Cindy's Last Striptease Ch. 03

The stories fascinated Curt, yet made him all the more glum to have missed his chance of seeing her in action. He was quiet for the remainder of the work day; praying the neglected videotape he'd left behind would not come back to haunt him.

When six o'clock arrived, Curt headed over to Taylor High to pick up his sister. There he found that Claire was in just as sullen a mood as he was when she got in his car.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I broke up with Derek," she grumbled.

Curt shrugged.

"He was no good for you."

"You're such a jerk!" Claire snapped.

I know, Curt thought to himself.

He pulled into the driveway of his house and he and his sister walked inside. The house was eerily quiet when he entered. Everything was cleaned and perfectly in its place. Curt and Claire headed up the stairs to their respective bedrooms.

Curt's heart dropped when he entered his room. There, on his bed, was the videocassette "Erotic Striptease and Seduction."

"Lose something?"

Curt clutched his chest and turned around in shock. His mother sat at his desk, watching him sternly.

"Reverend Duffy came by today and dropped this off. Care to explain it?"

Curt opened his mouth to lie, but his mother's pointed stare choked any ability to tell an untruth out of his breath.

"I'm sorry!" he pleaded. "I found it in a box at a work site! The church was the only place to watch it!"

Cindy clutched the side of her head.

"Why would you watch it? Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is for me that this tape even exists?"

"Huh?" Curt asked confused. "Look, I know you think porn is a big sin or whatever, but every guy watches it. I'm an adult, it's not a big deal!"

"Not a big deal? Curt, this could ruin our family!"

Curt slunk his head. "Ruining the family" seemed like a bit of an exaggeration to him, but he acknowledged that it was a serious matter in any case.

"I know. I didn't think anyone would find out." He sat down onto his bed.

Breakup music emanated from Claire's bedroom. Cindy got up from her seat to shut Curt's bedroom door and sat back down.

"Well, someone did find out. Reverend Duffy saw the video. Not all of it, but enough of it. And he brought it straight here."

Curt buried his face in his hands.

"Oh my God," Curt lamented. "I'm so sorry. I didn't think he'd figure it out."

"You didn't think he'd figure it out?" Cindy asked, baffled.

"I mean, anyone could have played that tape in there! I can't be the only guy in the world that would want to watch a hot babe dance naked!"

Cindy looked at her son incredulously.

"A hot babe? Curt, did you even watch the video?" she asked.

Curt shrugged.

"Not much of it. The power went off right when it started."

Realization hit Cindy at that moment.

"Oh, thank God!" she said with relief. She stood up and snatched the videocassette from her son's bed. "Give me that tape! You are not watching it!"

"Okay, geez! It's not like I've never seen porn before."

Cindy disregarded his statement. She was too relieved to be angry.

"Don't ever do something like this again," she bellowed, and stomped out of his bedroom with the videotape under her arm.

The mother and son each breathed a sigh of relief, with both expecting their exchange to have gone much worse.

* * * * *

Cindy was getting ready for bed when her cell phone rang. Seeing the caller was Vic, she kept her voice low when she answered.

"Hey Cin! You awake?" he asked.

"For a little bit longer. What's up?"

"So, I got good news and bad news."

Cindy hung her head. As if more bad news was exactly what she needed.

"Bad news- I talked to the marketers, and I'm sorry, but they're not letting me keep your face out of the advertising."

"Vic, you PROMISED!" Cindy shouted.

"I know, I know. I tried, but they're not budging on this."

"Try harder!" Cindy demanded. "I do not want my friends and neighbors and complete strangers recognizing me from a dirty banner ad they saw in their spam folders!"

She paced around her bedroom, fuming.

Vic sighed. "All right, look, nothing's set in stone on this. At least not until tomorrow, when I meet with them and sign the deal. I'll TRY to negotiate on this. But I'm just letting you know which way the wind's blowing on this. If the marketers don't think the video will sell, they won't invest in the distribution. I can't have that. So one way or another, I'm signing a deal with them tomorrow. I'll try to take your request in consideration."

"Please, just do what you can," she said, suppressing tears.

"But look- good news is, we're working out a deal to get a major wide release on this video. I'm talking nationwide, maybe international. I'm putting together a trailer that we're gonna have streaming on PornHub by the end of the month, and yeah, most likely your face will be in it."

