Les Autres Ch. 03

All Sexual Activity In This Story Is Between Characters Who Are 18+ Years Old

******

September 20, 1940

Twenty-eight-year-old Mary McGuinness Trotter stood on the Farragut & Central Railway depot platform with Arlene Hart and her daughter, Cynthia. The secret love of Eli Farragut, and recent unexpected heir to his amassed holdings, including a majority share in the F & C, Mary hugged the two women into her sides. Her golden flecked hazel eyes glittered as she smiled with open warmth at her friends and former tenants.

"Don't fret about your household things, Arlene," Mary reassured the thirty-seven-year-old widow, yet again. "Everything is perfectly fine as it is in the cottage... it will keep safe until you settle in and tell me where you want it sent."

"Mary, it's all too MUCH..." Arlene began another protest.

"PSHAW! I won't hear that," Mary interrupted. "It is the very LEAST I can do." She turned her face and kissed Cynthia's cheek quickly. "I'm going to be GODMOTHER to little 'Who's This' here, aren't I?" Removing her left hand from behind Arlene's back, Mary placed her palm flat on Cynthia's belly and rubbed a swift firm small circle.

The pregnant teenager smiled as her light tweed coat caught her cotton dress' fabric and slid it deliciously over her thirteen-week baby bump, which lay otherwise bare beneath a thin rayon slip. "I mean," Mary continued, "we don't know exactly who's responsible for Cynthia's condition, but, whether it was my husband, OR my father, NO one is in a better position than I am to be... shall we say, HELPFUL? If it's easier for you, please think of this entire arrangement as a heartfelt gift. After all, today IS Cynthia's birthday, isn't it?"

While she pressed her point, Mary pressed her splayed fingers well into Cynthia's coat and squeezed affectionately through multiple cloth layers against her slightly protuberant belly. The nineteen-year-old girl inhaled deeply and pushed against the resistance, enjoying the heat which permeated her occupied womb and rose to her swelling breasts.

"Well, you're undeniably correct about THAT," Arlene admitted, fumbling for words to acknowledge her friend's wealth and charity.

"I think what Ma's trying to say, Mary," interjected Cynthia, "is that we are BOTH so very grateful for your understanding and generosity, but it's... well, hard to express..." Her voice, too, fell away. Tears, welling in her eyes, completed her sincere message.

Mary again pulled both the women into a close embrace and exclaimed, "Fiddlesticks!" She hissed, with a low conspiratorial whisper, while she leaned forward and shook their shoulders gently. "Ted and Papa are HOUNDS. And, when it comes down to it, I'm not really any better." Mary paused and then asked, "Do you think Eli left me his fortune because I DUSTED for him? Three times a week... for ten YEARS?" Snorting, she continued, "Ted was too busy two-timing Jock with my mother to realize he had competition. As for Papa... he's a prowler. Mama and I never shortchanged the men, though, which is what gave US our true freedom."

Mary took in, then let out, a long breath. "When I rented 46 1/2 to you, I already knew what was what. When Ted, or Papa, traipsed through the trees to your cottage on any deep summer evening, it was an open secret. BELIEVE me, Mama and I did not mind."

Relaxing her hug, Mary straightened up. Still quietly, but in a more conversational tone, she said, "BUT, I appreciate that plenty of other folks in this little community WOULD mind. You staying here would be difficult for ALL of us, and likely IMPOSSIBLE for the baby. That's why I fully support your leaving." Pulling a handkerchief from her purse, Mary daubed the tears on all their faces. "Now quit bawling and get on the train... we're going to ruin our makeup!" Arlene and Cynthia laughed as the tension broke and their fears scattered like oak leaves in an autumn wind.

Redcaps had already loaded the Harts' luggage into the train's private varnish. Further down the platform a conductor waved his lantern while a voice called the departure over a loudspeaker. "Farragut Flyer for... Little Rock... St. Louis... and Chi-CAHHgo, now boarding on Track THREE. Last CALLLLL!"

Cynthia hurried to get on the train. Arlene twisted her head and shouted, "THANK you, Mary! We'll call you from the hotel!" Mary waved from the platform until the Harts were aboard and out of sight. When the Flyer's wheels began turning, she sighed, returned to her car and headed for St. Luke's parish offices.

At the rear of the streamliner, in a newly acquired Milwaukie Road Beaver Tail observation car, two men lounged and watched the station disappear as the train pulled away and headed north. Father and son, Tom Halstead Sr. and Jr., were enjoying the last days of their American business and pleasure tour before returning to their sheep station in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

"Strange, isn't it, son," Sr. said thoughtfully, "how the world is all upside down? Here the September Equinox brings falling leaves... see them swirl on the track there? While back home ripping pink mulla mullas are blooming and new lambs are bleating."

