"What about you?" Jean asked.
"I want her to learn. I want you guys to help her. That’s probably going to mean that she gets exposed to more than just me…" Lon replied.
"Terence and Damian? Toby? Rick?" Louise asked.
"Ummm, it’s early. Let’s see how today goes…" Lon hedged.
"Tomorrow, then? With Teela? Big group meet?" Jean pressed. "No wild stuff — just talk." She glanced around at the others, collecting agreement.
"Sure." Lon nodded.
"Lonnie?" Beth asked, "Can we push things back to three? This is cutting into my nap time…"
"Sure. How’s four?" Lon responded.
"Great!" Beth dimpled.
Lon turned to Louise, "Can you tell Terence?"
"Sure, Baby."
"Why am I here?" Toby piped up.
"We thought we might need an independent opinion on how this is going to go, Hon," Candace replied smoothly. "You’re their age, but not involved…"
"Oh." Toby nodded. That made sense. "You want it now?"
"I think it’s too early, Dear," Jean murmured.
Toby nodded. "I agree. Tomorrow — after — will be soon enough, I’m sure." He got nods, universally. "Are we done?"
"Looks like it," Candace agreed. "Here, then, tomorrow — at four? Out of respect for the vampires among us?" She grinned at Louise and Beth. There was general agreement and the meeting broke up.
As a result, Lon didn’t pick Sally up at one-thirty as originally planned — and Terence didn’t take off until three-thirty, either. Rick, on the other hand, had plans that didn’t depend upon Beth, so he picked up Teela at eleven-thirty as planned.
Teela was waiting on her front step in a miniskirt that barely covered anything when she stood — and revealed the garters that ran from the black lace corset above it to the bright red stockings below. A short but gauzy red jacket masked the corset somewhat above, and heavy black boots jarred the eye below; today’s hair spritz matched the stockings. "Hey, Munchkin! Very festive!" Rick greeted her, grinning, "but we’re not going to the red-light district — we’re going to the mall for lunch, remember?"
Teela looked vaguely put-upon. "The things I do to keep my man interested," she sighed dramatically. Both of them cracked up. Once in the car, she revealed a bit more of her attire — or the lack thereof — by taking his right hand and slipping it into her crotch — which was hot, wet, and decidedly short of panties!
"Yikes!" Rick snatched his hand away. "Who are you planning on advertising THAT to?" he asked.
Teela shrugged. "Others can look, but that’s all. You’d be surprised how few people notice — I used to do this before, as a game. Now I plan to ride my man’s cock in the food court…" She grinned mischievously.
"The way YOU make noise?" Rick snorted. "AAAAOOWOOOOOOO!!!! AAAOOWWOOOO!!" he howled.
Teela laughed so hard she snorted — which cracked Rick up, too. When they got some control, she insisted, "I thought you had stuffing something in my mouth down pat…"
"That just muffles things — it doesn’t shut you off," Rick pointed out, grinning. "Besides, you’ll give old women heart attacks the way you like to bounce up and down. That’s really difficult to disguise; what are you going to tell them you’re doing? Churning butter?"
"Maybe I’ll just wiggle a little…" Teela offered.
"We’ll see," Rick grinned. Then he sobered, murmuring, "What about tomorrow? Can you come out at, say, three-thirty for a couple of hours? Some people want to meet you."
"The group?" Teela wasn’t stupid.
"Yeah. They’re … understandably nervous," Rick replied slowly.
"What do they want?"
"To know if they’re in trouble, more than anything else. They want to know what you think of them, and how you intend to interact with them — and how I’m going to interact with them, now that you’re in the picture. That kind of thing." He flicked a glance at her, "You’re a danger to them — one of several, but serious, nonetheless. They have no handle on you and you could get a bunch of them jailed."
"How do I fix it?"
"Well, I dunno. Others, they have blackmail material on — pictures — but I don’t see any way to do that with you. Pictures of us having sex would probably only be mildly embarrassing — Heck, they might be advertising!" He grinned at her.
"Sally is a problem, too, right?" Teela asked. "Less of one, I imagine, since she’s diving in — she told me she was going to get deep-throat lessons from a woman named Beth…"
"Yeah, she’s an issue, too," Rick agreed. "But you’re right — spending the afternoon in Sex Ed with Beth is gonna go a ways toward making people easier about her."
"Maybe I should learn, too, then," Teela offered. "Actually, I CERTAINLY should — the only question is when and from who … But we’re gonna be in the movie at two, right?"
"They moved it to four," Rick corrected, "Beth works nights this week and she needed to sleep…"
"So you knew?" Teela eyed her boyfriend.
"I got dragged into an emergency session early this morning," Rick admitted.
"So they’re pretty worried," Teela guessed.
"Yeah," Rick agreed. "Things are uncertain. We could drop out — Lon and Sally could, too — but we know too much. And that leaves just Toby and the Carter boys to handle things…"
Teela grimaced. "I can see how that might be a problem."
Rick nodded. "They’re nice enough, I guess — but they’re still, well, black. It’s one thing when they’re an option — and another when they’re the ONLY option."
Teela smirked. "That’s not terribly open-minded of you."
"Well, it’d be different if we’d picked them to be there — but they were kind of jammed down our throats when Beth blabbed to Louise. I think they’re okay, and I think Louise is okay — but they still elbowed their way in, and I can’t get past the feeling that we’re putting up with them…" Rick looked mildly apologetic.
"So being black is okay, but being an interloper isn’t?" Teela cocked her head. "I’m an interloper."
"Maybe it’s being black AND being an interloper," Rick grunted. "Okay, so it sounds prejudiced, but we weren’t friends. We didn’t run together before this. We don’t have a lot of common ground."
"Does it irk you that they have sex with the women? With your momma?" Teela eyed him.
Rick shrugged. "Not seriously. There is plenty to go around. Mom went yesterday to have sex with Terence, apparently. I’m still not sure why — there was an emergency kind of thing attached to it yesterday, but the explanation Toby gave this morning didn’t mention it." He turned a gaze on Teela, "Mom has a thing for Toby — they’re more of a couple than they should be. For Mom to wander off to have sex with Terence…"
"What do you mean?"
"Mom got … fixated on Toby," Rick explained. "For a while, she wouldn’t have sex with anyone else — and she didn’t want Toby to, either."
"But your mom is…"
"Old? Well, she’s old-fashioned, too — she has it in her head that sex MUST go with a relationship. She became dependent on Toby in no time — and it took a lot of pressure from all of us to get her to start sharing the wealth and stop trying to fence Toby. That being the case, I just don’t see her running off to jump in the sack with Terence — not voluntarily. That’s what Toby made it sound like, though. And I wasn’t the only one suspicious; Candace — Lon’s mom — wasn’t buying, either."