Chapter 14

The four of us discussed what we thought would be the best plan for us to pursue our interests. It seemed my graduating would be the highest priority. Whether that involved home schooling, tutors or regular school remained to be seen. Next, Mom could submit a corroborating statement to the court in my emancipation petition, which would explain that the reason for my emancipation petition would be for me to be able to act as an adult for business purposes. Next, Mom and I would pursue getting some estimates for converting the closest bay of the garage into a workout room, so we could all get into better shape.

Soon it was time for bed. Mom needed to go back to work, and we had kids coming back for a pool party. Of course, now that things were out in the open about Mom and me, there was no problem with me sleeping in Mom's bed. Bea was still a little reluctant to accept our new arrangement, but Brie was happy for both of us.

She even scolded Bea, saying, "But, Bea, can't you see how happy Mom is, now that Ben and she are together? You know how miserable Mom has been the past two years? Well, since school has been out she has been very happy, really happy; happier than she has been in a very long time. Even you have to admit that."

"Yeah, Mom has been pretty happy lately, but it is still wrong. I would not be me, if I just let it go like you have."

"Bea," Helen said, "you know that Ben and I don't like the way Shelly treats you. For the life of me I don't see why you keep going over to her house to be treated like that; but we don't say anything, because that is your decision as to who you like and who you don't. I think that if we can't say anything bad about your choices, then you shouldn't say anything bad to us about our choices. Does that make more sense to you, now?"

"Mom, I didn't know you and Ben didn't like Shelly. She is like my best friend; we have most of the same classes together. I know she acts like she's better than everybody else, but I'm her only friend. She doesn't have any other friends around here, or at school. If I wasn't her friend she wouldn't have any at all."

"Well, that makes a big difference. I guess she does need you to be her friend. But maybe now you can see why Ben and I are together. I was lonely, I didn't have a man to be near to, someone to hold me when I was lonely, or hurt, or just needed a friend. I needed someone who would love me, and be with me; much like your father used to be, before I grew too old to be what he wanted. Ben now fills the role that your father filled a long time ago.

"I have been lonely for almost ten years now. Your father and I haven't been real close for that long, and then the last two years there has been no one in my life I could depend on, except you kids. But there was still a part of my life I was missing. Ben now fills that part, I know it's not what should be, but it is what it is. I love him much more than just being his mother. We kind of fit together. We become one person when we are together. He has made me the happiest woman in the world, and I make him happy too, right? Has Ben been happier too, lately?"

"Yes, Mom, he has been so happy; but I thought it was just because he was having sex, not because of anything else. But once you explained it, I think I really understand. It's kind of like me and Shelly, we need each other in ways that are hard to explain. Thanks, Mom, I think I really understand a lot more now. Ben, I'm so sorry that I made you think I hated you. I thought it was all that ring's fault that you and Mom were together. Can you both please forgive me, and still love me like you used to?"

"Honey, come here and give us a big hug, of course we forgive you, we're a family right? Nothing can harm us when we are together."

Bea came over to Mom and I and we hugged and shed some tears and then it was off to bed, hopefully, things would be better in the morning.

Tuesday, July 5^th, 2011

It felt so good not to have to hide my love for Helen anymore; well, at least in our home, anyway. I awoke to Mom's alarm, and went to my room to get dressed after kissing my lover awake. Mom went about her daily routine while I fixed her breakfast. Shortly after she left, I went upstairs to wake the girls and tell them breakfast was ready for them. After we ate, I went into the garage and moved a few things out of the way, so the construction people could look at what the work that was needed.

