Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:01:50 -0500
From: Tom Emerson <thomas@btl.net>
Subject: Blissy's Song - 9

Blissy's Song -- 9
(M/f, inc., oral, rom.)
by
Feather Touch


Nothing should be inferred from the use of media personalities.


Chapt. 9

       My readership on ASSTR has tripled, already.  I have one story
there, and they send me a weekly count of downloads.  Little stroke of the
ego, not at the count, but at its indication that web sourced entertainment
will skyrocket.

       I'm going to stick with my Brady tribute.  I'd like to get back to
Brenda and gang, but we're only a little over a hundred pages into a very
complex tale, and, frankly, with what's going on in the world, I can't find
the level of concentrate needed for the long ball.  These are stories I was
going to write, anyway, so it's more of a change of battle order than a
change of armies.  In a way this alteration of the story line is in favor
of the reader.  If I were to continue, unshaken, with a most complex novel,
while towers tumbled, my audience might take me for a god.  For many crisp
reasons, this is a personal thing, best kept to one's self, so, you real
fans, there it is.  Humility exercised if not humility of the heart.

       "Dad," Cindy aid, "don't you think you, well, you know, treat us all
kind of the same?"

       The bronze wagon circled the Galleria and nosed into a parking slot.

       "Cindy, your mother and I love you all just the same.  All for all."
       "A little to much so, if you askth me," the eight year old retorted,
her blue eyes charmingly offset by blue ribbon's on her goldie wings, as
she like to call her braids.
       "Cindy," Steve Brady replied [I hope his name is Steve.  The truth
of the matter is, I never saw the show when I was young, and never watch it
under ordinary circumstances.  I think both the films are absolutely
terrific.  Anyway, he's Steve for this story.  Mrs. Brady will be Joan
because I don't know her name, either.  And a bit of a family note.  Alice
always calls Mrs. Brady, Mrs. Brady, while Mrs. Brady call her Alice.  Gran
always called Mrs. McDonald and Mrs. Damon by their titles, as they did
her.  This is to say that not only were upper class Victorians often very
close friends of their so-called servants, they treated them with great
respect.  Always.  In fact, I can no more imagine any of us grandchildren
using first names than burning the house down (Gran had the same help staff
for forty years, and so did Grandma.  `Class' is a trite word for a complex
paradigm, but if you want an example of the real thing, loyal assistants
are smack-dab at the top of the list.  Money, on the other hand, even old
money, is never on the list, ever.)]

       "Cindy," Steve Brady replied, as ever mesmerized by this shockingly
pretty blue-eyed wonder that he and Joan had created, "you know that we've
talked about this, and you know, Cindy, that other families, not just our
own, talk about it, and, when they talk about it, they reach the same
conclusions we reach in the Brady family.  Whether it was four of us,
separate, or eight of us together, and even if it was eight of us in other
groups, it would still be the same.  Everyone gets the same share, everyone
shares the same burdens."
       "Sure," Cindy shot back, her eyes big and direct, "but you could say
the same things about the chips in a computer, and it would still be true.
Doesn't that tell you something?"
       "Cindy," Steve sighed, "I don't know what it's meant to tell me.
I'm meant to be at work, and we're off to the Galleria on a secret
mission..."
       "Which means," the cutie replied, on a role with her pretty mouth
and friendly tone, "now you'll have to go off with Gregg and Marsha and
Pete and Jan and finally Bobby.  Does that make any sense?  They don't need
a secret mission with their step dad, and I do."
       "Cindy," Steve said, trying the best for firmness, "I don't know
what this is about, maybe some of your friends get chauffeured around in
the middle of a work day, and a school day, but things like that aren't the
lifestyle we've chosen for the Brady bunch."
       "What about my choices of lifestyle?"
       "Cindy, you're not old enough to have a choice of lifestyles.
You're old enough to go to school, and that's about it, I'm afraid."

       The little girl's mind twirled.  Was he being dense on purpose, or
was he born that way?  Shouldn't a man like some of his kids; cuddle and
whisper with them, share secrets and jokes?  And maybe not like others?
Keep them at arm's length, leave them some money, because they were of the
blood, but otherwise be unfriendly?  Have a favorite and least favorite?
Cindy Brady, at almost nine years old, did not want to be the favorite,
necessarily, it hardly mattered, her step dad was just another person whom
she'd interact with for part of her life.  One of a few, now, but one of
hundreds over the longer haul.  She wouldn't even mind being the black
sheep.  Let Jan and Marsha worry about that.  They were big enough to be
stupid.  She, Cindy Brady, just wanted to be treated... she didn't exactly
know how, not different just for its own sake, and not special, because she
wasn't except for the ridiculously pretty hair and eyes, which might not
last to until she was twelve, but just like a person and not as one of a
set.

       Cindy Brady knew she could love Steve Brady, but it was going to
take an effort.  In a blandly thoughtless way, the step father held the
door for the pretty little girl.  Good thing she was wearing sneakers,
because she stomped his foot as she passed into the Galleria.

       "Cindy," he barked in surprise.
       "Catch me if you can," the trifle giggled, and flew off into the
limitless interior. Even the soft slap of her sneakers echoed slightly in
the empty corridor.  One thing the impetuous young lady had been right
about was the best time to shop.  Ten thirty in the morning and the
thundering cooling system processed air for a relative handful of
employees.  Steve always thought of this as the Christmas phenomenon.  Vast
cavern heated and cooled, year round, for a frenzy at the yuletide season.
As an architect, even an every-day variety architect, he thought he could
design a more sensible system.  Why not divide Christmas in half.  Half on
the fourth of July, and the other half at the end of the year.  Families
would buy their big group presents on the nation's birthday, and exchange
personal gifts at the traditional time.  Sort of.  There wouldn't be any
laws on the subject, but if you could re-market the package, more or less
fifty-fifty, it would even-out the entire logistical chain; more profits
from smaller spaces, steadier employment, with reduced environmental
impact, not to mention reduced stress with its associated ills.

