A Tale of Two Mothers

NOTE: A little bit of a trigger warning. This chapter has no sex and is mainly delving into a little character background that involves parents verbally abusing their children, alcoholism, and the chapter contains a little bit of transphobia. If you want to avoid these things, I'll try to put a little bit of a Cliff Notes summary of the chapter at the bottom. Thank you.

It wasn’t that big of a surprise when Lily showed up to the house around six in the morning. It was a little bit of a surprise when she announced her arrival by calling Gerald and asking him to come out front to lend a hand. Apparently he had stopped by McDonald’s on the way and bought everybody breakfast and needed help carrying the bags and drinks. When he saw the uniform that Jessica had on, all she could do was chuckle and sigh, “If only I wasn’t a married woman,” which made the young woman smile. Jessica was a bit surprised by the enthusiasm in which Cumguzzler got dressed in her maid uniform and as Lily, Gerald, and Jessica complimented both the revealing outfit and the girl being revealed, Cumguzzler began to smile and make a deliberate effort to bend over and show off her butt and vagina to them. In fact she seemed to be getting off on it a little bit.

As everyone sat down Lily offered a seat to Cumguzzler and explained getting a little extra because she didn’t know what the girl liked. “I got a sausage griddle, bacon egg and cheese biscuit, or a couple of burritos. Just take whatever you want and we’ll figure out the rest.”

Cumguzzler remained standing and looked around confused and seemed to react as if she was worried somebody was trying to trick her. She took a tentative step towards the table and asked Lily if she was sure. Lily gave a bit of a bemused laugh and shook his head, “Have you eaten breakfast yet?” The girl shook her head and Lily just pushed out a chair next to her in response, “Then sit. You’ll work better on a full stomach and nobody’s going to die if you wait 20 minutes before running off to scrub the toilets. Please. Here’s a hash brown and some orange juice too. Oh Jade, you don’t eat meat so I just got you a muffin and a couple of hashbrowns. And some honey if you want. That work?”

Jade gladly took the food that was offered while Cumguzzler moved up to the chair Lily offered and the expression on her face seemed to somehow be fluctuating somewhere between happiness and fear. Lily assumed the girl was just a bit nervous about excepting food from relative strangers. Or thought it could be a pride thing about taking charity so she simply smiled. “Hey, I might be doing a little work here renovating the basement and on my construction crew we have a little bit of a tradition. First day of a new job the guy in charge buys everybody breakfast. Sure it’s not a real job but hey, it gives me an excuse to have breakfast with my family.”

Cumguzzler remained standing and she did seem to be looking at the food as if she wanted some. “But I’m not your family.”

Lily gave a dismissive raspberry, “Eh. You’re living here right? Close enough. Please. I paid for it, somebody might as well eat it. Besides step one in having a reliable worker is treating them well enough that they want to keep their job. Giving you a cheap breakfast like this is literally the least I can do.”

With that both Gerald and Jessica added their voices and insisted that the girl join them. With that she sat down and grabbed the burritos and some of the hot picante sauce while thanking Lily. They all ate and talked for a few minutes until they heard someone knocking on the front door and Gerald got up and go see who it was. About a minute later Gerald walked into the room followed a rather plump, middle aged woman with graying red hair, a gray busines suit, and appeared to have a severe case of Resting Bitch Face.

As she came in she sighed and looked at Cumguzzler. When the young woman saw who was with Gerald she immediately stood up out of her chair and her face became one of masked fear and embarrassment. “Of course I come in here and you’re not doing your job like you’re supposed to do. Sitting down and stuffing you face instead sounds like the level of unprofessional conduct I can expect from you. And what’s with that slut outfit you’re wearing? That shirt is way too short. And you’re not even wearing any underwear? What the hell is wrong with you?! This is not proper conduct or dress, I thought you at least knew better than this for crying out loud.”