We had a five car garage with a work area along the back wall. There was a covered walkway from the kitchen to the garage, with a lattice wall covered with ivy on the north side. The house and garage faced kind of south east so there was only one window on the back wall of the garage. There were two windows on the west wall, and one on the east, along with the door. The first, third and fifth bay garage doors had windows at the next to highest panel, to let some light in. I thought we could just take out the first door move it to the second one without windows. Then we'd just close off the hole where the first bay door was. We'd run a wall between the first and second roll-up doors, all the way back to the back wall; and then add a door, starting about three feet from the back wall, for access to the garage. When this garage was built, it was really a stable and carriage house, so the bays were huge. Instead of being the standard 12' x 24' area, these were more like 14' wide x 30' deep. So this would be ideal for a workout room.

Today, I got online and looked some more for exercise equipment. I wanted some weight or resistance type of machine. They'd had both kinds at the resort, and I really liked the Bowflex they had there. So, I looked mainly at those. I also wanted a treadmill with tilting ability, and an elliptical machine and a recumbent bike machine. With all of that equipment, plus the swimming we do; we should all be able to get, and stay, in great shape.

Lunch came and went, and then it was time to reveal the new me. I walked outside after both my sisters had gone out to greet the neighbors. I strolled out in my suit and then dove into the pool at the deep end and swam under water for the whole length of the pool. Our pool was 20' x 40' with a 12' deep end off the diving board and a shallow end of 42" (three and a half feet) at the steps.

I came up for air at the shallow end and just walked out of the pool and grabbed a towel and went to a lounge chair. Ken was sitting next to me, and he looked at me for a minute.

Then said, "Ben, is that you? You changed a lot! You grew on us, didn't you?"

"Yes, it's me Ken. I had a growth spurt while we were in Florida. Believe me it's hard to keep up, when you have to go shopping for new clothes every three or four days."

"But you're bigger all over, not just taller ... how come?"

"I really don't know. Each morning I would wake up and be hurting, so I would go down to the workout room and work out and then swim for a while. Of course we walked like thirty miles a day down there. But by working out, walking and swimming at night I guess I bulked up while I was growing taller. But let me tell you the girls down in Florida, they all liked what they saw. I mean I even got looks from older women, like ones my mom's age, or even older."

"Wasn't that gross, I mean older women and all."

This was from Brandon. I had gathered a real crowd over where I was sitting.

"Actually, a lot of the older women looked more like my mom, as far as 'hotness' goes, so I guess I didn't mind them looking. My sisters thought it was funny, at first, when some woman about twenty-five came over to me and tried to ask me for a date. Mom and the girls came back to me pretty quick, and the lady wandered off, but she kept staring at me."

Gary said then, "Hey, come on, show's over, go back to swimming. It's just Ben, everyone knows him, so give him some air." People reluctantly started drifting away from us three. "Ken said something about you thinking of us two like big brothers. That true?"

"Gary, yes it is. You guys don't lord it over us that you're older and bigger. Sure, we don't run in the same circles at school; but here at home, yeah, you guys kind of take me under your wing and I become a part of your circle. I want to thank you guys for doing that. But man is it going to be weird going back to school, looking like this."

"Man you are going to have girls, and even some teachers, falling all over you when we get back. You have changed into a real babe magnet. You wouldn't consider sending some of your rejects our way, would you?" this was from Ken.

"You have got to be kidding! Last semester, I hardly had a girl even talk to me except when they had to, what makes you think they will be falling all over me?"

"You have the looks, and the bod that most of them want, and let me tell you, you'll even have some guys following you around, too. Don't be surprised, I mean look at all the girls there in the pool. They can't take their eyes off you." Ken dropped to a whisper, "Did you get any good pics of some of the talent down there in the mouse house?"

"Yeah, I did. I'll have to show you guys, later. I think I need to swim for a while. Some of the girls will be drowning, if they keep their mouths open like that. Oh, yeah ... one time, down there, we were shopping for some bigger clothes for me ... I came out of the dressing room with my shirt off. Some lady of about twenty-five or thirty walked right into a door. Another one walked into a display, and knocked it all down. The sales people were still cleaning up that mess, even when we left."

