Elusive Butterfly

One of the boys were selected to star in my next shoot. Lottie showed up, kissed me on the cheek, then breezed into Seth's office. A few minutes later, Billy Sexton showed up and looked around nervously, unsure of what to do.

"Help you?" I smiled.

"I uh, I'm supposed look for um, damn it, know I'm going mess this up, uh, Seth Paradicio?" Billy stammered.

"In a meeting right now," I said, pointing to the door of Seth's office. "Have a seat. I'm sure he'll be right with you.

'Mommy Fucks The Pool Boy' had me apply suntan oil to Lottie as she lay on a chaise lounge, dressed in a very skimpy bikini. I rubbed the oil into the skin of her large breasts, then slip the top off and suck her large nipples. I then proceed to slide her bikini bottom off and fuck Lottie on the chaise lounge while 'Sonny' watches and masturbates. After I spunk Lottie's frosted blonde bush, 'Sonny' cleans his mommy's sloppy pussy with his tongue. I then use the suntan oil to perform a tit fuck of Lottie's large boobs, which 'Sonny' then cleans with his tongue. After that, I apply the oil to Lottie's back, over her sweet ass, then grease up my cock and plunge my cock into Lottie's ass.

Lottie was an enthusiastic fuck. She even seemed to enjoy the ass fucking. Then, after I spray Lottie's ass with my load, 'Sonny' cleans my spunk from his mommy's gaping ass hole. The final shot is of 'Sonny' getting the cream straight from the source. I sprayed his pretty face while he strokes a load from his own skinny cock.

"Nope. No Oedipus complex here," Lucy said as we watched the roughs with Seth.

"Better be talking about Billy," I threatened.

"Oh! Oh but of course," Lucy teased. "I wouldn't dream of bringing up the fact that Lottie could be Elizabeth's twin."

'Mommy Fucks The Pool Boy' was a good seller, both in magazine and in video format. And it helped Billy Sexton's career. His next shoot was directed by Joshua and had Joshua's mother, Sylvia and Lottie both using a strap-on cock on Billy's tight ass. 'Mommy, The Neighbor, and Me' was a big seller and Billy began to get fan mail.

Lucy and I signed with Paradise West Films, Ltd. To do another year. Lucy also talked Seth into expanding onto the Internet. The technology was still fairly new and the squealing squawking hookup of the moden often woke Amethyst and Sapphire, but Lucy was dogged in maintaining the web site. She was tireless in keeping Paradise West Films in the forefront.

She was using CompuServe, but kept looking for a better server. She was investing heavily in CompuServe, Netscape and Oracle.

Lucy also kept investing in land in and around Carson City. Me? I was too busy with Paradise West during the day and Carson City School of Mixology at night to pay much attention to this computer service or that pile of rocks. I left all of that to Lucy.

Then, just when Amethyst and Sapphire celebrated their one year birthday, Joshua, Seth's nephew or cousin, died of an overdose. That was bad enough, but Alex Smith, mother of Amethyst and Sapphire was in the kitchen with Joshua. She also died, needle still in her arm. It was Sylvia that came home and discovered her precious baby boy and that worthless little gutter tramp dead in her kitchen.

The funeral for Joshua was a somber affair. Lucy wore a Christian Dior dress, charcoal black, and had me wear a matching suit in charcoal black with white silk shirt and blood red tie. The shirt had so much starch in it, it would have been able to stand on its own.

Alex's funeral was truly sad. There was an old woman, two girls that looked like they were Alex's younger sisters, and an employee of the funeral home.

"Ms. Smith? Hi, I'm Lucy," Lucy quietly said. "My husband, Randy. We're terribly sorry for your loss."

"You're about five years too late with that 'sorry' bit," the woman sighed. "We lost Alex minute she discovered that cocaine."

We didn't know what to say to her. I certainly didn't know what to say. But, the woman was right; Alex had been lost to cocaine for as long as we had known her.

"But, thank you for coming," the woman said.

"When did I become your husband?" I gently teased Lucy as we sat in her car.

"First time you kissed me," Lucy softly smiled. "God, what a waste."

"My kiss?" I asked.

Lucy smiled and softly punched me. She then put her head on my shoulder. I leaned and kissed her on her forehead. She looked up and we kissed.

Arriving home, we paid Jocelyn, our favorite baby-sitter, then played with our girls. They were both crawling at speeds that defied logic, and, to our horror and delight, both girls were pulling themselves upright, and taking a few wobbly steps. If they could break the sound barrier on hands and knees, I shudder to think what they'd be like on their two feet.

