Thong Girls
Chapter 11 — Mother and Daughter
“Mrs. Gruff, what a pleasant surprise.”
It was a lie and I’m pretty sure she and I both knew it. While it might have been a surprise, there was nothing pleasant about having Mathilda Gruff back in my office.
“Mr. McAdams, I am most displeased.”
“About what?” I asked.
“I told you I wanted those places shut down, Mr. McAdams.”
There was no doubt what Mathilda Gruff meant by “those places.”
“I think you give me more credit than I actually deserve,” I told her. “I don’t have the power to do that.”
“Yes, you do,” she told me.
“As a matter of fact, I don’t. I’m just a newspaper man. I write reviews. That’s all. I can write a negative review, but that’s about it.”
“But you haven’t even done that.”
Well, she had me there. I hadn’t written a review, but that was only because I was trying to work on something more important.
“You need to tell people what’s going on,” she chastised me.
“And if I did, what would that accomplish?”
“What do you mean what would it accomplish?”
“If I told people there was sex going on in the coffee houses around town, do you think more people or less people would go there?”
Mathilda Gruff opened her mouth to speak but almost as quickly as she’d done that, she closed her mouth again.
“You see my dilemma, don’t you,” I told her. “I certainly don’t want to do anything that would make the problem worse.”
“But there’s smut going on there,” the woman said. “There’s smut going on there and I want it to stop.”
“I’m not sure what I can do to help you,” I said. “I’m just a newspaperman.”
“I can see that now,” the woman said. “I suppose I put too much faith in your being able to do something. That’s why I decided to take matters into my own hands.”
“You what?”
“Ah ha. Got your attention, didn’t I?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“When I saw I wasn’t going to get any help from you, I decided to see about shutting those smut houses down in my own way.”
The way she said it, that sounded ominous. I was wondering just what the heck Mathilda Gruff had in mind. Probably something stupid like trying to picket in front of the coffee houses or something like that, but her acting on her own wouldn’t be enough to shut them down, and I had to know. “What did you do?” I asked.
“Ha. You thought I was just some crazy old woman but I got your attention now, don’t I?”
She still hadn’t answered my question. “What did you do?” I asked again.
“I sent in a spy,” Mathilda Gruff answered smugly.
“You sent in a spy,” I repeated and then something occurred to me. “Oh my God,” I said. “You’ve got to tell me just exactly what you’ve done.”
“I told you. I sent in a spy.”
“Who’d you send and where did you send her?” For some reason, I was sure the spy was a her.
The woman was still looking at me with this smug look of self-satisfaction. “I sent in my daughter,” she said finally. “She’s a good girl, just like her mother.”
Oh God. It was just the sort of thing I’d thought she’d say. “When?” I asked. “When did you send her?”
Mathilda Gruff still didn’t understand the danger her daughter was in. “What’s gotten in to you?” she asked.
“Dammit, woman. I need to know. You sent your daughter to work at a coffee house, didn’t you? I need to know. How long has she been working there?”
“Two weeks. Why?”
Two weeks. Okay. Maybe it was okay. Maybe she still hadn’t been affected. Maybe. “You’ve got to put me in touch with your daughter,” I told the woman. “It’s a matter of your daughter’s safety.”
“My daughter’s safety?”
“Dammit,” I told her. “Don’t you get it. Your daughter’s in danger there.”
For the first time, I could sense that Mathilda Gruff was beginning to sense the gravity of the situation. She’d come here to gloat but my reaction was hardly what she expected, but even so, she still didn’t grasp the danger her daughter was in. “In danger where?” she asked.
“In the coffee houses.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“Mrs. Gruff, you have to listen to me. I’m not kidding when I say your daughter is in danger. Now, I’m asking you once again. I need to talk with your daughter. How can I reach her?”
It was finally getting through to her that something might actually be wrong and for the first time, I saw her showing some concern for what had been done. “What is the problem?” she asked.
