In Search of the Final Freedom: Chapter 68A

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

BOOK Five

Revolution and Counterrevolution

Chapter 68

The Assault Begins

Author's Note: Only with this fifth 'book' do we get to the heart of my opus. From here on out readers will see a change in tone: sharper and more direct. I hope those of you who have come this far will see it to the end.

As soon as the plane had come to a halt at Hartsfield–Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, all four Campbell’s had their phones and iPad’s out and were powering them up to collect a weeks’ worth of messages. Not surprisingly Misty’s message box was full.

They exited the plane and they began the hour-long process of going through customs at the world’s busiest airport. Misty went first to her text messages before her voice mail. The first few were just ‘Have fun’ messages and such but finally she opened a message from Rebecca:

The Euro Club invites you to a Spring Break Bash at Lake Sinclair This Friday. It will be the party of the year!!!!

We will be looking to name the Hottest High School Girl and Guy in Hancock County. So, girls wear your sexiest bikini and guys be sure to show off those pecks.At 4:00 will be the first annual “Lake-Dip tee-shirt Contest” – so girls bring the thinnest tee-shirt you dare, and be in on the action.

We’ll kick-off at noon.  Look for the sign posted on Hwy 235 near Lake Sinclair Road, just past the old Phillips 66 station.

Be there!

PS we are asking for a $10 per person cover donation to help offset the costs. 

Misty read and reread the message. She had no idea what this was about. She was quite sure nothing like that had been planned before she left. The message was date-stamped Sunday evening.

Still puzzled she opened the next message and the next and the next all three were the same. They were asking her what she knew about the first message.

Then she opened a message from Kelli:

If you get this PLEASE call me ASAP

I talked to Timothy Jones and he said he received a different invite to the party. The version he got makes it clear it is going to be a beer bash and no ID's would be required. As far as I know, no club member or their boyfriends received that message, so apparently someone has access to club information and is deliberately keeping us in the dark.

Misty opened another message from Caitlin that essentially said the same thing.

There were several dozen messages from people she did not know at all, all asking about the party. From some of the messages, it appeared the invitation had been sent not only to people at Jefferson Davis High School, but to students at several other schools in the region.

A message dated on Tuesday was sent along with a photo of the club that had not been publicly released. It was a group shot from the day they’d made the first group photos of the enlarged Euro-Club. It was one from the set where all twenty of them were posed in and around the hot tub, mostly fully nude but no “naughty” parts were visible. It was a very popular photo. But this was a different one from that set where a couple of the older girls (who were already eighteen when it had been taken) had not covered their breasts. Misty had given it out to the club girls with the understanding they would not share it. Misty had vetoed using that particular image on the website or social media because it was more than she wanted to put out publicly. But somehow, someone had access to the club’s photos that had not been shared publicly.  Misty had a sinking feeling because she knew it had to have come from a club member. The text said:

The Euro Club is looking forward to seeing you. We hope you look forward to seeing more of all of us on Friday… and you know we like showing off.

She switched to her voicemail inbox. It was similar. Lots of questions about the mysterious party. How late will it go? Will the Euro Club go topless? Can my boyfriend from GCSU come? She began just erasing them as soon as she saw what they were about. Kelli’s voice stopped her, it seemed frantic.

“Misty, this thing is getting out of hand and is way out of any of our control. It seems our name and contact list has been stolen by, well I don’t exactly know by whom. I know Hope and Iris are in on it, but I’m not sure who else. I tried to call them but they have not returned my calls. I think this thing is going to be a disaster. What are they thinking? I really need to talk to you. Call me as soon as you can”

Misty was now alarmed. What was going on?

She looked over at her mom. She appeared to have been getting the same confusing messages as well. “I got a message from Marcy,” Bonnie said tensely. “Your friends are up to something and I’m afraid it is going to end badly.”

Misty told her of her messages.  “I’m going to call Kelli.”

Bonnie decided to wait to see what her daughter's friend said before calling Marcy.

Misty began to talk on her phone, but soon was silent. Bonnie could hear the chirping sounds coming from Misty’s phone, but could not make out the words. Misty stood in silence for a good while, her face slowly draining of color.

“I don’t know,” Misty said despondently into the phone. “Just stay home. If anyone asks make sure they know you weren’t there and I was out of town.”

She went back to listening again, then said “I hear what you're saying but there is nothing I can do right now. We are in customs, and I don’t know how long it will take. We hope to be back home by 8:00 tonight. I’ll call you then.”

When Misty put down the cell phone Bonnie asked “Well?”

“She doesn’t know the details, but it seems that there was a lake party yesterday supposedly put on by the Euro Club. Kelli wasn’t there, but from what she has heard, there were hundreds, maybe over a thousand students from Jeff Davis, Baldwin Central, and other high schools in the region.  There were booths selling beer to anyone no matter their age, and apparently weed was also being openly sold in pre-rolled joints. I don’t know who did what but, lots of kids were drunk or stoned, there was a wet tee-shirt contest where at least some of the drunk girls took off their tee-shirts, and more than a few people went skinny dipping and there was some public sex. The Sheriff’s department showed up sometime in the late afternoon and arrested a bunch of people, she thinks over a hundred.  What for exactly Kelli didn’t know, but I can guess. I think it made news in Macon and in Atlanta because it’s on the TV, and it very specifically mentioned the Euro Club from Jefferson Davis High School as the sponsor of the party.”

Bonnie now saw why her daughter's face went pale. This was bad, very bad. She could imagine lots of awful scenarios, and several catastrophic ones as well.

“I’ll call Marcy and see what she knows.” She then realized that Marcy might well still be in transit from her trip to Miami and likely didn’t know anything about it. Still, she called but did not get an answer.

“I’ll try Trish.”

The phone rang and Trish picked up.

“Hey Trish, we're back in Atlanta how was your stay at Hilton Head with Mr. Ravenel?”

“It was simply amazing. I will spend hours telling you all about it, but ….”  Bonnie didn’t have to ask her for information; Trish went into it fast “I’m so glad you called. The town’s going crazy.”

Bonnie replied “We just got in, but I have all these messages. Give me the whole story.”

“I don’t know a lot about what happened earlier, but from what Byron told me, Bailey told him that Iris and Caitlin had a fight last Saturday, right after you left. By Monday they had pulled the girls into two respective camps.  He said the fight might have something to do with yesterday's lake party, but he doesn’t know any more about that. What he does know is that Iris helped a friend, or perhaps a cousin, to work with someone he met online who wanted to put on a wild Spring Break party for local high school students. The people who put on the party contacted Iris directly and she provided them with the club's contact list and at least one previously unreleased club photo. I guess all that was used to convince people that the club really was sponsoring the party. It looks like the people who wanted to put on the event just used the Euro Club’s reputation and contacts to help promote their party. From what Byron knows, the people putting on the party used the contact list to expand their reach and to exclude some of the messages going out to club members or their boyfriends, so he didn’t get some of the messages, but his friends did. But he said that from talking to other people, he thinks nearly every student at both Jeff Davis and Baldwin Central got the invitations. As I understand it, with Misty unavailable, Iris’s help gave the real sponsors of the party room to claim the party was sponsored by the club. But, Byron is sure that no club member, not even Iris, actually had any part in putting the event on.”

“Caitlin, Haley, and Kelli were angry with Iris from the first. They knew how Iris had invited her cousin's stoner friends to use your pool while you were out of town helping your father back in September. This just seemed like the same thing, only worse. They understood why Misty was so careful to keep all the club activities as rigidly within the law as possible so as not to dilute the club’s message. Evidently, Iris just never really got what was going on beyond all the fun they were having. She in turn convinced Hope and Jeanette that Caitlin was picking on her, saying she was trying to take over the club in Misty’s absence.”

“Caitlin really tried to get the word out that the club wasn’t part, but the only two copies of the club's contact list were on Iris’s computer and on Misty’s – so, most people believed they were invited to a Euro Club keg party. So yesterday, as many as a thousand kids from Jeff Davis and other high schools showed up. According to the news reports beer was being openly sold to underage kids and one report was of a booth that sold marijuana joints. There are photos circulating of everything, kids with beer in their hands and what appears to be people openly smoking marijuana. Byron showed me pics he’d gotten of an official wet tee-shirt contest, one of them showing a good many girls in see-through wet tee-shirts or just plain topless. In several, Iris is among the topless girls and in one, I’m not sure if it was taken during the contest or after, but she is totally nude, posing with a group of guys.”

