Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

We are Jemima and Easter Yeggs.  Lieutenant Yeggs wants his son to write these reports to keep in touch when we are out having our adventures, and Rev C.S.L., my Dad, doesn’t mind an update either.

Sometimes Dr. Ellie has some boneheaded ideas, but sometimes they go far beyond boneheaded.  I was not sure about this one.  We had a young lady who had a rough home life growing up.  She has a mistaken idea that she needs to cement her relationship with a boy that she likes by sleeping with him on the first date.  She strips down to the waist before he notices.  Would she have gone further if he had not stopped her?  Even he wonders why he stopped her.  What she was doing is what he’d dreamed of.

Now, Dr. Ellie does not call for a pajama party girl talk, but the raunchiest lingerie that we have.  I insisted on pasties if the nipple show and a pad if the panties were crotchless.  Now, will the expanded girl talk group comply, and what is up Dr. Ellie’s sleeves?  No wait.  Not much raunchy lingerie has sleeves.

The crew is usually just Dr. Ellie, Arabella, and me.  Mary is invited, but she is usually too busy.  That too busy could go away if Wilma works out, but she is the aforementioned young lady with a rough home life.  Wilma is staying with Joseline, so it makes sense to invite her.  Jos will have more influence on her than the rest of us combined.  If Mary shows up, that is six, which may be too many for an intimate girl talk.

Ellie showed up in something that needed pasties and a pad.  I know her heart, but she likes stretching that part a bit.  I had something that almost showed things, but the lace was in the right places.  Mary had something very similar to mine.  Jos (Joseline Johnson) was such a large woman, I was wondering what on earth she would wear, but it was something along the same lines as what Mary and I were wearing, but it had a plunging panty line, barely covering what it needed to cover. 

Arabella came in street clothing and Ellie took her into the restroom.  When she came out, she had see-through everything, except a thong that covered enough.  But to cover the nipples, she had a ribbon that was just in the right place.  Ellie said they went through some of Arabella’s antics, and the ribbon shifted, so she had pasties to prevent a wardrobe malfunction.  Arabella seemed to float around the room, and she was unusually quiet.

Now that left our new member, Wilma.  When she came in, she removed her robe.  She had a mesh body stocking on top that left all her curves showing.  The panties seemed to be lace straps holding something like a pad.  She was definitely the most daring, but then she had the body for this kind of thing.  Besides, Ellie said that Aunt Pink and Gwen decided what she would wear.

Ellie then explained why we were in this raunchy clothing.

Ellie said, “When I became a Christian, we were in a hotel room in South Dakota and Jemima suggested a pajama party.  I had to run out and get pajamas.  In those days, I slept with nothing on.  It was just the two of us until Easter came in with a half dozen flavors of popcorn.  But I wanted the really naughty lingerie as an object lesson.  The underwear is not naughty.  The underwear did nothing wrong.  It is our perception.”

I added, “And maybe the underwear does not cover everything that underwear should cover.  Maybe that is the naughty part.”

Ellie huffed, “Please, Jemima, I am trying to make a point here.  And having something on that is so skimpy puts us in the mood of needing something.  We can call on God.  We can call on each other.”

And Mary added, “Or we can call on the robes we have in case the boys want to come in.”

Ellie moaned, “You know, you two are making this difficult.  But my last point is that we are all equals here in this girl talk.  We each have the same body parts and we each have them barely covered.”

Arabella said, “I am sitting here looking at women and I am the only girl.  We are far from equal.  Three of us have babies in the nursery.  And looking around the room, I definitely have the smallest cup size.”

Ellie said, “But what I just gave you is a B Cup and you fill it out.  That is amazing for a 14 year old.  Of the rest of us, who can say they were a B Cup at 14?”

Wilma raised her hand.  No one else did.

Ellie asked, “Joseline, did you have a late growth spurt?”

Joseline shrugged, “No, I was a D Cup when I turned fourteen.  It’s that Amazonian blood in me.”

Wilma asked, “I thought you just had the code name Amazon because you were, ummm, big.”

Joseline stood up.  “No, I am an Amazon, according to my mother.  She and I are the same size.  And thank you Wilma for not calling me fat.”

Wilma asked, “But what cup size are you now?”

Joseline said, “I wish you had not asked.  Before I got pregnant, I was a triple D, but now I am an H Cup.”

Wilma shrugged, “But just being big does not make you an Amazon.”

Joseline said, “Kevin fussed that I shaved down there, but with this lingerie, it would be rather hairy.  So, you can see my tattoo.”

