Message-ID: <40134asstr$1041113402@assm.asstr-mirror.org> Return-Path: <anon584c@nyx.net> X-Original-Message-ID: <200212280836.BAA04740@nyx10.nyx.net> X-Nyx-Envelope-Data: Date=Sat Dec 28 01:36:07 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: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 01:36:07 -0700 Subject: {ASSM} rp "Forget All That 11" {Pendragon} (MF rom wl lac) [11/12] x-asstr-message-id-hack: 40134 Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 17:10:02 -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/Year2002/40134> X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Story-Submission: <ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Moderator-ID: dennyw, 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 Eleven: Continued from Part Ten. I clutched my robe around me as I dashed across the hall to the bathroom. Somehow I had lost the sash. Mostly I put on a nightgown before leaving the room when I am visiting the Senior Brennans and put on a robe over that. (Bob is horrified at the idea of my actually wearing a nightgown to bed. By this time, I'm not used to it either. My nightgowns and Bob's pajamas last a long time.) This morning I was in a hurry. Bladder empty, I decided that I might as well shower at that time. The Kitten hadn't awakened before me, which gave me a nice long time before she decided that she was famished. Bob had put on his pajamas by the time I returned. The Kitten was on his shoulder getting a few more minutes of sleep. "There are now two diapers in the wastebasket above the paper," he said. "Oh, do you remember changing her?" "Just now. Do you?" "Not in the least." This is a minor mystery. We know that The Kitten wakes in the middle of the night and demands a meal. We know that I feed her, and that one of us changes her. Sometimes we remember doing that, and who did the change. More often, neither of us remembers it. Occasionally, we check to make sure that it actually happens; it does. Changing a baby is a rather complex action to do in your sleep. Oh well. "I like your outfit," Bob said, "but The Kitten will too." I can't go topless around my daughter, not because she is a prude at the tender age of seven months, but because she wants to suck on my breast any time she sees it. This may be typical of breast-fed babies, but it just might be hereditary. "That's all right, we're almost on schedule. Have you seen the sash to my robe?" "It's over on the bookcase where I threw it." Bob pointed, which was helpful since the walls of the room were mostly low bookcases. I slipped it back through the loops and hunted up clean clothes. By the time The Kitten had reconciled herself to a new day's beginning, I was dressed below the waist. I nursed The Kitten while Bob watched with his patented combination of beam and leer. Which finally reminded me of why Bob would be throwing around the sash to my robe. "Did my father really say he was proud to be compared to me?" he asked. "Bob, you should have seen his face. Pure ecstasy. He looked like you did the first time The Kitten clenched your finger." "You still should have approached us as adults." "Somehow the concept didn't leap to mind," I said. Then I ignored him to coo to my daughter and tell her that "Les hommes sont fous." "Prends garde aux," I told her, "... hommes empoisenne ... du testosterone." It's probably the same in French; it's that sort of word. Bob wandered off to shower and breakfast. "I think I'll run a wash load today," he said when he came back. We didn't pack enough for two weeks, and this was about the midpoint of our visit. "Is The Kitten done?" I handed her over. "Voyons ton grand-pere!" I went downstairs moments later. I could have carried The Kitten, but it was better that his father get this treat from Bob. Dinner was already in preparation when I reached the kitchen. Kathleen handed me my breakfast plate and I took it into the dining room. Katherine stopped her story when I returned. "Does two o'clock seem good enough, dear?" she asked. I thought. "That should be fine. If I foist The Kitten off with a meal from a jar, she'll probably be hungry well before one. Two would be almost perfectly safe." "Or would two-thirty be safer?" "That would be more likely. The only danger would be that I'd have to leave the table a little early." "Two-thirty it is, dear. We'll have Bob bring down the rocker; you won't have to leave the room. Or would you rather talk to The Kitten than listen to us. I know that I would." "The Kitten is getting a little less French this trip than we're used to, but she's getting much more English. I have her most of the time at home, so don't worry about that. The thing is, we spilled something on the rocker and it didn't quite come out." If "coming out" is how you describe cleaning a spill off varnished wood. "Nothing which hasn't been spilled on it before, dear. Don't worry. After a while, the stain darkens and pretends it's part of the pattern of the wood." If only she knew. Then I thought. She kept that rocking chair in her bedroom, their bedroom. They moved it back and forth for us every visit, but it stayed in their room fifty weeks a year. Bob and Kathleen had been nursed in