“Your daughter’s contact information,” I said. “I need it now.”
Mathilda Gruff was growing more and more concerned. “What’s the problem?” she asked. “Is my daughter in danger?”
“I won’t know that until I talk with her, now will I? Now if you please, can you give me the phone number?”
Mathilda Gruff gave me the phone number which I promptly dialed with the anxious mother listening in, but when the phone went over to voice mail, I knew I was going to have to step up my attempts to contact her. “Your daughter’s address,” I said. “I want it.”
“Why?”
“Please, Mrs. Gruff. It’s important.”
That was all I had to say. The woman was worried enough as it was that she gave me her daughter’s address without another moment of hesitation.
“I’m going to go over there,” I told her.
“I’m going to go with you,” she announced.
“No, you’re not.”
“But—”
“Mrs. Gruff, you’re going to have to trust me on this.”
“But if my daughter’s in danger—”
“She may not be but I won’t know until I see her.”
“That’s why I’m coming with you.”
I shook my head. “That’s why you’re not coming with me,” I told her. “I’m going to have to ask your daughter some questions, some questions she might not answer truthfully if you’re around so this is the way it’s going to be. I’m going to go over there by myself, or—”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll step aside from this story and you can try and figure out what’s wrong all by yourself.”
Yeah, it was mean, but Mathilda Gruff brought out the worst in me, but I could tell, her concern was genuine. “I want you to help her.”
“You’re sure. You’re not going to interfere?”
Mathilda Gruff nodded. I knew it went against everything she stood for, and she’d probably be riding my case in no time at all for something else, but for the present, if her daughter was in danger, she was going to let me do what I needed to do.
I tried the daughter’s phone on the way over and again I got no answer.
I tried Sue’s phone number and the result was the same.
Geez. Here I was batting oh for whatever. Not a real good batting average. That’s all I could say about that but really, I needed to get to the daughter’s apartment as soon as possible.
I tried the daughter again and again, I got no answer.
I was on the street where the daughter lived and I was scanning addresses. Her number was 728. Okay, there was 724. There was 726, and there was 728.
I tried the daughter’s number again, and again, I got no answer.
A reasonable person might ask the question that if I wasn’t getting an answer, why did I think she was even at home and it’s a good question but it was her cell phone I was calling. Wherever she was, she should have been able to answer and the fact that she wasn’t worried me. It was just a feeling I had.
The girl lived in apartment 4F. It didn’t take me long to find her apartment and knock on her door.
There was no answer.
I knocked again. I’m not even sure why but I just had this feeling that something was wrong.
Again, there was no answer.
I knocked yet again, and again, there was no answer.
Okay, I was thinking to myself. Okay, maybe I was wrong. Maybe, she wasn’t home. I took out my phone and I dialed her number and again, I got no answer.
I took a step back and I glared at the door to Apartment 4F. Okay, so if she wasn’t home, I wondered, what the hell was I going to do now?
I was still standing there when a girl walked up. She had brown hair and she looked to be in her early twenties. She was wearing short shorts and a tight, little top that seemed designed to show off her tits. She was carrying a shopping bag and she looked at me even as I looked at her. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“That depends,” I said. “Are you Melissa Gruff?”
She looked me over as if she were trying to figure out which way she was going to answer that but I suppose in the end, she realized she didn’t really have a choice. After all, I was standing in front of her apartment and if she was going to get in, she was going to have to go right past me to do it. “Yeah,” she finally said. “I’m Melissa. Who are you?”
“My name’s Paul McAdams. I’m a reporter.”
“Yeah, so?”
“I was wondering if I could talk with you.”
“What about?”
Melissa Gruff was hardly what I’d expected to find. If she’d been affected by working at a coffee shop, she certainly didn’t seem to be showing any signs of that work. “I understand your mother asked you to take a job at a coffee shop. Is that true?”
“Oh geez. You’re kidding. Is it about that?”
“It is. Did you take a job at a coffee shop, Ms. Gruff?”
