Moral Freefall

Moral Freefall

Stephanie did not regard her marriage as being “out of the woods,” yet. The recent intimacy she had shared with her husband was not the end result, but merely the beginning of the healing process. To her mind, it was like a broken bone; it was set, but had not yet knit, and it should remain immobilized until time had done its work.

This left her with a problem. The incident had been the biggest family quarrel in their history, and Rachelle had been unavoidably familiarized with the details. True to a commonplace phenomenon, Rachelle had regarded Delancy's contribution as completely understandable, while reviewing the exact same act on the part of her mother as completely unforgivable.

The logic ran that, as a man, certain weaknesses were to be expected of him. By contrast, Rachelle was a woman, and reasoned that if she herself would not have done so, any woman who did, demonstrated intentional vice. Adding to this double standard was the expectation that among all women, some were ignorant and weak, but her mother should assuredly have known better – a fault in the highly qualified was more severe than a fault in the incompetent.

For these unstated reasons, Stephanie found herself in an untenable position in Rachelle's esteem. Familiarity breeds contempt because of disrespect, and Stephanie had lost Rachelle's respect.

The truth of the matter was obscured in many ways. Delancy didn't deserve carte blanche anymore than Stephanie deserved total disdain. They were similarly at fault, and the difference had been justifiably resolved as moral equals.

However, Stephanie failed to elevate the moral altitude of the discussion. Rather, she defaulted to a solution that appealed to the lowest common denominator. If she could not make Rachelle respect her, she would make Rachelle despise herself. Perhaps this pointed out that she was more deserving of Rachelle's hatred than could be justified from the official story. If her indiscretion had been a one time thing, as she had falsely declared, it would have been far more forgivable than the extended corruption of her ward, of which she was actually guilty.

Stephanie did not rationally step through her actions as a reasoned argument – rather her response took a form distilled by the vulgar comment “You need to get LAID!” Stephanie was not the kind of person to say it in so many words. In fact she disdained both the expression and those who used it. But her actions gave the lie to her self-image. At her next opportunity, she selected a pool boy Rachelle's age.

This by itself was a very understandable step to take. However, she did not leave developments to chance.

The power of precedent is codified in law throughout history, and between herself and her husband the precedent of cheating, with associated forgiveness, had been irrevocably set. It was a slippery slope, and such slopes are aptly named. Stephanie stood on the moral brink of corrupting a more innocent victim than her first.

Rachelle's first glimpse of the youth who would initiate her, was that of a muscular 16 year old in white shorts, sweating as he scrubbed the floor of the pool with a pole. It was summer, and her mother soon presented Rachelle with her first bikini. It was a white one, and her mother had selected it for her, rather than merely approving some choice of Rachelle's. Rachelle was much impressed by the adult fit of the thing; no doubt this was a reward for her maturity and gravitas. The timing was not a coincidence... Stephanie surprised her with the 'suit on that day, simply because the pool boy was at work.

Rachelle did not speak to him, but proceeded to take a short dip, followed by sunning herself on a deck chair while she read a book. In the universal manner of women, she affected not to notice him, but Daniel noticed her.

To say that he noticed her does not adequately account for his disproportionately vivid impression of her. He did not make a practice of ogling high school freshmen, but the bikini worked to objectify her. Rachelle had not inherited her mother's facial features, but her form and proportions were as desirable as any. A sexy bikini and a hot body would have intimidated him, if her features had been equally matched, but her face was plain, and rendered her approachable. For the rest of her life, Rachelle would enjoy a friendliness from others that exceeded her social status and appearances. She was still more of a foal than a filly, but the effect was... puppy love. Not infatuation, but rather the inexplicable desire to socialize, that puppies earn from their unbiased willingness to lick and love anything within reach.

She was gone in 30 minutes... not even time enough to justify sunscreen. He went on about his day.

In the coming weeks, Stephanie would choose tasks and errands that threw the two together. On one occasion, she made Rachelle build 15 boxes, using packing tape to ready them for a promised shipment of re-gifted Christmas presents. Predictably, she never shipped them, and soon enough Rachelle found herself breaking them down again, just as Daniel arrived to do his job, two days later. Another time, Daniel was charged with placing three mouse traps, entering Rachelle's room as she sat at her desk, doing homework.

Stephanie did not doom her efforts by introducing them. She was too smart for that. However, under her capricious management, the two were soon on a first name basis.

Paradoxically, Stephanie also waged a campaign on Daniel that paralleled her earlier conquest of her stepson. However, she planned a drastically different result; this time, she intended to completely evade detection. This was necessary to obtain the results she required, but it argued badly for her character that she began to take as much pleasure from the process as from the anticipated result. Integral to her success was a careful attention that Rachelle did not become aware of her efforts.

At Darien's age, Daniel wasn't reliably likely to be experienced at sex, and Stephanie had determined to lay Rachelle low by his charms. To accomplish this, said charms had to be groomed. She would initiate them if necessary.

