Fringe Desires - Volume III

• Preface To Volume III

  How the stories came to be.

• Even Steven

  Corporal punishment for children is no longer in fashion, but it wasn't that long ago that it was considered a necessity.

• Strong As Silk

  Billy finds there is a lot more to his mother than a pretty face, and a lot more to life than living by the rules.

• Whisky And Cartoons

  Yet another instance of the danger of getting what you ask for.

• Seemingly Normal

  After her parents died, Lilly had to create a new life for herself. The hard part was making it seem normal.

Preface To Volume III

I anticipate this will be the last volume in the Fringe Desires series. Volume I generated more reader comments than anything I have published previously, and the clamor for more gave birth to volumes II (available here) and now volume III.

As a child, I was forbidden to read comic books. I sweated under heavy covers at night to read my secret purchases so the light of my flashlight wouldn't be visible to my tattletale little brother. The forbidden read became a favorite activity, and the thought of curling up for a good salacious story still delights me. I have endeavored through the Fringe Desires series to bring a similar pleasure to my readers.

It has been a challenge, but I have learned a great deal since a conversation with one of my readers (Jimmy from Nights of Wonder) inspired me to take a different approach to my writing. Certainly, my technique has improved, but more importantly, I have learned much about the incredible diversity of the human experience. While the light of some of our sexual desires can only shine under the covers in our society, there are a great many of you who keep your flashlights on late into the night, and I hope, learn as much as I have.

Thank you for sharing the experience with me.

Even Steven (mg)

I had avoided most of the summer sun of 1963 sitting in the dim light of my room, writing my life plan. Specific goals and strategies based on a careful self–assessment were essential, I had gleaned from several library books on the subject, to future personal success. The country was planning to go to the moon, and I was going to become an astronaut, and live there. So my assessment needed to be an honest appraisal, such as would serve as the foundation for my plan. After much thought, and what I considered brutal honesty, I concluded I had the intellectual and personal skills necessary to achieve my goal. I was thirteen years old.

My mother would have disputed those conclusions, had I considered bringing them to her attention, but I knew better. Except that last conclusion, my age. She would have heartily agreed with my age, although certainly viewing it in a much less favorable light than I. Her views on most things tended to the negative, but particularly so those concerning me.

She would have pointed out, I am sure, that I was overweight, and none of the Mercury Seven astronauts carried an once of fat. I could have pointed to my newly created diet and exercise plan, but she would have said with a characteristic smirk, “Those are just words. When are you going to stop eating potato chips?” Certainly, she would have mentioned my grades. I was not a stellar student, but I had created a study plan, too, which I believed would raise my marks. She would have said, “Still too much TV.”

She did not dislike me, she would contend, but disliked my behavior. I regarded this as a distinction without a difference, but to her it was the justification for any number of indignities she inflicted upon me. If I didn’t do my weekly chores on time, she withheld my allowance. Since my lunch money came from my allowance, I suffered the embarrassment of brown bagging leftovers, or going hungry. If I got into trouble at school, I had to put on my pajamas and stay in my room, without television. This was a carryover from when I was much younger and, very occasionally, wet my pants. I was immediately told to strip, given a diaper, and sent to my room. Being seen by my older brother and sister in a diaper is a humiliation that burns in me still.

Humiliation was suitable for minor transgressions, however, really big crimes (anything which caused her to worry) were only remedied with pain. Mine, on my naked backside, with her preferred instrument, a ping pong paddle. The last was not so long ago that I don’t still reach for my rear when I think of the Saturday I was gone all day with friends without telling her.

During those ending days of July, buoyed by my plan, I pushed my mother's negativism aside, and concentrated on the future. I sought to unleash the bonds of my childhood, and rise to the challenges of becoming a man. My life was a new frontier that I would master in the same way astronauts would master the moon. Or so, I had hoped.

“I want you to baby sit someone,” my mother began.

I was deep into my project on moon rockets for a summer science fair, and cringed at the idea of girl’s work. My mother was adamant, “They need a sitter, you're available, and they are our friends.” I argued and whined until my mother said, “Would you rather play ping pong?” Seeing the thinly veiled threat had its intended effect, she said, “Good.”

The Jackson’s were old friends of my parents, but only just moved near us. When we arrived at their new home that morning, my mother had brought a housewarming gift. Mrs. Jackson was very thankful for the decorative cheese board, and very thankful to me for being willing to watch her daughter for the next three days. I dared not dispute my willingness in front of my mother, so I just smiled.

I had seen Veronica on several occasions in which our families intersected, and knew only two things about her, for sure. She was ten years old, and a well–known brat. The latter fact was an often overheard subject of discussion among my mother’s friends, with the cause generally attributed to her being an only child.

I had little personal experience with her brattishness, having been diligent in my desire to avoid younger children at all times, but on more than one occasion I had heard a gratingly demanding tone in her voice. She made the seven syllables in “May I please have a cookie?” sound like my seven worst attempts at notes on the violin.

I was assured by her mother, with mine standing over her shoulder, that she was very independent, and I would not have to play games with her all day. I could work on my project, but I was to make sure I kept an eye on her, and not let her wander off.

My mother added, “She is your responsibility, understand?”

Responsibility was a word with a lot of weight behind it when uttered by my parents, and I instinctively twitched in understanding.

Our first few hours together went better than expected. Veronica played in her room, while I took over the kitchen table with a cardboard display and colored pencils. When she wandered into the kitchen, I tried to ignore her.

“What is that?” she asked, leaning forward against the table and pulling at her long, black hair absently.

“It’s a rocket ship. Like the one that’s going to the moon.”

“It’s very nice,” she said.

Compliments were a scarce commodity in my house. There was punishment for doing poorly, but doing well deserved no special acknowledgment. I often felt life with my parents was like swimming; do well and you don’t drown.

So Veronica’s cheerful praise of my work drew my attention in a way I hadn’t anticipated. I turned to see her smiling with childish admiration, her green eyes locked on me. I admit, it made me feel good, almost warm inside, and a little flustered. Remembering she was just a child, though, I dismissed it with a casual, “Thanks.”

“Can I help you color?” she asked?

“No,” I said. I expected to do better than last summer’s third place in the Junior High competition, and only my skilled rendering would do.

Veronica’s face fell, and her shoulders slumped farther over the table splaying her horsetail thick hair around her. She reached for the large box of colored pencils and examined each one, commenting on the colors she thought were ‘pretty.’ Getting no response from me, she asked questions about the rocket, which I quickly grew tired of answering. She was a girl, after all, and would never understand such things. My irritation didn’t set well with her and, in fact, seemed to make her more persistent. A dozen more questions ensued until I growled at her to “Be quiet! I’m trying to work.”

“Why can’t I help you color?” she asked.

“You’re too little.”

Her response was gratingly familiar. The word ‘Please?’ barely discernible from the enveloping screech.

“Go away!” I yelled.

After a minute or so of silence from her, I turned to see her glaring at me. She had a child's face, comely, of a type that could show anger without wrinkles; a mere tightness of the eyes, a thinness in the lips. She stood rocket straight, her long legs stuck like poles into her shorts, and her arms hanging stiffly from a striped, short sleeve top. In one hand she held one of the pencils like a weapon, and managed as hateful a stare as I had ever been subject to. “You’re mean,” she stated flatly, dropped the pencil to the floor, and left the room.

Relieved, I returned to my project in earnest. By around lunchtime I had completed the bulk of my poster board illustration of the C Five rocket, and complimented myself on my progress. Which got me to thinking about Veronica, her compliment of my work, and my assessment that I had probably been unfairly harsh with her. Setting my work in order, I went looking for her.

My first guess was her room, and when I arrived, I could only stand gasping. The room was bursting with every conceivable toy a girl could want. A large, wooden rocking horse was nearly buried in what looked like new clothes, still with sales tags. There was a small desk full of art supplies I would never have been allowed, a bookshelf full of dolls, some still in boxes, and a sizable wooden toy chest at the foot of the bed too full to close. Envy surged through me like adrenalin, not for the toys of a girl, but that there were so many toys, far more than any child in my experience deserved. But no Veronica.

It was not a large house, being in the same recently built tract it was similar to ours, and I quickly realized she was not there. I started over in the kitchen, carefully searching each room, and closet, assuming she was hiding from me. A third round of even closer examination of every imaginable hiding place convinced me she had left the house.

I was growing more anxious as I moved my search outside. The typical California tract landscape, a large lawn surrounded by a few newly planted trees and bushes, was without good hiding places, and the garage was nearly empty since the car was gone, and no Veronica.

Imagining my mother’s wrath at letting her run off threw me into a panic. For the next hour I walked the neighborhood, calling her name, asking kids I knew if they had seen her, all without success. It was known by all she had no real friends, so I doubted she was playing inside somewhere on such a warm, clear day. I feared the worst: an accident, or kidnapping.

Now wringing with the sweat of worry, I ran toward my house with the idea of retrieving my bike to enable me to cover more ground. I cruised the entire tract searching for her, then scanned the long, dirt rows of the apricot orchard, even staring through the chain link fence at the swim club. As I rode along, I shuddered at the hell my mother was going to create for me if something happened to Veronica.

It wasn’t until I ventured beyond our tract, past the orchard, and onto the school playground when I caught sight of her. She was alone on a swing, her head down so far her hair dangled on her knees, barely moving as her feet kicked occasionally at the tanbark beneath her.

I raced toward her, yelling her name, in a rage. When I slid my bike to a stop in front of her, spraying her with tanbark, she jumped to attention. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” I yelled. I was as angry as I have ever been, and I continued yelling as I imagined my mother might have yelled at me. “You know better than to run off like that. This is very serious, young lady.” There was more, mostly along the line of how much trouble she was in, and how much grief she caused me, until she began to cry.

As I rode slowly home, Veronica walked a few steps behind, then trotted to catch up pleading, “I’m sorry,” then fell behind again in a pout or blubbering tears. I refused to look at her, which had the desired effect of keeping her worried about her fate, until we had dropped off my bike and arrived at her home.

I had no idea what I was going to do next, but I knew I was still angry. I walked into the house, and she followed as I went through the living room, into the family room, and back through the kitchen. “What are you going to do?” she kept asking through her tears.

I stopped and turned, “Do you know how much trouble I would get in if they found out where you were, by yourself?” Of course, she didn’t, but I knew exactly how much trouble I would be in, and just what form the punishment would take. “Go to your room,” I said, mimicking the stern coldness of my mother’s voice, “and wait for me.”

Veronica stamped her foot before running off, while I scoured the kitchen for something to use. I recalled a few pre ping pong paddle instruments; my mother’s hand, a wooden spoon, and a spatula. I suddenly understood why she settled on the permanent use of the paddle. It was light weight, broad and made a noise that would scare the birds out of the trees. The sound of the slap on my backside was nearly as painful as the contact.

Having searched the house thoroughly before, I knew there were no paddles handy, so I settled on something I deemed as good. The cutting board gift, still lying on the table, was made of an exotic hardwood full of dark swirls, remarkably rigid, yet thinner than a pad of paper. There was a handle with a leather loop for hanging, which flared to an oiled, shiny surface about six inches wide.

I found Veronica in her cluttered room, sitting on the edge of the bed clutching a small stuffed horse with floppy ears. She stared blankly when I entered, board in hand. I could still feel the sickness in my stomach from the hours I had spent searching for her, all the while contemplating the condemnation that would be heaped on me if something had happened to her under my watch. I was going to make sure she never did it again. “Drop your pants,” I said.

This seemed to perplex her out of her sniveling, but she did not move. “Stand up and take down your pants,” I said, my board hand rising ever so slightly. This seemed to stir understanding about what was to come, and Veronica slid slowly off the bed, her eyes fixed wide on the possibilities in my hand. “Take down your pants, both of them, and turn around,” I ordered.

As slowly as humanly possible, Veronica pushed her shorts and panties down to her ankles, and turned toward the bed. Taking a step closer, I instructed her in how to assume the proper position; stand away from the bed, reach out with your arms, and lean on the edge. I moved within striking range, and Veronica’s tears began to flow again.

“What are you going to do?” she cried.

Now came, I told myself, the most important part, the pronouncement of the sentence. My mother had a way of summarizing my crime at this critical point so that the punishment seemed not only reasonable and deserved, but as if I should welcome the opportunity to be relieved of my guilt. It is a testament to her technique, that I always felt emotionally relieved afterward, if not physically.

“Veronica,” I said, “you broke the rule about leaving the house, didn't you?”

Her crying grew louder, “I didn’t mean to.”

“And you didn't ask me, did you?”

“I’m sorry,” she whined.

“And you knew I would get into trouble, too, didn't you?”

The tears were interrupted as she began to mow, and wipe her runny nose with her arm.

“You wanted me to get into trouble, didn’t you?”

She nodded, and I followed with, “And you deserve to be punished don't you?”

“No,” she whined with stamp of her foot.

I remembered trying this tactic myself. “You are only going to make it worse for yourself by lying. You deserve to be punished don't you?”

After a long pause, “Yes. What are you going to do?”

“And the punishment has to hurt, doesn't it?”

The violin sounded again, “Why does it have to hurt?” followed by a gush of tears.

“So you'll remember to not break the rules. Now, are you ready to be punished for being a bad girl?”

She turned to me, her expression as it had been earlier in the day when she had armed herself with the colored pencil, showing a fury that would not soon subside she sniffed up her tears, then she issued a simple, “Yes.”

This was perfect, I told myself. I frankly expected her to take a much longer time to accept her due. Now, I would mete out her punishment, she would feel appropriately chastised, and the matter would be forgotten, the same way it had so often occurred in my home. “How old are you?” I asked.

“Ten,” she said, looking perplexed by the question.

“Ten it is,” I said, and landed the first blow. Not hard, I was certainly mindful she was a child, but with the flat of the board making a satisfying smack on her fleshy cheeks that reverberated nicely. Anyone in the house would surely have thought I had dealt her a near mortal blow for the cry she unleashed. My first cry was always the worst, I recalled, more from the indignity, than the pain.

The second and third smacks could barely be heard over the crying, but the fourth rang out again, as she was gasping for breath between sobs. After the fifth, her legs began to dance up and down, alternating as if the floor was too hot to stand upon.

It was an odd mixture of feelings stirring in me. I was confident I was justified in my actions, perhaps smugly so, yet genuinely moved by the pain that was for her, if largely psychological, extreme. Her cries were piercing, though. I know my mother never slackened a blow out of pity, but I did. The sixth and seventh were half the force of the previous, her crying having lost the quality of an errant bow on strings designed to manipulate, and was now, simply sad.

Her head turned as she focused her eyes on me. Surprisingly, the eighth landed without forcing a sound from her, as if the pain now fueled her hate instead of her vocal chords. The ninth rang out, but no sound from Veronica. Her reddened butt was still and accepting. I grimaced for the final blow, determined it should be meaningful without being cruel, but I could not look at her. The smack rang out, and again I caught her glare until I put down the board. She crawled up onto the bed on her stomach, pulling her stuffed, terry–cloth horse underneath her. “You're very mean,” she said as she settled, her pants still around her ankles. “You're just a mean old boy, and I don't like you any more.”

Something in the manner she said those words made me realize I had hurt Veronica in a way I couldn’t have imagined before. Her compliment earlier in the day, and wanting to help me color was her way of telling me she liked me, and only wanted to be near. When I yelled for her to go away, she was hurt, and punished me in the only way she knew how, by running away. I should have recognized it, but I had never been the subject of affection by a girl before, any girl, and it was surprisingly touching.

In an effort to make up for some of the hurt I inflicted on her, I took the board back to the kitchen, went to the bathroom and returned to Veronica with a jar of Noxzema I had seen earlier. My brother and I would never have allowed it, but my sister would permit my mother to rub cream on her behind after a punishment.

Veronica seemed not to have noticed I had left, and ignored my return. “I have some cream,” I said. “It will make it feel better, because it’s cool.” There was the slightest interest on her face. “Shall I put some on?” I encouraged. She nodded without looking at me.

I sat next to her on the bed and slathered the odorous cream on my hands, while examining her pink cheeks. They were quite colorful in relief against her larval white thighs and legs, but nothing that wouldn’t subside with my careful first aid. I covered her with the odorous goo, massaging it in thoroughly with my fingers for a few minutes until I was sure it would have the maximum effect. “There,” I said, wiping my hands on my jeans, “Better?”

Veronica had been nearly still during my ministrations, the tears long ago dried, but now she lifted her feet up, still tied together by shorts and underwear, and said simply, “More.”

Veronica seemed to know I was feeling guilty, and was going to take advantage by having me dote on her. I almost declined, wanting to resist her manipulation. I felt I had to repeat the cream application, though, hoping it would allow her to feel the matter was entirely resolved. The first application had been done anxiously, but the second found me massaging more thoroughly than was necessary. This was my first chance to see any portion of a naked girl, and I found myself examining every aspect of her behind, and what I could make out beyond. My scientific curiosity was considerably piqued, and I believe I enjoyed it as much as she obviously did. When I announced I was done a second time, she got down off the bed and said, “You’re still a mean old boy, and I don’t like you.”

For the remainder of the afternoon I worked without enthusiasm on the descriptive paragraphs for my poster, and Veronica stayed secluded in her room. When our mothers arrived, she came out long enough for a subdued greeting, then returned. Mrs. Jackson worried that Veronica might have been too troublesome, but I assured her it went well after we had come to an understanding of sorts. I didn’t get specific, thinking Veronica might be embarrassed about needing to be punished. I know I would have been.

At our arrival the next morning Mrs. Jackson praised that it took quite a young man to command respect without resorting to violence. The remark caught me short, and I was still puzzling over it when she said goodbye and the two were out the door. It never occurred to me to be violent with Veronica, she was a child, and a girl. Only a monster would use violence on her. She couldn't have been referring to spanking, since that's not violence. Spanking was discipline, I had heard my mother say many times, and discipline was wisdom.

After unloading my project onto the Jackson’s kitchen table the next morning, and setting out the tools I would need for the day’s work, I went looking for Veronica. I found her in the family room watching cartoons, her knees squeezing her floppy–eared horse to her chest, and her arms locked around her legs. Her chin disappeared between her knees and the unruly black hair was loose over her shoulders.

I sat next to her and we both watched the cartoon in silence. My occasional glances in her direction were not returned. I took advantage of a commercial to ask, “How are you?” This provoked a show of teeth, and she said, “My butt still hurts.”

Her declaration precipitated ever more anger, as if she had been thinking about it all night, and she broke from her held in position on the couch and began hitting me with the horse. I was startled into submission, and could only shield my head and cower under her blows. She stopped almost as quickly as she started, and folded herself up again.

“Criminy,” I said. “You act like you have never been spanked before.”

“We don't spank in our house,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Mommy says spanking isn't good for children.”

Incredulous, I said, “You're lying!” Of this, I was sure.

“I am not.”

I was struck still, as if by a comic book freeze ray. “You mean, you've never been spanked?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“You shouldn’t have spanked me,” she said. “It makes children mean.”

That sounded like something her mother would have said, and it made me think Veronica must have discussed spanking with her, without saying I actually spanked her. But if she had, then Mrs. Jackson would have mentioned it this morning. I wanted to ask why Veronica held back, but felt I needed to make my case. “It does, not,” I argued. “It makes children behave.”

She lunged at me again. “No it doesn’t,” she said swinging at my head. “It makes them mean.”

I shielded myself as best I could, and said, “Look, I didn't know you had never been spanked. I used to get spanked all the time. Every kid I know gets spanked.”

This earned a pause in her attack, and maybe a hint of concern in her bright eyes.

“My friend Arnold gets spanked lots more than me, and Eddie gets it with his dad's belt. At least you don't have welts like he does.”

“It still hurts,” she said.

“I'm sorry,” I said. Veronica looked like she wasn't through hitting me. “Go ahead, hit me again, if you want, I can take it.”

She stared, trying to discern, I think, if I meant it. Then Veronica got up and ran out of the room. In less than a minute, she returned and stood before me, the cheese board clutched by the handle in both hands. I was surprised, to say the least.

‘Now, wait a minute—,” I started. It was a long discussion, with me doing most of the talking. It was remarkably reasoned, considering what was at stake, similar in tone to many I had held with my mother. My mother always won the argument, of course, and I believed myself to be in a similar winning position here. Once guilt is admitted, one can quibble about the degree of punishment, but not the need for punishment. And one blow per year of age always struck me as a fair, even scientific standard. Thus, I was confident Veronica could not intellectually sway me. After all, it would be the equivalent of me spanking my mother, completely absurd. Yet, sway me she did.

I certainly felt bad about spanking her, mostly because it was her first such experience. I couldn’t remember my first, but it must have been startling to be hurt by someone you like, and want to like you, and having to admit it was for your own good. I felt completely justified in the spanking, yet I wondered what it was like to live in a family without that degree of discipline. A family where you were showered with more toys than you had time to play with, and never twitched with the fear of being spanked. Wasn’t that lack of fear the cause of her legendary brattishness? My mother thought so.

The hurt look molded into her pretty face as she swung the floppy–eared horse at me had its effect, too. So did guilt over the enjoyment I felt rubbing the cream onto her naked buttocks, twice.

Perhaps, the most persuasive was the childish reasoning she used. “Even–Steven,” she kept repeating, as if we were taking turns pushing each other on a swing, and once that universal principle of fairness was invoked, it could not be refuted. The phrase seemed to hold more force because I realized that I was still more child than man.

For whichever reason, or for all of them, I found myself leaning against her bed with my pants around my ankles. “You’ve been a very bad boy, haven’t you?” she began. I was surprised at how she had picked up the importance of sentencing, and I could only agree. Once I admitted I had broken her family’s rule about spanking, I was lost.

“How old are you?” she asked.

I was sure she did not have the strength of my mother, so I fearlessly said, “Thirteen.” I imagined I would bear each blow without a sound, as gritted silence was a source of pride with my brother and me during later sessions with my mother.

Without further preface, she began. Immediately, I realized I had seriously underestimated her. From the first to the last, Veronica employed none of the restraint I had deemed necessary when spanking her. She used both hands to land each blow, and instinctively knew the louder the slap, the better.

My shrieks were muffled at first, but I gave up trying to hold them back. I tried substituting swear words, but they didn’t offer as much relief as a guttural cry. By the time she landed the last, I was red faced and in danger of sinking to my knees in pain. As I crawled onto the bed, it occurred to me that my mother had settled on the ping pong paddle because the sponge rubber surface was softer and lighter, and hence less painful than the hardwood board. I feared I had hurt Veronica far more than intended.

The next sensation was the most startling. Veronica had found the jar of cream and was rubbing it on my butt. I started to protest, but the cool white mixture did, indeed, lessen the sting, so I relented.

I had experienced paddle pain many times, and I had had numerous erections in the last year, although I never knew quite what to do with them. But I had never experienced that intense pain and an erection at the same time. Combined with Veronica's small–handed massage, and the noxious cream, the effect was a jarring confusion that left me in fear of my sanity.

“What’s that?” Veronica had to repeat the question and point to the head of my penis sticking out from under me to get my attention.

“Never mind,” I whispered, the multiple discomforts making it hard to talk. I suppose Veronica thought the redness indicated it was painful, like my butt, and she dabbed the tip with Noxzema and tried to wrap her hand around it. Instinctively, I turned on my side, and she placed another handful of cream on the now more exposed shaft.

I was ignorant of sexual matters beyond that given in primitive school films focused on sexually transmitted diseases. I knew it felt good to rub my penis, but I had never progressed beyond that enjoyment. Occasional dreams had resulted in nocturnal emissions, but I had consigned that experience to the nether–world of dreams, not realizing it was possible during the day.

When Veronica began rubbing with both of her tiny hands, as she had my butt, I was overwhelmed by a greater ecstasy than I had thought possible. The result surprised us both equally, I’m sure. Veronica paused, staring at the issuance strung across her hands, looking very much like she had just broken something valuable. “Go away,” I told her. At each of our few interactions during the remainder of the day, she looked worried, and I embarrassed.

The following morning Mrs. Jackson asked how things were going in a way that suggested she knew something was up. I considered that Veronica may have told her mother everything, and her mother's question was my only opportunity to confess before she added lying to my crimes, a strategy taken from my Mother’s playbook. I debated confessing, the urge was strong in spite of the consequences, but having strayed into unexplored sexual territory convinced me to make no admissions. I further reasoned that Mrs. Jackson would quickly have told my mother, and I would have suffered the consequences long before now. I quietly assured her all was well.

When I saw Veronica, it was clear she was as uncomfortable as I. She lingered at the table, though, as I attempted to glue my paragraphs to the board. Eventually, she asked, “How are you?” The concern in her voice was genuine, and I quickly dismissed any reason for sympathy, and a smile from her followed. I gave her a cut out paragraph, and asked her to color the border. We worked together for some time, conversed about her school, family activities, and eventually, came back to the subject of spanking.

“How often do you get spanked?” she asked.