Arabella was closest and she looked and said, “We have a Decepticon in our midst.”

Joseline groaned, “No, that is the symbol of our Amazon family, a crest of sorts.”

Ellie asked, “What is a Decepticon?”

I snickered, “There are a series of movies about the Transformers.  Funny, neither Easy nor I were interested in the old cartoon shows or the movies, but then he became the Turtle driver.  Someone said that the Turtle transforms into an SUV.  So, now we’ve watched all the movies.  The good guys are the Autobots.  They are sentient robots that can transform into motor vehicles, some into aircraft and other things.  The Decepticons are the bad guys.”

Belle said, “Sarah and I have watched the Transformer cartoon shows.  We aren’t allowed to watch the movies yet.  Sarah likes the cartoon show.”

Mary asked, “How can you tell?  She never talks.”

Belle said, “Sarah smiles when we watch the show.  And Sarah can talk, when I give her a chance.”  Belle scrunched her head between her shoulders and the ribbons of her lingerie shifted.

Jos said, “Ummm, Belle, your butterflies are showing.”

I asked, “What?  Oh, her pasties are butterflies!  That’s so cute!”

Ellie said, “I gave her two sets: butterflies and hearts.  She opted for the butterflies, but I think she’ll swap with each girl talk.”

Belle said, “And maybe I’ll wear one of each!”  Then she shrunk her head between her shoulders.

Mary said, “And drat!  Just when she got the ribbons back in place.”

I asked, “We haven’t heard from you. Wilma.”

Wilma said, “I don’t know how you can sit here so comfortably.  I am just here letting my fat body show.”

Ellie said, “One of the rules is that we do not do any body shaming.  Three of us a working at recovering what body shape we lost and getting used to larger breasts than before.  What say, you, Joseline?”

Jos growled, “From a nice firm triple D to an H.  It takes some getting used to, and I order my clothing online, but it is amazing how I can change sizes overnight and Aunt Gwen has a pink coverall replacement for me.  Mommie Pinkie calls it her superpower, and I am believing there is something supernatural to it.”

Belle asked, “Are you going to tell them, or should I?”

Jos shrugged, “You are better at telling stories, Belle.”

Belle said, “Yesterday, some construction workers were installing some more water pipes and troughs in the African exotic area, when one of the construction workers violated procedure and he put his weight outside the railing.  He slipped and fell.”

Wilma gasped, “That’s a long way down.  Did he die?”

Jos groaned, “He may wish he had.  He was wearing his D-Ring coveralls, and he was tied off.  We have drills once a week.  A four-person crew pulls the person back up to the catwalk.  Aerial lifts are not practical.  If you hang from your lanyard for too long, you get harness hang syndrome.  You can’t get proper blood flow to the lower extremities.  This leads to low blood pressure issues that could cause death, but a lot of other issues for a survivor.  The harness and lanyard that saved your life might not be that effective if the person is not rescued in time.  And where he fell was in the worst place.  I would not have been there if I was not doing my daily audit of the Daltons and their crew.  You cannot really tell if they have their harnesses tied off properly unless you are up there with them.  But the other three on the crew were either out on the end of a middle catwalk or near the bottom.”

Belle took over. “So, Amazon called on her Wonder Woman superpowers, and she hauled the guy back up to the catwalk on her own.  The guy must have weighed 250 pounds, and she lifted him straight up.”

Jos looked at the floor.  “Listen, I am not Wonder Woman.  My genetic makeup gives me a larger, stronger frame, and I work out.  That’s it.  At times, I think there might really be something to this stuff Mom keeps telling me about, but the Amazons only claimed to be equal to the men, no superpowers.  I am glad that I can speak about it in these girl talks, but what happened yesterday was pretty bad for the guy who fell.  Our rule is that he is suspended from working here for a week and has to take the safety training over.  But the contractor may fire him.  The work was supposed to be completed tomorrow.  The guy has three children at home.  Whether I like it or not, I must enforce the rules.  One moment on his part of wanting to get something completed and not thinking of a safer solution and now, his job is in danger.  That part of the job is hard.”

Wilma asked, “Is safety management your career goal?”

Jos shook her head, “I want to be a doctor.  I am in pre-med now.  When Dr. Mel comes by for a house call, I get to sit in with her.  And I work with the nurses on each shift.  I like what I do, but not everything that I have to do.”

Wilma asked, “Dr. Melanie Torme makes house calls?”