Again, Melissa Gruff seemed to ponder the question. This time, she didn’t really have to answer. After all, it was hard to hide who she was when I was standing in front of her apartment but I wasn’t standing in front of her workplace. She didn’t have to answer the question.
But then she shifted her weight and she moved the bag she was carrying and she sighed. “Yeah,” she said finally. “Yeah, I needed the work so yeah, I got a job at a coffee shop.”
“Can I ask you some questions about it?”
I could tell the bag was getting heavier for her by the way she shifted her weight yet again. Maybe that was what did it. “I guess,” she said and even as she did, she moved forward and she put her key in the lock and she opened her apartment door. “I guess you might as well come in.”
I followed her into the apartment and I shut the door behind me even as she set the bag on a table. She opened her refrigerator and she started to take items out of the bag and put them into the refrigerator.
“Did your mom say why she wanted you to get a job at the coffee house?” I asked.
The girl pulled some milk out of the refrigerator and she looked at the expiration date and then she shoved it back in the refrigerator. “She said something about there being something weird there,” Melissa said.
“Did she say what kind of stuff was going on there?”
Melissa had apparently finished with the refrigerator because she closed the door and she moved to the cupboards. “She said people were wearing revealing clothing,” she said.
“Yeah, and were they?”
“There’s something you got to understand about my mom. She can be a bit of a prude, you know?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. I mean, sure, I knew that, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to admit that to her. I decided to play it low key. “Go on,” I told her.
Melissa was still putting some things away in the cupboard but the shopping bag was finally empty. “You can wear ordinary stuff and my mom can think you look like a slut. She’s always been that way, you know.”
I could see that. I imagined it would have been hard for a teen growing up in Mathilda Gruff’s house but something wasn’t jiving here. I knew there was something wrong at the coffee houses but I was wondering if Melissa Gruff was seeing that, too.
“You know, whenever I had something cool that I wanted to wear, I always had to hide it from my mom because if I ever tried to go to school dressed in a way that she thought was too slutty, she’d make me go and change so I got very good at hiding that stuff.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“What I’m saying, Mr. McAdams, is that I’ve been working there for a couple of weeks and so far, I’ve seen nothing wrong.”
“Nothing?”
“I’ve seen plenty of stuff that my mom might object to, but nothing that I’d object to.”
I thought that over. Something wasn’t jiving here. “What kinds of things have you seen that your mom might not like?” I asked finally.
“Did my mom send you here or did you come here on your own?”
“I came here on my own,” I said. “Why?”
Melissa Gruff paused for a moment. “Do I look like a slut to you, Mr. McAdams?”
I looked her over again. Like I said, short shorts and a tight top. She looked like someone who was proud of her body and she looked like she had a reason to be, but no she didn’t look like a slut and I told her so.
“My mom would think I looked like a slut if she saw me dressed like this.”
Yeah, well from what I’d seen from Mathilda Gruff, I’d agree with that and I told her that, too.
“Yeah, but I can wear this to work and no one’s going to give me a second look.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I said.
Melissa Gruff grinned at me. It was the first time I’d seen her smile. “You’re sweet,” she said.
Maybe, I thought, but I still thought she was hiding something from me. “Did you wear that to work?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact I did.”
“And?”
“And what?”
She was hiding something. I was sure of it but what was she hiding? “And what happened?”
“I served coffee.”
Okay, call it reporter’s intuition or something, but I knew there was more than that. “Come on, Melissa,” I said.
“What?”
“I know there’s something more,” I told her.
“Like what?”
“Like I know something happened at work.”
“Like what?”
“Like why don’t you stop playing games,” I told her. “Why won’t you tell me what happened at work?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Something happened or you wouldn’t be so scared to tell me.”
“I’m not scared,” she said.
She was right. There was something in her body language that told me but I knew. She wasn’t scared. “Scared was the wrong word,” I said. “You weren’t scared.”
