DOMINION Bentley Little (accelerated reader books .TXT) 📖

“What’s the matter?” she demanded. “Are you drank?”

“No!” he said.

“You better not be. If I ever smell alcohol on your breath, you’re out of this house. You’re old enough to take care of yourself now, and if you don’t abide by my rules, you’re gone. Do you understand me?”

“Why?” He was getting ready to argue a position in which he did not believe, but he wanted to hurt her.

“Because I say so. Because it’s wrong.”

“It’s not wrong when you go out and get wasted and bring some guy home and fuck his—”

She slapped him hard across the face, a slap as painful as it was loud.

He angrily gathered up his covers, scooted to the opposite side of the bed. His cheek was stinging. Unwanted tears formed in his eyes.

She sat there for a moment, inert, blank, then suddenly began crying again. She cried openly, unashamedly. Her face turned red. A torrent of tears rolled down her cheeks. A thread of saliva hung from her mouth, and she did not bother to wipe it away. “Don’t make the same mistakes I made.” Her words were distorted by her sobs.

He could still feel the pain on the skin of his cheek. “If they’re mistakes, why do you keep doing them?”

“I don’t know. I wish I could tell you. I wish I had an easy answer. But I don’t I drink. I smoke. I can’t help it. I wish I could say it was a sickness or an addiction, but it’s not. It’s something else. I don’t want to be this way, Dion. But I can’t help it.”

He stared at her from the other side of the bed. There was an urgency to her manner that made him realize that she was not just drunk but that she’d seen his newspaper. It made him think of the man who had been murdered.

It made him think she had been there when he’d died.

After Dion dropped her off, Penelope went into the kitchen for a drink of water. She could hear her mothers talking in the living room as she passed, and though she didn’t want to disturb them, wanted only to sneak upstairs and into bed, she heard Mother Margeaux call her name. She dutifully walked through the doorway to greet them.

Mother Margeaux was standing near the fireplace. “Hello, Penelope. How was your date?”

She shrugged. “Fine.”

Sitting next to Mother Sheila on the couch, she saw a tall blond woman she didn’t recognize. The woman wore a short jean skirt and a tight white blouse which accentuated the fullness of her large breasts. The woman smiled at her, and Penelope looked away.

“Where did you go?”

“We just went out to dinner.”

“Did you have a good time?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mother Margeaux smiled. “That’s good.” She looked at her watch. “We’re going to be talking a little while longer, but after our guest leaves, we want to talk about your evening.”

“I’m tired. It’s late—”

“It’s not that late. Take your bath and come back down.”

“I don’t—”

“Penelope.” Mother Margeaux’s voice indicated that she would tolerate no argument.

“Yes, Mother. I will.”

Penelope retreated upstairs. She got her pajamas out of the dresser, and stole a People magazine from Mother Felice’s room, bringing it with her to read in the bathtub.

A half hour later, she went back downstairs. She walked into the living room. The blond woman was gone, but all five of her mothers sat on the overstaffed couches, facing her in a semicircle. The arrangement was somewhat intimidating. None of her mothers were talking, none were smiling. They were all waiting patiently for her to join them. Mother Margeaux was still wearing the business suit she used when meeting potential clients, an ensemble intended to exude an aura of strength and confidence, and its message was coming through to Penelope loud and clear.

She sat quietly down on the love seat.

“We are going to talk about sex,” Mother Margeaux announced.

Penelope blinked dumbly.

“We have never had this discussion before,” Mother Margeaux continued, “although perhaps we should have had it long ago.”

Penelope’s cheeks felt hot. She looked at her shoes, nervously playing footsie with herself. “I know all this,” she said.

“Yes, but I don’t think you know about birth control.”

“I already know.” She wished this agony would end.

“Do you know about the pill? Do you know what an IUD is? A diaphragm? A condom?”

“Yes,” she said miserably.

“Well, where did you learn all this?”

“I don’t know.”

“From school?”

“Yeah, I guess. I just… I don’t know. From reading. Hearing people talk.”

“Have you and Dion discussed this? Have you talked about birth control?”

“Mother!”

“You are a senior in high school, as is Dion. I assume you both have the natural urges universally shared by all young men and women your age. This means that you are probably going to have sex. Your other mothers and I simply want to know if you have talked about it.”

Penelope looked embarrassedly away, said nothing.

“Have you kissed him yet?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“It is our business. Have you thought about having sex with him?”

“Look,” Penelope said. “It hasn’t gone that far. It may never go that far.”

“If it does,” Mother Margeaux told her, “we do not want you to use any form of birth control.”

“What?” Penelope glanced up, shocked. She looked from one to the other, but though her mothers were smiling at her tolerantly, it was clear that they were totally serious. She felt embarrassed and confused at the same time. Disoriented. She did not know what to say or how to act.

Mother Janine grinned. “Have you thought about his cock?” she asked.

Penelope stared at her. She had never heard any of her mothers use profanity, aside from an occasional “hell” or “damn,” and the sound of such a base word in one of her mothers’ mouths sounded disgustingly obscene.

“He has a big one. It’s nice and long.”

“That will be enough,” Mother Margeaux said sternly.

Penelope looked around the semicircle. Her mothers were not outraged, as she would have expected. They were calm, unruffled, acting as though this sort of conversation occurred