“Not much anymore, but a lot when I was your age.”

“Do you think you would get spanked for spanking me?”

I started laughing as I thought about the irony in her question. “Yes, I’m sure I would,” I told her.

Veronica picked up on my laughter and followed with her own giggle. “Would I get spanked for spanking you?”

“I don't know about that one.”

“You’d better not spank me any more,” she said in a teasing, fake admonishment.

“You’d better not run away any more,” I countered.

At this, Veronica let loose a sly grin, carefully got up and ran out of the room. The slam of the front door shook the kitchen windows for a second, and the house fell quiet. I assured myself she was only teasing, and would be right back. She knew her mother was firm about the staying at home rule. I decided to ignore her provocation and worked for another half hour, all the while growing concerned about her whereabouts. I listened and looked out the windows of the kitchen until I couldn’t stand it any more, and went looking for her.

I stood in the front doorway scanning the area and calling her name. The same anxiety and frustration I felt before was rising in me slowly, like a rocket lifting off the pad. I knew exactly what I felt like doing when I found her, but grew even more frustrated knowing that option was no longer open to me. She was doing this to deliberately provoke me, and there was nothing I could do but wander around the neighborhood, searching.

On one of my passes back in front of her house, I spotted Veronica peeking out of the living room window. Furious, I ran into the house calling her name, and threatening hell. To my amazement, I found her in her room standing, coyly pulling at the ears of her horse.

“Are you mad?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m very angry at you. Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t run away,” she said. “I was in the house the whole time.”

“You made me worry. That’s just as bad. Worse!”

She turned around and leaned against the bed, asking, “Are you going to spank me?”

The implied acceptance of her new position engendered a trickle of understanding about the game she had initiated. She was clearly inviting me to play yet, as I walked to the kitchen, I was confused about why she wanted to repeat the experience that made her so angry yesterday. When I returned with the cheese board, she was still against the bed, but now her pants were tangled around her feet.

As I approached, her feet began to dance up and down, shaking the hair dangling around her face, and flexing the muscles of her butt. “You’ve been a very bad girl, and you deserved to be punished, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she replied through her hair.

The first time I spanked her, I told myself, I did it out of duty. But this time, I was going to enjoy every stroke. I wasn’t going to hold back, either. “How old are you?” I asked, knowing this was only a formality, a preface to the first smack.

She hesitated, then said, “Eleven.”

I was about to ask her again, confused by what I had heard, when she said, “Thirteen.”

I thought she was daring me, and I was immensely pleased at the challenge. I would show Veronica I was up to it.

“Thirteen it is.” Still mindful she was a child, I let her have thirteen solid blows. Each smack heralded a cry of ‘Ow” or “Owie”, but no tears, until around nine, when she stifled even the cries into soft grunts. The last she took without voice, turning to look at me as it landed. There was something odd on her face, not exactly a smile. Veronica pulled herself up onto the bed, grabbed her horse, and complained, “It stings.”

Was this why she wanted to play? Why didn’t she just ask me to rub on the cream, and forego the spanking? I returned from the bathroom with the Noxzema wondering why, if she just wanted the massage, she upped her age to thirteen. The confusion grew, and I felt I was playing a game I didn’t really understand, complicated even more by my awareness of another erection.

As I rubbed in the cream, I felt an urge to do more with her body but, having no experience, I didn’t know what. I couldn't recall a single instance of anything having to do with sex being discussed in my house. If my siblings knew anything they kept it to themselves. Some of my friends alluded to more knowledge, but I didn't ask for fear of exposing my ignorance.

Remembering the liberties Veronica took with me, I nudged her over and onto her back. I used the cream as a way of exploring this new perspective on the area between her legs. She tugged at her horse, glancing at me sideways occasionally. My erection throbbed, and my mind was racing as I rubbed, as if I was running as hard as I could, but had nowhere to go.

Shortly, Veronica sat up, and said, “Spanking is not allowed in our house. You’ve been a bad boy.” She kicked off her pants, traded her horse for the board I had left there, and slid off the bed. “You need to be punished, don’t you?”

Now I had a direction to run. I remembered the release that followed her punishment yesterday, and I was desperate to feel it again. Indeed, I realized then, that I had thought of little else since. I awoke in the night twice with an erection and spent fitful hours waiting for it to go away. I even tried to reproduce the magic Veronica had worked, without success. I was preoccupied at breakfast alternating between wonder and chastisement, because anything that could cause an erection had to be wrong. Such a wrong must be punished, and there is only one suitable punishment, the thought of which made my erection throb more.

“Don't you?” she repeated.

I did, and nodded accordingly. Not as willing to push the limits as Veronica, I responded, “Thirteen,” to the next question, and she gleefully counted out her two–handed whacks. I didn’t try to be quiet, and I actually enjoyed yelling loudly at each slap. It made me wonder how Veronica could control her pain until she was nearly mute at the end. I yelled to release the pain, but she seemed to want the intense discomfort to soak in.

When she had finished, I threw myself on the bed, saying, “It stings.” Veronica obliged and applied the cream to my butt. I was anxious for a repeat of yesterday, though, and quickly threw myself on my back and waited. When she didn't begin, I glanced up to see Veronica looking confused, the white cream still on her hands, as if she were in the middle of baking and forgot the recipe.

“It stings,” I said earnestly.

Veronica, hesitated for an instance, then ran from the room.

I waited in vain for her to come back, then yelled plaintively toward the ceiling, “It still stings.”

Veronica avoided me for the rest of the day. After several rebuffed attempts at contact, I remained in the kitchen, preoccupied and confused. I was still at the table when our mothers arrived earlier than usual. They seemed to linger, talking well out of ear shot, with Veronica joining in, but to what extent I couldn't determine. When the mothers gathered in the kitchen, there were Thank Yous, an offer of money to me refused by my mother, and praise for a job well done. Mrs. Jackson winked when she said, “Veronica thinks you're a very good sitter.” The meaning of the wink was unclear to me. I like to think it was a hint that Veronica held me in affection. It made me wonder again how much Veronica had told of our time together, and what our mothers understood.

I assume she related very little of our activity to her mother, for I never got in trouble. In fact, I was never spanked again by my mother, nor was my brother or sister. This may have been due to our advanced age, my staying on my best behavior for fear of having an erection while being spanked, or because something passed to her from Mrs. Jackson convinced her spanking was no longer a suitable punishment. I'll never know.

---

Strong As Silk (FMM, Fm)

She is perched on her chair at the kitchen table across from me, her head bent over the checkbook, trying to make sense of her calculations. No one else sits up so straight. The long sleeve, white silk top is neatly tucked into long black pants. I love the way that blouse shimmers. Small earrings, a wedding ring and a few bracelets are her only jewelry. Light makeup highlights her green eyes, and her face is surrounded by blond hair. Slender fingers manipulate the pen and book, and her nails match the light red lipstick.

Moms aren’t supposed to look this way. I wonder what it is like to be so smart, so beautiful… so perfect. I wonder what screw–up in the gene pool allowed me to come from her? Dad’s regular looking, but I’m not much like him either. “When’s Dad coming home?”

She doesn’t look up. “He didn’t say.”

“Are you two getting divorced, or something?”

“No, Billy. We are not getting divorced.”

She is not very convincing. “Why isn’t he ever around?”

“He’s very busy.”

I think I will live with dad. He doesn’t care if I get into trouble.

“How was math today?” she asks.

“I got a detention.”

Mom’s face only knows two expressions, polite and disappointed. I call it her polite face because she uses nice words, and smiles, and you cannot tell what she is really thinking. “Your mother is so gracious and mannered,” her friends say. Even my friends say, “Hey, your mom is nice, man.” She must feel something behind the politeness, but it doesn’t show. When the plumber broke a pipe leaking water everywhere, she was polite to him. When I was caught shoplifting, she was polite to the police. When dad comes home at breakfast, she is polite to him. She uses her polite face for everyone, except me. I get the other expression, disappointment. I can see it now, and she isn’t even looking up.

“You didn’t turn in your homework, again?”

“I forgot.”

“You have to turn in your homework, to get a good grade, to get into a good college, to get a good job. That’s the way things work, Billy.”

“I know, Mom.” I know what is coming next, too.

“We have rules in this house, Billy: rules about homework, rules about going to class and rules about shoplifting. You can’t fight the rules all the time without destroying yourself.”

I’ve heard this lecture a million times. Now, she delivers it with her head down. It is no longer worth the effort to look at me. If she put it on tape, she wouldn’t even have to be here. She could spend all her time with her charity friends.

“I want a tattoo.”

“Thirteen is too young for body scars.” She can calculate and lecture at the same time. “I should think the bleached hair and the shabby way you dress would be enough to please your friends.”

I make a face. She doesn’t see it.

The chime of the doorbell resonates in the granite–covered surfaces of the kitchen.

Jumping up, I say, “I’ll get it.”

“No. You stay and finish your homework.” She steps away from the table, “Who would call this late?” She walks like a model, heels clicking, arms swaying, with a model’s blank stare.

I hear faint voices from the porch as I work. There is a bump, and then more talking, only louder now, and from inside the entryway. I leave the table quietly and creep down the hall. Peeking around the corner I see two men talking to Mom. One is large, about my dad’s age, short dark hair, and dressed in a suit and tie. His face is rough and chubby and he is wearing black leather gloves. The other is skinny, shorter, and has his hands in the pockets of a long, black trench coat. From under his coat a wrinkled black shirt and colored tie stands out. Stringy black hair hangs straight over his ears.

“I told you, gentlemen, my husband isn’t here,” Mom says politely, backing up to the center of the large entryway, away from the men. They seem to tower over her, although they are only two or three inches taller. The skinny one closes the door behind him and leans on it. The large one is doing all of the talking.

“I didn’t think he would be, Mrs. Henderson. He’s been very slippery lately.”

“Then, perhaps you can come back when he returns.”

“It isn’t necessary that Frank be here for his lesson.”

“What are you talking about?”

There is something weird about this. The two men look dangerous and the tone is scary, but everyone, including my mother, is talking quietly, politely.

“You’re husband is a gambler, Mrs. Henderson, an unlucky one, which I can understand. But your husband is an unlucky gambler who doesn’t pay his debts. That is not tolerated, so we’re here to teach your husband a lesson.”

“Who are you?” My mother’s voice has escalated only slightly.

“As I said, my name is Mr. Smith and this is my associate, Mr. Jones.”

“Look, Frank is away on a business trip.”

“If your husband is a decent man Mrs. Henderson, hurting his family is the most effective lesson. I hope your husband is a decent man. Otherwise, the next lesson is likely to be his last.”

My mother pauses, then begins again, “We have money. If Frank has debts, we can pay you.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not true. Frank has been trying to catch up to some big losses, and you no longer have a savings account and there is a second mortgage on your house, which he hasn’t been making payments on either. The cars are leased and your credit cards are maxed.”

Mom remains straight and formal with her hands held together, while Mr. Smith rocks on his heels, hands also folded. I can see her trying to reason out of this. I wish Dad were here so they would leave her alone.

“There must be some kind of mistake. Frank is careless, but he wouldn’t do that to us.”

The overstuffed gloves reach into the dark blue jacket and pull out several rectangular pieces of paper. He offers them to my mother. “Is this Frank’s signature?”

“Yes.”

“As hard as it is to believe, Mrs. Henderson. I think these bounced checks are persuasive. Am I right?”

She nods.

“Have you looked at your savings account? Have your received any dunning notices?”

Her head drops, “Ye—, Yes.”

“After Frank sees what we have done here, I think he will be more motivated to repay his debt.”

Mom returns the checks and stands with her head still down, lost in thought.

I can’t make sense of the words I have just heard. I have never seen my mom or dad bet on anything, so how could Dad have a gambling debt? It is as if I am watching The Godfather.

Her head comes up. “What are you going to do?”

“We’re professionals Mrs. Henderson. We will hurt you, to make the point to Frank, but it won’t be anything you can’t hide. Just something Frank can see in your face when he comes home.”

I inhale audibly at Mr. Smith’s cold, casual threat, and Mom turns to the kitchen door, sees me, and says sharply, “Run Billy, run away, now!”

I have never heard her sound like that, and I can’t believe she means it. I don’t think I should leave her. In my hesitation, Mr. Jones springs from the door and rushes toward me. I tear away and run for the back door. The time it takes for me to fumble the latch open is time enough for Mr. Jones to catch up. He grabs me by the collar of my sweatshirt and begins slapping my ears with his other hand.

I thrash back at him wildly, but he slaps and pulls me to the ground. “Give it up, punk. You’re had.” I stop fighting and he drags me across the floor, back into the hall.

“Will you look at this skinny little shit? Pants hanging around his knees like one of those skateboard freaks, holes everywhere. I got news for you kid. You ain’t no blond, neither.” He slaps me a couple of more times and pulls me to my feet. “Let me take a couple of teeth, Smith.”

Smith holds up his hand. “Take it easy, Jones. No need for that, yet.” He focuses on my mother again. “That was a good try, Mrs. Henderson. Everyone does it, but it’s over, and you have a choice to make.”

“What kind of choice?”

Smith takes a step toward her. “We are going to do this, Mrs. Henderson, and your choice is this: the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is; you cooperate and do what you’re told, you persuade Billy to cooperate and, in an hour or so, we’ll be on our way. You’ll be sore and humiliated, which should instill in Frank the importance of obligations.

“The hard way is you fight, or encourage Billy to fight, try to get away, or whine a lot, I hate whining, and we do some more serious damage to make sure you stay put and behave. Show her your collection of teeth, Jones.”

Jones eagerly pulls from inside his coat a handful of ragged human molars, strung together on white string, and clacks them. Each hanging tooth is whiter than his yellow grin.

“Jones always wanted to go to war, like his Dad. They wouldn’t let him in, though. Collecting teeth is his way of making up for that.”

Mr. Smith’s hands are still clasped together, and he waits while Mom and I stare at the teeth. Jones pumpkin smile and the teeth remind me of Halloween, and the more I stare, the more my mouth hurts. Mom shows no reaction.

“So what’s it going to be, Mrs. Henderson? The easy way or the hard way.”

“You won’t hurt, Billy? Just me, right”

“If he behaves, I give you my word, we won’t hurt him. Your humiliation should be enough to bring Frank around.”

“Come here, Billy.” Jones lets go of me and I walk to her side. She turns and faces me, placing her hands on my shoulders. “I want you to go along with whatever they ask, no matter how hard. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mom.” Mom doesn’t look scared, but I am.

Mom turns to him. “Very well, Mr. Smith.”

“The easy way?”

“Yes, the easy way.”

“Lock the doors, Jones, and turn out all the lights, then meet us upstairs.” He points to the stairway.

“Can’t we do it down here, there is a spare bedroom down the hall.”

“It should be the marital bed, Mrs. Henderson, to have more impact.”

Mom walks up the stairs holding my hand. I stay one step behind.

Smith follows. “I appreciate the way you’re handling this, Mrs. Henderson. A lot of people fight the inevitable. That’s the problem with Frank. He is always trying to fuck with the inevitable.”

“You won’t need to collect any teeth tonight, Mr. Smith. I don’t fuck with the inevitable.” The word cuts into me. It is the first time I have ever heard my mother swear.

Mom leads me into the master bedroom and Mr. Smith flips on the light switch and closes the door behind us. The room is a picture from one of my mother’s magazines. A king size bed with a puffy white comforter sits against the wall to my left with a television console opposite, centered between two windows. Under each window is a white rattan chair. The door to the combination dressing area and bathroom is near one of the chairs, and the fancy dresser is centered between the two doors. On the other side of the bed is a closet the entire length of the room with mirrored doors.

“Have a seat, folks,” he says, motioning to the bed. He scans the room, then opens the closet door, removes his jacket and hangs it on one of my dad’s hangers. I look at Mom, and then at the closed bedroom door. She looks at Smith, who looks back, curious if she will give me permission to try. She turns away and motions me to the edge of the bed facing the bathroom. Smith removes his tie and dress shirt, exposing a white t–shirt stretched over a medium potbelly.

Mom sits next to me. The scene still seems like an episode of the Sopranos, but I cannot flip the channel. I don’t know why Smith is taking off his clothes, or what he is going to do, and I don’t allow myself to imagine.

As Smith folds his pants and hangs them, Jones pushes open the door. “All secure, Smith.” He stands at the door, leering at Mom, before closing it.

“Good. Take Billy here and tie him down.”

Mom turns to Smith, drops her eyes as though she has seen something she isn’t supposed to, and asks, “He doesn’t have to watch, does he?”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Henderson. It’s a lesson for the whole family.”

“Come here, Punk.” Jones grabs my wrist as I stand, and fastens a plastic cable tie around it. He slips another tie through the first one and tightens it around the doorknob to the bathroom, and pushes me to the floor. He slouches against the dresser, arms folded, fidgeting frequently, watching Smith.

I pull at the tie, testing the strength. “What are you going to do to her?”

Smith is naked now, except for the black curly hair spread over his repulsive, white flesh, and the black gloves he is rubbing together to make squeak. His genitals dangle like my grandfather’s, and bang against his fat thighs. He walks to me, gloves still together, looming, but calm.

“You see, Billy. Your father thinks he can avoid his responsibilities. He’s like a kid. But we all have to do things we don’t want to do. Now, you seem like a nice enough family, and I don’t want to hurt your mother, but I have responsibilities, too. When people don’t follow the rules, bad things happen. You see how it works?”

My stomach drops like the worst elevator ride ever. I hate myself for not trying harder to get away and bring help. Now they are going to hurt Mom, and I am stuck. I am so sorry, Mom. Why isn’t Dad here to help us? He is never around when I need him.

“Stand up Mrs. Henderson,” he says, turning to face her.

Mom removes her earrings, slips the bracelets off her wrist, stands, collects the items in her hand and sets them on the dresser. I expect her to throw the disappointed look at me, but she looks instead, at her wedding ring. Removing it from her finger, she cracks it down on the dresser. Facing Smith, she begins unbuttoning her blouse.

Smith holds up his gloved hand, “I’m going to tear your shirt off. It’ll make a better impression on Frank.” He grasps both sides of the silk shirt below her neck and yanks it apart. Her shoulders shake with the violent motion, and her head snaps back as the second button arches into the air. I pull at my wrist and search for a way to free myself.

Again Smith tears at her shirt, but the material is strong and the remaining buttons hold. He succeeds only in jerking her around. My mother holds up her hand, giving Smith pause, and she pulls the silk out of her pants, releases the buttons in front and on the cuffs, and turns around with her arms hanging down. He pulls it down and off, tightens his lips and tries to tear it, but gives up and throws the white silk at her feet. It shimmers on the floor. Smith pulls her around by the shoulder until she is looking straight at his black, furry chest. She raises her soft brown shoulders, arches her back and looks him in the eye.

Jones reaches into his trench coat pocket, “Here, Smith,” and hands him a pair of scissors, the kind doctors use to cut bandages.

Smith inserts the scissors under a bra strap and cuts to let the cup fall forward, exposing the top of her pink nipple. He cuts the other strap and both nipples push above the edge of the lacy white cups. From my angle they look like peeking red eyes, trying to see something they aren’t supposed to see. With a snap, the scissors sever the stiff material holding the cups together, and her nipples burst forward as the snow–white bra falls away. Mom lifts her head again, not defiant, but not defeated, either. I hear Jones gulp. Smith is staring at her breasts.

Her breasts seem larger naked than when she was wearing a bra. They look like those I’ve seen in my dad’s magazines, maybe not as large, but the shape is so— beautiful. How can she have perfect breasts, too? I have to remind myself this is my mother, but I have never seen anyone’s breasts before. I look away, not wanting to be like Jones, whose neck is locked in a zombie stare.

Smith fondles her, but the pudgy black gloves are not big enough to hold much of her white mounds. He places the rattan chair in front of the console angled toward the dresser and sits, pulling Mom near him, half facing me. Smith moves her breasts around as if he is playing with tennis balls.

He doesn’t look excited. I’ve seen men attack women in the movies and they are rough and angry. Smith is quiet, almost mechanical. He looks like Mom does when she is doing the laundry. My mother’s nipples have grown longer, and stick out of her breasts like miniature Tootsie Rolls. I wonder why.

Smith takes a nipple in his fingers and turns it like a stereo knob, stretching it out away from her. He looks up from time to time to see how my mother is reacting. He crushes her breasts with his fat hands, and his face is so close to them I keep expecting him to suck one into his mouth. My lips are dry and I swallow.

His hands pull back, “Drop your pants, Mrs. Henderson.” The thin black pants slip to her ankles, and she pushes down her panty hose and pulls them off each foot, casually nudging them aside with her toe. Her pale red toenails look like blood spots on the thick, white carpet. Her legs are shapely, tan and shiny smooth. The skin of her stomach is crinkled from the panty hose, the only imperfection I see.

She is a like a soldier, standing up straight, without fear, but naked. Why doesn’t she look embarrassed? I look away again, suddenly embarrassed for her nakedness, embarrassed that I find my mother attractive. I shouldn’t have these feelings. I should be upset at what they are doing to her instead of staring. I should yell or scream for help. I am disgusting.

Smith picks up the scissors from the floor and snips away the sides of her white cotton panties, leaving them hanging between her legs. He teases them away from between the flesh of her thighs, looks at them, and throws them to Jones. Jones catches them, sniffs the crotch like a flower, grins, sticks them in his pants and begins rubbing.

That is so immature! I haven’t done that since I was eleven. I remember the dark odor, but it is so gross when Jones does it, I want to puke. Mom stands poised, her butt is full and round, and soft brown hair makes a triangle between her legs.

“Shave it,” Smith says.

“Why?” my mother asks?

“It’s the little things that make an impression,” and he chuckles.

Mom walks to the bathroom and I close my eyes tight as she passes so she will not see me looking at her. I hear the cabinet doors open and feel her brush pass me again. I hear the release of an aerosol can and the soft scrape of a razor. Only women in magazines have naked pussies. Unable to restrain myself any longer, my eyes open.

Mom is standing in front of Smith with one foot on the seat of his chair, her short, blond hair dangling in her face as she looks between her legs, shaving. The pose is both ordinary and fascinating. I am afraid for my mother, and I like looking at her in the nude. The combination of sensations is upsetting, and it makes me want to run, to get as far away as I can. I also want to watch and, like Jones whose hand is moving slowly up and down inside his over–sized pants, I am unable to stop.

“Damn, Punk. Your mom is one hot looking bitch. I can hardly wait for my turn. Smith always goes first, that’s the rule.”

I lash out at Jones, swinging up to catch his stomach, but the blow is parried by his other hand, which he raises to swing at me. Covering the top of my head with my arm discourages him, but he finds openings and slaps me a couple of times. With me smarting from his slaps, his eyes return to my mother, and he resumes his rubbing.

Uncovering my head I see Mom is staring at me. I can’t tell if she is disappointed I tried, or didn’t succeed. All I can do is sit here. Smith points to her crotch and she resumes shaving. I gawk at the fat thug and my mother in the movie–set bedroom. His dark, rough features make him out of place in the frilly white room, and more out of place next my mother, a beauty and a beast pair that seems so wrong. Jones’ lips have turned up, his eyes grown eager. I am afraid I look like that, and I jerk my head away. My eyes are drawn to her again. I should not want to look, but I do.

It is so crazy. My mother is always dressed. Even when she works in the garden she looks like a movie star. Now she is naked, in front of a stranger who is staring at her crotch. I never thought my mother ever got naked, much less in front of someone.

Mom works the razor with one hand, collects the used shaving cream and hair from between her legs in the other, and presents them both to Smith. Simultaneously, our eyes fall from her hands to the just revealed white mound above a pink cleft.

I have always thought pictures of women’s pussies were ugly, and a little scary, as though with effort I could see their guts. With her foot on the chair, my mother’s is spread before me, not three feet away, and it is magnificent. No picture can convey the worn–shell surface surrounding soft folds of skin that open into the moist pinkness of a sea anemone. It is so unlike anything on a man, amazing in its femininity, compelling in the unique way of opposite things. Three mouths hang open.

“I’m done,” my mother says, waving her full hands in front of Smith’s face to capture his attention.

Smith takes the razor from her and throws it on the floor, leaving her other hand full of hair and cream. He reaches for the rumpled blouse and hands it to her. She carefully wipes her hands, returns it to him, and he hurls that across the room, too. The blouse balloons open when it catches air and lands near the dresser, one side spread out from collar to hem, the sleeve extended, as if carefully placed.

“I gather you’re both going to rape me.”

“Raping and humiliating a wife reminds a man of his obligations every time he looks at her,” Smith says.

Mom knew it. I knew it too, but I was afraid to think it.

Smith leans forward with his elbow on one knee. The black glove reaches for the freshly shaved mound. His face strains as he leans forward and separates the skin with his finger and wiggles the tip inside. Mom has remained fixed on his eyes, and now his eyes fix on hers.

“Do you enjoy raping women, Mr. Smith?” She does not sound angry, only curious.