“The DNR water patrol busted some kids out on the lake.  Not only were they driving a speed boat while drunk, but the girl on the tube they were pulling was topless.  The kids they arrested then must have told the DNR people about the party because about 6:00 PM, the Sheriff’s department swooped down and all hell broke loose. There were way too many kids to arrest them all, but they did fill the county jail and Sparta’s jail as well. From what the news said, there was profligate illegal and lewd behavior and underage drinking, but the only people taken in were those who were visibly intoxicated or in possession of drugs. Those who were naked and couldn’t get dressed before they were stopped were just given tickets. And according to Byron, there are hundreds of camera phone pics and videos being circulated of everything that happened. So far, only Iris and Hope are in any of the photos he’s seen. He doesn’t know if any other club members were there.”

Bonnie was taking it all in with a growing horror. “Any of our girls busted?”

“Not that I know of, but to be fair, as far as I know, the only ones that went to the lake yesterday were Iris, Hope, and Jeanette. Even though Sarah was in Miami, she was able to make sure that none of the younger club girls went at all. But that didn’t stop the TV from reporting on quote: the notoriously promiscuous group known as the Euro Club planned and organized the event.”

Bonnie could not help but say “Oh no!” out loud.

“It gets worse” Trish continued “In an interview this morning Sheriff Johnny Brown said that the department would investigate this to see if anti-gang laws could be used to punish the group responsible. Of course, he meant the club and I’m concerned that they might go after you and Cooper as well. You might want to call Mike Marshal. I think he has taken on the task of representing the club girls on this.”

Bonnie just stood in the long customs line, stunned. This was worse than her imagination had conceived. “Thanks Trish. I’ll call when we get back to town.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure.”

Cooper could tell something was wrong.

“I think we just went from a week in paradise to hell,” Bonnie said glumly before reporting what Trish had said.

Taking Trish’s suggestion, Cooper called Mike. After talking for a few minutes he hung up and said, “Mike has already talked to the sheriff’s department. He has told them that he is representing Misty and the club on this.” He looked at his daughter and said, “He needs you to call him when we get home to officially make him your representative. But he has already informed the Sheriff's Department’s investigators that you have been out of the country for a full week and had no part in planning or approving the event at Lake Sinclair. I told him that was correct. Was I wrong?”

“No,” Misty said, “I’d never heard about any of this until just now.”

As her parents discussed the matter, Misty suddenly did not want to be the adult she had been over the last week, she wanted Mommy and Daddy to take care of this mess. Cooper went on to tell them that, as Misty has been out of the country since before this party was planned, she should not be in any legal danger. He did say he expected the district attorney to look into charging all of the club members, regardless if they were present or not.  But he said, while he could do that, without any evidence that they were part of putting on the event, he really can’t do much but grandstand for political points.”

Bonnie hadn’t even considered that to certain officials, the facts wouldn’t matter nearly as much as political opportunism. But she knew that was a real concern.

Cooper then added, “Mike was, however; concerned about how this would be used by Margo and her group to attack us directly and our mission with the FFF. He’s already called Maggie to tell her what he knows. He suggests I contact her as well.”

Bonnie agreed, then told Misty, “You need to go on social media right now and post categorical denials that the club had any part of what went on at the lake. Specifically, say that you had not authorized the release of any information or club photos to any third party and that you would look into how someone was able to get that information. Don’t throw Iris under the bus, but you have to make it clear that no individual club member, other than you, can speak for the club as a whole. Even if others have made such posts, something should come from you. Everybody knows that you are the leader of the Euro Club.”

Misty agreed and pulled her iPad from her bag to do just that.

Bonnie thought for a few moments then suggested, “But, on the other hand, might this be just the opportunity to get the press to pick up our story and get it out?” Her mood buoyed at her own words. “Sure this might be nasty, but if we fight it out, it might, just might, work to benefit our cause.” She was trying to convince herself with her words, but could not quite believe them.

With minds racing with competing thoughts and concerns, the family worked their way through customs.

Lamar however, wasn’t really that interested in what happened at Lake Sinclair. He, along with Sarah, Byron, and Bailey, had been out of town all week. What he did do, while his parents and Misty were preoccupied, was to move two photos from his tablet to his phone. One of him and Chloé and another of him and Emily. In both, it was clear they were naked and the girl’s boobs were fully on display. But he was careful that in the pics he sent, no dick or pussy was showing. He was sure those photos were quite legal because he knew full well that Bailey had sent pic messages of her topless on South Beach to her mother. Sure he was on solid ground, he sent the two pics to Sarah, Byron, and Bailey with a note saying the girls were his “temporary girlfriends.” He didn’t have to spell out he’d had a lot of sex with each of them, they would know what he meant.

What he did not do was to let his parents or sister know what he was doing. It was one thing to feel sure it was legal, it was something else to give one of them a chance to say he shouldn’t do it. Message sent, he deleted the photos from his phone along with the message itself.

Once in the car, Misty made that call to Mr. Marshal. She assured him that she had not heard anything about the lake party until after she had arrived in Atlanta. She explained that her parents had deliberately not purchased an international plan for their cell phones before they left so that the family could just unplug for the week. “If I had gotten that first email invitation, I would have acted.”

When Mr. Marshal directly asked, Misty said he could tell the Sheriff’s investigators that not even a hint of any of this had been in the works before she left town. He then told her that he was aware that several of the girls had made social media posts and sent out emails stating the club was not part of the party over the prior week, before the event. “I knew that because Sarah was one of the ones doing that. When I went down to the Sheriff’s office last night, I was able to show him those posts. So, despite what some people are saying and the claims of the organizers, I think I made a good case that the club was not a part of the event. Sheriff Brown told me that while they had arrested about a dozen local people who had been hired to help by the organizers, none of them had any connection to the club. He agrees that whatever happened, and whoever put the party on must have simply added the Euro Club’s name to an event they had already planned. That seems to mean he won’t go after you.”

Mr. Marshal said that tomorrow he would call Sheriff Brown directly (since he was an old friend) and let him know he had talked to Misty and gotten an official and categorical denial that the club had sponsored, organized, or benefited from what happened at the lake. After her talk with “her attorney” on this, Misty felt a lot better.

During the drive home, Misty quietly suggested to Lamar that they revise their prior plan to call Sarah and ask her to come stay the night. “There is just too much going on. I’m sure she wants to see you, so, how about you have her pick you up like you’d planned originally? You can tell her everything about what you and I did. Just let her know that the three of us will sit down and talk sometime this week.”

That seemed reasonable to Lamar, so he called Sarah from the car. However, Misty put her foot down and threatened to tell their parents about the photos he had on his tablet if he tried to take it with him to her house tonight. “Until we’ve gone through to make sure there are no photos that are illegal here in Georgia, you can’t take your tablet out of the house. You have to understand that.”

Though Lamar was disappointed that he would not be able to show Sarah his photos, he agreed. Misty said she would help him know what photos he could keep, which ones needed to be edited, and which ones had to be deleted. “Tonight, I’ll copy all the photos you took on Dad’s little camera, along with all of mine to the PC in Dad’s study. After I do, I’ll erase all the memory cards. Using his high-powered computer, I’ll work on the photos to make a master set of all the legal pictures and delete the rest. That will probably take all week though. So don’t promise anyone you’ll show them the photos until next weekend. As for the pics you and Emily took with her iPad, when she sends them to you, only download the ones you can keep before you tell Mom and Dad you have them.”

Misty could tell her brother didn’t like her telling him what to do, but she also knew that he knew doing what she said was more important than ever now.

