In Search of the Final Freedom: Chapter 53A

In Search of the Final Freedom: An Erotic Socio-Political Novel

BOOK FOUR

Sounding the Clarian Call

Chapter 53

Young Love, First Love

Over the three months between the Euro-Club birthday party for Joanne and the start of Christmas break, while her mother was becoming the face of the FFF and her father was settling into his new life as a college professor; Misty was enjoying every moment of her senior year of high school. Though she tried to deny it, she thoroughly enjoyed her new life as the queen bee at Jefferson Davis High. While she knew full well she was loathed and feared in certain quarters, especially those traditional “most popular girls” who had been displaced in the social hierarchy; she was the hero of the broad middle group of normally invisible students. Not only was she the titular head of the enlarged Euro-Club, which included the associated boyfriends and “associate members” such as Everleigh & Mimi and their attendant boys; but she was also part of the editorial trio for all the school’s publications.

For generations, school newspapers have been utterly irrelevant to the daily lives of high school students. With sports scores that were weeks old, a hand full of photos of the most popular students, and a little drivel that passed as feature stories, there simply wasn’t anything of value in school newspapers. When Cooper had been a student at Jefferson Davis High decades before, The Jeff Davis Rebel had been no more relevant than any other school paper. However, the year Misty had moved up to the high school, Mr. Abe Truman, who had been a creative writing teacher for years at Jeff Davis, had been put in charge of both the school newspaper and the yearbook. All the students knew he was also a freelance reporter/writer for several newspapers and Georgia-based magazines. His articles about life in central Georgia appeared regularly in the Milledgeville Chronicle and occasionally in the Atlanta Constitution. From the very first, he let everyone know he wanted the school paper to be of real value, not just an empty exercise in pretend publishing.

The first thing he did was to drop the “Rebel” name from the paper, with all its exclusionary Jim Crow associations and replaced it with The Recorder. By the end of the year, he had received permission to start a regular publications class to teach all the components of publication: digital layout, photography, digital imaging editing (Photoshop), and most of all, the class would teach students real journalistic & feature story writing. To pull it off, he recruited a core of his best writing students to make his vision of a meaningful school paper come alive.

To help with his goal of making Jeff Davis High become the regional leader in student publications, Mr. Truman recruited Elena Maybree to help as a volunteer instructor for the class. She was an award-winning and much-published magazine editor & photojournalist who had recently moved to the Sparta area to retire. Though to the eyes of the students she initially seemed so old, by the end of that first year, they came to see her in a very different light. Though she couched her words carefully, students in the new publications class soon realized she had a viewpoint (and career history) that did not stay within the bounds of polite Sparta society. When she received criticism from traditionalists, more than once Mrs. Maybree had been known to say “What is Dr. Collins going to do? Fire me? I am already retired after all.” That attitude, of course, made her very popular with a certain kind of student (like Misty Campbell).

It was at the end of Misty’s freshman year, the announcement was made the print newspaper would be discontinued, and replaced with a digital-only publication. Thus, when Misty signed up for her sophomore classes and she was eligible to take the Introduction to Publications class, she jumped at the opportunity. That year, as part of Mr. Truman’s second year in charge of publications, Misty had been part of the transition of the school paper from a ten-page physical paper put out twice a month, to an online paper updated every other day.”

Importantly for Misty in each of the revisions to the paper, there were new photos to be added, which meant that the need for a constant stream of high-quality photos was needed. Under the teaching of Mrs. Maybree, Misty gravitated from writing for the paper to photography/photojournalism. As her sophomore year progressed, Misty’s natural talent for creating powerful images came to the fore. It was some of that work that came to Mrs. Maybree’s attention.

Misty had been gratified when in the spring Mrs. Maybree called her aside to tell her she had a natural “photographic eye.” She asked Misty if she would be interested in taking the new free-standing class in Digital Photography & Photojournalism for which she had been hired to teach the next year. She was, and for her junior year, Misty signed up for the new class. It was over that school year, Misty’s interest in photography became her passion, and Mrs. Maybree became her mentor. It was Mrs. Maybree who had encouraged Misty to enter her photo essay on the school’s volleyball team in the national student contest, which had received an honorable mention. Even more, in that tumultuous week when her nude beach photos had first become public, Mrs. Mabry interpreted her beach photos as showing “a free spirit,” not depravity. Based on both her photo work and her “free spirit” she had recommended Misty for the internship at Evans Edge Photographics.

The night after Mrs. Maybree had asked Misty if she would be interested in the internship, she had gone to the internet to find out what kind of photos Kate Evans took. She had been flabbergasted. Yet, upon thinking about it, she realized she should not have been. It was also why, when a few weeks later as she considered which photos she should include in her application packet for that internship, Misty hadn’t been afraid of showing Mrs. Maybree some of the nudes she’d taken in the past year. It was also Mrs. Maybree (along with Mr. Truman) who had pushed for Dr. Collins to approve Misty to be the school’s publications photo editor for her senior year.

As a senior who’d done well for the prior three years, Misty had enough of the mandatory credits for both graduation and to get into the colleges to which she’d applied, and still have time in her schedule to take both the Advanced Publications class and a second year of the Digital Photography & Photojournalism class. Since Jeff Davis used the block scheduling model, all classes met for ninety minutes every other day. There were “A” days with one set of classes and “B” days with an entirely different set of classes. In her case, Misty had Publications on “A” days and Photography on “B” days. Thus, every school day she was in the publications room for an hour and a half. In her photography class, Mrs. Maybree took a great deal of time teaching Misty one-on-one about her role as the photo editor. With Mrs. Maybree’s guidance, Misty was given a great deal of latitude in her job as the student photo editor. Misty learned to spot photos taken by “her staff” that had dynamism and told compelling stories. She, in turn, worked with “her photographers” to take the kinds of photos she was looking for. While she didn’t know it, she was learning the skills of leadership in addition to photography and photographic editorial.

On the first “B” day of each week, she assigned her photographers specific tasks and events to cover. Importantly she made a point to assign her people to cover more than just sporting events and club meetings. One innovation that Misty initiated was each day she had two people assigned to the “Daily Life Beat,” which means they came before school to look for interesting things to shoot as the students arrived in the morning and were dismissed five minutes early to get after-school pictures. With this method, Misty had photos of “ordinary” students presented in interesting ways readily available to her as she chose the images for the newspaper updates, as opposed to just posed photos of jocks and group leaders.

On “A” days, in the publications class, Misty worked every day with her good friend Kelli and Tommy Francis to make the updates. While Kelli was listed as the Yearbook Editor, in practice she was also the newspaper’s copy editor since she was much better at it than Tommy. As Newspaper Editor, Tommy was in charge of layout and choosing which stories to run. Misty both selected and edited the photos that went in each new revision of the paper, but each week she put together a photo essay that told a story through images and their captions. While most of those essays featured the best work from the students in the Photography class, about once a month, the photo essay was her own work. With Mrs. Maybree’s help, her photo essays were getting better and better.

All that work on putting out updates for the Jeff Davis Reporter did not mean that Misty, Kelli, and Tommy got out of the daily assignments and discussions for the publications class. In fact, Mr. Truman expected them to set an example to others in the class with their writing and the daily discussions about articles from the current news cycle. So, the work to put out a new edition of the paper every “A” day was on top of the regular classwork for all three of them. As a result, nearly every “A” day found the group of three student editors in the publications room after school let out.

As a consequence, Misty, Kelli, and Tommy spent a lot of time together, and it was through this that Misty & Tommy’s relationship grew from the latency that had existed through the prior year to the current situation characterized by mutual attraction and frustrated desire. Importantly, since Kelli was the third person with them, it was impossible to hide the fact the two girls were lovers and that Misty regularly joined Kelli and her boyfriend, Cody, in bed. The truth was, they didn’t really try to hide their relationship from Tommy. However, since they knew it made him uncomfortable, they kept discussions about that part of their relationship to a minimum. Even so, the growing attraction between Misty and Tommy, coupled with his knowledge of her relationship with Kelli, created tension.

Misty’s life focusing on photography did not just dominate her experience at school, it was a central part of her life at home as well. After the parent’s Arabian Nights party, she had a string of requests from adults for glamour/nude photos, beginning with Sue Ann Wilson. Right off the challenge for the budding professional photographer was to shoot new images for each “client” rather than the same photos with different people. With Miss Sue Ann, Misty shot her in her parent’s bedroom and in the game room. In advance of that shoot, Misty convinced her parents to buy her a set of LED flat-panel light banks with tripods which greatly expanded her options for shooting indoors.

With Caitlin as her photo assistant, Miss Sue Ann’s shoot still took fully two hours. In time, she learned that was how long it took to do the job, and trying to cut the time negatively impacted the final product. Misty used nearly all the skills & techniques she’d learned from her internship about glamour/nude photoshoots, plus her own experiences over the past year. It helped that though Miss Sue Ann was an adult, she was only in her mid (or perhaps late) twenties rather than someone Misty’s mother’s age for her first “semi-professional” photo shoot. Even still, there was most definitely a difference between shooting the girls from the Euro Club and shooting one of her mother’s friends. Not only was Miss Sue Ann bigger than even Iris, but her proportions were also different too. She was sure the first third of the photos she shot would be throwaways, but by the time she’d gotten to the last set in the game room, she was confident the images would be good.