He continues probing with his finger, his other hand holding her thigh still propped on the chair. “No, I never said that. I only hurt for a reason. I’m like a teacher. People have to learn their lessons.”

“You don’t seem to enjoy teaching Frank his lesson.”

Smith looks briefly at his sleeping penis, barely visible under his volleyball size stomach. He grunts a laugh and pushes his finger in farther. Mom responds by taking a breath, letting her hands fall to her sides, and adjusting her stance for more comfort.

“It seems like the kind of work a man should enjoy,” she says. “Why don’t you?”

“Most women cry when I shove my finger up their cunt. Why don’t you?”

“Will my crying turn you on?”

“I told you, I don’t like hurting women.”

“I believe you, Mr. Smith. What does turn you on?”

“What do you care? You’re going to be raped in front of your son, here. You should be crying about that little piece of business between you. Imagine how you’re going to tell Frank about that.”

“I care because the sooner you get a hard on, the sooner you’ll stop playing with me and rape me, and the sooner Mr. Jones will rape me, and the sooner this will be over. I told you I don’t fuck with the inevitable. Tell me what to do to turn you on.”

“I’ll decide what I do to you and when, and I won’t stop until Frank can see the pain on your tear–stained face, Mrs. Henderson.”

“Well then, we have a problem, Mr. Smith. I don’t cry. I haven’t cried since I was a child, not in over twenty–five years. I spent nine hours giving birth to Billy without medication and I didn’t cry. I have a philandering and irresponsible husband who can’t make me cry. You can rape me and beat me, you can even pull my teeth, but I won’t cry, Mr. Smith.”

It is true! Dad said she didn’t even cry when she broke her leg skiing. I always thought she meant she didn’t cry in front of us, because all women cry. I cry. I’ve seen dad cry too, at Grandma’s funeral. Mom didn’t cry.

Smith screws up his face, “I can see you’re going to be difficult.” He inserts another finger and strokes roughly, looking for a reaction.

“I don’t want to be. Cooperation is the best choice I have. I can pretend to cry, but I am not much of an actress.”

He adds a third finger to his upward jabs, pushing hard enough to lift her off her heel. “How does this feel, Mrs. Henderson?”

Mom winces, “It hurts.” She takes deep breaths to match his thrusts. “You really don’t like hurting women, do you? You should see your face, Mr. Smith. You look like you’re murdering babies, and you’re still soft.”

“I’ll put my fist in your cunt. See how you like that.”

“The question is, how will you like that?”

Smith wags his other fingers at her, “You’re starting to piss me off.”

She rests the fingers of her hand on the wrist between her legs, and his motion ceases. “I don’t want to make you angry. Just raping me is enough to humiliate Frank, believe me. He practically bleeds when someone borrows his tools. My crying won’t add anything. Let me help you rape me.”

He pulls his fingers out and points the middle one at her face. “You’re not in control here, I am,” he yells. Jones stops rubbing. Only the dumbest adults point with their middle finger.

My mother gets down on her knees in front of him, “I don’t want to fight you, Mr. Smith. Tell me how to turn you on.” Mom begins to glide her fingers through the thick hair on his thighs.

He quickly lifts both of her wrists away from his legs, “Mrs. Henderson, you’re acting like a whore.”

“Will that please you? If I enjoy being raped by you, will that turn you on?”

“Stop it.” Smith is growing more annoyed. “It’s not about me. It’s about humiliating you so Frank will learn his lesson.”

“I should warn you, I don’t humiliate easily, either. I am a victim here, Mr. Smith. So whatever I do will be done in that context. I am not going to blame myself for it later. If I help you rape me, even if I have real orgasms while you and Mr. Jones take turns raping me, I’ve heard that happens sometimes, I will not feel bad about it later. So lets get down to business. Let me put your dick in my mouth.” She puts her hands on his knees, turns her head sideways and reaches with her lips for the floppy meat wedged underneath his stomach.

Smith puts his palm on her forehead and pushes her back, brushing her hands from him, until she sits on her ankles. “I don’t like blow jobs,” he says.

My mother was going to give him a real blow job. Mothers don’t give blow jobs. He must be crazy to refuse. What does he want? I didn’t expect her to fight him, but Mom is fighting in a way, fighting by cooperating. She talks back to him without getting upset, or critical.

They trade stares. His right hand pulls his penis from under his stomach and begins stroking. Mom’s face is placid, his is troubled, as if he can’t understand her. I’ve never seen another man masturbate, and I am embarrassed that he looks just like I do, only I don’t sit in a chair or wear gloves. His penis is getting harder and my mother watches his eyes. His head leans back and rolls from side to side, while his lids drop.

“Who are you thinking of Mr. Smith? It can’t be me. I’m down here.”

He ignores her and continues jerking off in front of her face. My mother tries to make eye contact, but Smith’s eyes open only erratically as he works the gloved hand, shiny from my mother’s juices. He leans back in the chair, his belly bouncing from the increasingly rapid pumping, and his lips part to show his clenched teeth.

Suddenly he leans forward and grabs Mom’s ear, pulling her head closer, aiming his penis at her. “Oh,” he says, only it is a shout. He draws her face in closer and a white stream spurts into the air and lands on my mothers eyebrow and cheek, and trails down across her mouth and chin. A second spurt lands on her nose; a third falls off the end of his penis smearing his glove and thigh. He releases her ear and she sits back.

Jones laughs like a first–grader.

My mother stares at Smith with her hands in her lap as the sticky cream drips downward. She blinked when his cum landed but she didn’t flinch or turn away, as if that would mean he won. She doesn’t try to wipe it off either. How can she look beautiful with cum on her face?

His stomach heaves up and down for a few more seconds and his face assumes a puzzled look as he focuses on her. Smith smiles teasingly and says, “Mrs. Henderson, I came on your face.”

“How pornographic. I never understood why men like to do that. Doesn’t it feel better to come inside?”

“It’s humiliating, isn’t it? I’ll bet Frank will be able to see that in your eyes.”

“It’s just messy, Mr. Smith.”

“Then I’m sure you won’t mind eating it.” Gathering the semen from her face on one of the fat, black fingers, he presses against her lips. She opens and licks the finger clean, yet seems disconnected from him because she doesn’t look at the finger, she looks at his face. I’ve heard about women eating come, but I never thought it would look so gross. My stomach churns.

He collects the remainder from her face and inserts the leather finger back into her mouth. After he withdraws his finger, she swallows, rises slightly and points with her chin, “You want me to lick the rest of that off your thigh?”

Why would she offer that? How can she eat his cum without reacting?

Smith looks disappointed. He slides his finger across his hairy leg to capture the dripping semen and holds it to her lips. Mom licks his finger again, pulls back with the trace of a grin and says, “You don’t want me to touch your skin, do you?”

His eyes are suddenly still and cold.

“Most men would want to put their dick in my mouth, but you don’t. And you wear gloves. What are you afraid of?”

Smith pushes her away, and stands.

Jones pulls his hands out of his pants and steps forward. “Let me have her, Smith. I’ll teach that bitch not to be a smart ass.”

Smith waves him on. I am frightened again. Smith has been relaxed with my mother, but Jones is jumpier, less predictable.

Jones throws his black coat on the white rug and pulls his clothes off as fast as he can, all the time muttering, “I’m gonna fuck you, bitch, so bad. When I’m done with you, you’re gonna know you been fucked.”

Mom stands and takes a step back while his clothes are ejected to the floor in front of the dresser. He stands before her naked, confusion on his face. Jones frantically grabs her breasts, pulls her roughly toward him, and malls her with his skinny fingers tipped with chewed off nails. He is an inch taller than Mom and his bony body pressed against hers looks like a skeleton dancing with a Barbie doll.

Mom struggles to find a comfortable embrace with him, to kiss him, but he is jerky and frantic and won’t settle down. She tries not to obstruct him, but it is as if he doesn’t know what to do. He mashes her lips and pulls on her butt.

“It’s okay,” she says, trying to calm him. “You’ll do fine.”

His face turns angry. “Shut up,” he yells through twisted lips, “or I’ll slap the shit out of you.” He pushes my mother hard with both hands. She stumbles backward and turns to land on her side on the bed.

I shake the doorknob and pull at the plastic tie. I want to help her so bad I am burning inside, but I am of no use to her. Smith points a finger at me, forcing me back against the door. Tears are running and I wipe them with my loose arm. I’ll do anything to help her, anything so they don’t hurt her. I’ve been a terrible son and I should have been better. I can do better in school, I’ll follow the rules, and I’ll be nice to her, I promise. Please, God, don’t let them hurt her.

Rolling to her back and propping herself up on her shoulders, she eyes Jones. She should be afraid but that is not the look on her face. She is alert, cautious, and somehow confident.

Jones’ penis has been stiff since he took off his clothes and now he follows it toward my mother dangling her feet over the edge of the bed.

Smith calls, “Jones!” He stops, turns, reaches into his coat pocket on the floor, pulls out a condom, tears it open, and rolls it on. Unlike Smith, Jones’ penis is long and thick. “How do you like this cock, bitch?” Pulling her thighs up with both hands, leaving her legs to hang below the knees, he makes desperate promises. “I’m gonna fuck you now, you snotty, blond bitch,” and he shoves against my mother. His butt bumps forward, jiggling her breasts back and forth, and making her head nod. He is grunting like he can’t get inside, but I can’t see with Mom’s leg in the way.

As he bucks against her she stretches both arms above her head and says, “A little slower. Please.” He continues to bang at her until she touches his cheek and repeats, “Please.”

Her touch seems to have broken the machine because he halts, falls forward, halts, and backs up to start again. She lifts her legs out of his hands and wraps them around his back, which slows him further. Then she takes a hand and places it on her breast, and stretches out again.

He turns to Smith briefly, then to my mother, “I have to fuck you hard,” he says, “so you’ll cry.”

“Gently, Mr. Jones. Make me cry with joy.”

Jones anger is replaced by a quick smile, then more confusion. “You ain’t supposed to enjoy it.” His movement slows, “You’re supposed to— cry.”

“I’m not going to cry, so let’s cooperate.”

Jones slams hard. “That ain’t the way we do it. I’m supposed to fuck ‘em hard and fast, that’s my job. You’ll cry when I get to going on you.” He turns his face toward me and closes his eyes. He quickly slows when he gazes at her again.

I hear slurping noises and can see his dick sliding in and out of my mother. I realize she is being raped, the worst thing that can happen to a woman, and I shrink down, my helplessness like a weight around my neck. My mother is not crying, though, and I don’t understand why.

“That’s much more comfortable, Mr. Jones. Thank you.”

Smith, who has been sitting back in the chair, sighs and smirks.

Jones opens his eyes, pulls out of my mother, and says, “Get on your hands and knees, Lady. I’m gonna fuck you the other way now.” He adds to Smith, “Hard. Hardest fuck you’ve ever had.”

My mother turns and climbs onto the middle of the bed facing the closet. Jones crawls on the bed behind and plunges inside, his hips beating her forward so that my mother has to push back to keep from being propelled off the bed. I know this is called doggy style, and that’s what Jones looks like: my epileptic dog before he died. His hips slap and slurp against her, and he grunts and swears. He paws at her tits and grows even more frenetic trying to ‘fuck her hard.’

Stretching my tethered arm out I look over the bed and into the mirror on the closet door to see my mother’s tits clutched in his fingers, then free and swinging, then smothered with his hands again. Her head is up and she is looking at Jones’ reflection, her eyes unwavering, in spite of the rough jostling.

Smith reclines in the chair, as if he is watching a movie. As the minutes pass, I keep expecting him to be nibbling at popcorn. He looks at me the same way the convenience store clerk does, wondering what I’m going to steal. It reminds me I shouldn’t be so interested.

Jones’ face sweats profusely and his hairless white body is becoming a splotchy pink as he seizes against my mother. He goes on and on. When will he finish? I never imagined sex would look so difficult. I wonder how my mother can stand it.

Smith sits forward and shakes his head in disgust at the bed. “You dumb shit.”

“When’s he going to stop?” I whisper.

“This happens all the time, now. He can’t come. It’s like he’s stuck and can’t go any further.”

Jones alternates mumbles with angry yells, “Gonna fuck you, bitch.” A crazy, endless prayer synchronized with his bumping my mother. He is still hard as he goes in and out of her, but he is in pain because he can’t finish. This makes no sense. How can he not finish after all this time? It only takes me a minute.

Panting heavily, he falls onto my mother’s back, as if he has died, dangling his arms around her, motionless. I can hear the sound of his sweat drenched stomach slide off my mother, and his rubberized penis suck out of her vagina as he falls onto his back on the bed. His voice is barely a whisper, “Gonna fuck that bitch.”

My mother sits and rubs her butt, watching him.

“Oh, fuck, it hurts,” cries Jones.

“Dumb shit,” says Smith. “Gets a great piece of ass like that and he can’t squirt.”

Jones’ penis is pointing toward the ceiling like a just fueled rocket and he is whimpering, “It hurts so bad.” At least he is done with my mother. I hope his dick explodes.

I sigh with relief that Mom’s ordeal is over and she doesn’t seem too badly damaged. I am reduced to wishing for minimal damage, and I wipe my eyes and nose on my sleeve.

Smith sits with his hands on his knees, fascinated by Jones’ problem or by my mother, I can’t tell which. Finally, he says, “Dumb shit. Can’t hardly call it rape if he doesn’t come.”

Mom is watching Jones as though she is working on the checkbook, calculating. She turns to Smith in the chair, more calculations. She scoots hesitantly over to Jones and whispers in his ear. He jerks to attention. “No shit, Lady. Can you make me come?”

My mom nods her head, bends over and whispers to him again.

Jones glances at Smith, then says, “All right. If I don’t come, I’m gonna die.”

My mother begins stroking him, drawing the rubber up and down.

“Careful,” he says, “It hurts.”

She continues as she lowers her head to his penis, opens her mouth and surrounds the rubber bulb with her lips. I can see her tongue licking as she raises her head. My mother is giving him a blow job she didn’t have to.

Smith is leaning so far off the chair in the direction of my mother he is crouching more than sitting. I sit straight up to see more clearly. She crunches the base a few times with one hand, and pokes her finger somewhere underneath his testicles with the other. “Son–of–a–bitch,” says Jones as her finger goes in and out. I can’t tell what she is doing. Jones gasps, goes rigid, and then his chest collapses emitting a long groan. He sits up on his elbows, opens his eyes to her, and a stunned smile grows on his face. My mother pulls away, leaving her mouth open, and slimy drool eases over her lips and drizzles onto his penis. When there is no more in her mouth, she wipes her lips with the back of her hand. Jones falls back to the bed with his arm over his eyes.

“May I go to the bathroom?”

Smith drops his head and waves my mother toward the door I am sitting against.

I am so ashamed of my inability to help her I look away as she passes into the room behind me. My mother has been stripped and raped and I watched it all. It makes me nauseous and I clutch my stomach, wondering where I can throw up. My body is tingling everywhere and I feel like I am going crazy.

Smith’s earlier look of suspicion has grown, and he says to Jones, “What the hell did she say to you?” Jones doesn’t look up.

I hear the tinkle, the toilet flush, and water running in the sink. Mom returns and sits on the edge of the bed, hands resting on closed knees, her face clean and shinny. She is naked, her hair disheveled, but posed like one of her figurines on the bookshelf downstairs.

Jones rises slowly as he regains his sensibilities. He sits up next to my Mom and looks at her with a slack jaw, then says to Smith. “Showed her a thing or two, huh?”

Smith looks intently at my mother, and she returns his stare. “I wonder, Jones. I wonder.”

Jones goes into the bathroom.

Mom sits with her perfectly polite expression; not smiling, not angry or even upset. Inscrutable, Dad always said. I have often seen the look on her, but considering what she has been through, I can’t believe she doesn’t break down. There must be a lot going on inside mom, even when she looks like that. It gives me hope. I am so grateful she survived and she doesn’t look bad at all.

Smith stands up. “Mrs. Henderson, this would be enough for most women, but I think you need something extra. If Frank can’t see the humiliation, then I haven’t done my job.”

There is a trace of frustration on her face, but only for an instant. “I’ve done what you asked. More, even.”

“Yes, that’s the part that confuses me. I’ve met women who like to be used and abused, they seem to think it means you care about them. Some even get turned on by getting the crap beat out of them. But getting abused doesn’t turn you on, does it?”

“No.”

“I wonder what does.” He stares the way my mother stares in a museum, as if there is something hidden in the art. He must have found something because he says, “Stand over here and touch your toes, Mrs. Henderson. I’m going to fuck you in the ass.”

My head burns in frustration. Why can’t they go now and leave us alone?

Jones exits the bathroom wiping his hands, saying, “Hell, Smith. You ain’t never done that before. You always come on their faces, and I do the fucking. Let’s go home.”

Smith looks as if he has been caught in a lie. “We can’t go home until our job is done. She needs more.”

Jones stutters, “But those aint’ the rules, Smith. You always said we should stick to the rules. That if we don’t stick to the rules, things go wrong, and we don’t get our job done.”

Smith yells, “Does she look humiliated? No, she looks fresh as a daisy.” He jerks his hand at my mother for her take her position. “And you. You couldn’t even come in her. You needed her help to get off. What the fuck is that?”

My mother stands and walks to Smith, looking him in the eye, “Really, Mr. Smith, Frank will know what happened here, Billy has witnessed everything. You’ve done your job. Let us be.”

Smith gestures with his gloved finger for her to turn around. My mother turns and seeks out Jones. Their eyes meet briefly and he shrugs and turns away. She sighs and backs her body into Smith’s stomach. He recoils and steps back, the frustration bleeding into his face. “Bend over, Mrs. Henderson.”

“How are you going to do this without touching me?”

“Jones!” Smith snaps a gloved finger, “Get me a rubber.”

Jones picks up his trench coat off the floor and digs around in the pocket until he pulls out another of the square plastic packages. My mother bends over and Smith lays the package on her rear, rests one hand on her, and begins massaging his penis with the other. Jones watches his boss nervously. “You already come once, how you gonna do it again?”

Smith pulls an angry face causing Jones to look away. He is having difficulty getting an erection and he closes his eyes and pumps hopefully. Finally, he tears the plastic open with his teeth and squeezes the transparent condom onto his semi–erect penis. “Here I come,” he says, his grin an unconvincing threat. He squeezes his penis at the base, stiffening the tip. He pushes the fat arrow into her opening and rocks slowly. I hear small gasps from my mother as she grasps her calves.

“How does that feel, Mrs. Henderson?”

“This position is very difficult.”

“That’s just what I’m looking for. A little distress on your face.”

“And there is no lubricant.”

He continues mashing into her. I thought only gay men had anal intercourse. Why doesn’t he do it the regular way? At least he is wearing a condom.

He stops suddenly, and I see that his penis has fallen out and gone limp. “Shit,” he whispers.

Jones, who is standing on his tiptoes, looks nervously at the problem. “What’s the matter, Smith? I got some pills if you want.”

“Shut the fuck up. You and your pills. I don’t need pills to do my job.”

Jones swallows, holds his neck and turns in a circle. A loud crack echoes through the room. Smith has hit my mother’s butt and knocked her to the floor.

“Why is he hurting her?” I whisper to Jones. “She’s doing what he wants.”

“He don’t like it that she isn’t crying.” He pushes his hair back in frustration, “If she would cry, we could go.”

Smith bends down on one knee and wraps a black glove around a strand of hair and jerks her head close to his. “I’m gonna fuck you in the ass, if it’s the last thing I do.”

Mom calmly replies. “Let me help.”

“I don’t need your help.” Still holding her hair he massages himself. He closes his eyes and looks away, working the glove on the condom, but he doesn’t get stiff. His face looks pained. Jones is fidgeting with his clothes and mutters, “This ain’t the way we do it.”

My mother’s neck is crooked as he holds her on the floor, but she reaches to rest her hand on his glove. “Please, Mr. Smith, I know what you need.” He releases her hair and his penis, and stands. Towering over her in the Superman pose with his hands on his hips, his face in anguish, he says, “You don’t know shit.” The release tumbles his head to his chest, but he holds the pose, as if afraid he will fall down.

My mother stands gracefully, walks to the side of the bed and lies on her back with her butt at the edge. She pulls her knees up until they are resting on her breasts, exposing her brown, wrinkled anus. Another site I never thought I would see. She pats her ass with one hand. “Come here, Mr. Smith.

Unsure at first, he walks over until his limpness is next to her genitals, leaving his gloved hands folded on his hips, staring at the closet mirror ahead, afraid to look at her.

Mom reaches between her legs and massages him with both hands. He remains limp.

“I need some lubricant, Mr. Jones, from the bathroom.” Jones, happy for something meaningful to do, responds quickly and returns from the bathroom with a tube, and hands it to her. Jones lingers on my mom, looks at Smith’s limpness, and returns to the doorway near me when he sees him scowl. “Don’t worry kid,” he says to me, “Your mother knows how to get a guy off. Then we’ll have to go.”

She takes a daub from the tube with her index finger and holds it up to Smith, drawing his attention from the mirror. When he looks, she places it on her anus and massages it slowly, and then pushes inside. My mother keeps lubricant in the bathroom so she can stick her finger up her butt. I never would have guessed. Do all mothers do that? She inserts several more daubs, each time going in deeper until her finger can go no further, then she twists her finger side to side as she slides it out. Jones is getting hard as he watches.

I squirm on the floor and I am starting to sweat, it is so hot in here. There is so much going on, and I am seeing things I never thought I would see. My eyes are fixed like a cartoon, and I no longer try to restrain myself from looking.

She takes another daub from the tube, “Now your finger.”

He stretches his leather–clad index finger toward her.

Holding his finger back, she says, “Take off the glove, Mr. Smith.”

Surprised, he says “No.”

“Against the rules?”

“I can’t,” he whispers, shaking his head in pain.

My mother wipes the jelly on her breast, and begins to roll off the glove.

He pulls his hand back, “I never take the gloves off.”

“Why is that, Mr. Smith?” As she pulls it from his reluctant hand he gasps. He looks like I feel in that dream I have about finding myself naked in school. I am in the hall and I can’t find my clothes when the bell rings and everyone comes out of class. The glove falls to the floor. “Now, the other one.” Smith watches vacantly as the second glove drops at his feet.

Mom grabs and covers his finger with the sticky, clear liquid from her breast, and adds more from the tube until the excess drips between her spread legs. Smith is afraid to relax his hand and arm, giving up only gradually. Guiding his slimy finger to her anus, she works it in until it disappears. Smith groans but he is not helping, as if his finger is paralyzed. She grabs his wrist with both hands and forces it in and out.

“Why, Mr. Smith? Why can’t you touch women?”

He murmurs something, shaking his head.

“How did that become against the rules?”

His guided hand pumps in and out slowly. Mom removes her hands, letting him glide under his own power. He pokes timidly, as if he is making a choice on a computer screen. His breathing grows heavy and his poking more confident.

“Very good, Mr. Smith. Shall we move on?” She takes his rubber–clad penis in her hands and massages. I can see it getting bigger and she continues to apply goo and stroke it forcefully. Quickly, she removes the condom, throws it to the floor, and smears on more goo.

“No,” he whispers.

She slathers the buoyant shaft and strokes him until he grows even harder in her hands. Mom bends it down and nudges the tip into her anus. “Forget the rules. Fuck me in the ass with your naked dick, Mr. Smith.”

“I can’t,” he says.

She reaches and grabs him by the hips and pulls forward, burying the tip.

He withdraws. “I promised myself I would never touch another woman, like this.”

She pulls him inside again. He retreats, his penis tip bouncing up as it pops out, only to be directed in again by my mothers slim fingers.

“How long has it been?”

“Three years.”

“Push it in, Mr. Smith.”

He looks as though he is about to fall down, then he pushes his penis halfway in.

“All the way, now.”

He groans as he pulls out and falls back in, burying his penis inside my mother’s ass. I am so dizzy I think I’m going to fall down. I reach for the corner of the console to steady myself and still see. Smith’s back is arched forward, his feet on the floor, his pelvis flat against my Mom’s, and his head is thrust backward to balance, his throat gurgling.

“Did you do this to her?” she asks.

He leans forward and hovers over her. “She let me do anything. She didn’t always like it, but she took it.”

“She did it because she loved you.”

Smith pushes in hard and pulls back and I am amazed a penis can fit into my mother’s tiny ass so easily. She holds his hips as he begins stroking slowly, her breasts swaying gently. Smith’s head twists toward the ceiling, his nose sniffing. He looks as though he is choking on something. His in and out motion consists of short strokes to match his short dick. His hands begin rubbing her thighs as he pumps more vigorously.

“You remind me of her.”

“I thought so.”

Smith is not holding back now. He scoots closer and jerks my mother and the bed toward the mirror.

“She wasn’t as pretty as you, but nothing could upset her, either. God, she was strong.”

“Is that why you wanted to fuck me in the ass, because you miss her?”

