...and then dinner

The boys had barely moved when she got back to them. Though they had put their pants back on… a little to her disappointment now. She brushed past them to sit on the sofa, acutely aware of the fabric tickling against her bare… and still slightly stinging… behind.

“Well?!” Asked Mark, aghast at her silence.

Stacy was still struggling to find the words herself. “Well… she’s taking me to the clinic tomorrow…”

This didn’t seem to satisfy.

“And…?!”

“And… nothing… That’s it… She’s glad that she’s created a home where we all feel so safe and welcome…”

Both boys looked at each other, nonplussed. They looked back to Stacy, but she had nothing else she could offer them.

Pete tried probing an impossibility. “She... didn’t… mind?”

All Stacy could offer was a shrug. She wasn’t wholly clear on that count either.

Pete tried again. “She’s not going to tell our parents?”

A shake of the head.

“She didn’t say we were never to come back here? or couldn’t be friends with Mark anymore? Or anything like that?”

Another shake of the head.

“She didn’t seem angry, or disgusted, or particularly surprised at all at what we were doing?”

This time Stacy tilted her head in thought, before replying.

“No… not really. She said it was important for us to have somewhere safe to explore becoming adults in… She only seemed worried about me becoming pregnant…”

Mark jumped in. “Somewhere… safe?! As in… here? As in she was happy that we did it here?”

Again, Stacy could just shrug. “She seemed happier that we did it here than at anyone else’s house… She didn’t seem particularly surprised that we were doing it, generally… She asked if me and Pete were staying for dinner…”

This seemingly inane last statement had a similar jaw-dropping effect on the boys as it had on Stacy originally. The questions ceased. Peter looked around at the other two.

“...Yes? ...I’ll err… I’ll have to phone my Mom…”