       She was back now.  Apparently had been running around just because
it's what kids did.  Grabbing ahold of him with those impossibly pretty
little hands.  "Daddy," she said, "this is a date.  You and me.  We're on a
date.  We're going to go to a lazy lounge where they'll let a twerp sit
with her dad until the lunch crowd comes in.  You're going to drink
alcohol, and slip me some.  Then, Daddy, we're going shopping.  No higgledy
piggledy girl's shopping.  I know what I want, I know where it is, but I'm
not sure of myself, so I need your approval before I spent fifty dollars of
your money."

       Steve Brady gave his daughter a pained look.  "Cindy," he intoned,
"life is made up of things we want, but we can not have; it's made up, I'm
sorry to tell you this, of sleep we want, but cannot get, ideas we want,
but cannot achieve, beauty we seek, but fail to find, waistlines that
belong to history.  And, Cindy, that's for Bradys, too, because Brady's are
just like everybody else."

       "Thure, I underthtand, like cards in a deck, each the theven of
something so there won't be any up or down, or at least not very much.  Now
that I understand, can we start our date?"

       The Front End Grill fit Steve's mood, though it was a strange enough
place to be with an eight year old blond on a school-day morning.  No one
was even at the bar, so Steve escorted his underage guest to a both in a
quiet recess after scribbling his order on the back of a business card and
leaving it for the attendent.  They sat and he stared across the table at
the apparition staring back.  The child had changed from her school clothes
and was now wearing tan shorts with a blue jersey that doubled up with the
ribbons in her hair to hijack the observer far into the huge blue eyes.
She was getting leggy.  Steve hadn't seen her run in shorts for some
months, wow, the changes that occurred when one wasn't looking.  Her face
still had a very pretty doll chubbiness, but that would go the say of the
pudgy little legs, probably leaving something of a beauty when all was said
and done.  The eyes kept getting wider.  Not impatience, quite, exactly,
but certainly alert.  Aware?

       "Cindy," he began, his voice muted as hers had been, "if Brady's
were cards, well, then there'd be a king and a queen, forever, and a seven
would stay a seven, of whatever suit, forever.  We don't live that way.
Someday, Cindy Brady will be the queen, or, if she can do math, even the
king, if it makes a difference to her.  Cindy Brady can..."
       "Daddy," the eyes bore in, "Cindy Brady can get mad and Cindy Brady
does not want to be seven, then in two years an eight, and two more years,
a ten.  It's too organized.  It is like a game, too much.  Pat, pat, pat
like burgers on a grill.  I want to be a seven, see, I'm even giving up a
year, most of the time.  Ninety nine days out of a hundred, if it helps the
family.  But some days, I do want to be a two.  Some days a Jack, or, if
the physical for that's a problem, a Jill.  Some up and down.  Not a lot.
I like the corny things we do.  The hip girls cry all night over their hip
boyfriends.  I've never cried like that.  But I cry inside, sometimes,
because it's all so organized.  So routine.  So never anything special, and
I don't mean special according to the number, like, Tuesday, the
twenty-eights is going to be Cindy's special day, her day.  That's Jewish.
I mean, just every so often, off we go.  Or off you go with Jan.  Or you
and mom just suddenly up and split for a three day weekend, leaving Gregg
and Marsha to rule the roost.  Then a week, once in awhile, where you don't
say a word to any of us.  Spit at us, if you feel like it.  You know, not
Jewish, human."

       Well, bamboozle me for a buffalo Steve thought so loud he almost
said it.  Where had all that come from?

       "If we live that way," the round eyed child went on, "then there
will be less pretend, and a lot of the time we can just be bored and normal
with each other, without feeling guilty so we get all smiley and cheesy to
hide our feelings.  It always hurts when I try to do that, and look at
Marsha's face.  It's so wooden.  That's because she's always trying to feel
what she thinks she's meant to be feeling.  So she ends up looking plastic
and phony.  I don't want to look like her.  And Jan, she's half way there,
too."

       The barman arrived with Steve's double Manhattan and Cindy's kiddie
cocktail.  The young man nodded pleasantly at the little girl and allowed
as to how there should be no problem with her staying for a single drink.

       "Cindy," Steve said, reaching it seemed half way around the moon to
find any kind of answer, "the Brady girls are very popular young ladies.
You have to put on a sunny face to be popular.  No one's going to want to
hang around with a Miss Down Inthedumps."

       "Well," the big-eye responded, "I think it's like being on drugs.
If you feel down you should be polite and as nice as you can, under the
circumstances, but you shouldn't go around grinning like a puppet with a
sing-songy voice and all that vivacious body language.  You should be able
to sulk in a corner or in a bush and tell anyone who comes near you to get
lost.  Then, if you can do that, once in awhile, the rest of the time will
feel better because you were allowed to sulk and didn't have to pretend you
were Mary Poppins and Pollyanna tying ribbons and eating jelly beans."

       Having delivered herself of the latest segment of the world
according to an eight year old blond, Cindy removed her cocktail glass from
the table and held it under the drape of the cloth.  The blue eyes got
hard.

       "Slip me a jolt," she intoned, a hush in her voice.

       Steve didn't have time for the first syllable of his daughter's
name.  "Cindy" wasn't going to do it.  He could just tell.  Maybe never
again, the way those blue boys were barking at him.  Maybe never again.
Why did he think of Christmas, every time he looked into them?  Now she was
using the to cage alcohol.  Well, she had put a certain emphasis on the
word `date'.  Certainly it would be date-like to share a drink with one's
companion of the... school-day morning!

