Crazy About the Baumgartners

Chapter Nine

The Baumgartners hired a babysitter and took me to a bar called “Captain Tony’s.”

We drank a lot and danced together, the three of us moving as one, arms draped around each other, mouths often slanting, hers, mine, his. No one cared. This was Key West-everyone was wild and gender was unbelievably fluid.

A guy approached, asked me to dance. He was cute-dark hair, scruff on his chin, blue eyes-and Carrie waved me onto the dance floor with him. I didn’t want to leave the two of them, it felt a little like cheating, but he was a good dancer and had me smiling and laughing by the end of the song.

He bought me a drink at the bar and we talked a while, but I kept looking over at the Baumgartners and finally, I excused myself to go back and join them.

“You can bring him home if you want.” Carrie leaned in to whisper this into my ear. She was looking at him, still sitting alone at the bar. I did kind of feel a little bad, leaving him like that. He seemed like a nice enough guy. “Or you can go home with him. What’s his name?”

“David.” I smiled. “That’s not against the rules?”

“Gretchen, you’re free.” Carrie laughed, throwing her arms wide. “You can do what you want. Or who you want. Boys, girls. In between. Life is too short to limit yourself.”

“But before, Doc said he couldn’t touch me…” I glanced over at him, sipping his beer and keeping an eye on the television. Some game was on, but I didn’t even know what sport was being played, let alone who was playing it. I remembered that little photography session on the beach, when he said he could look but not touch.

“That was before we decided to be with you.” She nudged me playfully under the table with her knee. “Now that we have, well… anything goes. You can be with me, with him. You can bring home anyone you want.”

I’d never felt so free and so contained at the same time.

We spent the night drinking, dancing, until we were all hot and sweaty and desperately hungry for each other. We took a cab back to the timeshare, relieving the babysitter. It was strange, letting someone else do my job so I could go out with the Baumgartners.

We all stopped in to check on the baby in my room. She was sleeping peacefully and, as we crept into the big bed together, we reminded each other to be quiet. We didn’t want to wake her. Of course, we all forgot, at various times during the night, but thankfully, she slept through until morning.

And in the end, I had no regrets. I didn’t go home with David, because I didn’t want him. I didn’t want anyone else.

I went home with the Baumgartners, because the Baumgartners were my home.

I woke up slightly hung over, mouth fuzzy, eyes dry, hanging half on and half off the Baumgartners’ bed. Carrie was curled up, facing the other way, Doc spooning her from behind. They were both sleeping, their breathing deep and even. I wondered why I was awake-I’d startled like I’d been woken out of a deep sleep, but I couldn’t remember any dreams.

Then I heard the baby fussing in the Pack’n Play in my room.

I slipped out of bed, still naked, stopping at the bathroom to pee. I looked at my thighs, seeing bruises on them from Doc’s fingers. I poked at them, wincing at the pain, and smiled. There were more of them on my ass. And a bite mark on my shoulder. That was from Carrie. The dildo she’d strapped on me had made her come so hard she bit me. Not that I minded.

“Good morning, Sweetpea,” I called, slipping a short, silky robe on and tying the sash.

I lifted Holly out of the playpen and she wiggled and smiled. She wasn’t just a cute baby, she was incredibly sweet. She woke up smiling and cooing every morning. I usually found her playing with her hands or feet. I changed her diaper on the bed, changing her out of her sleeper and into an Oshkosh jumper for the day.

We went downstairs and I made her a bottle. I sat on the sofa and fed her, flipping through the channels on the television, but I kept it on mute, not wanting to wake the Baumgartners. I couldn’t help smiling, remembering. Was this really my life now? What would things look like, when we returned home? The past twelve hours had been like a fantasy. Today, Janie and Henry would come home, and I would be Gretchen the nanny again. Then what?