Smith’s face is bright red as he bounces his stomach on my mother and tries to push her across the bed. He starts gurgling again, then shouts, “Oh,” freezes against her, then falls forward on top of her.

My mother rests her arms loosely on his back and turns around his shoulder to look at me. I am embarrassed to be caught looking so interested, and I shrink down, noticing my pants. Watching my mother get screwed in the butt has made me horny, and I hate myself. I am the worst kid in the world. I hope she doesn’t see my bulge. I look again but I can’t make out her expression from this angle. I notice Jones has gotten stiff again, too.

Smith pushes up onto his hands leaving his hips still stuck to hers. I rise up again to see my mother’s face, and she has the slightest smile. Is she smiling because she got screwed in the butt, or because she figured out what Smith wanted so he will leave?

“She broke the rules though, Smith says, his eyes narrow. Her smile dissolves. “She stole money from my boss.” His hands slip around my mother’s throat. “She didn’t have to, we had enough. She did it for us, she said.”

He begins squeezing her throat, flexing the muscles in his arms. “She wouldn’t admit she was wrong, said we deserved it.” There is a short burst of laughter from Smith, then, “I had to be the one. That’s the rule.” His face is red again, but with anger this time. I leap to my feet and pull at the door trying to get to my mother.

Jones shouts, “Smith!”

“Stop it!” I yell.

“She knew, too,” Smith continues. “I fucked her in the ass because I knew it would be the last time I would ever feel her around me, and she knew what I had to do, and she didn’t fight. She didn’t cry. She just looked at me with love and I had to keep going.”

My mother’s face is red as she tries to break his grip, but he keeps choking her.

Jones hurls himself on top of Smith, reaching an arm under his neck trying to pull him off. “Smith, this ain’t the rule. You can’t kill her.” Now Smith is choking from the arm against his neck and he releases a hand from my mother trying to peel off Jones. Jones’ body flails on Smith’s back trying to get more leverage. Smith lets go of my mother, backs away and turns several times around the room with the clinging Jones on his back.

“You can’t do this,” Jones keeps yelling.

Smith twirls again flinging Jones to the floor. He picks up the rattan chair, raises it high above his head, and smashes it on the dresser. The chair crumples and he smashes it again, dropping a leg to the floor near Jones.

I pull back at the noise, shudder and pull again at my plastic cuff.

Smith picks up the severed chair leg and points at my mother, “I’m going to shove this up your ass, Mrs. Henderson, and wipe that complacency off your face. And then I’m going to beat your blond head in.”

Jones scrabbles off the floor and stands between my mother recovering on the bed and Smith. “I ain’t gonna let you do that, Smith. I always follow orders, but I ain’t gonna let you use that stick on her, no Sir.”

A smile of realization comes over Smith. “You told her you’d protect her, didn’t you.”

Jones fidgets, looks back at my mother, and returns his frightened gaze to Smith.

“You sold me out for a blow job.”

“It ain’t the way we do things, Smith. We should follow the rules. Besides, you always said it should hurt, but not show. That’s a rule, too. You got to find something else to hurt her, something that don’t show.”

Smith’s hand falls and he looks at the collapsed chair at his feet. He drops the stick, picks up his gloves and goes into the bathroom. I hear him pee.

Jones tends to my mother who sits up. “Are you okay, Lady?” he asks. My mother stands, straightens and, except for some redness around her neck, looks remarkably well. I smile in relief, amazed at my mother’s strength.

“I’m sorry. I thought we was done,” Jones says.

Mom puts her arms around Jones’ skinny neck and gives a little squeeze. He stands awkwardly in her embrace.

“Lady, why don’t you just cry, like other women?”

She releases Jones saying, “We all have rules.”

“You sure did a number on him, Mrs. Henderson.” Smith is standing in the doorway of the bathroom with his gloves dripping wet. He has washed them, apparently while wearing them. Full of sarcasm, he says, “I think he is in love with you.” No longer angry, he strolls to the foot of the bed.

“You did a number on me too with… Well, I guess you know how.” Pacing again, he says, “Jones is right, though. This isn’t personal. It’s professional. My job is to make your husband take notice. There are some guys who are into beating up women, but that’s just sick.” His head pulls up as his pacing brings him to my mother, “I’m sorry for that.” Turning again, “The trick is to find something that shows the hurt inside, but doesn’t leave a mark outside, so every time Frank looks at you he will see the pain in your eyes. That’s what people remember,” he points wet, gloved fingers at his own eyes, “the pain in the eyes.”

Smith is strutting around the room now, very pleased with himself. “You know how to take it, Mrs. Henderson, better than anyone I’ve seen. We could pull your teeth, but I think you would take that too, even if I could get Jones to do it now, which I doubt.

“I needed to find a way to upset you, something psychological like, so you couldn’t hide behind that pretty face and pretend it doesn’t mean anything.”

Mom and I are both watching his speech. Even Jones turns toward Smith. “What are you going to do, Smith? I don’t think I can fuck any more, my cock’s tired.”

“You stay away from her, or you’ll be trying to marry her next. No, I’ve got just the thing. Go over there and cut Billy loose.” Jones locates the wire cutters in the detritus of the chair and walks to me.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt Billy if I cooperated. You can’t say I didn’t cooperate, Mr. Smith.” Mom remains cool. If anything, she is cooler than before.

“I won’t go back on my word. We are not going to lay a hand on Billy, Mrs. Henderson.” He rocks on his heels with his hands clasped behind his back making his junk bounce, “But you are.”

Jones cuts the plastic ties and sends me over to Smith who holds me in place by the neck. I am confused about what Smith is going to do to me.

“Take off his clothes, Mrs. Henderson.”

For the first time tonight, she pauses at one of his commands. Making the decision, she takes the two steps necessary to stand in front of me. In spite of her mussed hair, she looks formal, commanding. In awe, I hang my head, which leaves me staring at her breasts and the remainder of her body.

“Look at me, Billy.” She grabs my face with both hands and pulls upward, looking directly into my eyes. “You haven’t done anything wrong. There is nothing you could have done to prevent this. No one could have done any better than you have, not anyone. Do you understand?”

“I should have run away when you said. I could have gotten help.”

“No, Billy. They knew we would try that. You never would have gotten away. We were both trapped with bad choices. I’m not going to feel guilty about being a victim and neither are you, all right?”

I barely nod my head.

“Now listen to me. I know what they want and I want you to cooperate. You are the most important thing in the world to me and nothing is going to change that. No matter what happens here. Do you love me?”

“Yes, Mom. I love you.”

“Then we will get through this together. All right?”

“All right.”

Her voice softens, “I’m going to take your clothes off now.”

Once again I am so afraid of what is going to happen I refuse to imagine and close my eyes. Perhaps they will rape me too, like in prison. I want to cry as I think of the two of them sticking their dicks in me. She is right though, there is nothing I can do. Even if I could get away, I would be leaving her alone. I resolve to be as brave as she has been. If she can handle it without crying, so can I.

Mom begins pulling my shirt up, and I try to help.

Smith waves a hand, “Let her do it, Billy.”

I relax and Mom pulls my shirt from my arms. She moves behind me and speaks in my ear. “I used to do this when you were a child, Billy. Do you remember me giving you a bath? Just think of it as me giving you a bath.”

The image swallows me, laughing with my mother as she tickled and undressed me and helped me into the bathtub. It was so long ago, but I feel the joy of it again. I am on the verge of crying for the loss of that joy. So much has changed between us since then. It is my fault.

Dropping my shirt to the floor she begins massaging my shoulders, relaxing me. “You’re a very good looking young man,” she says. “You should be proud of your physique.”

The comment is very unlike Mom. If she noticed my body before, she has never let on. I want her to be proud of me. I roll my head slightly, enjoying the warmth and pressure of her hands on me. She has hugged me and kissed me on the cheek, but never touched me just to make me feel good. It is an acceptance I want more of.

She slides her hands down the sides of my back, sending shivers through me, and reaches under my arms for the buckle on my belt. I watch as her manicured nails pull the belt apart and twist the button out of the hole. The exquisitely feminine fingers unzip my pants and she drags her hands to my stomach and presses her breasts into my back with a squeeze. It is as if I am in a sauna, the warmest I have ever felt.

Mom presses her lips to my ear and whispers, “You’re going to get horny. It’s okay. There is nothing you can do to stop it. That’s the way the body works, sometimes. It doesn’t mean your bad, it only means your body is responding the way it is designed to. I’m not going to feel bad about getting horny and I don’t want you to feel bad about it either.”

What is she talking about? I am not going to get horny with guys. Is she going to get horny watching me get raped? Well, I guess I got a little horny watching her, but— jeez, this is confusing. The things I have seen tonight are mixing me up.

Her fingertips linger on my shoulder and fall down my chest as she moves to the front of me again. As she moves, I glimpse Smith and Jones leaning against the dresser, puffy flesh next to dangling bones, and watching closely, amused.

Mom steps into me and presses her breasts against me again, and I can feel her nipples embedded in the flesh below mine.

Now this is making me horny. I am gripped with fear, though. What will she think of my erection? She will know what I’ve been thinking and feeling about her.

The sensation makes my legs and arms go rigid and I want to scream. She whispers in my ear again. “Billy, just let it happen, there is nothing you can do to stop it.” I relax at her reassurance and let my body be enveloped by hers.

“Wrap your lips around his cock, Mrs. Henderson. Suck your little boy’s dick.”

They’re not going to rape me! They want Mom to give me a blow job. I am trying to decide which is worse. I’m horny, but it isn’t right. I don’t want Mom to think I would enjoy something so wrong.

Mom falls to her knees and pulls my jeans down and encourages me to step out of them. Her face turns up to me and she slips my penis between her lips. The heat of her mouth stiffens me quickly and she sucks the head in and pushes it back out with her tongue a few times.

“No!” I step backward pulling my penis from her, yelling, “I won’t do this with my mother.”

“You want me to slap him, Smith.

Smith waves Jones back. “If you want us to leave, Mrs. Henderson, convince him. Suck like you mean it. I want to see how pleasant you look when you swallow his wad.”

Mom reaches for my hips and beckons with her eyes. “You said you love me, Billy. Just show me you love me, that’s all. I know it’s not right, but we have no choice. Do it with love, Billy. For me. We can get through this is we do it with love.”

I step forward again and allow Mom to take me in. This is what I was afraid to imagine. I wanted my mother to suck my dick and now she is. I should go to hell for wanting that. She is doing more than required, stroking me with her right hand, grazing her fingernails across the underside of my testicles with her left. She wants me to feel good, like the massage, only in this more intimate way. Her eyelids strain to see my face, to see if she is pleasing me, and for the first time I smile. I am delighted she thinks I am worthy of pleasing.

I brush strands of golden hair thickened by sweat away from her eyes so it does not get caught in her mouth. I want her to be comfortable. When they are all tucked neatly behind her ears I rest my palm on her head, then both palms, and slowly let them slide down behind. She pushes back against my hands, then stops. I wait, unsure what she wants me to do, and she pushes back again. I exert the slightest pull forward and she slides on me and off to wait for my next nudge. She wants me to guide her. She wants me to be in control of how she pleases me, and this excites me. I hold her head more firmly to increase her back and forth motion and she sucks more vigorously.

She has turned herself over to me, the most wonderful surrender, and I encourage her to take me deeper with gentle finger pressure behind her head. I push the wrongness of what we are doing away, far away, while I pull on her head. Do it with love, she said. The image of her eating Smith’s come flashes and I wonder if she will swallow mine. Will I taste good?

With each steady stroke Mom takes more of me, and the earnestness of her action makes my eyes flutter and I can feel nothing but her on me. I have had no experience with blow jobs and the thrill is about to make me come. I fuck faster at her face. She pulls my hips forward with both hands and impales herself, pushing her lips into the bone above my dick until I can feel her bottom teeth on my scrotum. I feel the searing breath from her nose alternating with her swallowing around the head of my penis, now lodged in her throat. The muscles of her throat grind rhythmically around me. The tempo is slow; a warm milking that teases me to toward climax until I disgorge into her. I grunt hoarsely and she digs her hands into my hips as I spurt into her again and again. She continues swallowing it all.

“I’ll be a son–of–a–bitch. She deep–throated her own son,” says Smith.

“That lady knows how to suck dick,” says Jones.

Mom pulls away, making sure nothing is left to spill, and stands before me. She is smiling proudly at me and I pull her in and hug her. I can think of nothing else to say and I whisper “I love you,” in her ear. She squeezes me in response.

“You amaze me, Mrs. Henderson. Even after this disgusting display of incest, you’re smiling. You don’t look ashamed at all.”

“I love my son, Mr. Smith, and nothing is going to change that. You can’t make me ashamed of something you forced us to do.” Mom’s eyes stay focused on me and I try to smile in return. The word ‘incest’ is still ringing in my ear.

“You might be able to toss off a blow job to a virgin thirteen–year–old, but lets see how you feel after he makes you come.” Mr. Smith turns to me. “Suck her off, Billy. Keep going until you make her come. A real one, Mrs. Henderson. You’ll keep at it until I believe it. Frank should be able to see that dirty piece of business in your eyes.”

I am suddenly frightened about what is expected of me. Now it’s up to me to make them leave. I don’t want to fail and disappoint Mom. She puts her arm around me and leads me to the bed. She must see the worry. “I’ll show you what to do, Billy. I know you’ll be able to make me come.”

She reclines on her back on the bed, spreads her legs and points to her vulva. It is truly beautiful and I desperately want to rub it against my cheek. I kneel on the bed between her legs and place my head near enough to smell a strong, almost repulsive odor wafting upward. I have never smelled anything similar, a deliciously dirty odor. Like what we are doing, the nastiness makes it better instead of worse.

Mom delicately pulls her labia apart and places her index finger on a pink bump near the top. I know only what has been described to me about sex, or what I’ve read in textbooks, and I have no idea how to please a woman. Masturbation isn’t very good practice for the real thing and I don’t think rubbing it with my cheek is going to do it.

“Lick this,” she says. “Massage it slowly with your tongue.”

I flatten myself on the bed and stretch my tongue toward her clitoris. Her pale red fingernails match the pink inner folds she continues to hold open for me. Another acceptance. I settle my tongue into the lush, juicy flesh and begin lapping, intoxicated by the forbidden smell and the softness. I know what I am doing is wrong, but I think only of her smiling acceptance, her willingness to have me. Pleasing her is all I want now.

I stroke her pink bump with my tongue and I strive to keep the strokes in sync with her vulva pressing gently into my face. I never thought I would touch my mother’s breasts and I reach to squeeze them softly and pull her nipples. They harden in my fingers. Does that mean I am pleasing her? The possibility is joyful and that joy hardens me.

Mom sits up and takes the index finger of my right hand and shapes it into a slight curl. Pushing my head aside with her other hand she inserts my finger deep into the flesh I have been licking. Her finger follows and pushes mine into place up and behind her bump. She withdraws her finger and curls it repeatedly, as if she were asking me to come to her. I duplicate the movement with my finger inside her and she falls back on the bed. I lick in earnest now and tickle the back of her vagina as she begins groaning. I knead her breast with my free hand, lick and curl until her hips lose their measured thrusts. They begin jerking into me, and her torso twists and I hear a low groan erupting and her vagina squeezes against my face and fingers like a beating heart.

“Comes with her own kid,” says Smith. “Who would have thought?”

“Ain’t she beautiful when she comes,” says Jones, who has moved closer to see my mother’s face.

“You’re so pathetic.”

“Yeah?” I turn to see Jones look between Smith’s legs. Both men have semi–erections. “What’s that make you?”

“Get dressed,” Smith says.

“Finally. Next time we should stick to the rules.” The two men begin putting on their clothes.

Pushing myself up I look at my mother. She has drifted away and her face is so completely relaxed, she looks like a different woman. The careful, polite mother I have known all my life has been replaced, and I am in ecstasy. I love that I made her lose her composure and come. It is the greatest feeling I have ever had, and I am fully erect again. I crawl toward her face, which is still in a blissful half sleep. She is beautiful, and again I brush the hair from her face as my dick nudges her cleft. Her eyes open for me and she sees the intention in my face.

This is the most wrong act of all. They aren’t forcing me now, there is no excuse except my desire, the strongest urge I have ever felt in my life. If she looks disappointed I will get up and never think of this again, I promise.

Her eyes widen in horror or surprise, I don’t know what, then narrow before closing again. She folds her arms around my back and pulls her knees up slightly. I accept the invitation of her body and drive my dick into her as far as it will go. There is no resistance, only a groan, and I pause to enjoy the sensation of my first fuck, made all the more enjoyable by the wanton smile on my mother’s face.

I push in and out and she rocks against me and writhes in pleasure. I kiss her plush lips, then bite and tease them, then suck her tongue. I do everything I have ever seen in the movies about kissing. I feel her passion in every movement, each pressing of her breasts into me, her hands running through my hair, her nails dragging across my back. I never thought I could be so sure my mother loved me.

“Mother fucking, son–of–a–bitch,” says a nearly dressed Smith. “Look at her slamming her own son.”

Jones adjusts the tie over his wrinkled shirt and pulls on his trench coat. “Are you gonna be okay, you know, since you couldn’t make her cry.”

“Some woman are too strong,” Smith says. “We did our best. Let’s go.”

“No, wait.” Jones stands near the bed watching her. “Let me see her come again.”

Smith stares, too.

I return my attention to her and continue pounding, reveling in the soft skin of my mother’s thighs. Mom looks only at me and hangs on to the headboard with both hands. She takes everything I have, and I can see the sensations taking control of her. She grabs my butt and pulls me up on her, forcing my dick against her clitoris at each push and her eyes close and flutter. She pulls back on her legs, trying to admit me further. She cries out in my ear, louder than before and the sound of her release and the pinch of her cunt make me come. I shoot everything into her and she wraps both arms around my neck and squeezes me limp until I melt into her warm, sweat–drenched flesh. My mother is lost to this world, and I look at her fallen face proudly as I lay on her.

“Billy, you’ve got one hell of a woman there.” Smith shakes his head.

“Yeah, Punk. Hell of a woman.”

They trudge out the door and down the stairs and the front door unlocks and closes. A minute later I hear a car start, and drive away.

I never want to move from her, I want our skin to be stuck together permanently, my ear to her breast. Her beating heart slows and airs rasps through her lungs. The sticky warmth of her skin is the most exquisite feeling. As my eyes begin to wander, I notice her blouse on the floor. Suddenly, I am trembling at how frightened I was for her when Smith was going to kill her. I remind myself of the bargain I made earlier with God. I will keep it.

I leave my mother resting on the bed and start the water running in the bath. When it is ready, I help her into the bathroom and to sit in the water. She leans back and stretches her legs as far as she can while I wash her gently with a washcloth and soap. I am giving the bath now, returning the favor of long ago. Her eyes are closed and she does not acknowledge my efforts. I am slow and gentle with every pass of the cloth. Sitting on the edge of the tub I wash her hair and massage her shoulders. Leaving her to rest in the warm water, I strip the bed and remake it, discarding the bedspread. I pick up the broken pieces of chair and take them downstairs with the silk blouse and button. After finding instructions on the Internet, I hand wash the blouse, place it on a hanger and bring it back upstairs and hang it on the door to dry. I am sure she can sew on the button.

Letting the water drain, she stands and takes a brief shower, and I hand her a towel. She dries herself without seeming uncomfortable with my intent gaze, then brushes her teeth. I hold a clean robe for her to wear, and she wraps her hair in a towel. I pull back the bed and tuck her in before turning out the light.

After I shower I return to her room to see how she is doing. I can make out the trace of tears in the dark and I climb into bed and snuggle as close as I can. She trembles and shakes as I drape myself over her. The blouse shimmers like a beacon in the dark room. I hang onto her all night.

***

Mom gobbles up the light breakfast I have brought to her bed, and grins at me while she eats. She looks different than yesterday. Her back is curved and relaxed, and she isn’t lecturing and calculating.

“Mom? Are we going to call the police?”

“No.” She sighs. “I’ve thought about it and I don’t want to explain what happened between you and me. No one would understand. It will have to be a secret. Are you okay with that?”

“Yeah. I know your not supposed to have sex with your mother.”

“We can talk about it, but not with anyone else.”

“Do you think they will come back?”

“No. I think they will be after your father from now on.”

I take a sip of her coffee. “Last night, when I came in, you were crying.

Another sigh, “Yes, I didn’t think I could anymore, and then I didn’t think I was going to stop.”

“Was it because they made us have sex?”

Her soft blue eyes land gently on me, “No. It was everything except that. Your dad’s gambling, the money, the rape, the fear I was going to be killed, and I was afraid for you most of all.”

“You never looked afraid.”

“You can’t always tell what a person is feeling by how they look. I’ve always been a little stubborn in that regard. For instance, I haven’t let show how much I love you.”

“That’s okay.”

“No it isn’t. I was terrified all evening they would hurt you. I realized you are the most important thing in the world to me, and I need to make sure you know that from now on.”

Her face has changed so much. Her nose wrinkles when she smiles. It’s like her politeness was a mask and now I can see underneath. “I was afraid. I wanted to protect you, but I couldn’t.”

Mom puts her arm around me and pulls me to her. “You’re not as good at hiding your feelings. I could see you cared about me and wanted to help all evening. That made me feel good. Thank you.”

“Mom, last night at the end, when… well, they didn’t force us. Why did you let me?”

“I’ve thought about that a lot, too. It was wrong, but my fault, not yours.” She puts down her food. “I guess it was a way I could show you I loved you. I didn’t want to hold that back anymore.”

I have been thinking about this all night and I have to ask. “Will I ever get to do that with you again?”

Mom looks worried, another new expression. “You don’t feel funny about having had sex with your mother?”

“Oh, no. I’m okay with it, really. I love you, Mom.”

“That’s very sweet,” she starts eating again, “but I think that’s your dick talking.”

I flop back on the bed next to her. “Do you think Dad is coming back?”

“Not if he wants to keep his teeth.”

“What will we do about the bills?”

“I can go back to work. My dad will help out. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Mr. Smith will kill your father, and we can collect the insurance.”

“I don’t want to Dad to die.”

“I was only kidding. I hope whatever they do hurts, though.” She runs her hand through my hair, brushing it with her fingers. “In any case, I don’t think I want him to come back, even if he does manage to pay them.”

“Me neither.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I want you to myself.”

“I’ve created a monster.” She pats my thigh. “When you get older, you’re going to date young girls, and you’ll want to marry one of them. You won’t want your old mother anymore.”

“No, that’s not true,” I say as I sit up and turn to her. “I love you. I’ll always stay with you.”

She holds my neck and kisses me, leaving the taste of toast in my mouth. With her release she smiles, “You’ll go away some day, with a young girl. Or I’ll get married again. That’s the way life works.”

“Never, and I won’t let you.”

“You can’t fight the inevitable, Billy.” She smiles and puts her hand on my cheek. “But until then, we might be able to have a little fun,” Mom winks at me.

I have never seen her wink. “Can I sleep with you every night, now?”

“My God,” she laughs. “I wonder how many times a night a thirteen–year–old can do it.”

“Can we do it that other way, too?”

“You mean anal intercourse?”

I nod at her exaggerated surprise.

“You certainly received an education last night.” The worried look returns. “Are you sure this isn’t going to mess with your head? Some people never get over this kind of thing. It destroys them. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

“I’ll be okay. I can be like your blouse, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your silk blouse. Smith kept trying to tear it, and he couldn’t, like he couldn’t make you cry. I never thought something that looked so beautiful could be so strong.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has every said to me.”

Her blush makes me proud. “Is this what love is?”

“Is what?”

“Last night, when I made you come, and just now when you blushed. It feels so good to make you react. I’ve never felt so good. Is that love?”

“Yes, I suppose it is. I liked making you react, too.”

“Really?”

“Yes, making you horny made me feel… sexy.”

“Are you feeling sexy now?”

“No, but let’s see if you can put me in the mood.” Mom puts one arm around my neck and beckons me to her with her finger. “Do you remember how?”

“Sure. But can I suck on your tits first. I never got to do that.”

Mom pulls open her bathrobe exposing one of her breasts. I nuzzle into her and suckle like a child. “Any time you want,” she says. “We’ll make it a rule.”

---

Whisky And Cartoons (bf)

Cartoon music lures me down the stairs, one padded step at a time. Margie is curled at the end of the couch facing the television with an empty bowl and a box of Cheerios next to her. The carton of milk sits on the end table. She has drawn the blinds behind her, darkening the room against the morning light. I push the bowl and cereal aside as I sit, and fall against her landing my head on her arm.

Margie doesn’t allow me to interrupt her stare. My dad says any seventeen–year–old still watching cartoons is an idiot. He only uses her because the other sitters won’t do overnights. He always asks if she does things she isn’t supposed to. Dad thinks everyone is trying to get away with something.

Annoyed at my restlessness, Margie asks, “What are you doing up so early?”

