Let it Snow

by erotic scribbler

©Copyright 2018 by erotic scribbler

The story explores identity, sexuality, and female empowerment at an Anime Convention where an unexpected snowstorm serves as a catalyst for two mothers with their daughters to grow closer together, allowing them to confront their pasts, embrace their desires, and forge a new future.

Chapter 1

It was day one of the three-day Anime NebrasKon 2017 convention, and Cindy Cooper was overwhelmed by the bedlam. She felt horribly out of place among what seemed to be thousands of teenagers dressed as their favorite cartoon characters. There were plenty of adults, but many of them were also dressed up.

Her daughter, Sierra, was out there somewhere in the sea of freaks. She was wearing a short red schoolgirl skirt, silk stockings, a white shirt with a red collar, and a blue bow. Sierra said she was Sailor Scout, Mars, whatever that was, and to be the best one here, she insisted on dying her hair pink. Hopefully, it really does wash out.

Cindy couldn't believe she had traveled from San Francisco to Omaha for this. I did it for Sierra, Cindy thought. If her husband, Dick, and she weren't separated, he would be here with Sierra. NebrasKon was their thing, not Cindy's, but Sierra didn't do anything wrong-Dick had-so Cindy was going to do everything in her power to maintain a sense of normalcy for her daughter. It was hard enough being sixteen without your parents having problems.

Cindy looked through the mob of young boys in oversized breastplates, clutching ray guns and Rapiers, and squid-like creatures with tentacles resembling penises with battle spears, and who knows what else. She spotted her daughter.

The girl's legs were too long for those heels and short skirt. She's not your little girl anymore, Cindy thought. Her daughter had been cursed with her gene for large breasts, and Cindy could tell the boy Sierra was flirting with wasn't making eye contact.

"Is that your Sailor Mars my daughter is talking to?"

Cindy turned toward the voice and knew the woman who spoke couldn't have been looking in the same direction. Sierra was dressed up as Sailor Mars, but she was talking to a teenage boy, and this attractive, dark complected young lady couldn't possibly have given birth to him. He was at least Sierra's age. "No," Cindy said, "but I'm impressed by your knowledge of these characters. I'm clueless."

The Latino woman smiled. "I would be, too, if it weren't for Tori. You know how teenagers are."

Cindy's eyes moved from top to bottom and back, carefully evaluating the woman's face, clothes, and features. She favored Maritza on Orange Is the New Black, except this lady was thicker and didn't wear tons of makeup. "I can't imagine you're old enough to have a teenager."

The young woman's cheekbones rose, and her dimples deepened. "Only if I conceived her when I was seven.” She laughed. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't do that to people. She's my ex-husband's daughter from his first marriage. I'm twenty-three, but I feel much older because I've been raising Tori since I was seventeen. Longer really, but I didn't marry her father until seventeen."

Cindy nodded stupidly while she processed this woman's disclosure. Twenty-three was the age of the girl Dick had an affair with. "Sorry, I've been rude. I'm Cindy, Cindy Cooper. I'm here with my daughter, Sierra."

The young woman extended her hand. "I'm Mandy Santiago. It's very nice to meet you. I'm guessing you're not from Nebraska."

Cindy smiled. "No, nor you," Cindy said. "We're here from San Francisco."

"Oh, cool," Mandy said, sounding her age. "We're here from LA, and honestly, I can't wait to get back. The weather here, shit, it's too cold. My hoochie mama leather jacket doesn't cut it here."

Cindy was surprised by the expletive but not offended. It was refreshing to hear an adult's unfiltered thoughts. "It's our fault for coming to the Midwest in November."

"Yeah, true, and I hope they're wrong about the snow."

"Me too," Cindy said. "Although, I think Sierra is praying that it storms. Kids."

“By the looks of it, Tori made a friend, so I'm sure she won't mind spending a few extra days here."

"Mom, can I have some money? We wanna get something to eat," Sierra said as she approached.

"Yeah, Mom," the boy with Sierra said.

Cindy turned around. Her daughter was with the black-haired boy with intense brown eyes, except-Cindy was glad she hadn't said anything to Mandy about Sierra being with a boy.

"So she’s your Mars," Mandy said.

Sierra must have seen the expression on Cindy's face because she said, "Mom, this is Tori. She's, um, he's Ranma Saotome from Ranma 1/2. He changes; tomorrow, he'll be a girl with red hair and no boots, so he'll be shorter than me.” She gave Tori one of her, that's right, smirks.

“Maybe shorter,” Tori said, “but I'll have bigger boobs than you.”

“Will not,” Sierra said.

Chapter 2

“Tori!” Mandy said.

Tori blushed, realizing she shouldn't stay in character around adults. Sierra said, “It's true, in the cartoon when he's a girl, she has big boobs. Mom, Tori had me going for a long time. I didn't know she was a she. Isn't that cool?"

Cindy looked at Mandy, then back at her daughter. "Yeah, that's nice." She reached into her purse. "Don't eat junk…all junk, anyway."

Mandy sucked in and squeezed her hand into the pocket of her jeans. Cindy noticed her hip bones and the signs of a V cut into her groin. Mandy was in excellent shape. "You too, Tori, eat at least one thing today that's not bad for you," Mandy said and pulled a crumpled wad of bills from her pocket.

Both girls agreed while rolling their eyes and took off.

"Ranma is perfect for Tori. She's such a tomboy," Mandy said. "I think that's why we get along so well. I was a tomboy, too."

Cindy gave the shapely woman a skeptical look. "That's hard to believe. You're very, ah, attractive."

Mandy snaked her curvy body seductively. "Thank you, I was a late bloomer-"She pressed her boobs together-"and didn't get a whole lot when I finally developed. Tori has more than me."