"Too right, Da'," Jr. replied. "Speaking of flowers and lambs, did you see the three sheilas huddled on the platform when we were boarding?"

"I did, Tommo," Sr. answered with a broad smile. Looking down at his groin he added, "And, no disrespect to your Mum, God rest her, I don't mind confessing this widower's old fella took notice, too."

Nodding sagely, the youth stood from the couch. Still facing the train's panoramic rear window, he said, "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a walkabout... see if any of them got on the train." He laughed. "Not that a foreigner would have Buckley's chance to crack onto one of them, if they DID!" Turning to face the rest of the car, he exclaimed, under his breath, "STRUTH!" Touching the older Halstead's shoulder, he said, excitedly, "Da', look!"

Tom Sr. turned his head and saw Arlene, closely followed by her daughter, enter the observation car and move to a side table. As they crossed the lounge, their long cloth coats masked the finer details of their figures, but the tailoring was inadequate to hide the general distribution of their assets.

Father and son were riveted by the women's lovely oval faces and graceful necks. Arlene slid across the rear-facing bench and peered out the window, profiling her delicate cheek and dainty nose. Her brunette permanent wave bounced lightly on her shoulders beneath her black straw fedora. Cynthia, hatless, sat opposite her mother. Her dark basket-braided hair, set with bright red satin ribbons, bobbed as she spoke animatedly with the liveried Negro lounge attendant.

Tom Jr. strode swiftly forward through the car and arrived at the table just as the clubman said, "Two coffees, comin' right up!"

"Hold on, there, mate," young Halstead said, touching the waiter's elbow. Turning to the Harts, he grinned, greeting them with a wink and a hearty, "G'day, Ladies. Would you object to me and my Da' joining you for your coffee?" He pointed to the rear of the Beaver Tail.

Arlene turned away from the window, scanned the otherwise empty lounge and sized up the brash young man. Appraising his farther away father as well, she accepted the offer, asking, "Why not? 'There's nobody here but us chickens'... might just as well flock together!"

The black man smiled inwardly and thought, "Yo' shor is good LOOKIN' chickens, too... bet y'all jus' 'FLOCK TOGEDDER' fine." Aloud, with a straight face, he checked in, "So... FOUR coffees, den?" When he saw the collective nods, he ambled off while Tom Jr. signalled Sr. to come forward.

By the time they had finished coffee, with a refill or two, the observation car was filled with another two dozen travelers. The quartet felt as if they were old chums. The Halsteads had explained they had come to America mainly to buy sheep, and had successfully negotiated deals at several livestock shows around the country. Mr. Halstead also told the women how he wanted his son to see more of the world while he still could. When Australia joined the new war the previous year, Prime Minister Robert Menzies re-instated compulsory military training. Although Tom Jr., going on twenty-years-old, was still too young to be taken, his dad feared the rules could change any day.

When Cynthia heard that part of the father's tale, she instinctively slipped her right arm through Jr.'s crooked left elbow and pulled him closer to her on the bench. "That IS scary," she said, empathetically. Young Tom did not object that she failed to retrieve her arm, and was still cleaving to his side when her mother saw how busy the lounge had become.

"Listen," Arlene suggested brightly, "We're hogging the view here. Cynthia and I have entirely private accommodations... in the first car... for railroad V.I.P.s. Let's adjourn there and give up this table to someone else." She twisted halfway toward Tom Sr., dropped her right hand on his left forearm on the table top and squeezed his hard muscle slightly. Her brown eyes sparkled as she asked, "What do you say?"

"'V.I.P.,'" repeated the elder Halstead, enjoying the warm pressure of Arlene's curved palm. Looking across the table at his son, he exclaimed, "Crikey, Tommo, there's tall poppies for a couple of battlers!" Turning again to Mrs. Hart , he quoted her earlier words back to her before standing and offering her his right hand. "'Might as well flock together' there as here! Let's go!"

Jr., too, rose from the banquet. Assisting Cynthia, he appreciated the colorful flash of her red polka-dot dress, beneath the unbuttoned front of her brown tweed coat, as she slid out and smiled up at him. They had scarcely moved two feet away before a trio of nearby travelers replaced them and the lounge attendant squeezed by to clear the used cups and saucers. Cynthia gasped a quick breath as the small black man's shoulder inadvertently brushed across her chest. Sharp sparks launched of their own accord from her sensitive nipples and lodged with a thrilling twinge high and deep in her pussy.