I shrug against her broad arm covered in a flannel. The heat leaks through her pajamas, crossing into mine, warming like clothes from the dryer. We watch until she yawns and stretches, allowing me to ease in under her, forcing her arm to drop around my neck. “You’re such a puppy dog,” she says.

Margie likes the old ones, the kind she used to watch with her brother: Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, and Road Runner. She says they are funny, not just stupid like the new ones. The new ones are crap.

When the commercial comes on, we play a game: Who is more ticklish? I can’t make Margie laugh tickling the bare foot pointed toward me but, like the many times before, she sends me to the floor giggling with pokes in my ribs. We play who can go the longest watching a cartoon without cracking a smile. Margie always wins. She likes cartoons more than anybody, but she doesn’t laugh at them. When my laughing jiggles her too much, she pushes me away imitating Foghorn Leghorn, “Go… I say… go away boy, ya bother me.” She can do a lot of the voices. Her brother taught her.

I pour cereal into the bowl, “Can I have the milk?”

“That’s creepy,” she growls. “I wouldn’t use a spoon and bowl you ate out of.”

After two bowlfuls I put everything back in the kitchen. I scoot up close and lean into her. She elbows me away, but lets me return, only not as close. Her breath and pajamas smell of cigarettes.

“You’ve been smoking,” I say in a near whisper. If I say it quietly, maybe she won’t get mad.

Without looking, she says, “Have not.”

“I’ve seen you smoke lots of times. And drink Dad’s whiskey, and pour water into the bottle.”

“You lie. When?”

“Last night.”

“You little punk.” She pushes me away with both hands, and yells, “Were you spying on me?” Covering my head with my arms, I fold away from her. Surprisingly, Margie doesn’t come any farther. “What else did you see?”

Partially sitting up, I say, “Danny.”

Margie leaps to her knees, leans over and begins slapping at my head. “You rotten piece of shit. You’d better not say anything.”

Falling to the floor, I roll away, “I won’t tell. I won’t tell.” Margie pulls herself back into her place, refusing to look at me. Adults like to punish by pretending you are so bad you don’t exist. I crawl back to the couch and lie down with my head toward the television, near her leg.

“Wile E. Coyote is my favorite,” I say, edging close enough to rest my head on her thigh. She slaps my head a glancing blow, “You suck–up. Mind your own business from now on.”

“Dad said your parents would ground you if you saw Danny, and you wouldn’t get to drive anymore.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” She pauses, then, “But I’ve been plenty nice to you, so keep your mouth shut.”

Margie isn’t exactly nice. Dad says she is as mean as a snake, and as quick to strike. Dad thinks all the guys on his crew are snakes, too, and he yells at them when they don’t do their job right. He yells at me because I ‘don’t care enough to do a good job’ on my chores. But Margie doesn’t care about chores. Margie cares about cartoons. She’s nice when she teaches me how to draw the characters.

The heat from her thigh seeps into my ear and fills my head. Thinking about Margie and Danny on this couch last night makes me feel weird, itchy. My tongue is dry. “Will you to teach me something,” I ask.

Her voice is sharp again, “What?”

“That thing you and Danny were doing last night.”

Her leg kicks out propelling me upward, and three more hard slaps catch my head and ear. “You are fucking crazy.”

I fall to the floor clutching her ankles, “I’m sorry.”

Margie kicks me away from her, “You’re only eleven years old, for crissakes.” Her face is red and her eyes wide, the kind of face that in a cartoon would steam until her head and body shook, and the top of her head blew off. Margie doesn’t stay mad very long, though, not like Dad. I retreat to the opposite end of the couch and wait.

Margie says the animation is better, smoother, and you can see how the characters feel. She says Chuck Jones was a genius because even though there are no words, you know exactly what each character is feeling. Wile E. watches a falling bolder, his eyes getting bigger until it lands on him; thrump! I laugh because I know just what Wile E. was feeling. I wonder why Margie doesn’t laugh.

“You’d better not tell on me,” she says to the television.

I can’t tell if she is worried or angry. “I’ve never told on you.”

When she turns, she looks at me differently, as if she doesn’t recognize me, as if she hasn’t babysat me a dozen times. In the middle of another chase, she gets up, returns a minute later with a pack of cigarettes, and sits at the same end, the screen flickering on her face. The smell of phosphorous comes with the flame and she exhales smoke toward the television. Her face softens as she folds one arm under the other to prop up the cigarette, and then she turns to me. “Wile E. is my favorite, too,” she says. I like that she trusts me, that she is not worried I will tell on her smoking.

I slide into the smoke around her, laying my head in her lap and turning to look up at her. She draws and blows toward my face, and I close my eyes against the sting. She wants to see if I can take it, or if I will act like a baby. Adults hate babies. My eyes open to her stare. Coughing first into her fist, she lets her hand drop to my chest.

My hands are not as big as Margie’s. Her’s are smoother, and warmer, too. When I press them together, her fingers can bend over the top of mine, showing her chipped red nails. Each time I touch her palm to my face she pinches my nose hard, and I yell.

“Wile E. is funny,” she says, “because he comes up with perfect plans to catch Roadrunner, but something he couldn’t expect goes wrong. He tries so hard, follows the instructions for every gadget, but always gets screwed in the end.”

One thing I like about this position is that I can see Margie’s rough and pink lips up close. As they tighten around the white cigarette they turn smooth and dark, until she exhales and they become full again. “Can I try your cigarette?”

“Why are you in such a hurry to grow up? I’d kill to be your age again, and I wouldn’t rush into everything.”

“Does it taste good?”

“Hardly.” She gulps a mouthful of smoke, “Only suck in a little,” and puts the end in my mouth, “and blow out like this.” Her words ride the smoke as it puffs out above me. I inhale too much and jerk myself upright coughing. My throat burns as I wonder how she can stand to smoke. Margie laughs like a bully. She won’t laugh at cartoons, but she laughs at me.

She pinches the cigarette out over the candy dish and retrieves the whiskey bottle from the cabinet. “Here,” she says before tipping the bottle to her own lips and dropping it toward me, “Drink some of this. It’ll make it feel better.”

Margie guides the bottle to my lips, and I take in a tiny mouthful. Swallowing brings an intense burn and I groan and gasp. Margie falls back laughing. “Isn’t it awful,” she says. “I thought I was going to die the first time I tried it.” When she sees the tears in my eyes, she stops laughing and says, “You get used to it, though.”

I could never get used to that. “Why do you drink it?”

“Well, for one reason,” Margie has dimples when she smiles, “it makes for great kisses.”

“How?”

“A whiskey kiss isn’t like kissing your parents.” She looks as if she is telling me a secret. “You know you’re doing something really exciting when you can feel that sweet burn on someone you’re not supposed to kiss.”

She kissed Danny a lot last night. She must love him. “I don’t like Danny.”

“Welcome to the club. He was a good kisser, though, just lousy at everything else.”

“How do you kiss good?”

Her head comes around to me again, “It’s not something you can explain.”

Adults always think I’m too stupid to understand things.

“I’m not kissing you,” she says, glancing, “if that’s what you want.”

“Why not?”

“Too fucking little, that’s why.”

I make sure she sees me turn away. I can pretend she doesn’t exist, too.

“Don’t look like that, you know you’re too little,” she says.

“That’s stupid. Anybody can kiss.”

“A kiss has to be done right. It’s supposed to turn you on,” she says. “You wouldn’t even like it.”

I want her to see my face, now. “Yes, I will.”

“Have you ever kissed anybody?”

“Yes.”

“Your mom, maybe. How long ago was that?”

I shrug, hurt at the mention of Mom, and trying to remember kissing her. I used to be able remember more things about her. Even when I look at the picture of her and dad, the face in my head and the one in the picture aren’t the same. I only clearly remember riding next to her in the backseat of a car and her giving me a lollipop. She unwrapped the wrinkled red paper, gave it a lick, winked, and handed it to me. I remember liking that we shared something.

Margie is studying me like one of her cartoons. “Come here,” she orders.

I swallow hard at the idea of kissing Margie, and worry that she is only teasing because she looks annoyed, but raise my chin to see if she means it. She sticks her finger in the neck of the bottle, tipping to wet the end, and smears my lips.

“That stings,” I say, wiping it away.

Smiling, she leans forward, “Now kiss me.” I smell the whiskey on her breath as I move forward, still unsure. “Only, close your eyes,” she says. I’m afraid to at first, but let her guide me in darkness to her. The alcohol is still on her lips making mine burn again, and the soft warmth of her hand on my cheek burns even more. My first kiss is different than I thought it would be, kinder than it looked between Danny and Margie. The kindest touch ever. I am warm all over, and I am barely touching her.

“Well,” she pulls back, smiling, “Did that turn you on?”

I shrug, “I don’t know.”

She frowns, “I told you you wouldn’t like it.”

“Did it turn you on?” I ask.

“Hell, no. A little punk like you?”

“How do you know if you’re turned on?”

She looks at me like my math teacher does when he thinks I’ll never understand how to do a problem. “Hasn’t your dad told you about this stuff?”

“He doesn’t like to explain things.”

“Some piece of work, he is.” She coughs. “When guys are turned on their dick… gets stiff. Have you ever had a stiff dick?”

So that’s what ‘turned on’ means. “Yeah, lots of times.”

“Are you stiff now?”

I look at my pajamas to make sure. “No.”

“See, you’re too little. Danny would have creamed his pants already.”

I feel too hurt to ask what she means. “I’m sorry I didn’t kiss good.”

Margie leans back, takes the cigarette from the candy dish and relights it. “It’s okay,” she says, after a puff. I edge over to her, sliding my head into her lap. “At least you didn’t ask me to suck your dick,” she says. “Guys always want their dick sucked.”

That must have been what Margie was doing to Danny. “Why?”

“They say because it feels good. But it’s some kind of power thing.”

“What do girls want?”

The smoke swirls around Margie’s face as she stares at me from above, as if she has a question. Eventually, she says, “We have places we like sucked, too.”

“Where?”

“You wouldn’t like it. Danny hated it. Besides, you’re too little.”

I’ll bet that’s what Danny meant last night when he said, “Smells like fucking cat food.” Margie got mad because of that, and she said he wasn’t doing it right, and he went home. “Is it between your legs?”

“Not so dumb, after all.”

I’ve never seen between a girl’s legs. It was too dark last night. “Can I try?”

Margie makes a face, “You wouldn’t have a clue.”

She’s right, but I want to see. “Tell me what to suck, I can do it, really. And I won’t stop before you say, like Danny.”

Margie mashes out the cigarette, “This is getting too weird.” Slapping my chest, she says, “Sit up.”

I don’t want to leave her lap, but I drag myself upright. “What’s it like?”

Margie uses the remote to change to another station. “What? Sex?”

“I know what you’re supposed to do, sort of, but what’s it like?”

“It’s complicated. It’s supposed to feel good, but there is so much crazy stuff going on, it’s hard to enjoy it.”

“Like what?”

Well, getting pregnant for one thing. Danny didn’t like condoms, so I had to use a diaphragm, which I had to hide, because my parents would kill me, or I had to give him a blow job, and then he was fucking useless.”

I stare at her, unable to ask one of the many questions I have.

“You have no idea what I just said, do you?”

My head shakes. I hate when she makes me feel stupid.

“A condom is like a balloon you put on your dick so the sperm can’t get inside the woman. A diaphragm is…”

“What makes the sperm come out?”

Margie slumps, lights another cigarette, and looks at me. “Have you ever had a wet dream?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s when sperm, white gooey stuff, comes out of your dick at night, or after you rub for awhile?”

“I’ve never had white stuff come out of there.”

“Well, you’re too little, like I said…. Oh, don’t take it so hard. In a few years you’ll be shooting your wad and begging some poor girl to swallow it.”

Adults tell you to wait for everything until you grow up. I stretch toward her, keeping low, and she exhales loudly as I slip my head onto her lap.

“God, why do you like that?”

“It’s warm.”

Her thighs tighten under me and relax, “It makes me itch. Anyway, sex is complicated. Frankly, it’s not worth the trouble half the time. You’d probably like it, though. Guys always like it more than girls.”

“Why?”

“They don’t get pregnant. And no one calls them a slut.”

“What’s a slut?”

“It’s just a name guys call girls who like sex, to make them feel bad. Sex feels so good, but if you act like you enjoy it, you’re some kind of pervert. Has anyone ever told you not to masturbate or you’ll go blind, or some other such shit?”

“No.”

“Someone will, someone always does. Just ignore them. There is nothing wrong with masturbating. You can do it a hundred times a day, if you want. Even Oprah says so.”

“What’s masturbating?

“Rubbing yourself until you come. When the white stuff comes out?”

“Why do you want to make the white stuff come out?”

Margie laughs. “You’ll find out. And when you do, you’ll know all about sex, and why it’s complicated.”

“Teach me.”

Another face, “No way. I could get in trouble.”

“I won’t tell.”

“Ha! Guys always say that. Danny told everybody in school after he said he wouldn’t.”

“But I’ve never told on you before.”

“That’s because you didn’t have anything to brag about. Once a guy has sex with you, he’s gotta tell the whole, fucking world, like he just stepped on the moon.” For an instant Margie looks like she wants to hit me again, as if I am Danny.

I turn on the couch, sliding out on her leg until I can play with a large red button on her pajama top. I can see her belly button sometimes when she moves. She watches as I twist her button, then she pulls at a button on my pajamas. “Why didn’t you ever tell on me, for smoking and stuff?”

“You’re my favorite sitter.”

Margie is surprised. “What about Cindy Parlee? The boys all love her.”

“All she does is homework.”

“Not my problem, is it? Do you lay in her lap the whole time?”

I shake my head. “She doesn’t like cartoons, either.”

“Afraid she might crack a smile,” Margie says. She leaves the button and rakes her fingers through my hair. She pulls on it until it almost hurts, then pushes her fingers through as if she is brushing to get me ready for school. She looks at me like my dad does sometimes, not sure if I am something she wants to keep or throw away.

“Can we kiss again?” I hold my hands like I’m praying.

“I thought kissing me didn’t turn you on?”

“I liked it, though.”

“My, my, a boy who likes to kiss,” she grasps my hands, “doesn’t ask me to suck his dick, and promises to suck on me as long as I want. I wish they were all like you.”

The way she says this warms my face, and I smile.

“All right, you can have another kiss, for not telling on me.”

“Only without the whiskey,” I say. “I think it would feel better without the whiskey.”

“No, with the whiskey. The whiskey complicates it, only in a good way.”

She pulls me up by my hand, swings her legs behind me, stretches out against the back of the couch, then pulls me in next to her again. Margie arranges me like a doll, moving my arms, pulling my one leg over hers, and telling me just what to do. It is so strange to be this close to someone, with my whole body touching hers. I dip my finger in the bottle this time and smear her lips. My second kiss is better than the first, even with the whiskey, because her warmth is everywhere, so much so that I feel sticky.

All the kissing and touching feels good, but I don’t understand why she wants to do it for so long. She did it for a long time with Danny, too, so it must be right. She bats her long eyelashes on my cheek and calls them butterfly kisses. She bites my ear and blows until it sounds like my dad’s welding torch, and nearly as hot. She sucks on my neck, but stops so she won’t “give me a hickey.” When she tells me to practice on her, I try hard to be good at it because it means more when someone who is usually mad thinks you’re doing a good job.

When she slides her tongue inside my mouth, I almost choke, and she laughs. “Imagine what it’s like to have a dick in there,” she says. I try to imagine sucking a dick, then Margie sucking my dick. This makes me wonder if I’m getting turned on. I’m not sure, and I can’t look because Margie wants to keep kissing. She places my hand on her breast. The bra underneath her pajamas is stiff, but the softness of what is underneath the bra is different than anything I have ever felt. She unbuttons the top button of her pajamas and pulls down her bra. The nipple peeks out and I stop kissing, unable to move my eyes. “Whiskey,” she whispers.

I take a sip, drizzle some on my finger and onto her nipple, spreading it around. The nipple shrinks, getting tighter until it is wrinkled and hard. My mouth is burning and I am afraid to swallow as she pulls my head toward her breast. The hot liquid leaks out of my mouth as I suck. It feels great to suck her nipple, satisfying like when you suck sweet hard candy, yet it burns each time I swallow.

She tells me to rub my tongue against her nipple, only steady like the beat in music. “Slow, and steady,” she says, “is how you make a girl come.” Which is confusing because I thought it was sucking between her legs. Margie breathes hard underneath me pushing my head up and down, the alcohol scratches at the back of my throat, and I can feel myself turned on against Margie’s hip, so turned on my dick feels numb. It’s never felt numb before. Something must be wrong. Margie’s right. I’m too little for this.

Margie sits up pushing me away. “What’s that?” she says, her voice full of fear.

I tumble to the floor on my butt, “What?”

She twists over the couch and squints through the blinds using her fingers to pry them apart. She jumps up and goes into the kitchen, looking out the window over the driveway, and checks the lock on the door. She returns buttoned up, and sits down on the couch. “I thought I heard your dad coming home,” she says, panting. “But it was just the neighbors car.” Margie fans her face. “Scared the piss out of me.”

Margie is afraid of getting in trouble for kissing me. I guess she isn’t supposed to kiss anyone. I’ll bet I would get in trouble, too. “He won’t be home until tonight,” I say.

Margie roars with laughter, “Good thing, too.” Pointing, she spits out, “Look at you.”

My pajamas are sticking up below my waist, so I pull my legs up, wrap my arms around my knees and drop my head.

“Don’t be a wuss,” she says. “I’ve never seen someone your age with a hard on, is all. It’s funny.”

My cheeks are burning more than the whisky in my stomach, and I keep my face hidden. “You said it’s supposed to get stiff. Why is it funny?”

“All right, maybe it’s not funny. It’s just that you’re so little, and here you are getting turned on, and…”

“Was I turning you on?” I ask, peeking.

“Look,” Margie tries to wipe the laughter away with her hand, “you’re not my type, even if you were older, okay?” She laughs again.

I yell, “I don’t want you to laugh at me.”

“Okay,” she slaps her thighs, “I won’t laugh, but you’re taking the fun out of it.” Margie folds her arms, slides down on the couch and straightens her legs, and I try not to look at her. I wish she didn’t exist.

She ignores me for a while, then says, “This one’s been edited,” pointing at the cartoon with a cigarette just pulled from the pack. “They took out the frames with Elmer firing the shotgun. They actually think seeing that would make us want to kill someone.” When I don’t answer or look she waves her cigarette, “You want a drag?” She gives up and returns to the cartoon.

I want to be in her lap again more than anything, but I am afraid. I don’t know if she is going to make me feel good or bad. You can never tell what adults are going to do. “I don’t like smoking.”

Margie’s head snaps around, and there is anger in her voice, “Sometimes, you do things you don’t like so the person you’re with won’t feel alone, because you know that being alone is the worst feeling in the world.”

I’m surprised Margie feels bad about me not looking at her. It means she cares about me more than she lets on. This makes me feel good again. I get up to sit on the couch and her face stiffens as she watches me without turning. I turn and fall into her lap, looking to see if she is going to hit me. There is no movement, or warmth, and her legs are rigid against my neck. Her stomach barely moves, and her face is like a picture. Margie was always filled with something before: anger or laughter, ready to fight or swear or tease me. Now, she is empty.

I reach for the cigarette loose in her fingers and she hesitates giving it to me, then lets me take it as she wiggles and softens underneath me. After my shallow puff, she takes its back. She blows smoke out her mouth and sniffs it back up her nose. I take easy puffs to keep from coughing. We share a few more times until the cigarette is too short to smoke, and she stubs it out. Her hands fall, one near my head, one resting on my stomach, her eyes captured by the television.

Her emptiness is my fault. My dad feels bad after he hits me, too, and I hate when he tries to make me laugh afterward. One thing always works, though. I carefully undo one of the lower buttons on Margie’s pajamas, take a deep breath, and flubber my lips on her belly. After two more flubbers, she says slowly, “What–the–fuck–are–you–doing?”

“Trying to make you laugh.”

“You’re giving me a slobber bath.”

Seeing the slight smile, I continue. After a few more times, I ask, “Would that feel good on your tits.”

“I’m sure it would for you, you horny little turd.”

I poke her breast with my finger, and she slaps my hand. Each time I poke faster, or a different breast, trying to avoid her hand. When she misses and slaps her tit, she says, “Ow,” and laughs.

I sit up enough to reach her lips. Surprised at first, she hesitates, then lets me kiss her. I guess I did it wrong because she pushes me back and says, “You’re not much of a kisser.” She doesn’t look like she means it, though. Adults never say when you do things right. When I settle back down, she asks, “What happened to your hard on?”

I shrug.

“Looked like a pretty good one.” She slides her hand down to my waist and tucks her thumb in the elastic of my pajamas. “Mind if I look?”

“Promise not to laugh?”

“I’m already laughing. Don’t be so sensitive.”

I turn away, not wanting to see her laugh. Instead of lifting my pajamas, she slides her hand over my pants and rubs my penis softly. She works the middle of it into her hand and squeezes, and then rubs again. It feels different when someone else touches it, more exciting. When I look up she is grinning, but worried. “Is this okay? I don’t want you to have me arrested for molesting you.”

I squeeze her breast, “I this okay? I don’t want to get arrested.”

“Smart ass. Let’s have a look.” She lifts the waistband of my pajamas and underwear, and I tip my head forward to see. My penis is pointing straight at her, and she says, “A little small, but you’ve got some hair down there.”

I’m glad she didn’t laugh. “Margie, how do you tell when a girl is turned on?”

She continues rubbing gently. “Girls get wet.”

“They sweat?”

“No, They get wet between their legs.”

“Can I see?”

“What makes you think I’m turned on?”

“I don’t care, I just wanna see.”

Margie sighs, leaving a little of the sadness on her face. “This is going to get complicated,” she says. I sit up, but she tells me to sit on the floor in front of her. After staring for a minute, as if she can’t make up her mind, she lifts her hips, slides her pajamas and underwear down her legs, and kicks them away.

I can see dark hair below her navel and the puffy skin beneath that looks folded. I walk to her on my knees until I am touching hers. Little brown hairs appear on her legs a few inches above the knees, and I walk my fingers up until I can twist the longer, curly hair above in my fingers. I lean in close and poke, watching the folds spring back. Margie uses both hands to pull back the skin until I can see more and pinker wet skin. Kind of like looking in someone’s mouth, only I don’t see any hole. I thought there was supposed to be a hole. It smells a little, but not like cat food. “Where is the water?”

Margie takes my hand, looks to see if it is clean, separates my first finger and touches it to the soft pink under a fold. “The slipperier that gets, the more turned on the girl is,” she says.

I rub the sticky film between my fingers. “Where do I suck?”

She pulls the skin back again and points to a tiny pink bump near the top of the fold.

“It’s so small.”

“Well yeah, compared to a dick.”

“And it turns you on if I suck on it?”

You don’t actually suck. Remember that thing you did on my nipple with your tongue? That’s what you do. That makes a girl come.”

“Where does the white stuff come out?”

“Nothing comes out of a girl, dummy, it just feels good.”

“Do I use the whiskey?”

“God, no,” she laughs. “That would burn it off.”

Scooting closer, I bend in and stick out my tongue, being careful not to touch anything before I reach the bump. It looks so soft I’m afraid I might hurt her if I touch the wrong thing. “Hey,” she says, putting her hand on my forehead before I arrive, “If you don’t like it, just stop. No wisecracks.”

She doesn’t want me to laugh at her. “Don’t be a wuss,” I say.

She spreads her knees apart as I touch the bump with my tongue, and she jumps, “Oh!”

“I’m sorry,”

She giggles. “No, it’s okay. It felt good.”

I expect her to taste like salt, but she doesn’t, and I like the smell, whatever it is. I concentrate on licking her the way I did before, trying to mind the beat like when I played clarinet in the band and had to tap my feet. It felt good to suck her nipple, and I wish there was something to suck here, too. Margie watches me at first, then closes her eyes and pets my head. It hurts my neck to look at her face so I stare at the curly hair under my nose until I go cross–eyed and have to close my eyes.

My tongue is getting very tired. I never realized that tongue muscles could get sore. Like kissing, this is boring, but I don’t want Margie to get mad at me like she did Danny, and I don’t want her to think I’m too little. It helps to pretend her bump is a tiny piece of hard candy.

“Oh, fuck” she says, and her legs squeeze against my shoulders and her hips push against my mouth. She says, “Oh, fuck,” or another swear word every few licks, about a hundred times. I lick steady and strong, trying to decide what it tastes like. Kind of like Sour Balls, only better. All of a sudden, she stops making words and starts making short, sharp noises, as if she is being splashed with cold water, then she pushes me away.

“What’s wrong?”

She laughs between heavy breaths, “Nothing. I really didn’t think you could make me come, but you did, fucking eh”.

“Did I do it better than Danny?”

“All you had to do to be better than Danny was try.”

I look down at my pants, smiling, “It turned me on, too.”

