Dr HOOTERS PT. XXXVIII Consuela closed the gate behind her as she loped out onto the dusty road that ran in front of Captain Mourassi's house. The house, an old cracker house with high ceilings and a wide front porch, was located well off the beaten path, surrounded by groves of citrus and orchards of other fruit. She was used to this, this country way of life, before that bearded bastard made life so hard in Cuba. It had been a while since she had felt like this, she realized as she began running down the long dirt road towards the state high- way. Running for fun, she thought to herself. Who would have believed it? Equally unusual it was that she didn't crave a drink. In Miami, that human sewer that has the nerve to call it- self a city, it seemed like she wanted a drink every fifteen min- utes. Not out here, though. This was life "como Dios manda", the way God intended. Consuela pulled her long black hair into a pony tail and secured it with a rubber band. The road in front of Captain Mourassi's house rose and fell gently as it meandered through the groves, and Consuela paced herself appropriately, swinging into a longer stride on the downslopes and pushing hard- er on the uphill portions. Soon, a trickle of sweat began to run down the front of her T-shirt as the fierce summer sun climbed higher, peaking over the tops of the trees. Reaching the state highway, Consuela crossed the street and bought a bag of churros from an old Mexican lady who had set up a fruit stand there. There was another difference, she thought to herself. In Miami, you have Cubans and Colombians. Up here, Mexicans and Salvadorans. The accent's different, but, God be thanked, Spanish is Spanish. The churros were good, too, fresh and warm. She bought a small cup of hot chocolate and dipped one of the churros in it. She sat and chatted briefly with the Mexican woman, who was from Guanjuato. Damn Mexican names! Consuela had only the slightest idea where Guanjuato was, but it wasn't hard to get the Mexican lady talking about the place. Todos vulven a la tierra en que nacieron..., went the old song. No place has as strong a grip on you as that place where you grew up, where you first ate mangoes and drank agua de coco, where you made love for the first time. A car passed by, on its way to Jacksonville, and honked at Consuela. She waved back. Con- suela tossed her head back and put her hands to her cheeks. At fifty-three, it was nice to have car horns honk at her as they passed by. It had never happened in Miami. Of course, she hadn't gotten out much. Mostly, she had stuck around her daugh- ter's apartment and looked after the girls. That is, when the memories didn't get the best of her, and she started needing a drink. The Mexican lady's husband wandered up from their house to talk with Consuela. Old goat! Men of Latin heritage were so pre- dictible. Just let them see a flash of hair, or a well-turned thigh, and they all turned into Don Juans. The Mexican lady's husband reeked of agua de colonia. Consuela flirted with him gently until she saw the Mexican lady begin to scowl at the two of them. She laughed. He'd pay for this tonight. Consuela finished her bag of churros and set off back down the dirt road to Captain Mourassi's house. She and Mary had been staying there almost two weeks now, and she was still as much in the dark about their host, and what they were supposed to be do- ing there as she was when she first pulled into the driveway. Not to say that Captain Mourassi had even once been found wanting as a host. He always showed up in the early evening, just before dinnertime, and regaled his guests with food and drink at a sump- tuously spread table. He would tell them stories about his life at sea, sing them songs on his guitar, and tuck them into bed. Sometimes he would stay up late at night talking to Tommy, but in the morning, he would be gone. In the mornings, Bernard would greet them with breakfast. As far as they could make out, Bernard was Captain Ted's groveskeeper, but he was only around during the day. Bernard was tall, silver- haired, and as silent and taciturn as Captain Ted was expansive and loquacious. The two of them were never seen together, which struck Consuela as odd for an employer/employee relationship. "The Cap'n and I have been together longer than most couples have been married", Bernard had replied when Consulea asked him about this. "I know what he wants, and he knows I'll do it. Why should we have to stick around and talk?" There had been a lot of changes. Mary was entirely green now. Her skin had gone from the light green of new spring peas to a deeper green, more the color of summer grass, and her hair had darkened as well until it was the color of pine needles. At first, she had been apprehensive, but time passed, and, as no one from the outside intruded on Captain Ted's household, she grew accustomed to it. Indeed, her new color seemed to endow her with an empathy for plants, trees, and growing things, and she often stood out on the lawn, her feet buried in the rich loam of Cap- tain Ted's