Sixteen hundred miles away in Glen Oak, California, in an otherwise pleasant nineteenth century manor, a married couple were about to engage in the biggest argument since they had exchanged vows.
The Reverend Lucy Camden Kinkirk, for several years now the undisputed pastor of Glen Oak Community Church, had just finished serving breakfast to her husband, Police Captain Kevin Kinkirk, and to their four children – twelve year old twins Charles John and Jennifer Ruth, ten year old Rhiannon Ruthie (who was delivered when Lucy went into labor immediately after she baptized Peter), and seven year old William Henry.
William Henry, so named such because Lucy and Kevin were admirers of the heirs presumptive to the British throne, was conceived shortly before Ruthie and Peter's honeymoon. It had been a very close call because Lucy had cheated on Kevin with Chandler Hampton, on the same night Kevin had an affair with Roxanne Richardson. Roxanne - who the Camdens had come to call "Roxie" - had conceived another daughter, Rita, who by fortune didn't have autism as her sister Catherine had, and both Roxanne and Lucy were so worried, they had to resort to nearly three weeks of sex every night with their actual husbands, as overcompensation and in hopes that if they were pregnant that their children were not products of their adultery. DNA tests finally vindicated everyone and to everyone's relief, but not before Lucy and Roxanne had an affair with each other too, as payback to their husbands for cheating with the wrong woman in the first place.
Lucy then served her parents, Eric and Annie Camden (he the semi-retired "Pastor in Association" of the church). She was shaking as she served orange juice to the kids and coffee to her husband and parents. Finally, she couldn't bear it anymore.
"Kevin, what in God's name was last night all about?" Lucy screamed.
"Luce, you shouldn't be raising your voice in front of our daughters and sons. And you shouldn't be talking about this in front of them either," said Kevin.
"That's not happening this time, Kev," replied Lucy, still seething. "I'm going to say this now. And they're going to hear it too because they need to learn about how to treat someone of the opposite sex – or even the same sex – in bed! They know what sex is, they've all spied on you and me having sex, so they stay here."
Annie and Eric had spent a weekend in Las Vegas and had pulled in to the driveway of the parsonage where they still lived as guests of their daughter and son-in-law just a half hour before. They had no idea what was going on, but knew if their always stubborn daughter had something to say, especially if she was pissed off about it, she'd say it.
"Mom," said Rhiannon, "I could hear you guys all the way down the other end of the hall last night. Two and a half hours of screaming – mostly from you. Chuck and Jenny who're next door to you and Dad were so scared they ran into my bedroom. Henry had to turn up his boom box all the way up so he wouldn't hear. I know you guys are still crazy for each other. But what happened? We're your kids, we need to know!"
"I'll tell you what happened," said her mother...
... at which point Kevin tried to raise his hand...
"... DON'T SPEAK, Kevin!" screamed Lucy. "I have something to say, and I'll say it my way and now! What you did was inexcusable. We didn't make love. I don't think we even had sex. In fact, you came dangerously close to spousal assault! Well ... okay, maybe we made love, but it wasn't my idea of sex!"
She went back to the fridge, poured out a tall glass of water from the ice dispenser, and sat down. She took a minute to try to calm down, to say what she wanted to say without raising the rafters. At last she found her place. She drank about a half pint and looked at Kevin.
"I don't you what happened yesterday to you, or at work, that got you on the wrong foot when you got home last night, Kevin. Okay, let's just clarify that. Was it good or bad?"
"Actually, Lucy, it was good. Or it started that way. Early in the morning before dawn, two days ago, my partner Billie Thompson and I pulled off a bust of a huge heroin op run by a guy who was also distributing child pornography. And this was way beyond the depraved collection that Frank Henderson manufactured years ago – we're talking kids as young as three being abused. Other than RHB, it doesn't get bigger than that. And by huge – we're talking about twenty years in federal prison, then decades more in state.
"Well, Billie and me wanted to have a few drinks after work to celebrate along with platters of salmon and steak – you know, surf and turf – with the trimmings. And we did meet for lunch, with her common-law husband, Jason O'Leary, who's also on the force. And we split the tab three ways. But she's been late a few days, after she and Jay have tried for the last seven years to get pregnant, and she didn't want to take the chance. For what it's worth, last night the test came back positive."