She thought of what she was doing as semi-pro since she didn’t ask for a fee upfront, but rather gratefully took the $50 Miss Sue Ann gave her before leaving. Though Miss Sue Ann seemed quite comfortable posing nude, which was not surprising given the fact she’d been nude around Misty most Sundays throughout the summer, she seemed to have a hard time asking one last thing.

Misty’s mother, who had arrived home from her speaking trip mid-way through the shoot, had to step in to ask what Miss Sue Ann wasn’t up to asking. “What she wants to know is would you be up to shooting photos of her and Calvin Jefferson making love?”

Misty had heard through both DJ and Sarah that Miss Sue Ann had been having sex with her brother-in-law since the day after the parent’s party, and her mother had let her know beforehand that some of her friends would want erotic photos; so the request wasn’t totally out of the blue. Though she acted as if it were no big deal to be asked to do sex photos of the other adults in her parent’s social group, she was actually excited about the opportunity.

As it turned out before she could schedule the shoot of sex photos, she first did glamour nudes of Miss Sue Ann’s sister, Beth Ann, and of DJ’s mother, Miss Brandy. Though she’d never set a price, they had all given her $50 for the shoot. Later when she had larger wall-sized prints made for her “clients”, at her mother’s suggestion, she added 15% to the cost of the prints for her time doing the editing and such. It wasn’t a great deal of money, but she liked the idea that change made her an actual professional photographer.

While neither she nor Miss Sue Ann was uncomfortable doing an erotic photo shoot, Calvin was. It took some “encouragement” from Miss Sue Ann for him to get into the mood; but when he was ready to go, he just wanted to fuck her. Misty had to step in several times to remind him that if they were to get the kind of photos she knew Miss Sue Ann wanted, he would have to back off and let her tell them what she wanted them to do. In her internship, both David and Miloslava had discussed shooting erotica and how it was different from glamour. Recalling something one of them had said, Misty told Calvin “You have to understand, I’m not shooting you two making love today. We are here to make great photos that give the appearance you are making love naturally even while it is completely staged. Understand that for you, this isn’t a love-making session, it is modeling. You need to let me guide you.” After that, he seemed to understand. And in that experience, she learned an important lesson that she would apply in all her erotica shoots.

When a few weeks later she shot her mother and Butch in their dining room and kitchen, she started out with that instruction and it seemed to set the stage for the entire shoot. While shooting Butch having sex with her mother, she recalled something else she’d learned about erotica during her internship. She was pretty sure it was David who said “While a big dick might or might not be preferred by a woman, all photographers love them. A ten-inch erection gives the photographer options that simply don’t exist with average-sized dicks.” As Misty posed her mother and Butch, she saw the truth in that statement.

The other thing she’d noticed and put down to experience from doing that photoshoot was that even while shooting the most explicit images of her mother and Butch engaged in oral, vaginal, and anal sex, she never became the least bit embarrassed. For her, it was all about lighting, shadow, composition, and most importantly, capturing passion in a way that was stylish and sexy (rather than crude or overly graphic). The specific sex acts in which they were engaged at any given time didn’t really matter at all. However, to her father and Tabatha who were there watching Misty direct their spouses, the sex mattered. Evidently, for them, it was a real turn-on. Before she was halfway done shooting in the kitchen, they were screwing in the living room. While her models took a break, she shot a good many photos, if less artistic, of the couple on the sofa.

Not all her photo shoots that fall were done in her home. Ms. Jackson, Haley’s mother, booked her to take nude photos at her horse farm. She’d not realized what all she had in mind until she’d begun the session. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in early November. The trees on their sizable property between Sparta and the lake featured old hardwood trees and they were at the peak of their fall colors. When she arrived, Haley met her and said she and her sister had worked all week cleaning up the barn for the shoot. But when she got into the barn to set up, to Misty it still looked (and smelled) like a functional working barn.

Even before arriving though, she knew what to expect. In that barn, the Jacksons boarded eight horses in addition to their three. Though she’d been to their horse farm many times over the years, every time she did, it astounded her the work it took to keep it going. From what Haley had told her over the years, she, her mother, and sister had to work out each one of the boarders at least every other day, as well as groom & feed them and muck out the stalls. It was a real job and even with all three of them participating, it required well over an hour each and every day from each one of them. However, for that work, the boarders paid enough in fees to more than pay for the upkeep of their own animals and the significant costs of their rodeo participation.

Misty was not surprised to find shooting in the barn with the mix of shadows and light challenging. However, she’d brought Caitlin, the reflector board, and her two LED light panels along to help with that issue. Haley had a whole set of potential props laid out for her use. When Ms. Jackson came out to the barn, she was ready to start right off in boots, her cowboy hat, a bandana… and nothing else.

The shoot was going well when Haley and her sister, Bethany, arrived in the barn’s doorway and asked “Are you ready for us yet?” They were both dressed much like their mother. Heading off Misty’s consternation on being asked to shoot nude photos of Haley who would not turn eighteen till March, and Bethany, who had just turned sixteen; Ms. Jackson said “I checked with Mike Marshal, and he said that as long as these are family nudist photos, there isn’t a legal issue. Since early this summer, our family has more or less become nudists, so he said you can shoot all three of us.”

With that preemptive comment, all Misty could think to do was say “OK.” She actually knew that nudity in the Jackson home and farm had become quite normal for Haley’s family. She recalled how in the summer Haley laughingly told the story of Bethany and a group of her friends skinny dipping in the pond on their property when a rather large alligator showed up. She said they all ran naked and terrified all the way back to the house, leaving their clothes behind. It had been funny. But Misty also knew that after that incident, Ms. Jackson renovated the old disused above-ground swimming pool beside the house for the use of Bethany and her friends.

The last time she’d been over to the Jackson’s was in July. When she approached the front door, she’d found Bethany, Natalie, and Cassidy relaxing in the Adirondack chairs on the veranda, sunning, in the nude. Bethany let her know they were just taking a break from their bedroom activities. She then said, “When we go back in, I know Natalie and Cassidy would love it if you joined us. They have told me several times how much they enjoyed the last time they were with you.” Though Misty was quite sure the offer was genuine, she declined saying she and Haley were due to join friends at the House of Pizza.

Additionally, Misty recalled how in late September, Haley told her how her sister’s group of rising freshmen and sophomores from the church Youth Group had grown to nearly twenty, both girls and guys. “While they are in our little pool or when they lay out on the deck, most of them go bare, but not all of them do that all of the time. It varies from week to week but pretty much all the girls go topless all the time out there. Since they are all just fourteen or fifteen, I guess you can see that my mother isn’t worried about the sixteen-year-old thing like yours is. But like your mom, she doesn’t go outside while they are skinny dipping unless it’s all girls, like the times Bethany has invited her softball team over after practice. She is just as adamant about drugs and alcohol and condom use as your mom. She specifically told Bethany to make sure the sex play outside is limited to playing handsies. If her friends want to have actual sex, they have to take the active step of going to Bethany’s room, and that doesn’t really happen much when the larger group is over. But, since we got back from Miami when it’s just The Gang of Six, that’s what I call the three couples who make up the core of my sister’s group: Natalie & Cassidy, Lainie Hartsell & Mark Shanks, and Ester Green & Howie Hopkins; Mom’s concern is more about being polite and not disturbing others than about the details of what someone is wearing (or not wearing), or what someone is doing (or with whom they are doing it). Of course, the same goes for me and Gregg and Bethany too.”

Until Haley had plainly told Misty what was going on at her house that day, she really hadn’t grasped how with that younger group, Ms. Jackson was even more permissive than her own mother. Even after learning all that, until Ms. Jackson said so, Misty really hadn’t considered that their family actually saw themselves as nudist. But clearly, they did. Once again, the effect her mother, and her family, were having on others came to Misty’s mind.

Even though it was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the weather turned out to be sunny and unusually warm, perfect for shooting glamour/nudes outside. Gregg had arrived at the farm while Misty and Caitlin were working to set up the shoot in the barn. He proved quite useful in moving hay bales, running extension cords, and such, but mostly he just enjoyed watching Ms. Jackson, Haley, and Bethany pose. He flagrantly flirted with Caitlin even though she was busy with her own tasks. For just over two hours Misty shot photos of the Jacksons individually, of the two sisters together, and as a family unit in their “minimal outfits”. For the first hour, she shot just her “models” in the barn, while the second half of the time she shot in the two small corrals using both the models and their horses, mostly grooming and leading them.

Finally, after those two hours, for the last set of the day, came the most challenging part of her shoot. She decided to capture Ms. Jackson and her daughters actually riding their horses as a group. To get the elevation she needed, Misty asked Gregg to move Haley’s pickup truck so she could shoot from its bed. It proved more difficult than she’d expected to get all three horses walking through her frame the way she wanted them. They must have gone through the same sequence a dozen times and she was about to give up on her idea before the three beasts finally walked through her field of view the way Misty had envisioned. She got the image she wanted.

After she’d nearly given up on getting the composition she wanted, the four horses cooperated for “the shot.”

“The Shot”

Since Caitlin really wasn’t needed while Misty worked from the truck bed, she and Gregg moseyed into the house together. Misty smiled to herself since she knew exactly why they went in. Even as she was trying over and over to get the image she wanted, the warmth of the fall day disappeared. Fortunately, before the models got too cold, she got that shot. Once she told them she was done, the three riders donned the jeans and western shirts they’d conveniently left on the porch. Very politely, almost pleadingly, Ms. Jackson asked Misty if she could take the time to recreate the group images of them riding their horses, but with all of them dressed. Since everyone knew the shot Misty wanted, it only took three passes to get it. Those were the last photos of the afternoon.