that rocker, but not recently. Katherine spent very little waking time in that room. Maybe the Senior Brennans used the rocker for the same purposes that Bob and I did. Katherine was looking at me. "Nothing which hasn't been spilled on it before, dear." This proved nothing, but it did give me a more attractive vision of my life when I get to my fifties than the discussion around the table the night before had given me of my life in my sixties. "Do you think that I could bathe The Kitten once the turkey's in?" I asked. "There will be space for you, dear. Whether you can wrest her from the hands of her grandfather is another question. Are you available to peel potatoes?" I was, and she set me up across from Kathleen. Katherine started a story of her great-great-aunt Hazel and her wonderful recipes. "And, you know dear, when the family had almost gone to court over who would inherit her set of recipe cards, almost all of it came down to 'a pinch of cinnamon,' or whatever, or -- even worse -- 'season to taste.' That was before the age of Xerox, dear. One person got that sort of information." Kathleen and I sat with enthralled minds and busy hands as that story led to another, then we looked at each other. I don't know who had the idea first, but we both had it before Katherine came to a stopping place. "Is Bob still opposed to sweet potatoes dear?" "He still is, and my mother foisted a double helping onto him yesterday. But we have a question." "Would you mind terribly," asked Kathleen, "if we taped you?" "I think that you shouldn't have done that to your father, dear, whatever your motives. I don't know how I would have felt if you had done it to me." "No," I said. "We mean out in the open. We want tapes of these stories. Who cares about the company politics of Ward Tech? We want to have The Kitten's grandchildren hear about great-great-aunt Hazel." "It seems lots of people are interested in company politics, dear. Whether you think they should be or not." "By the time that it would be safe to publish those stories," I said, "no-one will care about them. That's what would make it safe. Look, we aren't asking you to invest in the publication of some book. We are asking you to let us turn on a tape-recorder while you tell those stories. *We* are interested. Whether anyone else would be isn't relevant. When is The Kitten going to hear this treasure trove?" "Why sitting in the kitchen, dear, and peeling potatoes. Do you think that I was involved in the struggle over great-great- aunt Hazel's recipes?" "Are you prepared to come to Michigan to tell her these stories?" I asked. "Anyway, stories are muddled and lost." "Dear," Katherine said, "if it will make you two happier, we can make the tape. But I think that it would make the kitchen a duller place for your next visit." "Oh mother!" Kathleen said. "You have lots of stories that I've heard dozens of times. I still enjoy them." "Go get your tape, then." Kathleen left. I picked up another potato. "You know, dear," Katherine said, "the real shame is the stories that are a bit too private to tell your children. My great-grandmother came from Germany as the fiancee of a man in Minnesota. Neither of them had seen the Atlantic before she started that journey, if I'm not mistaken. They certainly hadn't seen one another. I wonder what that wedding night was like. She wouldn't have minded my knowing, but it isn't a story that you tell in the kitchen to people who really know you. "You'll either tell your daughter, 'A honeymoon in a tent is the worst idea that we ever had,' or you'll tell her, 'If you love the man, sharing a tent with him makes a marvelous honeymoon.' You won't tell me either one, and I don't think you should. And you won't tell *her* any details. Her granddaughters, however, will hear only that you went hiking for you honeymoon, and wonder. It's a pity that you can't tell them." "Why can't I?" I asked. "Your great-grandmother may have lived in a verbal culture, but I use a word-processor on a daily basis. I could print it up, and leave it with the instructions: 'To be opened a century after my death,' or whatever. What would you write about?" "Well, I could hardly tell you, dear. That's why we're talking about privacy. And it wasn't entirely a verbal culture, you know; they had become engaged via letters. I'll tell you what, though. If you promise to write something about the rocking chair, I'll promise to write something about it, too." "You type, don't you? Uh!" I felt so stupid. "You send me those marvelous letters, of course you type." "We need to get back to cooking," she said, "but I feel that I can't start another story until Kathleen gets back. You know, dear, I can cook perfectly well in silence when I'm alone in the kitchen." "You don't have to wait," I said. "Tell me the one about when Kathleen was a baby and your husband came home from the trips. Anything which she doesn't capture on tape, she can fill in from memory." "Am I *that* bad, dear." "Bad?" I was genuinely shocked. "She loves that story. It's as much a part of these sessions as 'King John' is of Christmas." "Every bit of it is true, dear." "I'm sure it is," I told her; and I am sure. "I just wish that Bob