Juicy Secrets Forbidden Tales of Lesbian Love

The Story Thus Far

Chapter One: Mallory Kalvornek and her lover Julie Hanson have returned to Bronning, Minnesota, for the first time in years to catch up with friends and family. Meanwhile, their old friend (and occasional sex partner) paramedic Nettie Hastings fights to save a life, her lover Hannah drops by with an unexpected surprise, Terry Wilder grapples with writer’s block… and two little girls living in a trailer park named Heather and Gina are being carefully observed by a hidden stranger.

Chapter Two: Mallory and Julie get together at Nettie’s home with Nettie and her lover Hannah, Nettie’s friend Terry Wilder, Terry’s teen daughter Halee, and Mallory and Julie’s friend (and occasional sex partner) Cindy. Gossip is exchanged, memories shared, and an unexpected attraction between Mallory and Terry Wilder reveals itself. Meanwhile, the mother of the two trailer park girls Heather and Gina goes out for a night on the town, oblivious to the presence of the man spying on her home.

Chapter Three: At Nettie’s place, Nettie and Hannah leave the others to indulge in a bit of romantic pleasure, while Julie and her old friend Cindy get it on with Terry’s teen daughter Halee. As for Mallory, she has repaired to Terry’s place for one of her occasional bouts of heterosexual action. Appetites are indulged, confidences shared. Meanwhile, Heather and Gina are abducted from their trailer home by a mysterious and very scary man.

Chapter Four: At Nettie’s place, four women and Halee Wilder greet the morning after an evening of lesbian abandon. Later that day, Mallory rejoins Julie, Nettie, Cindy and Hannah for a day of fishing. Halee returns home and spends the day upgrading her internet in preparation for promised to be a fun night of video chat sex with her girlfriend Bethany. Meanwhile, Grace and Heather are in the custody of the mysterious man, who seems to takes delight in terrorizing them.

Chapter Five: After their day of fishing, Nettie, Julie, Cindy, Mallory & Hannah engage in a five-woman sexfest inside a tent… and with the use of Cindy’s phone, their old friend and occasional bedmate Emma attends the orgy virtually. In the midst of their abandon, Nettie has a weird, vague memory flashback that leaves her shaken, but she conceals it from the others. Back home, Halee and her new love interest Bethany (Hannah’s daughter) are having long-distance sex via their laptops. 

Chapter Six: Nettie has a heart-to-heart with Hannah about her personal demons. Later, she gets a call from Agent Bridgett Ramscone, who has an unsettling request: for Nettie to go through the documentation of her own childhood kidnapping — and the murder of her sister — as a possible way to gain insight into the abduction of Heather and Gina (who are still being emotionally abused by their kidnapper, but are also taking steps to escape). Nettie is shaken, but agrees to do what she can. 

Chapter Seven: Many years after the fact, submerged memories of Nettie’s kidnapping began to make themselves known — memories of a possible accomplice to the original crime. She shares her thoughts with Bridgett. Meanwhile, Heather and Gina work on a potential escape from their makeshift prison.

Chapter Eight: Nettie unearths more hints that kidnap victims Heather and Gina were abducted by the same man who kidnapped and brutalized Nettie and her deceased sister over a decade ago — but that man was known to have died in prison.  Gina manages to escape captivity. But Heather can’t fit through the opening they dug, and must remain behind. Nettie gets a possible fix on the girls’ captor who, while out and about, gets a flat tire — then he discovers the spare is flat as well. 

Chapter Nine: The man who kidnapped Gina and Heather must get his flat spare tire fixed, not knowing the police have been alerted to him and are searching the area. Nettie, who is also hunting for the man, manages to find his abandoned car — then, some time later, makes an even more startling discovery: little Gina, alone and weeping by an abandoned road. In the meantime, the kidnapper manages to make his escape from the area by phoning a mysterious woman to pick him up.

Chapter Ten: Mallory meets with her mother, Sharon, for the first time in months, but fails to learn the cause of the recent distance between them. Nettie is still obsessed with Jacob Brentshaw, the man who kidnapped her and murdered her sister Annamarie so many years ago, sensing he is also behind the recent kidnapping as well… but can’t get past the fact that Brentshaw was killed in prison. Her actions saved the lives of Gina and Heather, but she remains determined to keep working the case on her own. For the first time, Nettie tells her lover Hannah about her own kidnapping and Annamarie’s death, events she has refused to discuss with anyone for years.

Chapter Eleven: Terry finds himself at loose ends, questioning his current life path, and decides to open up to than his dear friend and former sex partner Nettie. She and Hannah lend a sympathetic ear, then their conversation turns to kidnappings — the recent one, as well as Nettie’s own horrific abduction over a decade earlier, when her sister was murdered. She is fast coming round to the conclusion that both kidnappings involved an accomplice.

Chapter Twelve: A sleepover is in progress at Terry’s place while he is out. When the girls retire to their rooms, Halee phones her girlfriend Bethany and puts her on speaker to hear her younger sister Naomi and Chelsey going at it through their adjoining walls, and a good time is had by all. Upon returning home, Terry does some work on an idea for a new novel after months of inaction. Mallory is still unsure what to do with the family farm, and Nettie runs some ideas about the recent kidnapping case past Agent Ramscone.

Chapter Thirteen: Four members of the Pussy Posse — Mallory, Julie, Jamie, and Emma — are spending quality time together, along with Julie’s younger sister Vicky. News, gossip, memories, and innuendo are bandied about. Vicky hesitantly speaks of a recent sleepover where she overheard a couple of the girls saying hurtful things about her, an incident that still stings badly. The four women offer her comfort and understanding, which soon becomes something more.

Chapter Fourteen: Mallory, Julie, Jamie, Emma and Julie’s younger sister Vicky are having a barbecue and sleepover. Vicky loves hanging out with the Pussy Posse, but feels a little self-conscious, knowing that the women will very likely be having group sex later that evening. But Julie boldly her sister to join the sapphic festivities. Vicky is hesitant at first, especially at the prospect of coupling with her older sibling, but Julie manages to put her at ease. The four women and one teen adjourn for the master bedroom. Clothes are removed, bare bodies mingle, pleasure is shared.

Chapter Fifteen: Halee and her new girlfriend Bethany (daughter of Nettie’s lover Hannah), spend time roaming the town, getting to know one another better. Later on, they spend time together in a more intimate way. Meanwhile, Mallory and her partner Julie get a piece of surprising, potentially life-changing news.

Chapter Sixteen: Mallory is pregnant, and Terry Wilder is the father. She visits Bronning to give him the news, then they join Julie at Nettie’s place to discuss the situation. Terry chooses to leave the final decision in Mallory’s hands, but makes it clear that he is willing to raise the child as his own if Mal doesn’t want to be a mother.

Chapter Seventeen: Nettie pays a visit to the trailer park to visit Gina and Heather, the two girls she saved from a mysterious kidnapper. Still grappling with distant memories of her own kidnapping, she shows the girls a mugshot of Jacob Brentshaw, who was convicted of abducting her and murdering her twin sister Anna years earlier, but they tell her it isn’t the same man, despite disturbing similarities. Afterward, she gets an angry call from FBI agent Latisha Miller, who already knows about this visit to the girls. Nettie admits to pursuing this all-but-closed case, but refuses to back off. Against her better judgment, Agent Miller is coming around to allowing Nettie to continue her investigation. Meanwhile, Mallory, Julie and Terry visit a doctor to discuss Mal’s unexpected pregnancy.

For a list of the characters from the story you are now reading, visit this page. 

For a list of the characters from the previous two stories that you will encounter here as well, visit this page.

And now, dear readers, we make our way into the next installment. Read on…

by Rachael Yukey

Breakin’ the chains around me
Nobody else can bind me
Take a good look around me
Now I’m breakin’ the chains.
Dokken, 1983

“I don’t like it,” Bridgett Ramscone was saying. Her face was tiled next to that of Latisha Miller on Nettie’s laptop screen. “More to the point, my bosses would never sanction this. Neither would yours, Tisha, and you know it.”

Nettie shrugged. “So if shit gets real, you disavow me. ‘She did what? I told her to keep her nose out of it’. Plausible deniability on your end. And I’ll go along with it.”

“It isn’t just about that,” Bridgett insisted. “Let’s say you start poking around, and actually stir something up. You’ll become a target, and we have no way to provide protection.”

“I’m willing to take that chance.”

Bridgett’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe I’m not.”

Despite the tension, Nettie had to smile. “It’s sweet that you’re worried about me.”

“I worry about all my agents,” Bridgett retorted, a hard edge to her voice. “I don’t like sending them into dangerous situations under the best of circumstances, and this is hardly that. For God’s sake, Nettie, you’re not trained for this. Have you ever even fired a handgun?”

Nettie’s expression became wry. “I took a yip at a couple of tin cans with one of my dad’s revolvers when I was fourteen.”

Bridgett rolled her eyes. “Bet you missed, too. See what I’m getting at? You’ll be putting yourself in a position where you might have to protect yourself, and you’re neither trained or equipped to do so. Look—I’m sorry, but I can’t get behind this. It’s simply too risky. Tell her, Tisha.”

Agent Miller laced both hands behind her head. “I’m torn, if we’re being honest. I mean, you’re right, this could backfire pretty badly if Nettie is actually onto something, and neither of us wants that on our conscience, even if we could avoid being held officially responsible. On the other hand—”

Unlacing her hands, she placed them on her desk and leaned forward. “In order to pursue this, I’d have to divert attention from much more immediate cases, and I’ll never be able to justify it. Which sucks, because I think it might just be valid. It’s worth a certain amount of risk to prevent this fuckstick from kidnapping and probably killing any more little girls. I honestly don’t know what the best answer is.”

Bridgett rolled her eyes. “You don’t have anybody who could devote a couple of afternoons—”

“No, damn it, I don’t. I’m supervising two current kidnapping cases with actual missing persons at the moment, as well as maintaining the follow-up operation in Virginia. Add to that the fact that two members of my team are on leave right now. The moment the Dulcey girls were located and the perp slipped through our fingers, this case was added to a very long list, and it’s nowhere near the top.”

“Jesus Christ.” Bridgett growled, drumming her fingers on her desk. “I still—no. No. A minimal chance of tracking this guy down is not worth the risk of Nettie being unpersoned. And you know damn well it’s a risk.”

Nettie’s eyes dropped to her desktop as she fought a brief internal battle. Then she looked back to the screen, a new determination in the set of her jaw. “Tell you what…”

Bridgett cocked her head. “What?”

“You let me do this, give me as much guidance and support as you can get leeway for, and—and you win, Bridgett. I put in my notice at Thormleton, and go into training for investigations. Green-light this, and you get me.”

Bridgett rocked back in her chair. “Is this really what you want, or are you that desperate to pursue this?”

Nettie let out a single laugh. “A little of both, actually. I’ve already been thinking it’s something I have to try, at least for a while. It probably would have happened anyway, just maybe not this soon. One thing, though.”

Bridgett cocked her head. “Yes?”

“If I have my pick of investigative agencies—”

“You do, honey,” Miller broke in.

“Then I’m not sure the DEA is right for me. I give you my word that I’ll try it first, though.”

Bridgett sighed. “Look, Nettie—”

“I’m going after him, Bridgett. I’m doing it with or without your blessing. Give me some help.”

Bridgett stared at her hands for a long moment, then looked up at the screen. “What’s your plan?”

“I’m gonna go down to Iowa and visit his youngest sister, Melissa. She lives in Cedar Rapids.”

Miller frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“I don’t either,” said Bridgett. “I mean—why her, in particular? I seem to recall she was a whole hell of lot younger then Jacob—”

“Sixteen year age gap,” Nettie broke in.

Bridgett inclined her head. “Right. She’d still have been in high school when he was convicted. She’s the least likely to have been involved.”

“That’s the point,” said Nettie. “She’s way younger than his other siblings, and she’s their exact opposite in every single regard. She has a successful career, and owns a home in a nice suburb. Literally the whole rest of the family is white trash, and most of them have been in legal trouble. I doubt there’s much love lost between her and the folks back home.”

“I still don’t get why you want to talk to her first,” Miller interjected.