We'd survived diaper rashes, colic, bouts of the common cold, and were now going through teething. But within the many moments of tears and screams were moments of laughter and two of the sweetest smiles God ever created.

Returning to work after the funeral of Joshua Paradicio, we could see the changes immediately. Seth came in at ten o'clock, nearly an hour late, and didn't leave his office. Continuous knocks on his door were ignored. Most of us just sat around, waiting. At five o'clock, we left.

Thursday was a repeat of Wednesday. Friday, Seth didn't come in at all.

Three weeks later, Lenny Blumenthal, Seth Paradicio's attorney informed all of us that Paradise West Films, Ltd. was no more. Those of us that had contracts would be paid the minimum base guarantee that our contracts stipulated. Those that were employees of Paradise West Films, Ltd. That were not under contract would be given four weeks salary based on their average hourly rates.

Lenny gave Lucy a baffled look when she asked about the back catalogue of Paradise West Films, Ltd. He referred to his notes, referred to them again, and then shrugged his shoulders.

Jewels Entertainment Distributors, Ltd. bought the entire catalogue of Paradise West Films, Ltd. For two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I didn't know we had two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Lucy dropped the price by half of any tape that was more than five years old. Any magazine that was five or more years old was bundled with two more magazines in that same genre. However, any tape or magazine that was fifteen years old or older, Lucy slapped the title 'Classic' on and increased their prices by twenty five percent. Within three months, we'd made back our two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

"Lucy, we got this kind of money, why we living in a trailer?" I asked, managing to catch Sapphire before she pulled Lucy's hot iron down on herself.

Lucy turned and grabbed the iron before it hit the floor. She finished running the iron over her dress and hung it up. Then she looked at me.

"Because, Darling, I want our girls to grow up as normal as possible," Lucy said.

I stared at Lucy. She was standing, nude except for a pair of stockings and a garter belt. Her fat cock hung down over her fat balls. Her pretty tits sat high and proud on her chest.

The absurdity of it all hit me and I couldn't help but laugh like a maniac. I'm a muscle bound idiot; I'm not being mean when I call myself an idiot. Lucy calls me 'idiot' pretty much every day. Of course, she always kisses me to soften her words.

I'm 'married' to a chick with a dick. I'm married to a twenty two year old transvestite that dresses in clothing that's forty, fifty, sixty years old. She's starred in pornographic videos; thousands of people know Lucy Diamond as a beautiful transsexual.

We have two girls that we managed to adopt because I did a porno shoot with their mother while she was pregnant with them.

I have no idea how much money we're really worth; like Lucy says, I'm an idiot. But we're far from broke. Carson City is trying to buy Paradise East Homes trailer park from us; they want to put an office building and parking deck there.

And Lucy wants our girls to grow up normal. She looked at me for a long moment, then gently shook her head.

"You're an idiot," she finally said.

Then she kissed me. Sapphire reached out and Lucy took the girl from my arms and smothered the little girl's face with kisses.

"But, you're my idiot. Yes, Darling, I want our girls to grow up normal. They don't need to know Mommy and Daddy are rich. They don't need to know we can buy whatever they need. The only thing they ever need to know is that we're Mommy and Daddy, and Mommy and Daddy love each other very much, and Mommy and Daddy love them very much," Lucy said, handing Sapphire to me again. "Now, hold her. I need to get dressed."

For whatever reason, Lucy had enrolled our girls in a dance class. They were just walking, and she enrolled them in a dance class. But I'm smart enough to keep my mouth shut.

It was a lot of fun. There were seven other little girls there, with six mommies and three daddies in attendance. One little girl had two daddies there with her so I knew our little girls weren't an oddity by any stretch.

John and Patrick doted on Lydia, almost as much as I and Lucy doted on Amethyst and Sapphire. I introduced myself to John and Patrick, then started a conversation about the Oakland Raiders and their chance to go to the Super Bowl.

"Oh, please. A defense that our Lydia could walk through? In your dreams," Patrick insisted.

"Really. After losing Stabler? They're just not a team," John agreed.

The other father wandered our way and we came to the conclusion that the San Francisco 49ers looked good. Again. We also agreed, either Dallas or San Francisco were the ones to beat. Patrick said he liked the Miami Dolphins for the AFL. John, Dwayne, the other father, and I all told Patrick to go sit in the corner; he was in 'time out' until he learned the error of his ways.