It proved to be a long and tiring shoot, but she thought it was the best one she’d done yet. When they all went inside for a light dinner of sandwiches and chips, Caitlin and Gregg emerged from Haley’s bedroom still buttoning their jeans, but otherwise bare. They were sweaty and flushed. They made no effort to deny or hide what they’d been doing, and Misty and the Jacksons took it in stride as if they had expected it. Which of course they had.

As they ate, Bethany told Misty, “You do know this was far from the first time we have gone riding in the buff. It’s not like I do it a lot, but when the weather is just right and I am in just the right mood, there is nothing like riding The Trace in just my skin.”

By “The Trace,” Misty knew she meant the four-mile trail that traced the borders of their farm. The Jackson seventy-acre property had a ring of woodland that surrounded a fifty-acre hayfield. At just over a mile on each side, at a horse’s walking pace, it took right at an hour. As such it was just the right length to exercise both their own horses and their borders. Several years before Misty had ridden the trace twice in a single day with Haley. That was when Misty decided she was NOT a horsewoman. However, having made that ride, she understood that the band of trees along the trace meant Bethany or her sister or mother could easily do The Trace in the nude with little chance of offending anyone… though she couldn’t imagine wanting to do any such thing herself.

Haley agreed with her sister, “Yea, it is hard to explain why it is such a wonderful and freeing experience. I think you have to be a horse person to really get it. I’ve been doing it a few times a year since I was thirteen, but I know that Mom has been doing it as long as we have lived here.”

Misty added, “I suppose with all your land and the trees you could ride all day in the nude without a worry of getting caught.”

Bethany smiled, “You would think, but sometimes things don’t work out that way.”

Her mother looked over to her daughter and asked, “Do you want to elaborate on that?”

Bethany’s smile, if anything, became broader than her mother’s. “Sure, I can do that. Mom, I think you know that over the summer Natalie got bitten by the equestrian bug.”

Ms. Jackson nodded, “Oh, I’ve noticed and I’m happy for both of you. It’s really nice to have a riding partner.”

Bethany nodded back and said, “And she’s learned really fast. She’s not ready for barrel racing, but she is fully competent at taking any of the horses in the barn around the trace, and not just at a walk, but at a trot and even a cantor.”

“That’s good,” her mother replied. “Perhaps she’d be interested in filling in for you in the spring once your season on the varsity softball team gets really going full bore. I’d pay her of course. But what does that have to do with getting caught riding naked?”

Bethany quickly said, “I’m sure Natalie will jump at the opportunity to get paid to ride. It has to do with riding naked because Natalie was with me. One particularly hot Saturday in September, I asked her to ride The Trace with me. Of course, she did, but just saddling the two boarders we were taking out, we got so hot. So I asked her if she’d like to play Lady Godiva with me. We’d ridden topless together several times, but never fully nude; and by then we’d…well all of the group of six had been going naked out on the farm so often, it wasn’t any big deal. Since, as you know riding topless or nude at anything but a walk can be painful, we took our time.”

Both her mother and sister nodded. It seems there were lots of things Misty had never thought about.

“Well, you know how on the backside of the property, The Trace has to go around that boggy place near the creek, so the trail comes right up to the fence between our land and Mr. Casey’s for about fifty yards. It just so happens that we got there just as a harvester was taking in his fall crop. Since Natalie had never seen that before, we stopped to watch. We honestly were not trying to show off, we didn’t even think the men running the harvester and tractor pulling the hopper wagon would notice us. For a good while they didn’t… ”

Her mother and sister nodded knowingly. Even though Misty had grown up in central Georgia and her home was surrounded by farmland, she had no idea how such things worked.

“Well, I guess while the harvester was sitting still, waiting for the guy in the tractor to change hopper wagons, the driver happened to look over our way. Now he wasn’t right on the fence line, but he was close enough that we could see his reaction through the glass of the cab when he noticed us.”

Laughing, Caitlin said, “I bet he nearly had a heart attack seeing two naked girls on horses watching him.”

Misty, Gregg, and Haley laughed too, but her mother frowned.

“Don’t worry Mom,” Bethany said, “it wasn’t Mr. Casey or one of his sons. And yes, it was super funny. We could see that even after the driver looked right at us as we just sat there on the horses, it took him a few seconds to understand what he was seeing. Then it was obvious to us that he just couldn’t believe what his eyes told him. He shook his head several times then leaned way forward to get a better look. Once he was sure he wasn’t imagining things, he got on his radio. Next thing we know, the man driving the tractor that pulled the hopper wagon appeared next to the harvester looking our way too.”

Ms. Jackson said, a little crossly, “I hope after that you finally decided to ride on.”

Bethany nodded, “We did, but we didn’t hear the machines running again until we were well down the trail.”

Haley said “Oh, come on Mom, that is hilarious. Don’t be so uptight.”

For a moment Ms. Jackson just sat, frowning, then a smile came to her face, “I guess since that was more than a month ago and I’ve not heard anything from Mr. Casey, it’s OK. And yes, it is funny but only because I didn’t hear from him.” Then she began to laugh too. After a few moments, she said, “I really can’t say anything about you taking Natalie riding in the nude. I was… well I was the age you were this summer when I first rode in nothing but my skin.”

Looking at Misty and Caitlin, she explained, “You see, my parent’s farm in Iowa is over three-thousand acres. They mostly grow soybeans and corn, and in summer the corn is so tall that once I’d ridden half-a-mile, no one could see me. I don’t actually remember when I first took off my shirt and bra to ride bare-breasted, but I’m pretty sure, just like Haley, it was that first summer when I actually had boobs. But unlike her, I first did it to spite my parents, not because it just felt good. I didn’t yet understand my budding sexuality and my mother certainly didn’t give me any guidance. But that very first time I found there was something about riding topless with my new breasts that made me feel empowered and free. I never told anyone about doing that. It was my private secret. For two summers I rode topless as often as I dared, then in the spring of my sophomore year of high school, I learned what all those new feelings really meant.”

Misty saw an odd glaze suddenly come over Ms. Jackson’s face. “That was the year I met the girl’s father. I didn’t know anything about sex that I didn’t learn in school, and that was next to nothing; but over the three months of the spring rodeo season, just four events, the entire world opened for me. When that summer came, I was a different person. As soon as it was warm enough, I stripped off all my clothes for the first time to ride naked under the sun. I felt like no young woman, and that is how I thought of myself even though I was only fifteen, had ever felt like I did. You see, I was totally in love even though, looking back, I barely knew Junior Spivey. Most of the time we’d had together at that point was just sitting and talking on bleachers or standing against fencing between our events while the rodeos were going on. But those times we’d snuck off to be alone when my parents were busy elsewhere, brought feelings alive in me that I’d only vaguely understood before. But by that first afternoon under a late May sky riding Grey Ghost with my entire body bare to the sky, I fully understood. I was a woman and I knew it.”

Ms. Jackson seemed to come back from her trance momentarily to say, “But the love of my life lived in Fort Dodge which was seventy-five miles away. This was long before cell phones or email, so the only way I could communicate with him was at rodeos. At a rodeo the first weekend of June we concocted a plan for us to meet on the backside of my family’s land at 11:00 in the morning the next Saturday. You see, a tributary of the North Racoon River cut through the northwest corner of our farm. In Iowa, the trees that grow along rivers are an important windbreak to prevent erosion, so that corner of our land was never farmed. Instead, back in the 1950’s my grandfather had diverted the stream to create a water hole around which the family built a little picnic area. There was even a gate off the road so our family and church friends could hold socials there several Sunday afternoons each summer. But other than on those few days a year, it offered complete privacy.”

“That morning, I packed lunch for two, strapped a blanket to my saddle, and rode Grey Ghost the five miles from our house to the place where I’d drawn the map for Junior to meet me. Halfway, I stopped to take off my tank top, shorts, and low-top Chuck Taylors and put them in my saddle bag. All I wore until I got dressed to ride home late that afternoon was the blue scrunchie that held my ponytail. The closer I got the more I worried he would not be there. But, when I saw his truck, parked on the path, just out of sight of the road, I was overjoyed.”

She took a deep breath as if getting the courage to say something, then looked at Bethany and Haley, “I know I’ve never told you about this, talking about my relationship with your father has been really hard for me, but I think I am finally ready. You see before that day; I’d already had sex with your father three times. Though they had been amazing experiences for me, every time was rushed out of fear of being caught. As a rather sheltered fifteen-year-old, I didn’t fully understand the consequences of someone catching us doing it. I only thought of what my parents would say. Now I realized that he was thinking of something far worse than my father’s wrath since he was twenty-four and I was fifteen. But at the time, I didn’t have a clue about such things. While every second of those brief encounters was seared in my soul as the deepest expression of his love for me, they were still way too short and I’d not come close to feeling completely fulfilled by the experiences. I knew there was so much more, and I so hoped I’d get it that day. So, when I saw his truck, I kicked Grey Ghost to a full gallop.

He’d been sitting under the trees waiting, then he saw me. I was hoping for a strong reaction from him. And I got it. The look on his face, as he jumped to his feet and ran my way, was exactly what I’d hoped. He was as thrilled to see me as I was to see him.”

Misty watched with interest how both sisters were hanging on every word their mother spoke. She knew full well how long Haley had been waiting to hear this story.