“Because,” said Nettie, “the odds of her having been involved in any way are slim going on nil, so there’s a decent chance I can question her without raising any alarms. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that she keeps the rest of the family at arm’s length. But anyway—”

She paused, marshalling her thoughts. “Even if it turns out she’s completely estranged, she grew up with those people, and she can probably give me all kinds of insight into the family dynamic. She’ll know about the skeletons in the closet; anything from who got caught cheating at cards to who knocked up his brother’s wife. Where the tensions are, where the safe spaces are, who’s especially chummy with who. Who hates whose guts. What I’ll be doing with her is fishing to know which direction to go in next. Because right now I don’t have a friggin’ clue.”

There was a brief silence. “Goddamn,” said Bridgett, stroking her chin.

“Yeah, said Latisha. “I totally missed that angle; not gonna lie.”

“I figure it like this,” said Nettie. “If Brentshaw was working alone, or with unrelated accomplices, Mellissa probably won’t have information I can use. But if there were relatives involved, it’s very possible she’s sitting on clues as to who. Maybe even likely.”

“If there even was an accomplice, unrelated is way more likely,” said Latisha, “we’ve covered that.”

“Except you don’t think so, Nettie,” said Bridgett. “Why?”

Nettie gave that a moment’s thought; she wasn’t entirely clear on the point herself. “It’s partly a hunch,” she admitted. “But it’s mostly because even though there are discrepancies, the perp in the Dulcey kidnapping looks way too much like Brentshaw for comfort. I don’t believe for a second it’s a coincidence.”

“Neither do I,” said Latisha, “or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“I honestly don’t know what to think about that,” said Bridgett, “except that the original problem still stands. It’s sketchy enough that there’s no way Tisha would be able to justify devoting official resources to pursuing it. Brentshaw is dead, and he had no close male relatives that would be anywhere near the right age. An investigation of his family would be seen by the upper brass as completely unwarranted.”

“I agree,” said Latisha, “Which makes Nettie just about the only tool we have. But your concerns are also valid, Bridgett. Damned if I know how to play this.”

Bridgett heaved a sigh. “Nettie—your initial plan seems safe enough. I’ll go along with this cockamamie notion, give you what support and guidance I can, with the proviso that you stay in frequent contact with Latisha and myself. Plausible deniability or not, we’re both going out on a limb here, not to mention that I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you. Slow and careful, and with constant communication. The three of us agree on every step of the process, or this investigation of yours gets shut down tout suite. Are we clear?”

“Crystal clear. So—when should I put in my notice?” said Nettie.

“You really are serious,” said Latisha.

“Bet your ass I am.”

Bridgett pursed her lips. “So long as we’re collaborators in—in whatever the fuck this is, it might be better for you to stay where you’re at for the moment.”

“I second that,” said Latisha. “Conducting an unofficial, unsanctioned investigation is bad enough—but getting popped for something like that when you’re an agent trainee? Believe me, that’s one complication you absolutely do not need.”

Nettie gave a thoughtful nod. “Works for me. I’ll try to contact Melissa Brentshaw tomorrow, arrange a meeting.”

“All right,” said Bridgett. “Nettie—promise me you’ll be careful. If something smells wrong, bail, and get in touch with us immediately.”

“Don’t worry, Mother. I’ll be a good girl.”

Bridgett’s jaw tightened. “I’m serious, Nettie. Because you could have it completely wrong. Just because Melissa Brentshaw’s broken out of the family’s usual holding pattern doesn’t mean she hates their guts. She might be fiercely protective of them, even if they aren’t on speaking terms. Be on your guard—and for the love of god do not let on that you’re one of her brother’s victims.”

“Come on, Bridgett—I’m not a complete idiot,” said Nettie, rolling her eyes.

“Hey, you’re the one who called me ‘Mother’. That’s what moms do best—give unwanted advice.”

“All right, ladies, we’re done here,” Latisha interjected, her tone betraying a hint of impatience. “Nettie, keep us informed, don’t do anything stupid, and watch your ass. I have to get to another meeting.”

“Later, then,” said Nettie. She killed the connection.

***

Nettie closed the door to her dad’s old pool room, laptop tucked under her arm, mind working overtime to plan out what she would say to Melissa Brentshaw when she made the phone call tomorrow.

The voices of Julie, Mallory, and Terry floated in from the living room, punctuated by a burst of laughter. Nettie was relieved to hear it. There were a thousand different ways a situation like the one her guests faced could go sour, but thus far they seemed to be amicably getting to know each other. A little less tense than she’d been a few minutes earlier, she made her way down the hall.

The hallway brought her to the living room, where Julie and Mallory were sitting close together on the love seat, with Terry ensconced in one of the recliners. They all glanced up at her approach. Just as she was crossing into the room, about to speak, the doorbell rang.

Setting her laptop on an end table, Nettie made her way to the entryway. Pulling the door open, she blinked in surprise. Hannah stood on the threshold, hair loose around the shoulders of a powder blue long-sleeved blouse. The jeans she was wearing outlined her hips in a most delightful manner.

Nettie pulled her lover close, leaning down to kiss her. Hannah returned the kiss with considerable ardor.

“From this moment forward,” said Nettie as she guided Hannah into the living room, “you are not to ring my doorbell ever again. We’ve already exchanged keys, so for God’s sake just come in.”

Hannah’s smile turned mischievous. “Just wanted to be sure I wasn’t busting up a sex party. Hi, everyone.” She gave a little wave to the room in general.

“Hannah,” said Terry. “Always a pleasure.”

“Hi!” said Julie. Mallory gave a smile and a wave. Nettie and Hannah made their way to the couch and sat, settling into each other’s arms.

“Not that I’m complaining, but I wasn’t expecting to see you till dinner,” said Nettie.

“That was the plan,” said Hannah, “but we had a canceled surgery, so I decided to duck out early since I knew it was kind of a party here this afternoon. Hope I’m not barging in, but—”

“Away with that,” Julie replied, making a dismissive gesture. “You officially joined the sisterhood on the fishing trip, with full membership privileges. Seriously, we’re glad you came.”

“I dropped Bethany off at your house,” said Hannah, eyes flicking in Terry’s direction. “She was dying to see Halee. Hope that’s not a problem.”

“None whatsoever,” said Terry. “Save for the fact that the estrogen level in my house is dangerously high at the best of times. Much more, and it may become toxic for me to enter.”

Nettie snickered. “It’s nobody’s fault but your own that you only make girls.”

“Well,” said Mallory “that remains to be seen, doesn’t it—?” She ran a hand across her belly.

Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “Ummm—are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Yep,” said Mallory, “I got a little more than I bargained for last time I was here.”

“So—” Hannah peered at Mallory, her expression tentative. “Are congratulations appropriate at the moment?”

Mallory glanced down at her hands, then back up, a look of wonder spreading across her face. “Yes,” she replied, sounding a little dazed. Tears spilled onto her cheeks, but her mouth widened into a radiant smile. “Hell, yes! I didn’t—I didn’t even realize it till right this minute, but y-yeah. Con—congratulations for days.”

Julie pulled Mallory close. Hannah got up and crossed the room, standing before them. “Well then, congratulations, Mallory. May I?” She extended her arms. Mallory stood, stepped into her embrace, and squeezed tightly.

Hannah beckoned to Julie with one finger of a hand that was firmly clamped firmly to Mallory’s shoulder blade. “Get up here, you.” Grinning, Julie rose to her feet and wrapped her arms around the two of them.

“Dad; Auntie, you get in here, too,” said Hannah. “One big motherfucker of a hug.”

Terry and Nettie shared an amused glance, then got up and crossed the room.

***

“Holy cow. I am—I’m having tremendous difficulty wrapping my brain around this.” Halee shook her head in a vain attempt to clear it.

She was seated between Bethany and Mallory at a circular table set for seven at Searing Sadie’s, widely acknowledged to be the classiest restaurant in Johnstown. Her eyes were on her father, who sat across the table from her, flanked by Nettie on his right and Julie to the left.

Turning toward Mallory, who was sitting next to her on the right, Halee opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“It’s okay,” the petite blonde assured her. She reached out tentatively to Halee’s hand on the tabletop, touched it lightly with her fingertips, then clasped it firmly when the girl offered no resistance. Halee, who’d been a little disappointed when Mallory had gone off with her dad instead of joining the sapphic group activities a month before, felt a thrill course through her at the touch.

“You can say whatever’s on your mind,” Mallory was saying. “I know this has to be kind of a shock.”

Halee found her voice. “Even more so for you, I imagine.”

Mallory chuckled. “Just a little bit. Getting pregnant was not on my agenda for the summer. But I’ve had a couple of days to get used to the idea.” She squeezed Halee’s hand. “Seriously: I’m carrying your brother or sister, and I’ve already decided to have the baby. It’s going to be important for us to get to know each other. Whatever you’re thinking, go ahead and speak up. We’ll deal with it.”

Halee blew out her breath. Grinning shyly, she said, “Honestly, I was just going to say I’m glad it’s you and not some bimbo like Theresa Fosse.”

Nettie and Hannah both burst out laughing. Terry lowered his head, put his hand over his eyes, and gave a low chuckle. Mallory threw him a bemused look. “Do I even want to know?”

Dropping his hand, Terry met her gaze, his expression wry. “Probably not. Let’s just say that the last time I was at the lady in question’s house, I abandoned ship with my mission incomplete. Most of my romantic history is characterized by two factors: an affinity for a pretty face, and an appalling lack of judgement.”

Nettie smacked his shoulder, backhand. “Thanks, asshole.”

Terry raised his hands in a defensive pose. “I said most, not all. Present company obviously excluded.”

“Too late,” said Mallory, a smirk on her face. “Can’t backpedal on us now. I’m officially taking offense.”

Halee waved her free hand at her father. “Oh my God, Dad. You shouldn’t be allowed to speak, ever. Anyway—” She turned to look at Mallory again. “It’s a shock, is all. I knew you’d hooked up with my father, but you never think something like this is actually going to take place. Until it does, I guess.”

Julie shrugged. “Welcome to life. You never think it’s gonna happen—until it does.”

“Says the chick who has a plan for literally everything,” said Mallory with a shake of her head.

The waitress chose that moment to appear with their drinks. “You folks ready to order?”

“I think we’ll need a few more minutes,” said Julie.

Turning her attention to the menu, Halee took the first sip of her iced tea. Then a thought struck her.

“My only question for the moment,” she said, eyes continuing to rove the selections, “is how the two of you are going to work this out.” She turned her head towards Mallory, who was sampling her lemonade. “You know, for custody. Visitation. That sort of thing. You live in Colorado. It’s a long way from here.”

“Questions of that nature,” said Terry, “are why only you are here this evening, and not your younger sisters. I may or may not have a quiet conversation with Naomi over the next few days—I haven’t had time to think it through. But my preference at the moment is for the younger ones to remain in the dark until we’ve taken the time to explore the options, and have at least tentative answers. You—”

He took a sip of his tea, then shrugged elaborately. “You’re old enough to process the situation with some level of rationality, and to understand that we haven’t made all of our choices yet. Besides, you move enough amongst the adults that I don’t see how I could possibly keep it from you. So I thought you and Bethany could and probably should join us for dinner, and you can at least become better acquainted with Julie and Mallory.”

“Julie I got to know a bit more last month,” said Halee. “You know, after you two left.”

Bethany, who had heard the story of that encounter in considerable detail, put a hand over her mouth to hide her smile. Julie wore a smirk as well.

Terry raised an eyebrow. “Indeed, I suspect that your knowledge of one another increased exponentially within minutes of our departure.”

Hannah’s mouth fell open. Nettie rubbed her eyes, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Julie was looking from Terry to Halee and back again, uncertainly.

Terry made an impatient gesture. “Can we drop the pretense, please? I knew what was going to take place after Mallory and I left, everyone who was there knew that I knew, and if I’d had any problem with it, Halee would most certainly not have been allowed to remain. My oldest is more mature than most adults I know, and such maturity carries both the ability and the right to make her own choices in matters of consent. So let’s stipulate from this moment forward that I have no interest in who’s doing what to whom or with what body parts, and we can all stop playacting at being furtive.”

