Third Interlude

“I’m still against it, if you cared to listen to me” almost whined Linda Watermiene, looking at her only daughter lazing on her bed.

“Come on Mom, it’s only for two or three weeks, top! And we’ll have chaperones every steps on the way…” huffed Lisa, as if one more discussion about her coming trip to New Orleans was simply too boring to even contemplate.

“And it’s perfectly normal, my little miracle! What? Did you think that you would simply go your merry way to the Big Easy like that? Just you and Izzellah going to the airport?”

Linda knew how her little daughter would react to this tirade, and just as she expected, Lisa sighed quite audibly and rolled her eyes, clearly not understanding, or perhaps more rightly not wanting to understand, her mother’s concern. Still, the MAJOR couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sorrow. My baby is growing so fast…. Soon she’ll have to leave the house and I won’t be able to protect her anymore…

“Moooooooooom, you know that you sound like an old woman freaking out because her grand-children are crossing the street alone!”

“And what if I do?” asked the older woman, perhaps a little defensively. “Isn’t it my right to worry for my child?”

“Sure… if you were just as worried about Romeo. But he can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants, to do whatever he wants…”

Her daughter’s resentment was quite obvious, but it was something that Linda was more able to shrug off than her refusal to take her point of view into account. It was something that Minors always did, in her experience. They seemed unable to take into account the MAJORS’ reasoning, acting as if there superior brethren were impulsive and prompt to act before thinking. All things the matron of the Watermiene was quite sure she wasn’t.

“Your younger brother is a MAJOR sweet-pea” tried, once more, to explain that simple fact to her daughter. “And I know that Izzellah believe that it’s not right to think like that, but I… I think that she’s wrong in that regard!”

Linda blushed a lot and quite promptly at the mention of her daughter’s friend, young Izzellah Ivory. As often, she felt her attraction to the young girl stirring in her chest, and she felt bad for it. Ignacio Ivory was a very sympathetic man, even a friend, perhaps, and she felt dirty for those feelings she had toward his only child, yet. But it wasn’t something she could control alone, and the beautiful Minor was so obviously in need of a mother…

“Oh, now it’s Izzy fault, eh? I’m sure that she’ll like to know that you think that…” cackled Lisa in her worst imitation of a super-villain in cartoons.

“You wouldn’t!” nonetheless yelped Linda,  who didn’t want to ever make the young Ivory wary around her, when the poor girl needed so much her very fine and contained motherly love.

“Well, I don’t know… there is this new toy for dogs, and I thought that Goober would really love it, the little baby, but I don’t really have the money and…”

“I’ll buy two of them!” interrupted the MAJOR. “Just, don’t tell Izzellah that I thought she was wrong; okay?”

“God, you really are into her, uh? I’ve created a monster when I made the two of you met. Don’t worry, I’m sure that you’d just have to call her “daughter” and Izzy would forgive everything!”

“LISA!” yelled the older woman, shocked by the implication that her daugther’s words carried.

“Hehe, how prude, suddenly! You should loosen up, you would do her a favor, you know? She really need some gentle and loving hand to help her discover her sexuality. Otherwise, she’ll be left alone among all those horny teenagers wanting a piece of her!”

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Lisa Watermiene” grumbled Linda. “It’s a really dirty way to try and force me like that to… to…”

“To go down on Izzy, or to have her going down on you?” offered her daughter with a powerful laugh as the older woman blushed and stuttered, her hands flying to her face, then her mouth, then her shoulders, and then went into an intricate dance of nervousness and confusion, which made her daughter laugh even more.

“I would not… never I…”

“I’m kidding Mom! Well, half-joking anyway. I’m not sure that Izzy’s mommy complex will be stronger than some Minor-sized muscles!”

“Wha… What do you mean by that exactly?” asked Linda, her face still as red as a ripe tomato, but definitively curious to hear what her daughter had in mind.

“Well… you know that it’s Shannon Matthewson who invited Izzy, right? And that Taco Bell and Burger Queen, and, well, me are just tagging along with her. But what you may not know is that she accepted this mostly for Alejandro Ferrand.”

“That name rings a bell…” mumbled Linda, who had acquiesced to what Lisa had been saying rather absent-mindedly. “But where did I head it?”

