Chapter 3

“I still feel like I should pay you,” she said.

“You can buy me an ice cream,” I said, “Would that be okay?”

Natalie nodded with enthusiasm.

And that, I guess you could say, was our first date. Though again, I didn’t really see it that way. I simply promised to be Natalie’s protector, and she promised to buy me ice cream, everyday if I wanted it. I told her once a week was plenty. Thunderbird is not greedy.

After a while, I guess Natalie felt like she wasn’t holding up her end of the bargain. In her own adorable, fidgety way, she told me that she felt there was more that she should be doing for me. And me, in my own dense manner, didn’t get it and asked her if she wanted to help me with my English homework.

Math I could do. I was a whiz at math. English on the other hand was a little trickier for me, since I was not a native born speaker. Natalie agreed to my terms.

I figured out later, that while she enjoyed the time we spent together doing homework, there was something else on her mind. It became crystal clear, when one night as I was thanking her for helping me study, she grabbed my hand and stuck it under her shirt.

“I can do more than just homework,” she said. “I know what you like, and I can give it to you.”

Knowing Natalie, it must have taken her at least a month to get the courage up to do that. It took me almost as long to formulate a reply. For the most part, I was content to stand there on her front porch and enjoy the feeling of her soft, warm skin under my fingers.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” I really didn’t know what else to say, but I was coherent enough to give Natalie a little peck on the cheek to let her know that I appreciated her offer.

All the way home I smiled. I may have missed my chance with Sally, but Natalie was a really nice girl, and in spite of what I might have said about her being fidgety, I really did enjoy her company. I figured I would enjoy it a lot more if she wanted me to put my hands under her shirt again. Sometimes it’s good to be the Thunderbird.

That night in my bed, I thought long and hard about what Natalie had said—what she was inviting me to do. I wasn’t sure if she liked girls like I did, or if she was just open-minded enough that she was adapting herself to what I liked. I never once thought that she could be straight, and just giving me her body as payment for protection.

In my teenage brain, the Thunderbird’s benevolence would not allow such a thing as sex for protection to even be considered. Natalie fell in love with me, because I was her protector. She offered her body to me because she loved me and she wanted me to touch her, not because of something so petty as feeling obligated.

That’s the way it was in my mind that night, as I lay in my bed, with my hands between my thighs, thinking about Natalie. Natalie and the warm skin of her breast that felt so good under my fingertips. Natalie… My hand rising and falling with her breathing. Natalie… I arched my back and shuddered. Natalie.

The next night when I came around to Natalie’s house to study, I nearly dropped my books on my foot. She stood at the door wearing a dress that looked like it was from last year. And I don’t mean that it was out of fashion, as if I would have cared about that, but rather that it probably fit her more properly last year.

This year, it was a little shorter, and a little tighter than what her parents would want to let her out of the house with. I marveled at her bare thighs. I’d never really seen her with anything other than jeans and a t-shirt before, and her smooth creamy skin held my attention for quite some time.

“Betty? Do you want to come in?”

“Hmm?” I raised my gaze to her face. “Sure.”

I swear I heard a little giggle from Natalie as I followed her through the front door.

“My parents went to the city for the night. To see a show.” Natalie picked up my hand and held it in hers. “So we can probably study ’til about eleven o’clock before anyone gets home.”

“I — You… You look beautiful, Natalie.” I wasn’t trying to butter her up either, she looked absolutely… Wow!

I watched the color quickly rising in Natalie’s cheeks and the way she turned her head toward her feet, but yet still raised her eyes to me. She smiled. Natalie was doing all this while loosely holding my hand, there in her parent’s foyer. I started shaking.

Everything was so perfect. The way Natalie looked up at me, the warmth of her hand, the softness of her skin. My heart was racing. I honestly felt a little lightheaded.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. It felt like someone had just fed me a bowlful of cotton balls.

“Maybe you should sit down.”

I nodded and let Natalie lead me over to the couch. Somewhere along the way I realized I had left my school books in her foyer. I couldn’t for the life of me remember how that happened, but I had a feeling she hadn’t planned for us to get much studying done anyway.

For a fidgety girl, Natalie had sure worked up a lot of courage for that evening. I was still in shock, but she managed to take care of moving my hands wherever she thought they needed to be, and I visited some warm, wonderful places that evening. And at the end of it all Natalie laid her head on my chest and looked up at me with those big brown eyes of hers.

“Did you like it?” she asked.

I nodded. “Did you?” I managed to say.

“Mm-hmm. Thanks for walking me home everyday.”

I let out a long sigh. I don’t know if Natalie noticed it or not. But that’s another one of those things that stuck with me that night, because I felt a little deflated by her words.

Sure, my body was satisfied. But as soon as Natalie thanked me for walking her home, I realized what it was for her—that it really was just reciprocity—payment for me being her protector.

“That’s so sad,” Desi said.

“It is and it isn’t.” Betty placed a hand on Desi’s arm and on mine. “I learned a very important thing that night.”

“Never trust an eighteen year-old girl in a tight dress?” Desi quipped.

