Food. Shasta and Sarah try to figure out who mom and dad are sleeping around with

You sign the credit card slip, adding a generous tip for the people who've been on their feet for hours cooking and serving. The waitress smiles and brings you the to-go bags you'll be taking back to Mary's house.

Shasta frowns and chews on the end of her pencil before drawing another arc on the white paper placemat. "Okay, so. If Dad is making it with Mandy -- I mean, she's practically our Aunt Mandy, right? And then breaking his leg falling out of the cab of his truck when the dispatcher was fooling around with him? What was her name?"

"Patty," Sarah says. "I kinda think it wasn't the first time."

Shasta writes PATTY and draws a circle around it. "Okay, and so Mom is okay with it, we're pretty sure?"

"Yep," Sarah says. "I don't think Mom's going without, you know? I went to Mom's prayer circle and maybe everyone was wearing Susie Homemaker dresses but wow, those were some heavy Ladies for Ladies vibes I got there."

"How would you know?" Shasta asks.

"I'm not a poser, sis, will you cut it out?" Sarah says.

Shasta gives her sister some heavy side eye. "Whatever you say."

"No really," Sarah said. "I mean, they do devotional verses and sing and stuff, and they take a collection and pick a charity, so it's like a real prayer circle, but get this?"

Sarah leans over toward Shasta, arching her eyebrows. Beautiful curves, like her mother Mary's, with the same coloring. Down girl, you tell yourself. But you're just not feeling it. You look at Sarah's lips. Her fingernails, short and smooth. Any other tells? You learned a few from Julie.

"What?" Shasta says. She frowns, her eyebrows down as her sister's go up.

"The charity was PFLAG," Sarah says.

"PFLAG?" Shasta says, looking more confused than annoyed.

"P-FLAG, P F L A G," Sarah spells out. "Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays."

"No way, Mom's prayer group?" Shasta says. She brushes back her blonde hair. "Well fuck me, uh..." Shasta stops herself. "Sorry! Pardon me, Ms. B, uh, Gloria," she says.

"That's all right," you tell Shasta. "Don't trouble yourself over me."

Sarah looks over at you. "Oh yeah, Gloria, and one of Mom's regulars was a nurse from your hospital. Do you know a Madeleine? Nurse or maybe nurse midwife, I think?"

"I don't know the Birthing Center very well, except for a few people. Hmm." You look up and to the side, trying to recollect who you do know. A couple you know very well.

The Birthing Center. Julie Paul worked there before she transferred to work under you. And then to climax under you, on your tongue. Julie wanted you so much. Mary's revelation to you, that other women were desirable, had turned your life upside down. Had given Julie her hopeless wish, when suddenly it was clear you were on Julie's team now. Happily married to a man, but head-over-heels for women. That night, you and Julie and Jeannie Goodchild in the back room of that women's bath house. Jeannie, in charge of the Birthing Center, a few minutes after you made Julie come, Jeannie, coming with your tongue on her anus and your oiled fingers on her clit, coming so hard that her water broke and sent her straight into labor, with you and Julie attending her the rest of the night. And out popped Baby Gloria Goodchild.

"Gloria?" Sarah asks.

"Oh, oh. No, Madeleine doesn't ring a bell," you tell her.

"Hm," Sarah says. She turns back to Shasta. "Madeleine had the biggest hey, ladies! vibe I've ever felt. And get this?"

"What?" Shasta says, holding back any eye-rolling this time.

"When the prayer circle was over, Madeleine stayed back to help the host, that's Mom's friend Martha Rae? To help her clean up. I, um, Mom and I were last to leave, but when I remembered it was gonna be a curvy road back home, I ran back in to use Martha Rae's bathroom," Sarah says, speaking in a low, urgent tone.

"So what?" Shasta says.

"They were making out," Sarah says. "Madeleine saw me, she winked, and pointed toward the bathroom. When I came out, everything was all proper again, but Martha Rae's face was bright pink and she was really giggly when she said goodbye again."

"Oh," Shasta says. She draws another arc on her paper from MOM to MANDY, completing a triangle with DAD. Shasta adds a little question mark next to the new arc, then a dashed arc to another circled note, prayer circle?. "If Mom's making it with Mandy too, I mean, huh."

"God loves love, Mom always says," Sarah says. "Looks like Mom practices what she preaches."

"Yeah, and that quote over the bed, you know?" Shasta says. "Like, This is my command: Love one another. -- John 15:17."