Holly drank her bottle and we played for a while. I put her on my lap, my knees up, and she rested there, kicking her feet and waving her arms while I sang songs and tickled her. She loved “Itsy Bitsy Spider” when I made my fingers crawl “up the water spout.” When the rain came down, I would tickle her ribs, making her squeal and laugh. Another favorite was “Busy Bee,” who “came out of the barn” to tickle Holly under the arm.

After a while, she started looking away, getting fussy, and I knew it was nap time. She always fell back asleep in the morning, a few hours after waking, but she fought it like crazy, so we’d resorted to putting her in her bouncy chair until she passed out. I bounced her in it with my foot, and before long, her eyes drooped and her head slipped to the side and she fell asleep. There was no resisting the gentle rock of the bouncy chair. It was like magic.

I desperately needed a shower so I got the baby monitor and set it up next to her on the floor, taking the receiver with me upstairs. I set it on the counter and turned on the shower. It was a big one, encased in glass. I brushed my teeth, waiting for the water to get warm, surprised when Doc came in, pushing the door open.

“Morning.” He moved past me, lifting the toilet seat, and leaned one hand against the wall as he aimed his cock at the bowl.

“Morning,” I said, after spitting out toothpaste and rinsing with one of the paper Dixie cups.

I couldn’t help watching him pee. There was something incredibly sexy about a man holding his cock, whatever the reason. His biceps were big, defined, and he had great thighs. Strange, to notice a man’s legs, but I did. He shook off, closed the lid, and flushed. Then he looked over, noticing me noticing him.

“Sleep okay?” He rinsed his hands off in the sink-there were two and I was using the one closest to the door.

“Mmm-hmm.” Not that we’d done much sleeping that I could recall. All I remembered was having that cock in my mouth, in my pussy, watching him fuck his wife six ways ’til Sunday. His stamina was impressive. Especially the way he could come, and then get hard again. It didn’t take him long-maybe fifteen minutes. Long enough to make me or Carrie come with his mouth or fingers. I was multiply-orgasmic and it turned out that Mrs. B was too.

“Baby’s been fed,” I informed him, putting my toothbrush in a holder on the counter. “She’s sleeping downstairs.”

“Good.” He glanced at the monitor as he came toward me, turning me and lifting me onto the bathroom counter. “I’ve been waiting to have you all to myself.”

I smiled, wrapping my arms around his neck, feeling his cock, hard against my thigh. We kissed, his hands going up under my robe, roaming over my body as if he could memorize me, like reading braille. I moaned when he cupped both of my breasts, his thumbs flickering against my nipples, teasing me.

Then he undid the sash, yanking my robe open, looking down at my body, my legs wrapped around his waist, his cock like hot steel against my thigh. I ran my hands over him, down from his shoulders, tweaking his nipples, raking them gently with my fingernails, making him thrust against me, even though his cock wasn’t in my pussy yet.

“Dirty girl,” he murmured, rubbing a thumb through my slit, hooking it into my pussy, making me gasp as he lifted up against my pubic bone. “I came in you twice last night.”

“I know.” I moaned when his thumb moved in deep, his big palm covering my whole mound.

“Come on.” He grabbed me around the waist, lifting me, and I wrapped my arms and legs around him as he carried me into the shower.

The water was hot, steam rising around us, and Doc was kissing me, tongues probing, our mouths aslant. The needle spray of the water against my back stung and Doc grabbed the soap out of the dish as we parted, handing it to me as he pressed me against the wall, my legs still wrapped around his waist. Then he grabbed the shower head-it was the removable, massaging kind-and handed that to me too.

“Wash up, dirty girl.” He pinned me against the wall, hooking his arms underneath my knees, his palms flat against the tile. “Go on, I want to watch.”

He held me up like that as I tucked the showerhead between us, the spray aimed down at Doc’s feet while I ran the soap over my arms and shoulders first, then moved down to my breasts. His eyes brightened when I soaped up my tits, moaning when I circled my nipples with the bar, lifting them in my hands and letting them fall. I ran my soapy hands over my belly, down between my legs, rubbing my hands into the crease of my thighs before soaping up my pussy.