“Probably in the news more than a decade ago. He’s from Old Creek, and what, you know, involved in the Mac Ferlan’s Incident.”

Lisa’s voice had become but a whisper and a powerful shiver shook her body. Linda rushed to her poor little miracle’s side and brought her to her mighty cleavage, cooing her and massaging her hair, trying to calm her. It was one of the few things which could prevent her Lisa to try and wriggle her way out of her embrace, that Incident. Linda hadn’t wanted her daughter to learn about it until she was older, but sadly, it hadn’t happened.

When she had been barely eight, Lisa had managed to sneak on her husband’s and her talking about this, rather crudely. She had been here for almost ten minutes before her MAJORS parents noticed, and it was only because Romeo had come to pick up his “dolly sister” since, at roughly four years old, he still needed her to drift to sleep easily at night. Lisa had been so pale that Linda had been afraid that her little miracle would make a syncope but thankfully she had managed to calm her down, even if the Minor girl had cried the whole night and had had nightmares for almost a whole week.

“It’s okay my sweet, sweet baby…” whispered the MAJOR in her oh so small daughter’s ear.

“No it’s not…” whimpered Lisa. “But it’ll be when I’ll punch his stupid face!” she added, smiling mischievously at her mother, who wondered if all of this had been an act.

Not that she could really suspect her beautiful daughter to be manipulative, she knew very well that it wasn’t in her character. She was extremely open sexually, to the point that she even managed to embarrass a MAJOR like herself, but she was never devious, and never tried to use her frailty to curry favors or material benefits. She was just like Goober, innocent and over-eager to please, fragile and easily distracted, that was all.

“You shouldn’t talk about hurting another Minor” she still admonished her baby girl. “Especially not in the face!”

“Fine, fine… I’ll punch him in the guts then, he’ll be able to hide it!”

“LISA!”

“I’m joking Mom, sheesh… But seriously… could you stay with me tonight?”

“Of course baby… I know how upset this whole story makes you… But could you explain why you think that Izzellah would want to go to New Orleans to see someone living in Old Creek?”

“Wait… I haven’t told you yet?” asked a bewildered Minor.

“Told me what, my little miracle?”

“Well… Alejandro Ferrand is a childhood friend of the Matthewson…

“No way!” interrupted Linda, who couldn’t believe it.

“Way!” countered her daughter, before continuing her previous sentence. “And he and his younger sister, a MAJOR, have moved to the Crescent City recently. Apparently, the billionaire bachelorette have paid for their High School’s years in some upper class institution or whatever.”

“But why would she do that?” interrupted once more the older woman, quite puzzled.

“You would know already if you could let me talk without interrupting me every five seconds!” whined Lisa, looking hurtfully at her mother.

“Sorry baby girl. Let’s say it’s payback for all the times you try to run away and hide in the house.”

“But you love chasing me! Panda Express would even say that it’s some primal instinct from when you guys where some massive apes going all King Kong on us poor little Minors in distress!”

“You’re exaggerating. And it’s very impolite to speak like that if MAJORS, you know?”

“So, it would be okay to speak like that about Minors?” shot back Lisa.

“Of course not… You know sweetie, sometimes I wonder if you aren’t too caught up into this “Equals rights for Minors’” campaign. Every little slip of the tongue and you become extremely defensive.”

“Bleh!” simply replied Lisa, sticking out her tongue and frowning in the most ridiculous way, which forced Linda to drop her serious face to chuckle a little. “Can I finish what I was saying now and explain to you why even your weapons of mass destruction may not be enough to win Izzy’s heart?”

“My breasts are perfectly proportionated, I’ll have you know! And I don… don’t want to win Izzellah’s heart, I’m just happy to be a… a good friend for her, when it comes to navigating this difficult part of your life you’re both entering!” affirmed Linda, blushing even more all the while.

“Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight” said Lisa, clearly not buying it. “Anyway, as I was saying, there is a reason for it… and it’s that the Girl who’s worth ten Billion or whatever is in loooooooooove with this Alejandro! They are boyfriend and girlfriend, and all!”

“I can’t believe it…” uttered a stunned Linda.