I answered, “We have so many people that live and work here and very few of them have driver’s licenses.  It’s one thing for one of the bus drivers to drop someone off at the clinic on the way to another location, but then the return trip may be delayed.  So, Dr. Mel comes to the campus once each week, just before Vespers.  She brings one nurse with her and the nurse on shift here can do the triage work.  That is, vital signs and asking what hurts and how bad, basic symptoms.  I think Aunt Pink gives Dr. Mel an incentive to come over, but then, Dr. Mel is nice, regardless.  But can we get back to your self-flagellation over being fat.  I’m thinking that there are five ladies in this room who would like to have a body like you, add to that not a hair out of place, face perfectly symmetrical, and those legs are gorgeous.”

Jos said, “Leave me out of the dreaming of being the perfect girl in the perfect body.  I am happy being the runt in Goliath’s family.”

Wilma said, “But my grandmother said that a C Cup was pushing it, and anything larger was obese.”

Ellie groaned, “Now we have even more re-education to do.  Your grandmother may have meant well, but as a worldwide trend, sales of bras is showing increases in cup size each year in the USA and worldwide.  And looking at the rest of your body, I would say you are underweight.  Not body shaming, dear, but you need a little body fat.  Let’s say you break a leg.  If there is nothing there but muscle, the leg will consume the muscle in the healing process.  Then, one leg will be bigger than the other.  Then, how can exercise fix that problem?”

Wilma moaned, “What other lies have my mother and grandmother told me?”

I sighed, “The big elephant in the room when you threw yourself at Fred was that sleeping with your boyfriend keeps the boyfriend around.  Did your mother ever sleep with the same man two nights in a row?”

Wilma thought for a minute.  “Sometimes her lovers came and stayed for the weekend, but in my lifetime, I don’t think anyone came back.  If a customer at work was a return customer, he wanted to buy more products from the company.  And my mother’s husband ran off when Betty was born, and I came two years later, when Mom was sleeping with the boss – that was regular, but then he quit the company.  The president of the company, sleeping with the top secretary, and he quit.”

I nodded, “It may be that his wife found out about your Mom, and he left rather than losing his stuff in a nasty divorce.  What about your sister?”

Wilma shrugged, “She had boys coming and going all the time.  I think she may have had a lot of boys that came back after sleeping with her, but no one was steady.”

I asked, “So, why did you think sleeping with Fred was going to make him the one who did not leave?”

Wilma started to cry.  “Now, I understand why they call you ‘Stinker’.  I said I did something stupid.  I lost the boy that I had followed around for ten years simply because I refused to sleep with him.  And I have no idea why I drew the line and said that we were not going to do that.”

Belle huffed, “I think we all know, all except you.”

Ellie whispered, “Belle, hush!”

Wilma asked, “What is it, then?”

I smiled, “Wilma, God imprints into each of us a certain concept of right and wrong.  Then, we make up our own rules at times.  I am a preacher’s kid, a PK.  I had to be perfect all the time or it would reflect against my Dad’s career.  I tried to take my sweater off with Easy several times, and he stopped me.  He said being a policeman’s kid was a worse form of PK.  He said I’d never been hand-cuffed, taken to the precinct for fingerprinting and the charge was jay walking.”

Everyone snorted.

I smiled, “Wilma, it’s like what Ellie told Fred.  Give it time.  We will continue to have these girl talks.  Maybe with a little tamer lingerie, but in some respect, I like what Ellie was going after.  If we get accustomed to being a little vulnerable, we will learn to trust more in God and in each other.  And as for that voice that said ‘no’, that was probably God doing that.  Just as God was probably telling Fred to not go along with your idea.  I think God has big plans for both of you.”

Wilma shrugged, “But I don’t even know God.”

Ellie said, “Go to Vespers. Go to Stinker’s Sunday school class.  That’s a couples class, so bring Fred.  Read the Bible that I gave you.  But do not be content with the answer that you do not know God.”

There was suddenly a strange knock at the door, like a few people knocking at the same time.

I asked, “Who is it?”

The reply came first in a falsetto voice, “Strangers bearing gifts!”

I moaned, “I have heard that line before, who is this really?”  Ellie was distributing the robes in case they tried to break down the door.

The reply was in a deep and fake baritone voice, “Strangers bearing gifts!”

I growled, “Try again!”

Then I heard my husband say, “Guys, guys, she is not going to open the door until you give the secret word.”  Then, three or four voices all said, “Popcorn.”

I quickly opened the door.  And all the guys walked into the room: Easy, Dr. Ben, Joseph, Kevin, Michael Rowe Casey, and Fred.  Each carrying a few different flavors.  At times, I wondered if the girl talks were keeping the popcorn people in business all by themselves.