orchards, listening, as she put it, to the trees. Once you got used to Mary being green, you saw that she was an uncommonly attractive woman, slight and well-knit with a narrow waist, a small bust, firm and high, long shapely legs and a round, eminently pinchable ass. She paraded around Captain Ted's estate in a white cotton shirt open to the navel, exposing her small hard green breasts, and a pair of khaki shorts over a well-chisled pair of long emerald-green legs. She and Bernard spent a lot of time together, fussing over shoots and seedlings, and at times she would stride out into the center of the grove, remaining the whole day, not returning until the evening meal. That Bernard and Mary's relationship was a a chaste one, Consuela felt assured. However, judging from the noises that came from Tommy's room at night, she was not so sure about her daughter and the young man. Consuela tried to talk to her daughter about this, but Mary was quite emphatic. True. The boy had an incredible body for his thirteen years, tall and thickly muscled. According to Mary, he also had a tool like a fire hose. Still, there was a fifteen year difference in their ages, and Consuela was certain that her daughter was break- ing more than a couple of state statutes, besides trespassing on her own daughter Blair's territory. Indeed, Tommy seemed to get more and more restless with each passing day. He moped around the house when Captain Ted was out, and only came to life at suppertime, when his former foster- parent was around. One night, he deprived himself of Mary's at- tentions to spend the whole night whispering with Captain Ted in the older man's bedroom. The next morning, with no explanantion, he was gone. "The Captain sent him back to Miami", Bernard informed them la- conically. By this time, Consuela had noticed a good deal of improvement in her own condition. She felt wonderfully energetic, all the time. Whereas before, she had dragged her way from day to day, she now bounced and strutted as though fifteen years had been subtracted from the table of ther life. Then too, the mirror seemed to give creedence to this. Consulea had never been a beauty, not even in her girlhood in Cuba. Life was too tough before the Revolution, and too unstable afterwards. She managed to escape with Mary's father and start a family in Miami, but soon after, her husband died, and the bottle began to take its toll. When she looked into the mirror now, she didn't see a tired, wrinkled, fifty-three year old drunk. Even Mary saw the difference. "Mom", she said one day, "you look like you used to look, before Dad died." It wasn't strictly true. Consuela thought she looked better. The flesh in her face had returned, and her dark eyes sparkled under an midnight-black shock of hair which had never been so thick or so lustrous. Try as she would, the only wrinkles she was able to coax out of her face were a few fine lines around the eyes and a few small laugh linea about the lips. The deep furrows in her brow, the in- grained lines of resignation about her mouth had completely dis- appeared. Her body had fleshed out as well, and her once spindly legs and arms were solid now with new muscle. Her breasts, once pancake- flat and withered, had sprouted again and now rode as high and as proud on her rib cage as ever they had in her long-departed ado- lescence. She gladly tore off her old-lady shifts and skirts and joined Mary in T-shirts and cutoffs. Captain Ted drank a toast to her one evening, with that ungodly resinous Greek wine he was so fond of serving. "To Consuela, the twice-youthful. Were Castro to catch a glimpse of what he al- lowed to escape his island, the Revolution would collapse!" Consuela blushed and stammered her thanks. Trotting back briskly down the dirt road that led back to Captain Mourassi's estate, Consuela felt an unusual chafing under her T- shirt. It was as though her bra had been scaping against her breasts and had rubbed them a bit raw. Not unexpected, she thought. It was one of Mary's bras she had been using, and maybe the fit just wasn't right. As she jogged along, though, it be- came obvious to her that she was jiggling slightly as well. Consuela stopped running, and sat down under a tree. Gingerly, she patted around her breasts. Odd, she thought, it feels like I've gotten a little bigger up here. Stepping back four or five rows into the grove, just far enough to shield her from anyone, she stripped off her shirt. Sure enough, two little slivers of breast flesh were poking out underneath the borrowed brassiere. Consuela tried to adjust the bra, pulling the cups down over the vagrant flesh, but then her boobs began to spill out the sides. Try as she might, there just didn't seem to be enough bra to pull over what had become too much Consuela. Shrugging her shapely shoulders, Consuela pulled Mary's bra off and stuffed it into one of the pockets of her shorts, then pulled her T-shirt back on. She stared down at the front of the shirt. yes, she was definitely larger than when she had left this morn- ing. As she began