Hannah’s face split into a wide grin. “Count on Terry to cut through the bullshit. I love it.”

***

“That’s a really weird looking field,” said Bethany, looking out the driver’s side rear window at a close-cropped expanse of growth, with neat, thick rows of freshly cut hay lying on the ground. “It’s like someone mowed really tall grass and raked it all into rows.”

Mallory, perched in the shotgun seat of the Buick SUV, chuckled. “It’s alfalfa,” she said. “You cut it down with a haybine or a swather, and the machine leaves it in those rows—they’re called windrows, by the way. Then you either chop it into silage, or let it dry down a little and bale it into hay. This guy must be planning to bale, or they’d already be doing the chopping.”

Halee, seated behind Mallory, nodded in Bethany’s direction. “We tried luring those cows close to the fence with some alfalfa last week, remember? I only know what it is because I go to school with a couple of kids who live on farms. You pick that kind of stuff up.”

By then, the alfalfa field had given way to a stand of pines. As the SUV crested a hill, the pines were replaced by an expanse of bright green, dotted here and there with purple flowers. It looked to be almost knee-high.

“And there’s some alfalfa that hasn’t been cut down yet,” said Mallory, gesturing in that general direction. “Getting a little overgrown, too.”

“How can you tell it’s overgrown?” asked Halee.

“Partly just because of the height,” said Mallory, “but also because it’s flowering.”

Bethany was nodding slowly. “So that’s what you feed cows, huh?”

“Yup. This time of year they’ll be doing the second cutting. You get at least two over the course of a summer, three in a good year. More if you’re further south. Ideally you want to cut it before it starts flowering because when it matures to that point, you lose nutrition. Not too big a deal for beef cattle or horses, but every little bit counts for a dairy herd.”

“Did you have cows growing up?” Bethany wanted to know.

Mallory shook her head. “Nope. Our place started off as a dairy farm, but my grandpa switched to cash grain not long before he had his stroke. After that, my dad took over. It all happened before I was even born. I don’t remember ever having animals on the place.”

“You still seem to know a good deal about it, though,” Halee pointed out.

“She has cattle envy,” Julie put in from the driver’s seat.

Mallory swatted her partner playfully on the arm. “When I was little I wanted cows, sure. I had a friend in elementary school who lived on a dairy farm, and I used to love petting the calves. When I got a little older, I wanted a horse in the worst way. Dad sure shut that down in a hurry,” she said with a laugh.

“He bought her a go-cart instead,” said Julie, a touch of laughter in her own voice.

Mallory giggled. “Yep. He said I could ride that all day for way less than it’d cost to feed a horse. But actually, the go-kart turned out to be a lot of fun. Julie’s dad got her one, and we used to race them in the driveway and on Dad’s machinery paths.”

“The big loop that leads to the machine shed was the best,” said Julie. “We always talked about laying out a racetrack in the old pasture, but never got around to it.”

Mallory craned her neck to look at the two girls in the back seat. “To answer your question, there’s a lot of stuff I picked up just because we knew other farm families. But also, me and Julie used to make money doing fieldwork when we were in high school, and over summer break when we were home from college. We worked for Dad during planting and harvest, but there isn’t a lot to do on a grain farm between those times. So we’d work for other farmers.”

“True story,” said Julie. “Both of us have cut, chopped, and baled a shitload of alfalfa hay. Mostly working for this guy named Ron Mesegow.”

“Wild,” said Bethany. “That sounds like the kind of work you’d mostly picture men doing.”

Mallory shrugged. “It’s true—you didn’t see a lot of girls picking up jobs like that. But as long as everything was working right, it wasn’t particularly grungy or heavy work. You just kind of rode back and forth on a tractor. Most of them even had air conditioned cabs.”

“You did have to know how to use tools, and not be afraid to get your hands dirty,” said Julie, “because stuff did go wrong, and lots of times it was something simple that would only take a couple minutes to fix in the field. Like if you were cutting hay and you broke a sickle section—no farmer is going to hire someone who comes running for help every time they bust one of those little fuckers. But it wasn’t a big deal, unless you’re hung up on traditional roles, or think it’s not ladylike to get grease under your fingernails.”

“I suppose your job is a little like that,” said Halee. “The engineering thing. I don’t think a lot of chicks go in for that, do they?”

Julie shook her head. “Fifty-three people started out as engineering majors at U of M St. Paul my freshman year,” she replied. “Seven were female, and only two of us graduated.”

“And now you’re kind of a boss, right?”

Julie chuckled. “Project lead.”

“That’s awesome,” said Bethany.

“You have to find your own path,” said Mallory. “To hell with what people say you can or can’t do, or what’s right for your gender or whatever. You do you—isn’t that what people say these days?”

“That happens sometimes, but I’d rather do her instead,” Bethany said primly, jerking her thumb in Halee’s direction.

Everyone cracked up. After Halee had gotten over her initial shock upon learning of her impending new sibling, dinner had been an enjoyable, relaxed affair. Halee was already feeling a little bummed that Mallory and Julie lived so far afield. She’d been the one to ask whether she and Bethany could ride back to Bronning with them, rather than stacking five deep in a vehicle with Nettie, Hannah, And Terry.

“Well, you’ll get the chance tonight,” said Julie, still chuckling.

Halee sobered. “Can I ask you guys something kind of personal?”

Mallory craned her neck around to peer into the backseat. “Fire away.”

“That night I stayed at Nettie’s house, and you,” she waved her hand at Mallory, “went with Dad and, you know—”

“Got knocked up?” said Mallory with the slightest hint of a smile.

Halee grinned back. “Right, that. Anyway—I was telling Bethany about some of the things we talked about before you took off. You know, how you and Julie kind of, um, have an open thing where you mostly do hookups together, except for special cases. We think it sounds really cool, but were wondering if it, well, ever causes problems.”

There was a long silence from the front seat. It was Julie who finally replied. “It’s always worked out fine for us. No jealousy, no bitterness. But we’ve seen it blow up for people, too. You have to have the right headspace, I think. We’ve always been clear on where we stood with each other, and the other stuff—it’s just sharing pleasure, you know? Neither of us sees sex as some kind of holy sacrament. We’re not terribly philosophical about it, and I don’t think either of us gives it a ton of thought. We’re innocent hedonists.” She chuckled.

“So—” Bethany mused, “it’s kind of about what sex means to you.”

“I think so,” said Mallory. “If you’re the kind of person who sees sex as the ultimate way to achieve meaningful closeness with a soul mate, a polyamorous situation might not be a great idea. I mean—an orgasm does make you feel super close to whoever you’re with. But it’s kind of transitory, too. It’s nothing like the really deep, long-lasting connection I have with Julie. Not even close. We’re talking two entirely different things.”

“So you two are thinking you might want to go down that road?” said Julie.

“We’ve discussed it,” said Halee. “because we both still get hot for other girls. And women.”

As Julie rounded a bend, the outskirts of Bronning came into view. To the left, the sun was just beginning to set over the town. A few hundred yards ahead, Terry’s Honda was signaling a turn in that direction. Julie tapped the brakes, letting the Buick coast down.

“First, you have to work out how you view the experience of physical intimacy ,” said Mallory. “It’s different for everybody.”

“I think I’m kind of like you guys,” said Halee. “An arrangement like yours could work for me.” She looked to her girlfriend; took her hand. “But if you feel otherwise, Bethany—then I’m all yours. Only yours.”

“Aw, thanks,” a smiling Bethany replied, giving Halee’s hand a squeeze.

“That’s actually a really important part of making polyamory work,” said Mallory as Julie took a left turn, accelerating past the scattering of houses that marked the edge of town. “Any agreements you make, stick to them. Julie and I, we always do stuff together, unless we decide otherwise. So if I’m with someone we haven’t talked about in advance—no matter how much I might want to have sex with that person—it doesn’t happen. There has to be trust. Remember that.”

“I’m the same way, I think,” Bethany declared. “Pretty sure of it, actually. What do you say, Halee? We can do things with other people, but only when we’re together?”

Halee leaned forward, smoothing Mallory’s silky blonde hair with gentle fingertips. “I agree completely.  And on that note, ladies—do the two of you have any plans for the evening?”

Mallory twisted in her seat to meet Halee’s gaze, giving the teen a look of astonishment that relaxed into a delighted smile.

On to Chapter Nineteen!

The Story Thus Far

Chapter One: Mallory Kalvornek and her lover Julie Hanson have returned to Bronning, Minnesota, for the first time in years to catch up with friends and family. Meanwhile, their old friend (and occasional sex partner) paramedic Nettie Hastings fights to save a life, her lover Hannah drops by with an unexpected surprise, Terry Wilder grapples with writer’s block… and two little girls living in a trailer park named Heather and Gina are being carefully observed by a hidden stranger.

Chapter Two: Mallory and Julie get together at Nettie’s home with Nettie and her lover Hannah, Nettie’s friend Terry Wilder, Terry’s teen daughter Halee, and Mallory and Julie’s friend (and occasional sex partner) Cindy. Gossip is exchanged, memories shared, and an unexpected attraction between Mallory and Terry Wilder reveals itself. Meanwhile, the mother of the two trailer park girls Heather and Gina goes out for a night on the town, oblivious to the presence of the man spying on her home.

Chapter Three: At Nettie’s place, Nettie and Hannah leave the others to indulge in a bit of romantic pleasure, while Julie and her old friend Cindy get it on with Terry’s teen daughter Halee. As for Mallory, she has repaired to Terry’s place for one of her occasional bouts of heterosexual action. Appetites are indulged, confidences shared. Meanwhile, Heather and Gina are abducted from their trailer home by a mysterious and very scary man.

Chapter Four: At Nettie’s place, four women and Halee Wilder greet the morning after an evening of lesbian abandon. Later that day, Mallory rejoins Julie, Nettie, Cindy and Hannah for a day of fishing. Halee returns home and spends the day upgrading her internet in preparation for promised to be a fun night of video chat sex with her girlfriend Bethany. Meanwhile, Grace and Heather are in the custody of the mysterious man, who seems to takes delight in terrorizing them.

Chapter Five: After their day of fishing, Nettie, Julie, Cindy, Mallory & Hannah engage in a five-woman sexfest inside a tent… and with the use of Cindy’s phone, their old friend and occasional bedmate Emma attends the orgy virtually. In the midst of their abandon, Nettie has a weird, vague memory flashback that leaves her shaken, but she conceals it from the others. Back home, Halee and her new love interest Bethany (Hannah’s daughter) are having long-distance sex via their laptops. 

Chapter Six: Nettie has a heart-to-heart with Hannah about her personal demons. Later, she gets a call from Agent Bridgett Ramscone, who has an unsettling request: for Nettie to go through the documentation of her own childhood kidnapping — and the murder of her sister — as a possible way to gain insight into the abduction of Heather and Gina (who are still being emotionally abused by their kidnapper, but are also taking steps to escape). Nettie is shaken, but agrees to do what she can. 

Chapter Seven: Many years after the fact, submerged memories of Nettie’s kidnapping began to make themselves known — memories of a possible accomplice to the original crime. She shares her thoughts with Bridgett. Meanwhile, Heather and Gina work on a potential escape from their makeshift prison.

Chapter Eight: Nettie unearths more hints that kidnap victims Heather and Gina were abducted by the same man who kidnapped and brutalized Nettie and her deceased sister over a decade ago — but that man was known to have died in prison.  Gina manages to escape captivity. But Heather can’t fit through the opening they dug, and must remain behind. Nettie gets a possible fix on the girls’ captor who, while out and about, gets a flat tire — then he discovers the spare is flat as well. 

Chapter Nine: The man who kidnapped Gina and Heather must get his flat spare tire fixed, not knowing the police have been alerted to him and are searching the area. Nettie, who is also hunting for the man, manages to find his abandoned car — then, some time later, makes an even more startling discovery: little Gina, alone and weeping by an abandoned road. In the meantime, the kidnapper manages to make his escape from the area by phoning a mysterious woman to pick him up.

