MICHAEL

My mouth fills with bile. I shudder as I swallow it back down. He smirks at my reaction then turns to Justin. “Want to come and blow my horn?”

“Get that fine ass in the car!” He orders, and pushes Brian in front of him, their taunting laughter reverberates through me as they run out of the building.

“Wonder when that happened?” The guard checks the handcuffs. “Okay, you are all set, let’s go.”

“Why do I have to wear handcuffs? I don't think I have see Ma wearing any.”

“She’s still on her tag…”

“She is? How come?”

“Should imagine her attorney requested it…” He holds up a finger so that he can  listen to the radio. I hear something about a traffic accident and strain to listen. He notices and moves back slightly. “...okay, copy. Let’s go and hope that it is cleared by the time we get to that end.”

“So you were saying…” He looks puzzled so I shake my wrists at him. “...a tag. Her attorney can ask for that?”

“Yep.”

“Why hasn't mine then?!” I can't believe this, but then again, going on today’s lax display I can believe it. “So what does being on a tag mean? Can she leave the house and such?”

“Yeah, to an extent, but what would she leave for?”

“First thing tomorrow, my so called attorney is going to get me on a tag so I can get some comics and…”

“That’s not how it works. You can’t just switch like that. You have to have a compelling reason, and...mind your head…” I just about manage not to bump it as I get in the car. “...and it has to be signed off by a judge.” He finishes as he gets in the driver's seat. “Wanting to get comics is not going to be good enough to get a sign off from a judge you have annoyed.”

I glare heatedly at the back of his head as we pull into traffic and then blink. “What happened?”

“What happened when?” He scowls in the mirror before turning his attention back to the road.

“You wondered when something happened, what was it?”

“The chauffeur called them Kinney-Taylor, I wonder when they got married, and how they kept it quiet?”

BRIAN AND VIC’S HOUSE - AN HOUR LATER

BALCONY

JUSTIN

“Ambrosia!” I declare as I lift my head from between the thighs of my fiancé, having just licked him from balls to the base of his spine. “Utterly butterly.” I kiss his cheeks and he pushes up. “Fingering, sucking or fucking?” I purr at him, having kissed him all the way home and reciprocated, almost ripping his clothes off in the garden as he did mine in the car.

“All. In that order.” He orders huskily, and then groans as I push two fingers in. I press against that bundle of nerves in a staccato rhythm that has him gripping the rail with both hands, then my fingers are being locked in a vice like grip. “Suck. Suck. Suck.” He chants and releases me, then quickly flips over, ringing his cock, which is purple and dripping. “Now!” I deep throat him and almost, for once, gag such is the pulsing and throbbing. He rings himself tighter and slowly starts to calm down but not enough. “Oh, Tigger, can’t…” He grabs a handful of my hair so I relax my throat. In seconds he is screaming and shooting...I am sure the neighbours in the next country can hear him!

“That...ooh-oh-oh-oh!” I collapse against his abdomen, my chin is covered in a mix of his cream and mine and I am twitching like I got tasered. It takes fifteen panting minutes for him to disentangle from my hair and for me to lift my head.

“Come to me.” He murmurs. “Up.” I slowly wend my way as I feel like I am made of sludge. “Reach it. Can you?”

“Blammet?” I mutter, my eyes starting to close, and remain where I am, as despite the cooling of our skin, I am still feeling a bit warm.

“Mmm.” He jostles me. “Cantmoobsocover...” He chuckles sleepily, holding me tighter and placing a soft kiss on my head. “...Tigger.”

“Bossy Bear.” I grumble, and reach for it and when we woke three hours later, we discovered that Vic had come back, picked up our clothes, and gone to stay with Mel and Ben, but not before he covered us up with the quilt and pulled out the heater! The evening was nicely rounded by Brian making slow and sweet love to me in the shower before we started to spoon into blissful sleep.

“Taylor-Kinney.” He mumbles in my ear.

“Hmm?” I turn to face him.

“It has to be Taylor-Kinney, you need to be first. Always first.” He kisses my forehead before drifting off to sleep.

“Like that. Love you.” I murmur into his chest and join him in sleep with the same beatific smile.

CUSTODY HOUSE - NEXT MORNING

MICHAEL

I am waiting for the guard to stop sipping and swallow. Since his observation last night, I have been a mass of annoyance and nerves. Annoyed because Anita never even suggested a tag, and nervous because now I know Brian for who he is, and what I saw, I need to be certain.

JUDGE BALSAM’S CHAMBERS - TWENTY MINUTES LATER

RENE AUBERJOHN

I watch with bated breath as he carefully reads over the report and the supporting papers. He nods slowly, then reaches for his pen. “So what is this warrant for again?”

