving back to Sarah's place for the weekend, but it was a long drive and she had already paid for her hotel room, so she had decided she might as well stay put. If Barbara was right, another week or so and it would all be behind her, she could wait that long. As she drove up to the small hotel her mother had paid for her to stay in, Leanne sighed. Part of her still was feeling a little guilty about how much her mother was spending on her adult daughter, and how much trouble she'd gone to. It felt a little like an imposition, she wasn't 13, she was 31, and she ought to be more self-reliant. On the other hand, all her own financial resources were locked up by the ongoing divorce proceedings, so she didn't have much choice. And I have to admit it feels pretty darn nice to have Mom looking out for me again! I've been so alone for so long with Gary, and I didn't even realize it until afterwards. Now Mom's wrapped her arms around me and wants to take care of me and I'm loving it! She rode up the elevator to sixth floor, and walked down the corridor to her hotel room, and there she found that the door was already unlocked, and there was someone waiting for her on the sofa. "Amy?!" Leanne exclaimed. "Hi, Sis," Amy Lindstrom replied, standing up and running over to her older sister for a hug. "What are you doing here?" Leanne said with a happy grin as she stepped back from her sister for a moment, hands still holding Amy's. "Visiting you, of course," Amy replied. "I've been trying to away from work for weeks so I could out to see you, and Miles still couldn't, so finally I just decided that I wasn't going to wait any more. So here I am!" "So...did Mom tell you what's going on?" Leanne asked. "The details about you and the prick?" Amy said, with an angry flash in her eyes. "Oh yes, and I still can't believe it! He really cheated on you in your own bed?!" "Yes," Leanne nodded, the bitter anger at Gary now faded to sour aftertaste when she thought about him. "I walked right in on him and a little slut that worked with him at his office, and I guess that was just the last little straw that broke the camel's back." The two sisters, 31 and 26, blonde and brunette, continued to talk about everything that had been happening, Leanne bringing her sister up to date as she did. It had been over a year since she'd seen Amy, and she'd been scared of how her sister would react when told the details of how easily Gary had fucked with her head, but to her relief, as she explained, her sister simply got angrier and angrier at her hopefully soon-to-be-ex-husband, without a hint of contempt or disgust at Leanne. "So," the older girl finally said, "you don't think I'm a sucker for letting Gary get away with it all this time?" "No," Amy said firmly, pushing her glasses up her nose as she did in a mannerism so very familiar to Leanne from their younger days. "I think he's a cruel, manipulative bastard who took advantage of my big sister's loving and loyal nature! And I hope you take him to the cleaners!" Leanne laughed with relief, and hugged Amy again. "Have you eaten yet, Sis?" Leanne asked when she let the dark-haired girl go. "Not since breakfast this morning, and I'm famished!" "There's a good steakhouse a few blocks from here," Leanne told her. "What say we go get something to eat, I'm hungry too." "Sounds good to me," Amy said, "but promise you won't let me order desert! I'm trying to cut back!" Leanne giggled. Her younger sister was anything but fat, but she was very curvy in a cute way, and she was always worried about gaining weight. "I promise, cross my heart," Leanne said, "no desert for you! But let me grab a shower and get myself fixed up, I'm sweaty and I feel grungy!" "OK, but hurry up, willya? I'm hungry enough to eat a seat cushion!" "OK, OK," Leanne said as she got to her feet. She removed her high heels as she did, and gratefully let her stockinged feet sink into the soft carpeting of the suite as she padded over to the bedroom. She left the door open so she could continue to chat with Amy, and began to unbutton her blouse as she listened to Amy talk about her and Miles' latest job developments. "So you think you've got a promotion coming?" Leanne asked as she slipped her blouse off and undid the clasps of her bra. As the restricting garment came off, she breathed a sigh of relief as her boobs were set free. She rubbed her breasts a bit to try and restore some feeling in them, and then she slid her skirt down her legs. "I think so," Amy replied from in the other room. "I know it's between me and one other woman, and I really think I have the inside track!" Leanne stepped out of her dark skirt, and put her fingers under the tight waistband of her