"That's terrific!" Lucy broke into a smile. "I know you work so well with both of them – especially her, and you've always kept it professional. And they're both good friends of mine. Tell them I, and our kids, say congratulations; Billie and Jay really deserve to be happy, and I hope their baby is healthy."
"I will," replied Kevin. "Anyway, along with the surf and turf and in lieu of the jug of beer we would have gotten but for her being 'late', we downed a pitcher of lemonade. Which, we all found out only this morning, had a certain kind of sweetener that causes some people to hurl several hours later. Jay was okay, but Billie did just that, hurl. I was also on a bit of a buzz though not as severe, so I took a couple of gas pills and an extra anti-depressant to calm down. I thought it had worked because by the time we went to bed last night I was actually very calm. Then... well, I don't know, something happened. Something I've never done before, or thought I was capable of."
"You can't use the so-called 'Twinkie defense' on Mom, Dad," pointed out Chuck. "A couple of my classmates tried to pull that a couple years back when they tried to kiss a girl, and were reprimanded for sexual harassment. The school district is really slamming down hard on that. It's even less of a laughing matter now than when Aunt Ruthie kissed a bully at school for 'revenge' when he kissed her uninvited."
At this point, Eric finally jumped in.
"Sweetheart, I know this is getting to you, but would you just say it? Since we're all here, you don't have to say it twice," he said.
"Okay Dad," said Lucy. "I'll tell you what happened."
Lucy then began detailing the events of the earlier evening. After putting their children to bed, the couple did what they always did, a quick Bible passage reading then a prayer that God continue to bless their marriage and their children – and that when the time was right, they would have another child that was, as his or her siblings, also Christ-centered but also willing and ready to join in the family tradition of giving back while appreciating their undeserved wealth. They then kissed each other good night – and waited for a few seconds, to see if one would give the other the signal. That signal being a deeper French kiss, which meant it was time for sex.
For about a half an hour, they went through the motions that most couples do when they make love. As Kevin dumped his load inside of Lucy and he began to withdraw himself from her he found himself still very stiff - not unprecedented for him but rather unusual. He asked his wife if they could have a second go. Then a third and a fourth. Each time was quicker than the previous, but the sincerity of their lovemaking no less so. The entire episode last about an hour and ten minutes.
But Kevin's hard on wouldn't go away. His missile was three inches longer and an inch thicker than he was used to. His tea bag was bulging. And he was grimacing from pain.
Kevin was trying to figure out what was going on. It then hit him. So to speak. He kept a supply of erectile dysfunction drugs in his locker at work for when he felt like he was in the mood. He was sure that he had not taken them that day but then realized he had not only taken them but had also mixed them with his caffeine pills along with the anti-depressants and gas pills. And to his dismay, the cocktail dose was making him aggressive. He had read the label on the medication, to check into a hospital only if the erection lasted more than four hours, since failure to do so could make one permanently impotent. It was less than four hours, so at first Kevin didn't seem worried. He waited a few minutes to see if there would be any relief. There was none.
He was in a lot of pain for the mix-up. The pain was only getting worse. And at this point, what Kevin should have done is to call poison control, tell them about the goof and then rush to the hospital right away. But instead, he thought of the only way he could to get rid of the hard-on. He took it out on Lucy. The sooner the better, he thought. What then followed was a classic case of naked gridiron madness.
First he spread her legs wide open, as wide as they were cinched when Lucy had given birth to their twins. (Rhiannon was born by a caesarian section due to an extremely long period of labor, and so was William because Lucy and Kevin didn't want to take any chances.)
Kevin then began fingering her to get her lubed up again, then shoved himself inside her with uncommon ferocity. He stroked like this for nearly ten minutes. Since he was hard and her insides were all soft, Lucy was screaming with pain. She wanted to tell him to stop but she didn't know how.
But it did not get any better. Since he now found himself incapable of mustering up any amount of cream, he then turned her over and started pushing inside of her doggie style. After another fifteen minutes of this, there then came a half hour of his shoving himself up her derrière – with no lubrication. Lucy was now screaming so loud that she begged God repeatedly to make it stop.
At last, Lucy had enough. Using all the strength she could muster, she threw her husband up into the air about a foot. He landed on his stomach but only briefly enough to allow Lucy to force Kevin on his back, quickly reach into the bed drawer, retrieve a stretch of yachting rope, and tie him down to the bedposts. Next she went into the second drawer, grabbed her vibrator, put it up her husband's butt, and turned it on all the way so that he couldn't bear it. She then grabbed her husband's epic flag-post as hard as she could, and began sucking on it while squeezing the head over and over.