“Good girl.” He looked between my legs, so very hungry. “Ready to rinse?”

I nodded, reaching for the showerhead and pulling it up. Starting at my shoulders, I rinsed the suds from my body, the hot water beating down on my skin, turning it from white to pink. I aimed the spray between my legs, parting my lips with my fingers, rinsing down there, the spray against my clit making me shiver.

“Do it,” he urged, seeing my face when the water hit my pussy. “Make yourself come with it.”

I smiled, turning the shower massage from needle spray to pulse, moaning when the water washed over my clit. I loved sex toys and vibrators and tongues and cocks, but oh the pulse of water on my clit was like heaven on earth. There was nothing like it. Doc’s face was right near the spray, but he didn’t seem to care. He watched me soak my pussy, my hips moving all on their own as I chased my climax.

“Feel good?” He hiked me higher up the tile, my back sliding, making a squeaking sound as he pushed me up, up, until my thighs were on his shoulders. I held the showerhead about a foot from my pussy, the water splashing us both, aiming right for my clit. Doc wrapped his arms around my thighs, prying my pussy open for the spray.

“Ohhh fuck,” I moaned, looking down at him holding me up. I was dizzy, being up so high, and reached up to balance myself, my hand touching the ceiling. “Oh Doc! Oh! I’m gonna come!”

“Good girl!” he urged, spreading my lips even wider for the pulse of the water. “Come for me! Come on!”

“Ohhhhh!” I shuddered all over, the heat of the water making my orgasm feel like drowning and then surfacing, making me gasp for air.

“Fuck, baby.” Doc moaned, burying his face in my pussy, sucking my clit.

I cried out in protest, clutching the shower massage, now pulsing against Doc’s back as he furiously licked my pussy, sucking out all my juices. But I couldn’t resist him. I couldn’t resist his fervor, the pressure of his mouth, the lash of his tongue. I came for him again, came all over his face, my body bucking and twisting on his shoulders, his fingers digging into the bruises on my hips, grabbing and holding me hard against his face.

“Oh Doc, oh God,” I cried as he slowly let me down. I slid down the tile, all the way down, and he captured my mouth as my face passed his, kissing me as he lowered me to the floor. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him back, tasting my pussy on his tongue, sucking it into my mouth.

“Turn around,” he said, hanging the dangling showerhead back up, switching the setting, the water needling our skin again.

I did as he asked, bending over, bracing my hands against the wall. He groaned, looking at me like that, and slapped his cock against my ass. I gasped when I felt his fingers probing my lips, opening me, sliding his cock up and down, seeking entrance. I arched up, giving him more of my ass, feeling his cock sliding slowly between my lips, into my waiting pussy.

“Yesssss!” I bit my lip, grinding back against his cock. “Oh yes, fill my pussy.”

“You like that?” he murmured, meeting my thrusts with his own. “You like being filled?”

“Oh yes!” I looked back over my shoulder at him, his hands moving over the globes of my ass. “Put your finger in my ass. Please?”

He smiled, spreading my ass, glancing down to watch his cock disappearing. I wished I could see too. I loved watching that. Then his soapy thumb was probing my asshole, rubbing it, making me moan and wiggle back, wanting more. I wanted to be filled completely. I wanted a cock in my pussy, in my ass, in my mouth. I cried out when he slipped two fingers into that tight, furrowed hole.

“Too much?” he asked, slowing his thrusts.

“No,” I panted. “Not enough.”

“Mmm.” He slid another finger in, stretching me open, filling me.

“Yes, like that!” I cried as he fucked both holes, his cock buried in my pussy, his fingers in my ass.

“Oh Doc, please!” I bit my lip, sucking it between my teeth. I braced myself against his onslaught with one hand, but I brought the other one to my mouth, sucking my fingers into my mouth. I had to have all my holes filed.