“He ran to me and I literally jumped from the saddle into his arms even before Ghost was fully stopped.” She took another breath, “If you two want, another day I can tell you every moment of that afternoon. I have every second, every kiss, the feeling of every touch, permanently imprinted on my brain. It would take longer than you guys have before you need to leave for Youth Group to tell even a portion of all I remember; but here is the short story. He held me in his arms and we kissed in a way that I thought only happened in fairy tales. We only stopped long enough for me to get the blanket from my saddle and for him to undress before we were making love. It was nothing like the hurried times before, and he totally made up for not fulfilling me the other times we’d had sex. I really can’t express how it felt to lay there, him holding me tight with our naked bodies pressed together. Today I’d call it sensory overload, but I didn’t have the words back then. All I knew was that in his arms, with him inside of me, I felt totally and completely filled with love.”

For a moment she stopped. Misty was sure those memories were very, very special to her and it seemed that saying those things out loud to her two daughters for the first time was a moment she wanted to savor. After perhaps half a minute, she continued. “There were so many new experiences that day.” She again paused to take a breath. “I’d never had wine before, and he’d brought with him a bottle of a Moscato, which he would do every time we met since I liked the sweetness. We drank it right from the bottle at lunch and I got my first buzz. But I guess you already know that it wasn’t like he needed to get me drunk to get into my pants”

The girls laughed.

“And before that day, I only had the vaguest idea of what getting eaten out would be like; but when he first did it to me, it was like the world exploded while I lay on that blanket. I don’t have any idea how long that first time lasted, but when we were done it was mid-day and I was totally overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed, totally satisfied, and exhausted in a way I didn’t even understand. Even then, at what turned out to be the start of a long day of truly amazing experiences, I felt like I’d finally found what I’d been wanting for years but didn’t know I wanted. In that moment, laying there beside him, life truly was perfect.”

Misty could see tears running down Bethany’s cheeks.

“And that was just the beginning of a day that without a doubt was the best day of my entire life. I finally got the energy to get out the lunch I’d packed, then we took a swim… in the nude of course. Then we made love again, and it was even better the second time. Because I then had some understanding of what to expect, I was able to fully embrace the feelings, both physical and emotional, that had so overwhelmed me before lunch. I know that a girl’s first experience like that tends to give rose-colored glasses, but he really was an amazing lover. He was skilled, attentive, and knew just what to do to hold me at the brink of orgasm as long as he wanted before sending me crashing over the top… which he did over and over in ways that until that day I’d truly never even imagined.” She got a funny look and added, “And I did something I’d read in a dirty book that some girls at school had passed around but really hadn’t grasped how it was more than a physical act… I put his penis in my mouth.”

The humor in the way she said that last part lightened the tension that had built up in the room and both sisters laughed. Misty remembered Haley talking in Miami about the dildo that her mother keeps that she says looks just like their father’s hard-on. She wondered if the sisters were thinking about the same thing.

“Back then I didn’t know men lasted longer the second time around, and we fucked and fucked and fucked. Finally, we just couldn’t go on any longer and we just lay on the blanket in the sun. We talked like that for a very long time. It was only when I realized that the sun was getting low in the sky that I understood we’d been there all afternoon. I knew I would have to go lest my parents start looking for me. The last time we made love that day was soft and sweet, but the whole time, while I was enjoying the feelings, I was also dreading the moment I’d have to get on Grey Ghost and leave him. Nothing, but nothing in my life can ever match that day. It was better than my most fanciful dreams, better than any romance novel. Though we met the same way three more times that summer, nothing can match that first time. I felt so full of love like I couldn’t hold anymore and I’d never be the same.” She paused and added softly, “And I wasn’t.”

She paused again before saying flatly, “That was nineteen years ago. Since then, I’ve had sex many, many times with quite a few men. I’ve had really great sex, eye-rolling sex, more times than I can count,” then looking at her two girls she said, “but I have never felt totally and completely filled with love like the times I was with your father in that little glade.” She paused, seemed to think, then said, “Well, not until just a few months ago. Since then, I’ve felt things that I thought I could simply never feel again.”

Turning to Misty and reaching across the table to take her hand, “Over the afternoon, evening, and night that I first made love with your father, somehow, he wrenched open a door I thought could never be opened again. He brought back to me that feeling of being totally filled with love. By the next morning, lying beside Cooper while he still slept, for the first time in what seemed forever, I felt like I couldn’t hold any more love and life was everything it should be. But I didn’t know what to do with those feelings. Once he awoke, I bottled them up until that night, laying alone in my bed, I cried my eyes out.”

Now Misty was confused, “But why? If you felt filled with love, isn’t that a good thing?”

Ms. Jackson seemed to be holding back tears, “Because the feeling of being filled with a man’s love after so many years, brought those days with the girl’s father back to me in a way I’d worked to suppress for a very long time. Both the joy of love and the pain of loss. Yes, the feeling of being loved was wonderful, but by the next night, I knew those feelings were temporary. Your mother has what I was sure I could never have. Getting a night of it brought all the pain back.”

All Misty could think to say was “I’m so sorry.”

Now the suppressed tear rolled down her cheek and Ms. Jackson said “Don’t be. I am more grateful to him, and to your mother for the chance she allowed for that moment, than I can put into words. By forcing that door open and filling me with his love that night, it allowed me to receive love from someone else, someone who I knew wanted to love me, but I just couldn’t let her.”

Haley quietly said, “Rebecca’s mom, Miss Ashely.”

Her mother nodded, “Yes. Ashely.”

Haley then asked, “So you love her? Like you really love her?”

Ms. Jackson nodded again then very softly said, “Yes, I do.” Then she much more firmly said, “Yes, I love Ashely Ericson-Webber with all my heart, and even more, she fills me with her love too.”

Misty saw both Haley and Bethany were astonished to hear those words from their mother. Having talked to Haley about that very thing more than once, she knew they never thought they’d hear their mother say that about anyone ever.

“You see, before my night with Cooper, I’d seen in my relationship with Ashly that there was the potential for love. I’d seen it for a good while, perhaps nearly a year, but I just couldn’t open myself up to it.”

Then back to Misty, she said, “But your father has a gift. Ashely and I have talked about it many times because in the months before I first spent the night with your father, he’d done the same for her. She’d had feelings for me, she knew I had feelings for her, but it was like we have both been so damaged in the past we just couldn’t open ourselves up again.” Then back to the group of teenagers sitting around her kitchen table, she went on, “But somehow Cooper, while he makes physical love, he has a way of making a woman feel totally accepted, wanted and adored… in a word, loved. It doesn’t matter how closely she tries to guard her heart against such feelings, being with him leaves a woman filled with a love that is hard to understand or put into words. Neither Ashely nor I can explain it. Every time either of us has spent the night with him, we feel it. We know he’s not pretending to have romantic love for us. We have both known men who have tried to feign romantic love to get in our pants or get us to move in with him, that is not what I’m talking about. The love he fills us with is not romantic love though it feels similar, I can’t explain it any better but to say it is similar but not the same. We both agree your father’s love for us as he is making love to us is real, totally real. Perhaps it doesn’t make any sense to you, but according to Ashely, she’s talked to Trish and Brandy and they both told her that they felt the same thing.”

Turning again to Haley and Bethany, “I never thought I’d ever be able to feel the kind of love that fills me like I do when I’m with Ashely. While Cooper opened the door, she walked through it. I hope you are OK with that.”

Almost in unison, they said “Yes.” Bethany went on, “Of course, we are OK with it. We’ve been watching you two together for a long time and knew you had something, but it was only when she started coming over and you started sleeping together that we suspected it was something more than just friendship.”

Haley jumped in “Or lust.”

Bethany nodded and agreed, “Or lust. But we’ve talked about it a lot and we didn’t think you’d ever say those words ever, about anyone. Though we were thinking about a man. But we are so happy for you.”

Haley seconded her sister’s comment and moved her chair over to wrap an arm around her mother. Both of them had tears streaming down their cheeks. After some moments, Ms. Jackson wiped her eyes. “It is just as much a surprise to me as it is to you. I am in love again though I never imagined it would happen. But… I want, I need to finish my story. If I don’t do it now, I might not ever do it.”

Her daughters nodded as if giving her permission.

“After that first summer with your father, through the cold months, Junior and I had our stolen moments of intimacy at rodeos, but it just made me long all the more for the next summer. And when the warm weather came, we again had our time every few weeks by the swimming hole. But when summer was coming to a close, I couldn’t bear the thought of having to wait nine more months. That is why I deliberately got pregnant. I told Junior I had been able to get a diaphragm, so he didn’t need to use a rubber.” She turned to Haley and took her hand, “You were conceived, in love, in that little clearing by the swimming hole. I didn’t just want him, I wanted a baby created by the most perfect love I could imagine. I wanted you and I wanted it more than life itself. You are and always have been the manifestation of the love with which my sixteen-year-old self was totally filled. You are and have always been that love made into a new person.”

“Somehow, I knew, I knew even as we made love repeatedly on that beautiful September afternoon, that perfect day that we were making our child. If you are interested, sometime I can describe every moment of the day you were conceived just as clearly as I can recall that first time your father and I made love by the swimming hole.” The tears were again rolling down her cheeks, “I have never ever seen you as anything but the manifestation of the purest, most complete love that ever was.”