With Arlene in the lead, the troop filed through the train to the streamlined private car, immediately behind the locomotive. Eli Farragut had lived long enough to enjoy its maiden run, and Mary had employed it twice, on business visits to St. Louis, but excepting those three trips, the coach was a disused drone in the Flyer's consist, waiting for some F & C bigwig or other to take advantage of its opulence.

Pausing on their way through the club car, Tom Sr. snagged an ice bucket and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot from the steward. Clutching them to his chest with his right arm, while he carried his pigskin valise in his left hand, he fell in behind as young Tom and Cynthia passed by. The watchful old sheep rancher's staff stiffened slightly and his imagination ran wild as the girl's hips shifted softly under her coat. Inside the varnish, the men were visibly impressed by its furnishings, polished dark wood panels and gleaming brass fixtures.

Tom Jr.'s eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he exclaimed, "Struth! Are you American Royalty?"

Cynthia blushed with embarrassment but Arlene only laughed, "No! And don't be FOOLED... we're guests of a friend. She loaned us the use of the coach for our trip to St. Louis." Moving past her daughter and the men, she closed the passageway door to the main train. "But, it IS very nice, ISN'T it?" Noticing the champagne, she glanced at her wristwatch and observed, "It's only nine o'clock in the morning, Mr. Halstead." With a lilting tease in her voice, she asked, "Do Australians normally drink champagne after their breakfast coffee?"

"No... not usually," replied Tom truthfully. He set the silver chiller on a nearby table and pulled his gold Rapport watch from his vest pocket. Opening the hunter case, he said, "I keep my watch on Pilbara time... It may be nine in the morning on this train, but at HOME, on the Wikawurri Station, it's eleven in the evening." As he snapped the case and put away his timepiece, he chuckled, "I was thinking a toast among new friends might be in order."

Arlene stepped close, laid her right hand soft on the elder Halstead's cheek and gently chided, "Well, let's at least wait until lunch."

Cynthia interrupted excitedly, "Oh MA! Let's DO be decadent! Look at this CAR..." She sidled closer to young Tom and added, "Why not PRETEND we're 'royalty'... for eight hours, anyway?"

Seeing she would be outvoted, if it came to that, Mrs. Hart relented. "Alright. Let's 'pretend' and be 'decadent' then." She pulled a tasseled velvet bell cord by the car door. "That's for the steward. I'll order us a platter of sandwiches and we can nibble our way north. But what shall we do for entertainment?" She looked out the window and remarked, "I'm afraid the pastoral scenery is rather the same all the way along the line. We'll soon be bored watching it pass by."

Young Tom did not hear the last of Arlene's words. With Cynthia leaning into him, his mind was captivated by another thought. Looking obliquely down her dress' deep V-neckline at her exposed cleavage, he said to himself, "I'll 'nibble my way north' on YOU, and study your mappa tassie, too... given the chance."

He was not as discreet as he thought, but Cynthia was pleased by his spying. She floated her breasts with a long slow inhale and snuck her right arm around Tom Jr.'s waist, simultaneously pressing the outside of her inflated right boob against his torso. The combined layers of the teens' tweed and cotton armor was insufficient. Cynthia's body heat pierced Tom's chest and set a fire in his heart and loins.

Three feet away, Tom Sr. closed his hand around Arlene's upraised wrist. "Don't tease, Mrs. Hart," he rasped huskily, for her ears only. "There's early snow on the roof, that's certain, but I'm only thirty-nine years old... I've got plenty of wood for the hearth."

"Alright, Mr. Halstead," Arlene replied sotto voce. "'Forewarned is forearmed,' as they say." She closed the gap until her bosom was a hair's breadth from his vest and breathed, "But, I daresay we're not too far apart in our years... or attitudes." Stepping back, she answered the steward's door-knock. Tom Sr. swallowed hard and joined his son and Cynthia as they moved to a pair of angled upholstered gold brocade sofas facing the train's left side windows.

For the next while, the group chatted idly, agreeing early on that their acquaintance had moved beyond formality. Mrs. Hart had broached the matter first when she offered to the men, "You should call me 'Arlene' or 'Arly' and, of course, my daughter is 'Cynthia.'

"MA!" Cynthia protested, unconsciously laying her left hand on young Tom's right knee. She looked, first at him, and then at the elder Halstead, and her mother, across the way. "I think they should call me 'Cindy'... all my friends do, you know." Then swiveling her head between the father and son, she asked, "But you've both introduced yourself as 'Tom'... how should we call YOU? It'll be confusing... and I don't want to say 'Old Tom' and 'Young Tom' as if you were... TURKEYS!" She laughed helplessly as her secret thought blurted into the room.

