Author's Note: I think I over-analyzed writing this chapter, that's why it took me so long. It's very difficult writing a character who hasn't been as exposed as House was in the show. Anyway, I thank you for reading the fic. :)

Part II: Pro and Contra

Lisa Cuddy wanted someone to convince her why she shouldn't do it with Roger Bateman.

It wasn't like she didn't want it to happen. Morally, she was opposed to it. She had to be. She knew it was wrong and so very wrong at that; but she was ambivalent. And she knew that she was probably rationalizing her (actually, their actions) imminent actions, but she was desperate. It wasn't exactly reasoning in the pro and contra way of analysis, but there were certain facts she had to consider.

For one, she would potentially be with a man at least twenty-five years her senior. The man could practically be her father. But surely, it wasn't the time to think about her father in the bathtub. Surely, her father was not the person she wanted to think about right now when her finger was lightly circling her clit. She was more interested in Roger. Roger, she chuckled. Not Uncle Roger, she gasped, as she began stroking her labia. Thinking back to Ancient Greece, she was merely going back to the roots of societal framework and practice. Thinking back to how he kissed her, she gasped as she touched herself.

"Mom! Lisa's taking a long time in the bathroom again!" Julia suddenly yelled from outside, interrupting her me-time. If she was going to be like this, Lisa thought, she'd never want to come out.

"Mom! Julia went out with Matthew Decker last night!" she shouted back, not willing to be outwitted by her younger sister. Sometimes, she was the most annoying person in the world, next to her mother. She wondered how it would feel to strangle Julia slowly or smother her with a pillow…slowly.

Lisa heard a screech that was part banshee and part hyena and chuckled in the bathtub. Then she groaned. How can you stay in the mood when you're constantly disturbed like this? She heaved a sigh and laid her head back on the edge of the tub. At least it gave her more time to think about The Situation At Hand.

"Just get out of the bathroom, Lisa!" Julia was relentless.

"Stop stealing my clothes without asking permission! Some part of me thinks that you're a teensy bit too big for them, Julie." she told Julia condescendingly.

She heard another scream from her sister and her feet stamping in the hallway. Finally. Apparently, she'd hit a nerve. Julia wasn't fat, exactly; she was just big-boned and homely (according to her mother, who was usually blunt about these things). Thank god for her weight issues or arguing with Julia wouldn't stop.

Unfortunately, she was left frustrated. No matter, she thought. It was time to think about The Situation at Hand rationally, without the element of her fingering herself.

And the situation at hand was that a brilliant, brilliant man—an extremely well-respected professor of Literature; a handsome devil to boot; a technically married man with a miserable daughter, wanted her. And she wanted him to want her. She had desperately wanted him to want her. But for some strange reason, a few things stopped her from being too willing; too ready to give in.

There was June Bateman, Uncle Roger's daughter and family friend, for whom the word 'dumpy' would be considered appropriate. She had this strange habit of being annoying even without her doing anything. What would be weird about The Situation at Hand was that she would be potentially sleeping with another man who had a daughter who was the same age as she was. It was certainly taboo in most states. And some countries. And most continents. And in modern society. But wasn't it time to shake things up…a little? Or much?

There was the fact that she was a virgin, and that if she slept with Roger Bateman, he would be her first. Would there be heartbreak and recriminations? Possibly. Scratch that. Of course. Of course, there would be. Would there be strings attached? The suburbs were a strange place. Their relationship was a strange one, too. Would they do it in a motel? The master bedroom of the Bateman house? Somehow, Lisa didn't quite think this factor through. After all, there were more important factors she had to mull over: her own sense of what was right, her father, and what her mother would think.

So she was Jewish. Should that make a difference? In her mind, it should. It definitely should. Tradition, propriety, the sense of making a transgression? She took those all into account. She never really considered the What Would Jesus Do? slogan because she certainly didn't believe in the New Testament. And if she considered sacred scripture to be her guide, she would look at Moses (who slept with a slave younger than he was) or Jacob (who slept with sisters Leah and Rachel) or Noah, who was a drunk. There were really no good examples of virtue in the Holy Scripture, she thought. She didn't covet another woman's husband, as per The Ten Commandments, because that woman was literally and metaphorically gone (but goddamn it, she wasn't divorced from him yet). He didn't covet her because really, she wasn't serious with David Colburn and of course, she wasn't even married, for Christ's sakes and no pun intended.

The Factor, the imperative component Lisa Cuddy could never cross out of her list, was the undeniable fact that Roger Bateman was Caleb Cuddy's best friend. Simple as that. Somewhere, there was a Catch-22 here. Lisa Cuddy could not just overlook best friendship with daughters, sex, and marriage (yes, marriage) included. She loved her father. She didn't know (or she had an inkling) how devastated he would be if he found out that his best friend of twenty years technically raped his willing, eldest daughter. But Lisa could explain. She could explain how that wouldn't really make a difference in the dynamic of the two families. Cuddy-Bateman. Bateman-Cuddy. It sounded perfect. But Cal Cuddy might have a stroke once he found out. He might punch Roger's perfect, chiseled face. She might never see him again. She might always seem tainted, so dirty to her father. He might never look at her in the same light again.

What she also cared about was What Her Mother Would Think, trademark and copyright. Julia was already the perfect child in her eyes, despite her mother's standards. She would think of, and call her daughter, a perfect little harlot if she found out. And that repulsed her. It wasn't being a whore. It was being called a whore by her mother. And Arlene would always remind Lisa of that. That is, if she found out.

If they found out. That was the issue here.

She tried crying once, in her room. She put on her favorite Joni Mitchell Record (Blue, 1973 from Reprise) and looked out the window. She wanted to express her Inner Turmoil by listening to sad love songs and staring at the suburban landscape before her. In the end, because she couldn't weep in anguish (like most girls) or write a decent poem (like a handful), because singing to Joni Mitchell songs was impossible (not without Julia whining in her room), because in truth she decided upon doing it (she was Lisa Cuddy, after all), she simply decided to eat ice cream in bed instead.

Fuck it. Fuck it, she thought.

For once, she tried to be less than rational in her life.