She reached out to Bethany with her other hand, “As are you. I would never ever trade you two for the most perfect life imaginable.” She took some time and then said, “Though I was in denial for many years, I now am able to face the truth that Junior Spivey didn’t have, never had, the love in his heart for me that I had for him; but that doesn’t matter. You two were made from my heart of love, and that is more than enough to make you perfect in my eyes.”

The tears were flowing all around by then. It took several minutes, several tissues, and a round of hugs before she could continue.

“I know most women in this county would say I’m the world’s worst mother….”

All four girls tried to object, but Ms. Jackson put up a hand to stop them. “It’s true while none of your mothers think so, the vast majority of women in Handcock County, if they knew how you were raised and how permissive I am would say I’m a terrible mother…BUT,” she said with emphasis, “nobody ever loved her girls more than I do you two… and that love was truly born on that blanket in the glade that day in June when I was fifteen-years-old.”

After her girls had gone on for some time about what a great mother she is and how much they love her, Ms. Jackson quite abruptly said, “I don’t know how we got from taking photos of us riding in the nude to that, but I’m glad we finally have. I’ve been wanting to tell you for some time now, but I haven’t been able to find the opening.” She looked at Misty, “Thank you for making it possible.” Then back to the group she said, “But now, you four need to get going or you will be late to Youth Group.” Then turning to Gregg and Caitlin, “But I suggest you two put on shirts and shoes first.” Directly to Caitlin, she added, “Though Mr. & Mrs. Campbell might not mind you going to Youth Group topless, I’m sure Rev. McBride would.”

The laughter that followed was cathartic as four girls and Gregg readied themselves and headed out to the Sunday night Youth Group at St. Thomas’s.

A week later, when Misty showed Ms. Jackson the proofs of the photos, she asked for large wall-sized canvas prints of the three of them side-by-side, one with them in just boots and hats and the other fully dressed. She explained to Misty, “Your parents have shown me the way to more openly embrace who I am and my values. So I plan to hang the photo of the three of us on our horses, in just our skin right above the sofa in my living room. But there are times that picture would cause all of us problems, like when my parents come to visit this Christmas. That is why I’ll also frame the other picture and simply swap them out when they, or other people who will take offense come to visit.”

Misty replied, “Oh, my parents do the same. When Grandma Campbell comes over, we shut the door to their bedroom, With the lights out, the nude painting of my mother isn’t visible from the living room. We also shut and lock the study and the playroom. We all know if we see her car, or anyone else we don’t know pull into the drive to do that.”

Over the Christmas break, Misty brought the framed prints over to the Jacksons. When she saw the big canvas print hung on the living room wall, Misty was actually impressed with how good her photo looked. That was a nice feeling. Before she left, Ms. Jackson let Misty know that she was free to use their farm for photoshoots any time she wanted. So, from then until she went off to college the next fall, Misty brought a good many of her friends and those of her parents to the farm to do glamour, nude and erotic photos. In addition to the barn & paddocks, Misty found the house’s old-style wrap-around veranda/porch a wonderful location for a variety of glamour shoots of both the Euro-Club girls and her parent’s friends.

For the entire fall, Misty had at least one glamor, nude or erotic shoot booked every week and for many weeks she did two. Additionally, for every hour she spent shooting, she spent an hour setting up and three or four hours formatting & editing the images on her computer. Between home and school, photography had truly become her primary activity.

Shooting that much presented Misty with a quandary. She knew Caitlin enjoyed acting as her photo assistant, and she also knew the product was better with someone watching the lights, using the reflector board, and looking out for hair out of place and other distractions. Yet, it just wasn’t fair to ask Caitlin to give up so much of her time. Quite accidentally, early on, she found an unexpected second photo assistant. A couple of weeks after the Euro-Club party in September, Lindsey Price called and asked Misty if she would shoot her. In making her request she explained, “I have scads of nude selfies, but Sarah showed me your photos and they are just so much better and I want to look my best in pics I give out.”

Misty knew from Sarah that Lindsey, posing as a college student herself, had been going out with GCSU (Georgia College & State University) guys, with all the attendant parties and clubbing, since she turned fifteen. Given her mature looks, she’d been pulling it off even though her mother was quite unhappy about it. According to Sarah, that past spring her mother had been relieved when Lindsey finally brought home a high school guy to spend the night with her rather than to go out to GCSU. She’d also been quite encouraging to the girls when she realized they were having sex when Sarah spent the night. From what Sarah said, her mother fully expected Lindsey to be sexually active, she just didn’t like her doing it with college guys. However, Misty didn’t know she’d been giving those college guys nude photos.

Misty replied, “You do know I won’t shoot full nudes of anyone under eighteen, don’t you?”

“Yea, Sarah told me so. Even though you shot plenty of her at the nude beach. But, yes, I get it. But she said you can shoot almost nude photos and lingerie pics of me. Is that right?”

Misty let her know that was the case. Since Misty didn’t have anything scheduled for that Saturday afternoon, she agreed to do the shoot then. It was only after she’d hung up that she remembered that Caitlin and her mother were going shopping in Macon that day and staying the night in a hotel. That was a big deal since it would be their first overnight trip in years, and was only possible because Mr. Bob was going on a hunting trip with his buddies. While she was very happy for Caitlin, that meant she didn’t have an assistant for the shoot she’d just promised.

She wasn’t sure why she’d told Lamar about the situation, but he quickly volunteered to be her assistant for the day. “I’ve seen what Caitlin does, and I’m sure I can do it,” he told her. Then he, much to her surprise added “And I’d like to learn to shoot like you do. I’m thinking about signing up for The Introduction to Publications class for second semester.”

Misty knew her little brother had often complained to their parents that he felt like he lived in his sister’s shadow, but now he seemed to be saying he wanted to follow her footsteps into photography. How could she say no? And she didn’t think Lindsey would mind Lamar seeing her naked. She was pretty sure he’d shared the Marshal’s hot tub with Sarah and Lindsey one evening the week before, so she had spent time around Lamar while naked already.

And so it was, starting in the middle of October that not only did her little brother become her back-up assistant, but she began systematically teaching him what she knew about photography. Between that and the fact that the two of them were both Sarah’s lovers she and Lamar were fast on the way to becoming real friends… as hard as that was for her to believe.

However, photography wasn’t the only thing happening at the Campbell’s home over the fall. Though it had taken a while to actually happen, Misty’s mother’s plan to provide the teenagers of their Youth Group a safe and comfortable place to explore their sexuality came to fruition in the months after the Euro-Club birthday party. In fact, by late October, the Campbell’s upstairs guest/playroom had become so busy that they had to work out a reservation system. This was largely due to the ten new Euro-Club members, but additionally, a few teenagers in the St. Thomas Youth Group who were not members of the Euro-Club had also begun taking advantage of the Campbell’s offer to use their playroom.

On Friday nights, Saturday afternoons & evenings, and Sunday afternoons and after Youth Group, couples used the room on a regular enough basis that it simply was not even note-worthy that teens were having sex in the room. Keli and Cody had been using the room once or twice a week for half-a-year before it was set up as a playroom. They continued to do so through the summer and fall. Though, as she’d been doing since the first time she’d joined them for a threesome, Misty invited them into her bed perhaps half of the times she was free when they came over.

Not all teen sex at the Campbell home was confined to the playroom, however. One morning in November, Misty got a text announcement that school was closed due to a water main break. Not long after she found out that school had been called off, Misty received a text from Everleigh asking if she would be interested in having her bring Timothy Jones and Jerry Opel from the Youth Group over for some playtime. Since this was a freebee day, and her one prior experience with Everleigh had told her they were very much alike and compatible as playmates, she decided to agree. She’d known both guys for years. She liked both of them, though she’d not even thought about them as playmates before. Since both her parents were at work in Augusta that day, Misty texted back that rather than use the playroom, they could all pile in her parent’s big bed with the mirror above it. Just a few minutes later Everleigh wrote back asking if Mimi and the two guys of her triad (David Ricemiller & Mitchel Smyth) could come too. Misty was happy to extend the invite, knowing that it would make for quite a day. Just to be safe, she called her mother and let her know what was going to happen. As expected, her mother not only was supportive but offered to let Misty use her debit card to order pizza for the group for lunch. It was quite a day. Afterward, she had a whole set of post-sex photos with new playmates for the second bulletin board she’d hung in the upstairs hallway.

While Misty had a steady stream of friends coming to see her at the house for photos and just to hang out (in addition to having sex); Lamar had a rather busy social life as well. He and Sarah’s relationship had progressively become a more and more important part of his life. Because their parents were in the same social circle, he and Sarah had been “playmates” since they were in diapers, yet before the start of the summer he would not even have listed her as belonging to his group of close friends. However, though unlooked for, things changed as the summer progressed. By October, his life and hers were intertwined on a nearly daily basis. By November, she was his first true love. Since Sarah now had her own car, every Friday night the two of them went out. Usually, they met up with friends for dinner, go to movies, or do other traditional activities for teenage dating couples. However, most of those Friday nights, unlike most teenage couples, ended with him sleeping in her bed.

At the Euro-Club party in September, even though he was a grade behind them, he had instantly made himself a reputation with the new group of club girls as someone worth bedding. Though he was still not engaging in vaginal sex, he and Sarah had several requests to have foursomes. Two of the six nights he spent in Sarah’s bed began that way, once with Cecilia & Louis and once with Tori & Dustin. Both times, Sarah, Lamar, and the other couple began in the Marshal’s hot tub before Mrs. Marshal provided the group with dinner.

