Message-ID: <40093asstr$1040911803@assm.asstr-mirror.org> Return-Path: <anon584c@nyx.net> X-Original-Message-ID: <200212260803.BAA22089@nyx10.nyx.net> X-Nyx-Envelope-Data: Date=Thu Dec 26 01:03:03 2002, Sender=anon584c, Recipient=ckought69@hotmail.com, Valsender=anon584c@localhost From: anon584c@nyx.net (Uther Pendragon) Reply-To: anon584c@nyx.net X-ASSTR-Original-Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 01:03:02 -0700 Subject: {ASSM} rp "Forget All That 09" {Pendragon} (MF rom wl lac) [9/12] x-asstr-message-id-hack: 40093 Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 09:10:03 -0500 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org> Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: <URL:http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2002/40093> X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Story-Submission: <ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Moderator-ID: RuiJorge, newsman IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 18, or otherwise forbidden by law to read electronically transmitted erotic material, please go do something else. This material is Copyright, 1997, by Uther Pendragon. All rights reserved. I specifically grant the right of downloading and keeping ONE electronic copy for your personal reading so long as this notice is included. Reposting requires previous permission. If you have any comments or requests, please E-mail them to me at anon584c@nyx.net. If you save erotic stories, and you prefer that other household members not be exposed to them, I recommend that you use a file zipped with the PKZip option -spassword. (Where the password that you choose would, presumably, not be "password.") This still leaves the titles of the files and the fact that they are encrypted open to anybody. All persons here depicted, except public figures depicted as public figures in the background, are figments of my imagination and any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. FORGET ALL THAT by Uther Pendragon anon584c@nyx.net Part Nine: Continued from part Eight. Despite their ages and educational attainment, Bob and Kathleen insist on being little children on Christmas morning. Their parents, who wouldn't have it any other way, fix stockings for them (and for me) late on Christmas Eve. Sometime before I entered the family, Vi took on the task of preparing a stocking for each of her parents. Bob's contribution to this is sporadic, but it included photos this year. There were two stockings for The Kitten, since we had brought one from home. I was really surprised that there weren't three. There were a few sprigs of mistletoe around, one of them over the couch. This is the assigned place for Bob and me on Christmas day. (I don't think it is really fair to carry a baby under a sprig of mistletoe and kiss her there, but I kept that opinion all to myself.) The stockings and one gift are opened in sleepwear, and then everyone scatters to dress for the fancy breakfast. After that, the rest of the gifts are opened and recorded. When we were dirt-poor students, our gifts were from Bob-and-Jeanette. Now we each give a gift to each of the other members of the family. (When she was a dirt-poor student, not that interns do so much better, Kathleen often gave gifts to Mom-and-Dad or to Bob-and-Jeanette. Once she gave the two of us a used murder mystery. I devour them, Bob seldom reads them. Bob, who will ride Kathleen about anything, expressed real gratitude. He told me, "All you got was a used book; I got a happy wife.") Kathleen was more-or-less lying in ambush when I stumbled out of our room that morning. "Is The Kitten ready?" she asked. Since I was heading for the bathroom having left a naked husband in the room behind me, I was rather abrupt with her. "Tell me when she is," was all Kathleen said. I had already fed The Kitten and Bob had been changing her. When I got back to the room, I got her into a dress (sleepwear rule be hanged) and handed her to her aunt. "Oh Kitten, you look darling," Kathleen said. I knew that was the last I would see of my daughter until she got hungry again. This year the first gifts for Bob and me were the matching sender and receiver of the baby monitor. Our stockings, as well as The Kitten's were full of small-but-too-big-to-swallow toys. The Kitten's first gift was Now We Are Six (with the original Shepherd drawings) from her Aunt Kathleen. She had warned the whole extended family that she was giving the series, which precluded duplicates but destroyed its surprise value. Her gift next Christmas will be House at Pooh Corner, for example. Kathleen's first gift was a photo album. The first page was an enlargement of the picture of The Kitten that the Senior Brennans had used on their Christmas card. The rest was blank, as she carefully showed Bob and me. "Look, Catherine Angelique," she said. "That's you." The stocking ritual took quite some time, since Kathleen was holding The Kitten with at least one hand, and had to show her each of the gifts in each of her stockings. The Kitten has a short attention span for toys, but not *that* short. She got a rattle fairly soon and held on to it through the rest of the first stocking and part of the second. The wrapping paper from her gift, however, captured her attention. "I explained to Bob, when he was about that age," Bob's father said grabbing the paper which had wrapped her book, "the difference between soap and food. Soap, I explained is rubbed on the outside of your face; and food goes in your mouth." "It wasn't that age, dear," Katherine said. "He was nearly two years older." "Anyway," Bob's