       "Miss," he said, eyes or no eyes, "back on the table with the
glass."
       "Daddy-O," the pixie cooed back, "if you don't co-operate, what's
going to end up on this table rhymes with glass.  Now, Mr. Bond, the young
barman seemed a quiet and reasonable young fellow, and seems to willing to
let certain formalities, well, ahem, slide, but, Mr. Bond, you might find,
to your great dissatisfaction, that the mix master, young and tolerant as
he undoubtedly is, Mr. Bond, will change his demeanor in the proverbial
heartbeat if he should be summoned to return, and, upon returning, finds,
indeed, that which rhymes quite precisely with glass, and, not to put too
fine a point on it, Mr. Bond, that which is buck, birthday naked.  In such
a case, Mr. Bond, a confusion would arise of a sufficient nature to warrant
involvement of the constabulary, since enlightened laws equate spanking
with assault and nudity with perversion, negating, Mr. Bond, any defense to
be found in the `I was just spanking her' litany, once favored by nine
fathers out of ten."

       Steve could tell his doll was stretching toward him with her arm
under the table.

       "Don't look around, you'll give us away, just lift, lower, stretch,
find my glass with yours, and pour.  You do know how to pour, don't you
Mr. Bond?"

       Lord, she was a cutie.  But what was going on?  Seemed it had
started just about the time Pete got back from his month ago.  He tried to
view his step-daughters as equals, love them equally.  There was not a book
on the subject of parenting that didn't demand just that.  Yet, for the
past month, all through September, there had been an emerging change to
Joan's doll.  A slower smile, but a longer one.  Last to arrive for
scheduled fun, the first to leave.  Scheduled fun.  Was that what she meant
by being Jewish?  Rabbis danced.  He'd seen it once, on television, danced
quite well in fact.  At some point, however many thousands of years ago,
had a scholar of great dignity and wide-ranging repute suddenly realized
his religion was devoid of any fun or grace and used his influence, and his
pencil, to write a time and a place and a set of circumstances under which
a rabbi could hold hands with other rabbis, for they were forbidden to be
touched by anyone but their wives, and, presumably, other rabbis, and flail
their legs around as a symbol of joy and a lighter side of life?  In other
words, ceremony and ritual, for their own sakes?  Not coming from the
masses, but written in for them?  As something to sell, so the clerics
could sit while others toiled?  And how, if true, did it relate to a Brady
potato sack race on Saturday morning?

       Pete, too, now that Steve thought of it.  Again with the slower but
longer smile.  Less seemed to be more, with both he and his little step
sister.  Were they less happy on the outside because they were happier on
the inside?  And why?  The plans for the Dempsey Center had eaten into the
hour bank, unmercifully.  His up-front compensation had amounted to
one-hundred-eighteen thousand dollars, and fifty thousand dollar
installments would be coming in the near future.  But twelve hour days.
Five whole Sundays in a row.  Now that he thought of it, it was a wonder
he'd noted any changes in anything to do with his family.  The summer that
never was, that is, until his balance statement arrived from the bank the
other morning.  He was half-celebrating now.  Pulling Cindy out of school
at ten, more or less at the insistence of his secretary who'd shoved him
off telling him not to ask so many questions.  Girl stuff.  Who ever knew
where that was going to lead.  Anything from hats to dogs could be on the
list.  The only certainty was wherever a notion led, there would be a bill
to mark every waypoint along the route of feminine adventure.  Had Joan
foisted another shopaholic off on him?  He'd soon put the situation to
rights if she had.  Bonuses or no bonuses, the Bradys were not going on a
spree.  Not now, not ever.  It simply wasn't the Brady way.

       This was all well and good.  Nothing like a little rumination, now
that he had some free time to think.  But the time for thinking was over.
Her hand was still under the table, her threat still hanging in the air.
The James Bond thing had been fun.  Hell, look at it from any distance, and
Cindy was fun.  Steve acquiesced.  Lifted his Manhattan, and, without
looking nervously around, jockeyed the glass under the table.  His clinked
against hers.

       "You know how to pour, don't you, Daddy?  You just put the lips
together, and flow."  She sparkled, cute like, and he sat there falling in
love.  Nice of her to make it so easy.

       "Oh, it's muddy," Cindy said as she put her glass back on the table.
       "It's for your eye," Steve responded.  Where had that come from.? It
was a pathetic joke, but it galvanized the little chick.
       "Mud in my eye," she chortled in delight.

       What was the line from "South Pacific?"  "Don't laugh at my jokes to
much."  Sure, that was it.  What was the next one?  "People will say we're
in love."  Awesome dawsom, a show tune!  How Brady could you get?  On the
other hand, and this came as a cold water shock, well, what if... What if,
well, it was kind of true?  How Brady would that be?  On another, other
hand, given the princess of the world, leaning over and sticking her pink
tongue down into her glass, like a fawn, to sample her potion, how much did
he want to remain a Brad?.  She was so, so right.  They were formulated and
ritualistic.  Phony.  Marsha's face did look hard, strained and old.
Gregg's, too.  Both the elders swung from pouting narcissism to
obstreperous glad-handing at the drop of a hat and could be thrown off
their trolleys by a pimple or a phone call.
       The couple toasted, slowly bringing their glasses together.
       "I love calling you Daddy," Cindy whispered.
       "I love it when you do," Steve replied.
       "I love it when you do, what?" she whispered.
       "I love it when you do, darling."

       Oh what a glow.  For just the moment he wished she was out in the
sunlight, for the eyes, for every last drop of their Gulf Stream depth.
Then with that sparkling again.  This was going to be good.

       "It's a good thing we did it my way, Dad, because otherwise you
wouldn't like it when I say, `Bottoms Up.'"
       Steve felt himself harden harder and faster than it had ever
happened in his life.  There was nothing salacious in her use of the term
`bottom.'  No wink or lewd grin.  That turned iron to steel and steel to
tungsten.  He'd heard of cumming in one's pants; thought it a figure of
speech, but the closest he'd ever come in his thirty five years to anything
was how close he was to ejaculating again and again and again, just looking
at his silly blond step daughter with her big golden goddess braids and
their tidy blue bows.  He had to think of something normal to say.

       "How's it taste?" he asked.
       "Worse," she said.  "This growing up thing is going to be rough, I
just know it.  I like being eight, and I don't like the flavor of alcohol.
But I'm just pretending it's peas that are burned on the bottom.  I'm a big
girl and I'm on a super special date with my super handsome step dad who
lets me call him daddy.  If James Dean walked in I'd say I can't go with
you Jimmy, I'm with the man I love most in the whole world.  You know what
that means?"

