You've been cerved.

Claire

"I want a vacation for my birthday," Claire moaned as she watched Ben spatter ketchup on the kitchen floor.

"Accident!" screamed Ben. "Floor's bleeding!"

"Okay, Claire. We might could manage a nice, short family vacation - say at Myrtle Beach? If we all share a hotel room," Vikram offered, handing his wife a napkin.

"You misunderstand. I want a vacation! Away from all of you." Claire muttered as she mopped up the ketchup on the floor.

"Mothers do not get vacations unless something goes horribly wrong. You missed a spot." From her chair at the head of the table, Mohini pointed at the floor in front of Claire.

"Apparently we don't get baths either," Claire grumbled. Every time they'd gone to Mohini's house to use the facilities (given theirs were still broken, save for one toilet which flushed if someone poured water down it while she flushed), Mohini made a point of directing Claire to the shower.

Claire really missed her bathtub. Hot baths were her greatest source of pleasure.

Well, hot baths and wine and the occasional orgasm, but Claire was holding off on the wine.

For now.

"For my birthday, I want balloons! But not the normal kind of balloons - the kind of balloon that has nipples!" Charlie said to no one in particular. Charlie was lying on the floor, eating rice out of one bowl and occasionally licking water out of another. This was because when Claire had tried to seat Charlie at the dinner table, he'd screamed, "I'm a dog! I'm a dog!" until Claire had shouted that he was indeed acting like a specific sort of dog.

Vikram had intervened and proposed the current set-up as a compromise.

"Nipple balls, nipple balls!" Ben shouted.

"Charlie, your birthday isn't for two months. Ben, balloons do not have nipples!" Mohini remonstrated.

"Mammals do," Grace said proudly, glancing at her beloved aunt for confirmation.

"Such a clever girl! And what are some examples of mammals?" Meera obliged, blowing a kiss at Grace.

Grace scrunched her face in concentration. "Cats?" She ventured. "Cats have nipples. And dogs. Dogs have nipples."

"Arf!" Charlie sprayed his rice all over the floor as he pulled his shirt up to show off his nipples.

Ben grabbed his mom's shirt and shouted. "Mommies have nipples! See!" He pulled Claire's shirt up.

"No bra again?" Vikram asked his wife with a sigh.

"No laundry machine!" Claire countered, pulling her shirt back down.

"I wash my delicates by hand," Mohini, face red, mumbled, careful not to look at Claire.

Claire had the strong urge to lift her shirt again.

"Darius's balloons had nipples," Charlie remembered fondly, building little hills of rice all around his improvised doggy dish.

"Darius?" Mohini now scrunched her face in concentration.

"Her - er, their nephew. Claire's brother's boy," Meera reminded her mother with an apologetic glance at Claire and then Vikram.

"The dentist? He and his wife are childless." Mohini frowned. "Or is it the soldier with no leg? There are a lot of children in Claire's family." Mohini glared at Claire as if she was responsible for the number of siblings she had.

Claire glared right back. "Neither. It's my middle brother, the...academic." Claire obviously held little regard for this profession.

"Ah, yes, the brother who had the bastard born out of wedlock when the mother was barely sixteen," Mohini frowned at Vikram.