Margie sits up to look, “I guess to hell. Stand up.” She pulls my pants down to my ankles and holds my penis in her hand, squeezing.

The numbness returns as she rubs. Worried again, I say, “It’s numb. You shouldn’t squeeze it any more.”

Margie giggles, “I think it’s supposed to be numb. Does this feel good?” She rubs hard back and forth and I nod. It makes me shiver it feels so good.

“No problem then. Now that we’ve gone this far, wanna go all the way?”

“What’s that?”

Margie throws one leg over the arm of the couch pulling everything between her legs wide open. “If you want, you can stick it inside me.”

There must be a hole there, after all. I look carefully, but can’t find it. “Where?”

“There’s a place for it down there, I’ll show you.” She doesn’t wait for me to make up my mind, grabbing my penis and pointing the tip in between the folds of the pink wet skin. “Push,” she says, and I am amazed when my penis slips inside. “Back and forth,” she says. It is very warm and each time I push my body tingles. “You’re getting the hang of it. You do that as long as you want while I help myself.” Margie slips her finger over the bump I rubbed with my tongue while I back and forth.

I go in all the way because she said I could, even though I’m afraid I might poke something in there and hurt her. She doesn’t look in pain, though. Her eyes are closed and she is smiling. She says, “Oh, fuck,” about a thousand times.

Suddenly, the numbness gets real bad and my penis starts twitching. I’ve hurt myself, for sure.

Margie gasps and sits up, “What did you do?”

Shoot, now I’ve hurt her with my dick, so I freeze.

“You stupid shit,” she yells, and pushes me back until I fall on the floor on my butt. Standing and yelling she asks, “Did you come inside me?”

Surprised by her question, I say, “No.”

Yelling louder, “I felt something. Did you come inside?”

“I don’t know. It twitched.”

“I thought you had never come before. I thought you were too little. Holy shit, you came inside me. I could get pregnant, you dumb fuck. You want me to get pregnant?”

That seems scarier than anything, and my dick hurts, too. “I’m sorry.”

She reaches down to my dick, squeezes and pulls at the end, forcing a small drop of fluid to leak out. “That looks like come. God Damn, you came.”

I’m surprised at seeing the white stuff, and I stare. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re shit, is what you are.” She grabs her pajama bottoms from the floor and stomps off to the bathroom, yelling, “I can’t believe I let you do that.”

I quickly pull up my pants and sit on the couch. She is really mad this time, mad enough to start hitting me. It’ll be okay, Margie never hits very hard. Not like Dad. If Dad finds out I got her pregnant, I bet he’ll use the belt. I am so scared I want to cry. Dad hates it when I cry. Margie has never seen me cry. I wrap my arms around my knees, and try to watch the cartoon. If I laugh, I can’t cry.

I guess I came like Margie said, but I didn’t know it would hurt her or make her pregnant. How come this never happens to cartoon characters? I’ve never seen anything about sex in a cartoon. Nothing ever turns out right for me, either. I turn the volume down because the noise makes me want to cry more.

Margie is swearing and banging things in the bathroom, so I turn it up again. I rock in the corner of the couch and try to see through the spaces in the blinds. At least my dick is starting to feel normal again. I run to the kitchen and grab a piece of candy from the jar and return. I suck hard for the sweet taste because I can still taste Margie.

Margie comes back dressed in her pajamas again, sits without looking at me, and lights another cigarette.

“I’m sorry.” The tears come and won’t stop. “I didn’t know that would happen.”

Margie refuses to look at me as I cry in the corner of the couch, then she turns and yells, “Stop crying!”

Relieved she is looking at me, I wipe my nose on my sleeve and wait. A cloud of her smoke fills the air. I scoot closer. “Are you pregnant?”

“No, at least I don’t think so. You must be too little to get someone pregnant.”

“How can you tell?”

“You have to wait a while. I’ll get one of those tests, then I’ll know for sure.”

She doesn’t sound so angry, now. “Are you going to tell my dad?”

“That would be real smart. No, if I get pregnant, I’ll blame Danny.”

I ease my head into her lap. “Thanks.” I am so glad I never told on Margie.

Margie is staring at the cartoon, but she is not watching. “We can’t tell anyone about this, ever. I’d get in big trouble. I’d never be able to babysit you again. You understand?”

I nod, trying to squeeze my arms in around her back and nuzzle into her stomach at the same time.

“What are you doing? Geez, I’m not your mother.”

Margie has never let me hug her before. She is so warm, I want to be inside her. As she exhales, I look up and say, “You’re not supposed to smoke if you’re pregnant.”

She looks at me angry, turns away, and then snubs out the cigarette. Her arms fold and unfold, as if she doesn’t have a place for her hands anymore. She says, “You’re not supposed to come inside your babysitter, either,” then bursts out laughing. “It’s care… I say…it’s careless boy, and just plain rude.” The jiggling of her stomach bounces my head and makes me laugh, too. The laughing makes me less worried.

She stops laughing all of sudden, remembering her anger and what I did to her. I say, “Margie, if you get pregnant, I’ll marry you.”

“That is like, the dumbest thing anyone has ever said. Why on earth would you marry me?”

“Because I love you.”

“Fuck!” she yells, slapping her hand on the arm of the couch. “Now, do you see why sex is complicated?”

---

Seemingly Normal (MWf)

The hardest part about my parents dying is having to explain who I live with. They don’t look like responsible adults. Kate has red streaks in her hair, wears ear rings the size of Hula–Hoops, and prefers outfits which show her navel, because she thinks her flat stomach is her best feature. It isn’t. Her best feature is her job, which means she can pay the mortgage, and I can stay in the only house I have ever lived in, and not have to change schools. Marky always wears jeans, boots and a T–shirt, and looks like he has never worked a day in his life. He hasn’t.

The worst times are back–to–school nights. I follow Kate and Marky around my middle school, trying to walk behind like I don’t know them. All the kids giggle when they see them, the parents whisper, and teachers spend the whole time looking at them as if they are a different species, trying to find the right moment to ask how I came to be raised by a hooker and a biker.

Not a cheap hooker, because the fathers at the school I go to wouldn’t look twice at a cheap hooker. Kate is more like one of those $1000 a night hookers you hear about on the news whose customers are all judges and celebrities. And not one of those mean, gang type bikers. Marky looks like one of those bikers who rides into town alone, who is tough but handsome, smart but cool, and concerned but free.

It is embarrassing to watch the fathers drool over Kate, and their wives get mad. Even worse when the mothers get together, stare and pant at Marky when their husbands aren’t looking. I know kids want to hang out at my place because they think Kate and Marky are interesting, but I want to hang out at their place, where it is normal.

My classmates have mothers that carpool, watch each other’s kids, and get together for book club at Starbucks. Their fathers leave each morning looking well–dressed and distinguished, and work long hours as lawyers or engineers. They have little brothers and sisters who look up to them. That’s normal. Nothing about the people in my house is normal.

The first thing I do when I get home from school is bring in the mail. I want to know if there is anything from school in between the contest notices about a PTA meeting, or teachers looking for volunteers, so I can toss it before Kate and Marky see it. If they see it, they will hide in one of their rooms when they think I am not looking, and fight about who should go. Kate will say she works long hours and travels a lot, so Marky should go. Marky will say he chauffeurs me around all the time, and it is her turn. They will keep fighting about who contributes more to the household, and who has a better relationship with me. Eventually, it will come down to who feels the most guilt. This turns everything around until they are both demanding to go to prove who cares the most. Which means twice as much embarrassment for me.

The second thing I do when I get home is check their email. Just great, Marky has won another appliance, a dishwasher this time. The rest of his mail is about junk he is selling, but he never sells as much as he buys, because the garage is full of his crap. I also check his Facebook page to make sure any parents of kids at my school aren’t trying to hook up with him. He promised he wouldn’t ‘friend’ any of them, but when his dick is involved, he can’t be trusted. I have heard the stories from Kate.

Jennifer’s mom ‘likes’ the latest picture he posted of his candy–apple red, 1953 Indian Chief. I block her so there won’t be any cute exchanges about how he looks on a motorcycle.

Kate has two email accounts, one for work and one for lovers. She is hot for a some kind of broker lately, and today’s exchange even makes me sweat. I mark it unread, and see there is a message from some guy who said he won’t be able to attend, but he thought the story she gave him was corny, and he could do better, and P.S. he sent the message to this account because he lost the other one she told him to use. Since I have no idea what this is about, it is clear Kate has a third email account. When I have some time I will go through her internet history and find out what she is up to.

Next, I check her Facebook page. Her page is all about work. Drug therapies, conventions, research, anything to keep the doctors buying her drugs, and she ‘tweets’ the same stuff all day long. But the fathers of some of my friends are doctors, and even though Kate’s sales region is in the next county, they still manage to find her. Carol Flannegan’s dad is suggesting Kate come by the office to discuss treatment approaches to interstitial cystitis. For all I know, that is code for let me fuck you in the ass. He gets blocked, too.

Not that Kate would ever let a man do something like that to her. She is very clear on the subject, and Marky has told me the stories, but she is the top sales rep, and she does look like a hooker. I can’t afford to take any chances.

Marky has discovered I am home, and appears in his jeans, boots, and T–shirt at the door of the office to check on me. “Where’s the mail?”

I hand him the stack I have scanned.

“Why do you always go through the mail?” he asks, for the millionth time.

“I want to know if they are going repossess the house, and throw me out on the street.”

“You’re so mistrustful. I told you the house will be paid off by the time you are out of college.”

“Thanks to Kate,” I correct him.

“Why do you persist in this idea that I don’t make any money?”

“Because you never go to work.”

“I am an entrepreneur. I work from home.”

“You enter contests and sell the prizes online,” I say. “That is not being an entrepreneur. That is having a perpetual garage sale, and that is not a job. I’ll bet you end up in jail for selling drugs. Kate says you used to sell drugs.”

“That was a long time ago. Kate is the one who sells drugs, now. Just because I don’t have a regular job, doesn’t mean I am a bum.”

What else do you call a biker without a job?

I forgot to write down a homework assignment, so I call Carol, who is in the same class. I don’t mention her father wants to do something to Kate’s interstitial whatever because it would just bring more weirdness into my life, the last thing I need. It would be hard to explain anyway, since Carol is in the dark about the whole sex thing. I pretend a similar ignorance, because if you know a lot about sex, people are going to want to know how you learned, and they won’t believe you if you say a book.

“Marky seems very nice,” she says. She wants my confirmation, so she can elaborate on how nice he is, and casually mention how cute he is, too. All the girls swoon like Marky is a rock star. That lone biker persona really gives them that itch they are afraid to scratch. I can feel her working herself up to some gutsier statements like, “He really knows how to fill out a T–shirt,” and “I sure would like to ride that thing.” She will only think she is referring to the Indian. She is turning fourteen soon, and acts like those small breasts of hers she keeps looking at and touching to make sure they haven’t fallen off would interest him.

“His last girlfriend was a model, on the cover of a magazine,” I say. “You don’t stand a chance.” She is a little miffed, but nipping things like that in the bud is how I spend most of my energy. Kids with normal parents don’t have to worry about this kind of stuff. It’s not fair.

Kate finally arrives home while Marky is putting the finishing touches on dinner. It is something called beef stroganoff that he found in an old cookbook, and the scent floating in from the kitchen has made me hungry, but I have to talk to Kate first. She always makes a point of sitting down with me when she gets home for some girl talk. She really doesn’t have the temperament to be chatty, and she likes to talk about girls more than she likes girl talk, but I try because I can’t eat until she feels like she has ‘connected’ with me.

“How was school?”

Blah, blah, blah. Like I have just learned something profound that has changed my life, made me a better person, and determined my career.

“How is your friend, Carol?”

I know Kate has a special interest in Carol. How weird is that? “She wants to bang Marky,” I say with conviction. I have to be firm on this point so Kate doesn’t get that look she gets when she thinks about seducing one of my friends. She plays all coy, but I know lust when I see it. Kate and Marky are illustrated references for expressions of lust.

“I’m sure she doesn’t want to bang Marky,” she says.

“Sorry,” I say. “But she likes wood.” Of course, I tell Marky she likes carpet so he won’t get any ideas.

“Don’t be so crude,” Kate says.

“I’m still undecided, though.” I say this to keep her hopes up. Kate and Marky are competing for my sexual orientation, but it wouldn’t be good for any of us if one of them thinks they have won. They would fight, and try to throw the other one out. It’s bad enough I have to explain having two non–parent type parents, without having to explain having only one.

Dinner is when I miss normalcy the most, and sometimes, I pretend. Kate and Marky kiss each other, and give me a little squeeze before sitting down at the table, instead of sniping about household chores and worrying that I don’t have close friends. Kate is wearing black slacks and a white blouse with a scarf that is casual, but dressy, not the micro–skirt, catch–me–rape–me shoes, and see–through top she changes into after work. Marky wears an apron over his crisp, white dress shirt so his tie doesn’t get stained during dinner, not jeans, dusty boots and one of the dozens of blindingly white T–shirts. Kate looks athletic and wholesome, and Marky looks like a tech executive.

The counselor said that pretending isn’t good for me, but if dressing people up a little makes them seem less like a hooker and a biker, and more like people who can love me, what is the harm? “Kate and Marky are not like your parents,” the counselor said. I guess I should stop wishing they can be.

“I sold a book today,” Marky says. He smiles with his big, white teeth, and there is a glint in his hazel eyes before he stuffs a forkful of noodles in his mouth. “Anybody want to hear about it?”

Of course not. He can be childishly hopeful at times. Our lack of interest evokes his pouty look.

After a minute or two of painful silence, Kate says, “Okay, fine. How much?”

“I thought it might be valuable,” he says, the pout morphing to his ‘Look at me, I’m doing a wheelie,’ face. “I had no idea how valuable until I had it appraised.”

“How much?” Kate asks.

“It’s quite rare.” Marky turns to me, “I found it at a yard sale a few weeks ago. He didn’t want to give it up, but his wife sure did. I think it was at the house of one of your friends. Over on—”

“Stop!” I say. I don’t want to know whose father reads pornography, because normal fathers don’t read pornography, or buy it, and I don’t want to be associated with anything so not normal. Marky enjoys pointing out how non–normal seemingly normal people can be.

“How much?” Kate asks again.

“I used a new auction site that specializes in— this type of material. It all went very smoothly.”

Kate is about to explode with frustration. “Alright Marky, we get it. You did good. You’re a valuable contributor to the family. Just tell us how valuable a contributor you are.”

Marky pauses to notch up the drama, smiles, damn, his smile is his best feature, and says, “$4,500.”

“Are you kidding?” Kate stops eating. “Somebody paid 4500 bucks for one of your junkyard books?”

“It was a first edition,” he says with pride dripping from his delicate face.

“I drive all over hell and back, and you sit on your ass and sell a lousy book for that much? I’m going to quit my job and let you support me.”

“No, your not,” I say.

Kate ignores me. “I could spend my time entering contests, and scrounging around garage sales, too. And I’d be better at it than you.”

“No!” I yell. “Marky’s not reliable. I need you to make sure I have a place to live.” I know I have hurt Marky’s feelings, but this is important. I can’t have Kate become a flake, too.

Kate drops her silverware. “Oh, I’m sorry, Lilly. I was just kidding. I’m not going to quit. Really, Hon.”

They act like they are both still teenagers, like they don’t have responsibilities. It makes me nuts. I get up and leave the table.

“Don’t cry,” I hear Kate say as I go up the stairs.

Marky’s words are faint, but recognizable, “I was going to use it to make another house payment. We’re way ahead already.”

I only come to this room when I am worried. I feel like I do in the dream I always have where I’m hanging over the edge of a cliff, clinging to the roots of an old tree, and the roots keep breaking and I grab another, and another until there are no more left. I wake up reaching for the ceiling.

Something about the neatness, and the stylish furnishings of the room helps. It always looks the same. My mom’s toiletries are still arranged around the sink in the bathroom, my dad’s old–fashioned razor hangs from a little stand, her jewelry is in a handmade wooden box on the dresser, and my dad’s trim suits are hanging in the closet above his shiny shoes. I begin dusting because it gets so dusty in here, and I open a window for some fresh air. My favorite item is the bed, with it’s bright, plush pillows, and spongy mattress. I lie down, remembering when I used to get in bed with them on weekends. I cry that my life will never be normal again.

Kate and Marky argue in whispers in the hall for a while before they come in. They heard me crying and know I am vulnerable, and act like animals stalking their prey. They tiptoe in, and to the bed, and each sits down. Eventually, Marky loosens his tie, and they lie on either side and cuddle me between them. Marky smells of stroganoff and motorcycle oil, and it is surprisingly comforting. Kate puts her arms around me, and pushes her breasts into my face. She would say it is not a sexual gesture, but a comforting one. It is, and it isn’t.

“Tell me,” I say.

Marky always starts, because he goes back the farthest. “We didn’t like each other at first. We were almost the same age, nine and ten, and when his dad married my mom, I thought we were going to kill each other before we grew up. He won me over, though. He was younger, but he stuck up for me at school. It may be hard to believe, but I got picked on a lot when I was a kid.”

It is not hard to believe someone as smooth and boyish as Marky, someone with a name like Marky, was picked on, but I don’t interrupt.

“We became a pair, hardly ever apart, even after our parents divorced we stayed best friends. We met your mom in high school.”

Kate squeezes me as she begins her part of the story. “Your mom and I became best friends as freshmen. I was new, and we just hit it off. And no, I wasn’t interested in girls then, just boys, like your mother. She always liked the nice boys. I should have been more like her, but I liked the bad ones, like Marky. He was about as bad as they come.

“No worse than a lot of them,” he says.

“Worse than most, believe me,” Kate says

“You were the bad influence,” Marky replies.

I have to interrupt them. “Alright, alright, get to the part where my dad falls in love with my mom.”

Kate sulks while Marky picks up the story. “Kate and I were together so much of the time, that your parents were forced to be. When Kate, there, turned against mankind—”

“Thanks to you,” she interjects.

“When Kate and I stopped seeing each other, your parents decided they didn’t want to stop. We both had a hard time with that one because Kate and I didn’t like each other much.”

“Still don’t,” Kate says.

“But they were our best friends,” Marky continues. “So we had to lump it, or loose them.”

“Tell me about how they fell in love,” I say.

“Well, Kate there, tried to break them up by sleeping with your mom. She was so sure she could turn her into a lesbian if she gave her a couple of orgasms— ”

“No, no, no,” I interrupt. “You know I only want the normal stuff. I don’t want to hear about you sickos trying to have sex with my mom.”

Kate adds, “And your dad.”

“Hey,” Marky says. “I never tried to sleep with your dad.”

“You would have if he asked you,” Kate says, laughing.

“Don’t listen to her,” Marky says. “She thinks homosexuality is the next stage of human evolution.”

“Not homosexuality, lesbianism,” Kate says. “Men are incapable of evolving any further.”

I hate when they get so involved with themselves they forget about me. “The love, please. Tell me about the love.”

They each take a breath, and Marky resumes the story. “He definitely loved your mom.” I turn into Marky until my body is pressed against his. It is his reward for giving me what I want. His voice mellows in response the way I like.

“After they got back together the last time, he couldn’t stop talking about her. I could tell he wasn’t going to get over her. He actually made me rehearse his proposal with him. It pissed him off when I kept saying, ‘No.’” Marky is laughing as he talks, but I don’t mind, because I know the ending.

Kate is jealous I am genital to genital with Marky, so she picks up the story with enthusiasm. She thinks I won’t mind her slipping her hand onto my breast, since now she is giving me what I want.

“I tried hard to talk her out of it,” she says. “He was going away to college, and long distance relationships never work out because you can’t trust men so far away, and just because he was a great lover doesn’t mean you should marry him. No matter what I said, she knew he was the one. I’ll never understand how she could be so sure.”

Marky is getting a hard on, so I turn back to Kate. “Tell me about the wedding.”

They both tell about planning the wedding, Marky’s hand on my other breast so Kate doesn’t have an advantage, and how Marky tried to seduce my mom, and Kate my dad, the night before, because they were afraid if they got married they would lose their best friends, and the two nicest people they knew.

“It didn’t work,” Marky says, “Because their love was true, and could not be broken.” He knows I love that part, and it gives him permission to massage my breast and nuzzle into my neck. Mine aren’t nearly as big as Kate’s but Marky is as interested as if my breasts were twice her size. Kate whispers in my other ear, “She loved every little part of him, more than life itself. She would do anything to bring him pleasure.”

Marky has thrown his leg over me, and whispers, “He wanted to make love to her all day long, to be inside her.”

Kate tries to push Marky’s knee away with hers, “But your mom really preferred when he used his tongue to make her come again and again— ”

Marky is holding Kate’s hand, preventing it from slipping between my legs like she wants, “—but that was just a warm up to what she really wanted, which was for him to stick— ”

The words fade as they kiss me everywhere skin shows, and wrestle hand–to–hand for who gets to finger me first. Marky wins, pushes his finger in as far as he can over my pants, while Kate unbuttons my blouse so she can suck and fondle my little breasts. They really are animals. They both pull my pants down, and off, and throw them across the room like they are hazardous waste. While they are up, they take their clothes off, and return to either side of me, pawing at what’s left of my clothes.

They are going to fuck me good, this time. This is what I have to put up with to stay in my house, to have somebody be responsible for me so I don’t end up in a foster home and, at least, look like I have a normal life to kids at school. I don’t like it because it is hard to feel normal doing these things, but once they have been laid, they are much more manageable. Kate and Marky try to be nice, but if they don’t get to me often enough, they are like kittens who haven’t learned to control their claws: too dumb to know they are hurting you.

They are so jealous of each other, I have to make them take turns. Kate thinks lesbians are the only ones who know how to make a girl come, so she dives in to prove it. Marky knows he isn’t as adept, but he makes up for it by holding me close, and telling me how much my dad loved me. He flicks my nipples gently, not so much as to distract me from Kate, but to compliment her tongue action, and he whispers, “He stayed up all night, and all the next day waiting for you to be born, and I never saw him look so happy as the first time he held you in his arms.”

The two of them, Kate licking, Marky reminiscing, their hands holding and cherishing me like I am a baby, are the perfect combination to trigger my climax. It rolls up like a gigantic wave and pounds me into a blissful submission. Kate looks up, her mouth smeared with my juices, very pleased with herself. She wants me to say, “Good job,” or something. She can be so needy. Marky goes on about all the ways my dad loved me, trying to make sure I am listening to him, and ignoring Kate. I don’t say anything, and close my eyes so they don’t fight, and I can enjoy the dreamy, just fucked feeling.

They are not done with me, though. Kate draws herself up to my face and makes me kiss her, and taste myself on her lips. Marky moves behind me, and I can feel him pushing inside. I am the meat in this sandwich, Marky is the slice of bread that fucks me silly, and Kate the slice that tells me how much my mom loved me. “When you were little,” she says. “You got very sick, and the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with you. Your temperature was way too high, but nothing they did helped. Your mother held you in her arms every minute for two days, cooling you with wet towels. She wouldn’t let anyone else hold you even to sleep or eat, she loved you so much. When your temperature finally broke, she was the happiest woman alive.”

Marky is really too big for me, and he takes so long to come. On and on he goes, and I have to muffle a little orgasm, one of those you get when you are not trying, but sneaks up on you, so Kate won’t notice. She likes to have a hand in every one. The caring words and the thrusting between my legs are really getting me going, though. Hearing how much you are loved and coming at the same time is really the best. This one is going to be epic, cataclysmic, but I have to make sure I don’t favor one or the other. Marky’s dick is pushing right into my g–spot, and I place Kate’s finger so she is rubbing my clit on the other side. It is going to be so good, but I have to wait for it. I know it will happen. That is the one good thing about these two; they know how to wind me up and make me pop. Finally it arrives, and I feel like I am exploding and melting at the same time.

After this, they should be good for a couple of days. I leave them on the bed while I dress, and go downstairs. They are bickering about which of them made me come, but my worry is gone.

In the kitchen, I pick through some of the stroganoff I didn’t finish at dinner. I notice Marky in the driveway talking with someone. It is Mr. Martin, the father of a girl from school. He has stopped at the house on his evening jog. I had better check it out, so I take the garbage out to the garage. Marky is describing how his model was the last Indian made while Mr. Martin stares. He looks at it they way Kate and Marky look at me, like he wants to stick his dick in one of the twin tanks. Marky won’t let him, though. When Mr. Martin leaves, I ask why he won’t let him ride it.

“Too dangerous,” he says.

“Let him wear a helmut.”

“Not that kind of danger,” he says. When I look puzzled he continues. “If you open a guy’s eyes to something, you’re responsible for how he reacts to what he sees.”

I shrug, still not understanding.

“A guy like that, straight–laced, never done a wrong thing in his life, if he rides a bike like that, feels the thunder between his legs, the wind in his hair, sees the way people look at him, he’ll never be the same. He’s liable to quit his job, leave his family, and find a young woman who wants to ride across the country with him. I don’t want to be blamed for opening his eyes to a way of life he might not be able to handle.”