The three of us had a great laugh about that, and then we all three dove into the water and swam laps real hard for a while. All too soon it was four-thirty and people started leaving. There were a couple of times all the girls were crowded around me asking me about our vacation. I said maybe later this week we could have a picture show of all the pictures we took. I said I thought we took at least three or four hundred of them. I would try to work up a slide show of all we saw and show it on the big screen TV in the parlor. Everyone thought that would be a blast.

The afternoon ended nicely, although I was a little self conscious with all the girls gawking at me all afternoon. Bea and Brie mentioned it as we were cleaning up the pool area. I couldn't believe that they were helping me with this today. Normally they would be gone, getting showers and changing. But today, they wanted to help. We made quick work of picking up towels, and making sure nobody had left anything behind. I got the towels in the washer and then told the girls to go take their showers and get dressed for supper. Overall, I thought things went pretty well.

After supper, I took everyone out to the garage and showed them what I had envisioned for the workout room. Mom loved the idea, but she knew something was up when she came home and a lot of stuff had been moved. Bea did ask why I thought that all of us needed to work out. She thought we did enough with all the swimming we did every day.

"But, Bea, we don't swim every day. We only swim every day during the summer. What about the rest of the year? We can probably enclose the breezeway and have it be a part of the workroom A/C and heater. Then we can work out every day and stay in shape all the time. I'm sure that if you worked out every day, then there might be a lot of boys looking at the new you, this fall."

I think that put the icing on the cake for Bea. Mom thought that if I was going to be so fit, then she needed to look good too, or she might lose me. Like that would ever happen, but she was worried. I could tell, even without entering her mind. Now, for Brie, she thought it would be a good idea. If she was going to be like me, then she needed to be like me: fit, and ready for anything. I showed everyone what I thought about for exercise machines. Mom told me to go ahead and order them, tomorrow. We would have them delivered to the house. Either I could assemble them, or get someone from the local gym to come out and install them. Also she was able to contact a contractor. He would come out and give us an estimate for converting the garage, and enclosing the breezeway. She was going to call another contractor, tomorrow, so we could have two bids.

We called it a night and went our separate ways to bed. It was funny, sleeping alone again, but Mom needed her rest, and so did I. It was funny, though ... At about midnight, I was still tossing and turning. So I put on a pair of boxers, and started over to Mom's bedroom. I met Mom at the door to her room. We went back into her room and once we lay down and cuddled, we were both asleep is seconds. That's how we learned that we needed to sleep together from now on.

Wednesday, July 6^th, 2011

At nine the next morning, the contractor came to look over the work. I showed him what we envisioned, and that we thought the A/C unit could go outside behind the garage and the heater unit could be maybe in one corner or out in the breezeway. We wanted both rooms on separate thermostats and we wanted two ceiling fans in the workout room and two in the breezeway. We also wanted a large vent fan out the back to vent any bad odors out of the workout room. This contractor mentioned that if we moved the wall over to the edge of the second door, there would be enough room to put a steam room or sauna in one corner too. He mentioned this when I said what machines we were getting and where I envisioned them. I told him to add it as a separate price, but with the work to be done at the same time as the rest. He said he would send us an estimate by email probably Thursday or Friday at the latest, as soon as he could get all the prices of the material.

I told him we wanted to get it started as soon as possible. I wanted to have it finished before school started in the fall, as I would not be around during the day. He just assumed it was college, of course.

He asked if I was a senior and I said, "No just a junior this year, I've got one more to go."

I left it at that. If he assumed wrong I wasn't going to correct him. He said he would get right on it. He did say that the renovation should only take about four weeks from start to finish.

I called Mom and asked if the other contractor could come this afternoon as I wanted this to get started really soon. I explained about the time frame, and she said she would call him again. I got a phone call about twenty minutes later from the other contractor, asking if about twenty minutes would be soon enough. I said sure, where are you?

"I'm just leaving my office and should be at your house in about twenty minutes. You're on Saffron Road off of US 82, right?"