       Was it genetic?  Stupid thought, she wasn't his biological child.
Out of the question.  But then why did he come up with, and come up with
it, instantly?  Because he did know what she meant.

       "You're a rebel with a cause."
       "Yes," she acknowledged, "and that brings up Eden.  As in garden of.
And bringing up Garden of Eden brings up a fact of life.  Facts-of-life
brings up the fact that I am getting on toward nine.  Being almost nine
brings up another fact, which is why you're having a drink.  Count yourself
lucky, Mr. Bond, for your time is running short and you can shake and stir
`till you're ninety-nine years old, it won't do you any good.  I'd suggest
Mr. Bond, that you order another."

       They both sighed and relaxed.  Giggled a little.  Some thousand
miles had just been put behind them at a dead run, and it was nice to get
back to thinking and saying nothing.  The young man brought their drinks,
Steve's still a double because he'd fed a third of the alcohol in his first
glass to his eight-year-old daughter.

       "I wish you could bring me back here for lunch," Cindy said. "after
we finish spending your fifty dollars."

       Boy!  She'd done it!  Even his face had changed.  Before, handsome
as he was, there had been a hint of shallowness -- silliness - in her step
dad.  He'd Bronsoned out, at least a little.  Somehow a new depth; not a
vulnerability, exactly, but perhaps less of a clubhouse indifference.
Cindy couldn't explain it to herself, call it just cute, in a rougher way
than she could have imagined, and, the big thing was, the quick and total
victory, that there was not the slightest hint of Now, Cindy...

       "We'll save it for anniversaries," the architect whispered.  He was
learning a new language, and he liked it.  Cindy glowed at the words and he
slipped her a second mickey under the table, which made it one for her and
three for him, or thereabouts.  Some pleasant minutes passed and the watch
on Cindy's wrist eased past ten-thirty.

       "What kind of jewels are we hunting for?" Steve asked, thinking
fifty dollars was a little light when it came to gold.  Strange that he
thought of Jan just then.  A jewel for her.  Damn, the kid was just so
right, Cindy, that was.  What the hell had she been up to?  Had she been
snatched by a UFO.  And Peter.  He'd seen so damn little of the boy even
before his super project had started just before the previous Christmas.
Was he missing as much in his own son as he had in Cindy?

       "I'm proud to say, Daddy, that the jewels, well, you know, they're
already there.  I mean, I'm not saying that.  It's just what someone told
me.  It's not jewels I want, ever, I'm not that kind of girl.  Madonna is.
It's something way more personal.  You know, think about the last thing a
man would ever want to be caught dead doing, in his whole life, and that's
it.  A drop dead thing, Daddy.  Just one drop-dead thing.  And I gave you
lots of hints.  You know, growing girl.  I even wore short-shorts to help
you get the idea; ones that are just a few months old.  Get it?"

       Now it was impossible to think at all.  Somewhere after Bottoms up a
short had occurred; nothing like a little stroke or seizure, but a flame
thrower thrown into a brandy cellar.  Wood, napalm and alcohol.
Short-shorts.  She'd worn them on purpose, supposedly not very old ones.
She'd stomped his foot with her right sneaker, then run off, circling like
a kid, and dashing back to him.  Then they'd come to this place.  Now they
were sitting looking at each other and somehow he knew she wasn't after
jewels.  She kicked him under the table and whispered firmly.

       "My first bra, Daddy.  I want you to buy it for me.  You know, pick
it out."
       "Check!!"

       Cindy giggled openly and happily at Steve.  God, his new face was
groovy and to die for. Some people, she'd read, had their hair turn white
overnight.  Her step dad had lost that saccharine, platitude rolling
exterior even faster.  His call for the check had been reflexive.  Hate to
go through life that way.  What would headwaiters think?  But she glowed,
all the same.  Instant and spontaneous was all it was cracked up to be.
Rare and fabulous.  Like jewels.

       They caught the barman at the register and pushed out into the
perfect atmosphere.  For once he liked it; for the first time in his life,
he liked it.  Figure going about an errand like this at a mom and pop
store.  Great big anonymous, wonderful mall.  With his sport jacket draped
in front of him, he could be any dad out with his kid, maybe buying
supplies for a science project or taking her to any of the clinics that
were domiciled behind their truckloads of gyprock.  Glasses, that was it.
Those awesome peepers.  That would be an excuse.  A visit to the oculist.
Phew.  In fact, if one were into the concept of plausible deniability, it
might be an idea to check a few frames and prices.  An appointment.  Had
she ever even had one.  That was it.  Keep thinking eyes.  Think
technicians in white lab coats.  Not high-gold pigtails with blue ribbons
and shorts that were all of half a size too small for the gamin legs.
Think of trying out the new twisty frames, not the little fingers of a
right hand all furry and kittenish against the palm of his left hand.

       The best laid plans of mice and men.

       "Daddy," Cindy whispered with a tug, "I forgot, I've been saving
some money and we have to stop at a drug store.  You know drug stores,
Mr. Bond, and I'm sure you're familiar with the social standard which
dictates a person of the male persuasion never asks a person of the female
persuasion why she must needs visit the chemist, eh, wot, Mr. Bond?"

       Now what was she on about.  Crikey, he was going to start thinking
in Limey if he hung with this bit of fluff for more than a jiff.  He didn't
have even that long.

       "It's not a secret from you," Cindy said, "I want to buy some
condoms for Gregg."

       Well that was going to look just fine on the police report.  But he
had a ton of money for bail; Carol [I think this is the right Brady name.
Sorry, Florence.  Sorry, Shelly] could take care of the bunch.  The lass
didn't seem to be addicted to anything, so why not humor her.  Any girl
that could down a kiddie cocktail with Manhattan in it was worth a second
chance, and she hadn't even used up a first one.  It was just hard to
concentrate.  He wondered if he'd even heard her right.  The word she'd
said didn't rhyme with anything he could think of, and why would she want
to be buying Gregg anything?  The weren't enemies, but neither were they
much in the way of friends, that he could see.