“Just a piece of back-up, in case she refuses to come willingly. We hope not to use it, but it shows that we are serious. As the papers state, she has given up her rights to the child, but the recordings clearly indicate that she and her mother intend to deny her sister the child. Furthermore, they seek to extort money from the man she believes to the be the father of the child, then not provide the child for him to raise.”

“So the man is not the father of the child?”

“No.” Andrew Gailsford, her former lover, replies grimly. “I know who the true father is, and he is not interested in the child. Mr Auberjohn was advised by Ms Marcus to approach me when I told her that I would be speaking to Ms Peterson…”

“I see. But why did you contact Ms Marcus? Surely she was no longer a determining factor?”

“I had to apologise to Ms Marcus for my dalliance with Ms Peterson.” His face flames. “I owed her that much, especially after Ms Peterson tried to say the baby was mine.”

“She tried to extort money?”

“Not exactly, but it made for an uncomfortable conversation with my wife.”

“I’ll bet. As far as I am concerned, there’s enough evidence to have them both placed under house arrest. And if the baby is not given to the rightful mother, they will be charged with extortion and child abandonment and endangerment, ironically, the very thing she said she never did to Mr Kinney.”

“Thank you.”

Forty minutes later, I am heading to the house with the warrant burning a hole in my pocket but also child services and other back up right behind me. I had called Mom before I left to let her know what was happening. She said she would go to Lynette and Ronald to give them the news. We have not said a word to them, we daren’t raise their hopes only for a judge to dash them.

LINDSAY AND NANCY’S HOUSE - TWENTY MINUTES LATER

LOUNGE

NANCY

I feel like I am in an alternate state! I know that I should be concentrating on what the officer is saying, but I am too bamboozled as to how it has come to this!

“Did you understand what I said?”

“You can’t do this!” Lindsay screeches, then winces, before sitting down clutching her stomach. “I think I need an ambulance! The baby! Help me!”

Good girl, this buys us some time to think!

“Thought you might. Can you send them in please?!” The officer calls over his shoulder, my heart sinks as the EMTs come in, and within minutes we are being helped into the ambulance.

PETERSON RESIDENCE - AN HOUR LATER

LYNETTE

I take the tissue from Mami and wipe my eyes. I am a mixture of furious, unsurprised and heartbroken. “So now what?”

“Lindsay is going to be taken to a custody house until the birth. If she refuses to stay there then she will go to jail. Too much of a flight risk. Your mother…”

“Her mother, she is no longer mine.” I correct her, and marvel at the feeling of relief finally saying those words gives me.

“Her mother will be taken to a residential home, and then after the baby is in your arms they are free to go.”

“Straight to hell. They will not be going back to the house.” Daddy retorts, having been sitting there in shock at what they wanted to do. “To deny her this one chance, it is vile, wicked and loathsome.”

“Describes them perfectly.” I grimace, but then clap my hands on my knees. “Come on, Dad, let’s go clean house!”

“Let me call The Gaggle.” Mami grins evilly. “Nobody cleans better than us!”

ALLEGHANY COURTHOUSE - EARLY LUNCH TIME

COURTROOM ONE

DEBS

I turn away from Michael who seems to be trying to communicate telepathically, actually, just pathetically if I am honest. We’re waiting for the Judge and I have been told that I will be called to the stand first.

“All rise.” Courtney demands.

“Be seated. I have to advise the court that due to personal circumstances, any further testimony from Lindsay Peterson will be conducted via videolink.”

“Duly recorded, Your Honour.”

“Thank you. Defence for Deborah Grassi to open. But before that begins, the defendant, Michael Grassi, will stand.” I look at Phyllis, but she looks ahead as does his attorney. Brian’s attorney has a very contented look on his face. He leans over to speak to Brian who looks surprised, then smiles and nods. This cannot be good. “Mr Grassi, why have you sought confrontations with Mr Kinney and Mr Tay..

“Shouldn’t that be Kinney-Taylor? They are married now.” He sneers, then looks peevishly at them when nobody from their side reacts. “Isn’t it the law of the court that the alleged victim be addressed correctly?”

“Mr Grassi, I will finish my question! Why have you sought to confront Mr Kinney and Mr Taylor? We had hoped this was an unnecessary step, but your behaviour has given us no choice. Effective from this evening, you will be taken to the Motivational Bootcamp: Quehanna in Karthaus Township and remain there until a verdict is reached. It is a condition of the partial lifting of the restraining order that there should be no attempt to harrass or interact with either of them.”

“I have not harassed! I have attempted to get him to see reason, which is completely different! You can't send me away, it is against my rights! I'm supposed to be having a fair trial in this farce and nobody has been bloody fair!”