The men laughed aloud with her, taking no insult. "Well, Da' calls me 'Tommo', mostly, and that, or just 'Tom' would be alright, " Jr. suggested blandly, while, in his head, he considered truthfully, "I don't care WHAT you call me as long as you're screaming it in my ear while you COME!"

His father picked up the thread and immediately added, "My mates call me 'Holly' and so did my wife, rest her soul. Why don't you do the same?"

Soon enough the steward returned and set up the buffet. Once again, the full party was impressed. The fare was sumptuous: Besides a platter with various assorted crustless sandwiches and a salver of fresh crudités, with vinaigrette dipping sauce, there were four generous portions of fresh blueberry shortcake and a silver side bowl piled high with crème Chantilly. As soon as the steward left the car, the quartet celebrated their freshly discovered royal spirits by gobbling the desert first and popping the cork on the Veuve Clicquot.

In short order, the early brunch was a shambles and the foursome again lounged on the sofas. Tom Sr. and Arlene shared one, while Tom Jr. and Cynthia sat centered on the other. Between the couches, the remains of the champagne sat in its bucket on a low table. The older Halstead reached into a vest pocket, withdrew two silver coins and reminded Arlene of her earlier dilemma.

"You asked what we might do to entertain ourselves, if I recall correctly," he said. Looking across the table, he winked at his son as he grinned and continued, "Why don't Tommo and I teach you a bonzer Aussie game called 'Two Up'? It couldn't be simpler and it's dead cert you'll have a good time."

Cynthia looked blankly toward her mother for a sign. Tom Jr. draped his left arm around her shoulders and smiled assurance at her. Arlene shrugged and then suddenly realized that she and her daughter, through all the introductions and activity, were even now, still wearing their outer coats, hats and cotton gloves.

"Fine," she said, answering the Sr. Halstead's question, "but my GOODNESS! Couldn't SOMEONE have said we were still in our hats and coats? We haven't even take off our gloves!" She held up her right hand and showed off a purple juice blot on the white cotton between her index and middle finger tips. "I mean, REALLY! What you must THINK of us!"

Both Halsteads laughed politely at Arlene's consternation. When she began to pull off her blueberry-stained glove, Tom Sr. stopped her, saying, "Hold it! That's a feature of this game we're going to teach you: Don't lose your advantage; You BET your CLOTHES!"

Arlene's eyes widened and Cynthia's mouth formed an 'O' as she involuntarily gulped air in her surprise. Each woman started to speak but no words came. The men waited silently. Jr. squeezed Cynthia's shoulder and kept smiling. Sr. gazed into Arlene's eyes while he covered her gloved hands on her knees with his big right paw. Ten seconds passed like a decade before Cynthia found her voice and asked, "So how do we play? What are the rules?"

"It's too easy, Cindy," old Tom began. "Each of us, in turn, flips these two florins here so they spin in the air and land on the table. If they both turn HEADS then the spinner WINS. If they both turn TAILS then the spinner LOSES. If they turn ODD, then the spinner has to go again until both coins match."

Arlene chimed in, "What about the bet, Holly? What is it we win... or LOSE?"

"Good on ya, Arly," he praised. "That's the THING, isn't it?" Sr. looked back and forth at the Harts and went on. "When you WIN, you can claim a kiss, or a garment, from any one other player, OR you can put a garment back on, if you've taken something off. When you LOSE, you must remove a garment, OR, if you're shy, you can take a drink of whiskey, if there IS any." With that he produced, from his pigskin valise, as if by magic, a fifth of Whipple Creek Kentucky Corn Whisky. Setting it on the table beside the champagne chiller, he challenged, "Now TELL me if that doesn't beat all the parlor games YOU had in mind."

Arlene stood, stepped in front of the train window and said simply, "Well, I suppose we ought to draw all the shades and lock the door. A widow and her daughter MUST protect their REPUTATIONS, mustn't they?" Jr. rose from his seat, strode to the right side of the car and lowered the blinds. Working his way back to the main passageway, he threw the door's bolt. Arlene fixed the left side windows while Cynthia, blushing, sat and imagined the men naked while she claimed their kisses.

On the very first spin, Cynthia flipped a pair of tails. Not wanting to be the first to take off anything, not even her tweed overcoat, she opted for the whiskey. Young Tom uncapped the bottle. Taking pity on her, he poured a scant half-shot into a glass. It burned like anything when it splashed against Cynthia's throat, but she bravely swallowed it, coughing, as tears flooded her face. Jr. patted her back gently and then rubbed it, soothing her while she regained control. "I-I think NEXT time... I'll take something OFF," she choked.