Chapter Ten: Mallory meets with her mother, Sharon, for the first time in months, but fails to learn the cause of the recent distance between them. Nettie is still obsessed with Jacob Brentshaw, the man who kidnapped her and murdered her sister Annamarie so many years ago, sensing he is also behind the recent kidnapping as well… but can’t get past the fact that Brentshaw was killed in prison. Her actions saved the lives of Gina and Heather, but she remains determined to keep working the case on her own. For the first time, Nettie tells her lover Hannah about her own kidnapping and Annamarie’s death, events she has refused to discuss with anyone for years.

Chapter Eleven: Terry finds himself at loose ends, questioning his current life path, and decides to open up to than his dear friend and former sex partner Nettie. She and Hannah lend a sympathetic ear, then their conversation turns to kidnappings — the recent one, as well as Nettie’s own horrific abduction over a decade earlier, when her sister was murdered. She is fast coming round to the conclusion that both kidnappings involved an accomplice.

Chapter Twelve: A sleepover is in progress at Terry’s place while he is out. When the girls retire to their rooms, Halee phones her girlfriend Bethany and puts her on speaker to hear her younger sister Naomi and Chelsey going at it through their adjoining walls, and a good time is had by all. Upon returning home, Terry does some work on an idea for a new novel after months of inaction. Mallory is still unsure what to do with the family farm, and Nettie runs some ideas about the recent kidnapping case past Agent Ramscone.

Chapter Thirteen: Four members of the Pussy Posse — Mallory, Julie, Jamie, and Emma — are spending quality time together, along with Julie’s younger sister Vicky. News, gossip, memories, and innuendo are bandied about. Vicky hesitantly speaks of a recent sleepover where she overheard a couple of the girls saying hurtful things about her, an incident that still stings badly. The four women offer her comfort and understanding, which soon becomes something more.

Chapter Fourteen: Mallory, Julie, Jamie, Emma and Julie’s younger sister Vicky are having a barbecue and sleepover. Vicky loves hanging out with the Pussy Posse, but feels a little self-conscious, knowing that the women will very likely be having group sex later that evening. But Julie boldly her sister to join the sapphic festivities. Vicky is hesitant at first, especially at the prospect of coupling with her older sibling, but Julie manages to put her at ease. The four women and one teen adjourn for the master bedroom. Clothes are removed, bare bodies mingle, pleasure is shared.

Chapter Fifteen: Halee and her new girlfriend Bethany (daughter of Nettie’s lover Hannah), spend time roaming the town, getting to know one another better. Later on, they spend time together in a more intimate way. Meanwhile, Mallory and her partner Julie get a piece of surprising, potentially life-changing news.

Chapter Sixteen: Mallory is pregnant, and Terry Wilder is the father. She visits Bronning to give him the news, then they join Julie at Nettie’s place to discuss the situation. Terry chooses to leave the final decision in Mallory’s hands, but makes it clear that he is willing to raise the child as his own if Mal doesn’t want to be a mother.

For a list of the characters from the story you are now reading, visit this page. 

For a list of the characters from the previous two stories that you will encounter here as well, visit this page.

And now, dear readers, we make our way into the next installment. Read on…

by Rachael Yukey

One more to count in
Wake up the mountain
All colour’s slowly turning to grey
Our world is darkening
Wake up the mountain
And we will find it once more again
Helloween, 1996

“Nettie! Nettie, WAKE UP!” 

Nettie doesn’t want to wake up. It’s so cold, yet every breath she draws is flame. The last time she coughed, blood came up. There’s a bizarre floating sensation, like she’s on a boat, gently rocking back and forth with the swell of the waves. 

She becomes aware of Anna’s hands on her torn, filthy pajama top, and realizes the rocking motion is her sister trying to shake her into something resembling consciousness.

“Nettie!” Anna hisses in her ear. “A car just pulled up outside. If you’re asleep when he comes in, he’ll hit you till you wake up, just like last time. Nettie, come ON!” 

As the fog shrouding her mind gradually dissipates, Nettie becomes aware of an engine rumbling outside. It cuts off abruptly, followed by the sound of a car door slamming shut. Then another. Then HIS voice filters through the moldy walls, saying something too muffled to catch. 

“We’re running out of time, you know,” a female voice replies. Muffled though it is, this voice is closer, louder, just barely intelligible. 

Creepface speaks again, and although Nettie strains to hear, she still can’t quite make out his words. 

“I know that,” says the woman’s voice. “But we’ve got other problems, too. I didn’t expect Jacob to hang around as long as he has—I think he’s getting curious. We’re gonna have to figure out—”

The voice is now echoing as if from the depths of a well, a well from which Nettie is bizarrely falling up from the bottom, instead of down from the top. In some dim part of her mind, Nettie realizes it isn’t the woman outside who has changed, but her own perception. She’s drifting away again. 

She tries desperately to reverse course, to dive back down into the well, because that’s where Anna is, that’s where sanity lies, where…

“Nettie, please!” Anna screams. “WAKE UP!”

Nettie sat bolt upright, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, knuckles white and trembling from head to toe. Her Kia was idling in the side parking lot of a rundown convenience store about eight miles shy of the Forbes Mobile Home Park. She’d decided to stop for a bathroom break and a quick bite before presenting herself at the Dulcey residence, but had apparently closed her eyes and fallen into a light doze the moment she’d put her car in park. Small wonder; she’d slept badly the night before. A glance at the dashboard clock revealed that she’d been sitting there for a little over fifteen minutes.

“Fuck,” she mumbled.

The dream had been vivid, powerful, and was still sharp and clear in her mind. Was it truly just a dream, or perhaps a flash of suppressed memory elbowing its way to the forefront? She had no way to know.

Then Nettie realized that she did. That bit about Jacob being curious was the tell-tale. Because the monster, the man she and Anna had dubbed Creepface, the one who had gone to prison for their kidnapping and her sister’s murder, was Jacob. Even if this was a memory, it was an inaccurate one, distorted by the haze of fever.

She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the images that lingered in her head. If there was any scrap of truth to be had here, she wanted to find it and pin it down. Anna’s face seemed to loom before hers. Sweet, beautiful, doomed Anna, staring into her eyes, and from there down into her soul. Trust yourself, Nettie, and for this one moment she could fucking hear Anna, her subconscious insisting that this really was the voice of her lost sister. Trust your memories. Let them guide you.

Thoroughly shaken, Nettie opened her eyes, squinting a bit as the sun emerged from behind the clouds to glare through her windshield. She shook herself, trying to lighten her mood by comparing the motion to that of Terry’s big, hairy dog after being forced to endure a bath. The humor fell flat.

Shaking her head at her own idiocy, she killed the engine, popped the door open, and stepped out into the daylight. One thing was for sure: splotches of memory that might not even be memory at all were not going to get her any closer to learning what she needed to know. The mission she was on today just might. But first things first—she really needed to pee.

***

Twenty minutes later, Nettie was pulling in next to April Dulcey’s half-rotted deathtrap of a Honda Accord, its original light blue paint liberally besmirched by splotches of rust. Looks like a giant ate a village full of Smurfs, then took a massive shit in this woman’s driveway. She had to suppress a fit of laughter. Focus, girl. 

Emerging from the car, Nettie took a moment to appraise the yard as she slung a large white satchel over her shoulder. It had been recently mowed; a sloppy job that did not include edging. Two kids’ bikes were tucked up against the porch, and the plastic table, chairs, and tea service were exactly where they’d been when she’d driven by before, only a few meters from the woods. Whoever mowed the lawn had just gone right around the table and chair set.

Squaring her shoulders, she made her way up the walk. She was just shy of the front steps when the door flew open. The woman who stood in the doorway matched Nettie’s mental image of trailer trash to a tee. Her hair was the victim of an awful red dye job that was sufficiently past its prime for one-inch roots to be visible. A pair of ragged jeans two sizes too small cinched her belly in a way that made Nettie think of a rubber band wrapped around a marshmallow. A nondescript white tank showed off three inches of fleshy midriff. Nettie knew from the files that April Dulcey was thirty-one, but the lines on her face suggested early forties.

She peered at Nettie through bloodshot eyes. “Who the fuck are you?”

Coming up short at the bottom of the steps, Nettie put one hand on the rail, holding up her wallet with the other, the DEA consultant card she carried on display. “I’m—”

“Oh, hell no,” the woman snarled. “No more. I don’t want any more of you silly fucks in my house, so you can just—”

“I’m Nettie Hastings,” Nettie cut in, raising her voice. “I’m the one who—”

“Nettie?!” A small face stuffed itself into the narrow space between her mother’s waist and the doorframe. The face looked freshly scrubbed, the light brown hair neat, clean, and loose around the shoulders. This was such a far cry from the bedraggled creature Nettie had plucked from the ruins of County Highway Eight that it took a moment to recognize her.

“Nettie!” Gina Dulcey squealed, squeezing past her mother and hurtling down the porch steps. Nettie caught her on the way down, scooping the child into her arms. Tears stung her eyelids, tears she knew better than to shed.

Then Heather was there, brushing past her mom with a little more grace than her sister had, but then picking up the pace. She was down the steps in a flash, arms around Nettie’s waist.

“Oh,” said April, with total ill grace. “You’re Nettie. I guess you can come in.”

***

Terry unfolded his body from the driver’s seat of his recently purchased Honda Pilot, now parked outside the five-story edifice that was the Pinewood Clinic in Johnstown. Julie was clambering out of the passenger’s side. Terry popped open the rear door, offering Mallory a hand as she slid to the ground.

She took it, but rolled her eyes. “You should probably save that stuff for when I’m too big to see my feet.”

Terry laughed. “This is but the tip of the iceberg, my dear. Should the hallways be crowded, I intend to clear the way by shouting, ‘Lady with a baby!’”

Chuckling, Julie came around the front of the car and elbowed him in the ribs. “Out of the way, baby daddy. I got this.” Terry obligingly moved aside, then trailed along behind as the two women approached the building hand in hand.

***

“Are you two doing okay? Is there anything you need?”

“Maybe a mom who isn’t a bitch,” said Heather with a sardonic twist of her lip. Nettie was seated on the center cushion of the Dulceys’ couch, a girl pressed close to her on either side. Dear old Moms had exchanged token pleasantries, offered Nettie a drink which she’d politely refused, then retreated outside to smoke a cigarette.

Nettie offered the girl a wry smile. “How are your hands?” The first, second, and third fingers of Heather’s right hand were swathed in bandages. The left first and second fingers were similarly bound. The unbandaged digits bore the lingering aftermath of deep abrasions, but appeared to be functional.

“Getting better, but I still need one more operation on my right hand fingers,” Heather replied. “I really messed them up, and you guys still had to finish getting me out.”

“You got Gina out,” Nettie reminded her. “I think that makes you the best big sister ever. Besides, you had no way to know we were coming. What you did was incredibly brave, and exactly the right thing.”

Heather was looking up at her, hands twisting in her lap. “Have they caught him yet, Nettie?”

Nettie sighed. “No. Actually, that’s why I’m here.” Extracting a folded piece of printer paper from the satchel on the floor between her feet, she spread it out on the coffee table, smoothing the crease. It was Jacob Brentshaw’s arrest mugshot.

Heather awkwardly picked it up between the thumb and unbandaged two fingers of her left hand, examining the photo at arms length. Leaning across Nettie’s lap, Gina looked on.

“This was taken fifteen years ago, so he’d look older now,” said Nettie.

“It’s not him,” said Heather with an air of finality.

Nettie opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She hadn’t realized, not until right this second, how sure she’d been that Heather and Gina’s kidnapper was the same twisted fuck who had taken Anna’s life.

Nettie squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. She forced the words out. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s close. Like they’d probably be related. The nose is the same. But some things are different, and it’s not just because he’s younger.”

“The cheeks are wrong,” Gina put in. “If it wasn’t for that, it might fool me.”

“Damn,” Nettie muttered. “You think they look like relatives, though?”

“Oh, for sure,” said Heather. “It’s close enough that it’s giving me the creeps.”

“But they’re definitely different people.”

“Yeah, definitely,” said Heather.

“Uh-huh,” Gina agreed.

Nettie let her head droop forward, staring down at her hands while she forced her recalcitrant brain to accept this new data. “Okay,” she said, “Thanks. At least we know.”