“Mr Grassi…”

“I will kill myself if you send me there!” He explodes, and I am so grateful that only we are in court to hear his latest attempt to have his own way, but now I have had it to the back teeth with this.

“Then do so, you selfish little shitting asshole!” I bellow at him. “But little piece of advice for you, if you are going to go the wrists route, cut down not across. You bleed out quicker. Now, pills on the other hand, don’t bother. You can't swallow more than two before you panic that you’re going to overdose, oh the irony! So the other option is scarfing, but using rope instead of a silk scarf!” I stalk up to him and pop him hard across the back of the head. “Leave them the fuck alone. You will go to the boot camp or come home to me! What’s it gonna be?!”

As per usual when caught between a rock and my hard face, he starts to frigging cry, but that stops quickly when everyone including me starts to laugh. And when Emmett started to do the boo-boo face, I had to be escorted to the bathroom...they were all still chuckling when I got back, but at least he made a decision!

SILVER TREE RESIDENTIAL HOME - TWO HOURS LATER

NANCY'S ROOM

NANCY

So it has come to this. We have lost and have nothing but the metaphorical, clothes on our backs. Mr Peterson and his daughter, as she insisted I call her, have just left, having evicted us. I have managed to speak to Lindsay, and it has been decided that we are going to move out of the State. Don't know where to, but we need a fresh start. I survey my room. She came with those creatures and just dumped all my clothes in garbage bags. I have never felt so humiliated.

“Ms Stewart...” I look up at the warden of my prison imperiously, but she just returns the look with a sneer. “...you are not infirm. We do not leave our rooms in such a state. Start cleaning up the mess you made!”

COURTROOM ONE - SAME TIME

ARTHUR

Despite his histrionics earlier, and after much gnashing of teeth, he is going to the boot camp, but will be on suicide watch. We have a duty of care after all!

After his mother took the stand, the members of the jury were no longer hiding their disbelief at her testimony. It was the same old story: I didn't mean for this to happen, and it is not our fault what he did with the information. The way she vacillates between trying to save her hide and hang his out to dry is tedious to say the least! And now I have him on the stand, although this incarnation of the tiresome toddler is a new one.

“Mr Grassi, why do you still deny any wrongdoing, when it's written in your own hand?”

“As she…” He jabs his finger at his mother. “...said, we may have told him the problems that Mr Kinney-Taylor got himself, and sometimes me, into, but what…”

“The victim’s name…”

“Names! It should be names! I am a victim too! You all saw her earlier, that was only a taste of the verbal abuse I got. She’s never been encouraging, the only thing she’s ever encouraged was for me to kill myself!”

“Funny how none of your so called abuse is in these books. Odd that we couldn't find any evidence of your traumatic childhood. Care to give us examples?”

“I don't want to…”

“Don't want to or, truthfully for once, you don't have examples because once again you are lying? You don’t want to see the truth. That truth is you caused this abuse because you were jealous of the way your mother and uncle felt about Mr Kinney…”

“Once again, counsel…” He snarks. “...proper names. Kinney-Taylor!”

I feel the lean of the press at that nugget of information. “His name is Brian Kinney. Yes, he does love him but…”

“Of course he fucking loves him! I knew the moment he saw him he would love him!” He takes an angry breath and grips the stand. “You were supposed to meet me, but once again you let me down saying you had to work! But it was our time so I headed to your other interfering baby. I could hear you and since there was no bulldog at the gates, I was going to drag you out. I know how much you hate to have your pitch practice interrupted...but then he came out of an office, looked through a door and stopped. Just cold dead stopped, and you stopped talking. I knew you'd seen him, but before I could say anything your guard-bitch called out so I had to leave. I am glad you suffered! I am so happy I did what I did, because your pain then is nothing compared to my pain now! Your bones healed but my heart won't! To quote you, no apologies no fucking regrets!”

MICHAEL

I close my eyes for a few seconds then look across at them. Once again, Brian is looking at Dr Morris. I am about to taunt his husband when I see that they are still holding hands. Now they are both looking at Dr Morris. I swallow hard when he nods back at them and they smile.

“Thanks to your parapraxis, we have found out two things…”

“My para…”

“Do not interrupt me!” His attorney is almost in the stand with me he is that close. “We have found out the truth from your own, finally admitted words, and in doing that, you confirm that you don't have a heart to break!”

“What was it that you said I have?” I whisper.

“Parapraxis? You don't have it, you do it.” His grin is sly and when I look across again Brian and Justin are grinning too. “It means to unwittingly, and, in your case unwillingly, reveal a truth. You have damned yourself. No further questions, right to recall, your witness.”