As the woman walked in she didn’t bother to greet or even acknowledge anyone else in the room and immediately began inspecting Cumguzzler as if she were an animal up for adoption. She was brazen enough that most of the others at the table were silent for a couple seconds as they tried to figure out what was going on. Jessica was the first one that responded, “I bought the uniform she is wearing. I bought all her uniforms and asked her not to wear panties.”

“And who are you,” the woman asked in a very disinterested way.

“I am Jessica Thompson. The woman who hired your daughter and I guess I will be the one in charge of her job.”

As she said that the older woman’s attitude changed with lightning speed and she was immediately smiling as she addressed Jessica with a fake warmness and reached out her hand. “My name is Carol Smith. I am Cumguzzler’s mother and stopped by this morning to give her some tips to ensure she‘s able to do her job effectively. She can be a bit lazy and not very bright at times. I am very grateful to you for giving her an opportunity though.”

A couple of the people at the table looked at her awkwardly and hoped this was just some light-hearted parent-child ragging or teasing. Judging by the miserable look on Cumguzzler’s face and the severe look on her mother’s, this was not meant as a jovial moment. “So they want you want you to walk around with your stuff hanging out?” After asking the question the woman went back to the inspection, going so far as to lift up the skirt to get and use a hand to spread her ass cheeks slightly. “You’ll need to get your anus bleached and shave yourself down there to make yourself more presentable. And did they ask you to keep your breasts covered or are you just cutting corners again? As much as you acted like a dirty slut before it’d make sense that the one time you’re supposed to you can’t do it right...”

Everyone at the table was largely quiet as they watched the continued verbal dressing down of the woman by her own mother. Jade had become better hanging around people but that didn’t mean she was any better with awkwardness or confrontation and was now acting almost as bashfully as she had when introducing herself to Jessica last week. Gerald was splitting his attention between the dehumanizing treatment that Carol seemed to be giving her daughter while noticing Lily who now had her head down and she had stopped eating entirely. Her hands were on the table and slowly clenching and unclenching while her breathing was noticeably much deeper. Jessica stepped in to defend her maid a little bit by saying that she insisted that her stomach and breasts remained covered. Carol’s reply was to sneer at her and insinuate that her daughter had deliberately chosen a less demanding employer because she had no pride and knew she wasn’t good enough.

Jessica figured that the Random Remote was the reason the woman so quickly accepted the naked ass uniform as readily as she did. The speed with which the woman went from criticizing her daughter for flashing her naked rear end to not doing it properly was stunning though. If this is what the girl had to put up with at home it was no wonder she seemed so detached after leaving the restaurant last night. “I wanted her to cover her chest and stomach because having some fabric in the way when she was cooking or using chemicals would help protect her from getting burned or whatever. I figured the bottom area would be relatively safe so I asked to leave it out so we could enjoy the view.”

“Not much of a view to enjoy if you ask me. And you may want to rethink that safety thing as you have no idea how clumsy and incompetent this one can be. Now get to work and stop embarrassing yourself and pretending you’re a member of the family. You’re not. You’re a servant and have no right to sit with them. Your place is to stand aside and wait until you’re told what to do. Then do your best and fail miserably...”

“That’s it!” As the insults continued Lily yelled and pushed her chair back. Within two seconds and lightly pulled Cumguzzler to the side so that she could stand right in Carol’s face. “I will not allow any more of that. She is eating breakfast with us because I asked. Because I told her to. In fact, I insisted. Your daughter wore the uniform she was asked and followed the requests of her employers to enjoy breakfast with them. So far she has done everything asked of her. She is also a perfectly lovely, beautiful girl and so far has seemed perfectly intelligent and capable. The only one here that needs to define or assess her job performance is Jessica or one of the other people she is cleaning up after.” As Lily spoke there was undeniable levels of anger and venom in her voice. With a deep breath Lily did her best to tone down her anger as she addressed the maid, “Please, I know it’s going to be a bit awkward but sit down and finish your breakfast. Let me deal with this.”