       "I'm sorry, Daddy," Cindy backtracked when she saw the blank look on
the handsome new face.  "It's not skin deep.  It's not fooling around.  I
mean, that's exactly what it is, but seriously.  Lovingly.  A lot of it.
Every night from now on.  And at special times like this, too.  All of us.
You know, instead of wasting money on running around consuming and
participating and polluting.  I mean, you know, some is cool.  We're not
going to become weird hermits.  No `Cindy can't come out to play right
now.'  But real when it does happen.  All night on Saturday.  That's why
they have service at eleven.  You know, for the family that lays together."

       This girl should write.  Did she know how to advance a story, or
what?  Steve remembered driving practice with Marsha.  Stamping a brake
pedal, not available from the passenger seat, at almost every stop sign.
He almost popped out with a Now, Cindy, but didn't.  He was glad, because
it seemed like the greatest time in the world to say nothing.

       "Dad, is it okay?  It happens in millions of families.  The
psychologists only see the crashes, like ambulance drivers.  If they could
look through every wall and floor they'd know it isn't all bad and when
it's good, it's as good as the best marriages that can be.  It's not even a
big deal.  It's just something special and warm and friendly, and very wet,
and nice.  And if Gregg changes, you know, stops with the retorts that are
too fast and too sharp, then he can give them back to me.  Do you think a
boy would like a present like that?"

       He had to play.  She'd made a man out of him in about forty minutes.
Boy, did it feel good.

       "I think," Steve whispered and leaning as she pulled him down by his
left arm to hear, "it would depend on how pretty her bra was."
       "You're joking," the tinsel voice girl squealed.  "Oh, Daddy, you
get it.  You really, really get it."

       Born a man, grow a man.

       "Yes," Steve acknowledged, having swung his pixie onto a bench, "but
do you think your mom will?"
       "Dad," the girl said, now serious, "she has to.  Otherwise, she'll
lose us all.  We can't go on being nincompoops spending all our money on
dashing around and on junk and froth.  We need a new house.  Tables with
books and magazines, not plaster statues the kind that Jews like.  Funky.
On mean streets, where it's scary to go out.  Where people are alive, even
if they're dangerous.  I'd rather die under a rutting nigger than wilt away
playing stupid soccer.  Pigs can play that.  Sorry, I love pigs.  But you
know what I mean.  We'll have Alice live next door.  There'll be bars all
over the place, so you know, she doesn't have to waste her life pretending
she's Mary Poppin's spinster aunt.  If she gets sloppy around the house,
I'll pick up the slack.  We're going to live, daddy, and mom's going to
live with us.  Or we'll kill her, honest.  It's too important for eight of
us to do it right for one to stop it.  Pete's got it figured out.  He knows
exactly the right angle so it would look like a random shot in a hunting
accident."

       Okay, go ahead, try to be cool.  Keep your right foot calmly on the
floor in front of the passenger's seat.  But when you were approaching a
hairpin curve at breakneck speed, well, it just couldn't be helped.

       "Now, Cindy."
       "It's the Z plan," the girl responded.  "I mean, it's half kidding.
We love our mom, or at least we could if she'd stop sashaying through life
flipping that stupid hair and smiling at everybody who doesn't have a
switch-blade in his hand."
       "Well," Steve acknowledged, "we can probably work on the smiling
thing.  Can you figure out how?"
       "Sure.  Pete and I have already started.  You haven't noticed
because of the project, but sometimes we act a little romantic around her.
Desensitizing her.  That's what they call, you know, when a scout leader
shows one of his boys a "Playboy" and then some straight porn, then some
gay porn, then some kiddie porn."
       "How is she reacting?" Steve asked.
       "Cool.  I think once she even had a secret little smile that she
tried to hide.  Good thing, eh.  Pete says a spleen shot can be painful."
       "Especially as he only has a twenty-two."
       "Oh, daddy, poor Mom.  She doesn't stand a chance.  She's going to
be so happy.  Now she can be perky because she feels beautiful, not become
some magazine told her why and taught her how.  Tonight, Pete and I want to
be on the floor beside you bed, you know, on sleeping bags.  With candles.
I mean, you know, we know things rock with you guys, now, I mean we
couldn't very well not know it.  But if you can rock, I'll bet you can
roll, and it would be awesome for Pete and me, even if it was the same for
you as it always is."

       "Now, Cindy,:" Steve intoned, "one thing that seems apparent is that
nothing is ever going to be the same for any of us, ever."
       "Well," the girl replied, "most of it will.  We still want to do
some stuff.  Spend some money.  But just not a frenzy.  Pete thinks being
together a lot will be all any of us need as far as extra stuff goes, and I
feel the same way.  But we need to read more.  And we need out of
Saccharine City, so we find a Sanford neighborhood near the Watts Towers,
where they're used to cries in the night, and to said abode we repair, post
haste."

       Right again.  She was right, again.  The house was a cloying, cheesy
monstrosity.  Get a nice old brick job.  Tear out all the walls, except the
bathroom.  Futons, bean bags and trestle tables.  Supply Alice with a
shovel on the principle that cleanliness was vastly over-rated.  Where the
walls used to be, put bookshelves.  Have contests to see who could fill the
most shelves?  Possibly.  They were young and healthy, all of them.  They
could adjust.  Why, they'd have to.  Poppa had a brand new bag, and that
was that was the name of that tune.

       She stood in front of him.  Extended both her hands.  He rose and
took her right in his left.  Not fifty people in the entire Galleria, or so
it seemed.  They passed Victoria's Secret, Cindy observing it was a little
too mature for her taste.  The shop Cindy chose was big on school uniforms;
conservative and distinct rather than brash and up-chested.  Kraft had told
Peter that girls that liked to show off, you know, that way, were never,
ever, good lovers Not affectionate.  To them it was all a game, until it
was endurance.  Only those two things.  Peter had passed on the message to
his little step sister.

