Mother - Hostile Makeover Ch. 12

"The Buddha said that change is never painful. It's only our resistance to change that hurts," Ethan told his mother on the drive to Blue Oasis headquarters.

"That's a big 'only.' Like saying that being hung from a gallows only hurts for a minute."

"Or three. It can take three."

"I feel better. Good talk."

Change was in the air, but Lauren foresaw no good outcomes to this morning's business meeting. Over time, as fault lines had riven the bedrock of the lifelong friendships between the Chases and Palmieris, meetings had too often become stages for personal drama. Tempers flared. What was the word Jan had used as she'd walked away from it all? Enmeshed, that was it. Enmeshed.

Lauren longed for those halcyon days of peace, love, and understanding.

Jon, Frank, and the Novaks waited in the executive conference room. Jon and Aleksandra looked awfully comfortable together, chatting at the head of the long table like old friends. That had probably required all of about five minutes of flattery on her part. Stefan rose to greet Lauren with a peck on the cheek and an uncertain smile. He and Ethan shook hands, formally, as if meeting for the first time. There was no trace in his expression of the youthful openness that had so first appealed to her. Perhaps the painful events on that mountain road had forever severed the bond they'd come to share.

Frank sat stiff and silent, ignoring everyone around him. It was Lauren's first time seeing him since his return to the States. Her heart sank at how he had shrunk in both body and in spirit. She'd fallen into lazily thinking of him as the office irritant, Jon's grinning cheerleader. Now she was forced to see the human being, a man from whom everything had been taken. Taken by the people with whom she'd cavorted and conspired.

She gripped the edge of the conference table, fighting a sickening urge to bolt from the room and hide. Taken all in all, change felt pretty damn painful.

The meeting got underway. Jon extended a welcome to their new partners, and to Stefan as the newest member of the board of directors. He hurried them through old business, clearly anxious to get to his coronation for another term as CEO, oblivious to what was about to happen.

"I nominate Jon to continue as Chief Executive Officer." Prompted by Jon, Frank spoke in a wavering whisper, eyes fixed on the table in front of him. Dutiful and loyal to the end. They all waited silently for someone to second. Anyone?

Lauren knew what she had to do.

She rose to her feet, locking eyes with Aleksandra. "First of all, I will not give you what you want. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. You--"

Stefan stood up to cut her off in mid-sentence. "I wish to nominate Lauren Chase to serve as our new CEO."

"What!" Aleksandra and Lauren cried in unison. It was the first time Lauren had heard Stefan's mother raise her voice. The woman was out of her seat and stalking around the table toward her son.

"Second," Ethan said. Jon lurched back in his chair as if his son had punched him in the mouth.

"What are you doing?" Aleksandra snapped at Stefan.

"Mother, sit down."

"This is outrageous!"

"No, Mother. If there is any outrage here, it is your attempt to extort these people to do your bidding."

"Not extortion," Alexandra corrected him. "Hard bargaining. This is business."

Ethan cleared his throat. "Can we vote now? Because I'm sure as hell not gonna throw my hat in the ring."

It took another five minutes to settle everyone down enough to poll the room. Jon was apoplectic with rage as the cold reality hit him: true to his nature, he'd never been willing to surrender his right to vote on any board actions, which meant that the company's patchwork bylaws permitted Lauren to vote for herself.

She would have. The way that Jon and Aleksandra carried on, there was no doubt that if he remained in charge Stefan and Ethan would suffer every day for their disloyalty, all on her behalf.

But she didn't have to. When Frank cast his vote for her, she could see the fight go out of her husband. He shrank in his chair like an old balloon.

And Lauren Chase became only the second CEO in Blue Oasis history.

"On to new business. I see a late addition to the agenda, here. Jon proposes that we entertain a Novak Global Traders bid to purchase an additional ten percent stake in Blue Oasis, over and beyond their current twenty percent." She looked up from her laptop at her husband, who'd surrendered the head of the table and moved down to sit with Aleksandra. "Really, Jon? Did you think this brainstorm through, at all?"

Jon shrugged his hunched shoulders and glowered silently back at her.

"So, do we want to discuss this?" she asked.

