Can't Stop the Girl

"Christmas is for giving," he said with a grin.

"Then you can give me this!" She took him in a firm grip and pulled him gently down onto the bed. "Your turn!" she said, and she straddled him and drew him in effortlessly. "Unhhh! Feels so good!" she declared, squeezing him affectionately within.

"Yeahhhhhh," Daryle agreed, and Annie didn't begrudge his saying it to her breasts instead of her face. She had little doubt it was a thrill to watch them jiggle as she began grinding happily into him. It was also a thrill for her when he reached up and cupped them both tightly in his hands, squeezing a little harder than before but still not too much.

"Yeah, do that!" she intoned, and he continued with it while she flailed away. "Gonna come again...you?"

"Close!" he grunted.

"Come with me!"

"Harder!"

So she went at it as hard and fast as she could, and was rewarded with his loudest screech of the evening just as she joined in with one of her own. With a deeply satisfied sigh, she pulled off and lay down beside him. "Merry Christmas, Daryle!" she said, her earlier resolve now but a memory.

"Mary Christmas, Annie." A few moments of afterglow came and went before he asked, "It's too early to go to sleep, isn't it?"

"We do have the wine downstairs."

"And my mom's bathtub, in the master bath. It's big enough for two if you're interested."

"Yes please!" Annie sat up.

Pamela's bedroom was nothing like Annie suspected. Old-lady style chintz and flowers everywhere. "I know what you're thinking," Daryle said as he flipped on the light and led her through the bedroom, both of them still nude. "Not her style, right?"

"Exactly," Annie said. "Especially not that!" She pointed at the gap between the pillows, where a stuffed reindeer was perched.

"Oh, that's a gift," Daryle said as he turned on the bathroom light. I don't know just what inspired it." Daryle turned on the water tap for the huge tub. "But never mind that tonight, right?"

"Never mind what?" Annie asked, her suspicions once again aroused.

"She wouldn't tell me anything about it, I mean," Daryle said. "It was the usual, 'None of your nevermind, Daryle!'" he mimicked. He helped Annie into the tub and then settled himself across from her, his feet perfectly positioned to tease her clit, which she more than happily let him do. "Oh, and what I was saying about her bedroom -- that's the real Mom, she loves all those feminine touches and decorations. This is the one place she can really be herself, you know?"

"That's very understanding of you, Daryle," Annie said.

"She's tried to be a good mom and dad since Dad took off," Daryle said. "I figure it's only fair to give her some slack here and there."

"Wow," Annie said, thinking of some of the unresolved issues with her own mother. But with Daryle's toes tickling her vulva, her mind did not stay on such heavy topics for long. "Oooh, that's great!" she said, gripping the edge of the tub. "Don't stop!"

He didn't stop for quite some time, and they enjoyed the hot water and the rest of the wine. After a long soak, they dried off and made love again in the living room, with the glow of the Christmas tree sparkling playfully on their bodies, and finally retired to Daryle's bed shortly after midnight. Thanks to the strange bed and the unwelcome reminder of her mother, Annie took quite a while to get to sleep.

Sleep, though, she did, and so she shared Daryle's youthful sense of wonder when they awoke well into the morning to find a blanket of snow outside. "Wow," Daryle said with boyish charm that was in wonderful contrast to the very adult body Annie was still admiring out of the corner of her eye as they stood nude in the bedroom window.

"Beautiful," Annie agreed. "Perfect sledding weather."

"That's a great idea," Daryle said. "How about it, Annie?"

"I only have last night's dress to wear, remember? Besides we've got to cover my tracks here before your mom gets home."

"After we do that, then, let's go by your place and you can change into jeans, and then?"

"I'd like that," Annie agreed.

But after a shower and putting yesterday's clothes back on and helping Daryle strip the bed and get the sheets in the wash, Annie made a mistake. While putting her coat on, she felt the keys in the pocket. "Daryle," she said, "Are you sure that stuffed reindeer was a gift to your mom?"

"Completely. Why?"

He looked a bit defensive, which surprised Annie but didn't stop her. "I don't know quite how to tell you this, Daryle, but..." She drew the car keys out of her coat pocket. "I found these yesterday while you were in the shower, and --"

"You went snooping on me?!" Daryle snapped. "You think my mom did it?"

"Daryle, I'm sorry!" Annie said. "But your mom never really liked the whole idea, and she was awfully quick to point fingers elsewhere that day at the Barkers." Only then did she realize she hadn't even brought up what she thought the keys were probably to. "Hey, wait a minute, do you know what these keys are for?!"