       The sales girl was reading John Irving.  Talk about excellent.  He'd
keep her occupied.  She nodded pleasantly as the couple entered.  Probably
no deal at all, dentist appointment, a little shopping.  What could be
simpler?  It was five to eleven.  Sixty five minutes, if they got a lunch
hour rush, and that wasn't likely in early autumn.

       "Most of the money is for a new blouse," Cindy whispered
conspiratorially, "you know, so there won't be any funny looks."

       Looking at Steve, Cindy quickly saw she wasn't going to have to go
far to see funny looks.  Make that different looks.  With the hardness new
to his face, it was cuddly for her to see a new warmth, half tender, misty
rain, half tiger on a thread.

       "If we got some things for your boys, my brothers, that would add to
the camouflage," the bright eyed girl added, helpfully, "but all I need is
the blouse, and the you-know-what."

       For several minutes Steve and Cindy Brady, the couple, piled
garments near the register.  Steve left his credit card, and they headed to
the rear of the store and a fairy land of their own making.

       "Here they are, world's smallest," Cindy exclaimed as they came to
the trestle with such items.  "You pick it up first.  It'll be good for
you, and give you an opportunity to examine the catch, in case they make
them differently for petite wanna be's, plus, you can show me how they
work, because I've never touched one before.."

       Her instructions were easy to follow.  If she didn't grow up to be a
novelist in a hear or two, she'd make a good boss.  Hold that, she'd make a
great boss.  One who could think for a thousand, probably on her day off.
God, all that money.  They could home school all six.  Full time, flat out.
There was more, what was it?  More...?

       "Babies," Cindy whispered as they entered the dressing room
together.  He'd been right, more.
       "That's our new hobby," she explained.  "We each have one, girls
only, until we get married and have our own husbands.  Pete's friend,
Kraft, will be in charge.  He's a doctor from the camp Pete went to.  He
knows places that combine clinics and adoption agencies.  For the right
people, it's only a few hundred dollars, and that means people that love
each other.  Then we go on long trips once in awhile, swap houses so it's
cheap, and come back with a new `adopted' kiddo.  We can even have a lotto.
Who will be the first, Marsha, Jan or Mom.  And we can even find out the
father, so you guys can have bragging rights at two in the morning.
Capeche?"

       She sat in his lap, her bra in her lap, and gazed up at Steve's
jacket hanging on a hook.  She looked down.  "I'm glad you lost the suit,
suit."

       He looked down, too.  It was like being twelve, times about fifty.
Even that belittled the hugeness he felt, had for a quarter of an hour.
Longest, hardest, biggest -- in the world, never mind his up-to-now paltry
existence.  And she was sitting on his knees, now drawing the small bra
back and forth, just for the moment being kittenish.  Thank god she wasn't
much of that.

       "Daddy," Cindy asked, "do you want me to tell you my secrets, or I
can just be real quiet while you're doing what you want to do to me?"
       "As long as they don't involve Carol's spleen."
       "Other internal organs, intensely, and, yes, maybe the spleen,
seeing as how it holds extra blood for, you know, special times."  She had
the good grace to give him a bright, good-girl look.  It would have been a
bit much if she'd deadpanned her hair-trigger sizzling responses.  Steve
rewarded his step daughter with a smile.

       "Let's see how it works," she said.  Still a child, zip from the
land of Mozart to the practicalities of underwear, or maybe `snap' would be
more appropriate.  They worked them together, her pretty little fingers in
his, so skillful with pens and protractors, now fumbling like a surgeon
operating on a god.  "Are Mom's like this?" she asked, seeming to have a
little trouble in the offhand dexterity department, herself."

       "Her's are slidy things.  Hooks, I guess."
       "Do you undo her, Daddy?"
       "Pretty rare for married couples to, you know, do that kind of
thing."
       "Don't bet on it.  Not a nickel."

       As if.

       "Now that we've figured it out, I'm going to go next door.  Okay?
I'll be back, you know, in a couple of minutes.
       "Sounds like a good way to save a door," Steve responded, and the
little willow jumped up and sought her own space.

       Queer old life.  All those hours.  All the meetings.  The god-awful
flying with everybody anting about obscene quantities of luggage.  The
hotels and rentals.  And the years just to get started.  He thought it
would end, average luck, with some nice daughters-in-law and perhaps a
grandchild he could stand.  Then the atomic bomb with it's preposterously
golden mushroom cloud.  Now inches away, through the wall.  Who'd built
that stupid wall?  Were there walls in the project he'd just finished?  If
he vowed never to build another wall...

       "Mr. Bond, are you there?"  Strange day.  First, he'd come to value
the mall, which he always avoided.  Now, here he was, thankful for
minimalist construction because he could hear Cindy.

       "The agent you seek, madam," he answered, "is preparing for a
premature heart attack.  Can I interest you in the services of Mr. 006."
       "Is he experienced with young girls, because, if he is, Mr. Bond,
this is the message I want you to give him.  I want him to get in touch
with a Mr. Steve Brady and tell him his daughter loves him, that the
fitting was a snap, and that she is coming to visit him.  Do you have that,
Mr. Whoever You Are?"
       Steve rested a moment, forehead against the paneling that separated
the cubicles.  When he spoke it was in an urgent whisper: "Bond hasn't had
a heart attack, he's just building up to one; it's me, Cindy, Daddy."
       "Where's Mr. Bond."
       "Getting in the way?"