“No, that I loved the feeling I got when Natalie looked at me as her protector. The things she did for me with her body, that was wonderful, too. But when we stood in her parent’s foyer, and she held my hand while looking up with those eyes. That’s when I knew.”

“That you loved her?”

“That I wanted to be her protector. Her Thunderbird.”

“Yes. For our entire senior year, I walked Natalie to and from school everyday without fail.”

“And did you ever—?”

“No. I think she would have, and I think I would have enjoyed it as much as I did that first time we were together. But deep inside I would always know that she was doing it because she felt like she owed me something. She was doing what she thought I wanted, and not what she wanted.”

“And that bothered you?”

“But what about us?” Desi asked, taking Betty’s hand and sliding it under the gapping fabric of her apron.

Karin looked on with a smirk as Betty’s hand disappeared from view and the chest area of Desi’s apron was now bigger on the right side than the left.

“It’s different,” Betty said.

“This is exactly what Natalie did, isn’t it?”

“But I know you, my dearest Desi,” Betty said. “And I know that you want me to do this. I know it makes you happy to give yourself over to me, to trust me to do as I please with your body.”

Desi thrust her head back and let out a throaty moan. “Amen to that, sister.”

“Mistress,” Betty corrected, and then broke out into a wide grin.

“Yes, Mistress.” Desi was pushing her stool back and leaning over the butcher block table with her weight forward on her elbows. Somehow, miraculously, Betty’s hand was still attached to her right breast.

“Perhaps you should punish me for my mistake… Mistress.”

Oh, I’m sure she will, Karin thought.

Desi spread her feet apart and wiggled her ass.

“I stole a noodle, too,” Karin blurted out. “Earlier. While you weren’t looking.”

Desi looked over her shoulder, shooting a knowing glance at Karin, realizing that what she said was not true, but unwilling to spoil the ruse.

“See Desi?” Betty said. “You enjoy it. Both of you. Giving yourselves to me.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Desi. Then she straightened up. “More ice cream before our spankings, Mistress?”

Karin had a feeling that her interview was finished for the time being—at least until they all got their playfulness out of their systems. She reached over and tapped stop on her phone’s recording app, before stripping off her apron to follow Betty and Desi into the living room area.

Betty was pulling the two women along with a firm grip on one of each of the girl’s nipples. They were all three giggling with delight.

Part II — Mother’s Journey

Karin and Desi lay, still bent over the back of the sofa, with Betty Nguyen between them. All three women were panting and trying to catch their breath. Karin and Desi were panting because they had just been on the receiving and of ten good, hard swats to their now pink and tingling bottoms. Betty was panting because she had just delivered the ten good, hard swats, simultaneously, to those two very lovely bottoms.

There was no serious infraction to bring about the spankings, but rather just a bit of goading, mostly from Desi, and the fact that like so many other things on this day, it had become a tradition.

“Mmm, thank you, Mistress,” Desi practically purred.

Karin, who had lately become more a dispenser of spankings than a receiver, said nothing for the moment, but did smile as she paused for a time to enjoy the warm feeling that came from the expert work of her former mistress.

“Thank you, Mistress,” Karin said.

“You girls know how much I love a nice pink bottom.” And with that said, Betty rubbed her hands vigorously over both women’s bare backs and leaned forward to kiss each one on the nape of the neck.

“Why don’t you two recover a little and I’ll clean up lunch,” Betty said. “Then we’ll go visit my mother.”

Of course, Karin and Desi wouldn’t hear of their mistress doing anything but relaxing, and they were the ones to take care of the lunch dishes. And just like always, the two grown women reverted to some completely immature teenage hijinks, as they giggled and splashed in the kitchen sink, covering each other with soap suds in the process.

When the work was complete, and the suds wiped away, the three of them stood together in the entryway of Betty’s home. The mood had become solemn and hushed. Karin and Desi took a moment to get dressed, and Betty collected three handfuls of apricot blossoms before they exited the farmhouse. In another Tet tradition, they were heading to the site of Betty’s Mother’s grave.

“You never talk much about your mother,” Desi said from the front passenger seat of Betty’s Subaru wagon.

“Not much to say,” Betty replied, not taking her eyes off the road. “She had a hard life.”

The three women sat in silence for a time, watching the ubiquitous fir trees passing by as they headed north on highway fifty-one toward Salem.

“But if you really want to know,” Betty said.

“May I record this for my book?” Karin asked, from the back seat.

Karin thought she detected a wavering in her mistress’s voice. Desi must have sensed it too, because she had moved her left hand to slowly rub Betty’s thigh a few times before leaving it there to rest.

“Mama, why do we have to go?” I was only six years old at the time, but I remember asking her that. And I remember what she said.

“It’s too dangerous for us to stay here. Uncle Chris is going to find us a boat, so we can go to America. They have horses in America. Won’t that be fun?”

I had no idea what a horse was at that age, and I was pretty sure that Uncle Chris was not actually my uncle. In fact, he was not related to us at all as far as I could tell. He sure didn’t look like Mom or me, but he did try to take care of us. He might have been married to one of Mom’s sisters or cousins, I don’t know for sure. She never really talked about him after we got to America, and I don’t remember him ever coming to visit us.