"Vic! The whole world will see me there!"

She sat down onto her bed and squeezed the bed sheets desperately. One month before she could kiss anonymity goodbye...

"Cin, Cin, I don't think you realize how lucrative this can be for you. You got another film on your contract after this, and the marketers love you! I showed your footage to some producers from Aphrodite Pictures, and let me tell you, they are VERY interested in working with you. You know, if you feel like signing a new contract with another company."

"I'm not," Cindy said, sharply.

"Okay, okay, just letting you know you have options in case life in the suburbs doesn't work out for you. But yeah, this video should be pretty big. There might be a big bonus in there for you."

"Vic, I don't care about the money. I want OUT of this life. I wanted out twenty years ago!"

"Okay, it's just an option. What's not an option is your next film. It's in your contract. But silver lining there- we won't have to film that one in your house. We can afford a studio now!"

"I'm relieved," she said dryly.

"I'll bet you are. I'm gonna start planning that one pretty soon, so I'll keep you posted."

"All right, TRY to get the marketers to change their minds about putting my face in there," Cindy reminded him.

"I will. But Cindy, I'm gonna be honest. It's not likely. I suggest you think about telling your family pretty soon. There's a good chance they'll find out way or another. Oh hey, looks like I'm getting another call. Got to go." Vic hung up the phone.

Cindy set her phone to her side. Vic was right. Her family would find out soon. Reverend Duffy would see to that.

Stuart would be home from his trip tomorrow. That would be the time to tell him, and her children, before Sunday's service when the rest of her community would find out as well. For now, she would simply enjoy this one last night of being simply Cindy, innocent wife and mother of a family beloved by her entire town.

Cindy knocked on her daughter's bedroom door. Claire seemed to have calmed down, so Cindy sat by her side and asked her what was troubling her.

Claire told her mother about Derek, leaving out the details of what he'd done at their home and simply explaining that he'd lied to her, cheated on her, and spread rumors about her at school. Cindy hugged her tightly and assured her there would be other, better boys in her future.

"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you before," Claire said. "I'll stop sending slutty pictures to boys."

"That would probably be a good idea," Cindy said. "You'll still have to live with the consequences of what's happened though. But with any luck, in time, people will forget."

"Thanks, Mom."

Cindy kissed her daughter goodnight, and hoped that her advice was true for herself as well.

Curt was in the hallway when Cindy left Claire's bedroom. They briefly made eye contact before Curt spoke.

"Sorry again for what I did," he said bashfully. "I'll never do it again."

Cindy lowered her head.

"We'll have to talk more when your father gets home tomorrow."

Curt's face dropped.

"Oh... kay."

He walked into his bedroom, dread hanging over his shoulders.

Cindy decided to let him stew in anxiety until then. She would be in far worse trouble when Stuart got home, and at that point, Curt would be adequately punished by his guilt alone.

Cindy retreated to her bedroom and shut the door, relieved to finally have the day behind her. She looked at her empty bed, and wondered if it might be empty every night from now on, once Stuart heard her confession.

There was no sense agonizing about it any further. What would happen would happen, and nothing she did now could change that. Cindy climbed into the empty bed and went to sleep.

* * * * *

"I'm home!" Stuart declared when he walked through the front door.

Cindy heard his voice all the way in the upstairs bathroom, where she lay soaking in the tub, awaiting his arrival. She'd been lying there all afternoon, trying to relax as she formulated a plan on how to tell him the bad news.

She'd tossed and turned in bed the previous night, trying to work out how she might phrase her confession so that each of her family members would best understand- and came up empty on three counts.

Stuart would be furious at her infidelity. Claire would brand her a hypocrite for the way Cindy had chastised her for her taking nude photos. Curt would be appalled when he learned she was the star of the video he'd almost watched. But she saw no alternatives to confessing. Both the reverend and the impending advertising campaign that Vic was about to sign into motion would ensure her secret would be exposed whether she stayed ahead of it or not.

With Stuart, and the rest of her family all home, Cindy knew it was time. She got out of the bath and wrapped a towel around herself, and walked out of the bathroom to greet him. Curt and Claire were both examining the t-shirts he'd brought back from Grand Laurens.

"No way!" Curt explained, examining the shirts. He showed one to Cindy. The shirt read, "Wingrove for Mayor."

"Dad's running for mayor!" Claire said excitedly. "How cool is that?"