       With that she giggled and came flying into him, knocking him back on
the bench and landing in his lap.
       "Daddy, do you think we can talk a little bit first?" Cindy asked,
now quiet and whispering as she tucked her golden crown along his left
collar bone.
       "Did you talk with Peter?" he quizzed.
       "A lot."
       "Did he do things with you while you were talking, you know,
physical things, or was it platonic?"
       "He's the one that told me I needed a bra.  I don't think I did
until, you know..."
       "He made you grow up?"
       "No way, made, but yes.  Taught."
       "Was he gentle with you?"
       A private smile flicked on Cindy's face.  "Tender and sweet and
always gentle."
       "And you talked, you know, while he was touching you?"
       "Yes, Daddy.  He told me about getting molested by his counselor,
the one that's finishing medical school.  Kraft Catalina.  He's twenty
four.  Looks like Rick Schroeder, only more of an academic face and gentler
eyes."
       "Did Pete get molested a lot?"
       "Yes, Daddy," Cindy whispered.  "He let him do it to him a lot.
Especially in the shower."
       "And Pete like it?" Steve whispered.
       "Yes.  They talked, too.  Then it happened.  Several times. You
know, what boys do together, except, you know, in the back.  They haven't
done that together, yet."
       "Cindy," Steve rasped so low he could hardly hear his own whisper,
"have you been all the way with my boy?"

       "Daddy," Cindy whispered back, "a girl doesn't like to tell a secret
like that, you know, when she's, you know, overdressed for the occasion."

       Nothing could move their story forward, no spoken words, so she
tilted her face up and he bent to her.  At first his hands were in the
wonderful hair, then on the silky cheeks as they nibbled and kissed like
children.  Then the tiny hands were lowering him.  Pretty slim girl's neck,
and her shoulders were soft marvels.  She was not impressed, and brought
him lower."
       "I'm just a little kid, but you can pretend I'm Marsha, if you
want," she whispered.
       "Has Peter been with Marsha?" Steve quizzed.
       "No.  Just Peter and me.  But we've talked about everybody, you
know, trying to guess.  Trying not to get off into fantasy, which is a real
problem, because it is more than any fantasy any kid could dream up in a
hundred years. "
       "You just said a mouthful, Cindy Brady."

       The girl blushed.  He'd hit the nail on the head when he mentioned
mouthfuls.  All of a sudden, she was a nervous virgin again.  Her
step-father noted her reaction and hushed.  In a few moments the little
girl pushed him back and looked into his eyes.

       "Now," she whispered softly, planting his fingers on the top button
of her blue-check blouse.  Steve began undoing his step daughter.

       "He's been all the way inside me, Pete, but that's the only place
except the first time when he was showing me what a boy does.  So, you
know, I've like had splashes of him on my lips, but, you know, never in me
there.  That's what I want you to do, Daddy.  I want it to happen on the
tip of my tongue.  Pete said to be sure to have you tell me, you know, when
it's going to happen, so I can hold you the right way."
       "Did Peter do it that way with his counselor?" Steve quizzed.
       "After awhile.  He was scared, at first.  He said it was awesome
when it finally happened between them."
       "Cindy," Steve asked the little girl, "how do you feel when Pete
goes all the way inside you."
       "We have a brother and sister way of doing it.  That's so I can feel
him cum.  Feel him throbbing and spasmming hard, and pumping again and
again.  I know what he'd doing in me, because the first time he took my
panties off he sprayed all over my tummy and my face.  So that's what I
love.  Lying under him, with my legs as far apart as he can push them, and
my arms way up over my head, grabbing under the headboard."

       "You've never wrapped him in your legs and pulled him to you?" the
young father whispered.
       "It's kind of a secret, Daddy," Cindy replied, "but I guess I can
tell you.  I have to say a bad word, okay?"
       "Yes, darling," Steve replied, trying to keep any encouragement out
of his voice.  Even with three buttons and the pink, soft beauty of her
chest a breath away he didn't want to tilt the child.  No danger.

       "Daddy, Peter hasn't fucked me."
        They had blouses galore in the store, so he ripped his child's
clear to the bottom.  Cindy's eyes glowed, blue hot.
       "I'm never going to say it again," the pretty blond went on, slowly,
but I did want you to know.  After he does what a boy does, he looks in my
eyes for a minute, then lies down on my chest, then I feel him spill his
sperm like a tiger.  Once, it happened twice, you know, his tiger beat, and
he never moved in between.  Not for the whole minute."
       "Does it leave you unsatisfied, darling?" Steve whispered.  He was
pulling Cindy's torn remnant free.
       "While I still have my legs spread and my arms up, he uses his
fingers, you know.  There's other stuff he could do, but he says it would
be better if Gregg shared that with me, you know, because he has to wear a
condom if he wants to spray in me."

       Maybe Supreme Court Justice would be more along her line of work.

       "How about Bobby,": Steve asked.
       "I'm going to sleep with him, every night.  We have the most to talk
about."

       "Any more secrets?" he whispered, still not daring to touch the
slender young body inches from his own.
       "I want to watch Peter take a shower with Bobby.  And you know what
I want while I'm watching?"
       "What darling?"
       "I want you standing behind me, with both of us naked, and I want
you to molest me like a child molester does while I watch Peter molest
Bobby.  Then you spray up between my legs to get them excited."

       Well, he'd asked.

       "Stand behind me that way now," Cindy prompted softly.  "In front of
the mirror."

       One thing about changing rooms, for their size they had awesome big
mirrors.  Cindy jockeyed to her feet and stood a foot from her reflection
while her stop father came up slowly behind here, meeting her eyes in the
glass.

       Other customers entered.  Strangers not even inches away from where
a muscular young father had stripped to his jockeys and was sexually
molesting his eight year old daughter by gently massaging her slightly
tubby little girl tummy.

       "Daddy," Cindy whispered over her shoulder, "if you have an accident
before, you know, you get me naked, we've got to be really careful when we
clean up.  And I've got a little wipe with some Febreeze on it, you know,
in case there's a, you know.  Plus some candles.  So if you can stop being
a child molester for just a minute, we can go for some quality assurance in
the atmosphere department."

       With that the fawn pranced free of the stag, and went about her
childish chores, white bra, blue shorts.  Intent blue eyes as she arranged
the two birthday candles.  The sounds of other customers filtered through
the thin walls, but did not intrude.  As she worked, Steve dropped to his
knees to rid the pixie of her elfin sneakers and dainty socks.  The child
spread her legs as the last sock came off and Steve gently fingered his
step daughter up her inner thighs, to the bottom of her short blue shorts.
Her long legs seemed to grow a foot with every inch of his slow, tender
progress, but the hot, hard panting of the young female made the extra work
a pleasure.