"The other one, even more?" Sarah says. "A perfect marriage is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other."

"Wow. Mom and Dad have a cheating agreement. Shit," Shasta says. "Oops, sorry."

You smile and shake your head to convey, It's okay.

"Yuppers," Sarah says. "At least for women."

Sarah glances back to you and her nose wrinkles a little. Mom's shampoo, she'd said earlier. And Nurses shower together all the time, don't they?

"Dad's on the road so much," Shasta says, "Maybe he swings both ways while he's away."

"Dad's on the road so much," Sarah retorts, "Maybe Mom swings both ways while he's away."

Shasta's mobile phone tweedles. "OMG finally!" she says.

"Who?" Sarah asks.

"Brett!" Shasta says.

"Oh, he's actually okay," Sarah says. "I liked him. Even if you did steal him off me, Shasta."

"I thought you were a lesbian," Shasta says.

"Queer," Sarah says. "And I thought you didn't believe me. I mean, back then I didn't really know it, I just thought I was the popular girl's weirdo little sister. And I like Brett. Still. Even after you stole him."

Shasta's phone tweedles again. "Gotta take it, sorry." She skitters off to the back deck of the restaurant to take Brett's call. The screen door thumps shut in her wake.

With her sister gone, Sarah looks you full in the face. She swallows. "I want to ask you something personal?"

"Sure, Sarah," you say. You don't feel sure.

"Maybe, um, in the Ladies' Room?"

Two stalls, both empty. Two sinks, two mirrors, and a little make-up table with a bench and a mirror with an arc of lightbulbs around the edges. A tiny lounge with two soft armchairs and a table piled with women's magazines and food-and-hospitality trade journals.

Sarah rubs her fingertips nervously through the buzz-cut velvet fuzz over her ears. "Gloria," she starts. "Did you have sex with my mom today?"

"Yes, Sarah, I did," you say.

"Oh thank God," Sarah says. "Some days I just think I'm going crazy. Thank you, Gloria." She smiles, then shakes her head briskly back and forth, blowing a breath out through her closed, loose lips. "Ahhhh," she sighs. Sarah's presence seems more calm and relaxed, from her face to her posture to her deep, slow breaths. "Can you tell me, do Mom and Dad have, I mean, a cheating agreement?"

A calling. A mission.

"Your mother explained to me that when she found out that your father was having sex with other women while he was on his trucking routes, that he told her everything about it, that they prayed on it together, and she decided that she was called to the same mission as your father, to bring joy to women. So yes, they do have an agreement."

"And Gloria, I mean, like, were you frustrated? Lonely? Looking for another woman? When you met my mom?"

"No, Sarah," you say. "I was happy in all ways with my husband. Before I met your mother, I had no special attraction to women, not sexually." You leave out what Mary had done to you that day. You still don't even know. Hypnosis? Mind Control? Pure **** of personality?

"What did Mom do? What did she say?" Sarah asks.

You take a deep breath. "Your mother is an evangelist of women's love. She's very persuasive. She's very demonstrative. Desirable. Charismatic. After I met her, when she was visiting your father in the hospital, I desired women. Sexually. Intensely. And as a senior floor nurse, well, the temptations were everywhere."

"Mom's prayer circle?" Sarah says. "It's her harem?"

You laugh out loud. "No, I'm sure it isn't," you say. "But it is your mother's creation from her calling to bring women joy."

"A lesbian hookup group, then?" Sarah asks.

"We-ell," you say, "I've never met them, other than your mother, but I don't doubt that's part of it," you say. "Or rather, a spiritual support group for women who love women. Intimate. Genuine. Sincere. As much as any work of humanity." You search Sarah's face. "Are you...do you have a girlfriend?"

Sarah bows her head. "No," she says. "But, when I got to college, I was pretty sure I was some kind of queerdo. But my love life has been hanging out with folks and then watching everyone else pair off or hook up. I haven't had any rainbow connections. I haven't even kissed a girl."

"You don't need to be in a hurry, Sarah. Would you like to kiss me and see what it feels like?"

Sarah tilts her head up. She stares into your eyes. Blinks. Nods. "Yes," she says.

You have 4 XP, +1 Hard, +1 Hot, +0 Cool, -1 Control, Lesbian, and Truth.

Roll +HOT(+2) (+1 Hot, +1 Lesbian) to TELL Sarah you'd like to take things further.

TELL HER: 6+2 = 8, she'll go along if you turn her on.