Stuart proudly handed a t-shirt to each of his family members. Cindy clutched the hem of her bath towel nervously until her husband handed her a shirt.

"Listen, guys, I think we need to have a family meeting," she said, shaking.

"That's a good idea," Stuart said. "We have a lot of things to discuss. Hey, go put your t-shirts on! I expect you to wear these every day until the election!" He laughed.

Cindy carried her t-shirt back to the bathroom and looked at it. Printed across the front, in large bold letters were the words, "Wingrove For Mayor." Underneath, in smaller print were the words, "Fighting For Families."

Cindy set the t-shirt on the counter dejectedly. She could hear her children outside the bathroom door chatting excitedly, enjoying the last moments of blissful ignorance of their mother's past. The time for her confession had come.

She hung up her bathroom towel and was about to put on the t-shirt when her cellphone rang. She looked at the Call ID. It was Vic. She briefly considered letting it go to voicemail, but realized that whatever Vic had to say might be relevant to her confession. She answered.

"Hello?" she said, meekly.

"Cin! How are ya?" the producer greeted.

"I'm- okay" she said, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.

"Fantastic, so listen, we were in such a rush yesterday I forgot to get your signature on the release form. I'm gonna need that before I sign the deal with the marketing team. Can I stop by, or can you meet me at Bayers like before, if your family's home?

Cindy sighed.

"You might as well come by now. I'm about to tell my family everything."

"Ah, well that makes things easier. I'm about five minutes away."

"I'll see you then," she said, dejectedly.

"Oh hey, random question: how many dicks can you fit in your pussy at one time?"

Cindy stopped.

"One is all I've ever had in there."

"See, I've been thinking about the next movie on your contract, and I'd really like to see you take multiple dicks at a time. The marketers sent me a script for a gangbang flick they want to audition you for, next Wednesday if that works for you."

"I have yoga class then. Vic, I don't want to do a gang bang movie."

"Well, okay. I also got a script for a lesbian orgy picture that needs a blonde MILF type."

She stared down into her dirty bathwater. Her cloudy reflection stared back at her, with tears in her eyes.

"Vic, I'm not ready to do another movie! I've got too much going on in my life right now!"

"Okay kiddo, there's no rush, but hear me out here. There's this device that some actresses are using to stretch their pussies to take two or even three dicks at a time, but it can take a few months of using it to get- oh, whoops, I almost drove past your street. Let me turn in here- so I figure, if we get you to start using it now, by next fall maybe-"

Cindy heard a loud crash and the phone go silent on Vic's end.

"Vic?" she asked. "Vic, are you there?"

She heard nothing. She called out his name again, and heard silence on the other end.

Mystified, she hung up the phone. She called back, but after several rings, it went straight to voicemail. Confused, Cindy placed her phone onto the bathroom counter.

"Mom? You coming?" Claire asked, knocking on the bathroom door. Her mind snapped back to the present.

"Be right there, sweetie!" Cindy said. Anxiety took hold of her again.

Quickly she got dressed, putting on the campaign t-shirt and a pair of jeans before stepping out of the bathroom. She could hear her family seated around the kitchen table, waiting for her to arrive. Like a death row inmate on his way to the gas chamber, Cindy trudged down the hallway into the kitchen and took a seat at the table.

"Well," Stuart said cheerfully. "We've all got our t-shirts on, this is exciting!"

"Dad, will your campaign start before my Prom? I bet a lot of guys will want to take a mayor's daughter!" Claire said excitedly.

Cindy smiled weakly. She'd never seen Claire so excited about something family related before.

"It won't really take off til this summer, but you're welcome to hand out fliers and buttons at school!" Stuart said. "But there's a lot of serious things we have to consider too." He turned to Cindy. "Honey, did you want to start?"

"Yes," Cindy eeked out quietly. "There is something you all need to know."

Stuart, Curt, and Claire looked at her. Curt squeezed his wrists nervously.

"What is it?" her husband asked, sensing the concern on her face.

"I-" Cindy was cut off mid-sentence when her cell phone rang. "I-"

Her phone continued ringing and she completely lost her train of thought.

"Are you gonna get that?" Claire asked.

"Oh, yes," she said, too overwhelmed to think straight. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and removed her cell phone. She was expecting Vic to have called back, but instead the Call ID read "Rosemary." Cindy answered.