Sarah was at their house when they arrived. When he put his stuff in his room, Lamar left his tablet with all of his photos on his desk. When he went back downstairs, he gave the waterproof camera’s memory cards to Misty. She told him, “I changed my mind, I’m not going to do anything with these tonight. What I want you to do is go through the files and delete the bad ones, the duplicates and any that are clearly illegal here in Georgia. Then bring me the remaining images on a flash drive. When you do that I’ll just erase these cards so we can reuse them. That will save me a couple of hours. Can you do that after Youth Group tomorrow night?”

He said he could and that was that.

When Bonnie had put her bags on her bed, she grabbed a fresh box of condoms. With everything else going on, she did not want to have to deal with this right now, but that was how parenting went. You do what you have to do.

She caught Lamar and Sarah just before they left the house. She put the box in her son’s hand and said, “Do you want to tell Sarah why I gave these to you?”

After his sister had hammered him about the photos, now his mother was getting on him about this. But he’d known it was coming. Looking at Sarah he said, “I had unprotected sex while I was in St. Martin… with several people.”

Rather than get angry, Sarah smiled and asked, “How many?”

Lamar had to work not to smile too. “Four.”

Sarah shook her head, “Well at least you got laid. I haven’t had sex since the Friday night before you left.” She turned to look at Bonnie before she said, “It’s the longest I’ve gone since August without having a dick in me. I guess I hadn’t realized that having sex, pretty much every day, even when I don’t see Lamar, has just become a normal part of my life. But, Mrs. C, it's OK, we were going to have to use condoms tonight anyway. I don’t know if Lamar told you, but the week before Spring Break, I had unprotected sex at the community theater’s production wrap party… with more than one guy.”

Rather than commenting on what Sarah said, Bonnie suggested they go to sit in the living room. It was yet another thing she knew she had to address. Only now did she realize she’d deluded herself into thinking she’d simply headed off issues of drinking and recreational drug use with her kids and their friends. It had been a pipe dream. Now she was faced with reality and putting it off would not make it easier. She would let Sarah tell her what happened the night she’d come to the house drunk and/or stoned. She thought this might be the time to find out if drinking and drug use was a normal part of Sahra’s activities with her community theater friends. She knew Lindsey had a history of substance abuse, and she hoped she could head Sarah off that path.

Once they were sitting, Bonnie said, “According to Lamar, you came to our house late the Saturday night before we left town. When you did, you were under the influence and said you had unprotected sex with four different guys. Is that what happened?”

She shook her head, “Yes and no. It wasn’t as crazy as it sounds. Yes, I fucked four guys and didn’t always use a condom, but I’d been having sex with all but one of those guys since the fall. That party was sort of the culmination of what we… me, Bailey, and Lindsey had been working toward since September when we joined the adult troop at the theater. We wanted to create a free-love environment in our theater troop like Mom had when she was in high school. Just like Mom’s group, our troop at the community theater has a lot of college students, but we also have some high schoolers and a good many adults too.”

Though Bonnie really wanted to focus on the issue of the lake party, she thought she needed to address this with Sarah. She replied, “Lamar and your mother have both told me that you’ve been going to parties at the apartments of GCSU students all year. Do you mind telling me about it?”

Sarah nodded, “Usually just on Friday nights after rehearsal. They aren’t parties really, more just hanging out for a couple of hours before going home.  Like I said, I’d done it with three of the guys I did at the wrap party before, and not just after rehearsals.  I’ve been having sex at the theater since the fall.  Not right in front of everyone like Mom did with her troop, but we’ve found places to do it in the theater building that are out of the way… or in the parking lot afterward… I’ve eaten girls out while they sit on the fender of my car, and I’ve had guys fuck me bent right over the hood.”

She pulled the very short miniskirt she was wearing up a little to show she wore nothing on under it. She need not have, the skirt was short enough that Bonnie could not miss she was bare. To be supportive, or perhaps to just be cheeky, Bonnie lifted the hem of her short skirt briefly to show Sarah she’d traveled home bare as well.

Sarah just smiled and said, “Oh, Mom didn’t let me wear this outfit on the plane. She thought we might not be allowed to board. I changed before I came over. As you know, I can’t wear skirts this short to school either, and I could get expelled for exposing myself if I went commando like this. But for rehearsals at the theater in Milledgeville, Lindsey, Bailey and I have been going like this a couple of times a week since around Thanksgiving.  We started doing it after I’d read through all of my Mom’s high school diaries and told them all what my mom wrote about. We do it for the same reason she did when she was my age, to show off and to give easy access. Pretty much all the people at the theater who are under twenty know that if they ask and we have the opportunity, most of the time I’ll get it on with them. This past year I’ve been the first sex partner for four guys and three girls. I like being the first for people who’ve never had a chance to have sex before. Surprisingly half of those first-timers were freshmen at GCSU. And for two different couples, I’ve given them their first threesome, but that was in a bed, not at the theater.”

“But unlike my mom did at my age, it’s not like I do dozens of people. Because there are only a limited number of people under twenty in any of the productions, and I won’t do anyone who is twenty or over until I turn seventeen, it’s like I do it with the same small group of girls or guys throughout any given production, usually about five or six in total. The three guys I did at the party, are the only guys I’ve been doing from this production.”

Bonnie put in, “Well it's good you are conscious of ages. Do Bailey and Lindsey do the same?”

“Bailey does, but not Lindsey. She rarely does it with the younger guys, she’s been doing GCSU students since we were freshmen, but you already knew that. She mostly left the freshman college girls and guys for me. Lindsey has an ongoing thing with a married couple in their late twenties. They both have leading parts in nearly all the productions and she sleeps over at their place a couple of times a month. I think her mom would rather her stay overnight with people their age than go to parties where she might get into trouble. But before you freak out, she’s been seventeen since January.”

Bonnie hadn’t known Lindsy was a playmate for an adult couple, but it made her feel good to hear that Sarah had learned some of the lessons she and her mother had been trying to teach.

Sarah continued, “Since we have had four different productions since Lindsey, Bailey, and I had to move up from the children’s theater to the main troop in September, I’ve only done it with a total of thirteen people, girls & guys, from the troop over that time. That includes two dates of the players at parties… in addition to Bailey and Lindsey of course. Once the three of us invited everyone to watch our all-girl show in one of the bedrooms at an after-rehearsal party. Everyone liked watching the three of us go at it.”

Bonnie just nodded. She could imagine how much those three girls would enjoy a room full of people watching them put on the show and how much her fellow actors would enjoy watching it.

  “I don’t have sex with one of the guys at every rehearsal, but most days I give at least one blow job. It’s easy to do that in minimal time and space. And besides, I really like sucking dick.” She laughed, “But we’ve been so successful at bringing free love to our troop, I don’t do it as much now as I did in the fall. It seems that now the guys are getting sucked off by a number of girls and a couple of the guys at rehearsals, so I’m getting less sperm in my stomach these days. But I still fuck a guy at or after rehearsal once or sometimes twice in a week at the theater. When we go to someone’s apartment on Fridays, I always fuck at least one of my guys. With girls, I mostly just make out at the theater, but when I have on a miniskirt they always use their hands on me… usually getting me off. When I go down on girls, it is usually at people’s apartments. Though like I said, I have eaten a couple of girls out in the dark parking lot after rehearsal. By now, everyone in the troop knows I do it… well me and Lindsey mostly. Not as much Bailey.”

“Everyone at the theater, even the directors and Lindsy’s mom has caught me in the act at one time or another. By now they know that is just how I am. You’d be amazed how fast I can open up a condom packet and have it on a guy’s dick now. A couple of times I have been sitting on one of the guys’ laps when people walked in on us in the make-up room, but I just pretended nothing was going on. Since I had on my miniskirt so that nothing showed, everyone just pretended they didn’t know we were fucking…. but they knew, and they knew I knew they did. The pretense just added to the fun when they came over and talked to me pretending they didn’t know I was having sex right in front of them. And as I said, now it's not just the three of us doing it. Since Christmas, I’ve walked in on four different girls sucking dick or fucking in the back rooms we all use for sex by now. Well, four girls and two guys doing it with other guys. James is probably the only person in the troop that sucks more dick than I do. He does make-up and costumes, so he’s never on stage and spends a lot of time in the dressing and make-up rooms. And besides that, he’s a GCSU guy, so he isn’t age-restricted like me. From hearing people talk, I know that even the totally straight guys like getting it from him. And he never minds if I stay to watch him work if I happen to catch him with a mouth full of dick. Well, he’s watched me at work quite a bit since I use his make-up room more than anywhere else. He and I have sort of an arrangement so that we can use his space even if the other one is in there. A few times we’ve even done guys together. It's super hot.”

