"I really can’t tell, Man — they’re apples and oranges. You’ll just have to … Okay, forget I said that." Rick covered his mistake.
"Yeah," Lon grunted. "Mama’s off-limits." He frowned a bit. "Which brings me to our other problem --I’m the only one who hasn’t gotten both of his targets."
Rick nodded. He’d had Candace, and he’d had Beth. Toby had done Jean and Candace. Only Lon had come up short. He felt bad about it, but… "Dude, I’m sorry, but I don’t control Mom — nobody does, except maybe Toby. She’s sure that we’ll all get arrested or something; I can’t see her feeling obligated to, well…"
Lon grunted. "Yeah, they don’t think like that, do they?"
Rick shook his head. "Nope. You could point out that it’s not fair to a guy, and maybe get somewhere — but women seem to approach every relationship as if they were, uh, unrelated, if you know what I mean…"
Lon grunted a laugh at Rick’s phrasing, then sighed. "The chances aren’t good, then?"
"If she’s cut Toby off?" Rick replied. "Slim, Dude. You need a lever, and you don’t have any."
No, that isn’t true, ' Lon thought. 'I know she fucked Toby — that might be enough… ' He didn’t express this thought to Rick, though — who knew which side he would come down on? 'Mama will know how to handle it, ' Lon decided. He wheeled into the Flanders driveway, shut off the Saturn, and followed his friend inside. 'The good news, ' he thought, 'is that the whole thing isn’t urgent… ' Beth had sucked him dry…
One look at the boys and Jean was furious! "What have you two been up to?" she demanded. They REEKED of sex, from the self-satisfied expression on Lon’s face to the smell that wafted across the kitchen to her nostrils. "What — who — have you been doing? Didn’t either of you hear a word I’ve been saying?"
Rick flicked a glance at Lon, but it was his place to answer, "Mom, NOBODY is paying ANY attention to your worries! NOBODY! Candace isn’t, and she apparently convinced Toby — and Beth CERTAINLY isn’t! She can’t now, anyway — Candace took pictures of her with Lon and I, and has this blackmail thing running…"
"Is this true?" Jean demanded hotly of Lon, who shrugged and nodded. "Wait a minute — BOTH of you?" Jean added, having fully processed Rick’s comment only after reacting to the gist of it. Lon shrugged again.
"My God!" Jean collapsed onto a kitchen chair. "Pictures!" She shook her head, then turned pleading eyes on the boys, "Don’t you realize that it has started already? Pictures are the LAST thing we want! They’re DANGEROUS! Anyone who sees them will know…"
Lon stood next to Rick, wearing a similar poker face — but he was processing Jean’s reactions, and, yeah, if he approached it properly, she’d get all excited over a blackmail attempt and give it up. Look how she was freaking right now! 'I’ll have to time this right… ' he thought. It was better done sooner, rather than later. Now? He glanced at Rick. Could he count on Rick for help, or would he cover his mama? It might be a question of just who was under attack…
Meanwhile, Jean, agitated, picked up the phone…
Candace was in no mood for the call, which opened with, "Pictures? Are you CRAZY?"
"Is this gonna be one of your lectures, Hon? Because if it is, I’m hanging up!" Candace snarled.
"Candace, pictures are EVIDENCE! One picture gets out there and we’ll all be wearing nice orange jumpsuits!"
"Relax, Hon! There wasn’t any film in the camera! It was all done to keep Beth from going totally hog wild…" 'At least I HOPE there was no film or memory, or whatever… '
"Beth?" Jean blinked.
"Beth," Candace affirmed. "Our Beth is a USDA Grade A Number One party slut — and she’s trying to catch up for a couple of years worth of doing without!" She forced a chuckle. "Aside from that, I discovered that she likes to be bossed around — big surprise — so I set things up so that I could control things a bit. So you can stop worrying about pictures — but DON’T tell Beth, and DON’T tell the boys! They’re all totally convinced, and they need to stay that way!" Candace thought about it and decided she should let the other shoe drop, "Except for Toby — Toby knows ALL about it. In fact, I think you ought to talk to him about it…"
"Toby?" Jean confirmed, surprised.
"Yes, Hon. Our little Toby was in it up to his ears — for good reason, I might add! He turned up another surprise today — the boy is just one surprise after another!" Candace grinned into the phone; if Jean dragged Toby over to her house to get the gory details, there was a good chance he’d go wolf on her and get in her pants again — which would cool her jets, somewhat…
"This is nuts, Candace! We just CAN’T be doing this!" Jean pressed.
"You’re the only one who seems to think so, Hon," Candace replied calmly. "Everybody else sees it as an elegant solution to us all getting good, regular sex." Temper got the better of Candace, then, "You sound like some kind of fundamentalist moral wacko or something, sitting on the sidelines and suffering your martyrdom and condemning other people for what you WISH you had the guts to do — what you’ve already done, in fact! Wake up! The only person hurting here is YOU — and you’re doing it to YOURSELF!" She slammed the phone down.
Jean sighed wearily. Looking up, she shook her head at Lon. "Your mother is incorrigible. You’re going to end up visiting her in jail, mark my words! In the meantime, I’m going to try to exercise what control over the situation I can." She gathered herself. "Go home, Lon. Come back tomorrow, if you want to see Rick…" She turned to her son, "Because YOU are grounded! If I can’t control your sex life off the property, you won’t GO off the property! You’ll be spending more time at home from now on!"
"Mom! Christ, I’m seventeen!" Rick burst out.
"Right! You’re not eighteen, so I control this — and I’m TAKING control of it, for your own good!" Jean ranted. "Go get ready for dinner — we’ll talk more about this after…"
The two males shared a glance. "I’ll cruise by tomorrow, Man," Lon said, and backed out. It was no time to argue — Lon immediately realized that Jean had fucked up; NOW he could count on Rick to connive with him to overthrow her control of things — all he had to do was let Rick stew a bit. Besides, he didn’t have that camera…
"This is some shit…" Rick grumbled as he escorted Lon to the door.
"Yeah," Lon agreed. "We’ll think of something, Man, never fear. Later." He hit the door, grinning to himself.
Jean stewed and fussed and worried but left Rick alone until dinner, which she then proceeded to ruin by argument, "What on Earth were you thinking?"
Rick put down his fork, gathered his patience, and said, "I was thinking that Candace said that you’re a worry-wart and that Beth wanted me there. Since I already know that you ARE a worry-wart, it really wasn’t surprising…"
Jean’s glare could have melted an ice cube. "Are there pictures of you?"
"Yes."
"With who?"
"Beth. And Lon."
"Are there any pictures of Candace?"
"Yes. With Toby. I took them," Rick replied.
"Did they turn out?" Jean asked carefully.
"I certainly hope so, but I didn’t check. Candace was doing this blackmail thing to Beth — I wanted to make sure she got hers, too! That’s what Toby was up to…" Rick had picked up Jean’s wince at the mention of Toby. "He was running this dominance thing on Candace; she wasn’t happy about it, but he had control. The way she was acting around Beth, I was glad he did."
"Okay." So Rick thought the camera was working — but Candace said it wasn’t. Who was right? How could she salvage this? "I’m unhappy that you did what you did — ultimately, it’s dangerous," Jean said carefully. "But I’m even MORE concerned about these pictures! They are evidence! One leak and our worst nightmares come true! If you have sex with Beth and Candace, it’s your word against theirs, more or less, as to what happened — and they HAVE to deny it! But if somebody gets a picture … Who has them, do you think?"