“I already said that.”
She looked defiant. It was almost as if she was challenging me, I thought. It was almost as if ...
“You weren’t scared,” I told her. “You weren’t scared. You were proud.”
She nodded just a little and I knew I’d hit on it. She wasn’t scared. She was proud.
“Something happened at work and you were proud of it. You were proud and I’ll bet you want to tell someone, but you cant’ tell your mom, can you?”
“Yeah,” she said and then it was like she realized she’d just realized what she’d admitted to. “I mean no,” she tried to correct herself. I mean no, it’s not like that at all.”
“Sure it is. You know it is. You want to tell someone.”
Melissa Gruff didn’t say anything.
“You know you want to tell someone,” I told her. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Still, Melissa stayed quiet but I could tell she was wavering. I knew she wanted to tell. I just needed to figure out a way to push her past her last bit of resistance.
I thought back to what I knew and that’s when I thought of it. “What kind of underwear are you wearing?” I asked her.
“Wh-what?”
I knew that question had caught her off guard but then it had been meant to do that. “That’s where your story starts, doesn’t it? It starts with you showing off your underwear.”
“Yes.”
“You see, I already know that much. You might as well tell me the rest.”
“You’re not going to tell my mom, are you?”
“Not unless you want me to.”
“I don’t want you to tell my mom.”
“Then I won’t, but I want to know what happened.”
I waited. I knew this was it. Either she was going to tell me or she wasn’t but this really was the moment of truth.
“You’re right,” she said finally. “It started with the underwear.”
I settled back and listened to her tell her story.
“It started with the underwear,” she said. “I went there to get a job, just like my mom wanted me to, but it wasn’t for her. It was for me. My company had cut back my hours and now I was only working part time and I needed the money and it sounded like this would be a good job to tide me over until I either got a new job or my company gave me my hours back.
“So I went in to a bunch of these places. I found out what the hours were and then I filled out some applications and inside of a week, I had myself a job and everything seemed to be going fine.”
She paused in the telling of her tale and I waited for her to restart.
“I knew almost from the start that this was a different job that I was used to. I mean, there was this girl Nancy and she’d been working there longer than I had and like the first thing she did when she got to work was she’d strip down to her bra and panties, and I was like, what the heck are you doing, and she was like, it feels good. You should try it.
“I didn’t try it. At least not right away. I mean, that was kind of weird, if you know what I mean.”
I nodded and waited for Melissa to continue.
“It was kind of weird,” she said again, “but I started to think that if that was what the customers liked, maybe I should be doing it, too, and the customers really did seem to like it.
“I didn’t take everything off all at once. I mean, the first day, I took my top off, and the second day was pretty much like the first, and when I realized that wasn’t so bad, I took my jeans off, too, and suddenly, I was just like Nancy.
“We were starting to compete. I knew that. She’d wear something one day and then I’d try to wear something even riskier the next and then she’d come back and she’d tried to outdo me and it just went on and on like that.
“Some days, I’d get myself down to just a g-string and a sheer, little bra, and I thought I was just like Nancy until the day, I decided to go totally topless.”
Melissa paused to collect her thoughts and I waited for her to continue.
“I took my top and then I took my bra off,” Melissa began again, “and Nancy was like, ‘What are you doing,’ and I told her I was going topless, and Nancy was like, ‘You can’t do that,’ and I was like, ‘Why not,’ and Nancy didn’t have an answer for that, and that’s when I finally got it. I wasn’t like Nancy and Nancy wasn’t like me. Nancy was willing to go only so far but I was able to go further.
“The guys totally liked me and I totally loved it when they stared at my tits so I kept my top off and as time went by, I found myself teasing them with a look inside my panties.”
“Just a look?” I asked.
“Well, it was just a look at first.”
“Yeah, and what about later?”
“Well,” the girl said slyly, “you know how it is. It gets boring making coffee all day long.”
“So you went for more than just a look?”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
“Not really,” I told her.