"I've never seen them in my life!" Daryle said. "Did you go through my mother's dresser?!"

"No, the basement. These were tossed on the floor. I would never go through anything really private."

"The basement is private! At least until I said you could go down there."

"Daryle, look --"

"My mom is not a thief! She's a pain in the ass, but she's no thief!"

"Then she probably knows the story about these, right?"

"Annie, get out! This was all a mistake. Get out! Go, before I decide to tell my mom what we did last night!"

"You wouldn't!"

"Not if you get lost!"

Blinking back tears, Annie showed herself out.

She pulled herself together well enough to drive over to the Barkers. Only when she arrived there and was parking her car on the street outside their house -- just where the van had been parked when it was robbed -- did she remember she must look a shambles in last night's dress. But there were bigger things to worry about.

The van, now covered in a few inches of snow, was parked beside the garage. Annie couldn't help chuckling at what Mandy no doubt had to say about that -- even in winter, she had a thing about her beautiful lawn -- but once bitten twice shy. She rang the doorbell.

Mandy answered. "Annie! What a pleasant surprise! Come in!"

"I'm not interrupting your lunch, am I?" Annie asked.

"We were just about to sit down. Why don't you come join us?"

"I wouldn't want to impose..." But privately she was desperate for the good company.

"Nonsense, come on in before you freeze out there in that dress. What's the occasion, anyway?"

"It's a very long story," Annie said, stepping inside. "And thanks."

"For what?"

"For welcoming me in. I could use it."

"A date gone bad?" Mandy asked under her breath, a knowing twinkle in her eye, as Tony and Sabrina appeared and welcomed her in as well.

Annie nodded and turned her attention to Tony and Sabrina. "So sorry I didn't call first to see if this was a good time," she said.

"It's a fine time," Tony said. "Mandy and I cooked too much spaghetti for the three of us anyway."

"Yeah, Bobby Tompkins was supposed to come over for lunch, but he found something better to do," Sabrina grumbled. "Boys!"

"I can identify." Annie allowed a laugh, and felt a little better.

"I was thinking of giving you a call anyway, Annie," Mandy said as they were all sitting down. "I had some ideas about the pageant and what to give to the kids. We could always do goodie bags with Christmas candy and so forth, and maybe a personalized card for everyone so it'll still feel like it's just for them."

"That's a great idea," Annie said. "But that's actually just why I came by." She reached down and got the mystery keys out of her purse. "Could these be to your van?"

Tony took them from her and took a good look. "Son of a bitch, it looks like they could be," he said. "Where'd you find these, Annie?"

"Pamela Reed's basement," Annie said. "But I asked Daryle about it and he swears it wasn't her."

"That wretch!" Mandy snapped. Annie had never seen her so angry before. "What would that poor kid say about his mother?"

"You see the way she treats him, Mandy," Tony said. "If he thought it was her, he'd be the first to say so."

"Well, maybe he was afraid people would suspect him!" Mandy said. "I don't, mind you -- Pamela's the rotten-to-the-core one, not him!"

"First things first." Tony stood up. "We don't even know if these are to the van. I'm going outside right now to see if they are."

"We did think it looked like the thief had a key," Sabrina said as soon as her father was gone.

"We did not," Mandy grumbled. "Your father parked it on the street, like a moron, and it's an old van. Any thief could've gotten the door open without a key and without breaking the window".

"Well, that doesn't mean --" Sabrina began.

"That's enough!" Mandy said. A deep breath and she continued. "Sorry, Sabrina. Yes, it could be." Turning to Annie, she explained, "Tony has had that van since before we were married. It's old, and we mostly just use it for odd jobs. Since we don't need it very often, we let our neighbors and friends borrow it, too. What Sabrina's getting at is, that means anyone who borrowed it could have had copies made of the keys. But I none of our neighbors knew anything about the toys as far as I know. There's no one from this block on the committee or anything.

"Mom, there was --"

"Quiet! Sabrina, we're not going to cast aspersions on our friends."

"Well, somebody had to do it," Sabrina grumbled.

Annie was dying to know who Sabrina had been about to name, but clearly that wasn't going to happen.

The uncomfortable silence still prevailed when Tony returned a minute later. "The keys work," he said. "Annie, I think we ought to call the cops on Pamela."