father continued. "Bob explained to me the difference between food and paper. Food, he explained, is rubbed on the outside of your face; and paper goes in your mouth. However," at this word he put the paper way out of her reach. "I think we'll try to keep the paper out of his daughter's mouth today. All gone, darling." She was not pleased with this. "You know, dear," Katherine said towards the end of this exercise, "it's always a temptation to tell a child 'But it's for your own good.' Because, of course, you are continually making decisions for the child's good. That never works. No-one appreciates having things done *to* them. And they appreciate it even less when they are asked to be grateful. Remember that, will you, when The Kitten has a better grasp of verbal communication. You should remember that, as well, dear." Now I was probably the first "dear," but I couldn't guess to whom the last sentence was addressed. Kathleen, however, knew. She held up her bare left hand. "'There's just one thing,'" she sang. "'You ought to give at least an engagement ring.' Mother I may *never* have any children." "That's all well and good, dear. It's your decision after all." (Have I mentioned that the Brennans' idea of the relation between parents and adult children differ's from my parents' idea?) "However, that decision doesn't provide you with a license to parent those who aren't your children. Now does it?" "No ma'am.... C'mon Kitten, we're going up to watch Aunt Kathleen dress. I've showered so somebody else can use the bathroom." She was on the stairs before I realized that she had been spanked; and she was in her room before I figured out that I had been, too. Kathleen was still carrying The Kitten when we were all gathered for the fancy breakfast. "Isn't she the cutest baby in the whole world?" Bob asked his sister. "I think so, but I may be prejudiced." "I'm not prejudiced," he said. (I'm reporting on his words, not testifying to their truth.) "She's the cutest baby in the whole world, and I'll speak for the record." "You may well be speaking for the record with these two," said his father in a bitter tone. "Jeanette's not recording this," Bob said, "although I reserve the right to search her for a wire." He wasn't doubting my word, he was being risque. "But still...." his father said. "Sir," Bob said in a voice that cut through his father's. "As the senior partner informed you, this firm is available for all manner of subcontracting, but *not*!" That word cracked through the room, and he let a two-beat pause follow it. "for micro-management. Whether Jeanette is taping me now or will tape me in the future is a question between Jeanette and myself. Period. Whether it's been settled or will be settled or will never be settled is an internal family matter." Bob's father looked apoplectic during the first half of the speech, but he had some other expression by the end. "I haven't done much right by you," he said to Katherine. "But, by God, I sired a *man* on you." "I think that you contributed a bit more to his being a man than the Y chromosome, dear," she answered, "and you did a lot right by me. Do you mind if I say the grace?" "Go ahead." She said a fairly elaborate grace, thanking God for the food, the company, and the festive season. Then she thanked him for the Prince of Peace and asked the blessing of peace on the family. The amens were hesitant, but all around the table. "Since the topic has been raised...." I began. "Never going to make her a real Brennan, are you?" Kathleen said to Bob. Her mother saw my hurt. Kathleen had been the first person to call me a Brennan, when I wasn't. "Topic doesn't matter, dear," Katherine explained to me. "Raise your own." Bob cut through the last sentence with, "And, as the original speaker, you have the right of way and may plow through her speech, and mother's, and mine, ignoring us." "First," I said to Bob's father, taking this advice. "Of course you have provided a lot towards Bob's personality. The stories he remembers show that; and on that topic, I think I know what you do at Brewster. I couldn't understand what you did before. "Do you really want to hear?" he asked. "Wow," said Kathleen, "that was quick restoration to grace. He never asked *us* if we wanted to hear." "I really want to know," I said. "I already knew whether you wanted to hear, Kathleen Violet. Anyway, it all starts with Ward Technology, a conglomerate, and Madison, then a small-time management consultant. A growth conglomerate works like this (but the numbers are out of date; I worked them out long ago). "Tortoise manufacturing is a corporation earning a hundred million dollars a year. That is net profit after taxes. The market values Tortoise at nine times earnings. Hare conglomerate is a company also earning a hundred million dollars in the last year, but it has been growing at thirty percent a year in earnings per share. So the market values it at twenty times earnings. Hare buys Tortoise for a round billion in new Hare stock. Then the merged company makes one hundred ninety-five million dollars in the next year. For Hare, that is ninety-five percent more earnings on fifty percent more shares. That makes a thirty percent increase in per-share earnings. The market is proven right about Hare, it continues to value it at twenty times earnings. Hare's shares are worth thirty percent more than they were last year. The old owners of Tortoise are happy, since they have shares of stock worth over forty percent more than the Tortoise shares that they held last year. "What no-one seems to notice is that the market now