Soon enough, Daniel could be found assisting her with sunscreen, duplicating his efforts on Rachelle's behalf at Stephanie's request. His personal boundaries would have kept him from touching either of them; her as too married and mature, and Rachelle as too young and unformed. But he did not initiate it, and it would have been awkward to refuse her request.

Having broken down this barrier, Stephanie's next step was to whet Rachelle's interest. She started mildly enough by complimenting his tan to Rachelle. This comment was passed well away from any context where he could have overheard it. Stephanie wasn't ready for that yet. Later comments addressed his musculature and morals. She was promoting his social standing with Rachelle, each comment carefully turned such that her own motives would not be regarded as predatory in her daughter's eyes. For example, instead of “I bet he has dimples in his ass when he's naked,” she chose to ask, “Rachelle, have you ever seen dimples in a guy's ass?” but carefully timed it, so that Daniel's ass would be the ass specified by context.

Having observed her brother's conquest of her babysitter, Rachelle's sexual response was real, and she was actually grateful to her mother for causing Daniel's attentions. In the way of innocents, she was drawn to the allure of the older youth's experience, rather than desiring a paragon of equal innocence. Stephanie's plans were developing splendidly; Rachelle would likely be very receptive to any advances that Daniel made.

Stephanie waited a month to drop the hammer, and Daniel was accustomed to desiring her when she eventually pounced. Her chosen vehicle was to tell him about her chemistry professor. Had he ever fantasized about a teacher? How would he evaluate a success... had he ever imagined anything other than fantasy? She kept it up for over a week, and she tapped the keg by dispatching Rachelle to the city library, just when she expected Daniel to be available.

“I'm tired,” she lied. Daniel to assist her by bringing her the requested rum and coke, in the bedroom. Had he ever imbibed? She set about to gratify his curiosity, first by persuading him to join her, and then by feeding his imagination. Being drunk was like being dizzy, without going to the trouble of spinning around, but it lasted. You don't always get drunk... two fingers only made for a social lubricant. Having used those words, she introduced him to double entendre by enumerating it. The reason the British use the expression “two fingers,” is that the resulting social lubricant is analogous to a man using “two fingers” on a woman's body. Did he he know what kind of lubricant she meant? Had he ever enjoyed a woman's body? Had anyone ever enjoyed his body? It was a good body... her body reacted to it, too! And then the coup de gras. “A full grown woman has needs, and it's been a while...” 35 minutes later Daniel was her willing slave.

She concluded her work by kissing him thoroughly. Then she remarked that Rachelle would soon be home, and as skillfully as she had entrapped him, she turned his interest on her daughter. Don't be too impressed by Rachelle's innocence... I've observed her to gratify herself soon after she departs from your presence... infer that she is interested.

She anticipated that misconceptions would collude to convince Daniel that Rachelle had a libido to match his own. True, masturbation is pretty universal, but Daniel wouldn't know that. He would likely be surprised to learn that a girl was capable of this behavior. Whether or not he regarded his own application as excessive (a statistical likelihood,) he would conclude that it was also uncommon in his opposite number. This cogitation would take time, but the very behavior under discussion would ensure that he revisited the discussion until he came to some kind of conclusion.

She finished him off with a complete lie: Rachelle takes an inordinate interest in the breeding of horses - if he knew what this implied.

An embarrassed Daniel certainly did not know, but he did not admit it. Stephanie did not expect him to. The point of the exercise was that, eventually, he would figure it out, and in the moment of comprehension, his opinion of Rachelle would result in a predictable physical reaction.

Later that night, she set fire to the other end of the fuse with equal cunning. Like a mother eagle, she was teaching her baby that she could fly by pushing her out of the nest. Adolescence is, as Stephanie had so poetically phrased it, “a crucible of desire.” Rachelle's personal quicksilver was already molten from the actions of the rest of her family. Her brother inadvertently teaching her by example. Her step-dad had implied a theoretical availability by bedding her babysitter. Her mother, had been caught yielding to her brother's advances... it was as if the entire world had free access to willing sexual partners all the time.

All that remained was to illustrate convincingly that, “opportunity only knocks once.” Even before Daniel had formulated the plan to ask Rachelle out, Stephanie steered dinner conversation to the topic of missed opportunity, by asking her husband to pontificate on “the one that got away.” Everybody had one.

Before the month was out, the pair under discussion began to spend time together by choice and preference. When duties interfered, they collaborated to accomplish them together; if they could not work in proximity, they employed teamwork to reserve time for companionship later. Soon, they were not so much a “pair,” as a “couple.”

Eventually, Stephanie came upon a closed door to Rachelle's bedroom at a time when she knew Daniel to be in the house, so she deliberately “forgot” to knock. She finally had her vindication; her little cub had tasted blood.

Stephanie might never program a computer or design a corporate strategy, but she truly merited her hard earned social standing among her husband's peers. As Delancy put it, “She's a force of nature!”