"Can we wait on that?" Annie asked. "Daryle was so sure it wasn't her, and --"

"Then she'll be happy to tell the police who did put those keys in her house," Mandy said, standing up. "I'm calling Officer Roberts right now."

Officer Roberts was not unfriendly. But the Barkers' hopes -- and Annie's fear -- that he would sic the force on the Reeds' home proved unfounded. "I can certainly put in a report on this to the case file," he said, looking at the incriminating green keys that lay on the coffee table before him as he took notes. "But it's not enough to do anything more than that, especially if you went looking for the toys and didn't find them, Annie."

"I...see," Annie said, swallowing her nervousness. Last week's incident was far from forgotten and she was terrified he might even know all about it.

"At the very least, we'd need to hear from another party about putting the keys there, or some evidence that Mrs. Reed knows where the toys are."

"Aren't the keys enough evidence?" Tony demanded.

"Not when the chain of custody has been broken," Officer Roberts said. "I hate to say it, but the only person we can prove had those keys is you, Annie."

"So I should have left the keys there and called you?"

"That wouldn't have done any good either," he said. "Then we'd have no reason to believe they were to Tony and Mandy's van." He stood up. "I'm sorry, but you'll need more evidence before we can do anything with those. And Annie, I'd appreciate it if you let us do our job next time."

"Yes, officer," Annie forced herself to say, wanting only to be out of his sight now.

As soon as he was out the door, Annie said, "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," Mandy said. "You're trying to find the toys. He isn't."

"Yes, we really appreciate it," Tony said. "Mandy, I guess we really ought to at least consider who we might have loaned the van to and they did this."

"Have you ever loaned it to Trisha Cottam?" Annie asked, now back to her one slender reed of a lead.

"Who?" Mandy asked.

"I guess that answers that," Annie said. "A friend of Mrs. Goldstein's, my landlady -- you met her the other night? And she goes to the Greenes' church. They've both mentioned her."

"The Baptist church?" Tony asked. "You know, we did let a couple of guys from there borrow it to transport a snowblower a couple of weeks ago."

"Oh, not Paul and Tommy," Annie said.

"Yes, that's them," Tony said. "Know them, Annie?"

"Only from a distance."

"Then how do you know they didn't do it?"

"Let's just say I haven't been very good at letting Officer Roberts do his job, I guess," Annie said.

His admonition was still ringing in his ear a day and change later when Annie drove home from work. Five days to the pageant and still no toys, and perhaps Officer Roberts was right. But then she remembered what he'd said about all that wouldn't have happened if she had reported the keys herself. That, plus the fact that she was feeling exceptionally lonely with Daryle's silence, was why she had called Reggie at lunch to ask after making up an excuse to visit Mrs. Cottam.

He'd come through as usual, and Annie had received an email at four o'clock saying they'd been invited to Mrs. Cottam's place that evening to pitch the pageant to her. "Thank you so much for pulling this off!" she greeted Reggie when she let him into her car at their rendezvous point outside the library. "But what do we do if she decides she does want to participate?"

"She won't," Reggie said after a quick kiss hello. "She's really old fashioned, she's convinced there's the one true way to heaven and she'd consider it offensive to present it as just one of several ways. But she's also the type who'll always listen before she says no. That's what I was counting on."

"Makes sense," Annie said.

"So let me get this straight," Reggie said as they drove through the darkened streets. "You don't think she did it, but you think she knows who did?"

"That's my best guess," Annie said. "Those keys got in Daryle's basement somehow, and Tommy and Paul keep turning up like a bad penny in this. Maybe he's right and his mother really didn't do it, but whoever did must have been able to get in his house."

"And you think it's the person who gave his mother that stuffed reindeer."

"That would explain how they got in the house, whoever they were."

"Of course, it'd make a lot more sense if it was Daryle's mom," Reggie said. "She hasn't exactly had the Christmas spirit, you know."

"Which is exactly why I don't think she'd buy herself a stuffed toy. I mean, that, plus the fact that she's probably about fifty and her only child is eighteen."

"It does sound a little like someone was trying to make her look guilty," Reggie admitted.

"Why couldn't Daryle have just told me who it was?" Annie groused.

"Can't you just ask him?" Reggie asked.

Annie sighed. "Long story, but no. I can't."

She was deeply grateful to Reggie for not asking any more questions in the last few minutes of the drive.