“Who is this, anyway?” Heather inquired, rattling the paper in her hand.

“A horrible, horrible man,” said Nettie. “Best to leave it at that. Anyway, I brought some stuff for the two of you.” Reaching back into her satchel, she came up with a pair of large insulated lunch boxes, one green and the other orange, but otherwise identical.

“One for each of you. Anyone got a color preference?”

“Can I have the orange, Heather?” Gina pleaded. “It’s the same as Nettie’s glasses!”

Heather smiled a sad little smile. “All yours, Gina.”

“They’re both full of snacks,” said Nettie, handing Gina the orange and Heather the green. “All stuff that’s bad for you, so enjoy. Oh—and both boxes have a card with my phone number and email address inside. If you have questions, or think of anything I might need to know, or if you just plain need someone to talk to, you can get in touch with me anytime. Okay?”

“We’d better hide ‘em good,” Gina declared, “or our mom’ll eat all of it.”

Nettie felt a twinge of anger, but did her best to keep what she was thinking from showing on her face. “Maybe you’d better run them to your bedroom before she comes in.”

Heather rolled her eyes. “No worries. She’ll find an excuse to stay outside till you leave. It’s what she did with all the other people who came to talk to us.”

Fighting tears, Nettie wrapped an arm around each girl, pulling them close. “You have my contact info,” she said. “If you girls need anything, you get ahold of me. Okay?”

***

“I’m sorry, but I’m not clear on the dynamic here,” said Doctor Nadine Belgarde, the chubby brunette seated on the examination room stool. By sheer happenstance, Mallory had gotten a cancellation appointment with Terry’s own primary care physician. “Not that I want to pry or anything, but—”

“It’s okay,” said Mallory. “Julie is my domestic partner. I have the occasional heterosexual fling, that she knows about. Terry was one of them.”

“Well for starters, honey, your taste in men really sucks,” Dr. Belgarde said cheerfully, jerking her thumb in Terry’s direction. She and Terry both laughed. Julie and Mallory joined in after a moment’s hesitation.

“Anyway,” the doctor continued, “the results just came back. It’s a sure thing; you’re pregnant.”

Mallory nodded. “I know.”

“Okay, then. Something tells me you’re not a person who needs an exhaustive list of all your options, but do you want me to review them for you?”

“I think I’m good there.”

“Excellent,” said Dr. Belgarde. “Are you planning on carrying to term?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then,” the doctor said with a smile. She had a pleasing smile, one that spoke of a cheerful outlook on life. “Now, you live in Colorado, is that right? When are you planning to return?”

“When classes start at the end of August.”

“You’re a student, then?”

The corners of Mallory’s mouth curled upward. “Professor.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry about that. What do you teach?”

“Music.”

Dr. Belgarde flashed that wonderful smile again. “That is so cool. I played the viola with the U of M Mankato orchestra during my undergrad. I still miss it. Anyway—” she glanced at the notes on her tablet. “Looks to me like you’re in excellent health, so that’s a plus. Would you say you maintain a pretty balanced diet? Fresh fruit, veggies, that sort of thing?”

Mallory smiled back; the woman was infectious. “No problems there.”

“Terrific. I’d recommend you get started on a daily course of prenatal vitamins, but so long as you’re eating well and there are no other problems, the over-the-counter stuff ought to be just fine. I won’t tell you to avoid caffeine completely, but it should be kept to a minimum. Think you can handle no more than two hundred milligrams a day? That would be—”

“I’m just going to cut it out altogether. No big deal.”

“Do we need to have a conversation about alcohol or other intoxicants?”

Mallory shook her head. “Not a drop until I have the baby. It goes without saying, right?”

The doctor’s smile turned sour. “Sweets, I’m a family doc in an economically repressed rural area. Unfortunately it absolutely does not go without saying, and it’s a little depressing how often saying something doesn’t make a difference.”

“No worries,” said Mallory. “I won’t be using. And I don’t smoke, if that’s your next question.”

Nadine’s smile returned to sunny in an eyeblink. “You’re my dream patient. Too bad you don’t live here; you’d be a shining example to everyone else. Speaking of which, if you stick to the itinerary we talked about, you’ll be getting initial prenatal care here in Minnesota. We usually like to do the first ultrasound anywhere from seven to eight weeks after the start of your last menstrual cycle, so that’ll be a few weeks from now. You’re down in the Ottertail County area, correct?”

“Dickson. I grew up there.”

“That’s about three hours southwest of here, isn’t it? How did you meet this guy?” She waved her hand at Terry.

Mallory indicated Julie with her thumb. “Her cousin Nettie Hastings lives in Bronning. She’s friends with Terry.”

The doctor’s smile widened as she turned her attention to Julie. “Oh, I knew you resembled someone I know! I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I did an emergency medicine fellowship, so I sometimes pick up shifts in the ER when they’re shorthanded. I know Nettie. She’s everyone’s favorite paramedic down there.”

She peered more closely at Julie. “Wow, you really do look like her. I think it was the different hair that threw me. Anyway—”

She took another moment to peruse the chart. “You’re not too far from Alomere Health in Alexandria, then. Dr. Sanders down there is a terrific OB. Want me to give you a referral?”

“That’d be great.”

“Okay. It should show up in your MyChart before the day is out. Just one other thing then.”

Dr. Belgarde hesitated, her smile fading. “Here’s where I get told to mind my own business, but I need to ask. This is what we’d definitely call a non-traditional situation. An unplanned pregnancy, and you’re in a same-sex domestic relationship with someone who, obviously, is not the father. Meanwhile, the actual father is sitting right in front of me. My concern is any sort of situation that will lend itself to unusual levels of prenatal stress. It’s not good for the baby. I can give referrals for group counseling, individual therapy, whatever you have to have.”

She threw Terry a wicked grin. “Except I don’t have a cure for the father being a complete tool. I’ve been wanting to have that organ removed ever since your first appointment, Terry, but the surgeons tell me they don’t have a long enough drill.”

Julie and Mallory shared a laugh. Terry raised an eyebrow. “How long have you been waiting to use that line?”

Dr. Belgarde chuckled. “Oh, I’ve been sitting on it for a few months.”

Terry inclined his head, then met her eyes. “Well played,” he said cheerfully, “but the real gold standard is coming up with them on the fly.”

“Oh, I’ll get there.” She turned her attention back to Mallory. “Seriously, though—do you think you might need any sort of mental health services?”

Mallory took Julie’s hand, squeezed. “I think I’m okay.”

The doctor looked to Julie. “I haven’t heard much from you. Your good health, including your mental health, is going to be important for Mallory, and once again—this is a situation that I can’t help but be a little concerned about. I can set things up for you, if it’s needed.”

Julie shook her head. “I’m in a good place with it. If that changes, I promise I’ll get help.”

“I can’t ask for more than that.” The doctor stood. “Mallory, Julie, it was a pleasure meeting you. Even though I’m not your primary, if you need any little thing, you just call my office.”

She cocked her head at Terry, the corners of her mouth curling upward. “As for you—get the hell out of my exam room. You’re stinking up the joint.”

Terry cocked his head. “Why? So you can start crying yourself to sleep while desperately counting the minutes until my next appointment?”

“So I can drink myself to sleep while desperately trying to figure out where I went wrong in life, being stuck in a position where I have to treat douchey people like you.”

Doctor Nadine Belgarde exited the room with a self-satisfied spring in her step, leaving Terry staring after her open-mouthed.

“Well, goddamn,” he murmured, staring at the closed door. Then he broke into a grin. “Well played, madame.”

Julie and Mallory were both laughing. “How fun was that?” said Julie.

***

Nettie’s phone rang as her car descended the long hill that comprised most of Keenan Lake Road, leading her out of the trailer park and back to County Seven. She glanced at the infotainment system on the dash; ‘Unknown Number’ it said. She debated not taking it, then thumbed the accept button on the wheel.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Hastings, this is Latisha Miller with the FBI. I’ll come right out and say it: what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Wait—what?”

There was a moment’s pause. “Okay, honey, we need to talk, and I’d prefer a secure line. Can you drive to Virginia? Not the state, thanks very much.”

Thirty minutes later Nettie was seated at a desk in the ad hoc offices the FBI was maintaining in rented space in downtown Virginia. The contingent had been whittled down to just two agents, one of whom Nettie recognized. Agent Tso was the East Asian gentlemen who had been there a month ago, part of the search for Heather and Gina Dulcey. He’d ushered Nettie into this office with exquisite courtesy, setting her up behind a large computer screen that was already conferenced in to wherever the fuck FBI Special Agent Latisha Miller was at the moment. Location notwithstanding, Miller had a damn fine work space.

On the screen, The FBI agent looked up from whatever it was she’d been doing. “Ms. Hastings. Good to see you again.”

“Likewise. What’s this about?”

“Why did you pay a visit to the Dulcey residence?”

Nettie folded her hands on the desk. “How did you know?”

“We have the place under 24-7 video surveillance. The Dulcey girls are considered to be at risk, because they’d theoretically be capable of identifying the perp. There’s always the chance he or someone close to him will come back and try to neutralize that threat.”

Nettie was mentally kicking herself. Of course the place was being watched. “I wanted to see how the girls were doing. I, um, brought them some presents.”

“Is that all? For real? Because that was a damn short visit for a social call.”

Nettie sighed. “Fine. Since nobody else was going to do it, I wanted to show them Jacob Brentshaw’s mugshot. I figured we needed to rule out the possibility.”

Miller slowly nodded. “I was going to, but my bosses nixed the idea. What did you learn?”

“It wasn’t him. Both girls agreed there were differences aging wouldn’t account for. They also thought it was scary close, like it was probably a relative or something.”

Miller appeared to give that a moment’s thought. “I looked through all the old files after our debriefing, the day the Dulcey girls were rescued. Brentshaw doesn’t have any male relatives that would be even close to the estimated age of the perp.”

“I know that. But an almost identical crime, committed by someone who almost looks like him? You have to admit, it’s a hell of a coincidence.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“So what’s your next move?”

“A number of things, but nothing I’m at liberty to discuss. I’ll go out on a limb and tell you that we’re not following up on the alleged Brentshaw connection. There simply isn’t enough to go on that I can justify it.”

Nettie chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Okay—if you could justify it, what would you do?”

Miller was shaking her head before Nettie was done. “Oh, no you don’t. What I need you to do is butt out, Hastings. I appreciate what you’ve done—tremendously—but I can’t have a civilian putting herself at risk on a high-stakes case like this. Especially on a line of investigation that’s likely to lead nowhere.”

“You really believe there’s not a connection here?”

“I didn’t say that. But resources are limited, and we can only devote so many agents to this now that the immediate crisis has been averted. Hell, we’re maybe two or three days away from being ordered to close down the Virginia office, possibly even discontinue surveillance of the trailer park. That’s just how it is. It’s an open case, but it’s not going to get much priority going forward because it has low odds of leading to an arrest. We can only do so much.”

“Put me in the game,” said Nettie, throwing caution to the wind. “Look, I know there’s something to this, so do you, so let’s go after this fucker before he does it again.”

No response. Agent Miller’s face might have been carved out of granite.

Nettie tried another tack. “Look at it this way: the only way you can stop me from doing this on my own is to arrest me, so you might as well offer some guidance.”

Miller let out a long, slow breath. “What information do you already have, and what do you feel that you lack?”

Nettie felt a surge of triumph at the unexpected victory, but she kept her face still. “I got Bridgett Ramscone to hook me up with current information for Brentshaw’s living relatives, but she made me promise not to contact any of them before she gave it to me. I was particularly interested in female relatives, because I’m pretty damn sure Brentshaw had a female accomplice when I was kidnapped. I—”

“Hold on,” Miller’s eyes narrowed. “Except for a comment made by your sister about ‘bad people’ only minutes before she died, there’s not a single word in any of the Brentshaw files hinting at a second person being involved. You didn’t tell anyone at the time.”