They were followed by Madelaine Morrisey and Mary Jo Lynn, hauling the storm chasing babies.  And if you are wondering, Misty is about four months old and Stormie is nine months old, but Misty is longer and bigger, but Stormie is a little more coordinated – for the moment.  The nursery ladies were making an unprecedented home delivery, possibly because they heard there was popcorn.

But as people started digging into the popcorn, Mary pulled me into the bedroom.

Mary looked worried, which wasn’t an unusual look for her.  “Jemi, I didn’t say much at our group meeting.  I will have to confess something.  I am pregnant, and Joseph is enrolled in the last class that he needs to get his Master of Divinity.  I do not see Wilma as a big help.  I see her as a replacement.  She is shapely, voluptuous.  You talked about her hair never being out of place.  Her face is the definition of beauty, perfectly symmetrical.  She has those nice legs.  Never mind, even her voice is one that says, ‘I have something important to say.’  She could replace me with a little coaching.  She is not a Christian.  I would not trust her in the editing room.  We do not apologize for our faith, and if people do not like what we talk about, they do not have to watch our reality show.  But whenever I have gotten a non-believer in the editing room, they remove all the Christian discussions as not being necessary to the weather story.  People do not watch the reality show to learn about the weather.  They watch us to see what we do and how we respond when things get crazy.  But other than that, I will have to confess at being as green as grass in springtime with jealousy.”

I sighed, “Mary, you are my best friend.  I love you when you are large and in charge and I love you when you are neurotic.  And this is one of those latter times.  Wilma is a sophomore.  You are a graduate student.  She cannot direct the Turtle activities.  As you said, she will not edit the video until she is of like minds with us.  We cannot afford to be censored.  So, at least for a few years, you are still the Bossy Boss.  By then, maybe she and Fred get married, and she gets a baby bump that messes up that perfect body.  Then, you will have regained what you will temporarily lose here in the next few months.  And who knows, maybe you will enjoy being a preacher’s wife and quit storm chasing.”

Mary said, “No, for now, Joseph is looking at a standing offer from Rev C.S.L.  The church is offering Joseph the Associate Pastor position.  He will still be able to be a counselor at Lily the Pink.  He may pick up some pastoral care right in our apartment.”

I asked, “Mary, can you keep a secret?”  She nodded.  “About a year ago, I had a dream.  This was before Stormie was born.  I was at a park and Stormie was playing.  I was tending to our baby boy, Dusty.  I was waiting for Dr. Ellie and Joan.  Note: Stormie had not been born, and I have said nothing to Dr. Ellie, yet the children names are Stormie and Joan.  Then a man came up and told a story about how he had made love to a stranger, a woman who simply arrived and then mysteriously left.  And he just found out that his DNA matched that of Dr. Ellie.  He was her father.  I have said nothing about it to anyone except Easy.  But in the dream, Joseph became the associate pastor, and Emmett became the music minister.  Mary, Ellie named her daughter Joan.  Joseph is thinking of taking the associate pastor job.  Watch out.  When I get ready to deliver another baby, it is going to be a very dusty day.  This scares me, but if it all comes true, our professor will gain the father that she never knew.  So, this is our secret.  It would hurt me to my very core, if I told her and the one part of the dream that does not come true is the part about her father.”  Mary nodded.  I am thinking just getting her mind off what she worried about was most of the cure for her anxieties.  No one would replace B.B.

Credits

The idea of needing a little body fat came from a college coach who gave us engineers a lecture.  He had a recent motorcycle accident and broke his leg.  He showed us one leg that looked normal and the other one that was the leg of a bodybuilder, twice the size.  And he claimed it was because he had gotten obsessed and was near zero body fat.  But too much body fat is probably a worse problem than too little.

The popcorn was the only way for Easy to “join” the pajama party when they were out chasing a blizzard in South Dakota, and it has been a tradition ever since.

And Madelaine Lothrop Morrisey is Mags Lothrop Kildare’s oldest daughter who works part-time in the nursery and goes to school while living off campus with her husband.  Mommie Pinkie does not offer cheaper apartments to people who are financially secure where they are.  The apartments are for family, employees, and people who could qualify for assistance through the mission.  Fred and Wilma were a couple of exceptions to help them through this rough patch.  But then again, there are so many young people going to college that it is almost like our apartment building is married couple housing for the university.  They have even set up some tables and chairs under an internal roof for a study area between the nursery and the waterfall, and when Uncle Scrambled sees us out there doing our homework, he brings us pastries for free – pretending that the studying students are his taste testing crew.