"Cindy! Are you home?" her neighbor asked frantically.

"Yes, yes, what is it?" the housewife asked.

"Reverend Duffy's been in a car accident!"

* * * * *

The family meeting went on hold as Cindy, Stuart, Curt, and Claire climbed into the minivan and took off to Stephens Memorial Hospital. The hospital lobby was filled with members of the church who had just received the news and had come to express their support.

Margaret Duffy was in tears when she saw the Wingroves had arrived.

"Oh Cindy, he didn't even recognize me!" the reverend's wife bawled as she wrapped her arms around the sympathetic Sunday School teacher. Margaret appeared to be unaware of her husband's discovery the previous day; at least Cindy guessed so based on how tightly she was squeezing her.

As she learned from the doctor, John Duffy was relatively uninjured in the car accident. He was, however, gravely affected by the hemorrhagic stroke he suffered while he was pulling onto Birchwood Drive, and had driven his Chevy Malibu directly into the driver's side of another vehicle that had pulled onto the street seconds before he did. The driver of the other vehicle was in critical condition.

Reverend Duffy was conscious, but appeared to have no memory of who he was, nor anyone he had ever known. His own wife was a stranger to him, and when Cindy was finally allowed to see him, the minister stared blankly at her without a hint of recollection in his eyes. Cindy's identity, as well as the memory of her sin, had apparently vanished into the void of the elderly minister's damaged mind.

Curt paced up and down the halls, and looked guiltily at his mother as she approached him.

"He doesn't remember, does he?" the young man asked.

"Curt..." Cindy said sharply, and her son hung his head.

"I know, I know. I feel awful about what happened to him. It's just- I really hope he doesn't ever remember what I did. Am I a horrible person?"

Cindy hugged her son tightly.

"That's between you and God," she said, all the while silently asking the same question about herself.

She went back to the lobby and overheard conversations about the man Reverend Duffy had hit. He was a California resident by the name of Vic Lazzaro. No one knew who he was or why he'd been pulling onto Birchwood Drive that day, but he was now comatose with no word on when he would likely awaken. Rosemary, who had witnessed the accident, had called 911 the moment it had happened, but the ten-minute delay in the ambulance's arrival would be costly to Vic's chances of recovery.

Cindy's neighbors discussed contacting Vic's next-of-kin and sending them their prayers, but Cindy excused herself from the conversation. She walked down the hospital hallway, away from the gathering of Reverend Duffy's family and parishioners, and found a quiet place to sit.

She stared blankly out through the window at the hospital courtyard as she pondered her situation. Reverend Duffy and Vic Lazzaro were both out of her life for the foreseeable future. No one was going to make her confess her sins in church that Sunday. No one was going to coerce her into appearing in another adult video. She wondered how the video that she'd just filmed would be released, if Vic hadn't yet returned the footage to his editing suite in California, or even signed the marketing contract. He was the sole proprietor of Skinema Productions now, and he had no heirs to Cindy's knowledge. It was entirely possible that the accident between Duffy and Lazzaro had crushed every threat to Cindy's ability to contain her darkest secret.

Almost every threat, she thought, as Rosemary sat down beside her.

"Hi Cindy, how are you holding up?" her neighbor asked softly.

Cindy looked at her, shaking.

"It's just awful..." Cindy began.

"I know!" Rosemary said, comforting her friend. Cindy wanted to feel comforted; she did, but Rosemary knew something and Cindy could not relax until it was out in the open.

"Rosemary, I need to know if you're planning on telling anyone about what you saw Thursday."

Rosemary looked at her, confused.

"What I saw? Oh.." she said, recollecting mid-sentence what her friend was alluding to. "No! Of course not! What you and your husband do behind closed doors is no one's business!"

Cindy's eyebrow arched.

"Honestly, I'm jealous. I wish Jim would do something romantic like surprise me in the middle of the day with a quickie! Oops! You won't tell anyone I said that, right?"

Cindy giggled.

"Of course not!"

They both laughed. Cindy breathed an internal sigh of relief. It truly was a testament to how well she'd established such a wholesome reputation. The thought of Cindy committing adultery had never even crossed her neighbor's mind.

"I'm curious about one thing though," Rosemary said. "Your t-shirts. Wingrove for Mayor? What's that about?"

Cindy looked down at her shirt.