Phillip Milner: Her mother_s lover

Charisse Mantell was more voluptuous than the average teen-age girl, and at eighteen, she liked to pretend she had a worldliness and knowledge about sex which she really didn't have at all. As a matter of fact, she knew less about the sexual relationships between men and women than the average girl. Her mother was a famous singing star on television and the plush nightclub circuits of Las Vegas, New York, London and Acapulco, but had kept her lushly developing daughter safely stashed away in expensive private schools. Although Minna Mantell was a talented and voluptuous beauty herself, she was at the age where a fresh, sexually budding daughter might prove to be competition… competition that would show up her own somewhat fuck-worn tits and ass.

In the exclusive private school, Greystone, where she was now, she found that being the daughter of a celebrity made the other girls look up to her. After all, the daughter of the famous Minna Mantell, TV and nightclub star – a beautiful, if somewhat tarnished, figure of glamour, a pet of the international jet set and adored by her faithful fans. After a while however, Charisse found that her natural shyness was mistaken for stand-offishness and that her former friends ignored her to the extent of pointedly not inviting her to their parties or sorority affairs.

Her mother had often told her that even as the daughter of a famous woman, she would encounter plenty of jealousy and envy, and that she would be very foolish to let that sort of thing throw her. For some strange reason, she had always been closer to her mother, felt proud to be the daughter of Minna Mantell. So Charisse tried to "cultivate her cool", in spite of the other girls' snubs. But in her heart she was very hurt.

She would actually see a group of girls hurriedly change the subject of their whispered conversation when she approached, and knew they must have been talking about her or her mother. As she went upstairs to study, she heard what surely was a dirty remark about her, to judge from the peals of mocking laughter that followed her to her dormitory room. She mentally resolved that "he who laughs last, laughs best" – and that she would one day have the last laugh over these bitches.

The girl who seemed to hate her the most was actually her next door dorm neighbor, a rather mean, but physically attractive seventeen-year-old girl named Debby.

Debby's room seemed to he some sort of magnet for the other girls in Greystone and they would gather there very frequently like a flock of gaily chatting birds. And, as much as Charisse tried to deny it to herself, she was secretly hurt that she wasn't asked to be one of the group. It was just all that phony sophistication and woman of the world airs that Debby affected that attracted the other girls, she kept telling herself. Finally, one weekend, she heard them laughing and giggling in Debby's room and made up her mind to find out what it was all about. Even though there was a sinking sensation in her stomach as she did so, she casually opened the door and entered.

As the girls saw who it was, the gaiety seemed to die down, and she was greeted by furtive and somewhat resentful looks.

"Just what can we do for you, Miss Mantell?" Debby asked her. "Or did you open the door to the wrong room by mistake?"

Charisse's heart skipped a beat and she flushed in embarrassment as she replied, "No, I just thought I'd join the fun…"

There was a sharp intake of breaths, then a hushed silence and then Debby spoke.

"Come right in, maybe you can fill us in on details about… show business that we were discussing. After all, your mother is the fabulous Minna Mantell, superstar of TV, nightclubs, and all that jazz."

Charisse walked into the room hesitantly and saw that there were little knots of girls all over. Some were on the bed, some were on the easy chairs and others even sprawled on the rug. As Charisse found a place to sit on the sofa, the gay girlish gossiping and hysterical shrieks of laughter began again.

"Please don't feel that I'm intruding," Charisse said to Debby, "but I'm really at rather loose ends this afternoon, and you all sound like you're having such a lot of fun…" her voice trailed off. She flushed under Debby's sharp mocking gaze.

"By the way," Debby said slyly, "we were just discussing the sex life of some popular show biz personalities – or don't you think that people like Frank Sinatra or Robert Goulet or… Minna Mantell indulge in that pastime?"

Charisse flushed and her lips trembled as she tried to reply nonchalantly, "Oh I've heard a thing or two."

Debby pressed her advantage. "How about giving out with some of the dirt about your mother? After all, you've sort of got the inside track."

Charisse kept silent as Debby continued her clever taunting. "Well, we're all waiting breathlessly to hear something right from the horse's mouth, as it were. Or would the opening at the other end of the horse be more suitable to the subject of Minna Mantell's private occupations?" As Charisse pressed her lips together and tried to keep the tears from filling her eyes, Debby added, "I've got a little scrap book here that mentions her." She opened a book filled with news clippings. "Here's something juicy – 'Hot Love on the Big Networks' – Mmmmm… 'Is a certain famous TV star about to have her option dropped because she drops her panties too much?'"

"So what?" Charisse said grimly.

"So the rest of the article is all about Minna Mantell's love life, her husband's affairs, and some really swinging sex, marijuana, and LSD shenanigans. Really, you must have such an exciting time at home! It's a shame we can't get you to tell us about it."

"How can you even read such cheap gossip sheets? They should be banned from the newsstands!" Charisse burst out. "My mother says everyone in the public eye is besmirched by those scandal sheets!"

"Look here," Debby said, thrusting her scrap book into Charisse's hands, "just see if this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. For just an idle gossiper, he seems to know an awful lot about your mother and your father. You're not mentioned – yet."

Charisse didn't want to look at the scrap book, yet the pictures of her mother with some slick young men captioned "Minna's Latest" or "Handsome Remedy for Singer's Sore Throat" held her gaze hypnotically. The stories were about love affairs, secret trysts, sex-swapping parties at her mother's New York penthouse, the young girls her father consoled himself with and other sexy tidbits. Charisse knew that it couldn't possibly be true. The parties she had seen at her mother's apartment never had anything more exciting than spilling a cocktail occasionally.

"I don't know where you got all this dirt," Charisse said angrily, "but I can assure you that's all it is – just a bunch of low down dirt, made up by a second rate gossip columnist looking for filler! Now I think I'll go to my room. I think I want to play my mother's latest record album to get the smell of your scrap book out of my nose!"

"Really, Miss Haughty?" Debby asked slyly. "Since we come from such a bunch of blue bloods, I guess you wouldn't be interested in some other choice bits about your darling mother?"

"I don't know why you're picking on me like this," Charisse said, with a hint of a sob in her voice. "If you don't want my company I'll leave right now!"

"Oh, no," Debby replied with a sardonic grin, "we'd just love to have you stay. Our parents live such dull lives compared to yours. We're so unsophisticated – why don't you wise us up?"