values at three-point-nine billion a mix of plant and equipment that it valued at two-point-nine billion last year when it earned five millions more profit. "Of course, when a growth conglomerate slips, it is all over but the crying. Well, Ward Tech had almost slipped. Justice had nixed its largest acquisition of the year before, and its growth was much lower than expected. "Now the other half of this is Madison...." He said a lot more before Katherine said, "Her eyes have glazed over dear." "I'm sorry," he said, "I thought that you wanted to hear." "I wanted to *learn*," I said. "It's just that there is more to learn than I can handle at once." "What you really ought to do, dad," Bob said, "is to write it down. I know some of it, but it's like the game 'Rumor.' You tell me; I tell Jeanette; Jeanette tells The Kitten; and suddenly Madison is the fourth president, and Brewster Furniture makes office equipment.... Yeah, I know, in all your spare time." Meaning that he hadn't any. "One possibility," I put in, "if this isn't a sore point right now, is to put it on tape. Don't worry about filling cassettes, one story per tape. Put a little card with each tape telling what the subject is and the date of recording and the date covered by the narrative." Guess who made a few extra bucks transcribing for an oral-history project. "If worst comes to worst, The Kitten would have a record of your voice. At best, I might be able to type them up sometime. Right now, I'm booked. But my part of the books dribbles off long before Bob's part." "I, at least, am serious," Bob said. "You don't know how important the memoirs and diaries of the less-than-famous are to historians. Not meaning to denigrate you, but you aren't a politician or a general. We have their memoirs; we'll have the biographies of the entertainers of this time. But most of the stories don't say how the rest of the world operated. Anyway, Kathleen might not have listened, but she'll read it if it's in print." That is an article of faith in the family. She read Britannica from A to Z, though she admits skipping parts of the duller articles. "Think about it," Kathleen said. "And, although I'm much more selective these days, I would read that." Later, when Bob's father looked like he had finished eating, I asked him if that were true. When he nodded, I told Kathleen to give The Kitten to him. Having wrestled with her all through the meal, she was reluctant to give her up. "But this was only niece time," she said. "I haven't had any goddaughter time at all." That lost. Kathleen and I cleared the table and hurried in to share in the experience of the tree. The Kitten, as I expected, made out like a bandit. Instead of being grateful for all the toys and books she received, she resented all the wrapping paper that she was being denied. We left the party suddenly for some cereal and fruit. There were piles of presents for us when we got back. Bob and I got matching shirts with large pockets like his father was wearing. I'm not sure that I want my daughter to get more experience picking pockets than she has already, but she certainly enjoys it. I also got a necklace of beads like Katherine's but even more splendiferous in color. It has larger and, therefore, even less dangerous beads. The Kitten, on top of everything else, got a child's picture book *in French* from Bob's father. I gave him a big hug in gratitude, forgetting that it wasn't -- technically -- a gift to me. Kathleen put off Bob's gifts to her until the end. Then she unwrapped a box, searched the wrapping paper, opened it to find another box, unwrapped it and searched the wrapping paper.... The picture set was taped to the bottom of the fourth box in. However, she opened that box and unwrapped, opened, and searched the fifth box before looking at the pictures. There is no telling with a Bob box. Bob and I got a hug in thanks. She expressed more enjoyment over the pictures than over the very nice blouse that I had given her. On the other hand, the pictures would have been rather dull without The Kitten; and I made her myself. The other picture set was wrapped somewhat less complexly. The family talked about extreme Bob packages from the past. He used to do this to his parents as well, and to me; but he has slacked off in recent years. Ours are generally less elaborate than Kathleen's. Sooner or later, every Christmas includes the story of the year Bob gave his sister a series of *seven* boxes, each of them padded from the larger one by crushed newspaper, and all of them otherwise empty. After she had thrashed around in the discarded wrappings for a length of time which increases with every retelling, he got the book from his room and tried to slip it into the wrapping paper under the excuse of helping her look. This story seems to require four Brennans to tell it properly, leaving me the only audience. In a few years, The Kitten will join me. This Christmas, looking at four adults laughing uproariously, she decided that it must have been something that she had done; she waved her hands to keep us laughing. I'd planned to feed her just before leaving for my family's celebration. She'd awakened hungry earlier than usual, however, and we hadn't managed to stretch the times much. I fed her much earlier than I had planned, and downstairs. The latter was a mistake, because the bustle disturbed The Kitten, and it distracted me from my speech when she paused. Midway through the feeding, Bob's father asked if he could read "King John's Christmas" from The Kitten's new book. I asked her, and reported her permission. I felt like a servant of