Harem House - Selene Pt. 10

The end result was that Arthur's father resolved that if he could pay his way through school by working hard, then so could Arthur. This was not, strictly speaking, true, but Arthur did his best. He still had a few loans he'd need to take care of after graduating, but luckily, he'd have a good-paying job right out the gate. His field needed people, and he had his savings.

At his father's demand, he saved every penny he'd ever been given as a gift, a considerable amount of money given the upper-middle-class wealth from his mother's side. Every Christmas card with a hundred dollar bill inside it, every birthday card with cash or check, instead of an object that might have required some thought or emotional investment in Arthur as a person, was quickly seized and stashed away, invested, and saved in Arthur's name.

When he turned eighteen, that fund was turned over to Arthur to use as a nest egg while he did his best to make more money from that sum. All in all, a decent strategy. It afforded Arthur a way to live a comfortable middle-class life, so long as he did everything he could to continue making money and touching the interest from the fund as little as possible and the principal not at all.

His parents, on the other hand, followed his mother's guiding principles: Money was not necessarily made to be squirreled away but displayed through what it could purchase. Their home was grand, a verifiable gated middle-class mansion of a house, with a long paved drive up to the front door. It was a far cry from any of the estates on TV, but Arthur's entire apartment could fit inside a fraction of their house all the same. Arthur stepped out of his car and headed up the unfamiliar front stairs.

This wasn't the house he'd grown up in. That was a large apartment in the city, albeit much smaller than this McMansion. This was farther out in the suburbs, much farther, almost rural, with six or seven bedrooms and expansive grounds. You couldn't see any neighbors at all, and the house sat far back enough from any street or road that you couldn't make it out from outside the gates despite how well-lit it was. The trees that surrounded the house kept the stone facade out of view until the drive turned, and you were nearly driving into the circle at the front door or the garage off to the far left side of the house.

Arthur rang the doorbell of the imposing cherry wood front door but was standing there for a while with no answer or response. After a moment, he tried the handle, and the door opened to him just as his mother strode into the lemon-scented tiled foyer.

"Arty!" She said with a large and growing smile as she threw her arms open. His mother was dressed casually, for her, in a long blue dress.

Arthur smiled and accepted the hug from his mother, who was always a little more demonstrative of her love for him than his father. They both loved their son, but how Arthur perceived love did not always align with how his parents chose to show it. He supposed no family was immune to that. Nor are they impervious to the various strifes and frictions that might arise from living in close quarters, relatively speaking, with one another while simultaneously progressing through multiple stages of immaturity. His parents were in their twenties when they had him, and he was obviously in childhood for many of their early years together.

"Mom." Arthur returned the hug.

"So glad you could make it." She said with a smile. "How is school? Tell me everything."

And so he did as the two walked from the foyer, through the living area, dining room, kitchen, and finally out to the back patio. Well, he did not tell her everything. He told her everything he deemed appropriate to say to a mother, which excluded everything sexual. He told her that work was going well, and he was likely to take his boss' job within the next year, which was possible but not as probable as he made it seem for her benefit. His classes and grades continued well, and he maintained the 4.0 GPA she continually bragged about to her friends. His theater endeavors were going well, and they were going to do a montage of one-act plays this fall, followed by a full musical in the spring if Yvonne got her way or a whole play in the spring if Arthur got his. Either would probably be a comedy.

His mother listened politely as they walked and gestured toward the pool house when they arrived. "Good, good." She said. "Now, you go on and get changed and enjoy the pool. Your father is running late, and I'll have to greet our guests when they arrive."

"Oh. I don't mind hanging out with you and talking while we wait. We can-"

"No, no, don't be silly." His mother shook her head. "Try the hot tub. We just got it replaced, and the jets are ten times stronger. You deserve a nice chance to relax from working so hard."

Arthur laughed at how true that statement might actually be and how nice a massage from some hot water jets sounded against a back that was tight, sore, and still, a little scratched up between the three women he'd slept with in the last twenty-four hours. "Alright." He yielded as his mom practically shoved him toward the poolhouse. "I'm going."