Cindy tilted her head to the side. “Um, Tori-”

“Yeah, it's hard to believe the lengths these kids will go to,” Mandy said. “Please don't think I'm into these Japanese cartoons, I'm not, but my daughter is, so I know things.”

“I understand,” Cindy said, but she wasn't sure she did.

“Tori's character is a boy, but he turns into a girl if he gets wet with cold water. Tori does have breasts, um, crushed under there. Tomorrow, she'll have red hair, and ponytails, and boobs. Oh, and the reason she said what she did to Sierra is because in the series, Akane and Saotome, argue about whose are bigger.”

Cindy said, “Oh, that explains it.” Why didn't she know that much about Sierra's character?

“Don't tell Tori, but I think Saotome will lose that argument. Sierra has been blessed with your body.”

Cindy hung her head and let her long auburn hair fall forward to hide her blush. "At Sierra's age, I think it's more of a curse."

"Hmm, she does have it going on," Mandy said. "I bet her father has to beat the boys off…some of the girls, too, probably."

Cindy was struck by how forward this young lady was, but it made her smile. Since the separation, she had been isolated for the most part because she didn't feel comfortable around shared friends, and now she wasn't sure she had ever liked most of them.

Besides, Mandy was the first person she'd spoken to who was old enough to drink and wasn't dressed up like a cartoon character. "We're separated now." Why did I volunteer that information? “We're trying to work things out, so it's a trial thing while we figure it out.”

Mandy grabbed Cindy and pulled her out of the way of a spirited boy waving a revolver. He was charging after a space creature. Cindy was close now, staring at Mandy's face. The woman's complexion was flawless except for a thin scar that ran from her cheekbone to her jawline.

Her expressive dark brown eyes should have made her extremely pretty, but they didn't. Cindy stepped back and asked, "Are you hungry? We could get some lunch, too." When Mandy wasn't smiling, her face had a toughness to it that would have scared Cindy if they met on a dark street.

"That would be cool," Mandy said. "We can talk more without all this ruckus. There's a good Mexican place around the corner."

Cindy looked around at the mayhem. "The girls?"

"They'll be fine. Tori has street smarts, and she's tough. Her daddy was tough, taught her to take care of herself."

"Okay," Cindy said. "I guess they'll be okay. It will be refreshing to get a break from all of this. We still have two more days of it."

“We do,” Mandy said and held Cindy's upper arm, turning her. "This way, we can go out the door over here. It'll be shorter that way."

Chapter 3

After more than an hour of conversation in the restaurant, Cindy knew Mandy wasn't Mexican. Her mother was from Puerto Rico, and her father was from the Bronx. Mandy had lived in Harlem until she was ten, then they moved to The Gardens, a Latino neighborhood in Los Angeles. It was more the hood than a neighborhood and where Mandy had met Alberto, her husband.

Candy leaned forward and lowered her voice, "But you were only fifteen." A year younger than Sierra, she thought.

Mandy shrugged. "Things are different in the hood. Don't get me wrong, my mother warned me about men like him, but you know how it is with bad boys. They're hard to resist. He had the coolest car, a muscle car. All red with black stripes and Chevy 454 emblems on the hood scoop… Ah, so sweet. Man, the way that Chevelle rumbled, I think I creamed my pants once while we were racing his cousin, Dario."

The truth was, Cindy didn't know how it was with bad boys or the hood. She met her husband, Dick, in church. They waited until their wedding night before having sex, or at least she had. Richard had been her only dick. She thought they would live happily ever after in their fancy Pacific Heights home. They went to church, he worked, and she stayed home and cared for the house and Sierra.

When Cindy found the sexting messages on Dick's phone, she could tell from his expression when she asked, "Was she the only one or were there others in between?" that there had been others. How the fuck could he have an affair with someone in church? He was the praise and worship leader, and he was screwing Betty, the lead vocalist, a woman more than ten years younger than Cindy.

"What happened with you and Alberto?" Cindy asked. "Why aren't you together anymore?"

"He's dead," Mandy said and sipped her margarita.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, wishing she hadn't asked. "What happened?"

"Switchblade," Mandy said. "He got stabbed with his own knife."

"God, that's horrible. It must have been so hard on you and Tori."

"On her more than me." Mandy downed two-thirds of her drink. "But I think she was starting to hate him, too, by then. He got mean. Selling and using drugs will do that to a man, or maybe he was always that way. I don't know anymore."

Cindy wanted to know more, but Mandy stopped talking, so Cindy let it go, for now. She was impressed with this young lady and how she was raising Tori on her own. Cindy was still trying to get Dick back because she was afraid to be alone.

They finished their drinks and headed back to the convention center.

At the end of the day's festivities, the younger woman's animated and boisterous nature had grown on her. Cindy invited Mandy and Tori to join Sierra and her for dinner. She also promised herself that she would stop being such a mother hen to Sierra and enjoy their time together.

They went to a Chinese buffet, like a mother-daughter double date. After dinner, the girls suggested a switch of hotels so they could all be together. Cindy knew with the convention in town it would be improbable that there would be a vacancy at any hotel, but, oddly, she wished it could happen. It was silly for a thirty-five-year-old woman to be thinking like a schoolgirl, but she hadn't felt so alive in years.

Cindy told the girls there wouldn't be anything available, but Tori suggested they stay in the same room. Mandy's brows rose, and her lips twitched, but she didn't speak. Could she be considering it, Cindy wondered. Why not?

Cindy reminded Sierra that their room only had two single beds. Of course, the teenagers offered to sleep on the floor and let the adults have the beds. That was ridiculous, sharing a hotel room with a young lady and her stepdaughter. “I'll go online when we get back to our hotel,” Cindy promised. “We'll see.”