"What?" he asked. "What made me so wet?"
Blanche sighed deeply; she felt so good. So nice and peaceful. "It was was something else." She tried to explain something that she didn't really know. "Something nice " A small moan of pleasure bubbled from her lips, then she whispered, "Well do this again sometime "
"All right," Cecil said agreeably. "If you like it all right." He climbed up her body, edging his face closer to hers. When his head was on the pillow, he turned his face and kissed her on the cheek.
She patted him soothingly.
He slid his mouth across her face, searching for her lips.
Blanche jerked her head away. "Don't kiss me on the mouth now," she said sharply.
Cecil froze in hurt surprise. "W – why not?" he asked indignantly.
"Not "said Blanche in her primmest voice, " right after you've been kissing me there!" She pushed his face away. "That wouldn't be nice, Cecil," she said severely, "that just wouldn't be nice!"
Chapter 3
Cecil stood in front of the full – size mirror in Alma's bedroom and admired the new nylon briefs that his sister had bought the day before. They fitted him perfectly. He drew them up a little higher, felt them tighten under his crotch with a delicious silky squeeze. When he had enough money saved up, he'd buy himself a pair like these.
Suddenly he stared. Was that the front door that he heard opening? He slid the briefs down quickly, stepped out of them with a hurried, nervous movement. He didn't want Alma to find him in here. He had stayed home from school that afternoon, telling Alma at lunchtime that he had a sick headache, especially to try on her new clothes. It would be awful if she caught him!
He dragged up his jeans, then stepped to the door, listened. After a moment, he drew back with a small sigh of relief. It was his mother's voice he could hear. Then he frowned. What was his mother doing at home in the middle of the afternoon and whom was she talking to?
Cecil waited indecisively. He heard her voice faintly, opened the door a crack, and made out the words, "Come in " It was his mother's voice, but she sounded different. There was the sound of a door closing, and, after another moment of indecision, Cecil stepped into the hall.
The door of his mother's bedroom was closed. Cecil moved up to it slowly, dragging his feet, feeling a hard ball of fear in the pit of his stomach.
"I'm only human, Brad… " It was his mother's voice. Cecil felt his blood turn colder. Brad? It must be his mother's boss, Brad Stern, who was in her bedroom. Why would his mother let her boss come into her bedroom? Cecil felt his knees begin to shake.
"I I wouldn't want to do this at the office… " It was his mother speaking again, and there were horrible rustling sounds, as of soft fabric being dragged across even softer skin. Cecil screwed his eyes shut.
"It's been years now, Brad and I don't want to wait any longer… " His mother's voice was all tight, strained.
With an effort, Cecil bent his body down, placed his eye at the keyhole in the door. He couldn't see his mother, but he could see the man. The man had removed his pants, and Cecil could see his naked skin. He stood there with the big, horrible thing sticking out: the ugly, monstrous thing that Blanche told him was called a "prick!"
"Come on, Brad," Cecil's mother said, her voice coming from the left side of the room, the side the bed was on. "I've waited long enough." and her voice sounded hungry and angry and filled with something that Cecil had never heard before.
He saw the beast of a man, with his thing growing bigger, uglier every second…
"Come on fuck me!" Cecil's mother said in a vicious, lust – filled voice… And the man with the monstrous prick moved toward his mother's bed.
Cecil trembled. He staggered back a step from his mother's bedroom door. How could his mother let a man touch her beautiful, blonde body? He knew! He knew that the ugly prick was going to…
He felt sick. How could she? His mother? His knees shook as he stumbled toward the bathroom. He crawled to the door, locked it, then went to the bowl. "How could she?" he moaned. Then he vomited violently, repeatedly, and painfully.
After a moment, he raised his ashen face then screamed in silence: I hate men! He vomited. His mother! How could she?
Cecil was eleven years old.
Joanne was thirty years old when her husband, Jeff Greene, died. She had been married at nineteen, just a few months before Alma, the first of her four children, was born. And that was the only reason she got married, she always told herself.
Jeff had been unsuccessful as a salesman, a parent, and a husband. But, she had to admit, he had succeeded in getting her pregnant four times. Once before they were married and three more times after.
How she had cursed the strident demands of her own body which had caused her to forget everything else in a frightening urge to find sexual satisfaction.
It was because of Jeff's lack of success as a salesman that she had to go back to work after he died. Brad Stern, older but still the same in his feelings toward her, was very happy to take her back into his office, and, after she had got over the frantic change in her routine, Joanne was happy, too.
"Just like old times," Brad had said one day shortly after she had taken on her old job as his secretary.
She had given him an enigmatic smile, then murmured, "Except that I’ve got four children."
Brad had looked at her, a somber expression in his deep, brown eyes, and said softly, "Yes, I wondered about that."
Joanne had blushed, the color heightening the prettiness which had never gone away. "What d'you mean?" she asked, though she knew.
Brad counted on his fingers. "One, two, three, and four. You even called the(m A, B, C, and D!" He looked into Joanne's too – blue eyes. "Alma, Blanche, Cecil, and Donna… Whose idea was that? The A – B – C – D bit, I mean."
Joanne opened her eyes even wider. "I never thought of it!" She sounded genuinely surprised.
Brad drummed on his desktop with his fingers. "Who's looking after the smallest one?" he asked.
"Donna?" Joanne lifted her blonde head. "I've got a woman who comes in until Alma gets home from school, then she takes over. Alma's a regular little mother," she added.
"Aren't you all," Brad murmured dryly.
"All except Cecil," Joanne answered, refusing to be needled. "He's a boy."
"Yeah!" Brad stared at her. "What d'you know about that?"
Joanne's face became serious. "I don't know, Brad," she whispered, shaking her head worriedly. "Maybe he should have been a girl, too. Sometimes I wonder… "
Brad had let his eyes drop down to his desk, and when he spoke, he didn't seem to be talking on the same subject at all. "Joanne," he murmured, "whence we going to "
She cut in, "I don't know, Brad." Getting up, Joanne moved jerkily to the window and stared out. She could feel her skin sweating beneath her too – heavy skirt and wished that she could could… She turned back to Brad. "I don’t know when, Brad," she said clearly. "But as soon as I know, I’ll tell you," she finished in a whisper.
Joanne told him later, years later and she had no way of knowing that on the day that she chose, her only son would stay away from school and would be in the house.
"Well be alone, Brad," she had whispered to him in the morning, "now that Donna's at nursery school all the children are out. So we can go to the house, and "
"Yes," he'd murmured softly, pulling her body against his, "we mustn't forget the and."
So they'd driven from the city, gone into the house, and hadn't seen anybody, heard anybody… But they hadn't been alone… Cecil had been there!
Chapter 4
Alma slued the car off the highway, then stopped under the trees so sharply that Cecil was thrown violently against her.