As Lily got closer to Carol, the woman stood up a little straighter and locked eyes with her, “And who the hell do you think you are? You think I’m going to let myself get bullied by some slutted up pink bimbo? Stay in your lane honey as you have no idea who you’re talking to.”

“No, I don’t know and I don’t care. I am Jessica and Gerald’s mother and I’m beginning to think that I’m the only real mother in this fucking kitchen. From the way you are treating the girl, I’m pretty sure I’m not looking at a mother right now. You walk in here and didn’t give your daughter a hug, you didn’t say good morning. You’re telling her she isn’t even allowed to eat fucking breakfast?! You didn’t say one nice thing and just kept berating the poor girl. That is not how a mother, fuck that even, that’s not how any decent parent or person behaves.”

Carol continued to stare daggers at Lily, “If she wanted to eat breakfast then she should have woken up before her duties began. If you get up late you tough it out and deal with your bad choices. And it isn’t an employers place to coddle their workers’ shitty decisions. But Jessica being a weak boss makes sense now if you’re her mother. I shouldn’t be surprised that someone with no self-respect or standards would be raised by an obvious trollop like you. Maybe I should be glad my daughter started working here. Maybe she finally found a bunch of losers just as useless as she is to hang out with!”

As Carol said there was a brief moment of silence and then Lily started to laugh. It wasn’t one of happiness though. It was a laugh that someone does right before they do something that they’re going to regret but they also know they aren’t going to be able to hold themselves back. It was bad enough that this woman continued to degrade her own daughter this way in front of her, but now she was roping Lily’s kids in as well. She glanced away from Carol and at her family to sarcastically ask them how long into the transition did it take before that rule about a man never being allowed to slap a woman disappeared and if he had earned free reign yet.

Hearing this just made Carol’s eyes perk up and a mean smile formed on her lips, “Oh, so you’re one of those transgender freaks? I should’ve known that someone that doesn’t even know their own gender can’t figure out how to run a family or a business. But don’t let that stop you. Come on, if you think you’re a woman, hit me. We’ll see how the law feels about it. Go for it. Or did you get the bottom surgery too? Am I somehow the only one in this house with any balls?!”

Lily gave the woman a condescending smile after that attempt at provoking her. Someone insulting her directly was something that she could handle and the fact that Carol had now taken her focus off of the teenagers in the room and put it onto her actually felt like a victory. “Does her father know how you treat her? Or did he realize that the bitch he slept with wasn’t worth his time and run off?”

As Lily asked that the look on Carol’s face changed to one of pure rage. Between that question and not liking the way that Lily was looking at her now, Carol lost control. The belittling and denigrating smile was too much for her and with a loud, “that’s none of your damn business,” Carol reached her hand out and tried to smack Lily in the face as hard as she could. Unfortunately for her though Lily wasn’t just a sports fan but also played multiple sports in high school and still got out to keep her skills fresh from time-to-time. She still pretty good reflexes and Carol obviously wasn’t that much of a fighter or athlete so her attack was rather slow.

Carol’s palm wound up hitting nothing but air however there still wound up being a loud crack as flesh hit flesh. On pure instinct and without thinking as Lily’s left arm came up to block the incoming attack, her right hand had came up and landed a good solid smack of it’s own on Carol’s face. It wasn’t the hardest she could do but it still left a noticeable red mark on the older woman’s cheek. Of course breakfast had largely been forgotten about and everybody was watching with baited breath to see what would happen next.

Carol tried to slap Lily’s face several more and each attempt was blocked fairly quickly and easily by Lily, though this time there no counterstrike and it was apparent to everybody that Lily didn’t take Carol seriously as a threat at all . Carol realized eventually that she was outmatched so she just stopped and rubbed her cheek where she was slapped and looked over to her daughter, “You know what? I’m not letting you work for these perverted thugs. Come with me, we’re going home. Maybe we can get you your job at the restaurant back.”

The girl started to rise but as she did Lily placed a hand on her shoulder and did her best to give a reassuring smile, “Just remember you’re 18 now and an adult. She can’t make you go anywhere you don’t want to go. If you would rather stay here with us, we would be more than happy to have you.”

