The Experiment

"What the hell do you think you're doing you dirty young bastard," yelled Maureen, aiming a stinging blow at Sean's face.

Sean leapt up from the sofa holding his reddening cheek and spluttering, "What the hell did you do that for?"

"You know bloody well why I did it, you touched me."

"It was only a friendly little touch; there was no harm in it."

"No harm...no harm, you filthy beast; you pinched my tit."

"I did not pinch it; I just gave it a gentle squeeze."

"It's the same thing, and me your mother and your father hardly cold in his grave."

"Maureen, you're not my mother and father's been dead for nearly two years."

"Well, step-mother then, and I'll mourn Patrick until the day I die."

"That's it! I was trying to comfort you."

"Ha, next thing you'll be trying to comfort me by putting your hand up my skirt."

"If you think it'd help I'd..."

Maureen jumped up, letting loose another yell and aimed a further blow at Sean. He managed to duck so she missed and knocked over the standard lamp instead.

"Calm down Maureen or you'll wake Deirdre up."

Maureen plonked down on the sofa again and trying another tack quavered, "How you can do such a thing to a woman twice your age I don't know, and she in deep mourning."

"Well," said Sean moving out of range, "You shouldn't have such beautiful boobs, and your not twice my age, your only twenty nine, it was father who was more than twice your age."

"Yes, and he was one of God's saints, though why I married him to take on a twenty year old lout like you I don't know."

"You married him because he got you pregnant with Deirdre after mum died, and as for being a saint..."

"Don't you dare speak ill of the dead. Your father's in heaven now singing with the heavenly choir. He was one of God's angels..."

"Who got you pregnant."

"Well, we'd had a little too much to drink that night, and he had all the charm in the world. It's a wonder the birds themselves didn't come and sit on his shoulders like...like...er...Saint...er..."

"Saint Francis," said Sean. "I wonder if Saint Francis used to beat up his wife in the bedroom?"

"He didn't have a wife. Saints aren't allowed to have wives, and as Father Riley taught us when we were little girls, a husband is entitled to chastise his wife if he wants to."

"I bet some saints had wives, or at least had a bit on the side."

"May God scorch your tongue Sean Conroy. Father Riley was quite specific. Saints had to shun the evils of the flesh, as we all must do, or else we'll roast in hell fire for all eternity."

"Do you mean that even if you're married you have to avoid having...?"

"Father Riley said that married people could only have se...intimate relations if they intended to procreate."

"Is that why father used to beat you up, because you wouldn't procreate with him?"

"Father Riley said..."

"Your always going on about Father Riley, where is he now?"

Maureen raised her eyes piously to heaven and said in a hushed voice, "The dear Father has long gone to his heavenly reward, God rest his soul."

"Father Riley...Riley? Isn't he the one a few years back that was in all the newspapers because he interfered with little boys?"

"God strike you dead and send you to the eternal fires Sean Conroy. It was lies, all lies, he never touched me once."

"But you weren't a little boy, were you?"

"That makes no difference; it was all lies they said about him."

"There were fifteen boys who said it wasn't lies, and Father Riley did commit suicide."

"Those boys were sent by Satan to bring down an angelic man... and he died by accident."

"Funny sort of accident, tying a rope round a beam, putting a noose round your neck, standing on a stool and then kicking it away."

"He must have been trying to change a light bulb."

"With a noose round his neck?"

"That was what those tabloids of the Tempter wrote, but all journalists go to hell for the lies they tell, everyone knows that."

"I thought that was politicians and lawyers."

"Them too...and don't change the subject."

"I wasn't...er...what was the subject?"

"You trying to take advantage of the grieving widow of man who died a model of holy perfection."

"Maureen he died because he was drunk and stepped off the curb at a corner and under the wheels of O'Leary's car. It was a good job O'Leary was fully insured or we might have had to pay up for the damage to the car when O'Leary ran into a lamppost trying to avoid father."

Maureen dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. "It was a sad day for us all when the blessed man was taken from us. No woman had a better husband, and now I'm left with no one to console me in my grief."

"Well, I'll console you if you like."

"How the bloody hell can you console me standing right over there?"

"You might hit me again."

"There you are," wailed Maureen, "what am I saying? A stepson who won't give consolation to his grieving stepmother because he's frightened of a little blow. Ah, it's terrible times we've come to when a lonely widow can't find solace for her broken heart. Your father was never afraid of a blow."

"That's true," agreed Sean, "the only thing is, it was he who used to give the blows."

"I can see him now, standing in that bedroom in his long woolen underpants and socks. 'Maureen' he'd say..."

"Shouted," interrupted Sean.

"'Maureen' he'd say," went on Maureen ignoring the interruption; "'Maureen, a man's got to do what a man's got to do'."

"Yes, he always did like those cowboy films."