“So, we did what we set out to do. Sex is very freely shared among the troop. And not just with the younger people. Even the older people are doing it with each other, but not around any of us. Lindsey’s mom has been in two of the productions and she’s told me and Lindsey that those people in their thirties and forties are having just as much sex among themselves as we are. And she should know since she’s right in the middle of it. Yea, Lindsey and her mom now talk openly to each other about who they do.”

Lamar put in, “When I was over at their place, Lindsey’s mom didn’t even pretend that she didn’t know that the four of us were going to have sex after dinner. She is a lot like you or Ms. Slosh about that stuff.”

Bonnie nodded, “Yes, Slosh has told me as much.”

Sarah nodded, “We’ve even talked the group into the open-door idea at the after-rehearsal hang-out times. Bedroom doors sometimes stay open so anyone can look in on the couples doing it. I never shut the door, but sometimes my partner does. And at the party two weeks ago, I wasn’t the only one doing stuff in the living room that night. Lindsey and James both gave blowjobs in the living room. While Lindsey and a GCSU girl went topless, I was the only one who went fully nude… and I was totally without clothes for over three hours.”

Lamar put in, “And she said lots of people took phone pics of her at the party.”

Sarah nodded, “Yea. I told everyone they could take all the pics they wanted of me, but I warned them about sharing them since if people find out I’m still just sixteen they could get into trouble. But I’d be surprised if when we get to school Monday that one of those pics of me fucking isn’t circulating. I actually hope it is.”

Bonnie couldn’t help but shake her head and smile. Sarah really had become Slosh Jr., or perhaps more correctly, Slosh II.

“But at the wrap party, it was the first time I’d done so many people in one night like that … at least with the theater group. I had sex on and off for four hours.” she paused then added, “And it was the first time my theater friends saw me just hanging out totally naked or having sex right in the middle of the living room like that. Most everyone there has looked in on me doing it in a bedroom before, but having sex right in the middle of the party is different. Two of the guys, Harry and Eric, I did right in front of everyone. Harry I just did in a recliner with my clothes on, but I did Eric on the sofa, we were both totally nude. He’s nearly as much of an exhibitionist as I am. Of course, that second time on the couch, we were the center of attention.”

Bonnie couldn’t help but say, “And you loved it.”

“Of course I did. But Harry, the one in the recliner, I just pulled his dick out and slowly rode him for a while. Neither of us came. It was just relaxing fun. With my skirt and top on, it wasn’t like I was putting on a show. What’s funny is he was the only one I put a condom on that night. By the time I started with Eric, I was already in La La Land, and didn’t think to even get one out of my purse. That is when I got naked. With him, I had a full session on the sofa. We did it in pretty much all the ways a couple can on a couch, with over a dozen people watching.”

“For a little while, Lindsey joined, sitting on his face and kissing me while I rode him. She left on her miniskirt, but I pulled off her top so I could play with her boobs. She didn’t put it back on the rest of the night. That was a first for her too. Since I knew he didn’t have on a condom, I brought him off in my mouth which I think got more of a response from my audience than if he’d cum in my pussy. I got a round of applause for my performance after I’d swallowed the last drop. It was the two guys I did in a bed later on that came in me barebacked.”

This was more of a story than Bonnie really had been asking for, but she knew how much Sarah liked talking about her sex life, so she let her go on. Once she was done, Bonnie would address the issues she wanted.

“You see, after my sex show performance, I’d taken a break, just hanging out in the nude. Later I went to check on my friend Abbie, she was in a bedroom with her new boyfriend who isn’t part of our theater troop. He was the one I’d never had sex with, but I’d done it with her several times. They’d been going at it for a while when I walked into the room naked. After a few minutes, she got him to get off of her so I could eat her while he did me from behind. I guess that was a first for him because he came in like two minutes flat. I’d expected just to mess around with them for a couple of minutes, not for him to get his stuff in me. So, while I ended up filled with his jizz, I really wasn’t with him very long.”

“The only normal love-making experience that night was the last guy I was with. His name is Dave. Lamar knows all about him. He’s a freshman at GCSU and he is the nearest thing to a theater troop boyfriend that I have. He and I have had sex lots of times, and we’ve even gone out for dates. He’s been to my house a couple of times so we can have sex in a bed. You see he lives in the dorm and doesn’t want to cause a problem by bringing a high school girl to his room.”

She laughed. “Last fall, around Thanksgiving, he came to my house for the first time and he met my parents. He’d never been in a hot tub nude, so we went out to relax before going to my bedroom. When my mom came out, he tried to cover himself up, but when she dropped the robe she was wearing, his eyes bugged out of his head seeing my mom naked right in front of him. She took her time getting into the water so he got a good look at everything.”

“Well, you know Mom, she has a million sex stories and soon she was telling one I’d never heard; one about one of her VIP sugar daddies when she was with the Blue Globe. She told how he wanted her to introduce his son to sex for his sixteenth birthday. So, she starts into how she did it with the teenager with his dad watching from a chair. Not surprisingly, Dave got totally hard as Mom spelled out what she did to introduce the boy to sex with a woman. I thought he was going to jump out of the water when I grabbed his cock. As Mom’s story got more graphic, I worked his hard-on in my hand. I knew Mom could see what I was doing, so she made the story more explicit after that. At first, he sort of freaked that I was giving him a handjob in front of my mom. But since he could see that my mother could plainly see what I was doing but she continued her sex story without a break, he got into it. She told how after she’d gotten the son off twice, she, her VIP date, and his son had a threesome.”

“Just as mom was describing in detail how it felt for the dad to cum in her pussy while his teenage son came in her mouth, Dave came in my hand. With the tub jets off, the white plumes coming from his dick were crystal clear to see. It was actually really hot to watch. At first, he seemed embarrassed by what he’d done, but when Mom said she’d enjoyed watching him climax, he relaxed. After that, having sex in my bedroom with the door wide open didn’t seem too much for him.”

Bonnie couldn’t help but laugh. Slosh had mentioned getting in the hot tub while Sarah had a GCSU guy from the theater in it. She’d confessed that the only reason she’d done it was to be provocative, but she also knew Sarah would love it. But she’d not said more than he was surprised to see her naked.  And Bonnie had never heard that story about the VIP and his son either. Likely that was because of the age of the boy. Sarah was probably right, Slosh did have a million sex stories.

Sarah laughed too. “Ever since then, he’s had a thing for my mom. He’s hinted that he’d like to do the hot tub thing with her again, but he hasn’t asked outright. The other two times we did it in my bed, Mom wasn’t home. Once I told him if he would just ask her, Mom would probably have sex with him. But I’m sure he thought I was just teasing because he’s told me how hot he thinks Mom is. I really do need to have him over to the house again before he goes home for the summer. Maybe if I told him how Mom and I both had sex with Squirrel last summer, he would ask about her doing it with him.  And we all know Mom really would do it.”

Bonnie had to agree, “Yes, I have no doubt she would have sex with your college student boyfriend if he asked.”

“But Dave is a total geek and I would have to ask her for him. He’d never have the nerve to do it. But of all the guys I do from the theater, he is the best in bed, not nearly as good as Lamar, but he’s good. I guess that is why he is my favorite.” She thought for a second, “Yes, maybe I should invite him over and ask Mom for him. She would enjoy screwing him, I’m sure.” Sarah gave a grin and added, “And I’d love to watch.”

Bonnie shook her head, not because she thought Sarah was wrong, but because she surely was right.

Sarah then went back to her story. “At the party, he’d seen me eating Abbie to an orgasm after her date had cum in me. As soon as Abby and her date got out of the bed, Dave asked if he could join me. He said he’d never had sloppy seconds, but wouldn’t mind having his first experience with it. That was his way of letting me know he’d noticed I wasn’t using condoms as I always had in the past. We went on for a really long time and people came in and out of the room the whole time.”