As the sun sets, Celia and Louis relax in the Marshals hot tub with Sarah and Lamar

Only after the other couple had been at her home for close to two hours, the teenagers went upstairs. In Sarah’s bedroom, both times they followed the pattern he and Sarah had set at the party with Hannah & Troy. Right off they began with switching up the couples, Lamar with Celia or Tori, and Sarah with their boyfriends making out and engaging in oral sex until the group needed a rest. After they’d regained their energy, Sarah laid on her back with her head in Lamar’s lap so he could kiss her and caress her body as Louis (or Dustin) filled her with his latex-clad erection. Lamar knew how much Sarah enjoyed the experience, and since her happiness was everything to him, so did he. While it did not bother him that she got off while those other guys screwed her, occasionally he found himself longing to be the one bringing her that pleasure.

Both Celia and Tory seemed to enjoy watching their boyfriends do Sarah every bit as much as Sarah enjoyed getting banged. The night Celia and Louis had joined them, Lamar and Sarah went downstairs for a snack after the other couple had gone. When she saw them, Mrs. Marshal said, “I really liked that Celia, you should have her over again. Despite her blue hair, in talking to her, she is totally unpretentious. Yet, it is also obvious she is exceptionally bright and has an expansive view of the world for a teenager in Georgia.”

Sarah responded, “Yes, she is. She is the only one of the new club members that I didn’t know at all prior to this school year. But you are right, she is exceptional and she is a perfect fit for the club. I’ve enjoyed getting to know her this fall. And you are also right in describing her as unpretentious. That is the perfect word for her.”

Her mother had gone on, “Sarah, nearly all of your friends who come over try to pretend I don’t know what they are doing in your room. But as I walked Celia to the door, she quite sincerely thanked me for the use of the hot tub, for dinner, and for allowing her and Louis to join you and Lamar in your bedroom. She did not explicitly thank me for allowing her to have sex in my home, but it was clear that was what she meant.”

Sarah’s mother then looked right at Lamar, “And she had kind words for you. She said you are a very special boyfriend and Sarah is very fortunate to have you. She told me that she could tell by watching you that you got genuine joy from Sarah’s enjoyment of what Louis was doing to her. She said she’d expected just a little resentment that you weren’t allowed to do the same, but she said she didn’t feel any at all.”

Lamar always enjoyed it when people appreciated that he participated in those threesomes because he loved Sarah and liked to see her happy, not because of some selfish kink.

In addition to all the time he spent with Sarah over the fall, Lamar unexpectedly developed a relationship with Gabriella Motts (Gabby); one of the new Euro-Club girls. As November progressed, he tried to put a label on what they had. It was more than friendship and more than “pillow buddies,” but they weren’t quite a couple. He talked to Sarah about it, and he admitted he had feelings for her, but he couldn’t place them. She wasn’t mad or jealous. After all, she had overt romantic relationships with Misty, Bailey, and Lindsey. “…and besides,” she told Lamar, “I like Gabby and she is super cute. I wouldn’t object if you guys, like become a thing… as long as you let me join you two on occasion.”

Lamar knew Sarah meant what she said, she didn’t have any more jealousy than he had. And besides, he knew full well that Sarah went over to Bailey’s after church every Sunday. At least half of those days, Byron joined them in Bailey’s bed. So his girlfriend was fucking his best friend every other week when he was not there. Yes, Sarah told him that those times were about her and Bailey, not about Byron. But he also had noticed that how she described their threesomes had changed. At first, she would say “Byron and his dick are just an added pleasure while she and I make love. For us, it’s not about him or his dick, it’s about our relationship.” However, by the end of October that had changed. He couldn’t miss when she first said, “For me, my threesomes with Bailey and Byron are about my love for Bailey, though for her it is about having the two people she loves in the bed with her at the same time.” Not that it bothered him, he was actually happy for Byron and Bailey, but it was different. One Saturday night Sarah told him, “Bailey really likes watching me and Byron, her two lovers, enjoy each other. I guess it’s just like my mother told me how she and my dad both enjoy watching the other have sex with other people, and how it makes them love each other more, not less.” It was with that background; he and Gabby became more than just friends.

His special relationship with Gabriella Motts had come to pass because every other week or so, after Youth Group, Gabby brought Hannah and Troy by the house so they could have sex in the playroom before the girls drove back home to Milledgeville. The first time (the week after the Euro-Club party), over the hour or so the other couple was busy in the playroom, Gabby asked Lamar to go with her to look in on Gabby & Troy twice. Most of the time though, he and Gabby were downstairs in the game room just talking. He was not expecting to enjoy spending time with her as much as he did.

The second time they went up to the playroom, Troy was holding Hannah’s legs up & open as he screwed her. Gabby surprised Lamar when she turned to kiss him. He very much enjoyed their prolonged kiss even as they heard Hannah climax. It was his first concrete hint that perhaps Gabby wanted a relationship. It was during the week after that event that he first texted her. The next week, he called Gabby to just talk on Tuesday evening while Sarah was at play rehearsal, though he made sure to be above board with Sarah about that.

The second time she was over, two weeks later, while they watched Hannah blow Troy, Gabby suggested they go to Lamar’s room. Right off she looked at the posters on his walls of Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke). Lamar seeing her interest said, “My mom met her at the art show in New York this summer.”

“That is so cool,” Gabby said. “Your mom lives a life I can only dream about.”

He then opened his laptop to show her the photo of his mother posing with Emilia Clark, “I know she looks different with her hair her natural color, but if you look past that you can see it is the same person.” Then he opened the second photo, this one with his mother and both Emilia Clark and Gillian Moyers.

Gabby looked at the photo of Mrs. C. and the two stars. After a moment she said, “All of their dresses are amazing. In that outfit, your mother is certainly every bit as sexy and glamorous as those movie stars. She looks more like one of them than like a tourist.” She looked up at the posters on the wall, then back to the picture on the screen. “So, do you think I look like her, Emilia Clark,… when she is a blond I mean?” Without waiting for an answer, while looking directly at the two posters that showed the star of Game of Thrones unclothed, she said with a wicked smile, “But, I’ve got better boobs than she does.”

Seeing her in the room with those posters he realized she did indeed look rather like Daenerys. Lamar actually had never thought of that before, but he didn’t miss a beat and replied, “Oh, so does that mean you will be letting me compare you with her tonight?”

She kept up the smile and said, “Well it depends on how good you kiss me.”

They made out nearly the entire time Hannah and Troy were in the playroom. Before they were done, she did indeed expose her breasts to let him compare them to those of his dream woman. And she was right, hers were larger and better looking. His “correct” response led to her offer for him to kiss and suck them. After that night, Lamar was texting or talking to Gabby on the phone most days.

The third time Gabby and Hannah came over (in the middle of October), upon entering his room, Gabby simply removed all her clothes without any warm-up or warning. Clearly, she’d planned her actions in advance. He naturally followed suit. Though she let him know right off that she was not yet ready for oral sex, within fifteen minutes he had gotten her off with his hands as they kissed. Then Lamar guided her to ride his thigh to orgasm. She’d never even heard of doing that and she was both thrilled and grateful for his suggestion and guidance. She was so grateful; she gave him a hand job till he too climaxed. He had been worried that she’d be grossed out by it because Sarah had warned him that some girls react that way the first time. However, Gabby actually giggled when she saw (and felt) his semen all over her hand.

When Hannah and Troy were done, they found Lamar and Gabby asleep cuddled naked in his bed in post-orgasmic bliss. After Hannah woke them up and Gabby began to get dressed, she went on and on to Hannah about the amazing experiences she’d just had with Lamar. Hannah was clearly happy for her best friend. Not surprisingly, the next time she came over Gabby was ready for Lamar to go down on her.

She literally cried with joy after he’d brought her off the second time. Though she let him know she’d not planned on doing so, she asked to suck his cock. She didn’t even flinch when he came in her mouth, rather once he was done, she asked if he could do that again.

He told her, “If we had more time, or we had started with you sucking me off before I did you, I could do it. But I don’t think I can get it back up in the little time we have left.”

So instead, with both of them still nude, she dragged Lamar down the hallway to tell Hannah what they’d done. They found Hannah riding Troy. She sat right on the bed to tell her closest friend her story of giving and receiving oral sex for the first time. When she was done, Hannah asked “Can I taste it?”

Gabby’s eyes went wide, “You mean in my mouth? Are you asking if you can kiss me?”

Hannah smiled, “Yes, that is exactly what I’m asking. I know you’ve wanted us to do it for some time, but I was waiting till you were ready. I’m pretty sure you are now.”

Gabby, still unable to verbalize a response only nodded. As she continued to grind on Troy, Hannah pulled Gabby’s face to hers and their lips joined, then parted as Hanna slid her tongue into Gabby’s mouth. The kiss continued long after both girls’ hands began to caress the other’s breasts and Troy had climaxed. When they pulled their faces apart, Hannah quietly said, “Would you like to spend the night at my house one night this week so we can carry this to the conclusion that I know we both have wanted for a long time.”

Gabby, almost in a whisper said “Yes. Yes, I do.”

A few minutes later, Lamar and Gabby had gone to his room to get dressed. Without warning Gabby grabbed him and kissed him hard and deep. She then said, “Thank you. I don’t have the words to say how amazing tonight has been.” She paused then asked, “Would it be possible for me to drive over one evening so you and I can have like a good long time with just me and you?”

Lamar, with a surprising breathlessness, said “Yes, I would like that.”

