Chapter 15

Bleeding the brakes was more of a thing than I ever would have guessed. I thought maybe we just needed to let out a little fluid. You know, bleed it a bit. That’s not at all how it goes. It does, in a sense, but no. That’s not what happens when you bleed your brakes. Long story short, there was a small clear glass jar of brake fluid, and a lot of counting and pressing the brake pedal down and holding it.

As a side note, don’t spill brake fluid on paint. It’s not good and you should try to avoid it at all costs. Trust me.

As if the whole experience of bleeding the brakes wasn’t bad enough, after dinner I got a call I wasn’t expecting.

“Sam, phone call!” I heard Sara yell just as I was shutting off the lights in the bathroom. I had no idea who it was that had called, but my guess was it had to be Laura. What she wanted I didn’t have a clue.

“Hello?” I asked, waiting to hear Laura’s voice on the line.

“Uh, hi, Sam. It’s Mary.” I almost hung up on principle alone. I had no reason to talk to her. None. I didn’t, but I also didn’t say anything either. The fact Mary could hear I was still there, was enough to get her talking. “I was just wondering how you’re doing?”

I rolled my eyes and guffawed. The thing was, she sounded small and fragile. Her voice, which was usually loud and excitable, was quiet and nervous. She was obviously scared. I could clearly hear the tremor and shakiness in her voice. I felt bad for her. I knew I shouldn’t. There wasn’t one good reason for me to give two shits about how she felt. She had bold-faced lied to me who knows how many times and I had to find out about it from Amy of all people.

“I’m good, Mary,” I answered. It was a mistake. I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I just ... I couldn’t bring myself to be mean to her. Not right now. “How are you?”

“I’m okay, I guess.”

Then the line went silent. I figured there was something Mary wanted to talk about, so I waited for her to build up the courage or whatever it was she needed to do. Seconds went by, then a minute. Two. I was kicking myself for not hanging up.

Instead, I pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down. This was going to take however long it took, and besides, she called me, so I didn’t have to worry about the long-distance phone bill. She did.

Once Mary realized I wasn’t going to hang up on her, more of the Mary I remembered came through in the way she talked. Not all the way, but she didn’t seem quite so nervous anymore.

“I know it probably won’t help—” Mary started to do what I thought she was going to, apologize, but I cut her off.

“Mary, don’t. I don’t want to hear it. Not right now,” I told her sternly. Not angry, but also not flexible on my stance either. “If you want to talk, we can talk, but I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Yeah, okay. I guess that’s ... I mean, I get it, Sam.”

We talked for another ten or fifteen minutes. I told her I was making some new friends, which she seemed happy about. I could tell she really, really wanted to know more and suspected my new friends or friend was a girl, but she left well enough alone.

She also let me know that she and her friends had a bit of a falling out. I didn’t want to know all the details. I did, but I knew better than to open that can of worms. One of my grandpa’s favorite quotes when it came to people biting off more than they can chew was, ’Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, you can’t stuff it back in.’

It took me years to understand what the hell he was talking about. I hadn’t had a clue until this very moment, and now I realized exactly what he meant by that. I smiled to myself and shook my head; he was absolutely one hundred percent correct.

Mary also didn’t freely offer up any information of significance with what was going on with her, other than something happened, and it didn’t go well. I had a few guesses as to what must have happened, but again, kept my thoughts to myself on the matter.

We said our goodbyes and Mary asked if she could call me again sometime. I reluctantly agreed, and she seemed happy with that. I wouldn’t be the one calling her, that much was certain, but if she did indeed call, I decided I was okay with that.

The next morning, I was sitting on the couch with Mom for our early morning coffee date. Mom was acting a bit strange. There was something she wanted to know, but she was dancing around it without coming right out and asking me. She wasn’t exactly standoffish, not really. It was more like she didn’t want to pry or something into something she thought might not be any of her business.

I watched her fidget, shifting her position so she could look at me, but then staring out the window as if she hadn’t just turned her body to face mine.

I watched her intently over the lip of my steaming mug. I had a feeling that she wanted to ask me about last night’s phone call. I wasn’t stupid enough to think she didn’t know it was Mary I had talked to for far longer than I probably should have. If she hadn’t overheard me, surely Sara had let the cat out of the bag.

