Chapter 1

Gail Hudson appreciated the summer’s tantalizing breeze as she lazily lay on a lounge chair watching her thirteen-year-old son frolic in their in-ground swimming pool with his best friend. Her eyes darted from one boy to the other. It was wrong to compare her son to Jimmy, but she couldn’t help it. Jimmy looked more mature than her Bobby. More manly.

It wasn’t that Jimmy was a couple of months older than Bobby. Although mentioning that to Bobby would cause him to sulk. Those two months made all the difference to her son. They were the difference between being thirteen and fourteen years old. A big deal to a thirteen-year-old. But that wasn’t it. It was that Bobby had a stick figure body. Every effort to fatten him up had failed. He had the appetite of a bird. Gail had even purchased dumbbells for him to build muscle. They were buried under a pile of other unused items in the garage. Jimmy, on the other hand, was developing an athlete’s body. His thighs and calves were strong and his upper arms showed the definition of his young muscles. His hairless chest was rounded whereas Bobby’s was sunken. Gail wondered if the fact that Jimmy had a father and Bobby didn’t affected the difference in their development.

Bobby’s father had walked out on them when Bobby was five years old and had stopped being part of their lives. Gail didn’t even know where he was, if he had another family, or if he was even alive. And she didn’t care. The divorce settlement gave her the house and nothing else. Not even child support. Her ex-husband hadn’t wanted anything to do with Bobby and that was fine with Gail. Instead, her lawyer had gotten Bobby’s father to pay off the mortgage. That’s how Gail was able to afford a house with an in-ground swimming pool on a teacher’s salary. But comparing the two boys, Gail wondered if a boy needed a father, and Bobby didn’t have one. Gail thought about her needs as well. A new father for Bobby would be something she needed for all those lonely nights, but she pushed that thought from her mind as her gaze fell on Jimmy.

Jimmy placed his hands flat on the side of the pool deck and hoisted himself up. A sheet of water poured off his face and body as he effortlessly climbed out of the pool. When he spun around, got onto his knees, and leaned forward to reach into the pool to splash Bobby, Gail brushed aside a lock of dark hair and hooked a finger at the bridge of her sunglasses. She dragged them down her nose to peer over the top. Even Jimmy’s butt looked manlier than Bobby’s, and that’s where her eyes lingered. She stared at the pale white skin that starkly contrasted with Jimmy’s bronze tan, and also at several inches of ass crack.

The girls are going to be drooling over that boy soon, Gail thought. He’s taller than Bobby. Jimmy already comes up to my chin. He’s bigger than Bobby all over. Hmm, I wonder if his—? Gail Hudson, you dirty old lady, what on earth are you thinking?

When Jimmy jumped back into the pool with a scream and big splash, Gail untied the sash to her cover-up, pulled it open, and dug her chin into her chest as she lifted her sunglasses from the tip of her nose to her forehead to look at her body.

Maybe a dirty mind, but not old, she thought. This body is as good as it was when I got married.

Looking back at the boys, she wondered if they thought about girls yet. They must surely masturbate by now. Well, Jimmy anyway. He was older. Her fingers unconsciously stroked the bare skin between the top and bottom of her lime green bikini.

“Boys, time for a break,” Gail shouted. “You’ll shrivel up like prunes.”

Gail waited for them to climb out of the pool and then she leaned back in her lounge chair. Not bothering to close the cover-up, she lay stretched out in her bikini. The sun felt good.

The boys ran to their chairs and grabbed towels, giving themselves a cursory wipe. Bobby was the first to playfully flick his towel at his best friend, but soon Jimmy was on the attack. They were jumping away from each other and screaming until Gail put a stop to it. Then they plopped down in their chairs.

“I’m thirsty,” Bobby said.

“Well, go into the house and get a drink. I’m not your maid, you know. Jimmy, do you want one?” When the blond boy nodded, Gail said to Bobby, “Get Jimmy a drink, too.”

Bobby bolted from his chair and ran toward the arcadia door to the house, shouting, “Gotta pee, too.”

“Slow down, you’ll fall and get hurt.”