She followed up with “What about Sarah? Will she mind?”

“No, as long as we do it on a night that she is at play rehearsal I’m sure she will be totally on board with it. But I’ll ask her anyway.”

“That would be good.”

And that is what happened. He talked to Sarah, and she was indeed very supportive, even encouraging. On two Thursdays in November and one in December, Gabby came over and had dinner with the Campbell family before the two of them spent several hours in his bedroom. When she’d been with him in early December, Gabby said plainly, “When you are ready to start having sex, I mean dick in pussy sex, I am ready. I want you to be my first. I know Sarah will be the first for you, but I’d like to be your second.”

He'd kissed her and said, “Yes, I’d like that too. Sarah and I haven’t made a firm plan, but I think we will be doing it the Friday that school lets out for Christmas break. That is two weeks from tomorrow. Perhaps you can come over on the following Monday. School will be out for Christmas break so we could take all day.”

She kissed him again, “As long as Sarah says it’s OK with her. If she does, I will be looking forward to it. Hannah has promised to go with me to a clinic where I can get birth control when I’m ready. Tonight, I’ll text her to let her know I am ready now.”

That led into another round of lovemaking (sans vaginal penetration).

After she left, Lamar called Sarah and told her all about what had happened and his promise to Gabby. As he knew she would be, she was totally supportive.

Lamar’s surety that Sarah would not object to him having vaginal sex with Gabby was bolstered by his knowledge that in addition to having sex with Bailey & Byron without him, he knew that twice when she’d gone to Lindsey’s after play rehearsal at the Milledgeville Community theater, a guy from Baldwin Central High had joined them in bed. Then, on the second Friday of December, while his mother was in Minnesota and his father was at Sherry & Maggie’s Soiree, Sarah had invited Lamar to go with her to spend the night at Lindsey’s rather than at her house. He’d been quite nervous since it was one thing to go to Sarah’s house where her parents knew full well they would be having sex, it was something quite different to go to the house of people he’d never met to do the same. Though after all the things he’d learned the week before about Ms. Slosh (as all the club had come to call Sarah’s mom) and Mrs. Anderson, he knew she wasn’t at all an anti-sex conservative. On the way over, Sarah let him know that Lindsey had invited her over for the night specifically because her mom’s new husband was out of town. He recalled that the man wanted Ms. Slosh to have a threesome with him and Lindsey’s mom the next time Sarah slept over at their house. Evidently, Lindsey’s mother wasn’t too keen on that. Sarah also reminded him “My mom and Lindsey’s mom plan on going to Atlanta tomorrow night to drink, dance, and get laid while he isn’t home.”

With that in mind, Lamar was not nearly as apprehensive about going to their house to have sex as he would have been. It didn’t take long to realize his presence and the purpose of his visit was not a secret or a problem for Lindsey’s mother, who insisted he call by her first name, Sharon. Right at the dinner table, she said, “I loved the lingerie and semi-nude photos you and your sister took of Lindsey last month. Misty is very talented.”

Though Lamar knew he shouldn’t be based on what he knew about Lindsey’s’ mom, he was surprised by that statement. So, it took him a moment to reply, “Yes, she is. Though I’d never tell her that. She is my bossy big sister after all.”

Lindsey’s mother laughed, “Lindsey and her big brother only became friends after he move to Atlanta. So, I understand. But the photos really are very good. I particularly liked the set she did in the cast iron gazebo on your patio.”

To that Lindsey and Sarah both agreed.

Mrs. Anderson… Sharon, went on “Just like your parents and Sarah’s parents, a long time ago, I gave Lindsey the freedom to express her sexuality in the way she thinks best. However, for a while there…mostly before she and Sarah became an item, she was making some very bad choices.”

Lindsey nodded, “A couple of times I came home so drunk from parties over at GCSU that I didn’t know what all I’d done or who I’d done it with. But I haven’t been so stupid as to get shit-faced drunk since February when I got chlamydia at a party.”

Again, Lamar knew he shouldn’t be surprised, but was. For Lindsey to casually talk about getting an STI at the dinner table as if it were nothing of note was pretty out there. But, he reasoned, that wasn’t all too different than dinner conversation at his house. Though no one in his family ever got so drunk they didn’t know what they had done the next day, however, his mother had gotten an STI while in New York.

Lindsey continued without a break, “And like this summer it was the complete opposite. While I was with my dad in Oklahoma, he and his wife kept me locked in a box. Ten weeks with no sex at all… except what I had with my little battery-powered vibrator. It was terrible.”

That got laughs all around.

Lindsey’s mother picked back up, “Now that she’s home again and has become involved with the Euro-Club, I feel much better. Drinking just isn’t part of your club’s culture, but using condoms is.”

Sarah agreed.

Sharon went on, “Lindsey told me all about the club party in September. It was the first time she’s ever confided in me about a party she’d gone to like that. If for no other reason than that, I’m so glad she joined the club. Understand, I’m not easily blown away by sex stuff, but the things she told me were way beyond my experience. Not bad, but… well if it hadn’t been Lindsey telling me, I wouldn’t have believed half of it.” Looking at Lamar she said, “I’ve never met your mother, but I would love to. Slosh has told me a lot about her and how you and your sister were raised.”

At hearing the word Slosh, Sarah’s head jerked up from her plate and her eyes widened. Though last week Sarah and Lamar had been told that Mrs. Anderson knew all about Ms. Slosh, just hearing the name got her daughter’s attention.

Sharon smiled. To Sarah, she said, “Oh, even though you just learned recently about it, I’ve known about your mother’s alter ego for years. Remember that she and I have known each other since you girls started at the Community Theater when you were in 3rd grade. Right off we realized that we were kindred spirits in a part of the country that is hostile to most everything we believe in. Many times over the past seven or eight years she has been my savior since she was the only person I knew who I could talk to about my life. It was weird though because I knew she was hiding who she really was from the entire community. I’m thrilled she’s starting to come out of the closet and I’m so looking forward to tomorrow night.”

Sarah just nodded in understanding.

Turning back to Lamar, Sharon continued what she’d been saying. “From what Slosh told me, your mother thought this all out from before you were even born. She’s light years ahead of me. I just made things up as I went. Perhaps that is why I made so many mistakes. When Lindsey told me about what had happened at the party at your house, I was really impressed by her strong stand on alcohol and drugs, while taking a radically positive view on nudity and sex. I mean the idea of a room right off your living room filled with nudes of your mom that your friends are freely allowed to go in. I wish I had that kind of courage. And do you really have a room for the club girls to have sex in… with photos showing your mother doing it with lots of different people on the walls?”

Lamar nodded, but Sarah offered, “The pictures are very artistic, not trashy porn. But the room is super cool, and it makes a real impact on everyone who sees it.”

“I bet it does,” Lindsey’s mother replied. “I could never do that. I wish I could, but I couldn’t. And the idea of Lindsey having sex right in front of me makes me nauseous. I mean I’m all for her enjoying her teenage years just like I did, but I expect you guys to keep that door firmly shut all night.”

Both Sarah and Lindsey laughed before Sarah said “But I can’t promise we will be quiet.”

Sharon smiled, “That’s OK, my bedroom is on the other side of the house, and I’ll have the TV on the whole time.”

To spare Mrs. Anderson’s feelings, they didn’t even go into Lindsey’s bedroom until after Allen arrived. Because he was playing one of the lead parts in Baldwin Central High’s production of Scrooge, he couldn’t come until close to 10 PM due to his play rehearsal. Lamar was a little intimidated since not only was Allen a senior, he was rather good-looking and he’d had sex with Sarah twice before. But he need not have been. Allen was very positive and made it clear from the start that he respected Lamar even though he was only a sophomore. He said “You must be quite a guy to have enough confidence to give your girlfriend the freedom to not only have a relationship with Lindsey but for her to have sex with Lindsey’s friends. I’m not sure I could do that if Lindsey and I were more than just friends with benefits.”

Lamar had heard that kind of statement before, and it always befuddled him. He never understood why any guy thought he could give or not give a girl permission to do what she wanted with her own body. However, Lamar was not put off by Allen’s comment and when they transitioned to the bedroom, it felt very comfortable. For the first hour or so it went more or less like the other times he and Sarah had been with another couple. It was only while they were taking a break that Lindsey said to Lamar “I don’t know if you are aware, but just like you, Allen is very comfortable having sex with guys. Are you interested?”

Sometime around midnight in Lindsey’s bed, Lamar felt a real cock up his ass for the first time. He’d sucked off Byron at least fifty times by then, and Sarah had done him with her strap-on, but a real dick in his ass was a very different experience…a real milestone. After the initial moments of discomfort, as the head of Allen’s cock pushed through his sphincter[U1] , he’d very much enjoyed the experience of an older guy getting off on fucking him. While Sarah and Lindsay thoroughly enjoyed watching the boys doing sixty-nine, they both agreed that seeing Allen fuck Lamar was over-the-top hot. More than once their girl-girl sex came to a stop as they both watched the guy-guy action.

Allen left around 1:30 AM, but different couplings of Lindsey, Sarah, and Lamar kept going on and off till nearly dawn. Just before noon the next day, as he and Sarah drove from Milledgeville back to Sparta, they both agreed they had made the final step before they would begin having vaginal sex. It was then they firmly decided on the date for their first time: the evening after school let out for Christmas Break, that coming Friday.