She loved Minor just as much as any self-respecting MAJOR, they were simply so cute, and fragile, and clueless about the whole word and how brutal and dangerous their superior kindred could be, for themselves or the Minors around them… but going as far as dating one of no renown, albeit for this atrocious Incident which had been put under a lid really fast by the authorities of California, and more largely the Feds? That was a bridge too far. Couples had to be, if not equals when it came to a MAJOR/minor one, but at least balanced.

And here, it wasn’t the case at all. She had no idea about how that poor Minor looked, all she knew what that he was crippled, and probably scarred deeply mentally. In her mind, he needed someone living a calm and collected life, to rebuild himself. Someone from the Jet-Set, at not even twenty, was not suited for healing and uplifting him. And then, she remembered something her daughter had said a little while ago.

“You said that Izzellah wanted to go to New Orleans for this Alejandro. Care to explain why?”

“She’s in looooooove!” chirped Lisa with a huge grin on her face.

“What!? How? When did she even met him?” shouted Linda, astonished by this sudden revelation and even a little angry, if she had to be honest with herself.

“Well, a year ago or so, she and Taco Bell’s…”

“Lisa…” growled the MAJOR, quite menacingly.

“Fiiine. Izzy and Sabrina Rodriguez’ families went to Old Creek for a week-end and they met with this Alejandro and even Shannon Matthewson! Apparently, Izzellah struck a chord with that overgrown girl, and was offered a place among her ambassadors and what not. But the most important thing she brought back was the mail of this Ferrand guy. You should have heard it! Always talking about how alone he must have felt, the sole Minor in his ghost town and all, and how cute he was, bleh!”

Linda shook her head slightly, smiling. She understood why Izzellah Ivory had been, and possibly still was, attracted to such a Minor. His plight would appeal to her kind and generous spirit, and the Watermiene matron knew that her daughter’s best friend took at heart the suffering and difficulties that her kind had endured and still faced. Plus, if he was cute, that little Minor boy probably would fancy her, if only a little. Izzellah had seemed quite attracted to physical beauty, after all.

“Okay, I get it. But being in love is a little too much, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s just that, well, he is real cute, you know. I don’t think he could satisfy me proper though, but who knows, right?”

“LISA!” shrieked Linda, once more shocked by how open her daughter was with the matters of sexuality.

She knew that MAJORS around her age were all in rut, somehow, and she accepted it, because she had been like that not so long ago, when it came to her kind’s lifespan. But Minors were, in her mind, so much more pure, and innocent. Despite leaving with one and meeting others, chief among them the young Ivory, she still couldn’t help but expect something more… cute, or childlike perhaps, from them when it came to this particular topic.

“Oh come on Mom! I’m almost twenty! Can’t I say that I like a tiny morsel when I see one! Plus, I’m half-MAJOR. Can’t I get to be treated as such, at least!?”

“Oh, we’re not having this discussion again, my little miracle!” grumbled Linda, her mind wandering to far more pressing matter.

“Oh yes we are!” shot back Lisa, trying to push her mother away, to no avail as always.

It was a particular can of worms Linda hated with a passion. Her little miracle was a halfsy, which means that she was neither a MAJOR nor a true Minor, at least in her pretty little eyes. MAJORS knew best, that she indeed was a part of the smaller breed of Manking, albeit a slightly improved, if rare, subspecies. But the common knowledge which depicted halfsies as “half-MAJOR” was probably something which did more harm than good.

“Lisa, dear. I know you want more freedom, to be able to stretch your wing… but you’re not ready yet sweetie. You need someone to be with you, someone to protect you and help you. Braxton…”

“Is a huge asshole!”

“Yes, I agree that he may be rather unpleasant at times… but he’s from a good family and he stills wants you… Wouldn’t you like to at least give him another chance?”

“Just when other guys are finally becoming to be interested in me again? No way in hell!” shot back her daughter.

“What if I bought you two new toys for Goober?” offered Linda, hoping to make her daughter shift her stance on this subject.

“Add Warrior of Lemuria IV to it and we may be onto something…” grumbled her wonderful elder child.

“Oww, you’re just so cute, my precious baby!” cooed Linda. “Fine, you’ll get your toys for Goober and your game in exchange of trying to at least a small talk with Braxton?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever…”