"Then he'd smack me one across the chops and he'd...Ah, he was a real man, not like some of the namby pamby weak-kneed men these days."

Sean had crept back cautiously to the sofa and seated himself beside Maureen, in the hope that he might not be classified as "weak-kneed."

"You mean if I smacked you across the chops you'd let me..."

"A real gentleman he was; it's a pity his son doesn't take after him. He knew how to treat a lady."

"But he used to throw up on the bedroom floor after you'd stopped screaming."

"Only when he was drunk."

"He was drunk nearly every night."

"And anyway, I never screamed because he hit me. It was only when he threw me on the bed and...how dare you pry into your parent's intimate relations! The next thing is you'll be spying on me when I'm undressing."

"I wasn't prying, you were just telling me."

"By all the saints in heaven, the next thing you'll be doing is denying you've got carnal thoughts about me. Father Riley used to say all men have carnal..."

"I thought we'd dealt with him."

"Don't you try changing the subject again, Sean Conroy. I've seen you trying to look down the top of my dress, and peep up my skirt when it just happens to slip up to the top of my thighs when I'm on the sofa having a nap..."

"And when you wander around in your bras and knickers," added Sean.

"I never wander around in my bras and knickers. I just happen to be of changing my dress."

"In the lounge?"

"Well, it's cold in that bedroom in the winter."

"You never used to change in the lounge when father was alive."

"I've told you, he was a sainted man and wouldn't have liked to see his wife displaying...er...exhibiting...er..."

"Flaunting her self?"

Maureen's hand came back ready to strike a backhanded blow. Sean had been on the alert for this and managed to avoid the blow. Maureen's hand hit the wall behind the sofa with a might thwack.

She let out a loud wail and yelled, "You've broken my hand. You can get sent to prison for assaulting your stepmother."

"I never touched you."

"No, of course not," she howled, sucking the back of her hand. "You wouldn't have the guts to touch a woman because you're afraid you couldn't handle her."

"I could..."

"You can't even console your sorrowing stepmother because you're scared you'll have lascivious thoughts and want to touch her bosom and put your hand up her..."

"I wouldn't have la...er ...what does 'lascivious' mean?"

"Eh? Oh...er...look it up in the bloody dictionary, it's over thereon the sideboard."

Sean brought the dictionary and thumbed through it. "Larynx, Lascar, Lascivious...here it is."

"Well, what does it say?"

"'Lustful', 'wanton'; 'inciting to lust'. How did you hear that word 'Lascivious'?"

"Father Riley told us we mustn't have lascivious thoughts."

"But you didn't know what it meant?"

"Not exactly, but the Father was always going on about sins of the flesh, carnal desires and not letting anyone touch our private parts, I sort of worked out that it had something to do with naughty thoughts."

"So if I have thoughts about touching your boobs, I'm having naughty or lascivious thoughts?"

"Yes...well, no...well not necessarily."

"Yes or no?"

"Well you see, as Father Riley used to say, sometimes you can't help having the thoughts. It's only if you do what you're thinking that you are committing sin. Of course, he did say that there are some people who are allowed to have these lascivious thoughts and do what they're thinking."

"Who, married people?"

"I told you before, only if they're going to procreate, that's what Father Riley said."

"You and dad didn't procreate after Deirdre, but I heard him banging into you night after night."

Maureen prepared to strike another blow but changed her mind.

"You're a filthy minded animal Sean Conroy. How a saintly man like..."

"Oh for God's sake, don't start that again. Who did Father Riley say could have lascivious thoughts and do something with them?"

"He didn't exactly say, but he did show us what he meant."

"How?"

"He said we mustn't let anyone touch our private parts. I didn't know what 'private parts' were, so I asked him."

"And?"

"He showed me."

"How did he show you?"

"Well...he sort of touched me and said, 'That's your private parts, Maureen'."

"You mean he touched your...? You said he never touched you!"

"Only to help me understand."

"So he was one of those people who are allowed to have lascivious thoughts and can do them?"

"I...er...yes, I suppose he was."

"But if I have lascivious thoughts I mustn't do anything about them?"

"Father Riley did say that if we had thoughts like that we had to take a cold shower."

"But if you or I have lascivious thoughts, we can't take a cold shower."

"What not?"

"We've only got a bath."

"Yes, of course. Perhaps a cold bath would have the same effect?"

"Or we could go out and stand in the rain."

"Yes, we could, but suppose it isn't raining?"

"Then we'd better go and dig Father Riley up and ask him. I don't think dad had many cold baths and he was only in the rain when he was walking home drunk."

"That's true."

"Do you have cold baths?"

"No."

"Does that mean you don't have lascivious thoughts?"

"Yes...no...yes...well, just sometimes."

"Are you afraid of having lascivious thoughts?"

"No, why?"

"You said I wouldn't comfort you because I was afraid of having lascivious thoughts about you."

