Family Tradition

Rachael Harford, 42, has been married to Harold Harford for seven years. She has two daughters from her previous husband, Julie and Chloe. But Harry can’t hold down a job, so the family stays in financial peril. Worse yet, Harry spends a lot of his time riding his tricked-out Harley and drinking beer with his biker buddies. Harry and Rachael have bitter fights about money. After one nasty shouting match, Harry jumps on his motorcycle, tears out of the driveway, (he never wears a helmet) and out onto the highway. He crashes into a concrete bridge abutment killing him instantly. In shock from the unexpected loss, Rachael buries him, and settles down to grapple with their financial nightmare. The 22-year old daughter, Julie, is in her final year of a college program in physical therapy. Her only income is from her job as a barista at the Steaming Beans coffee shop. Julie takes her car to Jake & Charlie’s Auto Repair because it’s making a “funny noise” when she steps on the gas. Jake gave her an estimate of about fifty dollars, and the next day, she is shocked when it turns out to be $189. Unable to pay that and desperately needing her car, she offers to give Jake a sexual favor. He accepts her offer of a blowjob. The deceased’s priapic brother, Ted, has tried for years to seduce Rachael. But she’s not about to get involved with her brother-in-law. While Rachael and he are sharing a glass of wine at her kitchen table, mostly talking about Harry’s death, Rachael’s neighbor and good friend Margie pops in and joins them. Soon, Rachael has to leave to go see her lawyer. After she leaves, Ted and Margie talk about their previous affair (which they had kept secret) and the possibilities of rekindling it. Rachael has an appointment with her attorney, Arthur Bowman, to see if he can help get her some badly needed money. After their meeting concludes, Rachael accepts Arthur’s offer of an after-work brandy. Arthur is a widower of three years. His long period of celibacy—as well as Rachael’s nearly five years of a dry marriage—leads them to have a passionate, desperate embrace which rapidly turns into sex on his office couch. Afterward, out of his overwhelming gratitude, he gives her $500 cash as a pure gift of his appreciation. The next day, Rachael and her older daughter have a come-to-Jesus moment when they confess to each other about selling sex for money. That is when Julie tells her mother that she spent two hours in a hotel room with Jake and Charlie, letting them take turns with her for $400. Rachael tell her about Arthur's gift. Whereupon, Julie and her mother chuckle with some degree of pride about laying $900 on the kitchen table just from a little sex. Rachael confides that her own mother (Julie’s grandmother) also turned tricks to pay her way through college. They agree there’s nothing wrong with being a part-time sex worker. It’s a family tradition. Younger daughter Chloe, a senior in high school, is looked up to by her friends, especially her best friend Sophia, who is still virgin. Sophia complains to Chloe that her boyfriend is ceaselessly trying to have sex with her. Chloe coaches Sophia on how to handle the boyfriend and advises her to keep her virginity until she’s ready to lose it. Rachael’s brother-in-law Ted and her good friend Margie have a dinner date to talk about whether they will resume their affair. He takes her to a fancy restaurant and wines & dines her. She expresses reluctance about getting into a sexual affair again. But Ted is desperate and even offers to pay Margie. That piques her interest and she asks him how much he will pay. When he offers $100 for every time they have sex, Margie enthusiastically agrees. She says, “I’ve always wanted to be somebody’s private hooker,” and tells Ted to get a room. Sophia finally decides she’s going to bite the bullet and let her boyfriend, Chester, have sex with her. In his pickup truck late one night she gives him the go-ahead. But when he tries to enter her, she shrieks in pain. Chester is put off by that experience and urges her to see a doctor. In Dr. William’s office, he and Nurse Carol talk to Sophia and try to relieve her anxiety about the exam. But Dr. Williams is very gentle and immediately finds that Sophia is perfectly healthy. He leaves Nurse Carol to give Sophia a topical anesthetic cream that will help her get through her first intercourse. But before Sophia can have a date to consummate her relationship with Chester, she goes to a party at older friend Rhonda’s house, gets drunk, and then gets raped by two thugs in the upstairs bathroom. The episode ends with Sophie lying face down on the bathroom vanity, crying with her face in a towel.