       In a move he was up above her shorts, still on his knees, fingering
the soft ice-cream of her immature belly with both his hands.

       And then it had to be over.

       "Oh, Daddy!" the eight year old moaned, forgetting the candles, the
Febreeze, and everything but his jockeys, which she peeled to the floor
with the energetic hands that found his immensely swollen penis.  Flicking
out the light, she dropped back onto the little bench.  Stark naked now,
Steve leaned spread eagle over his child's bench.

       "You can molest me latter," was all she said before her hands took
him, gently, but with a tightness of grip she must have used on her
twelve-year-old step brother.  Her last words were, "Remember how Pete does
it when he's inside me."

       Steve remembered and froze to his wall, half way like Spider Man.
The girl found him with that cherries and cherry blossom mouth.  Just a
gentle sucking wetness.  The tiny tongue.  His son the hero, his stripling
boy, the master.  The boy goes on to teach the man.  Frozen to the dressing
room wall, shaking like a leaf, his ejaculation began immediately.  In the
dark it was his fast, hard pulses and her gentle newing with gulp after
gulp from that little bird throat as she fed lustily and passionately on
his gouting, hot seed.

       Two minutes?  Could it possibly have lasted that many seconds of
eternity.  The throb, and the dainty, happy swallow.  Again and again.  Ten
times, then a rapid slowing.  Half a minute of the same soft patient mouth
between his second to last spurt of semen and the one which left him a
shuddering husk slowly twisting down the was as he found a place on the
bench beside her, cuddling her with his left arm and feeling her up in the
dark with the index finger of his right hand.

       "Pee.. Pet.. Peter," she finally got it out, her vocal chords
obviously drenched with the syrupy consistency of his think, mature sperm,
"Peter said now is the best time to learn about kissing."

       No lisp.

       				. . .
       The last lap of an auto race can end up something of a melee.  Call
me Dale Earnhardt.  The Intimidator.

       Actually, you don't need me.  You've got a government that must be
intimidating the rocks on Pike's Peak by this time.

       If you're in the military, get a map.  Scan the Muslim world.
Remember Pan Am, the various barracks and embassies.  If you've a mind to,
remember the twin towers.  Ask yourself and your buddies what possible
purpose there would be to any kind of land operations in this atmosphere.
Remember, burn a flag, inflame ten million young, hard people.  If you
think the Pentagon's tub full of rubber duckies is going to amount to a
piss hole in the proverbial snow bank, you're too dumb to be toilet
trained.  It's no response, or a major thermonuclear response because a
hundred piss-ant victories and all the medals in the mint won't have any
lasting effect.

       I left a dean's list deferment to go to Vietnam.  My brother used
his big Doby Gillis (Who?  you don't want to know.) to tip toe out of the
draft, not once, but twice.  The kid brother from hell, but he has that
ounce of charm.

       It was different then.  For all the Jew mud, we were in fact there
to stop the spread of terror based Bolshevik communism.  If we hadn't gone,
a vastly enthused and energized soviet would be slashing away at Mexico,
just in our own neck of the woods.  That we went rendered even their puppet
show state, Cuba, a husk.

       Not the same deal any more than Pewee Herman is Cassius Clay.
You're after a psycho, and when you catch him, every Jew with an hour in
law school will be after the last dollar in the treasury to defend him.
The most classic no-win situation in the history of the world, because,
catch him if you can, the world knows how to jack a jumbo jet and plant it
anywhere.

       Vietnam was a good war.  Eighty percent of the guys over there had
the time of their lives, plus weed, friends, and very cute girls.  You
should be so lucky.

       You have a secretary of defense that looks like a cabbie and a
secretary of state who was selected with a light meter.  These are the
mindless plodders who will perform shop worn rituals with your thin,
combustible skins. You are the rank and file.  I've thought up a slogan for
you.  "No leadership, no followship."  Remember, we live in a liberal age.
No one else thinks anything of my brother scuttling when his turn came.
Half the kids that went to Canada came back bigger heroes than the ditch
crawling grunts.  You do not represent a country, you represent a land
mass.

       Does the "Guinness Book of Records" have a category for the man who
felt like the biggest fool in the history of the world?  If so, I nominate
the F-15 pilot who started circling Manhattan Island at about noon.

       If I did graphics I'd post an image of the second explosion.  Under
it would be the following caption: "Guess who had his eye on his balls."
Most people would understand it meant Moscow Bill.  (At least the guy was
lively.  Your present commander in chief is less than a boy trying to do a
king's work)

       Finally, we come to the cliché that has to do with going around
and coming around.  There's another concerning wheels which grind slowly,
but grind exceedingly fine.  Another adage says that he who laughs loudest,
laughs last.  At the tail end, we have plain old I told you so.  Let's
string them together.

       Concord, Mass., spring, 1775.  Scuttle behind a wall, shoot a
redcoat.  Scuttle up a tree, shoot another.  Use a knife or torch.  Mock
the laws of civilized war.  Brag about chivalry being dead, brag that
America killed it.  Then, Saratoga, where slithering sharpshooters killed
the British officers from ever so deep in the woods.  Still brag about that
one.  Yes, folks, America can dish it out.  It would be asinine to insult
your intelligence by competing the thought, and unnecessary, because this
is one thought that will have no trouble completing its self.  Pretty
funny, eh?

       My ribbon's bigger than yours is,
       My ribbon's bigger than yours.
       My ribbons bigger,
       My ribbon's brighter,
       My ribbon's bigger than yours.

       Ten-hut, dismissed.


       When duty whispers, lo, thou must, the man replies, I can.  (Ralph
Waldo Emerson)

       Talent does what it can, genius does what it must.  (George Eliot)

       Talent does what it can, genius does what it must, and gods do what
they love.  (Tom Emerson)

Posted by Thomas@btl.net

xxx