She paused and then said, “Oh, I guess Dave and I really had two sessions, because after he came the first time, we both went to the kitchen, naked. He got a beer and I got a wine cooler, my fifth for the night. That was a mistake and I know it. I’m sure that is why I was still drunk when I drove to your house. Then we went back for a second round. Lindsey and a GCSU guy were in the bed we’d been using when we got back, but we just slid in next to them. Of course, she didn’t mind sharing the bed with me. By the time he and I were done, I was sticky with cum from my belly to my thigh since I’d started a round of sex with a full pussy, twice.”

“I wore Dave completely out. It was late, and I was ready to go home… well to come here, to be with Lamar. I knew he wouldn’t care how much cum was on me. So, yes, I did have sex with four guys… and one girl, but it wasn’t like one after another. And one of those guys didn’t even cum and the other was just a quicky. I had a great night, really I did. But Mrs. C., having four dicks in a night isn’t new. I did that right in your bed on Friday night before you left for St. Martin. So did a lot of the girls. As far as I know, every girl here that night had three or four guys in them during our speed sex game. So, that party wasn’t unique for me.”

Bonnie knew she really couldn’t say anything about the sex itself. She’d had more than that much sex many times in a night over the last year and Sarah knew it.

“I told my mom about it the next day, all of it, including drinking and not using condoms.”

Bonnie asked, “And the ecstasy?”

Sarah seemed surprised, then said, “No, I didn’t tell her about that. How did you know?”

Bonnie smiled, “After Lamar told us how you described how you felt all night at the party, Misty surmised you’d taken some. So I didn’t actually know until now.”

Sarah nodded, “When Mom got upset about me taking risks, I reminded her that I had read her diaries. She didn’t just fuck like crazy day in and day out without condoms when she was my age, but she drank a lot, way more than I ever have, and she smoked pot and even did coke, LSD, and pills she had no idea what they were. It's all in her diaries. And she didn’t just do that in high school. When last month, I asked her directly, she told me that she was still smoking weed and doing cocaine even when she was dating Dad. She said she only quit after Dad asked her to marry him. Quitting her drug use was like her way of proving her commitment to him even while she kept fucking guys like every day. She kept having sex because her crazy sex life was just part of her professional identity… being Slosh Hildebrandt. So yes, I tried ecstasy, and to be honest, I liked it. I liked how I felt and I liked how much fun it was to put on a sex show after taking it. I won’t do it like all the time, but I also can’t promise I won’t do it ever again.”

Bonnie didn’t know what to say. She had no idea about Marcy’s extensive drug use. She had never talked about it. But Bonnie also knew how much courage it took to admit it to her daughter when she asked. Of course, she had to know that her diaries would let Sarah know what she’d done, and she’d gone out of her way to obtain them so her daughter could read them. It would have been easier to deny it, but apparently, Slosh hadn’t taken the easy way out. But she wasn’t a coward, and Bonnie knew that. She hadn’t been faced with that question yet since neither Misty nor Lamar had ever asked if she’d done drugs when she was in college.  Calmly she answered Sarah, “Maybe that is why she got upset. Your mother knows street drugs are like Russian roulette. You don’t know what is in the pill. I am quite sure that your mother didn’t say it was smart or safe for her to do drugs all those years. You have to know your mother was very lucky that those things did not come back to bite her. If you recall, not all of her friends were so lucky.”

Sarah nodded, “Yea, that is in the diaries too. Way more bad stuff than she told us coming home from Miami. Way, way more”

Bonnie didn’t know that either but didn’t comment on it, saying “But, you are right in one thing, screwing the cast members, without condoms, in celebration of a successful run is exactly the kind of thing your mother would have done. So I get why you thought it was unfair she got mad at you. And, I know that getting drunk or taking pills is not your habit.”

Sarah nodded, and then she dropped her defiant tone. “I don’t actually know why I said yes to the ecstasy pill that night. I’ve said no to pills and weed lots of times. I just wanted to know what it was like. It was only after the ecstasy kicked in that I started to screw without protection and I got drunk. I’ve always, I mean always been good about using condoms every single time I put a dick in me at the theater. And I’ve never been drunk before, ever. It happened like this, while I was riding the guy on the sofa, people brought me those sweet wine coolers. You should have seen me going to town with everyone watching me. With the combined high of the ecstasy and the high of being the center of attention, I just couldn’t muster the will to say no to those drinks. I went on with him way longer than I’d planned to because I was having such a good time. I had like two bottles while I was screwing him and another two afterward. After four of them, I was totally drunk as well as on the moon from the ecstasy.”

She shrugged her shoulders, “It was super fun, and yea, the ecstasy made me feel totally filled with love for everyone. Yes, I can see how the pill lowered my inhibitions and made it seem like a condom was just not needed. So there is a direct line from taking the pill, to not using condoms to getting drunk. But it wasn’t as risky as it seems. Three of the four guys I did, I’ve been fucking and swallowing their cum since the fall. Other than Abbie’s new boyfriend, the guys are all my friends, and just like you and Mom, I think it is totally normal to fuck my friends.”

All Bonnie could do was nod in agreement. She was right. Not only did she fuck her friends, but she had repeatedly told the club girls that fucking their friends and their friend’s boyfriends was part of a sex-positive lifestyle.

Sarah turned to Lamar, “How many times have I stopped by here on the way home from rehearsal so we can screw?”

“A lot.” He looked at his mother, “It's just like Dad said about dating you, Mom. For Sarah and me to have sex after she’s already done it with her theater friends is just part of our relationship… and it has been since September. And that night wasn’t anything like the first time she’d had sex with more than one guy before she gets here.  When she comes by on weeknights after rehearsal, you don’t even know she’s been here. She comes right up to my room, she tells me who she had sex with and what they did while we do it, then when we are done, she goes home. You just don’t see her. On Friday nights, sometimes we do it in my bed… or in the game room as soon as she gets here before we go to her house for the night. Misty has seen us fucking in there… well Misty, Caitlin, and Mimi have all seen us doing it in the game room. Other times we wait till we get to her place.  It has been happening like that ever since she got her own car.”

Bonnie felt a little stupid that she didn’t realize any of that. Part of the reason was she normally wasn’t home on Friday nights, but still, she felt like that dimwitted parent who has no idea what her kids are doing. As much to save face as anything she said, “Yes, you are right. It is very much like when your father and I were dating. I’d almost always already had sex with one of my stable of guys when he arrived. Sometimes we’d have sex right off before we went out. Other times we’d wait till we got to his place. And, I never used condoms with those guys who came to my room before your dad got there.”

Sarah then explained, “But Mrs. C., it's not just that fucking other guys makes me horny, it makes me want to be with Lamar. Over time it has become more important to feel his unconditional love for me, no matter how slutty I’ve been… like when I’ve fucked or sucked two or even three guys before I come over… and I’ve done three before I come over more than once or twice. But after the wrap party two weeks ago, after something like four hours of great sex on and off, I wanted to be with Lamar. I wanted to sleep with him. To feel his arms around me, his lips on mine and his dick to be the last one in me for the night. My time with the guy I love is more important now than ever. Yes, I know I was still drunk and a little high, but that was not the reason I came over. But it is the reason we stayed in his bed rather than going to my house. I did not want my parents to see me come home drunk.”

Bonnie knew exactly what she was saying.  She was going to bring the conversation back to the drinking and drugs, but Sarah spoke first. “Mrs. C., I’ve only recently begun to think how the more other guys fuck me, the more I love Lamar.” She paused, “All those months of having other guys fuck me while he held me and kissed me before we did it the first time has shaped our relationship. I’ve had my guy friends do me all over the theater… in the make-up room, in the wardrobe room, in bathrooms, and even bent over the hood of my car in the parking lot. And to be sure, I love it. I love feeling their dicks in my mouth and in my pussy. I love feeling them cumming as I suck them or they fuck me. But, even as I’m doing it, I’m thinking about the time after, in Lamar’s bed, telling him about what I did while he is gently moving inside of me. There is nothing like it. And feeling him in me while I tell him is the best part of fucking other guys.” She looked right at Bonnie and asked, “Is it like that for you? Since you fucked other guys before your dates with Mr. C., did having sex with those guys become a big part of the sex you had with him afterward? I mean, even now, is doing other men still part of your sex life with your husband?”