pantyhose, and began to skim them down over her hips and down her legs. As she wadded up the sweaty nylon and tossed it into the hamper, she sighed in relief, it felt good to be nude! She started to reach for her robe, and then a wicked thought crossed her mind. I wonder how Amy'd react if I just walked to the shower in front of her in my birthday suit? The more she pondered the question, the more she found the idea irresistible. I was so not her, or rather, it was so not the woman she'd been since she married Gary, it was a lot more like the wild college girl she remembered being, that she remembered liking being. It wasn't that Amy had never seen her undressed before, but it had been a long time, and what was not shocking in a locker room could be quite impressive under other circumstances. With a deep breath to back up her resolve, Leanne walked out of the bedroom, padding barefoot across the living room of the suit to the door to the bathroom, naked as the day she was born. As she did, she continued with the conversation as calmly as she could manage, as if she was doing nothing out of the ordinary. "Yeah, I think that if I do get the promotion, I'll-" Amy broke off and blinked in surprise as she saw her stark-naked older sister walk calmly across the room, to disappear into the bathroom. A moment later she heard the shower come on, though Leanne had not shut the door, and she heard her sister call out from in the shower, "you'll what? What was that, Squirt?" "Wha-I mean,-" Amy broke off, trying to focus her brain. Did I just see what I think I just saw? Amy asked herself in confusion. I must be imagining it, Lee never acts like that! But it sure looked like it! "I said if I get the promotion, I'm going to see about hiring a personal assistant," Amy managed, trying to get her mind back on the track it had been riding down moments earlier. "A nice hunky one, right out of college?" came Leanne's teasing voice from the shower. "Maybe," Amy returned with a grin. She got up and walked over to the open door to the shower, so she could hear her sister better. Yeah, that was why, she mused. Liar! Damn but Lee has a great ass! I can't believe how hot she looked just now! Amy had a secret from her family, well, a lot of secrets, most of them to do with her personal sexual interests. One of those secrets was that she was strongly attracted to both sexes, and seeing Leanne parade across the room a moment before had made her hormones take off like a rocket! That athletic, toned body, her firm breasts, the way her buns had swayed as she turned away...it had been a beautiful moment, if a confusing one. As she reached the door, Amy saw that the curtain to the shower was drawn, but she could clearly make out the dim silhouette of her older sister behind it. As she watched, Leanne was bending over, scrubbing her long legs, she could just make out the shape of her sister's hips, the sway of her boobs as she leaned over...her mouth went dry as she watched. "Wouldn't Miles mind that?" Leanne was asking, and Amy shook her head and tried to focus on the conversation. "You working to all hours with a hunky stud right out of college?" "Well..." Amy was torn, part of her wanted to change the subject...but part of her had always sort of wanted to tell someone about this part of her life, too. She wasn't sure if Leanne's current divorce would make her more receptive to listening, or make her more hostile to what Amy would be saying. After a moment, though, she screwed up her courage and spoke. "Lee," Amy said suddenly, "if I told you a secret, can I count on you to keep it? Not to tell anyone, especially not Mom and Dad?" Leanne had stood up in the shower, and now she was washing her breasts...Amy squeezed her eyes shut for a moment to keep from shivering. "Of course, Squirt," Leanne replied from the shower stall. "You know I've never told a secret you shared with me!" That was true, Amy reflected. In all their years, Leanne had never betrayed a confidence of Amy's, the reverse hadn't always been true, occasionally over their childhood years, Amy had been unable to resist the little sister's temptation of being a 'tattletale'. She blushed a little as she remembered a couple of instances where she'd gotten Leanne into trouble, it had been fun at the time but now, looking back from the mature heights of the age of 26, it seemed childish and disloyal. "Sis, Miles and I...we kinda have...well...I kinda...I cheat on him. And he knows all about it." There was a moment of silence, and the shadow behind the curtain paused. Then the shower curtain shifted a little and Leanne's wet face, framed by soaking wet hair clinging to her head, appeared around the edge and said, "What?"