His mom smiled, then turned back into the house and was gone by the time he'd reached the poolhouse door. He undressed, hanging up his clothes and folding them neatly so he could wear them again, took up a towel from the closet, and stepped into his trunks. He stretched and made his way to the hot tub. It was already heated, but the jets were off, waiting. The controls weren't the same as the last time he was here, but he figured them out quickly enough and hopped in as the water started to bubble from the jets. He sank into the seat and sighed.

"Holy shit." He muttered. The jets felt like the hands of a particularly frustrated Swedish masseuse who did nothing but massage and power lift in their daily life. His muscles relaxed at the hot water, but the beating they took from the jets pounded out knots he didn't even know he had, and the more gentle vibrations of the bench he sat on soothed his aches.

The house looked nice from his vantage point at the far end of the back patio area. The part of the patio nearest the house was red tile until it gave way to the pool's concrete. It was a large, but not Olympic-sized, swimming pool. Still, it was large enough to contemplate swimming some lazy laps in after his soak in the hot tub. The grill was off to the left, though it was less of a grill and more of an outdoor kitchen walled in a fire pit and lounge chairs between itself and the pool.

The outdoor dining table by the house was extended and rectangular, with three chairs on either side and one on each end. They all looked padded and comfortable. Behind him was a bit of grass and a tall garden hedge wrapped around the three sides of the patio the house didn't cover. In front of the hedge was a flower bed that was wide enough to house a variety of flowers arranged in order of height. They had an excellent landscaper Arthur was sure his father underpaid, and his mother overtipped. He wondered it didn't reek of chlorine, but the flowers and anti-pest lanterns scattered around offset it. It was very peaceful back here. Meditative, almost.

He knew he shouldn't fall asleep in the hot tub and was in no danger of it during the stimulation, but once the jets turned off. The hot water seeped into his bones to relax his body. He closed his eyes and was nearly dreaming when a soft footstep on the hard concrete by the pool caught his attention.

He sat up quickly and opened his eyes, half-panicked at being half-asleep but realizing as he was startled that he was at his parents' house and perfectly safe. He expected to see his mother or father when he brought his eyes forward, but instead, he was startled to see someone he hadn't seen in years.

Lynn Barrera.

She was the girl from high school that every straight guy or lesbian wanted to fuck. Other women were hot, beautiful, or pretty, but Lynn Barrera made them all look like gnarled stumps next to her. She was accused of every kind of plastic surgery over the years by her and Arthur's peer group, but according to her, her mother, and every official word that anyone could find, her beauty was all natural. Everyone loved her, wanted her, or wanted to be her. Over the years, all that attention had flagellated her into someone cruel and twisted.

Arthur was not immune to her charms. He'd loved her with every part of his heart, mind, and soul when they were younger, long before she was pretty. They grew up together. Their parents were 'friends' in the way that people who worked for different parts of the same company but occasionally saw each other at conventions and training were friends. Still, when they were tiny, they'd lived close by one another. They played together nearly every day of every summer and sat next to each other in class every day of every school year. In all their games and time together, she was his princess, and he was her shining knight. She was his Guinevere.

Then puberty happened, and while it blessed Lynn in ways no mortal might see outside of movies or television, it cursed Arthur in direct proportion. He was not a total troll in high school, but only because he did not live under a bridge and did not make a habit of trying to eat any Hobbits. His long hair phase was not particularly flattering. Though he was no more acned or awkward than anyone else, he was still acned, awkward, and far more overweight than he ever really admitted, even to himself. He'd transformed his body after going to college, and he worked hard every day to maintain what he had. The chiseled, well-kempt adonis rising out of the hot tub that looked surprised to see her was unrecognizable from the hoodie-clad try-hard who never quite fit in with her Mean Girl Clique who bowed to her and made his life a living hell.

She'd gone from his best friend to his tormentor the summer just before high school, and she kicked him whenever she saw he was down. He was easy pickings. He would let her do it. He never stood up to her and never put up a fight. She could tear him apart in front of her friends, even go so far as to tell him to kill himself, and he wouldn't do so much as raise his voice at her. He would look sad, turn away from her, and walk away while they laughed at the thought that he might be crying or masturbating in equal measure.