It took about seven minutes, but at last he gave her a load more than sufficient enough for her to swallow – with gratitude from him – and another three for him to become flaccid again. In fact, Lucy would later tell Kevin, she was sure he had produced enough cream that would normally be two months of a normal male's production. She saw it as a late night milkshake of sorts. At least it was much sweeter than normal and it was sweet to begin with, if that was a consolation prize for the torture she had gone through.
Lucy would spend the rest of the night sleeping on the floor inside a sleeping bag on top of an air mattress, while making a point of keeping Kevin tied up, naked, until sunrise. And now that it was morning and after she told her parents and children what happened, Lucy finally calmed down but was still livid on her insides.
"I don't know what happens at work for you some days, Kevin. But as a minister, I can't leave my job at work. I don't have a punch clock. Like Dad, I'm on call all day and all night. And I will be until the Big Timekeeper calls me to His home. You however have to leave work at the end of the shift, as if nothing is going on, and you can't take the work with you. I'm not going to press charges, because to be fair I've wanted it rough for some time.
"But three things are going to happen between you and me. One, we're not having any sex, at all, for ninety days. You need to re-learn if you have forgotten that sex is a privilege and not a right. Two, if we're going to go psycho on sex, ever again, we give each other a minimum of three days notice, and we take turns on who gets to be slave and master."
"Maybe a bit TMI, Mom," said Jenny.
"Sorry, honey," said Lucy.
"It's okay," grinned her daughter. "The kids at school tell us about what their parents do, all the time. All we tell them is, our Mom and Dad love each other very much, they have great sex, and that's good enough for us!"
"Heck, guys," added William, "we don't care what you do behind closed doors. Actually, I don't mind telling my classmates what you do. My sibs and I are proud you love each other enough that you still make love, even the really kinky stuff. And we can't wait until when you guys create Number Five. Just try to pipe it down going forward, please!"
"Thank you, guys, and we will," said their mother. "But this is number three, Kevin. You and Billie are going to go to all the schools in the county and tell the kids something they should know already – that no means no, and if anyone tries to take advantage of them they should go to someone they trust. Even if they're in a consenting relationship, and whether we like it or not most kids are by the time they're thirteen, they have the right to set limits as to what they'll do for sex and what they won't. I'm sure your parents taught you better. It's time to do the same for the kids, not just ours but the kids in the community at large."
"No problem, Luce," said Kevin. "I'm really sorry, it won't happen again. And I'll talk to Billie as soon as she and Jay get back from Vegas this weekend– now they've got the good news, they're eloping."
"Fantastic! I'll send them a gift basket when Billie's back at her desk on Monday."
"Eric," said Annie, "maybe we should go into the attic and finish this breakfast. The six guys here all need to finish what they have to say."
Eric agreed, and took his plate and cup with him as Annie did with hers.
As the elder Camdens left the room, the phone rang. Rhiannon answered the phone on speaker phone. She recognized the caller's voice instantly.
"Roxanne!" she said. "How's Chandler? Catherine and Rita too?"
"Not now, Ree ... maybe later but this is urgent. May I speak to the Reverend, please?"
"Hi Roxanne," said Lucy. "How's life with the NYPD?"
"Pretty good," said Roxie. "But I don't have time to make nice. I need you to come down to Chief Michael's office downtown. I'm here with him and there's something going on."
"What?"
"Ruthie's life is in big danger. Or may be. So is that of an old friend of yours. I'll explain when you get here."
"We're just having breakfast here. Can it wait?"
At this point, Michael Michaels' voice came into the speaker.
"Thirty minutes, Reverend."
It sounded more like an order than a request, but Lucy got the message.
"Kevin and I will be there as soon as we can, Chief – kids, please go up to the third floor and hang out with your grandparents please. This shouldn't take more than an hour."
"Sure Mom," said Chuck. He grabbed his plate and cup, and told his sisters and brother to do so with theirs as well.
"Wait," said Lucy, going back to the phone, "a friend of mine?"
"We'll explain when you get here," said Roxanne.
Lucy hung up the phone. She looked at Kevin. This couldn't be good, they both thought.