Trisha Cottam had never looked anything less than perfectly made up when Annie had seen her at Mrs. Goldstein's house, and Annie was not at all surprised to see she looked just as regal as ever in her own home -- which also looked exactly like she'd always envisioned it, crammed with bric-a-brac but spotless and lush. "Welcome, Annie, Reggie," she said from her perch on an ancient couch when her maid had let them in at the front door. "Tea?" There was a full service laid out before her already.

"That'd be lovely, thanks," Annie said.

She and Reggie both tried to help themselves, but Mrs. Cottam was having none of that. "Sit down, and let Ivy help you with that, I insist!"

"Oh...okay, Mrs. Cottam," Annie said, and she and Reggie both somewhat reluctantly sat on the couch across from her. Ivy quickly prepared two cups of tea to their order (sugar for Reggie, none for Annie), and they thanked her in turn and she vanished.

"So, Reginald," said Mrs. Cottam, "I do not suppose you are really here to talk me into representing our church at this pageant of yours, now, are you? After all, your family could do that."

"Well, my mom's gonna be running the show, you know, and I don't think she trusts Dad or me to do it," Reggie stammered.

"Then why would you ask someone who I am sure Annie has heard from her landlady is not very supportive of the whole endeavor?" the old woman said with a friendly but knowing look at Annie.

"Oh, Mrs. Goldstein only said --" Annie began.

"Annie, none of that," Mrs. Cottam said. "I've known Minnah since before the two of you were born. I've got my differences with her, in particular her stubborn refusal to accept Jesus Christ as her savior, but I admire her for sticking to her guns, no matter how misguided they are. Annie, I hope you don't mind, but she's told me all about your little crusade to get those toys back. And I'll tell you, my girl, I admire you a great deal for it."

"You do?" Annie couldn't hide her surprise.

"Absolutely," Mrs. Cottam said. "True, I don't agree with what you and Reggie's family and the others are trying to do, but I certainly recognize you're doing it all out of the goodness of your hearts, and I hate what happened just as much as you do."

"Then Mrs. Goldstein told you..."

"That you suspected me?" Mrs. Cottam laughed. "Relax, both of you. To err is human, to forgive divine. Reggie, I fear I gave your mother cause to think as much as well. It was my own mistake, honestly, being a bit free with my opinion of the whole thing. But there's one thing Rhonda and Minnah didn't know. Reginald, I believe you know a couple of young men from church..."

"Tommy and Paul?" Reggie asked. "We already know they were just helping Mrs. Hickman with her snowblower."

"They weren't just doing that, Reginald, and don't interrupt an old lady, please."

"Sorry!" he chuckled, and Annie followed suit.

"The problem with boys like that is they never notice when we older women are around. We're invisible to them. So they didn't know I was in the kitchen by the fellowship hall after mass a few weeks ago when they rather carelessly chose that as their hideout to talk about something they obviously wanted no one to hear about." She took a leisurely sip of tea and continued. "I didn't know just what it was, but I do know Tommy said he had returned the van to her friends."

"Her friends?" Annie asked. "Who was 'her'?"

"I don't know," Mrs. Cottam said. "He was smart enough not to say. But Paul asked him if he'd had the keys made first 'like she said,' and Tommy said he had. I'm afraid I don't know anything about the keys either."

"We do," Annie said.

"Think it was Mrs. Reed?" Reggie asked.

"No," Annie said. "She wouldn't have left them just anywhere."

"Who is this Mrs. Reed?" Mrs. Cottam asked.

"I found the keys at her house," Annie said. "But I don't think she did it."

"Could be Mrs. Hickman after all," Reggie mused.

Mrs. Cottam laughed. "That old bat? My dear, I'm no great fan of hers, but she's not a thief. Listen, you two, I don't know who this woman is that they were working with, but if you can figure it out, give me a call. I'll have Tommy and Paul over here and scare the threat of eternal damnation into them, and you'll get your toys back, see if you don't!"

Back in her car a few minutes later, Annie said, "Legend in her own mind, huh?"

"Don't underestimate her, Annie," Reggie said. "She'll make those boys talk if we can prove we've got their number."

"Great," Annie said, starting the car. "I guess at least we know it's a woman, that's a start."

"A woman who the Barkers trusted with their van, since Tommy called them her friend," Reggie added. "Man, that takes a lot of nerve. They let you borrow their van and then you let some kids steal stuff out of it while it's parked right in their driveway."

"Well, it wasn't actually in their driveway, remember," Annie said. Then it hit her all at once. "OH MY GOD."