She looked up at Lily then over to her mother, and then over to the rest of the people sitting around the table. “You know what? I think I don’t want this breakfast to go to waste.” And with that she turned her back on her mother and pulled back up to the table.

With a smile Lily looked at the woman’s mother and gave her the most serious face she could, “You have your answer. Now get out before we throw you out.”

She looked like she had many things that she wanted to say to everybody in the room but Lily cracked her knuckles in a way that screamed, ‘fuck around and find out’ while Lily didn’t need to say a word. With a cold demeanor the woman gave a quick and short, “fine,” before walking out the door with Lily following behind and locking the front door after she had left. When Lily returned to the table everyone was quiet and not sure of what to say. Jessica now felt guilty about giving her the name Cumguzzler because it just felt wrong to talk about serious topics with a name like that but initially she had just meant it as a soft, silly, goofy name to give herself a laugh. On the other hand nobody else seemed to give it a second thought so she let it slide or now. She was the one that spoke first though and apologized to Lily for what her mother had said to her about the trans-freak thing. She didn’t even think her mother was transphobic and was just saying it to be hurtful or provoke Lily into doing something she could be arrested over.

Lily just dismissed that without a thought, “Nah, I’ve been called far worse by far better people. When she was insulting you or my children, that was far more difficult for me to deal with. Watching a parent treat their kid like that has always been difficult for me. It stirs up some unpleasant, old memories.”

“So was your mom like that?”

Lily shook her head and smiled a little bit but it didn’t last long, “No, my mom is great. In fact she helped pay for the Gerald and Jessica’s apartment they were staying in. My wife Sarah’s mom though, she was a piece of work. She was in a lot of ways similar to what I saw from Carol. My mother-in-law was fine and easy enough to deal with, so long as she remained sober. Which as time went on became less and less often. She was an angry drunk, and when she started to have it take hold, she would start screaming and yelling at everyone. She would belittle, manipulate, and gaslight her husband and daughter. She’d even bring the cops into it if those around her ignored her too much. Manipulate them too. She just needed to be the center of attention and didn’t care how she got there.”

Lily began to look a little choked up so Gerald decided to step in and lead the conversation for a while. “Mom told one story where grandma was particularly bad and had been for a week straight. By the end of it everyone was tuning her out and since she wasn’t getting the attention she wanted, she grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and just started waving it around at grandpa. Eventually she did it long enough and got close enough that he wasn’t comfortable and took it away. Just grabbed her arm and wrenched it out of her hand. After that she called the police and said her husband was attacking her and had a knife. Cops seemed to belive him when he said he didn’t do anything wrong but decided that keeping the two together wasn’t a good idea until everyone involved wasn’t intoxicated so they drug him to the drunk tank for the night.”

Jessica picked up, “So that’s the kind of thing that our mom Sarah got to watch growing up. And money would go missing from her dad’s wallet and she’d get accused of stealing it. Sarah realized later that grandma was probably just taking the money to buy more whiskey and blaming it on her. And to make matters worse grandpa started drinking just to numb the pain that dealing with her had become and he drank so much that it often left Sarah kind of alone to deal with everything. Apparently grandpa passed out so bad that he began to wet the bed once in a while too. So mom kind of closed herself off emotionally to everyone and even tried to keep her distance from other kids at school because she didn’t want them coming home with her to see what an embarrassment her parents had become.”

Sitting back in her chair Lily continued, “I didn’t even know all this was going on until after we graduated. We met in middle school and it was hard to get her defenses to start going down but we got along early on. We started dating sophomore year of high school but no matter how close we got that whole time she always made a deliberate effort to keep me away from her house. I didn’t even know where she lived until one night I borrowed a friend’s car and tailed her home after work. That’s when I found out everything as she walked into the front door to her mother asking where the most recent ‘missing’ forty dollars went to. I didn’t need to listen for very long after the screaming accusations became too much and I knocked on the door and brought her home with me.” She took a sip of her coffee and continued, “Now every time I see a parent mistreating their kid like that it takes me back to when I was in that spot. Watching someone I cared about being mistreated. Wishing I had known sooner so I could have stopped it. I’m not sure I could have done much that young but I feel like there must have been something. I don’t know, maybe at least go to the police or something. But it makes me feel a bit helpless and frustrated. Ya know?”