"Fuck no," Frank muttered under his breath. He very nearly smiled. Stefan gave a short, curt shake of his head.

"Sorry that you had to come all this way only to leave empty-handed, Mrs. Novak," Lauren said wryly.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Chase," Alexandra said in a voice that would freeze hundred-proof bourbon. "And please don't concern yourself on my account. I'm already meeting tomorrow with your competitors at Nutrigenix to negotiate a deal with them to distribute Libidramine."

"Good for you. I'm friendly with Paige Rogers over there. I know I said that I'd never help you, but I'll make an exception. I'll drop Paige an email with my research notes on your operation. Let her in on the details of your little scam. Would you like that?"

Aleksandra Novak turned several shades paler than Lauren would have thought possible.

"It is a scam, isn't it, Alex? Tell you what--we're still partners, let's put our differences aside and do some business. I'm willing to purchase and distribute Lib on a non-exclusive basis. Make it fifty million bottles to start. Name your price."

Stefan raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure that would wipe out our stockpiled inventory."

"We could move that in the first month," Lauren told him. "After all, we're offering the true panacea for all humanity's ills. Youth, health, sexual satisfaction in a bottle. Once word of mouth catches fire, there are no limits.

"But you can't deliver, can you, Alex?"

"Stop calling me that. My name--"

"You can't scale up, not with what you're growing on Kai'ulau. And you haven't discovered how to cultivate the Tiare anywhere else. It would take years just to isolate and synthesize the active compounds for testing. You'll be subjected to every kind of government scrutiny and regulation.

"But you don't even really want to synthesize Lib, because you'd risk losing complete control of the supply.

"You've known this all along, haven't you? Want to know what I think? I think the only reason you're trying to launch Lib on the open market at all is to hype it. Word of mouth. Create an insatiable, completely unfillable public demand.

"And when everyone on Earth wants it and no one can have it, what then? Well, then the Novaks dole your little stash out at your whim. To the politically powerful, the super-wealthy, the top one percent of the one percent. You think you'd have total control over the most scarce and sought-after resource in the world."

A smile crept across Ethan's face as he said, "She who controls Arrakis..."

Aleksandra stared uncomprehendingly at him.

"You don't want to change the world, Alex. You just want to rule it."

Aleksandra drew herself up to her full diminutive height. She was oddly less intimidating, fully clothed. "Murderess."

"It was an accident." Lauren could barely manage a whisper. "He tried to--"

"That is enough, Mother!"

"Silence!" Aleksandra turned on Stefan. "You have betrayed your blood. She has killed Jakob and corrupted you, but she will not destroy me."

At that, Lauren found her voice. "Destroy you? I'm saving your ass, you silly naive woman. Do you want to know how your scheme would really end? Go look up what my country did to Guatemala. And that was just over a bunch of bananas."

"You'd better go back to your island, Aleksandra," Ethan chimed in, "Before somebody drops a house on you, too."

The joke may have been lost on Aleksandra Novak, but the mockery was unmistakable. With a last lethal glance at Stefan, she stalked from the room.

Hell hath no fury like a megalomaniac scorned.

Lauren rode Ethan with her knees clamped tight on either side of his hips, taking his entire cock into her pussy on each bounce. Fucking in the loft bedroom of his hangar apartment was still a strange experience. Her every outcry caromed off the corrugated steel walls and high roof of the building, echoing in the dim cavernous space, stoking her excitement higher.

She leaned forward and braced her hands against his chest, long hair whipping across his lust-contorted face as she swayed and moved her pelvis in small circles. Her fingertips found the hollows of his ribcage. She breathed in shallow gasps timed with the rise and fall of her hips and the repeated penetration of his cock.

Her son's cock. Another powerful orgasm swept through her at that awareness. She was with Ethan at last, body and soul, wholly and completely his. He wanted it, too, and so it would be. Only her conventional fear and shame had ever prevented it. She had all that she had dreamed of for so long.

All that she had dreamt, and so much more than she'd ever imagined.

"Ungh...oh, Mom! " Ethan's breath quickened and he thrust up into her cunt with faster and shorter strokes. He was close. She humped faster, the wet friction of her pussy urging him on to orgasm.