the Pythoness. When she was in the play-with-the-nipple stage, she cut it short to admire all the talk going around. That didn't cut her ration by much, and I let it go. With any luck, my parents would be through their meal by the time she got hungry again, and it would be a good excuse for short goodbyes. I left The Kitten with Katherine, and went upstairs to express some milk from my other breast. I don't mind nursing The Kitten before the family, but nursing a damn machine should only be done in private. They held the poem until I got back down. The king got his India-rubber ball just before it was time to leave for my parents' house. Since the car seat was in the van, we drove that to my parents' house. "Every time I drive this route with you," Bob said, "I expect to be told that I'm not old enough to drive you home." Daddy had objected to Bob's driving me on a date when Bob was newly licensed. Daddy then drove us to the movie, however, showing that it was a real concern for my safety, not just another power play. Since Bob never had a moving violation and my father had frequent ones, that concern might have been misplaced. "You aren't going to act the bear like that with The Kitten's dates are you?" I asked him. "Probably not. Since I won't let her date until she is twenty-one, I figure that all of her potential dates will have established a driving record. If it is without blemish, I'll let her ride with them." Bob and I have to discuss the dating rules sometime in the next thirteen years. Mommy gets to have her celebration on Christmas. That means that the Brennan feast is delayed a day. The Brennans almost never have guests to what is, to them, a major family feast. Mommy, on the other hand, always wants guests. She doesn't have much of a selection on Christmas day, but the dual inconvenience shows her power over those who come and over us. The Brennans have turned the oddity into an advantage. They have a Christmas celebration one day and a Christmas feast the next. Meal preparation takes most of the day, and makes the feast much more special. My mother's guests this year included a widower, three widows, a single woman of my mother's age, my brother, Dave, and us. Dave is older than me and younger than Greg. (Which makes him both my older brother and my younger brother; think about it.) He is also bad news. Bob had told Dave very quietly on a previous such occasion that touching me would be an occasion for seriously mixing it up with Bob. "And which of us would win that one?" Dave had asked. Bob is bigger, but Dave fights dirtier and much more often. "And which of us would be violating parole on that one?" Bob had replied. He'd made his point. If the police have to be called, and I am under oath to call them if any such fight occurs, they know Dave. Bob, on the other hand, has no arrest record; he's a college professor and the son of the president of the town's largest private-sector employer. This year, Dave seemed to be on is best behavior. He said nice things about The Kitten, but didn't try to touch her. It may have been Bob hulking over us, it may have been a lack of interest in babies. Dave was even drinking tomato juice, but his presence raised the tension level. The Kitten was a hit with the older guests. Her grandmother was the only one who didn't coo over her. Dinner was much later than the year before. I feared that The Kitten wouldn't last through it; but the recent changes had blown the schedule to smithereens, so I couldn't be sure. We had some of my milk in a bottle. I didn't feel that walking away from the table to go breast-feed would be a big hit. I would feel less comfortable feeding The Kitten in front of my family, let alone their guests, than I did in Bob's old church which I attended once or twice a year. Bob's only worry, and a serious one, was that he would have to leave me to care for The Kitten. "And what do you do, Mr. Brennan?" one of the widows asked. "Call me Bob." "Mr. Brennan teaches school up in the North," my mother put in. Bob has the least pride of status of anyone I know; Mommy's statement is technically correct; Bob's mother teaches school, and he reveres her. Even so, saying an Assistant Professor "teaches school" minimizes his standing. And Bob is "Dr. Brennan" or "Professor Brennan" rather than "Mr." I never understand what advantage Mommy sees in this, her daughter's social standing must reflect on hers to some degree. And Mommy cares about social standing. "Oh, what is the name of the school?" "Grand Valley State University," Bob said. "It's in Michigan." "They call a school a university?" The woman wasn't nasty, but neither was she bright. "No," I said, "Mother calls a university a school. And, to some extent, it is." "We," Dave put in, "are eating with an actual university professor. Aren't you impressed." Dave, having spent five years in high school, regards himself as an expert on education. "Were I a professor at thirty-two, you would have reason to be impressed," Bob said. "Unfortunately, I'm a mere assistant professor. That's a much commoner breed." "I," said the widower suddenly, "am more impressed by thirty-two than by an assistant professor. Oh to be young again!" That brought laughs and agreement from the table. Soon, the conversation got around to the ills that flesh is heir to. The details were excruciating. Half way through the meal, however, The Kitten demanded food. Bob pushed his chair back and I passed him the bottle. "Sorry," he said, "our child needs feeding." Mommy expostulated, but he ignored her. He knew that The Kitten's cries would start my breasts working