Scott laid like a marionette post-string-severing, strapped tightly into his rainbow car seat, which had been transferred over to Nancy’s vehicle so she could give the three Stevenses a ride home while Judy remained behind to speak with and be congratulated by the remaining stragglers of her political uprising.

            Kyle sat in the passenger seat, with Maggie on Scott’s right in the back, ignoring him completely.  Ordinarily, she would’ve been taking every chance to torment him at this kind of proximity while he was secured so firmly in a place he couldn’t fight back, though he couldn’t be sure if it was ironic manners in front of Nancy or if she truly just wasn’t in the mood.

            Bitterly, Scott knew that this truly was the one (and probably only first) occasion where just about anything his sister did to him right now would go completely unnoticed.  She could stuff him a sweaty sock, bathe him with her bare hands, or insert him against her back molars and suck the skin right off him.  It literally didn’t matter at this point.

            After having listened to his mother, on her now almost-assured ascent to power, prattle on for minutes about her intent to keep him along with every major criminal in the nation shrunken down at a manageable level for the rest of their natural lives, he couldn’t possibly contemplate an activity bad enough that he’d actually be forced out of his waking coma to take notice.

            The car was silent, except for the sugary pop songs rattling out from the Top 40 station Nancy had switched on.  Scott, head still hung low, chanced a glance over at his sister in her formal skirt as she tapped her right foot against the floor, though not in time with the music, as though suggesting she wasn’t present in the moment and just keeping her mind occupied with anything she could.

            Next, he looked up to the rearview mirror and caught Nancy’s right eye, which immediately winked at him before returning to the road.

            This, as well, meant nothing.  What did he care now?

            “You guys must just be so proud of your mom today,” the woman remarked, shaking her head with near disbelief.  “The woman can sure make a group take notice, can’t she?”

            “Yeah,” Maggie stated.  “Totally.”

            Despite hardly listening, Scott couldn’t help but feel he detected a hint of transparency in his sister’s answer, though it was nigh-impossible to tell given his gloom.  He couldn’t possibly have conceived of why she might’ve sounded like that, though, given that what presumably amounted to all of her wildest hopes and dreams had just come true.

            “They’re… definitely listening now,” Kyle observed quietly.

            “That’s an understatement,” Nancy agreed, conveniently skipping over hearing an opinion from Scott, who had a fair guess as to why.  “Of course, there’s going to be a long road ahead now for your mother and everyone else on this side of the fight, but… I think after the impression she made today, and especially if she won over the people that I think she did, it’ll be something that can be done.”

            “Uh-huh,” Maggie droned neutrally.

            “Plus, with Techilogic’s support… well, you know…” Nancy mumbled quietly before trailing off.

            Again briefly pulled from his sobering reverie by an insignificant logical abnormality, Scott realized that, although he hadn’t actually been with Maggie for every moment during the three-hour garden party, he’d been with her, or in her arms, for most of it, and after Judy’s little speech was over, she’d neglected to chase down Emily Brookes or even casually inch her way into a conversation, like she’d so enthusiastically promised earlier.  Of course, it was probably just embarrassment that had gotten to her.

            Shy, shy, little Maggie Stevens, unable to speak up about something that she cared greatly about.  Definitely just embarrassment.  Definite sense.

            Really?

            As the car pulled back into the driveway, Scott looked out the window at the approaching house and somehow felt it looked different.  He wasn’t sure whether it was the weariness that had settled in since his mother’s speech that was affecting his outlook, but it felt much more like looking at an eternity, encapsulated in simple brick and mortar.

            A void.

            But not one where he could escape to.

            One that was meant to hold him.

            “All right here we are,” Nancy announced needlessly.  “And listen, guys, I’m sure your mom will say this again later, but you did an excellent job out there, supporting her and her message.  I couldn’t be prouder.”

            “Thanks Mrs. Dugan,” Maggie answered, with something more or less resembling these words being mumbled by Kyle.  Scott watched as his sister hopped out of the car and then turned back around to undo the straps of his baby seat.  Miraculously, her hands weren’t lowering down on him in the shape of eager claws to snatch him up, but rather, approached him with odd normalcy, almost with the simplistic fervor of someone simply unstrapping a small child.

            Whatever was going on, Scott was far too out of it to even broach comprehension.

            “You don’t have to worry about him, Maggie,” Nancy said quickly just as the girl’s hands were placed on her brother’s chest.  “I have to get the seat unstrapped from my car anyway so we can put it back in your mom’s later.  You and Kyle can just head on in.  I’ll take care of your brother.”

            “Um, okay.  Sure,” Maggie shrugged, releasing her grip on the seat with bizarre ease.  Her gaze lingered blankly on Scott for a moment before she turned and sauntered up toward the house, with Kyle dragging his feet behind and still tapping away on his phone until both were inside and out of sight.