"Uh, Daddy? We're here to watch our girls dance," Lucy reminded me, with a pinch to my rear end.

Afterward, Patrick thanked me; he and John didn't often meet people that accepted them. I just smiled and shook his hand.

"What's to accept? You're a daddy, I'm a daddy, you're terrible at picking football teams, I'm not," I smiled. "See ya'll next week, okay?"

While our lives continued to thrive in Nevada, back home in Louisiana, Marianne and Joey were limping along. Neither one loved the other, but Joey's mother would cut Joey out of her will if he got a divorce. His mother had told Joey and Gwen, Joey's sister that each stood to inherit anywhere from six to nine million, depending on market fluctuations.

While Joey waited for his mother to die, he and Marianne continued to live in near poverty off of his income as an unambitious attorney and Marianne's salary as a sales clerk at Dillard's Department Store. Marianne's son David was almost three years old and his basic clothing, food, medical and day care expenses kept Marianne and Joey living from paycheck to paycheck, always one unexpected expense away from going totally broke.

My mother and Mr. Otis did finally divorce. Mr. Otis somehow got a nineteen year old woman knocked up. So, in order to marry the mother of his child, he coughed up the money to divorce my mother. And, rather than be happy about it, or relieved, my mother was bitter, resentful.

More than one Sunday, I would let her go on and on, for three minutes exactly. When my Casio watch would 'ding' I'd let my mother know I had to go.

Lucy sent Marianne a hundred dollars every now and then, just to help out. Whenever she sent Marianne some money, she would give me a hundred bucks to send to my mother. Marianne never asked Lucy how Douglas could afford to send her a hundred bucks. And my mother never asked me where my money was coming from. Nor did my mother ever thank me.

Amethyst and Sapphire did very well in their dance classes. Well, I thought they did. John and Patrick thought Lydia was a natural born dancer; I thought their kid looked like she'd just shit her diaper every time she danced.

"Looks like she's trying shake a big old log out," I whispered to Lucy as Lydia performed.

"Shush! You're horrible," Lucy hissed, trying hard not to laugh.

"Just...a...little...more," I grunted into Lucy's ear.

"You're an idiot. Shush," Lucy fought against the laughter.

Of course, we applauded Lydia's constipated dancing when the music concluded. Then we applauded our daughters' brilliant performance. Even if Sapphire did fall down during one of her spins or twirls or whatever it is.

A few weeks before our twins' second birthday, Lucy caught a cold. She'd been feeling a little run down for a month or so, then she caught a truly horrendous cold. She was hacking with every cough, with a clogged up nose, blowing her way through boxes of Kleenex. But this cold just wasn't going away. Even after her nose quit running, that cough just hung on. A dry, hacking cough that sounded like her throat was about to bleed. Finally, she agreed to see a doctor.

The doctor didn't like the sounds he was hearing in Lucy's chest. He ordered some more tests. Then he referred us to an oncologist.

I'm an idiot, but even I know an oncologist deals with cancer.

Cancer. It was a disease with another mile long name; a very aggressive cancer. And because of the illness that had almost killed her when she was younger, Lucy's body had an extremely low immune system.

"But, but it's just a cold," I begged Dr. Ripneur. "It's just a cold, right?"

"And because of..." Dr. Ripneur droned on, saying the mile long name of Lucy's childhood illness. "...our options are somewhat limited."

"Darling, shush," Lucy interrupted my protests. "How long?"

Dr. Ripneur said a bunch of mumbo-jumbo but finally told us a few months, maybe a year. Lucy nodded and pulled me to my feet. She thanked the doctor and we left his office.

At the second birthday party for Amethyst and Sapphire, Lucy wore a surgical mask; she was still very weak and didn't want to catch whatever illnesses the guests of our daughters might drag in with them. Our friends from the dance class came and all the kids loved the little ballerina music boxes Lucy had bought for them. Then, as we passed around the pink frosted cupcakes, we told our friends about Lucy's illness.

John burst into tears; he'd just lost his father to lung cancer a month earlier. All the parents promised prayers, told us if we needed anything, be sure to call them.

I went through the Yellow Pages and found an artist. I showed him a photograph of Lucy and had him paint a three foot by four foot portrait of her. She's wearing a cream colored Jacques Fath creation, as well as her diamond earrings and double strand diamond choker.

"Oh! Wandy, I love it," Lucy wheezed when I brought it home. "But, please promise me you'll get a better frame for it. That one is just so gaudy."