Later that day, Sarah told her parents about their decision, but Lamar had to wait for his mother to make it home from Minnesota on Sunday afternoon. When he told her about his experiences at Lindsey’s, she said she wished he’d waited to have penetrative sex with Sarah first, but that she understood how things happen. He’d actually not thought of what he did with Allen as actual sex the way he’s been waiting so long to do with Sarah. Yet even as his mother spoke, he realized that since she regularly enjoyed the same men fucking her pussy and ass, she would naturally see them as the same. That made him feel bad like he’d betrayed Sarah. Though his mother’s support for his and Sarah’s date that coming Friday eased the sting some.

Monday night, the Marshals came over for dinner at the Campbells. Right off, the conversation was about the plan that Sarah and Lamar had made. Early on Bonnie announced, “Tomorrow Slosh is not scheduled to be in the classroom, and I’ve accrued more than enough time off from my travels, so I will be taking the day off.”

Sarah’s mother got a broad grin and explained, “I’ve talked to DeeDee already, and as an RN, she will write medical excuses for Sarah and Bailey saying neither of them is up to going to school tomorrow due to nonspecific mental health issues. DeeDee Hildebrandt, MSN, RN, APRN, has prescribed a treatment regimen consisting of one day of lingerie shopping therapy in Atlanta for both of them. Bonnie and I have agreed to facilitate the treatment tomorrow.”

It was evident to everyone that this was a complete surprise to Sarah.

To both Lamar and Sarah, Bonnie said “We want to help make this a big deal for both of you. We know how much you two have worked to stay within the bounds we’d set for you and we know it hasn’t been easy.”

Misty added, “And Sarah, your mother has scheduled a lingerie shoot with me for you and Bailey after school on Thursday afternoon. She has already talked to Mrs. Hildebrandt about that too and she’s totally on board.”

There was some lively conversation as the two mothers waited to drop their next bombshell. Eventually, Slosh joked, “I suspect that beginning minutes after Lamar arrives at my house Friday evening, I won’t see either of them until I have to drag them out of Sarah’s bed to go to Youth Group on Sunday night.”

Her daughter shot right back, “Yes and no. Yes, we will be doing it all day and most of the night. But you are wrong to assume you won’t see us. First, we will have to stop to eat. Sex burns a lot of calories and we will need to keep up our energy levels. Second, you are assuming we will only have sex in my bedroom. We will most certainly be getting busy in the hot tub…and who knows where else.”

Lamar followed up with, “We’ve been holding back for more than four months. Even with everyone else in both families fucking their brains out, we have been biding our time. So, you bet we’ll be doing it non-stop.”

There was general agreement that he and Sarah were entitled, but Bonnie poured cold water on them when she pointed out that both Lamar and Sarah had family obligations that next week due to Christmas. To her son she said, “It’s not like you can tell your Nana Campbell that you can’t go see her Christmas Eve this year because you are too busy having sex with your girlfriend. We won’t just let you move into Sara’s bedroom for two weeks.”

Lamar reluctantly agreed.

Any disappointment Sarah and Lamar had with Mrs. C.’s words was washed away in the next few minutes. Mr. Marshal abruptly changed the subject when he said, “Slosh and I have booked our flight to Miami, we will be leaving the day after Christmas.”

Cooper replied, “That’s new. Why?”

Ms. Slosh replied, “Elijah & Holly Feldman have invited us down to stay with them. We’ve been talking about it since I spent the weekend with Elijah last month, but we just made firm plans last night and Mike made our flight reservations before we went to bed.”

Misty asked, “By staying with, do you mean in a guest bedroom, or in their bed?”

Ms. Slosh seemed to anticipate the question. “That is sort of uncertain. Holly definitely wants the four of us to openly sleep together in their king-sized bed at least some of the nights. After I spent the weekend with Elijah, we talked and she told me that she and Hannah had the conversation she’d been wanting to have, but dreading since that day with us on the beach. She’s eleven now and maturing so fast her mother is reeling.”

Bonnie quipped, “Been there done that.”

Sarah chimed in, “From the things she said to us while Bailey and I taught her to skim board, I’m pretty sure she already knew a lot more than her mother suspected.”

Ms. Slosh nodded, “Yes, she found that out when she tried to casually slip into a conversation with Hannah that her father was meeting me in New York City that weekend. Hannah right out asked her mother if her father and I would be sleeping together.”

Sarah laughed, “You can see why Bailey and I got along with her even though she was just ten last summer.”

Bonnie asked, “And? What did Holly do?”

“They had a sit-down and she told Hannah everything. She came clean about her relationship with Mira and with Yoel. It seems that her daughter had known about her mom and Mira for some time and that she’d suspected Holly was also sleeping with Yoel as well.”

Sarah barked, “I told you so. Parents think they can put things over on their kids, but it never works. You should hear Lindsey talk about her mother’s sex life back when she was Hannah’s age.”

Ms. Slosh brought the conversation back on track by saying, “So, no matter the sleeping arrangements, we will be leaving on the 26th, and won’t be back until the night of the 1st. Mike and I will be doing New Year’s at their swing club.”

Misty said, “Too cool. I’m jealous.”

Bonnie grimaced, “So am I. While Slosh and Mike are living it up in Miami, Cooper and I will be driving to see my dad in Tennessee. So that we won’t miss Youth Group, we won’t leave till Monday and will be back on Saturday the 2nd.”

Ms. Slosh picked right up, “Which means you two,” looking at Sarah and Lamar, “Will be house-sitting together at our place for a whole week.”

It took Sarah slightly longer than Lamar to process what she was saying. Lamar stammered, “You mean….”

Sarah cut him off with “You are letting us stay together the whole week, by ourselves?”

Lamar looked over to his parents. They were both grinning. Bonnie answered Sarah’s question, “That is exactly what she means. There will be some overlap between when we will be in Tennessee and the Marshals will be in Miami, but yes, for six days you will be playing house. Your self-control over the past four months has proven that you have the maturity to do this.”

Sarah and Lamar were bouncing in their chairs with excitement.

Ms. Slosh calmly said, “Of course, there will be some rules while we are gone.”

Mr. Marshal put in, “Both DeeDee and Trish will be checking up on you.”

Sarah’s mom nodded, “Yes they will be coming in when they drop Byron and Bailey off to stay a night or two with you guys.”

Once again, Sarah’s father added stipulations, “But they will be the only ones allowed in the house the entire week.”

“AND…” Ms. Slosh said firmly, “With my mother flying in on Sunday the 3rd, the price for the use of my home as your love nest is that I expect it to be spotless when we get back from Miami.”

No matter how many rules and restrictions were put on, nothing could diminish the fact that they would have the whole house to themselves for a week.

After dinner, as the adults were making their goodbyes, Lamar asked Sarah, “I don’t want to sound over-eager, but you remember what I promised Gabby?”

Sarah took Lamar’s hand. “I’ve already thought of that. It will have to be next Monday or Tuesday. Are you thinking about asking her over for lunch, then playtime?”

Though they had talked about his promise that Gabby would be his second, he had been apprehensive about bringing it up on what was really an evening of celebration for him and Sarah. “I was thinking exactly that. I told her Monday before, but I could tell her Tuesday. Do you have a preference?” Lamar asked.

“I don’t, but you should ask your mother to be sure she doesn’t have plans for you,” Sarah answered.

Once the Marshals were gone, Lamar talked to his mother about Gabby. She told him that she and his father were planning on getting some Christmas shopping done on Monday. “We plan on being gone all day, so, I think Monday would be the best choice. I’ll make sure there is something simple to prepare in the refrigerator for you guys to make your own lunch.”

He thanked her and went up to his room to call Gabby.

The shopping trip to Atlanta the next day was a huge event for both Sarah and Bailey; and not just because they were skipping school with their mother’s permission. Going into “the city” for an all-day shopping excursion just for them was quite the treat, and even more so since it had seemingly come out of the blue. Though Marcy had tried to resist it, DeeDee handed her $200 for each of the girls.

As Bonnie drove them up the highway to Atlanta, the girls said that they couldn’t believe how much money Bailey’s mother had given them to spend. They seemed to believe it was an insane amount, but Bonnie assured them it was not. “Since the plan is for each of you to come home with two complete, high-quality, lingerie outfits; I predict the $400 DeeDee sent will be just about what Bailey will need, by herself… if you are careful with what you buy.”

While the girls did not tell Bonnie she was wrong, it was clear they did not believe her. Only once they began going to the boutique lingerie shops did they see the truth in what Mrs. C. had told them in the car.

Initially, when she’d heard about going out lingerie shopping, Sarah, who was a declared and committed nudist, expressed that she didn’t understand why she needed lingerie. However, as she and Bailey began to try things on that drew attention to their shape and sexuality, Bonnie was sure Sarah had warmed up to the idea. By the time they had finished shopping and were all gathered at a very nice downtown restaurant, she appeared giddy about her two lingerie outfits. She thanked both moms profusely for the entire day’s activities and told them how much she was looking forward to her photo shoot on Thursday.

Bailey had needed no such warmup period. Bonnie knew that for months she and her mother had engaged in a little ritual. Every Sunday afternoon, when DeeDee got home from “work,” she pulled off her scrubs to show Bailey which lingerie set she’d been wearing. Then she’d tell her daughter about her day “at work,” before Sarah arrived for lunch (sometimes bringing Byron with her).

Because of her mother’s example, Bailey totally saw the value of putting on special clothes for a day of sex. For her, the opportunity to begin building her own lingerie wardrobe was a big deal.