            Scott inhaled deeply in the momentary reprieve he had before Nancy was standing in the car door, arms stretched across the seats as though to demonstrate how difficult it would be to escape even if he wasn’t strapped in, her face positively beaming.

            “So,” she sighed.  “Where were we?”

            Hands pressed into the luxurious leather seats, Nancy leaned into the car until her face was right over Scott, her warm breath wafting stickily into his breathing space.

            “Well?”

            “Uh… w-we…” Scott mumbled, no longer out of pure fear, but simply a confusing mix of rapture and humiliation.

            “Shhh.  Don’t talk until you can get it together,” Nancy hushed, placing a slender finger over his lips.  “Maybe this will help get you relaxed.”

            Closing her eyes, the woman opened her mouth and extended her tongue, touching it to Scott’s cheek and sliding the slippery muscle up to his forehead.  Once she’d reached this point, she began planting kisses on his face and the top of his head with tenderness that shocked Scott more than if she’d gone into full-on slurping mode.  All the young man could do was shiver with bodily delight as he felt her hands on the straps freeing him from the rainbow prison and wrapping under his sides, scooping him from the seat and out of the car without missing a beat in smooching softly at his face.

            “Feeling into it yet?” she whispered as she hugged him to her chest and began walking up toward the house.

            Scott opened his mouth to speak, but found himself unable to come up with the right words as he experienced the feeling of having the side of his head caressed gently into the tight pillow of her left breast.  Between the draining experience of listening to his mother sell his freedom down the river a couple hours before, and now having whatever perverted misadventures Nancy had cooked up to look forward to, he couldn’t help but allow himself to slump limply against her as she strode toward the garage door, then passed it in favor of the cobblestone path leading to the backyard area.  Where was she going?

            “You didn’t think I’d do this in the house when your brother and sister are just in the other room, did you?” Nancy asked, as though reading his mind as she pushed the small gate open that led into the family’s fenced-in swimming pool area.  “A little privacy is nice.  Plus, you can be as loud as you want and nobody bothers you.”

            Momentarily unnerved that he was potentially about to be thrown under the water cover and into what might very well become a literal sexual cesspool, Scott watched groggily as Nancy marched around the side of the pool and instead made her way to the tiny brick poolhouse that sat a dozen feet from the edge.

            Despite only occasionally using it for pool parties, Judy had always insisted on thoroughly maintaining the little place, which amounted to little more than a room with a couch, a bathroom, and a closet for storing pool supplies.  And considering the number of hours Scott now had that could be freely dedicated to keeping the house beyond a merely sterile level of cleanliness, the small space that smelled faintly of chlorine and rubber shoes was incredibly appealing for the solitude it offered when he could manage to escape work for a few minutes, just for a much-needed moment alone.

            With a twist in his gut, Scott had a feeling that he no longer would be able to exclusively relate the poolhouse to a feeling of peace and quietude.

            “I think this’ll do nicely,” Nancy commented with a satisfied nod as she entered and shut the door firmly behind her.  She took a seat on the couch, though she still kept her twenty-one-year-old capture close to the chest.  “Don’t you?”

            Scott shrugged and tried not to sigh too loudly, unsure of what to feel, and even more unsure if it mattered in the slightest how he chose to feel.

            “Still not in the moment, hmm?” Nancy questioned with a quiet coo.  She stroked a thumb down the top of Scott’s head as she gazed down at him cradled to her person.  “That’s okay.  I understand how you must feel.  Like… the rug’s been pulled out from under you.  It must be very difficult.”

            Despite himself, Scott nodded.  Honesty at this point couldn’t hurt him more than it already had.

            “I thought so.  But you know what?  Right now, at this moment?  There’s not anything you, or I, or anybody else can do about that.  Right now, at this moment, we’re just a couple of… adults,” she continued, as though somewhat uncomfortable classifying the both of them under the same moniker.  “A couple of adults with a little quiet space to themselves, and a chance to feel really, really good.  So what do you think we should do about that?”

            Apparently, the question was mostly rhetorical, as Nancy’s fingers were already delicately undoing the zipper on Scott’s slacks and tugging his shirt out of the waistband.  Between two fingers, she grasped the tiny buckle and slipped it out of the loops before going to work on the buttons again.

            After she was halfway up the shirt, though, she paused and lifted Scott closer to her face, pressing her lips to his exposed abdominals again and puckering with just enough tickling gentleness to get an entranced twitch out of her subject, who laid his head back and groaned.

            “Okay, okay, so we’re starting to wake up again.  That’s a start,” Nancy whispered encouragingly, planting a final peck on his firm abdomen.  She pulled back again and finished unbuttoning the tiny shirt, tossing it to the side of the couch and wrapping her fingers seductively around Scott’s sides, exploring every inch of his torso, poking and prodding in the right places with that same tantalizing pressure that reminded him exactly who was in charge.  “Now let’s have a little fun.”