Marky’s bible is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This sounds like some of that nonsense. Whatever this is about has made his face go dark. Marky’s face is usually as bright as his T–shirt. He turns away and starts packing an espresso maker he is shipping to a buyer.

“You didn’t tell him to ride off,” I say. “Why would it be your fault?”

“I should have known,” he says. “I should have known.”

***

“Your grandmother called,” Kate says. We are at the mall, and she is trying to get me to try on something she thinks is hot. She knows I like cute, or stylish, or east coast collegiate, and she knows I don’t like hot. She has that look where she is imagining me wearing the low cut top and shorts she is holding up to my shoulders. “She would like you to visit once in a while,” she says.

“I don’t want to listen to her stories about mom and dad.”

“They aren’t stories.”

“Don’t even go there.” It is my mean voice, so she knows I am serious.

Kate doesn’t like to shop. She likes to buy things, the sexier the better, but she only cares if they make her look hot, which takes her less than a minute to decide. I take my time looking for things the other kids wear, normal things.

“You shouldn’t try so hard to be normal,” Kate says. “Normal is just what other people expect of you. You need to find your own way to be.”

“I want to be normal.”

“You’re better than that,” she says.

I have to keep her interested by letting her in the dressing room to watch me try things on. I remind her not to drool on clothes we haven’t bought yet.

“How long has Marky had the Indian?” I ask, thinking about yesterdays’ conversation with him.

“Marky and his Indian,” she moans likes she does when she is on me. “He was probably born on it. Had it when I met him in high school. I remember hanging on to his leather jacket that first time he took me home. It felt like I was riding a wild animal. That was a first.”

Her first orgasm, she means. Can you imagine having an orgasm from the vibration of a motorcycle? It shouldn’t surprise me. Kate prefers orgasms generated by inanimate objects. She has enough sex toys in that box she has hidden to keep a harem smiling. There is also a machine with wicked looking attachments you can sit on that moves around, and Kate says gives her, by far, the best orgasms, ever. She calls it the Man–Killer.

The toys look ridiculous, and when I’ve tried them, I always ended up laughing instead of coming. I’ve ridden behind Marky on the Indian plenty of times, too, and never had an orgasm. Regular girls, not depraved, lesbian, hooker type girls, need to hear the love to orgasm, and you can’t hear anything on the Indian except the popping roar of the engine.

We have lunch at the very crowded food court, bags crammed on the table, with barely enough room for my salad and Kate’s wrap. Kate decides it is a connect moment. “How are you doing?” she asks. Blah, blah, I am completely over my parent’s death, I am doing well in school, and I have lots of very close friends. I mean really, Kate. What do you expect?

“Maybe,” Kate says, prefacing her words with a grimace that tells me she is not sure of what she is about to say, “You should see the counselor?”

Yes, I am sure the fat lady would love to hear about what I do when I worry, and how you and Marky follow me into my parents room and ‘console’ me. She probably wouldn’t believe me because she says I see sexual intent in everyone, unless I show her the tape. You know, the one you recorded without telling me, and hid where you thought I would never find it? I know your secret hiding places, and your passwords, and what’s on your mind. Then, of course, you would go to jail, and I would be on the street, and have to become a hooker and wear all of your clothes. Don’t worry, Kate, I won’t be going to the counselor. I would rather fuck lesbians and bikers all day, every day, than risk giving up my house. “I’m doing fine,” I say.

“Well, it’s there, if you need it,” she says.

When your parents die, counselors are like flies, and just as useful. I don’t say that, because Kate has moved on to how she and Marky are having a little get together at the house. It is the weekend of their fifteen year high school reunion, and they are inviting a few people from their class over, and wouldn’t I like to meet them?

Their parties always end with unconscious bodies littered around the house, but not before most of them have tried to push me into a corner and do me standing like a crack whore. I am always conflicted about whether I should stay at home where I can make sure things don’t get out of hand, and the police are called, and I am embarrassed in front of all of the neighbors that night, and the kids at school the next day, or stay at one of my friend’s houses and pretend they are my family for the night. I really can’t take any more embarrassment, so I will stay and try to manage the party goers, at least make sure they don’t drive home drunk and kill four people, then sue and win my house. Maybe, I can get one of them to tell me some new stories about Mom and Dad before they get too wasted to talk.

On the way out of the mall, we run into Carol and her older sister. Kate is so insipidly ingratiating to them both, I want to puke. I stand off to the side while Kate acts like they are the Kardashians; “How have you been?” and “Don’t you look cute, and “Where did you get that necklace.” They look appropriately horrified by her lesbian, cougar surprise attack and try to make excuses to get away. Kate will not be deterred when she has lust on her mind, though, and she persuades Carol to come home with us so we two girls can spend some time together. Carol doesn’t know how to say no. If I don’t watch out, she will end up the meat in a Kate and Marky sandwich.

Kate drops us off while she goes to the market. Marky is home, and is so delighted with the prospect of slipping his dong into one of my girlfriends, he can’t stop grinning. Carol doesn’t want to leave him, so I have to drag her up to my room and promise to show her what I bought at the mall. Carol likes to talk about clothes, and we discuss our wardrobes.

The topic turns to boys quickly enough, and she has this boy in her homeroom class she likes, and she goes on about him for awhile. He even kissed her under the bleachers at school, she says. When she asks if I have a boyfriend, I have to pause. I frankly don’t know what I would do with someone my age. I am a little beyond the stage where a kiss by a boy of thirteen under the bleachers would be exciting, or even interesting. There are a couple of teachers I would know exactly what to do with, but telling Carol that would end any chance of normalcy as quickly as if I actually did any of the things I think about while watching them in class. I tell her I am just shy.

She tells me I shouldn’t be, that am pretty, with beautiful hair, and a cute figure. Our beginning breasts are about the same size, but she says mine are fuller. Those are very nice things to say, and they make me blush, and I decide I like Carol a little more than before. She is kind of cute, herself, with her blond hair in braids, and long legs. Damn! All that lesbian bullshit Kate spews must be getting to me. No matter how much fun it is, it isn’t normal to be lesbian. I need to be strictly hetero with Carol, or she will blab to the whole school that I am strange.

I wonder if Carol had an orgasm kissing her boyfriend under the bleachers, or did she have to go home afterward and think about what she really wanted to do with that boy to have one. Maybe, she has never had an orgasm. I could ask, but then I would have to tell her about my first, and the shear number of people involved would make her run screaming from the house. Friends are hard.

She seems curious enough, so I check to make sure Kate hasn’t returned, and Marky is still in the garage, before I bring out the Man–Killer. I attach the shiny black dildo and turn it on. It really is something to see. The motor whines, and the monster cock gyrates seductively above the smooth, shiny saddle, and the prospect of swallowing that thing until your knees clamp around the bottom as it takes you for a ride leaves me breathless. It is as charismatic as a machine can be, like the first iPhone. Carol’s mouth is hanging open in surprise, but I can tell she likes the whole idea, and just needs a little encouragement. I hand her a bottle of oil and tell her it might hurt a little at first, but it will be her best friend in no time.

Carol has other ideas, though, because she starts babbling about Marky. I could tell her that even Marky’s dick won’t fill her up like the Man–Killer, but I have to admit, I like a girl who prefers real men to inanimate objects. I turn it off, put the dildo and oil in the box, and drag it back to what Kate thinks is her ultra–secret hiding place. It is then I notice that Carol is gone, and I hear the Indian popping as it rumbles out of the garage.

I run down the stairs just in time to see Carol hanging on to Marky’s T–shirt, her braids tossed by the wind as they motor down the block. I know right where he is taking her, too. By the time she gets home, she will have been fucked every way except financially. I am so pissed at myself for not keeping a better eye on Carol. I should have anticipated this. I sit down on one of the boxes, the tears welling up as I imagine going through high school explaining how my pedophile guardian raped a classmate. I can only hope Marky’s usual seductive manipulations will keep her quit until I graduate.

I consider killing Carol before she can tell, but I am just not that kind of person. I had hoped, but I didn’t really believe, I could keep what goes on in this house hidden forever. I could lose it all; my pride, my normalcy, my house. I go up to my parents room, and soak the pillows with my tears. When Marky and Kate get home, they will wonder where I am, find me in here, get turned on by my tears, and do me like I owe them money. At least I will hear about the one good thing that ever happened to me; mom and dad.

***

There are nothing but low–lifes at this party. The twenty or so men and women Kate and Marky went to school with make trailer trash look genteel. It is a warm evening and they have spilled onto the patio in their awful Hawaiian shirts, and their print dresses that are grounds for fashion police brutality. Kate might as well be naked for what she is wearing, but Marky has dressed formally; his T–shirt is colored.

I can’t believe my Mom and Dad liked any of these freaks. I’ll bet Kate and Marky made up that stuff about how they could enlighten me about my parents. “We thought it would be good for you to meet people who knew them,” they said. But let’s be real. These two have always been jealous of my parents, and I think Kate and Marky want to trash their memory so they look good in comparison.

The guests guzzle beer as they hang near the torches Marky has planted around the patio to keep the bugs away, and use tortilla chips to shovel guacamole. Their conversations are dull, their jokes crude, and their laughter raucous.

As I wander through the house, people say hello and give me that pitiful, “Oh, your parents are dead,” look, and then try to grab–ass or maul me. A few times, I find someone who says they knew them, but as soon as they start talking, it is clear they have them confused with someone else. Fortunately, the house is large enough that I can avoid the guests most of the time. My parents always wanted a big family, and there are five bedrooms, and plenty of space. I often wish I had those little brothers and sisters they wanted.

One overweight drunk guy stumbles, knocks over a torch, which catches a paper table cloth on fire, then a hanging paper lantern ignites, and it looks like the whole house is going to catch fire. I scream at the prospect of the house burning down in front of my eyes until they get it put out. They all look at me like I am crazy. I can’t take any more of this, so I go upstairs. Eventually, I end up in my parents room. I lie on the bed and try push the images of the house burning down away.

The door opens and an obese man in a white suit comes in, his hands so big he can’t get them all they way into his pockets. He looks like a character in an old black and white movie set in the tropics. “You awake?” he asks. “Marky said I could stop in and say hello.” He looks around, obviously nervous, and sweating.

“Really?” I say. “And how much did Marky charge you to stop in and say hello to me?”

His feet are so large he, apparently, can’t take his eyes off of them. “Ah… $300.”

“$300! That cheap son–of–a–bitch,” I say, sitting up. “Do you have any idea what a white, middle–class girl my age is worth? He’ll never get the house paid off that way. What the hell is he thinking? Tell him he can fuck you for $300, but you’ll have to do it a hundred times to get your money’s worth.”

My anger sends the guy gyrating backwards out the door, mumbling apologies, pulling the door until it is almost closed, when he sticks his head back in and says, “Bye the way, you’re every bit as pretty as your mother.”

“You knew my mother?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “Everybody knew your mother. She was— Well, I won’t bother you any more.”

“Wait,” I say. “I want to hear about Mom.”

“Uh, okay. Shall I come in? I can stand here, if you prefer.”

“Yes, come in. You can sit down with me.”

He closes the door, wipes the sweat from his forehead with a stiff handkerchief he pulled from the pocket of his linen jacket, decides he is too hot, takes it off, and sits on the edge of the bed with it carefully folded over his arm and in his lap. “You look just like her,” he says, using his other hand to dab politely with the handkerchief. “I’ll bet when you grow up, you’ll be her double. Just beautiful.” He looks me up and down, his pants below the belt bulging already.

“Did you know her well?”

“Ah, nah,” he says. “She was out of my league, but I always had kind of a crush on her. Hell,” he says. “Everybody in school had a crush on her.”

I relax back onto the bed and look at the enormous hulk of a man, smiling, sweating enough that I can smell him, and him delighted to have my attention.

“I had a few classes with her through school,” he says. “I remember in my junior year we had a science lab together, and the first day of class the other kids started joking that no one would be my partner. They called me Fat Bastard back then, but not your mother. She was always nice to the less popular kids. When she got wind of what was going on, she asked me, in front of the whole class, to be her lab partner.”

He is totally relaxed and happy now, as if the memory of my mother is his favorite. The same way I feel when I think about her.

“That class was the best, sitting next to her, she always being so smart and helpful. I never missed a one, and every guy in school wanted to be in my place. After that, I didn’t see much of her, but a year later, at graduation, she came up to me and gave me a hug, in front of the everybody, and talked about how much fun we had that semester in lab.”

He turns his big jowls away, so I won’t see the tears in his eyes.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Tom,” he says. “I really liked your mother. She was— Well, I’m real sorry she’s gone.”

I put my slender hand on top of Tom’s bulbous one while he dabs at his eyes. It is important to keep the good parts of those who have passed alive. The best way to do that is to share the memories with others. That way you don’t forget what kind of people they were, and how they helped make you the person you are. It makes their passing almost bearable.

“I still think about her a lot,” he says. “You know, when I want to— well, feel good.”

“That’s funny, Tom. When I want to feel good, I come in here, and I think about Mom, too, and Dad, and all the good times we had.”

He has the nicest smile, and wide, round eyes that stare like an old dog at the pound who knows he will never be adopted. “Tell me what you think about, when you think of Mom, and you want to feel good, Tom.”

“Ah, nah,” he says, “You don’t want to hear that.”

“I want to hear everything, Tom.”

“Well, I always wanted to— Well— ”

“Tell me,” I say.

“I wanted to— I wanted to fuck her in the ass.” He turns away in embarrassment. When I don’t respond, he turns back to me, can see that I won’t condemn him, and continues. “I always figured if a girl let me do that, it meant, you know, she liked me.”

“Alright then, Tom. Why don’t you fuck me in the ass?”

Tom is panting in surprise, “Really?”

“Yes, and if you like, you can pretend I am Mom.”

He quickly stands, takes off his clothes, taking care to drape his linen suit on a chair and, with a little encouragement, pulls mine off. His movements are clumsy as he tries to unbutton or unfasten my things, and it must look like a huge monster molesting his first little girl.

Tom is quite a repulsive figure; his naked flab bounces around, and his upper lip is permanently glistened with sweat. I have to admit, though, I like his fat hands, and he uses them very effectively to caress me into a wonderful state of arousal and anticipation. As I watch them move over my body they seem to swallow me up, and I have the silliest notion that I can crawl into one of the folds of his flesh and hide there forever, safe and warm. I can see part of a smallish erection protruding from under the flab so, thankfully, Tom is not going to stretch anything unnaturally.

He turns me over onto a couple of pillows so my butt is high in the air, and my head is low, and my arms are holding onto the headboard. I feel the oil he has poured on dripping, dripping everywhere, and he begins massaging my anus with his dick. He is grunting loudly from exertion or excitement, I am not sure which, and he isn’t even in me. I hope he doesn’t come too soon because his stubby fingers are winding me up pretty tight, and I am looking forward to a good ass thrashing.

“Are you sure?” he asks. “You don’t mind me doing this?”

“I’m sure, Tom. I want you to fuck me like you always wanted to fuck my mother. Just like those nights when you whacked off thinking of her. Do to me what you wanted to do to her, and say to me what you wanted to say to her.”

“Oh, God,” he says. His dick slips into my ass in an instant, and his great bulk slaps at my rear as he drives me into the bed. He is going at me so hard, if it wasn’t for the pillows under my hips, he would break my back. But his dick feels good inside, like a million little needles, and his sweat smells sweet, and his hands hold me in a fleshy vice until I am almost there. It hardly ever comes this quickly. He stabs one of his fingers under my stomach and into my cunt, and swear to God, it feels as big as a dick, and he is thrusting in and out of both of my holes, and I am getting closer, and closer. “Say what you wanted to say to her, Tom.”

“I love you, Lilly. I love you. I have always loved you, and I will always love you, so much, because you were so nice to me.”

His gravelly words are going to do it for me, and as my orgasm starts, I yell, “Yes, fuck me you fat bastard. I love your fat, fucking hands, and your fat fucking eyes, and I love everything fucking thing you say about my mom. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.”

Who would have thought someone like Tom could deliver one of the best orgasms ever? I can’t move! When he falls beside me, the cavity he creates in the bed sucks me into him, and he puts his arm around me, and kisses me on the head. I think with a little effort I could find that fleshy hiding place. Tom could pull me out whenever he wanted, stick me on his dick, squirt me until I leak, kiss me on the head, and stuff me back in. I know he would truly love me.

I am such a sucker for the love. Tom may have only paid $300, but he gave me a million dollars worth of love. I think Mom would have been proud of me. After all, wasn’t I as nice to him as she was?

As Tom leaves, a well–dressed couple comes in to, ‘Say Hello,’ and are very nice also, with lots of nice things to say about Mom and Dad. He is a jock type, well hung, and was on the football team with my dad. Dad was the quarterback, of course, and I guess they scored a lot of touchdowns together. She was a cheerleader with my Mom, but is not into the lesbian thing with me. She mostly wants to watch her husband do me, and give him a lot of encouragement; “Stretch that little cunt, Baby,” and “Fill that tiny bitch up.” That kind of thing. But she comes through in the end when I am struggling for it, sometimes it is hard to come with people you don’t know, and she whispers in my ear, “I used to think about kissing your mother, but I never had the courage to ask. I think I could love a sweet, young thing like you, though.” Then she kisses me with a lot of tongue while hubby screeches as he shoots me with his wad, but I am not quite there, and as he rolls off, she fingers me with a very loving look in her eyes until I come hard. Very hard, and so nice.

You really have to get in the right frame of mind to enjoy a gang bang. My first one was also at one of Kate and Marky’s parties, and I didn’t have the advantage of them knowing my parents so they could tell me good stories. They were all members of their swingers club, and very professional, with safe words, and “Did I like anal?” and “If I change my mind, don’t be afraid to speak up.” They had never had one as young as me, and really went out of their way to make me feel cared for.

Kate and Marky had told them to ask me about my parents. Those two knew my telling Mom and Dad stories would put me in the mood, and make me willing to do anything. I did everything. They were so nice, I felt I had to, but I never got off. At the end, they piled together here on the bed, naked, and held me so that every one of them was touching me, stroking me softly, kissing me, and it felt so loving. Then a very nice older man licked my cunt. I felt bad for him because it took me so long, but he was very diligent, and followed every one of my little groans. I finally came, and they all applauded and cheered, and made me feel great about the whole thing. Now I know how to psych myself for a train, and I can come at every station. Kate says that when I get going, I am like a broken slot machine that pays off every time someone sticks a nickel’s worth of dick in me.

Which is good, because it is clear that everyone at the party wants to say hello. I make them tell me everything about my parents they can remember, sometimes more than once, so I won’t forget. A guy who says if I can swallow his dick so that nothing shows, he will tell me how he and my dad worked in a soup kitchen on holidays. I know the story about how Dad served food to the homeless, but I have not heard it in a while, so I suck his fat prick all they way in, hold it there and hum. I only come up for air three times before he splashes the back of my throat. “Never came so quick,” he says. He holds me in his arms while he tells me how he didn’t want to volunteer at the kitchen at first. When my dad talked him into it, though, he felt really good about himself, and he still volunteers.

A mean looking, little bull dyke who came to the party mostly to see the Indian, visits to see if I really look as much like my mom as everyone says. She says my mom was a stuck–up bitch who thought she was better than everyone else, and she wanted to kick my mom’s ass every time she saw her. I am surprised, and hurt, and ask her, “What did my mom ever do to you?”

She doesn’t answer, but says, “I’ll bet you’re the same. A dick sucking, worthless little cunt, who wouldn’t take the time to look at someone who isn’t one of the cool kids.”

I can see the pain in her face, and I know what she says about Mom isn’t true. I decide to prove it. I get up from the bed and walk to her, grabbing her black, studded belt and unbuckling it. She is surprised, but stays stiff until I turn her back toward the bed, unbutton her shirt, lift off her wife–beater T–shirt and push her back, and onto the bed. She lets me pull off her boots, and pants, but she holds her knees together, as if she is afraid I will think her snatch is too ugly to look at.

“Spread ’em,” I say. “I’m going to eat you in half.”

I get right into her, and discover two amazing things. She is one of those dykes who drinks sweet, perfumed tea, and her juice is like a soft drink, so yummy I want to suck her dry. Even better, her clit is a miniature prick, so cute I want to dress it. It stiffens right up in my mouth, and she comes with her legs kicking in the air. I like the big clit so much, I curl up between her legs and suck it like a nipple. While I suck, she apologizes for what she said about my mom, saying high school was a hard time for her. She doesn’t look nearly as mean when she leaves.

Two guys who say they were good friends of my dad bring some rope and want to four post me, but I don’t like being tied up, and I’m not convinced they were his friends. One of them finally admits they knew him, but not that well. Dad did discover them once in the school bathroom singing Beach Boys songs a cappella, and joined in. They said he was really good, and wanted him to join so they could become a group, but he was too busy. It was thin, but sucking the little dyke dick left me hanging, so I let them DP me. I wasn’t expecting much, but they give me one of those orgasmic spasms that leaves me shivering and too sensitive to be touched. They think that is pretty funny, and they start signing. I recognize the song as one Dad used to sing: Good Vibrations. I can still hear them harmonizing as they trail down the stairs.

A greeter enters dressed in fatigues who says he is an ex–marine with a few tours in Iraq under his belt. He is grim–faced and kind of scary with eyes that look like there isn’t anyone behind them. He won’t sit, but walks back and forth at the foot of the bed clutching a bundle of papers. He gives me the creeps until he says, “I pretended your mom was my girlfriend, so I would have someone to write to, like the other guys.” He says she was just the kind of girl he always wanted, and what he loved most about her was that she could always tell when he was down, and knew just what to say to cheer him up, and he envied Dad for having her.

I convince him to sit beside me and read some of the letters. He trembles at my first touch, and his voice falters as he reads. Each one is full of heart–wrenching loneliness and longing, and how when he gets back to the States he wants to have kids, and be there to cheer them up when they need it. But since his return, he feels like a ghost among mortals who can’t see him. He wants so much to believe things will get better, but his hope has been blown away, like his two buddies who joined with him.

I wish Mom was here. I’ll bet she would know what to say to him. I do what I know, which is to reach for his dick, and he starts to cry. When my hand is in his pants, I understand why; his balls are gone. He can still squirt a little, he says, but he will never have a wife, or kids, or a future. I get onto my hands and knees, stick my ass in the air, look into his empty eyes and say, “When I’m down, I pretend. Pretend you’ve got balls like a Pitt Bull, and I’m a bitch in her first heat, and you’re gong to make me as fat as fuck with a litter of your pups.”

He hesitates at first, then his eyes spark, and he jams himself in me. He is going at me hard and fast, and I keep saying “Make me your bitch, fuck me full, you big dog, fuck me full.” He curls over my back, his hands grab my thighs, and he pants in my ear as he slaps at my ass. I don’t usually do games, but the whole dog fantasy is taking me right where I want to go in a hurry.

I think he is getting close so I say, “Oh, yeah, I can feel it. I can feel your come.” This makes him go at me even harder. He comes up with a few lines of his own like, “You’re gonna be full of the big dog’s come, now.” I’m almost there, and I want it bad, so I say, “Oh, shit, I can feel your come leaking down my leg.” He keeps going until he slaps a good one out of me, and while I am enjoying the post fuck tremble, he comes with a growl, and bites me on the neck.

There wasn’t any come I could feel, of course, but as we lay here, I am pretty happy with myself for figuring out what he needed, just like Mom would have. He is serious when he asks me to marry him, but he laughs when I remind him I’m a little young for marriage. The spark of life is still in his eyes when he says good–bye.

A gay guy comes in. He wanted to go for my dad in the worst way, but didn’t come out until long after high school, so kept it to himself. He isn’t interested in fucking me, but he gets naked so I won’t feel uncomfortable, and we talk for a long time, me in his arms, and him calling me, ‘Pet.’ I offer to slip into one of Kate’s strap–ons, and do him up like he wanted my dad to, but he says, “No.” I wake up to bright morning light, I think I fell asleep in his arms, but he is gone.

Downstairs, Kate and Marky are still cleaning up the mess. I am relieved there are no bodies lying around. That kind of thing is so hard to explain if someone stops by.

“We missed you last night,” Kate says.

I fully expected the two of them would come up after everyone else. They like sloppy seconds and creampies with me because nothing delights them more than proof that I have been fucked, and enjoyed it. The idea drives them wild, like that line from an old song Marky is always quoting, “Only thirteen and knows how to nasty.” If they didn’t have me to motivate them, they would have become drug addled dropouts long ago.

“You should have gotten on the train.” I say. “Everyone else did.” They look too hung over to understand.

***

The house is empty when I get home from school. I check the snail mail, and their email, and am relieved there are no burgeoning friendships between Kate and Marky and anyone from school that I need to put a stop to. Just the usual contest crap, and some babble about Marky trading the new dishwasher for some kind of cgi work on a video. Now he is bartering, which means no cash, which means he is still a bum.