"Yes...that's it...come for me, baby." She stopped bouncing. Her sheath gripped his cock and she felt the rhythmic contractions of his balls and the spreading warmth inside her pussy as her son's jism jetted up into her unprotected cunt. Again, and again.

She relaxed and slumped on top of him, gulping air, exhausted. Sex had never been so good for her--or so constant. Ethan's sexual powers appeared to be boundless, and every fuck just made her hornier herself.

"Woman's gonna ruin me," Ethan croaked. He turned to Stefan, "You gotta spell me, man."

Stefan lay stretched out on the bed beside the couple, watching them as if in a trance. Lauren couldn't help smiling at his solemn expression. "Hello? Hope we're not keeping you awake, over here."

"It's your face," he said. "How is it that you can be both so serene and yet so utterly abandoned at the moment of release? I have never seen anything like it. You are a vision."

At the sight of Stefan's hard-on jutting out at her, Lauren found that she was not so exhausted after all.

"I expect that I'm more of a sight than a vision." She climbed off of Ethan. His softening cock slipped free of her vagina with a moist pop. "All sweaty and sticky."

"Incandescent." Stefan rolled onto his back and held out his arms to her. Lauren scrambled across the sheets and threw a leg across him, lowering herself onto the hot dome of his cock. Ethan's deep fucking had opened her up, and her vagina was slick with her own juices and more than enough of his semen for her to take all of the Kai'ulauan's immense cock with ease.

For the first time in her memory, Lauren was free of doubt and indecision about what lay ahead, or about her own nature. Why should she choose between her son and Stefan, or try to juggle them? Why not just fuck them together at the same time?

Simple solutions were the best solutions, after all. The experiment was going swimmingly so far. Sexual jealousy was not a thing that Stefan understood, and her reliably practical son was enjoying the benefit of getting over his.

Stefan told hold of her breasts and squeezed just enough to send little electric shivers through her. She pushed her chest out, mashing her nipples into his palms, then flattened herself full-length atop him. His hand rested on the small of her back and he drew his knees up so that her buttocks rested on his thighs. She shimmied against his muscular belly, working her pussy around his cock at her own pace.

His teeth nipped at her throat and, as she slid forward, he caught one of her dark nipples between his teeth. He hugged her close, holding her in place as he nibbled at the hard little bud until she was ready to explode. Then he moved to her other breast and repeated the exercise, drawing more of her flesh into his mouth than she'd have believed possible. His gentle suction pulled at her insides all the way down to the heated junction of her thighs.

"Oh...please...I can't take this." She squirmed as if to escape the sweet torture of his sucking mouth but inwardly was thrilled that he held her fast. He feasted on her while rocking his hips, his cock moving in and out of her a few inches at a time.

"You can. You will."

When he reached down and his fingers circled her clitoris, teasing and tugging at the swollen button, she wailed out loud and thrashed helplessly. He had learned her body's secrets and she surrendered to him, letting him play with her and please her, both of them reveling in his mastery. Her need was a spring winding ever tighter with every touch and lick and thrust.

Rapture seized her without warning. With a yelp half of pleasure and half surprise, she climaxed in a sudden, sharp spiral of joy. She ground against Stefan and squeezed him inside her until he came as well, shouting and filling her spasming sheath as she milked him dry.

It took a few minutes for her to recover enough to sit up and speak. "Anything left in that bottle?" Ethan refilled her wineglass and passed it over. Her hands shook as she brought it to her lips.

"Thanks, hon." Despite herself, she had to admit that she appreciated the considerate little gestures with which the guys competed for her attention. She was also coming to more fully appreciate the convenience of the male penchant for voyeurism. Her son was nearly ready for another go, having jacked himself stiff while watching her fuck Stefan.

She waved her glass at the great empty space beyond the loft. "You've got a lot of room here that we could build out together. But I don't figure you bought a big barn in the desert just to have your mom move in and hover all the time. And you didn't build this huge bed because you're a hermit who tosses and turns in your lonely slumber. You're gonna want some privacy for your, um, other social activities."