had heard something similar." "Am I really that transparent?" she asked. But then I saw a motion in the doorway. "Hurry," I told Kathleen. "She won't talk until it is set up, and the dinner is on hold." Soon the tape was running. Katherine had the natural shyness that anyone develops when they are being recorded, but she was -- after all -- both a school-teacher and a Brennan. She was used to talking. As she got into the story, she went back to cooking, which made her less self-conscious. Soon, she was running along as she had the year before. "... For the rest of the weekend, I got to hold her while I was feeding her, period. I'd be talking to him and he'd turn his back, not because he'd stopped listening, dear, but so she could see what Mommy was doing. Disconcerting all the same...." We peeled potatoes, cored apples, and occasionally checked to see if the tape had run out. There was no reason to stop Katherine for the tape changes. *All* the information would have been lost if the machine hadn't been running. I fed the Kitten while this was going on, staying in the kitchen where she could hear Grandma Brennan recite the accumulated wisdom. As for me, I want each individual's personal, uninterrupted, version of Bob's ultimate package. But that could wait for next year. We got the turkey in, and the rest of the meal at a holding stage, just before Bob walked in. "I'm going to run two loads. I'll fill up the whites with sheets." "That's kind of you, dear." "Are there any other requests?" "Thanks, Bob," said Kathleen, "but I don't think so." "Wait ten minutes, won't you," I said. "I'm about to bathe The Kitten, and I don't want to run out of hot. Indeed, could you bring down the soap and shampoo? I'll go pry her away from son grand-pere." "My daughter doesn't want you rubbing sham-poo in her hair" Bob said. "She wants to rub in real poo." That is dangerously close to the truth. Three of us managed to bathe The Kitten with only a little more difficulty than it would have taken one. Kathleen carried her away, while I washed out the sink. We dressed in relays, one always in the kitchen. I wore a skirt and my Christmas-gift shirt from Lands End. Well into the meal, Katherine said, "Russ, you'll never know what the girls have been doing with me." "Those two are as likely as not to be taping you." Bob's father seemed in a remarkably dour mood considering the granddaughter time that he had received. "Why, dear. How did you guess?" "What?!" "And," Katherine continued, "we are going to put all the stories that I can remember on tape. For The Kitten if nobody else. Kathleen hasn't decided yet whether she'll have any daughters...." "I've already decided against sons. Look what happened when Mom had one." "... And Jeanette, after all, won't have enough time in my kitchen to learn them all to pass down to her daughter." "Besides," I put in. "I mostly talk to The Kitten in French, and some of these stories don't translate well." "And, dear," Katherine said while I was still talking, "we thought that Jeanette and Kathleen could add their own stories to the cache, and later The Kitten and whoever. Their stories, and stories from other families, and stories that they have heard from others." "Ann told some marvelous stories," I said. "Some you heard, Bob, and many you didn't." "When," Bob asked, "did this oral history project change from the memories of one man to those of dozens of women?" "Well," I pointed out, "there didn't seem to be a whole lot of enthusiasm on the part of the subject for that one. And we have hours of recordings already for our project. While the assets offered were those of the firm, it was my typing; I should get some vote. Anyway, at this time we're pushing the idea of tape. Transcription would be in the future." "And it isn't dozens of women, dear," Katherine said. "Except for the ones that are filtered through my memories, there are only four or five. And I doubt whether I know a story from more than ten women all told." "The Kitten and whoever," I said, "(and doesn't Kathleen have original taste in children's names?) won't have *memories* to contribute for an awfully long time. Anyway, that isn't the problem. "We got talking about saving some memories that might hurt our contemporaries. Those would be put in writing, not tapes. That could be kept for a century. 'My honeymoon on The Appalachian Trail, to be delivered to any of Catherine Angelique's granddaughters on their eighteenth birthday.' And we didn't know how to handle that." "You'd have to ask a real lawyer," Bob said. "There is the so-called 'Law against perpetuities.'" "Is that why the US doesn't issue consols?" his father asked. "No sir," Bob responded. "Different thing. Same name. A lawyer's 'perpetuity' is like the English entailed estates. You can't leave money to be shared by The Kitten's grandchildren. (I mean now. You can wait until she has some.) I'm sure that you *could* leave papers to be *publicly* available in one hundred years. I'm sure that you could *not* leave property to be divided among people not yet born. (I think that the limit on private trusts is one person's lifetime. But don't quote me, I *didn't* go to law school, remember.) Whether