“I wasn’t able to give a statement when I was found,” Nettie countered. “And by the time I was in any shape to talk about it, I’d blocked it out. When Bridgett sent me the case files during the Dulcey search, it brought back a few things that I hadn’t been able to remember before. I never saw a second person, and I don’t think Anna did either, but I remember hearing him talking to someone with a female voice, and I remember Anna talking about hearing the same thing. Several instances of each.”

“And you trust that these memories are genuine?”

Nettie sighed. “I won’t say a hundred percent, but it’s a damn sight higher than fifty. Also—” she hesitated, unsure how much she wanted to say. Miller raised her eyebrows, cocked her head.

“I am less than fifty percent on this one,” said Nettie, “but I seem to remember hearing him talking—recognizing it as his voice—to the female, and her saying something about Jacob staying longer than expected, and getting curious. As in a third party, not someone present at the time.”

“But she was talking to someone whose voice you recognized as that of Jacob Brentshaw.”

“No,” said Nettie, leaning forward in her chair. Now that she was processing the imagery from this morning’s dream aloud, a deadly suspicion was forming. “She was talking to someone whose voice I recognized as that of Creepface. That’s what Anna and I called him. He never gave us a name, not that I remember, anyway. And you know, I didn’t see his fucking mugshots, or any pics of him at all, until just a few weeks ago. I’ve always avoided all the press stories and shit like that. I didn’t see pictures until I was far past the point of being able to accurately remember what he looked like. When I saw his mugs I was like oh yeah, that’s him—but if it’s as close as Gina and Heather just told me it is, I wouldn’t have noticed any discrepancies after so many years.”

Miller gazed at her steadily for several long moments before she spoke. “Ms. Hastings—Nettie—are you seriously suggesting that Jacob Brentshaw wasn’t the one responsible for—”

“I don’t know,” said Nettie. “It doesn’t make sense, does it? He was there, he got arrested, he was convicted. And again—I’m a long way from convinced that’s even a real memory.”

“So what is it you’d like to do?”

“Questioning Brentshaw’s relatives would be one hell of a good start.”

“What would you want to ask them?”

Nettie rocked back in the chair. “I’d have to sit down and think that over. I’m not even sure who I’d start with. I’ve looked over the info we have on them, and most of them seem to be located in various parts of Iowa and Wisconsin. None of them looks less likely to be a suspect than any of the others. Except possibly his sister Melissa. She’s a hell of a lot younger than him, and a systems analyst for a big company in Cedar Rapids.”

“You realize, of course, that if there even was a female accomplice, it’d most likely not be a relative?”

“I get that, but Brentshaw doesn’t appear to have had much of a social life. Very reclusive, lived by himself, no known close associates. From the files I have, I can’t even find a starting point outside of family. If I could question his relatives, that’d maybe be a good first question.”

Latisha Miller smiled. “You really do think like an agent. So what’s stopping you from following this up?”

“Basically, I promised Bridgett I wouldn’t. I told her I’d contact her if the info itself gave me any leads, and it really doesn’t.”

Miller pursed her lips. “We may be able to get around that. I’ll contact you later in the day. Any other lines of investigation come to mind for you?”

Nettie hesitated, then plunged ahead. “I’m still not convinced that the perp in the Dulcey girl’s kidnapping wasn’t Jacob Brentshaw. Yeah, the girls say it wasn’t, but they also say it’s a pretty damn good likeness, and they’re little girls who might not be clear on how much aging can change a face.”

“So—what do you want to do?”

“You mean short of digging him up and running DNA?”

Miller’s face took on the contemplative look of someone actually thinking it over. “For now, yes. Short of that.”

“Prison records, then. I know, he was killed in a high security facility, and that ought to be gold standard, but right now I’d like to see some proof that whoever was shanked in that shower room was in fact Jacob Brentshaw.”

“That’s not as simple as it sounds. Consider what the very request implies. We’d be accusing them of gross incompetence at best. At worst—well—something a lot more sinister.”

“But can you get it?”

“I have the authority to demand the records, but that makes it sound easier than it is. If there is anything hinky, you couldn’t trust that they wouldn’t cherry-pick what they send. There are very few checks and balances in that environment, and there’s a culture of covering each other’s asses. I’d have to send an agent, or more realistically a couple of agents, to make sure we get everything we want. The prison would then issue a formal complaint, and unless the information we came away with contained something damning, my ass would be grass. Sorry, honey. I need a lot more than what we have now to go in with all guns blazing.”

Nettie ran a hand across her face. “That’s basically what Bridgett said, too.”

Latisha offered a wan smile. “Look, you’re thinking in all the right ways. But if you’re as smart as Bridgett thinks you are, then you’re seeing the same thing I’m seeing.”

Nettie spread her hands. “I know. Everything we have is either circumstantial, or based on memories that I don’t even trust, and they’re my memories. And none of the lines of investigation we’re looking at are likely to lead anywhere.”

“But?”

“But I’d still like to talk to some of Brentshaw’s relatives.”

Miller nodded. “It’s the only reasonable angle of attack, for the moment. What’s your schedule like for the rest of the day?”

“I’m going home. My cousin and her partner are visiting, and we’re going out for dinner tonight.”

“Okay,” said Agent Miller. “I’m going to see if I can set up a conference call with Ramscone this afternoon. How long is your drive home?”

“Ninety minutes or so.”

“I’ll make sure it’s after that, then. Can you squeeze it in?”

“Yeah, I’ll make it work. Bridgett is gonna be pissed, though. I didn’t tell her I wouldn’t go talk to Heather and Gina, but she’ll still be mad I did it without talking to her first.”

“You knew that, and you did it anyway because…”

Nettie sighed. “Because she would have said no.”

Miller chuckled. “I figured. Okay, why don’t you be on your way. Is the email we have on file for you correct? Nettie underscore Hastings at Gmail?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I’m going to send you a link to download a messaging app a little more secure than the stuff you more ordinarily use. It’ll work on a PC or a phone. Get that, and we’ll talk this afternoon.” Without another word, Special Agent Latisha Miller terminated the conference call.

On to Chapter Eighteen!

The Story Thus Far

Ch1: In which Sarah and Frankie peruse some rather risqué entertainment, then get intimately acquainted with a pair of soiled undies. Who says staying at home on weekends is boring?

 

by BlueJean

1

Sunday morning was spent cleaning the house from top to bottom. Bed linen and risqué weekend lingerie were washed, windows opened to let the aroma of sex escape, and incriminating laptops and sex toys hidden where inquisitive little girls wouldn’t find them. It always made me feel like a naughty teenager, frantically cleaning up after a wild party before the unsuspecting parents came back home.

As the afternoon arrived, so did my daughter, bounding up the front steps with her father in tow. My ex-husband used to be called Dan, but since the divorce I’ve taken to calling him The Arsehole. I think it’s a lovely name which suits him down to the ground.

“Mummy!” squealed Kerry as she crashed into me for a big hug.

“Hey, Peanut,” I said, stroking her curly blonde locks. “Did you have a good time?”

Kerry gave an enthusiastic nod. “We went to a really posh restaurant, and Daddy bought me some new clothes.”

“Oh, that sounds nice,” I said. It was standard behaviour from my ex – the easiest way for him to interact with something he doesn’t quite understand is to throw money at it and hope it makes approving noises.

“You okay?” I asked, giving him one of those special smiles that somehow manages to convey disapproval more than friendliness.

“Yep,” he grunted noncommittally as he deposited Kerry’s bag on the step and reached down to give her a brief hug. “See you next weekend, sprogget.”

“Bye, Daddy,” my daughter piped, then lugged her bag past me into the house.

Her father raised a hand to me as he strolled back to his car. That was about as chatty as we got these days. I suppose it must be a real blow to the male ego, losing your wife to another woman.

Kerry was in the kitchen with Frankie, rambling away about her weekend. “…and I had this massive pizza with literally everything on it, but I couldn’t eat it all, so the restaurant lady put it in a box and let me take it home. I still managed dessert, though. Then earlier, Daddy took me shopping, so I got some new jeans and two T-shirts. Oh, and we…”

Frankie swept my daughter’s hair out of her eyes while she nibbled on her sourdough toast, nodding and humming in all the right places. “Sounds awesome!” she enthused when Kerry was finally done.

Kerry and Frankie got on spectacularly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Frankie is a responsible parent. If someone was foolish enough to entrust her with their children, she’d probably lose them somewhere, or let them starve to death by accident. What I mean is, Frankie’s good with kids because she’s essentially a kid herself.

“Mummy, Daddy’s moving away soon, so I won’t be able to stay with him much.”

This was news to me, which wasn’t surprising given the lack of communication between Kerry’s father and myself. “Oh? Where’s he moving to?”

“Dooby,” my daughter informed me.

“Huh?”

“Um… Dooby?” she repeated, unsure.

“Dooby?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s Dooby?”

“A country.”

Frankie chuckled. “You mean Dubai?”

“Oh, yeah, I meant that.”

“Nice of him to let me know,” I muttered. Not that I gave a shit what The Arsehole did with himself, but considering the impact it would have on our daughter’s life, you’d think it might have at least warranted a phone call. Wanker. “When is he moving out there?”

Kerry eyed Frankie’s toast with considerable interest. “In a month, maybe two months or something. It’s to do with his job.”

“Oh, okay. Are you sad that you won’t be able to stay with him anymore?”

“Yeah, I s’pose. But I’ll still see him sometimes – he says he’ll be back quite a lot. And anyway, I want to see what you and Frankie do when I’m not here.”

Frankie nearly choked on her toast.

“Uh, well, it’ll be nice for us all to spend some weekends together for a change,” I said, giving Frankie a wry look. She popped the rest of her toast into Kerry’s mouth.

Kerry hummed away happily as she polished off the snack, then took out her phone. “Frankie, have you ever seen a dog riding a bike?”

Frankie looked intrigued. “I have not, Peanut-chan, but I’m pretty sure my life will be incomplete until I do.”

While Kerry showed Frankie YouTube videos, I took her travel bag up to the bathroom to empty her dirty clothes into the washing basket.

I soon found myself with two pairs of Kerry’s used knickers in my hand, a white pair with pink hearts, and a baby blue pair with yellow trim. I held them for a moment, a low throb pulsing between my thighs.

Put them in the basket, you stupid cow.

Instead, I closed and locked the bathroom door, then sat down on the toilet.

A voice echoed through my head, like a policeman barking commands through a loudhailer. Step away from the panties! Step. Away. From the panties!

I inspected the crotch of the white pair. There was a little pale stain in there, right where Kerry’s pussy had nestled against the soft fabric.

This is ridiculous. She’s downstairs in the kitchen, for God’s sake.

I clamped Kerry’s panties to my face and breathed in. A light musky scent filled my nostrils, intoxicating me. I uttered the obligatory mantra of all dedicated perverts the world over: “Fuck yeah…”

The blue pair were even more fragrant, and I had to wonder if Kerry had touched herself through them. Had she started masturbating yet? True, she was only eight, but she wouldn’t be the first little girl to discover what her body was capable of. Is that what she did at night in bed? Snaking an exploratory hand down beneath her quilt and into her knickers?

I popped the buttons on my jeans and pushed them down to my ankles, along with my underwear. Still sniffing Kerry’s blue panties, I scrubbed the other pair against my pussy, pushing the soft cotton between my lips.

“You smell so fucking nice, Kerry,” I muttered.

Extending my tongue, I ran the tip across the soiled crotch, the sheer depravity of the act making my cunt throb with an even greater urgency. I was on the verge of coming quick and hard, perched on the loo with my own underwear stretched round my ankles while I did terrible, perverted things to my eight-year-old daughter’s soiled knickers. I was a dirty, sick, depraved lady, but right then I didn’t give a flying fuck.

Just then, the door handle turned. “Mummy, I need a wee!” Kerry shouted from the other side.

“Shit!” I hissed and quickly tugged my jeans up. “Hold on, sweetie.” I deposited her panties into the washing hamper and unlocked the door, acutely aware that the bathroom was now infused with the musky scent of pussy.

Kerry bounded in and pulled her shorts and knickers down in one fluid movement, then parked herself on the still-warm loo seat. I saw her nostrils flare briefly, but I don’t think she gave much thought to the lingering aroma; maybe wasn’t even aware of what it was.