She fidgeted some more, before I finally couldn’t take it anymore and broke the tension.

“Okay, seriously, Mom?” I said. “There is obviously something eating at you, what is it?”

She gave me one of those, I’ve been caught, nervous smiles and blushed enough that I could clearly see it even though the room was only lit by the lightening horizon out the front window. I just rolled my eyes.

“Are you really going to make me ask?” Mom muttered softly.

“Ask what?” I raised an eyebrow and took another sip of coffee, my eyes locked on hers the whole time.

“Sam,” she complained, lowering her mug to her lap. I just sat there, completely content not saying another word. “Fine! Just so you know, it’s not fair when you do that. You’re just like your father.”

I smiled and her brow furrowed as she gave me an angry look.

“I’m not the one squirming in my seat over here.”

“I’m not squirming. Your mother doesn’t squirm.” I just stared at her for a moment. “Much...”

I chuckled when she finally admitted to what she had been doing since I first sat down.

“Just so you know, nothing happened. We just talked for a while. That’s it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, we just talked.”

“Are you going to talk again?”

“Probably, maybe? I don’t know.” I shrugged. I took another sip. My mug was starting to cool off now, so it was no longer steaming.

“Well, since you’re being so open this morning, what do you think about Laura coming over for dinner sometime so she can experiment with being a nudist?”

I tried to gasp and swallow at the same time, and I started to cough violently. My mom quickly moved over next to me, patting my back forcibly while my lungs tried to expel the coffee that had suddenly and unexpectedly tried to drown me.

“What!” I asked when I finally was able to catch my breath.

“Laura and I talked for a long time about being nudists,” She smiled, still rubbing my back comfortingly. “She had a whole bunch of questions. A lot of them were what you would expect, but also some others were honest and genuine curiosity questions. She told me that Sara had invited her over to try it sometime and I told her I thought that would be a great idea.”

“But, why would you say that?”

“Why not?” Mom looked surprisingly confused by my reaction. “I thought she was your and Sara’s friend. You already told her we’re nudists.” Mom gave me a serious look at that point, which silently screamed she wasn’t happy about that fact, but there was nothing we could do about it now. “What’s the big deal?”

“It’s not a big deal!” I complained, trying to sink back into the couch as if I could disappear into it completely. “It’s just that...”

“Just what, Sam?”

“She’s going to see me naked!” I covered my face with my hands, embarrassed.

“So what?” Mom quickly replied like it shouldn’t be a big deal. “It’s not like you haven’t been naked in front of your—Oh my!”

I groaned and let my hands fall to my sides while I stared at the ceiling. I knew what that reaction was from. I could feel it. My cock had filled to complete and total hardness in record time at the thought of seeing Laura naked.

There was zero doubt in the fact that I really wanted to see Laura naked. There was nothing I wanted more in that moment. The problem with that scenario was the fact that I would inevitably get an erection.

Erections themselves weren’t a big deal to me. They hadn’t been for years but getting one in front of Laura had me terrified.

“I guess we’ll just have to help make sure that doesn’t happen then,” Mom replied. “That is, if she decides she wants to try it.” Mom winked and my dick twitched as my mind continued to imagine what Laura would look like naked, in my house, in front of all of us. “If she does agree to try, I’m sure you’ll be fine. Besides, you have a very nice penis and I imagine she would very much enjoy seeing it as hard as it is right now.”

There’s a thing that happens in this part of the country in late February and early March that we all like to call “fake spring.” The weather suddenly warmed up to the point where people would wear shorts and T-shirts around town.

It’s not like it’s not warm enough for people to do that. People aren’t out there struggling with being cold, trying to pretend it’s warm when it’s not. It truly is actually warm enough to do it. It won’t last, it never does, but that doesn’t mean people don’t take full advantage of these times when they happen.

You even see some people make the mistake of tilling gardens or planting flowers in flower beds. Those folks obviously aren’t from around here. If they were, they would know better. It might be warm for a few days, or even a couple of weeks. But as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, it’s going to freeze again and everything they did in their gardens would be all for not.