Bonnie was stunned. Yes, she’d known for years that having sex before her dates with Cooper had made the sex better. And, even before they began having sex with other people a few years back, they’d fantasized about her doing other men before she and Cooper had sex. Now, even when she’s a thousand miles from home, she calls in, sometimes in mid-encounter, to tell Cooper about the sex she’s having. And, yet it took this sixteen-year-old girl to see how it all worked together. Having sex with other men didn’t just make sex with Cooper better, it was an integral part of her life with him. It had been from the very start. How had she missed that?

No, she hadn’t missed it exactly, but it was just that she’d never put it into those words before. Perhaps Sarah easily saw it in those terms because she and Slosh had pushed Lamar & Sarah to put off intercourse for months even while Sarah was regularly having sex with other guys. The fact she had the full support of not just Lamar but of both their parents to maintain her regular diet of sex with multiple guys most weeks had to have impacted how their patterns of intimacy developed. Of course, Sarah and Lamar conceptualized other guys inside of her as part of their sex life because that was how their love developed. And… that was true for Bonnie and Cooper too… her love developed for him slowly even while she had a steady diet of sex with her playmates with his full knowledge and tacit approval.

Even as Bonnie considered this, Sarah continued her verbal thought stream. “I ask that because I asked my mother the same thing in Miami last week after I heard her on the phone telling Dad about the sex party she’d been to the night before. Just like you did, when she went out with my Dad before they got married, she smelled and tasted like sex with other men. She once told me that she could have cleaned herself up before her dates with Dad, but she made the choice not to. She wanted to take the smell and taste of the other men on her dates with my dad because that was a core part of who she saw herself as. I mean she had sex every single day at work, and then often had sex with VIP’s between the two sets at night. According to her, there were nights that she knew Dad had arrived at the club for the second set, even as she was fucking a VIP in her office. Then, perhaps five minutes into her opening monologue of the set, she would stop and reach down to slide two fingers up the inside of her thigh, then lick them off. Afterward, she would give a funny face and apologize for the interruption explaining that a special friend had stopped by her office between sets and that his jizz was running down her leg. I guess the way she said it was really funny because she said she always got a laugh. Of course, it didn’t matter if the guy’s semen really was on her leg or not, it was part of her act and her persona. Instead of avoiding Dad’s eyes when she said she had cum on her leg, she met them. He knew who he was in love with.”

“She told me that on their dates after the show, they both knew she still had cum on her, and when they went to bed afterward, that knowledge was simply part of their relationship. That is why to Dad, Mom has always been Slosh, the sex worker, even in the years she didn’t have sex with other men. She’s the woman telling people about the cum running down her thigh while he is in the audience. By now, Dad knows when he goes to church elders’ meetings there are two men there who have fucked his wife. According to Mom, in Dad’s Rotary Club, there are now five different men that she’s fucked as part of Magnolia LeCroix’s swinger group. And when they are in church services, they both know that in the pews, there are seven or eight men she’s had sex with. Even at the Piggly Wiggly when they are buying groceries, Dad knows Mom has fucked the store manager more than once in his office. Everywhere he goes, he sees men who have had sex with his wife. But for Dad, that is who Mom is and their relationship was built on that knowledge. And that is true for me and Lamar. His best friend fucks me every Sunday, he goes to see me in a play, and he knows I’ve fucked all of the younger guys he sees on the stage. At school likely everyone in the lunch room knows I’ve fucked nearly every guy at our table. At church Youth Group not only have I fucked all the Euro Club guys, but I’ve also fucked Timothy Jones, Wesly Dawson, DJ Connely, and Andy Whipple, and he knows I’ll do more of the guys in the group as time goes on. I fuck nearly every day, and it is a rare week that I don’t fuck three guys besides Lamar. But that is who I am, I am Slosh Jr. and our relationship assumes that. Yet he loves me unconditionally and I love him because of it.”

Bonnie had to note, “But Lamar too has sex with other people. Most weeks he has sex with Gabby and Bailey, plus whoever else you guys play with. The night before we left for St. Martin, Lauren Broderic and Bethany Jacson spent the night in his bed, and I understand that he had his dick in Mimi and Haley earlier in the evening. And the reason why we are talking here is that Lamar had unprotected sex with four different females last week. Yet you love him too. So it's not a one-way street. You both have very active sex lives with other people.”

Sarah smiled, “Yes, we do. I love it that he has had sex with nearly all of my closest friends and that girls from Youth Group are asking him to introduce them to sex… just like I did for Andy and DJ.”

Lamar then put in “The only thing different that night after her party was she hadn’t used condoms. Other than with Byron, that is a first. Mom, she acts like you, or her mother. You both do that too.”

Sarah added, “Well Lamar knows I didn’t use condoms with Andy and DJ either since neither of them had ever had sex before. But Mom never uses condoms with any of her regular guys from the church, I don’t think she always uses them at the soirees she and Dad go to at Magnolia LeCroix’s place, she didn’t use them with the two main men she had sex with in Miami this week and I’m not even sure she uses them with the manager at Piggly Wiggly.” 

Bonnie beat her to the next statement, “And I don’t use them with men from the church either…” she grinned at Sarah, “… though I’ve never had sex with the manager at Piggly Wiggly… should I? Is he hot?”

Sarah laughed, Mom says he is, but Mom thinks Chad Webber is sexy too and so I don’t trust her judgment.”

Bonnie laughed too. “I’m not sure I’d call Chad Webber sexy, but I’ve shared a bed with him and Ashly something like ten times now, and I can only say that what he lacks in sex appeal, he makes up for with bedroom skills.”

Sarah replied, “Really? I mean I’ve been in the room with him and Mom going at it several times, and he doesn’t look like much… but, he seems to bring Mom off surprisingly easily. So, I’ll grant you that he must be good.”

Bonnie brought her back to the point, “But I always use condoms when I’m on the road, and your mother does when she and Lindsey's mom go out cruising for college guys. But Sarah, I’m not half as concerned about the sex, even the unprotected sex, as I am about the fact you were driving drunk. I’m not even as concerned about you experimenting with ecstasy as with you driving with alcohol in your system.”

The smile faded from her face. “You are right Mrs. C. I didn’t mean to drink that much. It was just I got carried away with everyone watching me. You know how I am.”

Bonnie softened her tone, “Yes, I know how you are. I enjoy an audience too. But, where was Bailey? Couldn’t she have taken you home?”

“She left earlier. She was supposed to pick up Byron for the night. She doesn’t have sex at the theater like Lindsey and I do. It is the exception for her to go to those Friday night get-togethers. When she comes at all, she almost always leaves before I do. She didn’t know I’d gotten drunk. Like I said, that has never happened before. She feels really bad she left me like that. She made me promise to call her if it ever happens again.”

With a concerned but emphatic voice Bonnie said, “You have to know that if you didn’t want to call Bailey or your mother to come get you, you could have called me. All I want is for you to promise that if you have more than two drinks at a party, you’ll call someone to come get you… Bailey, me, Misty… just someone.”

Sarah nodded and said, “I promise.”

Bonnie reiterated, “Two drinks. Even if you don’t think you feel drunk.”

Sarah nodded in agreement.

Bonnie gave her a hug. “Go on, I know that after a week without sex while your Mom was doing it several times a day, you must be going crazy.”

Sarah said, “Yes, between Holly & Elijah and Mira & Yoel she was doing it at least two or three times a day every day, and that is not including the two sex parties she went to. It was so unfair, especially when she and Holly would make out right in front of me.”

Bonnie laughed.

Sarah thanked Bonnie for talking to her and then Bonnie added, “Oh, let your dad know that Misty will come out to see him anytime he wants. Thank him for his help with the mess at Lake Sinclair. And please ask your mom to call me about it too. We need to talk and I won’t see her at lunch tomorrow. I have an interview with a reporter at 12:30.”