“What do you want, baby?”

“Fill me!” I begged, rolling my hips back, feeling the hot throb of his cock in my aching pussy, the way my ass clenched and sucked his fingers in deeper. I decided on just my thumb, sucking it into my mouth, closing my eyes and pretending it was another cock.

“Ohhhh baby,” he moaned, slowing just a little. “Oh fuck. Oh your fucking pussy is so tight. I can’t stand it.”

“Mmmmm!” I didn’t slow, I wouldn’t let him. I pounded back against him, deep into the saddle of his hips, my pussy milking him as I climaxed, his cock pulsing with each wave of his cum as he really filled me now. He filled me up completely with that last, final thrust, the ultimate release.

I whimpered when he eased out, his cock and fingers, and gathered me to him, cradling my all-over-shaking body in his arms, holding me up when my knees wanted to let go. He kissed my wet forehead and hair until finally our breathing returned to some semblance of normal.

“Do you know what today is?” I whispered.

“Christmas.” He tilted my chin up, kissing me full on the mouth.

“No.” I smiled. “Not yet.”

“It’s my Christmas.” He looked into my eyes and I drowned in his. “You’re my best gift.”

“It’s my anniversary.” I put my arms around his neck, stretching up on tiptoe. “My first anniversary of working for you.”

“Ah.” He smiled. “And now it’s our anniversary.”

I startled when the shower door opened and Carrie stepped in. Her eyes were on fire, full of lust, and I knew instantly that she’d heard us, had probably been watching us through the foggy glass. We welcomed her, our twosome becoming an instant threesome, Carrie’s arm going around my waist, the other around her husband’s.

“Our anniversary,” she said softly, looking up at her husband. He leaned down and kissed her. Then she turned and kissed me and we were one, the three of us together, a perfect triad.

We spent a long, long time in that shower. I was the one who got out first, when I heard the baby fussing, leaving Doc and Carrie to finish up. Holly was up and ready to play by the time I got downstairs. Then she was hungry, and Carrie wanted to feed her, so we all went out back to sit in the sun on the patio. It was just like nothing had happened, except everything had happened. Everything had changed. I felt it in the heat of our looks. We all had a secret.

But thankfully Maureen Holmes acted as if nothing had happened when she dropped Janie and Henry off, just like she said she would. She didn’t say a word to me, but I didn’t expect her to. As long as she kept her big mouth shut to everyone else, I didn’t care what she thought of me. She could call me a slut, she could think I was immoral, she could pray for me, if that’s what she wanted to do-as long as she didn’t hurt the Baumgartners.

The kids couldn’t stop talking about the fair and how much fun they’d had with Isaac and Rebecca and I let them prattle on while we made tacos for dinner. I browned the meat while Mrs. B cut up lettuce and tomatoes and the kids grated cheese.

“So did they talk about God a lot?” I asked, interrupting Janie’s story about a haunted fun house where the mirrors made her horribly fat-which was the scariest thing in the whole place, she said.

“They wanted us to accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior.” The sarcasm in Henry’s voice was unmistakable.

“Did you?”

“They said we had to find Jesus,” Janie piped up.

“I told them I didn’t even know he was lost.”

“Henry!” Carrie gasped, sliding chopped tomatoes off her knife into a bowl. “You didn’t!”

“Well, I said it to Janie.” He smirked.

“You don’t have to be disrespectful,” his mother chastised. “Just say ‘No thank you.’”

“Jesus: Just Say No.” I grinned, scraping hamburger out of the sizzling pan into a glass bowl.

“Henry, check this out.” I reached into the fridge, grabbing an egg out of the holder. “This is your brain.”

“Gretchen…” Mrs. B frowned. She clearly know where I was going with this. But it was too good to resist. I had to.