one can legally bind someone to keep papers secret for a century and then distribute them privately, I don't know. "But that's legality. If you left me some papers to be turned over to The Kitten, I might be able to open them with no legal penalty. On the other hand, would I keep her respect after she found out that I had done so?" "You might find," said Bob's father, "that having the respect of your child is an impossibility whatever your behavior." "Well," I said. "You have retained the respect of your children. Bob is enough like you to make it a reasonable bet." "I think, dear," Katherine said, "that the proper verb is 'regained' with a 'g,' not 'retained.' Children go through a stage of rejecting everything before they reach a stage of selection." "All the more reason," I said, "to behave in a fashion that would lead them to select respect. Besides, I knew Bob from sixteen. He never talked of his father with disdain. Now, his father's generation...." "I can remember," his father said, "some comments about never understanding him at all." "Well," I said, "that's entirely different. When he told me that I didn't understand him, I told him that nobody in the world could possibly understand him." Kathleen's loud agreement helped lighten the discussion. "I suspect," said Bob, "that there are more intellects lofty enough to recognize my genius than you four might think." "There," Katherine said, "could hardly be fewer." "They would have to be experts in abnormal psychology," Kathleen said, "and nobody is doing work on anything *that* abnormal." "The Kitten, at least, loves me." "We all *love* you, dear," his mother told him. "We were talking about understanding you." "If she understood you," I pointed out, "she'd say 'Decembre.'" "She doesn't know what month it is," he said. "*My* daughter can speak French, but *your* daughter doesn't know what month it is." Now I ask you, which parent is more likely to help The Kitten's French, whether we are talking genes or environment? "Tell me true, Kate," Bob's father said. "How much of this is conspiracy?" "Not on my part, dear. But the girls sprang the original idea with suspicious speed and unanimity." "It occurred to the two of us at once, sir," I said. "It really did. We were sitting there with Katherine's story pouring over us. And we couldn't talk, but it occurred to us almost simultaneously. *These* should be saved. "Now let me delay speaking for the firm and even as a mother of my daughter later. Because the idea occurred to me as Jeanette. (Things don't always occur to you under all your hats, you know.) My husband is a historian and thinks of the ages; I'm a mother and think of my child. "The Kitten would be interested in hearing your voice, as Bob said. We'd be more interested in having her hear it, assuming -- as your family seems morbidly to do -- that she won't hear it from your mouth. But she'd be *fascinated* by Katherine's stories. They are, as Katherine pointed out to us, mostly intended as compensation for staying in the kitchen and peeling potatoes. "Transcription is another kettle of fish. These stories should be transcribed someday. (And I just switched hats.) What you did around the dinner table is try to educate your kids. Those lectures would go down more smoothly for being transcribed. I couldn't speak for the firm without consultation, but it's possible that I might find some transcription time this year. I mean this coming year. "If I do, I'll only spend a little time. For the oral history project, I listened and listened again. Instead, I'll send you a rough draft, and *you* can put in the word that I missed." "You got one thing wrong," Bob said, "these are stories. They just need a little understanding to (um) understand them. They just need a little grounding to understand them." "Well," I said, "of the women in that kitchen, only I belonged in a kitchen. Katherine has what? an MAT?" She nodded. "And Kathleen has an MD. They have both worlds. I want my daughter to have both worlds. Your daughter does, and who can swear that the stories around the table didn't help. But I think that those stories, or at least the grounding, are best conveyed on paper." "You know," said Bob's father, "That's the longest speech that I've heard from you since the wedding." The Kitten cried in the other room. It was a hungry cry. "It's the longest speech that you'll hear from me for a while. I'm being summoned." Bob got up. "Rocker?" he asked. "Please," I said. A moment later, the cry was stifled in the other room. I stuffed my mouth and started unbuttoning my new shirt while I chewed. A sensible woman would have eaten while she had the chance. I managed to get in a slice of turkey and all the remains of my mashed potatoes (I love gravy, but I hate *cold* gravy) before Bob called from the other room. "Coming," he said. Concluded in Part Twelve. FORGET ALL THAT Uther Pendragon anon584c@nyx.net 1997/12/24 1999/12/30 2000/09/10 2002/12/28 This is the eleventh segment of the last story (so far) in a series of stories about the Brennans. The next segment can be found in: 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> | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+