I am an idiot. I'm the one that had insisted on that frame. I just smiled and promised her I would.

"Metal, maybe a pewter?" Lucy sighed, trying hard to breathe.

I did as she asked and put it on our bedroom wall. In the portrait, she's smiling her soft smile, beautiful hazel eyes looking at me. She's full of life, full of happiness. She'll be beautiful forever.

At two years old, I know Amethyst and Sapphire don't understand. They don't know why Daddy's sobbing uncontrollably. They're crying too, because Daddy's crying.

I had Lucy cremated, put her ashes into a Crystal decanter she'd found at a garage sale. She had told me who had made the decanter, how valuable it was, but I don't remember. Watercress or something like that. It's a good, heavy, sturdy bottle.

I put the decanter into the front seat of Lucy's 1968 Eldorado, put the portrait of Lucy into the trunk, and loaded Amethyst and Sapphire into their car seats. Sheldon Davis and I had set up a management company to handle Jewels Entertainment Distributors. John, Lydia's father or co-father is an accountant, so I hired him to handle the properties, as well as the stocks Lucy had purchased in the Silicon Valley Tech companies. I still have no idea how much money we actually have; so much of it is tied up in this and that and the other thing. But I do know my checking account has ninety thousand dollars in it. And if I need more, all I have to do is call John and he'll transfer whatever I need into that account.

Without looking back, I headed east. Amethyst and Sapphire are horrible road warriors. It really seems like we go two, three miles and Amethyst has to potty. Then we get two, three miles down the road and Sapphire needs to potty. Another five or six miles and they're hungry.

Just outside of Marshall, Texas, I managed to get a radio station that wasn't Spanish, or Country, or News. I could swear I'd never heard this song before in my life, but it seemed like the singer was talking about Lucy.

'Elusive Butterfly' by Bob Lind started off with "You might wake up some morning, to the sound of something moving past your window in the wind..." And goes on to describe that feeling, that sensation of something just outside of your reach, something in the corners of your sleep.

"Across my dreams, with nets of wonder, I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love," I listened, resting my hand on the crystal bottle of her ashes.

I don't know why Lucy had to die. I don't know why I got to live. I don't know how I'm going to raise two little girls on my own. I don't like Douglas Glass. And right now, I'm a little mad at Lucy Diamond.

"Out on a new horizon, you may catch the floating motion of a distant pair of wings..."

My mom welcomed us home with squeals and hugs and kisses. Amethyst and Sapphire screamed and cried as this strange woman squeezed and kissed them. I smiled and patted them and reassured them that it was all right. This crazy woman was their grandma.

"Grandma? Grandma! Oh no, I'm way too young and pretty to be a grandma," my mom protested.

"Mom, come on; what? Cindy?" I said.

"What about her? Those little niggers ain't my grandkids," my mom said.

And, no, my mom wasn't too young or too pretty to be a grandma. Her boobs now sagged almost to her waist, there were some deep lines in her face that makeup didn't hide. There was a real hardness to her mouth now.

My room had not changed. And it hadn't been dusted or vacuumed. While my mom made hot dogs for her granddaughters, I cleaned my room. I wanted some music while I cleaned, so pulled out my Saxon 'Crusader' album and put it onto the turntable. Less than one minute into it, I turned it off.

After I finished dusting and vacuuming, I chanced a look under the bed. My old Hustler and Penthouse magazines are right where I'd left them. And, yeah, Douglas was right. These women are pretty shopworn. I pushed the magazines back under the bed; I'll throw them away later.

The next morning, I made Amethyst and Sapphire breakfast; scrambled eggs and toast. My mom was still asleep when we left, to go visit their Aunt Marianne and Uncle Joey and their cousin David.

The old apartment complex where Joey and Marianne had lived had been torn down. There was a high school where they used to live. Thankfully, I had Lucy's small phone book and found their address. Under 'S' for sister. Thanks, Lucy. No, no, don't make it too easy for me.

The new apartment wasn't much better than their old apartment, even if it was a two bedroom unit. Marianne looked terrible; in the three, almost four years since I'd seen her, she looked like she'd aged twenty years.

Lucy had told her sister that she was sick. I had told Marianne when Lucy passed away. But we had never told Marianne that Douglas had left us long ago. So, as we entered the apartment, Marianne was still dealing with the loss of her baby brother and her loss was about to become a whole lot harder to deal with.