The Alphabet of Love Ch. 23

Story Info
Mercury's temper tantrum drives her out of the house.
3.4k words
4.79
2.8k
00

Part 23 of the 24 part series

Updated 06/08/2023
Created 08/16/2017
Share this Story

Font Size

Default Font Size

Font Spacing

Default Font Spacing

Font Face

Default Font Face

Reading Theme

Default Theme (White)
You need to Log In or Sign Up to have your customization saved in your Literotica profile.
PUBLIC BETA

Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.

You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.

Click here

Back inside, we came upon Derek and Mercury in a heated argument. Jonas high-tailed it up the stairs, but I stood just outside the family room door, listening. Mercury's shrill tones were hard to discern but Derek's strong voice told me everything I needed to know. Something was going on between Mercury and her mother's young lover. Derek demanded to know if the man had forced himself on her but Mercury's answers were so evasive that I knew she'd been not only willing, she'd possibly been the one to initiate the encounter. Or encounters.

I couldn't tell if Derek was furious because he believed his daughter had been seduced, or because of who it was she'd been with. The more I listened the clearer it became that his anger was at Brenda more than Mercury. He repeatedly asked where Brenda was, did she know, why did she let it happen?

All of which seemed like pretty silly questions to me. If I were an older woman with a hot young lover, I'd come unglued if I found out he was banging my younger, sexier daughter. But Derek had built up so much resentment against Brenda all these years he automatically blamed her. Brenda would be just as upset when she found out. If she did. And that seemed pretty damn likely, with Derek as worked up as he was.

I didn't want to be caught eavesdropping, so I went to change my clothes. I'd sweated a lot and was now cold. A quick hot shower did the trick. I toweled off and walked into the bedroom to get dressed and found Derek sitting on the edge of the bed, looking dejected.

"Hey," I said. I found underwear, a bra, yoga pants, and a knit shirt. He didn't even look up when I dropped the towel to get dressed, and he rarely missed a chance at a look at my breasts.

"I don't know what to do," he said at last.

I sat on the bed beside him to put on slippers. "About what, love?"

"Mercury. That - predator Brenda lives with, he raped her."

"What!" I cried, because that wasn't how it had sounded to me. He assumed I was righteously shocked at the term 'rape,' not knowing that I'd overheard them.

He nodded, and glanced at me. "She was on the phone with someone. They're planning a tryst. So I confronted her."

"How is it rape if she's planning to meet him?" I wanted to know.

"It's wrong," he insisted. "Not only is he ten years older than she is, he's taking advantage of her because of Brenda."

"How is he doing that?" I asked, refraining from pointing out his and my age difference.

"I bet he told her if she didn't sleep with him he'd tell Brenda she did anyway."

"'You bet' he told her. Do you know for sure? Maybe Mercury wanted to be with him?"

He eyed me.

I sighed and slipped my hand through his arm. "I heard you guys, when we came in. I heard some of what you were arguing about."

"And?"

"It sounds to me like she did it because she wanted to."

He shook his head. "No, it couldn't have been."

"I know she's your daughter and you don't want to believe she's sexual. No man wants to think his daughter is. You saw how my Dad was about you and me."

"That's completely different," he said quickly.

"Not really. Who knows, hon, Mercury might have done it as a way to get back at her mother. You know, sleep with her boyfriend right under her nose."

He thought for a moment. "Well, they don't get along, but that - she didn't initiate it. He seduced her. He lied to her, made her promises and shit. Told her he'd leave Brenda for her."

"He did? Did she say he said that?"

"Yes. He told her he'd leave Brenda."

"I hope she wasn't stupid enough to believe that," I said with a sigh. "Brenda's going to have money. Mercury is a college student with nothing."

"She's young and idealistic," he said, shaking his head. "And she won't listen to me. Would you talk to her?"

"Me?"

"You are going to be her stepmother," he pointed out.

I wrinkled my nose. "I hate that word. Maybe it's because my own stepmother tried to tell me what to do from the day she met my Dad. I can hardly stand her today."

"You're not her," he said a bit more dismissively than I liked. "You don't have to tell Mercury what to do. Just point out what she's not seeing about the situation. What she doesn't want to see."

"You did that, and it didn't make any difference."

"She might take it better from another woman, and she likes you."

"Yeah, and I don't want to mess that up," I said, and leaned my head on his shoulder.