Everyone at the table just nodded as Lily’s eye began to tear up. Cumguzzler for her part seemed sympathetic and reached out to give her a pat on the back, “Well, for my part I guess I can spill a few details. You know how mad my mom got when you asked where my father was? Well, the truth is we don’t know. In fact we don’t even know who it is. It’s rich for my mom to belittle me for being a tramp considering she apparently had a bit of a reputation when she was in her 20’s. Have you ever heard of Maury Povich?”

Jessica and Gerald looked at one another a bit confused. They had heard the name but they had no idea from where. Lily on the other hand did. “Yeah, he was the guy that used to host those daytime talk shows where bratty kids would be taken to some bullshit boot camp or. No. Please, no. She didn’t. I know what you’re going to say but please don’t say it.”

The woman just nodded, “Not just once. Four times she went on that show to make my newest potential father take a paternity test. There were two other guys that didn’t make the show that she got to take a test and they both came back negative. After that she basically gave up.”

Lily just gave a pained sigh and in a high-pitched, whiny voice replied. “I asked you not to say it and you said it. You even made it worse than I thought. Why did you need to do that?”

“Oh, it gets worse still. The reason she stopped after six was she said the other candidates were broke and wouldn’t be able to pay any child support even if she sued and that meant there was no point. As if the idea that I just might want to know who my biological father was, out of fucking plain curiosity, or to try to have a relationship with him, at least find out if he had any genetic ailments I needed to be aware of didn’t even matter to her. And that’s been her entire life as long as I’ve known her. She’s only about what benefits her directly and even her own daughter’s happiness didn’t matter. The reason why she went on those damn shows in the first place was she got the test but didn’t need to pay for them. She would come by the restaurant when I was a waitress and tell me everything I was doing wrong. So I wouldn’t embarrass her. It’s also why I couldn’t get a job where she worked or go to college. She didn’t want me to make her look bad.”

Hearing her say that Lily just put her head down and groaned while doing her best to hide the smile she felt creeping in. “Great, now I need to go home and figure out how to tell my wife that we’ll need to pay for a third child’s college. And this time it’s going to be out of pure fucking spite. They’re already filled up for this year but you’re okay with starting next fall right? My kids worked for a year after high school just to save up a little extra cash for expenses. You can do the same. So do you have any idea what you want to go to school for?”

The girl was a little taken aback by that and she tried insisting that Lily didn’t need to do that. Lily responded by pointing out that she knew they didn’t need to. Lily wanted to give the girl a chance to prove her mother wrong and stick it to her. “Like I said, this is pure spite. So what do you want to study?” After a couple of seconds Cumguzzler shrugged her shoulders and said it may sound weird but she kind of wanted to study accounting. Jessica thought it was a bit unusual considering the little bit of her personality the had come to know but Gerald just nodded his head that it sounds like a solid, respectable choice and understood the option since it’ll probably always have jobs available. Lily though thought she picked up on something in the girl’s voice that was a little deeper. After remembering that her mother was wearing a business suit she asked what Carol went to school for and what she did for a living.

“Accounting,” her daughter asked with a little bit of a cheeky grin.

Lily just laughed at that, “You don’t just want to be an accountant do you? You want to get the same degree, start with the same job, and end up going further and being more successful don’t you? You want to beat her.” When she nodded and blushed a little bit Lily reached over and gave the girl a light hug and began talking with a fake Irish accent, “Ah, a petty and vindictive bitch after me own heart. Cheers lass!”