“I thought I did.”
I shook my head.
“Well, you know how it is. Once you give a boy a look inside your panties, he’s not going to be satisfied with just a look the next time around, and you don’t want to develop a reputation that you’re just a tease.”
“Yeah, but if you never let the guy look inside your panties, then you’d never run the risk of getting the reputation.”
“That’s what Nancy said.”
“Yeah, and?”
“And what?”
“What about what I said?” I asked. “What about what Nancy said?”
Melissa Gruff just laughed. “Oh that. I hear what you’re saying. I really do, but I couldn’t stop showing the guys my pussy.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Because I like showing guys my pussy. I think I always have. I mean, I still remember the first time I showed a guy my pussy. The guy had ordered a coffee and I’d brought him out his drink, and I asked him if he liked having his coffee hot and he told me he did.
“That’s when I took off my panties and the guy asked me what I was doing and I told him I was heating things up a bit and I asked him if he thought I was hot.”
Melissa Gruff grinned at me. “He actually looked my naked body up and down, like there was even a chance that he might say no, but after he looked me up and down, he told me he thought I was hot.
“’Good,’ I told him, ‘because I think you’re hot, too,’ and that’s when I knelt down and I started to take his cock out of his pants.
“He actually wanted to know what I was doing like that wasn’t totally obvious, but I told him I was taking his cock out and then I was going to fuck him with my tits and then when I was done with that, I was going to fuck him with my pussy, and do you know what he said to that?”
I shook my head.
“He actually had the nerve to ask me why, and that’s when I told him, he’d already told me, he liked his coffee hot, and all I was doing was adding a little heat to his coffee.”
“Yeah, and what’d he say to that?” I asked.
“What do you mean what’d he say to that. He said yes, of course.”
I shook my head. Melissa Gruff was hardly turning out to be the person I’d thought her to be. “Do you know what’s happening to you?” I asked.
“What’s happening to me?”
“There’s a drug in the coffee,” I explained. “It makes women want to expose themselves.”
Melissa Gruff looked at me blankly.
“We’re trying to find a way to counteract it,” I told her.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you want to counteract it?”
“Because it’s not right,” I told her. “It’s not right to turn women into sex slaves.”
“Why?”
I didn’t understand her. I thought I was making myself clear but for some reason, she just wasn’t getting it. I tried explaining it again. “It’s degrading for women,” I explained. “It’s degrading to make them parade around in next to nothing. It’s degrading to make them fuck a stranger for no reason at all.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why’s that degrading?”
I just stared at the girl. Could it be that she didn’t really get it.
“I like who I am,” Melissa Gruff said. “I don’t care if it was the coffee that changed me or not. I like having guys wanting to fuck me and I like feeling like I need to fuck them back. What could be wrong with that?”
Well, that pretty much answered my question. Melissa Gruff wasn’t that dumb. She got it. There was nothing for me to do here. “You’d better call your mom,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because she thinks you’re in danger from working at the coffee shops.”
“Why does she think that, Mr. McAdams?”
“I’m afraid that was my doing,” I told her.
“Your doing?”
“It was the only way to get her to put me in touch with you, and besides, I thought you really were in danger.”
“You know you really are messing everything up.”
I just shook my head. I didn’t get the girl. Maybe it was the drug talking, but I didn’t think so. She really did want to be a slut. The drug had only made that even more possible. “Just call your mom, Ms. Gruff.”
“I will,” the girl said with a sigh.
“I guess we’re done here,” I said as I got up to go.
Melissa Gruff got up with me. “Did you really mean what you said, Mr. McAdams?”
“About what?”
“About trying to stop it. About trying to put things back the way they were before. Did you really mean that, Mr. McAdams?”
“Yes, I did,” I told her. “I really meant it.”
She nodded her head. “All right then. I’m going to fight you. I don’t know how, but I’m going to fight you because I don’t want you to win. I like the way I am now and I don’t want anything to mess that up.”