“Why did you lock the door?” she asked. Suffice to say, the three of us never bothered locking the bathroom door unless we had guests.

“Uh, dunno,” I replied, and Kerry seemed to find the answer satisfactory.

I deposited the rest of her clothes into the bin, which happened to be right next to the toilet. That afforded me the opportunity to steal quick glances of Kerry’s smooth slit as she peed.

Jesus, get a grip! I berated myself. If I was getting turned on by my daughter, it was only because I was allowing myself to. It didn’t mean I was attracted to her, I reasoned. Frankie’s kiddy porn had been a massive turn-on simply because it’d been something new and novel, not because I was hot for little girls.

You don’t suddenly turn into a kiddy-fiddler halfway through your life, but still… you need to be smart about this, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.

Kerry pulled her shorts back up and flushed the loo, then insisted on showing me her snazzy new jeans, which seemed to have far more zippers, buckles and buttons than was strictly warranted.

I really needed to come.

2

When evening came around, the three of us observed our usual Sunday ritual of cooking a roast dinner together. Frankie and Kerry chopped up vegetables while I basted the meat and drank wine. I got the better job, I think.

As we haphazardly prepared our meal, laughing and chatting about this and that, it reminded me of what a perfect little family unit we had. Life was good.

Me and Frankie got a tad tipsy as usual, and we even let Kerry have a small glass of watered down white wine. I don’t think she enjoyed the taste much, but she liked to feel included.

We finished our meal, then settled down in the lounge to watch TV for the remainder of the evening. At some point, Kerry took herself to bed, and me and Frankie weren’t far behind. Tomorrow was a school/work day. Granted, we both worked from home – me as a proofreader and Frankie as a blogger – but that still required actually getting out of bed in the morning and doing some work.

“It wasn’t weird with Kerry, was it?” I said as we lay in bed. “It didn’t make things weird – you know, when she came back? There was no… weirdness or anything?”

Frankie was checking emails and blog posts on her laptop. “If you’re asking me if it was weird – and I think you might be – no, of course not. I nearly died when she mentioned being here for our weekend activities, though.”

“Mmm. Well, with her dad moving to Dubai, and Kerry home for the weekends, I get the feeling we won’t be enjoying our kinky escapades for a while.”

Frankie afforded me a disapproving pout. “We can still watch the occasional sneaky video, can’t we?” she pointed out, then added, “And if a certain little girl’s dirty knickers found their way into our bedroom – completely by accident, of course – we could have some naughty fun with them. Or was that just a one-off?”

I was tempted to tell her about the bathroom incident, but I was allowed to have my own secrets, wasn’t I? God knows, Frankie had kept her penchant for kiddy porn hidden from me long enough.

“Oh, you enjoyed my daughter’s panties, did you?” I teased.

“I think we both did. Didn’t we?”

“Hmm… maybe the Panty Fairy left us something.”

“Oooh, there’s a Panty Fairy?!” Frankie squealed, clapping her hands together like a kid who’s just inherited a sweet shop.

“You didn’t know about the Panty Fairy? I hear she leaves dirty panties under your pillow if you’re a good girl.”

“Fuck off!”

“It’s true!”

We both broke into peals of laughter.

“Shhh, we’ll wake Kerry!” I hissed, still laughing. When we’d regained some composure, I raised a wry eyebrow at Frankie. “Well? Aren’t you going to check under your pillow?”

The smile vanished from Frankie’s face for a brief moment. She lifted her pillow a few inches and peered beneath. Sure enough, the Panty Fairy had paid her a visit, which was odd because Frankie was definitely not a good girl. Sandwiched between the two pillows was the little blue pair of panties I’d already had some fun with earlier in the bathroom.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” a delighted Frankie cooed, drawing her prize out.

“Smell them,” I demanded.

“Let’s smell them together.”

“No, just you. I want to play with myself while I watch you.”

Frankie rolled her eyes. “Jesus, I thought I was supposed to be the perverted one.” She pushed Kerry’s panties against her nose and breathed in the aroma.

“Nice?” I asked.

“Even better than the last pair.”

I could’ve told her that already, of course. “You’re a nasty girl, Frankie.” I pushed back the quilt, then slipped my pyjama bottoms down my legs. I didn’t hesitate in treating my pussy to several fingers.

Frankie gripped the panties between her teeth while she got naked.

“Lick them for me, you dirty bitch,” I growled while I fucked myself, so she made a show of slowly sliding her tongue up and down the crotch of the soiled material.

“Is this wrong?” Frankie said as she rubbed the damp knickers over her tits. “Playing kinky games with your daughter’s underwear while she’s asleep in the next room?”

I knew Frankie wasn’t in the slightest bit concerned about the morality of what we were doing. It was just a game to her – the talking, the taunting, the dirty words. If I’d been in any doubt, that little smirk, and the sing-song lilt of her voice, would’ve given her away in an instant.

“Yes, it’s wrong,” I groaned. “That’s what makes it so exciting, isn’t it?”

Frankie brought Kerry’s panties to her face again. “Her pussy smells quite strong. Think she’s masturbating yet?”

“Dunno. She’s only eight. That cam girl of yours wasn’t much older, though.”

An image of Kerry fucking herself with a toothbrush suddenly deposited itself into my perverted brain. This time, I didn’t bother fighting it. As long as it was safely confined to my head, it wasn’t doing any harm, right? And it was an awfully compelling image.

“I think we should rub our pussies together,” Frankie declared.

The two of us sat propped up on our elbows and joined together. Worried Kerry’s underwear hadn’t suffered enough abuse, I decided to stuff them between our legs so we could rub ourselves on the soiled fabric.

“Those knickers are going to be such a mess when we’ve finished with them,” Frankie cooed as we ground against the sodden material.

“Wouldn’t it be hot if she wore them to school tomorrow?” I groaned.

“God, you’re sick,” Frankie hissed. “I’m so lucky you’re my girlfriend.”

I was quick to come, arching my hips up against Frankie’s pussy and the little pair of child’s panties stuffed between us. The soft cotton took the brunt of my orgasm, absorbing the warm fluids that oozed so copiously from me.

A delighted Frankie took the messy knickers and attached them to her face without a hint of inhibition. Spent though I was, I scooted down the bed and ate her out until she came. I’m nothing if not considerate.

3

The next morning I left Frankie fast asleep in bed and went to wake Kerry. While she got herself ready for school, I made her a bowl of cereal and myself a strong coffee. A few minutes later she was sitting up to the kitchen table in her school uniform.

“What’s on the agenda today?” I asked as Kerry spooned sugary wisps of nothing into her mouth.

“We’re learning about the extinction of the dinosaurs,” she replied with her mouth half full. “And we’re doing a painting in art class. We can paint anything we want.”

A little flake of cereal managed to escape the carnage and was currently weighing up its options on her top lip.

“Swallow first, then talk,” I told her as I pulled the offending fragment away.

“Your fingers smell funny,” Kerry informed me matter-of-factly.

Of course they did. My fingers had been inside my pussy last night, inside Frankie’s too, for that matter, and I hadn’t washed them yet. My scent had always been quite strong – Kerry probably inherited that from me.

I should have pulled my fingers away, but instead I let them linger near her nose. “Good funny or bad funny?” I asked her.

What the hell are you doing?

“Kind of… good funny, I guess?” Kerry replied, a hint of colour reaching her cheeks. “It smells like the bathroom when I came in yesterday.”

I think she must have known what it was. Sure, she was only eight, but if she was anything like her mum she was already smelling and tasting herself. I’d always enjoyed the taste of my own pussy, even before I’d become sexually active.

Kerry gazed up at me while I let her smell last night’s arousal on my fingers. I wondered what she would think if she knew her own panties were to blame. I also wondered how I could persuade her to put a hand up her skirt and let Mummy have a little whiff of her fingers.

Frankie broke the spell when she shuffled into the kitchen. “Must. Have. Coffee,” she droned, lurching forward with her arms extended like Frankenstein’s monster.

Kerry giggled at my girlfriend’s foolishness.

“Okay, Peanut, eat up and let’s get you to school,” I said, then headed to the bathroom to wash my hands, brush my teeth and finger myself to a quick orgasm. Not necessarily in that order.

4

After I’d dropped Kerry off at school I decided to call in on my sister Judy, who lived not far from us.

Judy’s two years older than me and my confidante. We have a very close relationship, and I know if I ever have any problems, I can sound off on her and vice versa. She’s married to an Italian antiques dealer named Marco, and they have an adorable five-year-old girl.

When I pulled up in their drive, Marco was just leaving the house, my niece skipping along behind him. Isobel, or ‘Izzy’ as we all called her – was a beautiful little girl who inherited her father’s dark hair and olive skin.

She bounded over to give me a hug. “Hello, Aunty Sarah!”

“Hiya, Izzy! Are you off to school?”

The five-year-old nodded enthusiastically.

“You’ll have to come and visit me and Aunty Frankie and Kerry soon. They’d love to see you,” I told her.

“‘Kay,” she piped, then jumped in the car as her father opened the door for her.

“How you doin’, Sarah?” Marco asked in his soft accent.

Okay, I admit, my sister’s man was quite handsome. She definitely got the better deal as far as husbands were concerned, though I’m reliably informed he’s not even remotely into licking arse. That’s a complete deal-breaker for me.

“I’m good, thanks,” I told him. “Is my sister up yet?”

“She is. Still in her pyjamas,” he informed me with a good-natured eye-roll.

Marco had left the front door ajar for me, so I let myself in and hollered, “Jude?”

“In the lounge,” my sister called back.

I found her curled up on the couch with a cup of coffee. “Well, this is an early visit,” she said. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just dropped Kerry off at school and thought I’d pop in to catch up.”

“Coffee?”

Judy made good coffee. Well, Marco’s expensive coffee machine made good coffee. Another perk of having an Italian husband, I suppose. That’s a nation that takes its morning brew seriously.

“Please,” I said, and followed her into the kitchen where the magic happened.

“How’s Kerry and Frankie?” my sister asked.

“They’re okay.”

“And how’s your sex life?”

“Very nice, thanks. Yours?”

“Rubbish. That’s why I’m asking about yours.”

“Marco can’t be that bad in bed,” I scoffed. My sister did tend to exaggerate a bit.

“No, of course he’s not. And I do love him. It’s just all a bit… generic?”

“I definitely couldn’t accuse Frankie of being generic,” I mused, sipping my coffee.

“I want a kinky lesbian lover, too!” my sister pouted.

“Well, you can’t have mine, so shush!”

That reminded me of why I’d come in the first place. “Actually, I need to talk to you. We kind of got ourselves into some weird stuff.”

“You and Frankie?”

“Yeah.”

“Define weird stuff.”

“Sex stuff.”

She actually rubbed her hands together. “Finally, we get down to the nitty gritty!”

“You won’t judge me, will you?” I asked her seriously.

“I wouldn’t ever,” she assured me, and I knew she was as good as her word.

I took a deep breath. “Okay, so we’re in the lounge watching porn, and Frankie’s licking my arse, and she ends up sitting on my face, and it all gets a bit messy as usual, blah blah blah—”

“Wait!” Judy protested. “You’re skipping the best bits!”

“No. I’m really not. Now shush and let me finish.”

“Sorry, carry on. Actually, let’s go into the lounge. I wanna get comfortable while you tell it.”

We took our coffee into the lounge and settled on Judy’s big leather couch. I picked up where I left off.

“So, Frankie gives me this weird look and says she has something to show me.” I paused to take a slug of coffee, then continued. “And… Okay. So we, we kind of, um… watched a naked little girl play with herself?”

My sister sat there dumbstruck. “Child porn?” she said after a long uncomfortable pause.

“A live cam show,” I said, as if that somehow made it more acceptable. “But I suppose it was kiddy porn, yeah.”

“Do you mind if I put a hand down my knickers?” my sister asked without waiting for a reply.

Now, I know what you’re thinking – my sister frigging herself while I give her all the juicy details about my sex life is not the usual sibling dynamic. Well, the truth is, Judy and I have been fucking each other every now and again since we were kids. She even joins me and Frankie for threesomes on occasion. Of course, Marco knows nothing of that.