I head for the kitchen to grab a Twinkie and stuff it into my mouth whole until I can chew it down and swallow. The memory of my dad’s eyes bulging comically when he did that sets me to laughing so hard I almost choke. As I get a glass of water at the sink, I see a police officer pull up in front of the house. My heart sinks.

I open the door to a young guy, thick–necked, covered in frayed dark blue, and his shirt bulging like a turtle from his protective vest.

“Hi,” he says. “You must be Lilly. Are your parents home?”

“My parents are dead,” I say. Cops, counselors, and flies are all the same.

“Oh, well, who ah— Who owns the house?

“I do,” I say. “My parents left it to me… when they died.” He is looking pretty flustered right now, and I am enjoying it. I keep my hand on the door knob so it doesn’t open too much and look like I want this conversation to continue.

“Well then, who are the responsible adults that live here, with you?”

“There are no responsible adults here, just irresponsible ones.”

He sticks his thumbs into his belt, grins, and says, “Twelve–year–old girls aren’t usually so smart alecky with the police.”

“I’m thirteen,” I say.

He reaches into his vest pocket for a small notebook, squints at a page, then says, “Alright, thirteen. How about Kathryn and— Mark, Marcus? Are they home?”

“Marky,” I say. “And no, they’re not.”

“Well, do you mind if I come in and talk with you, then?”

“Yeah, I mind. Sounds like I should call my lawyer.”

Now his head is one big grin sticking out of his shell. “You have a lawyer, do ya?”

“Sure, you never know when some cop is going to violate you.”

“Violate your rights, you mean.”

“Do I?” His grin fades, replaced by a look that is part embarrassment, part puzzlement. I like that he doesn’t know what to make of me. Marky says there are only two kinds of men; the ones who want to fuck a barely teenage girl, and the ones who won’t admit to wanting to. Knowing that, he says, gives me leverage over men, and I should never be afraid to use it. I’m sure this cop is the won’t admit it type, but I know lust when I see it.

He straightens himself up, and says, “Look, I am responding to a complaint, and I’d like to talk to you about it.”

“What’s your name, Officer?

“Watkins, Officer Watkins.”

“Your first name.”

“Officer Watkins will do.”

I pull the door a little closer, narrowing his view of me. “Not if you want to come in.” I guess he is not used to loosing control of things, because he puts his hand on his gun. Maybe he is doing it to scare me, maybe he doesn’t know he is doing it.

“Bill,” he says.

“Come in, Bill.”

He steps in and scans the room like he is making mental notes. Neat house, no drug paraphernalia, no sacks of stolen money laying around, no dead bodies. All cops are suspicious, but this house is like Marky says: seemingly normal.

I point to the couch. “Have a seat.”

“No, thanks.” He settles into a wide stance as he keeps looking around. He brushes his close–shaved head with his hand, as if he is looking for a hat. He must have left his in the car.

I sit down, asking, “So, what’s this about?”

“Somebody filed a complaint,” he says. “The parents of one Carol Flannegan. She was a friend of yours, right?”

That little bitch. She practically begged Marky to fuck her. What did she think was going to happen when she rode off with him? I had better be careful how I handle this.

“We go to school together,” I say. “I wouldn’t say we’re friends. She’s a little too whacky for me.”

“How so?”

“She’s always saying stuff, you know, dirty stuff, about guys, older guys, especially.”

“What kind of stuff?” Bill sounds very curious in a non–just–get–the–facts way.

“Look, I don’t want to get her into trouble. She’s just— like Kate says, too advanced for her age.”

Bill has produced a little pencil and is writing in his notebook. He looks up, “What about you? You seem a little advanced for your age.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to say that kind of thing to me.”

He writes some more, saying, “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything. Just an observation.”

“So, like I said, I don’t really know Carol.”

“She ever been over here to the house?” he asks.

“Once in a while she’ll call, or come by.”

“When’s the last time she did that?” he asks.

“About a week ago. She glommed onto to Kate and me at the mall. Kate invited her to come home with us. I think she feels sorry for Carol because she doesn’t have any friends.”

“What did you two do?”

“Nothing interesting, I showed her some new clothes, but all she wanted to do was talk about boys, and Marky.

“Marky?” Bill says. “Why’d she want to talk about Marky?”

“Haven’t you been listening? She couldn’t keep her eyes off him. She got bored with me pretty quickly, and started begging him to give her a ride on his motorcycle. He didn’t want to, he doesn’t like anybody else on it, but she was so whiney, he gave in.”

“And then what happened?”

“He took her home. Haven’t seen her since. She hasn’t been at school, somebody said she was sick.”

It occurs to me Marky may not have taken her home, that maybe Carol had a change of heart after she got herself fucked, and Marky panicked, dumb shit that he is, killed her, and hid the body. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t been at school. And Bill, here, is playing it real dumb like to find out more, the way cops do. I can make it look like she wanted Marky to bust her little cherry, so maybe they let him off, but I can’t save him from a murder charge.

“Anything else go on, while she was here?”

“No,” I say. “Why, what’d she say?”

Bill ignores my question by writing in his notebook. Before he is done, he says, “It’s funny, her parents described Carol differently. Very timid, almost naïve, boys didn’t interest her.”

“Some kids are different when their parents aren’t around,” I say. “I’ll bet you were.”

He smiles, “Yeah, my dad was— Well, never mind that. What about you? Are you different when your parents aren’t around.”

“My parents are dead.”

“Right. You said that.” Bill looks around the room again. I think he is trying not to look at me. “So, you didn’t like Carol,” he says. “How come?”

Why is he always using past tense? Holly shit! He is being evasive about what Carol said, too, like he didn’t want to tell me she was dead, to see if I already knew. He is looking at me funny. “What?” I say.

“I said, why didn’t you like Carol?”

Carol must be dead. God damn that bastard, Marky! Kate was probably in on it, or least knew about it. This is going to ruin everything. What is going to become of me? A foster home? No fucking way. My house! They will hang Marky, sue Kate, and take the house. My house, the only worthwhile thing I have.

“You still with me?” Bill asks.

I hear his question, but my mind is racing so fast I can’t make sense of it. “What?”

“Why didn’t you like Carol?”

Fuck those two. They are of no use to me without the house. “She was a stupid little cunt, that’s why. She wanted Marky to fuck her, and I’m sure she enjoyed it because Marky knows how to fuck little girls. Kate, too. Believe me, I know.

“What? How do you know?” Bill has finally stopped writing in that damn notebook.

“This is my house, God damn it, and they have no right to wreck everything. I hope you put the both of them away forever.”

Bill squeezes the little radio hanging from his shirt, “This is Watkins. I’ve got a 10–25, requesting a female officer 10–13.” Bill stares at the floor as he waits for a response.

“I hope they both get deep cavity searches that turn them inside out,” I say. I don’t think Bill is listening because his head is bent toward the microphone.

A radio voice blares, “10–4, Watkins.” Bill adjusts the baton hanging from his belt so he can sit down across from me. “Now, Lilly,” he says. “I’d like you to calm down, and start from the beginning.”

“You want all the gory details? Is that going to turn you on? Well I’ve got enough details to keep you pulling at yourself until it falls off in your hand.”

“Stop it. I’m just trying to find out if a crime was committed.”

“Well yes, I think so, Officer Watkins. I think when a man rapes a little girl, and his girlfriend helps, and then they decide to sell her to their swingers club, and every other low–life friend they have for drugs, all the while promising that she can live in a normal house, and go to a normal school as long as she keeps her mouth shut and pretends she likes it, and then they throw it all away so they can fuck another little girl, yes I think that’s a crime, don’t you?”

The front door opens, and Kate and Marky step in. “What’s going on?” they ask in unison.

The look on their faces tells me they know it is all over. “Why’d you do it?” I yell at them. “Why’d you have to kill her, Marky? Wasn’t I a good enough for you. I enjoyed fucking you, really I did. You said if I enjoyed it, you would let me be like the other kids.”

Bill comes to sit beside me, putting his arm around my shoulder, “It’s going to be okay, Lilly. No one is going to hurt you any more.” I lean into his shoulder while I cry, wondering where I will live now.

Kate and Marky sit down, too, with real shame on their faces. I didn’t think they had any left.

Bill looks at the two of them, I can feel his anger in the stiffness of his arm wrapped around me. “You two have anything you want to say,” he asks, glaring.

Marky says, “Yeah, who am I supposed to have killed?”

He is so smooth and casual in his lies, it really pisses me off. “Carol Flannegan, of course,” I say. “He knows, Marky. I told him everything.”

“Now wait a minute,” Bill says. “I never said anything about Carol being killed. Her mother filed a complaint because she said you showed her a sex toy, and scared her with it.”

“Sex toy?” Kate asks. “What sex toy?”

“You mean,” I say. “Marky didn’t— ” Shit. I have ruined everything. How could I have been so stupid? I jump up and run to Marky and throw my arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Marky. I didn’t mean to tell them. I thought I was going to lose the house.” He gives me a little smile, the kind he doesn’t want to give, but feels he has to. “I’m such a fuck up,” I say, as I try to get him to hug me in forgiveness, but he won’t.

Kate says, “I’m afraid there has been a misunderstanding. Lilly… gets things mixed up.”

Bill stands again, clasps his belt with both hands, and says, “Maybe so, but she has made some serious accusations against you two.”

“What kind of accusations?” Kate asks.

I will do anything to save Kate and Marky and my house. I go to Bill and wrap my arm around his. “Oh, please, Bill. Kate’s right. I was making that other stuff up. Kate and Marky are great. They would never do those things to me. Can’t we just forget this whole thing?”

“It’s alright, Lilly. You don’t have to protect them anymore. They’re never going to hurt you again.”

“Oh, I’m not protecting them,” I say. “I only said that stuff because I was mad.”

“The accusation has been made, and there is going to be an investigation. There has to be.” Bill points to them, the glare returning to his eye. “Now you two can make it easy on yourselves, by owning up to what you have done, so this little girl can put her life back together.”

Marky says, “Jesus, you fucking idiot. Can’t you see she is crazy?”

Marky never gets angry. It is so strange to see him this way. “Don’t say that, Marky. I’ll be good,” I say. “I promise.”

Kate says, “Marky, that isn’t helping.”

“I’m sorry,” Marky says, “But I can’t take it any more. This isn’t the first time she has said something like this. She belongs— somewhere, I don’t know where, but somewhere.”

It makes me so mad when he tries to make me out as looney. “I am not crazy, Marky. I’m sorry I told him, really I am, but I am not crazy.”

“Lies,” Marky says. “Crazy, fucking lies.”

Kate keeps saying, “Marky, please.”

“I am not crazy!” It makes me crazy when he says that I am. “I can prove it, Bill. I have a tape of what they did to me.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Bring me the tape, Lilly.” Bill says.

“What tape? She doesn’t have a tape,” Marky says. “She couldn’t have.”

He is so smug. “Thought you hid it, didn’t you?” I say. “This is my house, and I know all your hiding places.” I run upstairs to the grill covering the heater in the hall, pull out the tape, and rush back down the stairs and hand it to Bill. He tells me to play it, and I put it in the recorder and turn it on. Turning to Marky, who looks really surprised, I say, “That’s right, Marky, it’s over. You can kiss that Indian you love so much good–bye. The only rides your going to be giving from now on are to cell mates up your ass.”

Marky stands, and says, “I didn’t know she had this. Playing this tape is a mistake.”

Kate gets up and turns away. “I can’t watch,” she says.

Bill says, “Everybody sit still. I’m going to get to the bottom of this right now.” He turns toward the television as images begin to flicker. I stand next to him, as close as I can. “You’ll see, Bill,” I say. I don’t look at the tape playing. I lived it. I know it by heart. The words and sounds make the images play in my head, even though I don’t look. I lean into Bill and try to nestle his arm around me.

They are quiet as they watch for a minute or two when Marky says, “Turn it off, you dumb shit.” Kate is crying. They should both be crying for what they did to me.

Bill lets go of me, and stops the tape. He doesn’t say anything at first, then, “Who are those two?”

Marky looks up, “Her parents, before they died, or before they overdosed and killed themselves by burning down their home.”

Bill, is having a hard time talking. “How could they do that to their own child?”

Marky says, “I ask myself that almost every day. He was my step–brother, they were our best friends as kids.” He shakes his head, “I don’t know.”

Even I almost believe him. “Tell the truth, Marky,” I say. “Tell how you and Kate killed them, and took me to be your little fuck toy.”

Bill is waiting for an answer.

“She’s right, in a way,” Marky says. “Their death was our fault.”

“It was not our fault,” Kate says. She turns to Bill, “Marky and I were kind of wild in high school, Lilly’s parents were… very straight arrow, so we encouraged them to try things, like… sex… and drugs. It was only marijuana, but they couldn’t handle it, neither one of them. They were like those people you hear about sometimes, one drink and they become alcoholic.

“Years went by, we thought they would pull themselves out of it. Instead, they got worse, and the drugs got worse. They dropped out of college, could only get menial jobs they couldn’t hold, lived in one dump of a trailer after another, got arrested— ”

Marky says, “When she got pregnant, unplanned of course, we knew it was going to be bad, but we never could have imagined how bad. We don’t even know all the things that went on, only some of them from tapes that survived the fire. I thought the police had taken them all, but I guess they missed one.

“In the end,” Kate says, “Nothing mattered except the drugs. Not even their little girl.”

Marky says, “The counselor says she lives in her own world. She pretends her parents were a wonderful couple who loved her, and took care of her. Go ahead, ask her. Ask her if her parents abused her.”

Bill looks at me, his face confused.

“My parents were good people,” I say. “They loved me.”

“Lilly,” Bill says. “I just saw the tape. They did terrible… terrible things to you.”

“No, Bill. That was Kate and Marky. My parents would never do that. Please don’t listen to their lies.”

“Lilly,” Bill says. “Your parents were on the tape with you, not Kate and Marky.”

I can tell Bill is going to believe Kate and Marky, but they lie just like grandma lies, and the low–lifes at their party lied. They are so jealous of my parents.

Kate says, “We’re are the ones who quit taking drugs, we are the ones with jobs, who took her in, and gave her a place to live so she could have some semblance of a normal life. We’re not even married, but we felt we owed it to her. We even promised to give her the house when she grows up, so she would feel like she had a foundation to grow from. We felt responsible.”

“We should have known,” Marky says. “It was our fault.”

“No it wasn’t,” Kate says to Marky, her tears returning. “We have done everything the counselor asked. She says Lilly can’t deal with what happened to her. She needed her parents’ love to survive, so she makes them good in her mind, and us bad.”

“I’m going upstairs,” I say. “I don’t want to hear any more lies about my parents.” I leave Bill’s side, and walk toward the stairs.

Marky says, “Now she is going to spend hours in that room she pretends was her parents’, with all that half–burned junk of theirs. The last time we went in there, she was masturbating. God knows what goes through her mind in there.”

As I climb the stairs, I hear Bill talking into the radio. “This is Watkins. Cancel the 10–13. We are J–2 on the 10–25.”

I close the door to their room and begin dusting. Only a week, and so much dust. I straighten the only picture left of the four of them at the wedding. The frame is new, Kate and I picked it out, but the corner of the print is burned. I sit down on the bed with it, and think of my favorite stories about them. It’s like a picture book in my mind, and I can browse the pages reminding myself of what they were like. I go through every page.

I look up as the door opens, and it is Bill, looking very cool and tough in his crisp, blue uniform, and he removes his hat and holds it in his hands. “I ah… wanted to see how you were doing.”

I don’t know what to say to Bill. I feel empty toward him. I wanted him to believe me. Even if it meant I would lose everything, I wanted someone to believe me.

Bill brushes his hand over the top of his head, and looks around, seeming uncomfortable. “Look, I’m… ah… sorry about all this. I hope you get yourself straightened out, you know, and are… happy.”

“It’s hard to be happy when your parents die, Bill. It’s just never the same. They loved me, you know, no matter what Kate and Marky say.”

“Yeah, that was one of the reasons I came up. I know now your parents loved you.”

This is a surprise. “I thought you believed their lies.”

“I did at first. After I saw the tape, I thought that twinkle in your eye was the sun shinning through. But then Kate mentioned your parents last name, and I remembered something, which got me to thinking about the tape. I took another look, and I think I figured out how they pulled that off.”

“Remembered what?”

“My uncle was a firefighter, and he told me what happened when your parents died. I didn’t put it together until I heard the name.”

I sit up, “Will you tell me? See, I don’t remember anything about that. The counselor said I don’t want to, but I do, I just can’t.”

“Sure, I’ll tell you,” he says. “Do you mind if I sit down?” Bill takes off his belt with the gun and baton and lays it on the chair next to his hat, turns off his radio, and sits facing me on the bed. He doesn’t look suspicious anymore, and he seems more relaxed.

“When my uncle got to the scene, the place was already engulfed in flames. They tried to get in, but it was too dangerous. They got the fire put out pretty quickly though, and then they searched.” His voice softens as he says, “They found your parents, together in the kitchen leaning against the refrigerator. They were… dead, from burns and smoke inhalation. But they couldn’t find you. The neighbors said you were there, so they looked and looked until, finally, they opened the refrigerator, and there you were.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you see? Your parents couldn’t get you out, so they put you in the refrigerator to protect you from the fire. They saved your life! My uncle still chokes up when he talks about it. He says most people about to die in a fire would have made a run for it, but your parents stayed right there. Your parents were more interested in saving you, than saving themselves.”

I throw my arms around Bill’s neck and squeeze as hard as I can. “Oh, thank you, Bill. It means so much to me to hear that.” He holds me gently in return, his stiff vest and his shiny badge pressing against me.

He is smiling as I let him go and sit back again, practically trembling with the pleasure he has given me. “I’ll bet Marky is feeling like an ass wipe, now, and Kate. I mean, are those two great liars, or what?”

“Yeah,” Bill says. “They had me going.”

I am so excited. “So, are you going to arrest them? I know what prisoners do to men pedophiles, what do women prisoners do to women pedophiles? I hope it’s painful, whatever it is. How long do you think they will get? A hundred years, maybe? Isn’t it so many years for each time they fucked me, which is like a thousand times, so maybe a million years. Too bad they won’t live long enough to spend the whole time on a shit bucket in prison— ”

Bill puts his hand on mine to keep it from flapping around any more, and says, “Calm down, Lilly. I’m going to arrest them right now, but I wanted to check with you. I’m concerned about what will happen to you if Kate and Marky go to jail.

Damn, he is right. “What do you think they will do with me? I don’t want to end up in some dump of a group home, have to run away, and live on the street getting small change for sucking diseased dicks. Kate has told me the stories.”

“I’m sure they will find a place for you, where you can be like other kids.”

“You mean with a big house, and parents that are married, and straight, and who go to work, and dress like adults?”

“I mean with adults who don’t fuck the kids.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. No fucking.” That goes without saying. You can’t be normal if you’re thirteen and fucking every other day. I would have to be like Carol, and freak out, and call the police if I even see a sex toy. How am I going to fake that? “I guess I’ll have to wait until I’m older to have sex again?”

“Right,” Bill says.

“How much older?”

“A lot older.”

“And I can only fuck kids my own age, right?”

“Definitely. Nobody will want you around if you start doing the adults.”

It is what I have always wanted, but I thought it was out of reach, like those tree branches that keep disappearing. No fucking. It sounds normal, but not so appealing now that it’s possible. I’d better hang onto those toys and learn to like the Man–Killer. Those things just don’t do it for me, though. I need the love. Kate and Marky love me, at least they take care of me, as long as they get a piece of my ass regularly. I am not seeing much upside here.

I look to Bill. “You wouldn’t want your own, personal, teen slut, would you? I do everything, and I don’t eat much.”

Bill’s troubled look tells me this is a no–go. “I have a wife, and kids,” he says.

“Oh, so… do you have to arrest Kate and Marky?”

He nods, “Sure. Unless… ” Bill’s shoulders raise up in a shrug making his vest crunch. “You see, there wouldn’t be any reason to arrest them if you don’t claim there has been a crime, and I don’t have any reason to believe there has been a crime.”

The meaning of Bill’s shrug, and the wry look on his face is starting to sink in. “You mean,” I say. “There wouldn’t be any reason to believe there has been a crime just because a girl who has was abused by her dead parents went crazy and said a few things in anger?”

“Right,” he says.

I fall back on the bed, and I can’t help but laugh. So, things will go back to normal around here. The irony of describing my life in this house as normal makes me laugh more. Well, it is not so bad. I really do like the fucking, as long as I feel the love.

I will have to take care of that little pussy, Carol, though. Can’t have her blabbing about the Man–Killer at school. That won’t sound very normal. Maybe I’ll give her a call and let her know that if she says anything about it, I will post on Facebook how she got on that baby, and liked it so much she wants do the whole football team, and won’t they please contact her to set a date.

That leaves only one loose end. “What did they offer you, Bill? Did Kate promise a visit by a couple of her lesbian friends for an episode you can brag about to your buddies? Marky offer to give you the Indian? What’s the going rate for buying a police officer?”

“I am not for sale. I’m trying to help you out. I’ll arrest them, if you want. Just say the word.”

“Be careful what you wish for, right?”

Bill’s face crinkles into a smile.

“It’s funny,” I say. “My world isn’t normal, but it is my world, and I know how to get along in it. So, what’s it going to take for you to not arrest them?”

Bill smiles. “You.”

How did I not see this coming? “Of course,” I say. “But I thought you were the type that wouldn’t admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“Admit that you wanted to fuck a thirteen–year–old. When did you realize it?”

“Oh,” he says. “It was the whole ‘Never know when a cop is going to violate me,’ bit. And the things you say, the words you use— You are something.”

“So you fuck me, Kate and Marky skate, and I go back to my so–called normal life?”

“Win, win, and win,” Bill says.

“Okay,” I say, feeling a sense of ease wash over me. “What am I in for? Are you going to put me in handcuffs and rough me up, spank me like I’m your bad daughter, or pretend I’m that woman you always wanted to rape during a traffic stop?”

“What a mouth,” he says. Bill begins removing his shirt and vest, then takes off his boots, stands and drops his pants, all the while smiling and looking at me. When he is naked, his buff frame supported by a wide stance, his equipment growing, he says, “I see a lot of terrible shit every day, Lilly. People can be mean, stupid, and hurtful. I don’t need any more of that. So I’m going to love you in the best way I know how.” He kneels on the bed, and begins removing my clothes.

“I’m a big girl, Bill. You don’t have to be nice to me.”

“No you’re not,” he says. “And I figure you deserve nice for what you’ve been through.”

“You must be one hell of a fuck to think you can make up for what I’ve been through.”

“Maybe not, but I’m going to try.”

I am so pathetic when it comes to that earnest love shit, but his lean muscles, hairless body, and prick as long as his baton would make even Kate drool. Looking at him, feeling his big arms move me around like a doll makes me feel all hetero, and longing to get drilled. He spreads me open and tickles my clit with his tongue like a humming bird until he pulls a real brain tingler from me. He is better at it than Kate, and is more tender in his touch than Marky. I try to take his stick in my mouth, the idea of that meaty thing sliding down my throat practically sends me over, but he wants to look at me, so he holds me down and slides himself into me as easy as a finger into a jam jar. I’m only thirteen and I can’t take one that long, but I want to, because there is nothing like a man totally focused on you enjoying being fucked. The next one takes a while, but I come, and come again. Each one numbs me out, but in less than a minute I am waiting for the next one. It feels like I could have a whole gang bang worth or orgasms with this guy.

Young guys are better than old guys, no question, so frigging tight everywhere, it is like fucking a statue at a museum. And he kisses me, can’t stop kissing me, and he whispers little things in my ear. I can barely hear him. I try to listen but I can’t comprehend and thrust back at him at the same time. I wish I was more coordinated. “My darling girl,” I think he is saying. “My darling, baby girl.” I could love this guy, I think this guy could be the one.

Another orgasm jars me senseless and, too weak to hold on to him any more, I fall like dirty laundry back onto the bed, sweating like a man, and my cunt vibrating like the Indian at full throttle. He rolls onto his back and pulls me on top of him with my face in his chest, grabs my little hips in his large hands, pushes me onto his cock again, and works me up and down until it feels like his baton is stabbing at my brain. I try to lift myself up to see who is using me like an old towel to jerk off in, but I don’t have the strength. I fall onto his marble body, my head twisted up to see his eyes, bright blue, impassioned, closing only long enough to come so hard it feels like a douche, then opening gently to me again. My breast flutters on top of his heaving chest until our breathing grows silent together.

“Tell me,” I say.

Bill pulls the sheet over us, me still on top of him like a copse at the morgue, and he rubs the length of my back with his hand. “My uncle was a firefighter… ”

---

© 2010-2012 Fabula Salaxacis - This work may not be reproduced in any form without permission.