Sarah said she would and they were off. 

As they left Bonnie had a sinking feeling. She’d been so proud of the fact the original group of Euro Club girls had stayed free of drug and alcohol abuse. Now as best as she could figure, four of the ten younger club girls were going to parties with college guys where booze and drugs were everywhere. She’d not come down on Sarah for taking ecstasy at that party. She decided that she’d ask Misty to talk to her about the dangers of street drugs. That conversation might better be done on a peer-to-peer basis.

Overall, Bonnie felt very down and defeated about everything that had happened since they got off of that plane.  She’d felt so good that she and Misty had all the club girls under their influence and nothing would penetrate the bubble they’d created. But now it seemed like it was all unraveling.

While Bonnie was talking to Sarah, Misty had already started on the monumental task of going through all the photos they brought back. She had multiple projects to work on all at once: to go through and decide which of the photos with Emily she could keep or edit to make legal, to make a master set of photos to show close friends that included the sex photos she kept, a slightly edited version to show others like Grandmother Campbell without the sex photos, a collection to be used on her new website, format a set to make a photo book, and to select the best three or four to go in her professional portfolio… well both of her portfolios, one of the photos by her and one of the photos of her. It was a huge task. She worked till she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer before heading to bed.

*******

The reporter started her voice recorder. Her name was Judith Kohl, she was a lead news reporter for the Augusta Chronicle.

Even before they had left the airport on Saturday, Bonnie decided that the whole family must go on the offensive. If she let their enemies dictate the terms of conflict, no matter how right her position was; she and the family would lose in the court of public opinion.  It occurred to her to simply say “Screw You” to the nay sayers in Hancock County, but that would be a cop out. If she couldn’t at least come to a draw with her critics in her own town, how could she ask others to fight the same battle when they lacked the resources she commanded?

On the way home from the airport, Bonnie made her first move, she called Judith Kohl.  She knew the reporter was her best press contact in the region. Previously, she had done two different interviews with Judith for the FFF and both had been fair, so she decided to choose her own access to the press.

As she had hoped, Judith called back within an hour and agreed to come to their home Sunday afternoon and interview both Bonnie and Misty. There was nothing else to be done once they made it home.

The family (except Lamar who was at Sarah’s) slept in late and did not attend church in the morning, as had been planned before they left for their trip.

At 12:30 under their little gazebo beside the swimming pool Bonnie, Misty, and Judith sat sipping a glass of iced lemon water. It was a beautiful April day, sunny in the mid 70’s. Judith was a petite, attractive but serious-looking woman in her 40’s. She had been with the Augusta newspaper for five years and also did freelance ‘stand-up’ reports for the local ABC television affiliate.  In the Augusta area, she would count as a minor local celebrity.

“I am interviewing Bonnie Campbell and Misty Campbell,” she said for the benefit of the tape recorder. “Thank you for talking to me today.”

Bonnie replied, “Thank you for coming out to see us.”

“Let me get a little background first. Bonnie, you and I have talked a couple of times, so I have a good bit of background on you, but Misty, may I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure, that’s why I’m here,” she said trying to sound confident, though she was afraid her voice might give her away.

“Good, first let me be sure my information is correct. You are eighteen years old, and a senior at Jefferson Davis High School.  As I understand it you are the photo editor of the school’s paper and yearbook and have been accepted to a total of four different colleges for next fall.” She paused and Misty took it to mean it was her turn to speak. “Yes, that’s all correct”

“So, to put it another way, you are a good student with a future ahead of you.”

“I think that’s fair” Misty agreed.

“Then, tell me about the Euro Club.”

Misty had known this was a key question so she had thought out her answer.  “To start with, the Euro Club has only recently become a real organization with a president and officers and the like. In January we voted on our first set of by-laws. Prior to that, we had just been a group of girls who had been getting together for years and hanging out. Most of us have been close since we were six or seven. The Euro Club part all started a few years ago in the summer we all decided, since my family has a private pool we should tan without our bikini tops, like they do in Europe. We thought we were so avant-garde. Last night my family and I returned from spending a week on the Island of St. Martin. I can tell you that for European girls our age sunning topless around a swimming pool is nothing out of the ordinary, but of course, in the backwoods of Georgia, this is a radical idea.  You need to realize though, that this actually pre-dates my mom’s involvement with the FFF. Actually, it predates the FFF's creation. She had nothing to do with what my friends and I were doing, except that she didn’t come out to bother us at the pool.”

The reporter clearly was not aware of this “So, she didn’t encourage you and your friends to remove your tops?”

The question itself angered Misty, but she could not get off her message. Misty said “No! She has never encouraged me, nor anyone else, to do anything like that.  She’s a MOM! She repeatedly told me to tell my friends to stop and think about what we were doing.  And from the very beginning, she has been very fussy about her rules.”

“Rules?” Judith inquired.

“Yes, rules. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t if you know my mom.”

“What rules then?”

“No underage drinking at our house and she means none. Some parents turn a blind eye to it, but not my mom. No illegal use of drugs for anyone ever. Absolutely no underage sex by anyone in our home. That generally means no sex for those under sixteen since that is the age of consent in Georgia; however, there is a close age exception, and in a few cases that has happened when the couple is only a few months apart and one has not yet turned sixteen. And, if a couple does choose to have sex, they must use condoms every time, and she strongly advises sexually active girls to be on birth control, not instead of, but in addition to condoms. And if a girl, or guy, says no to anything sexual, it always means no. It does not mean maybe or keep pestering me till I agree. It means no.”  Misty paused to allow the reporter to comment. When none came, Misty asked, “Does that surprise you?”

“Actually no,” the reporter replied. “I have already had two in-depth interviews with your mother, so it really doesn’t. Are the rules enforced is the question.”

“Yes absolutely. Not that she has to do the enforcing. The club members are pretty good at self-policing. Or were until last week. But, you need to know that there was a concerted effort by most of the club members to discourage people from going to that lake party. As far as I know, only three of the twenty members were even at the lake on Friday, and one of them was there only until she got a good idea of what was going on before she and her date left.”

The reporter jotted down a note. “You said no underage sex and no sex without protection. Does that mean teens have had sex here?”

“Sure. I won’t even pretend my friends and I are abstinent, because we are not. You can easily read between the lines on our club’s social media to see that.  I won’t betray others confidence but I will answer any of your questions about my own behavior. And, before you ask, yes, I am sexually active. I have had sex with a fairly large number of partners in the past two years, both male and female. And yes, those were my photos on the net at the nude beach. No, I have no embarrassment that they were taken, even though I did not post them, nor was I asked for permission before they were first posted.”

Judith commented “You sure are an easy one to interview. So, what does your mother think of all that?”

“She supports good decisions, and I get in trouble for bad ones.”

“Care to elaborate on the bad ones?” the reporter asked.

“I said I would answer, so I will.  At the end of last summer my grandmother, Mom’s mother, passed away.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Bonnie. I didn’t know.”

Bonnie just nodded.

“Well, we were out of town for like ten days and got back the afternoon before school started. Because of that, I started the year already behind in my photo editor work, which meant I was working late at school. Dad was just getting his semester started at Augusta State, and Mom was in Tennessee taking care of her dad for a couple of weeks. One of my friends asked if she could come swim in our pool until I got home. I unwisely said yes. She invited a friend the next time to come with her, and the time after that friend invited several of his friends.”

“Was this first friend a Euro Club member?”

“Yes, but, the problem was not when she was here, the problem was that by giving one person permission to be here without me present, that permission was extended to friends and friends of friends. So, I came home a week later to find our backyard filled with a dozen people I didn’t know, and the club member I had said could use our pool was not even there. I had to, by myself, throw out a big group of drunk pot heads. They brought beer and pot to our house, but neither I, nor anyone else from the club, was here. When they got mouthy with me I threatened to call the Sheriff’s office. Fortunately, they left before I had to do that. When Mom found out, she almost killed me for my poor judgment.”

Bonnie agreed and added, “I think this whole lake party thing might be something similar. I won’t say for sure, but from the information that has come my way, this debacle has the same players as the first.”