“Was it hot?” Judy asked me, her hand moving beneath her pyjama bottoms.

“Was what hot?”

“The child porn, dummy!”

“Oh. Yeah, it really was. I don’t think the girl was even ten. Her legs were practically wrapped around her head at one point. It was absolutely filthy!”

I fixed my gaze on my sister’s knuckles undulating beneath her jammies. I could hear her fingers sloshing around in her pussy, and smell the musky scent of her arousal. My own lust was beginning to stir. It didn’t take much to get me going these days.

“Christ,” Judy crooned. “I wouldn’t mind seeing something like that. Can you get Frankie to show me how to find it.”

“Uh, no, Judy. First, it’s illegal as hell. Second, you get confused working the TV remote. You’ll end up getting caught.”

“Just tell me what happened, then. This is a huge turn-on, by the way.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

I honestly hadn’t been sure how my sister would take what I was telling her. Of course, she’d never shop me to the police, but I worried we’d end up falling out over it. It was a big relief to discover how accepting she was.

“Frankie kept asking the kid to do stuff,” I continued.

“Like what?”

“She got her to masturbate. Then she persuaded her to stick a toothbrush up her arse.”

“Oh my God, Sarah. Listen… will you play with yourself for me? I want to come with you.”

I popped the buttons on my trousers and slipped a hand inside, bringing my right leg up to rest against the back of the couch so I had a better view of Judy fingering herself. I continued on with the story.

“So this young girl’s fucking her bum with the toothbrush, and she’s squealing and giggling away like it’s just about the best thing ever. And with the toothbrush still buried in her arse, she decides to – to put one of those fat marker pens into her pussy. I mean, what the hell. Then she just bounces to her feet all of a sudden and logs off ‘cause her mum’s calling her downstairs for supper. How messed up is that?””

Judy shook her head from side to side in an attempt to project a measure of disapproval, but with her hand down her knickers, it didn’t quite have the intended effect. “Sarah, that’s terrible.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, fingers pressed firmly into my sex. “Terrible. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Frankie put on another video – an older one where this woman and her daughter were taking turns eating each other out.”

“Appalling…” Judy groaned, her eyes thick with arousal. “How old was the girl?”

“She couldn’t have been much older than Izzy. Five or six? She had her entire hand in the woman’s vagina, Judy. I’ve never seen anything like it. Well, not with kids, at least.”

“Oh, the poor little thing!” Judy gasped, fingers toiling beneath her pyjamas.

“But that’s not the worst part,” I told her. “Actually, it might be the worst part, I’m not sure.”

“What else happened?” my sister demanded. “Hurry up and tell me; I’m g-going to come soon.”

I hesitated, suddenly reluctant to reveal the full extent of my perversion. Then I soldiered on, fully expecting a good telling off from my big sister. “We, um… took a pair of Kerry’s dirty panties and smelled them while we watched the kiddy porn.”

“What?! Fuck!” Judy gasped as she shuddered into orgasm.

The sight of her twitching away beside me was enough to make me come, too. I braced myself against the back of the couch and let it wash over me, then pulled my wet fingers from my knickers to suck clean.

“What on earth were you thinking?” my sister asked once she’d regained the power of speech, giving me a halfhearted shove with her foot.

I gave a derisive snort. “Careful you don’t fall off that high horse, sis. How was the orgasm, by the way?”

“I’m not judging, Sarah. But kiddy porn? Playing with Kerry’s knickers? It’s a slippery slope. You’re not thinking of… doing anything with her, are you? Kerry, I mean.”

“No. I’m not stupid, Judy. But I’m done pretending to be someone I’m not. I had enough of all that with my shitty marriage. I just wanna have a little fun before my hair goes grey and my tits hit the floor.”

Judy took my hand in hers. “I understand, I really do. But don’t get carried away with this, Sarah. Just be careful, okay?”

“I will. Thanks for listening. Well, you mostly just frigged yourself silly, but thanks anyway.”

My sister flashed her eyes at me. “You, me and Frankie should get together for another one of our special ‘sessions’ soon.”

“Been a while, hasn’t it? I’m sure we could arrange something. Frankie keeps mentioning what a tasty bumhole you have.”

Judy wiggled her arse at me. “Well, she would know. Um… can you get Frankie to send me that video? The one with the mum and her daughter?”

“And I’m the pervert? Okay, but do not show it to Marco.”

“As if.”

5

Back at home, I spent a few hours proofreading documents until it was time to pick Kerry up from school. She seemed a little quiet in the car, but I didn’t think anything of it.

When we arrived home, Kerry helped herself to a glass of lemon squash while Frankie asked about her day.

“I painted a picture of you and Mum, but some kids in my class made fun of it,” Kerry told her glumly.

“Why would they do that?” I asked.

“I made one of Frankie’s legs bigger than the other by mistake, and one boy asked if she had to wear one of those big shoes old ladies wear.”

The thought of Frankie clomping about in an orthopaedic shoe had me covering my mouth with a hand to stifle a laugh. Frankie noticed me struggling and looked in the other direction to avoid losing it too.

“That was mean,” I said. “I’ll bet his painting wasn’t anything to shout about.”

“Dunno, but I wish I hadn’t done the picture with you and Frankie holding hands because some of the other kids started asking me about how lesbians do sex.”

Frankie kissed her on the forehead. “Oh, they were probably just curious.”

“They were bloody laughing!”

“Hey, watch your language,” I told her.

“Sorry, but I didn’t know what to say. We did stuff about normal sex in class, but they didn’t say anything about girls doing it with other girls.”

“Girls having sex together is normal too, Kerry,” I explained. “It’s just, if they were teaching you about reproduction and babies, then gay relationships aren’t really part of that.”

“They should teach them about lesbians, though,” Frankie pointed out.

“Yes, they should, but maybe they just haven’t gotten round to that lesson yet,” I reasoned. “Kerry is only eight.”

“How do you do it, though?” Kerry said.

“Do what?” asked Frankie.

“Urgh. Lesbian sex!” my daughter exclaimed, rolling her eyes.

I looked at Frankie. Frankie looked at me.

“I’m not sure you need to know about that just yet,” I told Kerry.

“Well, obviously I do, ’cause they’ll make fun of me again. Charlie Simmons said lesbians have to do it sideways, but that doesn’t even make sense.”

How the hell do you explain the ins and outs of women loving women? I mean, it’s not an exact science.  But it had to be better coming from me and Frankie than Charlie fucking Simmons.

“Okay, Peanut,” I said. “Well, let’s see. Frankie? Want to explain how it all works for Kerry?”

Frankie looked out of her depth. Actually, Frankie looked like she had just drowned. “Um. It’s like boy-girl sex but with less… bits?”

I stared across the table at her for a long moment, waiting to see if she had any more wisdom to impart. She did not. “Brilliant. Thanks,” I said.

“You two are really bad at this,” Kerry groaned.

I ran my fingers through her soft blonde curls. “All right, how about this: me and Frankie will figure out what you need to know, and we’ll all sit down and have a big talk about it one evening this week. Is that okay?”

Kerry sighed dramatically. “O-kaay.”

Frankie attacked her with tickles, and Kerry did her best to maintain a solemn demeanour until she was forced into fits of laughter.

I breathed a sigh of relief. We were off the hook. For the moment, at least.

6

Later that evening, after Kerry had gone to bed, Frankie and I lay in ours trying to figure out how to explain the mechanics of girl/girl sex to my eight-year-old daughter.

“So. The Talk,” Frankie said in a doom-laden voice.

“Yup. The Talk,” I concurred.

“The birds and the bees.”

“Or the birds and the birds.”

“Possibly the bees and the bees.”

“At any rate, I’m pretty sure the boy-girl talk is a lot easier than the girl-girl talk,” I said. “Man sticks penis in woman’s vagina, baby pops out nine months later. Done.”

“Wow,” Frankie said, stroking my cheek. “And they say romance is dead.”

“Okay, here’s what we do: we write a list of all the things ladies of the queer persuasion like to do, and if Kerry wants to ask questions, she can.”

Frankie gave me a bemused look. “So we’re going to give her a list? That’s ridiculous.”

“Oh, this from a woman who manages to reduce lesbian lovemaking to ‘like boy-girl sex but with less bits’.”

Frankie stuck her tongue out at me. “Can’t we just tell her we like to kiss and cuddle like everybody else?” she said. “And maybe rub our pussies together once in a while?”

“I think we owe her more than that. It must be hard for her sometimes. Kids don’t like to feel different from everyone else.”

I always knew my relationship with Frankie would leave Kerry somewhat exposed to bullies and ignorant peers. It was something she would have to learn how to deal with as she got older, and there wasn’t much I could do to protect her from it. That tore at me.

“What if we just showed her some videos?” Frankie suggested with a shrug. “I can download some of the softcore ones for her.”

I gave her a scowl. “We’re not letting Kerry watch porn, Frankie. Jesus… And anyway, putting her in front of a TV and saying, ‘There you go, sweetie. Enjoy!’ is a total copout. It’s like a teacher handing out books and then buggering off down the pub for the rest of the day.”

We sat together in silence, mulling it over.

Frankie looked at me warily. “I might have a radical solution,” she imparted, “but you probably won’t like it.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Why don’t we let her watch us?”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly. “Excuse me?”

“Let her watch us have sex.”

I glared at her open-mouthed. “Are you mental?”

“I’m serious. I actually think it would feel less awkward just to show her than it would if we tried to explain it like a couple of idiots.”

“Uh, no. We’re not going to fuck in front of my eight-year-old daughter. That’s insane.”

“Why?”

“Why? Would you have wanted to watch your parents have sex when you were eight?”

Frankie thought about that for a moment, then screwed her face up in distaste. “True, watching my mum and dad thrashing around in the bedroom would have been quite horrific. But if Mum had a girlfriend, I’d probably have been into it. Sex between women is nicer, softer.”

“Sorry, are we talking about two completely different lesbians here? Me and you don’t do nice.”

“We’d tone it down a bit for Kerry. Wouldn’t want to scar her for life.”

We both fell into an uncomfortable silence. Were we actually considering this? Well, Frankie clearly was.

I tried my best to be the voice of reason. “This is crazy. We could get into big trouble. What if she told someone?”

“We’d have to make her promise not to,” said Frankie. “She’s old enough to understand the problems it could cause.”

“And what if she doesn’t want to watch us do the dirty?” I pointed out.

“She might not. If she says no, we’ll go back to the drawing board. Listen, Sarah – Kerry knows we love each other. What we do is normal and healthy. It won’t hurt her to see what it’s all about. It might be good for all of us.”

Frankie peered at me expectantly. I was on to her in a second.

“Oh my God, are you getting off on this?” I said, swatting her arm.

“Not really. A bit. I mean, it could be a lot of fun.”

I couldn’t deny that, but that’s not what it was about. It was about educating Kerry, arming her with the knowledge to defend herself against the ignorant and ill-informed.

Oh, who was I kidding? The thought of my eight-year-old daughter watching us have sex was fucking hot. I wanted it to happen as much as Frankie did. Okay, maybe not quite as much as Frankie.

“All right,” I said at last. “I’ll agree to it on two conditions: Firstly, we leave out all the dirty stuff – I don’t think Kerry needs to see us licking each other’s bumholes, and fisting is out of the question. And secondly, she just watches. No touching or making her interact or anything else.”

“Agreed,” Frankie said with a big shit-eating grin on her face.

“I hope this doesn’t backfire on us, Frankie, I really do.”

“It won’t, trust me,” my lover cooed, then kissed me tenderly on the neck. Her hand found one of my breasts and kneaded it gently. “We might as well get some practice in, then.”

We made intense love that night, grinding our pussies together until we both came several times. For myself, imagining that my daughter was watching us fuck added fuel to the fire, and I was sure Frankie was thinking the same thing.

I told myself our plan was just an unorthodox version of sex education. I told myself there was nothing morally untoward about it, that sex was natural and shouldn’t be hidden from children.

But of course, I was fooling myself, or having a fair bash at it, at least. It was really just another step down the rabbit hole. And the further down I went, the harder it would be to come back up.

On to Chapter Three!