He shook me off and looked down at me. "Don't try to get all romantic on me," he tried to be gruff but there was a bit of a smile on his lips.

"What?" I moved my hand down his thigh. "Like Dr. Bailey said, I sleep with you. I have you in the palm of my hand. You do anything I want."

"Shiloh -"

I kissed him.

He held my gaze. "You know, my love, your interaction with my kids is only beginning. You won't be able to be standoffish for the rest of our lives. At some point you will have to engage them."

"I have engaged them. Jonas and I had fun making the snowman."

"He's not five years old," he said with a sigh.

"It might be easier if he was," I said, laughing a little.

"Will you please talk with Mercury? You don't have to come on strong. Just see if she'll confide in you. Just listen to her. Maybe we can find out more details about what's going on."

I knew by now he wasn't going to give up. "All right," I relented. "I'll offer to listen if she feels like talking. But she'll know I'm coming straight back to you."

"That's all right. We aren't sneaking around. Just be open with her."

"Well, then, where is she?" I asked him. I wanted to get this over with so I could concentrate on the upcoming meeting with the clinic board.

He jerked his thumb toward the door. "In her room as far as I know. She probably would have left but I don't think they've plowed the driveway yet. Not that I'd let her drive any of the cars."

I gave him a quick kiss and jumped to my feet. "All right, I'll see how this goes."

"Thank you."

I tossed my hair at him as I left the bedroom.

Outside Mercury's door I heard loud music. Some kind of hip hop or who knew what. I was only in my thirties but I couldn't comprehend some of the new music nowadays. I knocked on the door, I hoped loudly enough for her to hear me.

"Go away!" she shouted.

"It's me, Shiloh," I called back.

"Go away!"

I knocked again. "Just for a minute!"

The volume decreased and noises told me she was coming to the door. She opened it and stood there, hair askew, in her oversized sloppy clothes, glaring at me. "What do you want?" she demanded.

"I want to know if you need to talk to someone," I said as kindly as I could. I didn't try to move into her room; I deliberately tried to look unthreatening.

"Oh sure. Dad sent you."

"He's worried about you," I didn't deny her accusation.

"He doesn't want me to be happy."

"He doesn't want you to get hurt," I amended.

"What are you going to say?" she looked me up and down. "How much older is my Dad than you? Older than Killian is than me."

"But I'm not - nineteen? Twenty? How old are you, Mercury?"

"Nineteen," she said, looking down.

"I'm thirty-two. I've been on my own, I've been through medical school. I've been kicked around by life. I know what I want. You don't have the advantage of experience."

She turned and shuffled to her bed, leaving the door open. I followed her inside.

"You know," she flopped onto the unmade bed, covered in a thick orange print quilt and at least ten pillows. "I'm not stupid."

"Are you kidding?" I laughed. "They don't let stupid people into Bennington. I know you're intelligent. This isn't about that."

"What is it about, then?" she looked up at me, defiant. "My bad judgment? My horniness? Because Killian makes me horny. Go tell my Dad that."

I sat next to her on the bed while she watched a bit suspiciously. "I did tell him that fathers don't want to see their daughters as sexual. My own father still has difficulty with it."

She eyed me. "I bet it didn't make him understand anything any better."

"No, but it gave him something to think about."

She snorted. "All he's thinking about is telling Mom that Killian and I are fucking."

"Why shouldn't he?" I challenged her.

"He'd only do it to upset Mom."'

I shook my head vigorously. "He's angry because he thinks Killian took advantage of you. He thinks your mother let it happen somehow and he's pissed at her, too."

"Oh yeah, like she'd hand him over to me when she wants him for herself," she rolled her eyes and flipped a strand of hair out of her eyes.

"You're sure she doesn't know?"

"If she did, she'd be calling me yelling and screaming," she said with an assured nod.

"Your Dad seems to think she is responsible. Probably just for bringing him into your life."

"Oh, I'd like to thank her for that," she said with a knowing smile.

I ignored it. "You know the shit is going to hit the fan. He's going to tell her. He might be doing it right now for all I know."

"Whatever. I can still see Killian. He's going to dump her, and now it'll probably happen faster."

Oh, she was so naïve, I thought. Just then I noticed Derek standing at the open door, watching us.

"What do you want?" Mercury barked at him.

Derek gave me a resigned look. "I talked to your mother."

"Good," Mercury said, not looking at him, suddenly interested in using a nail file on her short thumbnail.