After that everybody laughed. As they finished breakfast Jessica remembered Cumguzzler’s blank slate trait and decided to at least offer her a chance to skip all of that and go straight to the victory. Doing her best to make it sound like a casual what-if she just pulled out of her ass Jessica asked, “Like if I just had some magic power and could just make you beat your mom right here and now, would you want me to?” As Jessica asked both Cumguzzler and Lily said no simultaneously which made the two of them laugh together.

“That’s not how accomplishing a task out of spite works. If you get there purely by being better and out playing the other guys, it makes the dance in the end zone that much sweeter.”

Jessica just smiled, “So you’re telling me 15 yard pick-six isn’t just as sweet?”

“Hey, who taught you those words? Oh wait, it was me wasn’t it?” Lily groaned as Jessica gave a good counter to the analogy. “Yes, the quick pick six is sweet too. But that’s all too often a thing with just one person getting lucky and being in the right place at the right time. The touchdown drive is a whole team effort and that’s what makes it more rewarding.” Saying this Lily raised her arm in the air in a victory pose, raising her index finger up in the air in a gesture meant to portray the idea of being number one.

She held it there while Jessica asked Lily if she knew she was totally full of shit and without lowering her eyes or dropping her smile slightly Lily just said, “Absolutely. But I wouldn’t want that easy magic win even if it existed and I don’t think Cumguzzler would either.” The girl agreed so Jessica decided to let her have her way. It wasn’t long after that before Gerald had to leave for class and his 8AM lab so he thanked his mom for stopping by so early and bringing breakfast before heading out.

A little after that Jessica, Jade, and Lily went down to the basement and began talking about making plans to renovate the basement. Lily was really the only one that had much to say during the assessment of the basement. The kids were right that there wasn’t much to this place though. It was big, it was open, and didn’t have much going on. Jade asked if that was a problem but Lily just shook her head, “It’s great actually. Gerald tells me you’re kind of an artist? It just means I’ve got a nice, blank canvas down here. More options to work with. She asked the other girls to go up through the house and help her make sure the fuse box was labeled correctly.

After a little conversation they talked and realized that as big as the basement was they didn’t need to devote the whole thing to the gaming room. With all the new people coming and going lately they decided that they could build two bedrooms and a bathroom down there and still have plenty of room left for a good sized gaming area. After taking and writing down a few measurements Lily went out to her truck to pull out some blank blueprints, a cup full of pencils, a square ruler, and an old, stained CD player that she plugged into the wall and began playing 80’s hair metal as she sat down at the kitchen table to start making some plans on different arrangements for everything.

As she did that Jade went to her dad’s former office that she was using as an art room to do a little painting before leaving for her classes while Cumguzzler went about her job. By the time they did the quick overview of the basement Jessica didn’t have much time before her literature class which meant a chance to check on some of her newest Random Remote recruits and she very much looked forward to that. She went into her room and pointed the remote through the walls and one-by-one was able to lock on to Lily, Jade, and Cumguzzler but apparently none of them were ready to jump forward yet. Sighing in disappointment she left, certain that at least one of the girls in Lit would be ready to move things forward after once again assuring Megan that she was too busy to do anything today with a text message. Girl seemed to have become a little obsessed since last night.

CHAPTER SUMMARY FOR THOSE SKIPPING THE BULK OF IT:

Our new party member, the former waitress and now maid going by the name Cumguzzler is getting ready for her first day of work as her mother and Lily stop by. Cumguzzler's mother is nothing but insulting and critical, treating her daughter with no respect. Lily is upset by this and we find out it's because his wife, Gerald and Jessica's mother, grew up in a similar situation. Unwilling to watch a child treated like that by their parent, Lily's patience reaches it's breaking points and the two women have a confrontation. Cumguzzler's mother (Carol) eventually tries to slap Lily who dodges it and returns fire successfully. Carol leaves and Lily offers to pay for Cumguzzler's college starting next year out of pure spite, just so they can both prove Carol was wrong and underestimated her daughter's capabilities.