“And this is your brain on religion.” I cracked the egg on the side of the pan, letting it spill onto the hot surface, watching the sticky, clear fluid turn white. “Or drugs. Take your pick. They can both do that.”

Henry cracked up.

“That’s my public service announcement for the day.”

“You better eat that egg,” Carrie said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh I will.” I picked up the pan, shaking the egg back and forth before flipping it. “I seem to have worked up an appetite.”

I smiled to myself at her knowing look as I got a fork out of the drawer and slid the egg onto a plate.

“What did you guys do?” Janie asked, changing the subject as she went back to grating cheese.

“Oh not much,” Mrs. B told her casually. “Watched movies. We went to Tony’s and had some grown up fun.”

I ate my fried egg, smiling as I remembered the grown up fun we’d had while they were gone.

“Are we going swimming with the dolphins again?” Janie asked. “The kids at camp said if we accepted Jesus we could go with them next year to swim with dolphins.”

“We can swim with dolphins with or without the approval of the Lord, Janie,” I told her, putting my empty egg plate into the sink.

“Just so happens I put it on the schedule for the day after tomorrow,” Carrie said, rocking Holly’s bouncy chair with her foot when the baby got fussy.

“Yay, Mom!” Janie cheered. “You’re the best mom in the world!”

“Gretchen, can you hold her?” Carrie dried her hands on a dish towel, bouncing the baby faster, but Holly wasn’t having it. She was in full-fuss-mode now. “My phone’s buzzing.”

“Sure.” I reached down and unbuckled Holly, picking her up. She quieted immediately.

“Hello?” Carrie put her finger in her other ear, ducking out of the kitchen so she could hear. The kids were now throwing shredded cheese at each other, laughing and making a mess.

“You guys, stop,” I chastised them, stepping between, getting a face full of cheese.

Henry’s eyes widened, his jaw dropping, and then he burst out laughing,

“Come on, your mom is on the phone.” The baby had grabbed a handful of shredded cheese and brought it to her mouth, gnawing happily. At six months, she was really ready for solid food. I’d have to show Carrie.

I went around the corner, laughing at Holly’s expression of wonder at the delightful taste of cheese in her mouth. She made gurgly noises as she tried to suck it down. Her brain only associated taste and food with sucking.

“Carrie, look,” I said, seeing her sitting on the sofa, still on the phone, Doc beside her.

He looked up at me, his face pale, eyes giving me a warning.

I stopped, heart hammering in my chest. I knew who it was. Of course. Maureen Holmes had decided that her husband would stand by her, that he would know she was just possessed by the devil when she’d been sexually involved with the Baumgartners. She had decided she couldn’t live with the filth and perversion of the Baumgartners’ lifestyle and had called the authorities. That was either Maureen Holmes on the phone telling the Baumgartners she intended to call Child Protective Services, or it was a CPS social worker. I just knew it.

My knees wouldn’t hold me and I fell to them, still holding the baby. Holly squealed like I was taking her for a ride, laughing. Doc just looked at me, not saying a word, but the more I searched his face, so stunned and shocked, the sicker I felt. This was my fault. All my fault. Sound had receded. Carrie was nodding, asking questions, but I didn’t hear what they were. Janie and Henry, now back to goofing around in the kitchen since their supervision had vacated their immediate vicinity, were just background noise.

“Okay, thank you… yes, I understand… we will… please keep us informed… goodbye.”

Carrie hung up the phone, putting it on the coffee table, and I hung my head, waiting.

This was it. It was over. All the sweetness and love we’d shared the past few days was decimated with one phone call. I knew it was my fault, but I selfishly had hoped that this time, this one time, I could finally have something to call my own.

“That was… that was Holly’s social worker.” Carrie’s voice was hoarse, like she’d been crying, but her eyes were dry. I realized she was looking at me, talking to me, and I glanced up. It was so hard to look at her, to know how much pain I’d just caused them, the two people I loved most in the world. I wanted to die.