to jog, she felt the new fullness on her chest as she bounced and jiggled merrily underneath the T-shirt. It feels delicious, thought Consuela, as her now-erect nipples brushed freely against the fabric of the T-shirt, freed from the restraints of the bra. With a final burst, she pumped her way up the hill to the Mouras- si house. She called out, but neither Mary nor Bernard was in evidence. Making her way upstairs, she climbed into the shower to rinse off the dust from her morning run. As the warm water flowed over her tingling body, Consuela inves- tigated her breasts. She found that she had just about doubled in size, her breasts now comprising a considerable handful, and that her nipples had lengthened and thickened as well. Patting the firm mass of new breast tissue with unalloyed delight, she moved an exploratory hand down to her thatch. Thinking back over the past few months, she remembered her grand- daughters Blair and Amanda. They had started growing early, and got very large for their age before they disappeared. She won- dered if the same thing was going to happen to her. She began stroking her pussy gently, and to her amazement, found it was dewy with lubricant. Saints above, she thought, I haven't been wet in years! Shivers of delight began to tremor through her as she inserted her index finger into her increasingly humid cunt. Fifty-three years old and I'm still thinking about *that!*, she thought to herself. Not that her body showed much wear and tear any more for her fifty-three years. Consuela had to admit that part of her stimu- lation came from looking at herself. She had been a withered, drink-addled woman, old before her time, now here she was with thighs as solid as oaken trunks. She slapped one of them with her free hand, and noticed with pride that it didn't jiggle. Even a week ago, it would have taken a while to stop shaking. Her snatch was completely black again, like it was when she opened it to receive the seed that became Mary, and she was as- tounded at how hungry it felt,as she moved he fingers more insis- tently inside it. Panting lightly as her desire increased, the old feelings and hungers thundered back in a great roar, and Con- suela abandoned herself to them in the hot, needle-sharp spray of the shower. She undid the band holding her hair up, and noted with the pride the new swell of her expanded breasts, the size of ripe mangoes. These weren't the breasts of an old lady, she sighed. No, these were the breasts of a quinceanera* before they had ever been touched by a man. Consuela had never been a buxom woman. She never felt she had to be. Spanish men weren't mamones* like the gringoes. They realized that all parts of a woman's body were crafted for pleasure. Nevertheless, they did look very good indeed, and they added a very feminine appearance to Con- suela's revitalized body. Finding her swollen clitoris with the fingers of her right hand, Consuela hunched over and furiously rubbed herself inside. Her orgasm came in like a freight train bursting thorugh a barricade, and she moaned aloud as she shook the newly-fleshy cheeks of her ass in a spasm of delight. "-Quite a performance, Mama", came a voice from behind her. "-Of course, at your age, you should be ashamed of yourself." In horror, Consuela realized that she had been too busy playing with herself to hear her daughter creep on her, and she hadn't even bothered to pull the shower curtain to. "-Hijita*", she scolded, "-You should be the one ashamed! Spying on your moth- er!" Mary sat down on the closed toilet, spreading her green thighs in her khaki shorts. Odd, Consuela thought, these days, Mary even smells like an open field. "-I wouldn't worry too much about it, Mama", Mary laughed. "-As you can guess, I've been pretty frisky myself. Now that I can't cradle-rape Blair's boyfriend any more..." "-That Captain Ted is a very attractive man", commented Consuela. "-He's never around." Mary ran a slender green hand through her dark green hair. She had been experimenting with different cos- metics, and had found a combination that, given her unique com- plexion, worked extremely well. Her eyes were done in light earth tones, and her mouth was dark red with a fortunately- acquired shade of lipstick she had bought on a whim when she was normally-colored, and had never expected to use. "-Funny thing about being green, though, Mama", she added, "-now that I'm more than half a vegetable, I've never wanted meat so badly!" Both women laughed at Mary's frank admission of sexual appetite. "-What about Bernard?", asked Consuela. Mary crossed her legs, flexing the green muscles in her emerald calves. She no longer needed to shave, and her legs had an eerie smoothness and hairlessness, but it was obvious in other ways that Mary had not ceased to be a mammal. "-He's very sweet, Mama", she replied, "-but I don't think of him as being a man. He's more your age, or whatever age you used to be. He's kind of like an old bear shuffling and whuffling around this place. He knows a lot about gardening and groves, though." Consuela