whether he had a bottle with him or not. "He shouldn't be feeding the child now," Mommy told me. "And how do you know he can do it right?" "Mother, only he has ever bottle fed The Kitten. If I'm in the same room, my breasts leak." Now that is sober fact. I expected some complaint that I would feel comfortable breast feeding my child in front of my in-laws but not in the same house as my own family. Instead, she said, "Leaking breasts! Ladies don't mention leaking breasts. Janice has your daughter ever talked about leaking breasts at the dinner table?" Janice didn't think so. "George?" The widower had no daughter. "Well, if you had, you wouldn't want her talking about leaking breasts." Now, two cases of incontinence had already been mentioned. I don't think that leaking breasts are that much worse than leaking bladders. Also, of the five mentions of leaking breasts, Mommy had managed four. And these were, as the TV censors say, gratuitous. "This criticism of formula is simply a modern fad anyway. Isn't that right, Father?" Mommy calls Daddy "Father" when any of her children are in the room. Why is a mystery, but then most things about Mommy are mysteries. "Mommy," I said, "I respect Daddy's skill and knowledge as a pharmacist." And I do. He isn't that effective a businessman and had been a lousy parent, but he knows drugs and their interactions. "And well you might," Mommy said. "He built The Pharmacy up from next to nothing." Which he didn't, in the first place; and which would imply business skill rather than professional knowledge, in the second. "But I don't think he would feel comfortable criticizing the position taken by the AMA with regard to substances which are not, after all, prescription substances in the USA." "What has that to do with your father's putting years into building up a business that you ignored and abandoned?" I had "abandoned" the pharmacy by marrying a man who wasn't going to carry it on. My marrying one who was going to carry it on had been Daddy's dream, but certainly not Mommy's. "Nothing, I was just pointing out that the American Medical Association endorses breast-feeding for at least one year. Your opinion to the contrary notwithstanding." "It's not polite to always change the subject, Jeanette. That's the trouble with these bossy modern women. They turn their men into wimps doing women's work, ..." (Now Bob complains that his strength has declined from the summers when he did highway- construction labor. But "wimp" isn't the first term which comes to mind when you see him.) "and then they try to change the subject to their private concerns." (All my comments had been in response to hers.) Mercifully, mention of modern times led to a general chorus of complaints. The sin of women working competed with the difficulty of hiring housemaids and cleaning women on affordable terms. I don't want to suggest that anyone raised a possible conflict between these two evils. It's just that both topics were broached and people had to choose which one to address at any particular moment. Daddy did contribute to this conversation. The economic problems of this country were entirely due to three causes: the minimum wage, affirmative action, and "paying people to not work and worse, paying them to have babies." Oh to be back in the glorious, untrammeled, economy of 1931! But I didn't say so, I'd used up my parent-contradiction quota for this year. As I said, he is careful about your prescription. If you have prescriptions from two doctors, or from one careless doctor, take his advice. But not his advice on politics or economics. Bob brought The Kitten back in. I took her, and Bob dug in to what was left on his plate. It was the best appetite that I've seen him exhibit in that house. We had brought presents to Mommy and Daddy from each of us and photos from The Kitten. These would be opened later. We were given our presents in public, one for each of us. Bob got a tie; The Kitten got a stuffed animal (an elephant, I thought it was cute); I got a blouse which was too small and too young for me. We thanked them effusively. The Kitten was getting crankier and crankier, an excuse for us to leave. "You didn't even give me a chance to hold my grandchild," Mommy said. "You didn't ask when she was in a good mood," I replied, silently thanking God. We drove off with The Kitten complaining about the car seat even after the van got moving. Continued in Part Ten. FORGET ALL THAT Uther Pendragon anon584c@nyx.net 1997/12/24 1999/12/30 2000/09/10 2002/12/26 This is the ninth segment of the last story (so far) in a series of stories about the Brennans. The next segment is: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Uther_Pendragon/www/brennan/fat_d.htm Parts 10-12 The first story in the series is: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Uther_Pendragon/www/brennan/forever.htm "Forever" The directory to the entire series is: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Uther_Pendragon/www/brennan.htm Brennan Stories Directory The directory to all my stories can be found at: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Uther_Pendragon/www/index.htm -- Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: <ckought69@hotmail.com> | | FAQ: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/faq.html> Moderator: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Discuss this story and others in alt.sex.stories.d, look for subject {ASSD}| |Archive at <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org> Hosted by <http://www.asstr-mirror.org> | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+