"Yes."

"But if you're not afraid of having lascivious thoughts, why do you think I am?"

"Because you've never comforted me."

"I have! I was comforting you a little while ago when you hit me."

"That was the first time and you took me by surprise."

"I've often comforted you; think of all the times we've talked and you've told me how sad you are."

"Yes, but real comforting is when you touch someone and hug them and..."

"Then get hit?"

"Only if you surprise me."

"If I comfort you now, will that be a surprise?"

"No, I'd be expecting it."

"Suppose I touched your boobs and had lascivious thoughts?"

"Do you think you would?"

"Would what? Touch your boobs or have lascivious thoughts?"

"Both."

"Possibly."

"But you wouldn't do anything about the thoughts?"

"I might."

"Do you mean," whispered Maureen, suiting word to action, "if I undid my shirt like this, and then undid my bras so you could see my boobs naked, you might have lascivious thoughts?"

"I think I might."

"But you wouldn't do anything about those thoughts...I mean, you wouldn't put your hand on them like this," murmured Maureen, taking Sean's hand and placing it on her large and firm mammary glands."

"I...er" gulped Sean.

"And you wouldn't press my nipple like this?"

"Did Father Riley say boobs are private parts?"

"He didn't say."

"He didn't touch you there, then?"

"No, because I didn't have any boobs for him to touch then."

"Ah."

"Do you think if I took my shirt right off and lay back like this, you might think lasciviously about sucking my nipples?" She lay back pulling Sean's head down to her breasts, and lifting up one delicious mound, popped the nipple into his mouth.

"You wouldn't go as far as that, would you?"

"Mbble," replied Sean, not releasing the delicious morsal from his oral cavity.

"Just stop that for a moment, Sean, because I've got to ask you something else."

She tugged Sean's head away from her causing her breast to elongate as Sean tried to still hang on to the nipple.

"Do let go, darling, we have to continue this experiment in moral philosophy."

"What that?"

"It's the study of...oh never mind, there's something I've got to know."

"What?"

"If I stand up and take off my skirt, then pull down my knickers; "Does that give you lascivious thoughts?"

"Bloody hell, yes."

"And if I lay down on the couch like this and opened my legs nice and wide does that give you the thoughts as well?"

"Ya...bloody hell..."

"If I take you hand and put one finger on my private parts...would that...?"

"No, I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"That's your private parts, and you remember, you said Father Riley told you no one must touch your private parts – except him of course. But I'm not a priest."

"Oh, bugger Father Riley, I want to know, would you put your finger inside my private parts?"

Holding Sean's extended finger firmly Maureen slid it into her private parts. "You wouldn't do that, would you?...Neea, Jesus that's nice."

"No, of course not."

"And if I took your clothes off like this, and then opened my legs even wider, you might have more lascivious thoughts, but you wouldn't lie on top of me and put your private parts inside my private parts, would you."

Hauled down by Maureen Sean came on top of her and she drew his private parts to hers, and giving a tug on his buttocks he was impelled inside her warm wet private parts.

"Of course, you can't put your private parts inside my private parts and move your private parts in and out unless we are going to procreate...ooh ooow. If you do move like... aaah... that you might put some of that baby making...don't stop... stuff in me and we will procreate, and we don't want that," went on Maureen in a strained sort of voice that ended in a series of screams and her body leaping up and down.

"No," gasped Sean, "We don't want to procreate, it's...it's...aaagh." He suddenly groaned, and neither of them spoke comprehensibly for the next couple of minutes.

When they were able to speak with clarity again Maureen said, "I'm so glad you wouldn't act on the dictates of your lascivious thoughts."

"Yes, it's certainly good to know that I can resist the temptation of...what did the dictionary call it?"

"Lustful, wanton."

"That's it, 'Lustful, wanton'. But Maureen, we've been conducting an experiment, haven't we?"

"Yes, Sean."

"I read somewhere that you must always repeat experiments many times to check that you always get the same result."

"You mean we should keep trying to see if it always comes out the same way?"

"Yes?"

"That's all right Sean, but this bloody sofa's uncomfortable, it's given me a crick in the back, so why don't you remove your private parts from my private parts, and then we can go to my bedroom and conduct future experiments there."

"But Maureen, I believe every experiment should be conducted in exactly the same way."

"Yes, but I don't think moving to another laboratory would make any difference."

"No, I suppose not."

"Well, don't just lie there, get off me and let's go to bed."

Sean removed himself from Maureen and hand in hand they departed for her bedroom...I mean the new laboratory."

Sean said, "You know Maureen, I think we've got a lot to thank Father Riley for."

"How's that?"

"Well, he did lead us to pose the lascivious thoughts hypothesis."

"God bless the dear man," sighed Maureen. "By the way, what the hell does hypothesis mean?"