changed the subject. For some reason now, if you got Mary started talking about plants, she'd go on about them all day. She levered her chest forward and displayed the new growth. "-Look, daughter", she invited, "-I'm bigger!" "I'll say you are, Mama!", replied Mary in English. Then she reverted to Spanish again. "-Perhaps you got the whatever it is that makes the breasts grow. I thought we'd both be growing out of our shirts after Blair filled us up with her milk. Mine just turned green. I can't complain, though." At five-foot two, and one hundred three pounds, Mary's 34-B fig- ure was striking, and she had never, despite working as a dancer in an exotic club, felt any need to be larger. When Blair and Amanda began growing, she felt a surge of pride, but never envy. "-Maybe it'll start later with you, daughter", Consuela contin- ued. "-After all, I didn't turn green, and I can't talk to the trees." "-I wish someone would explain to us what's going on, though", Mary sighed. "-This Captain Ted knows more than he lets on to. Look at the way Tommy took off on out of here like a cat with his tail on fire." Consuela patted herself dry with a towel, then wrapped it around her, tucking it in just above her newly-acquired bosom. She gave her daughter a hug about her shapely green shoulders. "-Lets go, daughter. I think Bernard's got lunch ready." Lunch with Bernard was a somber affair, usually just salad, fruit, and spring water. The converastion was as spare, but to- day, Bernard appeared quite animated. "Captain Mourassi wants me to take the two of you into town today", he said. "Mrs. Cajigas appears to need new foundational undergarments, and you, Mrs. Quinteros, need to accustom people to your new appearance if you hope to continue to frequent human society." "Town?", Mary answered. "How're we gonna get to town? I've nev- er seen a car around here, besides the one Tommy drove up here. And how're the good people of Putnam County gonna react when a green Cuban woman from Miami shows up in their shops?" "We have several cars here, ma'am", Bernard replied. "I shall drive you. Also, Captain Mourassi has a carefully cultivated reputation as an eccentric in this, ah, rather conservative com- munity. Nevertheless, he has contributed a considerable amount of funds and time to causes that are dear to their hearts; the hospital guild, the Grove Owners' Society, the Daughters of the Confederacy. No, when word gets out that you are his guests, you will be very well treated indeed." Bernard proved to be as good as his word. An hour later, he purred up to the house in an immaculately-maintained 1963 Volvo, bundled the two women inside, and then headed for town. And whatever reputation it was that Captain Mourassi so carefully cultivated, it served Mary and Consuela well. All the townspeo- ple appeared to know Bernard, and several matrons inquired as to Captain Mourassi's health. More importantly, no one lifted an eyebrow at the emerald-colored Mary as she bounced into the shops. Having decided that there was no way to avoid stares, she put a great deal of attention in- to her appearance, selecting a white peasant blouse with loud, jangly, hoop earrings and teased hair. She could have left all her panoply at the house. Once she was introduced into a place of business by Bernard, the salespeople treated her with as much deference as if she were a Baptist deacon's wife. Only one old man, sitting on the porch of a furniture store smok- ing a corn-cob pipe, took umbrage at the salad-colored young wom- an. He sat back in his chair, blew a puff of smoke at Mary and Consuela, and began to rail at them. "I don't know what gits inta you all young folks these days", he croaked. "First, y'all wants t' pierce yerselves, then y'all wants to cut yerselves, now yerall paintin' yerselves green!" But when Bernard stepped onto the porch and whispered something into the old man's ears, he became immediately apologetic. "Oh, y'all friends to ol' Mr. Mourassi, are ya, huh? Glad to see y'all in town. Come back soon!" He shook their hands and waved them on. "Y'all come on back now, heah?" Bernard stopped at a bank, a grocery store, and a ladies' garment shoppe. Consuela, they discovered, had grown a cup size that morning, and now required a 34-C in place of her daughter's 34-B. Bernard bought several, and several more of larger sizes. " Just to be on the safe side, ma'am", he explained to Consuela. "Captain Mourassi seems to think you both are going to be needing more, uh, authoritative foundational garments soon." Especially delighted with her new figure and her newly- rejuvenated body, Consuela spent a good bit of her own money on a new wardrobe. Having concentrated on jeans, tops and exercise wear, she piled two bags into the trunk of the Volvo, then got back into the front seat opposite Bernard. Noticing that Mary was slightly out of sorts, she turned to her and smiled. "-Daughter, isn't this wonderful? We were never treated like this in Miami!" "-How nice for you, Mama", Mary replied. "-You aren't the color of a stalk of asparagus!"