Judith did not respond, but asked Misty “Are you the president of the club?”

“Yes, I am.”

“So, what is the mission of the Euro Club, or is it just social?”

“It is social for sure, but we are trying to make it more. We have a website, and are pressing the same type of agenda that the FFF is, but with a less grandiose mission. We just want to change attitudes about the body and sexuality among our peers.”

“You mean for people to be more promiscuous?” the reporter asked.

“I didn’t use that word; I mean we want our peers to have more authentic sexual choices” Misty clarified.  “When all sexual lifestyles but one are socially unacceptable, there is no authentic freedom of choice is there? Only coercion. We try to push back against that coercive social pressure."

"So, you want to push back on the social pressure for teens to abstain from sex?"

"Yes. I make no apology for that. I and the club utterly and completely reject the garbage that says teen sex is bad for us. Abusive sex is bad, degrading sex is bad, violent sex is bad and forced sex is bad. But loving sex in itself is positive and uplifting for both adults and teens."

Judith said, "So you do promote teens having sex if they are in love."

"You misunderstood what I meant by loving sex.  Jesus defined love as having compassion and a deep regard for the needs of those around you.  The modern notion of romantic love has no place in the great commandment to love our peers as we love ourselves.  Loving sex is sex that is predicated on a selfless focus on the needs of your partner.  I have had loving sex with many, well most all of my friends, but only have anything like a romantic relationship with a few of them. I believe, and the club believes, that sharing our bodies with friends is both natural and wholesome"

Judith acted like she was getting the runaround, "But we are still back to the fact you promote the idea that teens don't need to abstain from sex. Right?"

"We promote teens being just as free to have sex as adults.  Would the mainstream society condemn someone who said a healthy sex life is good for unmarried adults?  Yes, the religious right would, but those are the same people who say the world is 6,000 years old. We can't look to them for guidance.  But no, we don't promote teen sex in the sense of trying to convince those who have not had sex to start. What we do is promote the idea of bringing sex out of the closet and encourage teens to be proud of their healthy sexual choices. We oppose the shame tactics used by schools and churches to punish those teens who don't play by the rules of pretending not to be sexual when they really are.  The shame merchants don't care about the welfare of teens, they only care about enforcing their rules on everyone and punishing those who cross them. They don’t care if they hurt people in the process. We at the Euro Club do care about the welfare of teens, and promoting sexual autonomy and safety is how we do that.  As maybe you have heard my mother say, sexual morality isn’t about what body parts touch, but how that interaction affects both partners.”

Judy nodded, “Yes, I remember her saying that.”

Misty nodded, “So the Euro Club promotes sexual morality, but it's not the false sexual morality that the True Love Waits crowd preaches. I am sexually active and I am happy that I am. I freely tell other teens about the joy I get from sharing my body with my friends and their boyfriends. I had sex on our trip last week, amazing wonderful sex and I’m not afraid to say so.  All that to say, we at the Euro Club promote sex to the extent that teens should be free to be openly sexual with whoever they please."

"But what about diseases and teen pregnancy?"

"What of them?” Misty asked. “The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world, by a huge margin. Yet we stigmatize teen sex far more than the countries with the lowest teen pregnancy rates. If anything I could make the argument that the religious right causes our high pregnancy and STI rate. We are the solution to the problem they cause. By openly and aggressively promoting condom use as a way toward personal freedom and joy, we are showing the way to reduce teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. At every Euro Club event, there are bowls of condoms in nearly every room and we encourage people to take all they need with them. Isn’t that the way to make things better?"

The reporter seemed not to have expected the aggressive response.  Nor did it appear that she could easily counter it. She didn’t even have a follow-up for Misty. So before she asked another question Misty went on "I’ll give you the scoop, since it will come out anyway. This past week in St. Martin I signed a contract with a web developer for a website featuring photographs of me and by me, along with social commentary and practical things young people can do to push back on sex negativity. While it will feature nudity and sex, it will not be a porn site. It will be a social-political site with sexual content. Because it is primarily a political project for me, I have decided not to use a pseudonym, I will use my real name on the site. My plan for next year is to double-major in photography and political science. This June I will begin my second year of internship with one of the most respected glamour and art nude photographers in the world.  One set of glamour photos I shot has already been published in a prestigious German art magazine. I have been shooting commissioned glamour portraits since the first of the year. So I am already a professional behind the lens. Additionally, while I was in St. Martin, I did a glamour photo shoot, as a model, with one of Europe’s hottest glamour photographers. So, I am both a professional glamour photographer and model. My new website, to debut sometime in May or perhaps early June, will be called Misty Campbell: Open and Unashamed.”

The reporter asked, “When you say glamour photography, what exactly do you mean?”

Misty had a textbook answer ready. “Nudes and semi-nudes where the images are stylized. Glamor nudes use the body to emphasize the humanity of the subject. Glamour nudes are distinct from other forms of nude or semi-nude photography. Fine art nudes usually emphasize abstract ideas via the human body. Beauty & fashion photography emphasizes the physical beauty of the model and/or the model's clothing. None of these things should be confused with porn which has the sole purpose of generating sexual arousal with little or no concern for style or aesthetics.”

Bonnie was very impressed with her daughter's command of the subject, and she was pretty sure Judith was as well.

“So you are talking nude photos? Some taken by you of others, and some taken by others of you. Correct?

“Yes,” Misty confirmed.

“So you are starting an adult website?”

“I really don’t like the pejorative way you seem to have phrased that.  Yes, it will have nude photos of me, and nude photos I have taken of others, including my mother.”

That got a response from Judy and she looked over at Bonnie.

Bonnie nodded to indicate she heard it right.

Misty went on, “But, and that’s a big but, I intend the photos on the site primarily as an adjunct to the textual content, the blog, that will go along with it. It will be an illustrated blog espousing my personal view of the world, particularly human sexual oppression. To be fair, it helps that I not only have access to both of my parents who are FFF officials, but I also have been offered access to the FFF resources. So, in a way I envision my site to be similar to the FFF website, but geared for a younger and less academically oriented audience. Will people come to just look at the photos? Of course, I have no doubt, but the photos are a hook to get them to read the content.”

“OK, thanks, very interesting. Let’s get back to the Euro Club. If you have rules against underage drinking and drugs, what happened at Lake Sinclair?”

Over the last day, Misty had been busy shaking trees to find out exactly what happened, this is what guided her answer. “Remember I said, we are just developing into a formal group. Right now, besides me there is nobody who officially speaks for the club. We just didn't plan on me being in a foreign country with no cell phone and no internet in our hotel. I was completely out of contact with home since early last Saturday."

Judith asked to clarify. "So you hadn’t talked to anyone from the Euro Club since a week from yesterday?"

"Actually, it was the night before that, but yes.  Looking back that seems to have been a mistake. Though I am president, we have always made decisions based on consensus, and I have always been the consensus builder.  What appears to have happened is that persons unconnected to our group had planned this event some time ago, but were looking for a hook to get local high school students to participate. What everyone but the sheriff’s department overlooked was that this party was not spontaneous. It was a highly organized profit-making affair, with a $10 gate fee and beer sold at a significant markup. Well, selling beer and marijuana. From the reports I’ve gotten, the selling of pot was every bit a core part of that event as was the selling of beer. I can assure you that none of us had any part of that, and not a penny of that money came to any club member or to the club as a whole. It’s like the old saying goes, follow the money. And the money does not lead to any of the club members.”

The reporter said, “I must say I haven’t done much in the way of investigation on that front yet. Remember your mother just called me last night and this is not on the doorstep of Augusta. But I can assure you that I will try to follow the money and will report fairly on what I find."

Bonnie spoke up, “That’s all we ask for.”

The interview went on for another hour. She asked about the graduation party last year, and about Misty’s experience as both a high school student and a budding activist.  She ended with questions to Bonnie about parenting-type issues which Misty thought her mom answered brilliantly.

Before she left, Judith asked if she could have a follow-up interview after she did more investigation, and could they invite other club members to meet with her then. Both mother and daughter agreed and Misty said that she was sure she could get others to come. While the teenager was naive enough to think the interview would deal with the issue, her mother knew better.