"No, not good," he said, and I could tell he was working hard to control his anger. "She's furious. She's going to talk to Killian."

"Good," Mercury repeated.

"You really think he's going to choose you over a woman who's coming into a buttload of money?" Derek said bluntly.

Mercury finally looked up at him. "He doesn't care about the money. He's an artist. He's only using her to further his career."

"And why would he stop using her? Why would he want you?"

"Because he loves me!" she shouted, with a commencement of sobs and tears. She grabbed a pillow, hugged it to her chest, and fell stomach first onto the bed.

Derek and I exchanged shrugs. I got up from the bed and walked past him on my way out of the room. He knew this was his job now.

I returned to Derek's bedroom to pick up the wet towels I'd used after my shower, and the ones he'd dropped nearby. I could start a load of laundry, I thought. It'd be a good excuse to go downstairs. With my arms full I noticed out of the corner of my eye that my phone on the bedside table had lit up with a notification. I leaned over it and it said I had a voicemail. I managed to grab it and shove it into the waistband of my pants.

It took me a few minutes to figure out the space age washing machine, and once it began to fill with water, I leaned against it and looked at my phone.

The voicemail was from Trevor.

My anger flared. He'd said he wouldn't contact me. Liar. I almost didn't listen to the message, but my curiosity got the best of me.

To my shock, a woman's voice assaulted my ear.

"Listen to me, you little slut, if you think putting yourself in his phone under another name is going to keep me from knowing that you're still talking, you're a bigger ignoramus than I thought you were. Get it through your empty head, you twat - he doesn't want to talk to you. He doesn't want to see you. We're going to fix our marriage and he isn't going to be needing any side bitches. So go back to Boise where you belong, and suck dick in the locker room like you did before."

I probably looked like someone just slapped me. I stared at the phone. Listened to the message again. Looked at the phone again. I felt dirty, like I deserved the hatred of this woman. But she wasn't even addressing me.

Obviously it was Amanda Robinson-Banks, Trevor's wife. What a mouth! He'd said she was hell on wheels. No kidding. But the message made no sense to me. She thought my name was a cover for another woman? If that was the case, then just how many other women did Trevor have in his life? This one was from Boise, someone he must have known when he worked for the college football team. Christ, I thought, I dodged a bullet. Trevor probably had a woman in every town.

I felt sick at the thought that Derek could very well have been the one to see the message on my phone. I didn't think he'd have listened to it, but I couldn't take any chances. I hurriedly deleted the voicemail, and blocked Trevor's phone number. This was over, for real now. My hands were shaking. What time was it? Too early for wine?

I moved out of the laundry room into the kitchen, where Jonas stood at the counter, assembling a giant sandwich.

"Hey," he said, glancing at me, and at the phone in my hand.

"That looks good," I said, suddenly realizing I was hungry. I shoved the phone back into my waistband, trying to make it look casual.

"Didn't seem like you were making lunch," he said with a shrug.

I leaned on the counter and folded my arms. "I just got here and I'm supposed to be the help? Cook and clean and all that?"

He nodded toward the laundry room. "You're doing the wash."

"Because I clean up after myself. I won't be making dinner, either, just so you know."

"That's okay," he said, returning ingredients to the refrigerator. "I won't be here for dinner."

The sandwich barely stayed together, it was so full of meat, cheese, tomatoes, onions, pickles, and god knew what else. He grabbed a Coke, twisted it open, and set it on the counter, then he picked up the sandwich and managed to take a bite.

"Damn," I smiled.

"Yeah. It kicks ass," he said through his mouthful.

I looked up at the elegant clock above the counter behind him. "It's one-thirty. Good." He watched me head for two bottles of wine, with corks stopped in the tops. I popped one off and poured wine into a glass I found in a nearby cupboard.

He grinned after a swig of Coke. "I bet you need that after the drama going on up there."

"It's going to get ugly," I said with a nod, taking my first sip.

"No doubt. Fucking Mercury, she's so stupid. That Killian is a user. He only wants Mom for one thing."

"Money," I nodded.

"Money for oxys," he corrected me.

"You mean he's a user?"

"He asked me if I had any. I hope all that shit's locked up at the clinic. He and Mom have been in there, sniffing around. She's probably trying to get into the pharmacy."

"Are you serious?" I set my wine glass down.

"Sure. He thinks I'm his bud. Asked me if I had any. I told him I just get blasted, I don't do opiates."