She knew his secrets, and his dreams. She knew what to tease him about to hurt him in every way imaginable, and she'd done it repeatedly to the laughter of her new friends. She'd been cruel and mean, and for a while, Arthur felt like he deserved it because he was everything she teased him about. He swallowed every cruel truth like a barbed sword and kept them inside to play in his head whenever his brain decided he was feeling too happy. It'd taken a lot of personal growth to forget some of those, and even then, he still thought about them sometimes, late at night or at random times during the day. Seeing her now, he could feel each one in the pit, restless, anticipating the next barb or abuse she might hurl his way.

Imagine his surprise when he didn't recognize the look she gave him as he stepped out of the hot tub anymore than she recognized him. It might have helped her ignorance that she didn't look at his eyes. She looked at his squared and chiseled chest, his round and perfect shoulders, the abs that his taught and flawless skin stretched over into a sharp V, the bottom of which was hidden by the low waist of his short and somewhat tight swim trunks.

He wanted to say something perfect. He wanted to say something equal parts impressive and cruel. He must have thought about what he would say to her if given a chance to give her a piece of his mind a thousand times. Yet, right now, he found he was so angry he could do nothing but shake. He didn't speak. He went to move past her.

"Sorry, uh..." Lynn started. "I'm looking for Arty? Is he in the pool house?"

Arthur turned and glared at her. She didn't see his glare or was willfully ignorant of it. Unlike him, she was fully dressed. She wore jeans that hugged every curve from her sensible shoes to her flared hips and perfectly round peach-shaped ass. Her low-waisted jeans gave him a view of a small gap of flesh that ended just above her pierced belly button on her flat, well-toned abdomen. She didn't have the cut abs that he did, but there was just a hint of the present behind the flawlessly smooth surface of her stomach. Her breasts were covered by a stretchy top that looked like someone hadn't finished making a t-shirt. It complimented her bust nicely, hanging out a good distance away from her stomach at the bottom.

Her mouth was open, but she tried to work it as best she could. "Are you one of his friends from college? His mom mentioned he might be bringing some friends to dinner."

They stood a few feet from one another when Arthur stopped and stared at her. She stared at him. Then she hesitated, looked shyly at her feet as she shifted her stance in what he was sure was a practiced feint at feeling small or uncertain, and then she offered her hand for a shake. "I'm Lynn. A friend of his from high school. Well, since childhood, really." She corrected herself as her vulnerable stance turned seductive, thrusting out a well-shaped hip. "But we went to high school together."

"Go fuck yourself." Arthur said, speaking for the first time, though it was more of a growl than speech. His perfect teeth were practically grinding themselves to dust under the strength of his tightly clenched jaw. And every muscle so relaxed in the hot tub was now tight, coiled beneath the skin as though he were about to leap and run away like a wild animal or Tarzan into the nearby trees.

Lynn looked shocked, absolutely, devastatingly, surprised to hear the words come out of his mouth, but then her expression was not half so shocked as the one that overtook it when her ears recognized the voice to which the words belonged. Her mouth opened but did not form any words of her own. It hung there, her chin limp and useless, as Arthur turned, showing her his back, and walked away.

Lynn's eyes were wide, her mouth agape, and she stood frozen on the spot. He was already six paces away when she sputtered to life again and managed to utter a cry of "Arty?!?"

Arthur felt something in him snap. His mother called him Arty. It was the name everyone used to call him when he was little, including Lynn. As he grew up, people started calling him Arthur. He introduced himself as Arthur. Only his mother and a few older family members called him Arty. To everyone else, he was Arthur. Everyone, except Lynn and her fucking teasing, taunting friends from high school, who never said it without a barb attached. They said it with a ton of spite and not an ounce of respect.