"No hurry, Mom. Believe me. I've got a couple girlfriends that I'm sure would love me to bring them home to meet my sex-crazed mother."

"That's tempting, and I may take you up on it. But it's good for us both to have options. I noticed yesterday they're building condos up on the highway from Oasis. Maybe I'll drop by the sales office tomorrow and check out the model."

"May I tag along?" Stefan sprawled naked on top of the sheets, the picture of weary contentment with one arm tucked under his pillow. "I must find myself long-term quarters as well."

"Oh, you're still alive?"

"Just barely." He glanced down at himself. "Some parts more than others."

"A mother's work is never done," Lauren handed her glass back to Ethan. She sat lotus fashion between the two men, took a cock in each hand, and gently massaged them. Despite her son's head start at recovery, it wouldn't take long to get Stefan up again.

"Because you helped me, you can't go home," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I can, and I will, someday," Stefan assured her. "Just not yet. You see, I've always deferred to Mother in important matters. Even when it was her and Father, she was the business strategist. But I bring a great deal to the table. We have major clients, men and women I've formed working relationships with, and I'm not even sure that she knows all their names. She depends on me. She needs me. And she will come around. She is my mother, after all. "

"And you are her son, that means a lot." Lauren's eyes met Ethan's. "It's everything. On the other hand, I've made an enemy for life."

"She'll forgive you too, in the fullness of time."

"Really?"

"No. I'm joking. Mother will dedicate herself to your destruction."

"You are a dear young man, but your sense of humor hasn't improved any since your stunt with the fake pills."

"Her capacity for holding a grudge is another reason I must return home when I can. To keep an eye on what she's up to. And, I must see Aunt Malea." He paused, then explained, "Jakob's mother. I owe her at least that much."

There it was, again. The stain that she couldn't blot from her soul. It hadn't been her fault. That didn't help.

"Plus, I still have work to do at home. There are so many opportunities for the Novaks to do good for the people of Kai'ulau."

Lauren knew Stefan well enough now to trust that he meant every word he said. "I told your mother that I'll do everything in my power to prevent her from achieving her ends. I promise to do all I can to help you accomplish yours."

Aleksandra Novak wouldn't rule forever. Kai'ulau could yet be Paradise, after all.

Lauren crawled between Stefan's legs, taking the root of his surging cock in her hand. She ducked her head and ran the flat of her tongue over his balls. His sack swelled under her attentions. He'd be ready for a proper suck-off soon enough. Her pussy sizzled in anticipation of tasting his cum again, of feeling it run down her throat, sticky and hot.

Propping herself on her elbows, she angled her rear up and spread her legs wider apart, offering her cum-coated pussy for yet another load. Ethan was in one of his playful moods. She felt him slide into her, stir around in her slit for a few seconds, and then back out again. Damn but the kid liked making her wait! He reached one hand around under her to play with her clitoris while cupping one of her heavy tits in the other.

"Stop teasing me, baby. You know how hot Mama gets sucking cock. Give it to me good and hard and deep!" He plunged into her and she screamed.

"You okay, Mom?"

"As long as you keep doing that, I am fine."

This moment was paradise enough for her. Stefan might be a little bigger than Ethan, but no man's cock gave Lauren greater pleasure than her own son's.

"There's certainly no hurry in my leaving America," Stephen chuckled. "And I promise to return frequently."

"It's a good thing you're going back out there, man. You'll have to bring back suitcases full of Lib to keep this woman happy."

"So you two can keep up with me, you mean?" Lauren laughed. "My dearest darlings, I haven't touched that stuff since I came back from the island."

Both men stared at her.

"Now who's joking?" Stefan asked.

Ethan frowned as he searched his memory. "She's telling the truth," he said at last. "What's up with that, Mom?"

"Oh, some of it's thinking about what's happened to Jan. We both know I don't have the world's greatest self-control." She kissed her way up the seemingly endless, meaty column of flesh in her hand.

Having her son fuck her from behind while she sucked another man off was more thrilling than any drug could ever be--and more addictive.

"If I'd kept on using that stuff," Lauren said, as she brought her parted lips up to the drooling crown of Stefan's cock, "I might do anything."