"I mean about them going to the clinic."

"Well," he smiled, pushing a tomato back inside the sandwich, "Dad's been a little preoccupied lately. Mom's still a part owner. They can't keep her out."

"But she can't get into the pharmacy. Even Derek can't just waltz in there and take drugs. Do you think they'd let her?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe if she threatened someone."

"How would she -"

Before I could continue, Derek came into the kitchen. I hadn't even heard him come down the stairs.

"So when's Mom coming over?" Jonas asked him with a grin.

"Never," Derek snapped.

I picked up the wine glass again. "Can I pour some for you?" I asked him.

He nodded, and when I handed it to him, he moved close. I let him pull me next to him; his warmth felt good.

"What's gonna happen?" Jonas wanted to know.

"Mercury's heart is going to be broken," Derek said after a long sip of wine.

"Jonas said Killian is an opiate addict," I told him.

"What?" Derek stood up straight and faced his son.

"He's asked me if I have any. I don't think he's got chronic pain, at his age. He's got junkie written all over him."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Derek shook his head.

"How could Mercury help his addiction?" I asked, looking between them. "I mean, what good would she be to him from that perspective?"

"Get her to steal them for him," Jonas suggested.

"From whom?" Derek wanted to know.

Jonas chewed another bite and pointed at him.

"Me! I don't have any narcotics here!" Derek asserted.

"I think he means the clinic," I said, and Jonas nodded.

"Mercury doesn't have access to anything there."

"Mom does," Jonas said through his food.

"No she doesn't," Derek said. "She's never had any access to treatment areas or the pharmacy. Only pharmacy personnel and staff."

"But everyone knows who she is," I said. "Would someone let her in somewhere, someone who might be a friend of hers? On her side maybe in the divorce?"

Derek looked angry. "No one there is on her side. She's been there only a few times, she doesn't really know anyone other than the board and a few doctors."

"That's enough," I said with a nod.

"She'd have to have a hell of a story to get one of them to let her near narcotics. Besides, the pharmacy isn't part of our clinic, it's a separately owned facility. We send a lot of our patients there because it's convenient to them."

Mercury's loud, indignant voice made us all jump. "You people don't even know anything! Killian would never take drugs! He hates them! It's all lies!"

We'd all turned to look at her, at the entrance to the kitchen. She still looked like hell after her crying but had put on jeans, shoes, and a coat.

"Where do you think you're going?" Derek asked her.

"None of your business."

"Now wait just a minute -"

She backed away. "Don't follow me. Just stay away."

"Need I remind you that you don't have a car?" Derek pointed out to her.

"Killian is coming to get me. He'll be here in about fifteen minutes."

"The hell he is!"

"You can't stop me!" she yelled, hoisting her purse over her shoulder and sprinting toward the door.

Derek started after her, but I put a hand on his arm. "Don't," I said. "What are you going to do? Beat him up?"

"Hell yes!"

I tightened my grip. "And then he has you charged with assault and it goes downhill from there," I said calmly.

"He's already soiled her," Jonas spoke up. "Who cares now?"

Derek turned on him. "This is your sister, you - you -"

Jonas held up a hand and shook his head.

"She's nineteen. You can't keep her from doing what she wants to do," I told Derek.

We heard the front door slam.

"Fuck!" Derek kicked the baseboard under the kitchen counter.

"What did Mom say when you told her?" Jonas wanted to know.

"She said I'm a fucking liar."

"Of course she wouldn't believe it coming from you. "

"She'll find out soon enough," Derek said, downing the rest of his wine. "I'm so furious, I don't know what to do."

"Here," I took his glass and filled it again. "Drink this."

Please rate this story
The author would appreciate your feedback.
  • COMMENTS
Anonymous
Our Comments Policy is available in the Lit FAQ
Post as:
Anonymous
Share this Story

READ MORE OF THIS SERIES

Similar Stories

TWA High flying tales of naked bliss.in Illustrated
Sonia's Weekend Break Ch. 01 Sonia stays with Fiona and Tony for the weekend.in Group Sex
Home Alone for the Holidays, Again There is someone for everyone. Isn’t there?in Erotic Couplings
The Pledge Mistress Ch. 01 College student Lisa receives a job offer from her professor.in Novels and Novellas
Reluctant Cuckold Ch. 01 White couple have an open relationship.in Interracial Love
More Stories