“Apparently her paternal grandmother has… has come forward.” She cleared her throat, like it was hard to get the words out. I looked over at Doc, but he had his head down, in his hands, elbows on his knees. “She lives in Utah. I guess she didn’t even know about the baby.”

“But…” I couldn’t think. It wasn’t Maureen on the phone? It wasn’t CPS? “Wait… they said she didn’t have any other relatives. When they placed her with us, didn’t they say that?”

“They said they were looking for other blood relatives, but they didn’t know of any at that time,” she said, lower lip trembling. I saw her hands shaking. “This grandmother has petitioned the courts for custody. She wants Holly.”

I let the words sink in, like a knife to my belly, and I instinctively held the baby closer.

“Well she can’t have her.” I felt tears stinging my eyes at the thought of giving this baby to anyone, ever. She belonged here, with the Baumgartners. This was her family. She’d been with them only a few months, but she was happy and loved and doing so well. Of course, the social workers would see that. The judge would understand. He wouldn’t want to take her away from a family she’d come to know and love and count on.

“Unfortunately, she’ll probably win,” Doc said, lifting his head to look at me. His eyes were wet. Carrie choked out a sob at his words, covering her face with her hands. “Unless she’s a serial killer or something, the courts are partial to blood relatives in cases like this.”

“But you could fight it,” I cried, holding Holly so tight she started to squirm. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law, isn’t it? You have her until a judge says you have to give her back, don’t you? And the longer you have her, the more time she has to bond, then the less chance there is a judge will say you have to give her up. Isn’t that right?”

“And the longer we have her, the more damage we do, if we have to give her back,” Doc said sadly. “Think about it, Gretchen. Say we drag it out in the courts for a year, two years, maybe three. Now we have a beautiful three-year-old daughter who calls us Daddy and Mommy, who knows nothing else but our family.”

Carrie was really sobbing now and Doc put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her to him. Tears rolled down my cheeks. This couldn’t be happening. It was wrong, so very wrong. This baby had been born drug addicted, she was given back to her abusers, and of course they did it again, torturing and nearly killing her-and now she was safe, with a family that loved her, and they wanted to take her back?

“What happens when we’ve exhausted all our appeals, and a judge still decides she has to go live with someone else? Now she’s a heartbroken three-year-old who doesn’t understand why Mommy and Daddy are telling her she has to go away.”

“Noooo,” Carrie sobbed against his chest.

“We talked about this.” Doc rocked her, stroking her hair. “We said, if this happened, we would give her back right away, so she wouldn’t get too attached. This is for Holly, remember?”

“I know, I know.” Carrie sniffed, drying her eyes, taking a long, shaky breath. She looked at the baby in my arms and teared up again. “Can I have her?”

The answer was clearly “no.” At least, as far as the state was concerned. Because Holly belonged with some stranger in Utah who had never even seen her, simply because they shared some DNA? I thought of Maureen Holmes. I’d been so sure it was her. Had she prayed for us? Had she asked God to punish the wicked? I’m sure, if Maureen ever found out, she would consider this our punishment for living a life of sin. But as far as I was concerned, this was just more proof that there was no God. If there was a God, he wouldn’t let things like this happen. Ever.

I stood, still shaky, and went over to them. Holly smiled when Carrie took her in her arms-she knew her mama already. Doc and Carrie put their arms around each other, around the baby, a cocoon, but I knew it was an illusion. Nothing could keep them safe. Holly was going to be taken away. I heard Janie and Henry in the kitchen, oblivious. The Baumgartners were going to have to tell them. The thought made me sick to my stomach. They were singing Jesus Loves Me at the top of their lungs, changing the words to Cthulhu Loves Me. It was a horrible sacrilege and Mrs. Holmes would have been appalled, but I was pretty sure, if there was a God, he didn’t really care.

I didn’t know if there was or wasn’t a God. I didn’t know if this was a punishment or some horrible, random act. I just knew things would never be the same again.