"It's Arthur to you!" He shouted back over his shoulder. "Not Arty! Not Art! Not the king of White Castle!" He threw back an old insult that he'd heard directed his way more than once during high school, originating from the goddess Lynn herself. "TO YOU, MY NAME IS ARTHUR!" He shouted back at her just before he stepped into the kitchen and slammed the sliding glass door behind him so hard it sounded like a thunder crack bouncing off the marble countertops and marble tile floor. He worried that he'd broken the glass for a brief moment, but when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that the glass was still intact. However, the wood in the frame was splintered enough that Lynn could not dislodge it when she tugged against it a moment later.

Arthur stormed through the dining room on his way to the front door, nearly blind with rage. Or at least blind enough to be oblivious to his parents and Lynn's, sitting in chairs around the sitting room enjoying glasses of dark red wine.

"Arty, honey, what's wrong?" His mother asked, immediately seeing the expression on his face and moving to cut him off since he looked like he was going to punch someone in the face, and, not knowing who, she thought it best to stop him from coming closer to anyone but herself who she knew was never the offending party.

"Nothing." Arthur growled as he came to a sudden stop, recognizing for the first time that there were other people in the room, much less his parents and their guests. His cheeks were red with frustration. His mother's were red with wine. Lynn's parents looked at him agape and whispered to each other for a moment. His expression darkened. He knew just what they were whispering, too, without hearing it.

"Come on, let's talk in the-" His mom said as she started to steer him back toward the kitchen.

"NO." Arthur held firm, and to her surprise, his mother found that the gentle movement she'd undertaken was immediately arrested by a simple flex of his legs holding him in place. "I'm sorry." He said after a breath. "Something's come up. I have to go back to my apartment right away. I-" He looked behind him for a moment. "I left my things in the pool house. I need you to grab them and bring them to my car. I'll be there, waiting." He told his mother.

She looked surprised to hear such a commanding tone coming from him, but he didn't give her a second to protest before he started moving again and was through the room and out of the house before they'd all recovered from the shock of his sudden entrance and exit into their conversation.

"He didn't even say hello." His father said after a moment of silence reigned among them. Then he laughed. "Well, you know how young people are." He said to Lynn's parents. "Every market fluctuation is the end of the world." He laughed, Arthur's wife laughed, Lynn's father laughed, Lynn's mother smiled politely and looked at the doorway the young man had just exited through.

Arthur reached his car and remembered that it was locked. He sighed and leaned against it. Waiting. He figured he'd give his mother a few minutes, and then if she didn't come out, he would try and figure out a way to go around the side of the house to the pool house without being spotted by their little party of guests, and then he could grab his things and leave.

Unfortunately, Lynn seemed to have much the same idea when the back door could not yield to her entreaties to open. She couldn't pull it open, and Arthur's mother couldn't get it open either, so Lynn signaled to the side of the house, which she meant to mean to inform Arthur's mother that Lynn was going to circumnavigate the house while Lynn's mother took as a suggestion that she should do the same. So together, they appeared in Arthur's vision, both empty-handed.

"Arthur!" Lynn called out as she spotted him. "Wait!"

"FUCK YOU!" Arthur shouted back, which caused his mother to recoil in terror. No, not terror, he realized. Horror. His mother was not scared of him, she was his mother, but she was horrified by his behavior.

"Arty!" His mother yelled between a honk and a hiss that any goose might have given.

Arthur knew that was his cue to look abashed and apologize to his mother's guests, but he did not take his cue. He set his mouth in a firm line, crossed his arms, and waited.

His mother stormed forward, reached for his ear, and grabbed it. To his credit, he did not let it bend him down. He would not show weakness in front of Lynn if his mother had hauled off and drop-kicked him in the face.

"You apologize right now!" His mother hissed. "You're being very rude to our guests, and I went through a lot of trouble to set up this little dinner for you two!"

It was Arthur's turn to look as surprised as Lynn had moments ago and as horrified as his mother had moments ago, in equal measure. "WHAT?" He bellowed.

"You heard me." His mother said sternly, adopting the tone she used to use whenever the typically well-behaved Arty had become surly, otherwise unruly, or downright toddlerish during his raising.