She was out of the house by the time it did. When he heard the door slam, Claude cried out to his mother. "Must I always do what she says? I hate pretending to be a girl. If the kids at school ever found out..." He broke, a shiver in his throat.
"They won't, dear," Irene soothed, getting up and sitting down in the chair that had separated them, her arm curled around Claude's shoulders. She squeezed the beginning of his small chest with her fingertips. "I'll talk to Elaine, dear. She really likes you -- you mustn't get the idea she doesn't. It's just that her ways of showing it are... strange, that's all," she said, seizing upon the word, rolling it on her tongue with pleasure, as though it solved the equation.
"When she makes me wear dresses and girl's clothing..." The child's voice was crushed in his throat, and unreleased tears glazed his eyes.
Irene squeezed his neck, and the boy rubbed against the palm of her hand with a catlike sigh. Like an unhappy wife, his mother was already comforting herself with memories of what she had lost. When Terry had gone... It was Terry she thought of as Claude's father, not the man who had planted the seed in her. He had been a mere device. It was Terry who suggested she let herself become pregnant with the child. "So we can raise it, darling," she had said. Now she knew that Terry had failed her, but then she was all bright hopes. They were all bright hopes and aspirations, both of them; both wanted a "family", children, Terry had fussed over her during pregnancy like a nervous father.
It was Claude's arrival that had made the difference. (Could it have been -- she always dismissed the thought as quickly as it came, came persistently into her mind -- because the child was a boy?)
The biological fact of motherhood had taken her, filled her. She had wanted the child because Terry had wanted her to have it, and Terry was her lover. But Claude -- named for Terry's grandfather -- was the center of her world now, even her body regulated to his timetable.
And Terry loved the child. And Terry, she knew, loved her. But "that wasn't the point," as her lover told her each time a new argument began. Half an hour or an hour later, Irene had backed her into a corner, and there was the new discovery that there was no point. Still, the right side of the argument made no difference; the earful concessions were Irene's, and her logic did not weaken Terry, because Terry was stronger than she was to begin with -- end finally, at the end.
The point, such as it was, was this: Terry had become jealous of Claude, of the infant's power, of Irene's attention. She could not sense that there was no division, no redistribution of love, that more love had been created with the birth, that, as far as attention went, the baby pulled its mother's concern toward it like a magnet. Like a father, thought Irene, as she watched her lover drift away.
Terry had not even really known what to do with the child. Her jealousy was like that of the male parent, but her love was not. She had been disappointed almost immediately; she did not feel like a father, she did not feel like the head of a family.
She had not known that that last night was the end, though she must have known that it was one of the last times. Her mind could summon, was summoning now, still photograph I in sequence. Some of them were of the scene as she'd known it; all there was of her was a smudge of pink nose, the rims of her reading glasses when she had them on to took closer into Terry's eyes.
The smell could easily be re-created. Beer and vodka alternated throughout the evening Terry had spent in the gay bar. Then the alcohol scent mixed with the mustiness of the room, even with the air that came in through cracks around the window's wood frame.
"Please," she hushed, "Claude is sleeping."
A wave of sadness passed over Terry's eyes, a wave of sad fatigue. "Sorry," She hiccupped and laughed.
She was in bra and panties. The full white cotton of the underpants that came almost to her navel could not conceal the round swell of her hips. Though the white blocked out the color of her pubic hair, Terry's bush was thick, and the tangle pushed up against the crotch. A few long strands snaked out from the insides of her legs.
The legs were strong. The thighs were hard with exercise though the calves were thin, not much more than the long bone. She was breathing heavily now; with difficulty, it seemed, and her big breasts, coming not to points but curving bends, heaved with each sigh. The tits were enormous red circles, larger than proportion would have allowed, and Irene could read their color even through the starchy white of the brassiere. Her knee bones rolled against the tight skin as she bent to draw the panties down her legs. She tightened her fingers around the discarded garment, and Irene sniffed involuntarily, thinking about the odor that would adhere to the cotton crotch. Terry always removed her pants first, as though to indicate her part was that of a male. The undressing of her breasts was an afterthought almost.
They drooped, heavy, even the nipples pointing downward, sagging toward the belly as if disappointed. She arched her shoulder as she reached down to scratch the surface of her belly, and the inside of her forearm covered the scarlet tit. The boobs bounced without grace as she moved across the room. Her steps were unsteady. She paused, her finger on the light switch. (Why did she want me to see her face when she asked me the question? Irene had wondered a thousand times.) "Can you, tonight?"
There was something impressive about the weariness in Terry's eyes, in the muscles of her face, in her voice. It was sexless and ageless. "Yes," said Irene, folding the top sheet inside her fingers as they flexed. "I want you."
Claude had not burnt out the drive. She was not sure whether it was the time without sex or something about giving birth, but she looked forward to bed more each night. She had even begun to masturbate in the daytime, when Terry was away at work, something she'd never done before.
Still, the new excitement she felt could not make itself known to her lover. Terry's touch was sad, this night especially so, as if she were stroking and fondling a memory.
When her hand reached hungrily for Irene's cunt, grown now to a bristle months after Claude's delivery, Irene held the wrist tight with the flesh of her suddenly muscular thighs. Steadily Terry's fingers stretched the labia, stroked the furrows, dipped inside and wiped the fluid over the raw-pink tissue. Terry's index pushed inside, and the walls, too, were tight around it as the nail rolled against the moistened muscle. Terry's thumb rolled over the clit until it was like a small frozen bubble, purple and puffy. Her pubic hair was greasy now with her lubrication, and she smelled herself, smelled the odor Terry's fingers had drawn from her.
She held Terry's large breast in her hand; rather, she balanced it, pushing the large tit into the billowing flesh until the aureole was the texture of tapioca pudding, tiny beads erected into hard granules. She squeezed the boob until Terry groaned and moved back, out of her reach.
Terry had spread her legs wide. Her knees were even with Irene's, planted outside Irene's already sprawled legs as she kneeled. Her legs folded. She pushed up and her breasts moved a moment after she did, like conclusions to a wave. She sat down, and her soft buttocks brushed Irene's upper legs, and her pubic tuft was no more than an inch away from Irene's lighter down.
At first her hand was selfish. Her fingers rubbed her own stomach until the shapes of fingertips were blush marks on the paleness of her belly. She started to gather the flesh, and she was rougher, rougher with herself than she had ever been with Irene. She scratched the flesh and her tongue poured from between her lips, coating them and moving as slippery as an eel. She hit into her lower lip and the lip discolored just as she pushed forward and rolled her pubic hair against Irene's sopping cunt. She reached under her own leg and found the entrance to the cavity, stretched by Claude's birth. Two fingers wiggled as they made their way inside; the movement seemed playful to Irene, and it surprised and saddened her to see that her lover was not smiling.