"YOU come with ME!" Toby grated. "Do you have any idea what you’ve done?"
"I didn’t do jack shit!" Rick replied. "Lon took the pictures!"
"You helped him use them!" Toby stormed.
"They’re GONE, Man!"
"Shit." Toby shook his head. "Gimme that laptop." Three minutes later, Toby was perusing the photos. "Damn! You showed her these?"
"Lon did," Rick shrugged.
"You did, too, Man — don’t try to weasel out!"
"Okay! There are pictures all over the fucking place!" Rick ranted. "You’ve got pics of me plugging every hole your Mom has — and Candace, too, probably! Mom was all snippy over them — we needed to chop that off!"
"I had that under control, Man." Toby pinned Rick in place with his eyes.
"No you didn’t — I wasn’t out! Everybody was fucking, but I was supposed to stay home and play with myself!" Rick ranted.
"She’d have let up," Toby replied, "It was all coming."
"Maybe," Rick grunted. "But Mom was getting all romantic, Man! You KNOW she was! We needed to deal with THAT, too!"
"So you sicced Lon on her?" Toby’s voice rose again.
"No, Lon sicced himself — IF that’s what happened." He turned away. "He promised he wouldn’t push it too far."
"Well, he did." Toby produced a thumb drive and extracted the pictures, then used a tool on the drive to totally trash the files, not just delete them, from the laptop. "NOW they’re gone — just deleting them from the hard disk doesn’t do it, you have to empty the Recycle Bin then overwrite them."
"Okay." Rick remained defensive. "She brought this on herself — you KNOW how she overreacts at every damned thing!"
"Yeah." Toby pocketed the thumb drive. "I’m going over there — you probably should stay here. And Lon — I don’t want to see him for a couple of days. Let him know, huh?"
"Sure."
Meanwhile, Beth was handling Jean. "Oh, Beth! I betrayed Toby! I let Lon bully me into having sex with him, and — God help me — I enjoyed it!" Jean wailed.
Beth blinked. "That’s probably not as horrible as you think it is, Sweetie. I enjoy things you’ve probably never even heard of! So you came a little…"
"I came BIG!" Jean wailed. "It was SO embarrassing! I think that I probably made things worse by trying not to cum, but it was still…"
"It was still sex, Sweetie," Beth consoled her. "And I’m guessing that Lon wasn’t hurting you…"
"No, he wasn’t. But he knew I didn’t want to…"
"Right. Sweetie, what was he supposed to do? Let you whack his ego? Again? I’m sure you told him you didn’t want to fuck him in the first place…"
"Yeah," Jean sighed.
"And you probably were less than diplomatic?"
"Yes."
"I’ve talked to the boys," Beth continued, "and they have this concept that we ought to be playing fair and not doing favorites. Boys do NOT think the way we do, Sweetie…"
"They really believe that crap?" Jean asked, incredulously.
"Yes, Sweetie, they do. I got it from Rick not fifteen minutes ago!"
"So I was supposed to fuck Lon just because…"
"Uh huh," Beth confirmed.
"What does Toby think?"
"He’s not dealing with this logically right now," Beth replied, "but if he were, he would probably be technically in agreement with them."
"After this," Jean said dully, "his agreement will probably be more than technical."
Beth pursed her lips. "You know, there is a lot to be said for their position," she pointed out. "These activities were never meant to have romantic overtones — YOU know that!"
"That’s why I didn’t want them to happen in the first place!" Jean squawked. "Who can control such things?"
Beth sighed heavily. "Sweetie, I’ve been able to separate love and sex for the longest time…"
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone line, then: "Maybe I’ll learn, too, now…"
"Maybe," Beth agreed, then continued, "Sweetie, I don’t think you ought to ride Rick too hard about this. In the first place, your head was in the wrong place and you were making him pay for it — and in the second, I think Lon scammed him, pretty much."
"Maybe," Jean replied. "But…"
"He betrayed you?" Beth filled in. "Or he did something that he hoped would put you on the right path?"
"I’m still mad."
"Okay, I’ll keep him here tonight — but you get a grip, you hear me?" Beth admonished.
"Okay." Jean sighed heavily. The two ended the call.
Toby walked in. "I’m going over to see Jean," he announced.
"I don’t know if she’s ready for that, Sweetheart," Beth answered.
"Why not?"
"She’s … embarrassed. She feels that she betrayed you."
"Because Lon blackmailed her into having sex?" Toby asked.
"Because she enjoyed it," Beth replied. Toby stopped dead. "You see?" Beth chuckled without mirth. "Her body betrayed her — it happens. Lon wasn’t physically abusing her, after all." She pressed her son with a hard glance, "You two were making this romance thing — and that’s not smart — you two of all people are smart enough to KNOW that!"
Toby sighed. "Knowing it and living it are two different things, Ma. You’re not the low creature you think you are."
Beth smiled sadly. "The low creature I think I am is finally getting its needs satisfied."
"Some of the rest of us have needs other than sex, Ma. Just like you do."
"Some of those needs…" Beth let it trail off. Toby knew the dangers. Theoretically, Jean did, too. "Be careful about them, please?"
"Yes, Ma." 'And don’t walk out in traffic… '
"You’re still going?" Beth asked. "Jean’s not thinking too highly of herself right now."
Toby shrugged. "So she needs me."
"Maybe." Beth waved it off — Toby would do as he thought best. "Should I wait dinner?"
"No."
"Rick is spending the night."
"He can use my bed," Toby offered.
"But he won’t," Beth replied, dimpling.
"Okay." Toby smiled back. Then he went serious. "I’m going to get even with Lon over this."
Beth pursed her lips. "This isn’t a black and white thing, Son. It’s a shades of grey thing. Lon … could have done a lot worse than what he did — and maybe have still been justified. She shunned him, you know. Everyone else got two women out of this. Do you think it was fair?"
"No," Toby replied, "and I agree with his position, empirically. But Jean’s sex is Jean’s to give, not someone else’s."
"Unlike mine," Beth grunted ironically.
"Yours is only under the control of others because you like it that way," Toby cautioned. "I can remove Candace any time I want to — but you get your pinch of spice and danger from it, so I’m letting it happen — and if Candace finds a way to get around me, you WILL be screwed, which keeps it real. But don’t fool yourself, Ma."
Beth shrugged. "More fun if I do."
"Okay," Toby replied. "You play your dangerous games, and I’ll play mine." He kissed her on the cheek. "See you — probably tomorrow night." He turned and strode out. Passing Rick in the hall, he grinned, "Have fun!" Then he was gone.
Beth stuck her head in the door, "Okay, where were we? You’re going to have to conserve yourself — you’re staying the night!"
Rick grinned from ear to ear.
"You’re home early," Candace observed as her son walked through the door.
"Yeah," Lon agreed. "Well, we all had separate stuff to do today."
Candace nodded. "Where’s Rick, then?"