Jacinta Takes a Walk
Copyright© 2025 by BarBar
Chapter 8: Bags of Jelly
I had to fiddle with various keys before I found the one which opened the front door. We walked in and I pushed the door closed. The house was mostly dark except for a light in the kitchen which I’d apparently left on.
After dropping the bag of Freddy’s dirty clothes, plus my wet skirt, on the floor in the laundry, we went and sat in the kitchen. Freddy was hungry so I zapped a couple of slices of pizza for him. There wasn’t much of my pizza left and I was sad about that as I shoved the box back into the fridge. Then I remembered that Uncle Alex had paid for the pizza, so I stopped worrying about it. I poured a juice for each of us, and sipped my juice while Freddy ate. For such a little kid, he could sure put away the food.
Freddy pulled out his phone. “I should let Mum and Dad know where I am.”
He pressed some buttons and listened. Then he started talking in a way that made it obvious that he was talking to voice mail. “Hi, it’s me. I’m at Uncle Alex’s house. It looks like I’m staying the night here with Jen and her friend. Everything turned out okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Love you. Bye.”
“I notice you didn’t mention what happened to you.”
He looked at me and made a face. “That’s not the sort of thing you can put in a voice mail. There’s a limit to how long you can talk for. I’ll tell Mum and Dad about it tomorrow when I see them.”
He thought for a moment, then dialled again. “Oh! Hi Mrs Sorsen. It’s Freddy. How’s Mike? ... Seriously? ... Oh, okay ... I was going to stay the night with Mike at your place, but instead I’m with my sister and her friend ... Yeah, I’m okay ... No, I figured that’s what happened ... Yeah ... No ... Yeah ... Oh, I nearly forgot, my bag is at your place. We can sort that out tomorrow. I hope Mike is okay ... Okay, bye.”
I looked at him. “You’re a good kid, Freddy. Making sure everyone knows where you are like that.”
Freddy grimaced and his cheeks turned slightly pink. “I try. Besides, it’s a rule.”
“We should get you upstairs and in the shower.”
He nodded and stood up. Then he winced as he moved his right arm. “Washing my hair is going to hurt with my arm like this.”
I hesitated, but I guess I’m a sucker for a little kid in pain.
“I could help you with that. Do you want me to come in the shower with you and wash your hair?”
I could see that he was conflicted. He wanted to say yes, but he was embarrassed.
I draped an arm over his shoulder as we walked. “Don’t worry kid. I promise not to look.”
“You weren’t supposed to look last time but you did anyway.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“I don’t think you’d be able to wash my hair with your eyes closed.”
“Yeah, that’s also true. How about this? I promise not to look more than I need to.”
He thought about that for a moment. He blushed but looked resigned. “Okay.”
We went into the main bedroom. I could see Jenny still sleeping soundly in the bed. Luna was tucked into her side. As we entered the room, Luna lifted her head up to watch us, but stayed quiet. Jenny didn’t move.
Freddy looked at Jenny’s head poking out from under the covers. “She’s sleeping?” He whispered. “Is that why she couldn’t come for me.”
“Yeah, that’s part of the reason. She’s had waaay too much to drink so even if she was awake, she wouldn’t be able to drive.”
Freddy’s eyes were wide as he stared at the lumpy form under the doona.
I steered Freddy into the en-suite bathroom, which had a nice big shower recess. It took a bit of fiddling to get the water running at a good temperature, then I turned to Freddy.
“Okay. Get that stuff off and get in.”
He hesitated but then seemed to decide to just go with it. He took off my windcheater and handed it to me. I threw it onto the floor near the bathroom door. Then he turned his back to me and took his jocks off. I reached out and took them out of his hands and threw them after the windcheater. They hit the bathroom door and dropped to the floor. A moment later he was standing in the shower with his eyes closed, letting the water hit his head and his face. I knew that feeling. As the water hit his hair, brown streaks of mud started washing out of his hair and down his body. He still had his back to me, trying to preserve the last ounce of his dignity.
I stripped off my undies and top and dropped them on the counter where they would stay dry. Then I stepped up near the shower behind Freddy. I squirted some soap onto my hand and used the other hand to gently push Freddy forward out of the falling water.
“Step out for half a second. I want to wash my leg properly before I do anything else.”
It was nice to give my legs a proper wash to get rid of the last traces of Brad’s piss.
“You’re naked,” said Freddy. “I can see your ... I can see your everything.” He was looking shocked.
“Yeah. I’m a girl. I’ve got tits and I’ve got a twat. And you can see them because we’re in the shower together. It’s no big deal. You live with two sisters and a mother. I’m sure you’ve seen them naked before. Seeing me is no different.”
Freddy stuttered and then gulped. I think his brain short circuited. So maybe he hadn’t seen his sisters and mother naked. Weird.
“I still don’t get why you’re naked.” His voice was timid and unsure.
“Yeah, well, I haven’t worked out how to wash somebody’s hair in a shower without getting wet myself. And those are the only clothes I have with me, so I don’t want them to get soaked, again.”
“Why are they your only clothes?” Now he was just curious.
“Oh, well, me staying here wasn’t really planned in advance. It’s not like I packed a bag for a sleepover before I came. So, I only have what I was wearing.”
“No wonder you were annoyed when Brad peed on your skirt.”
“Yeah. No wonder. Okay. Get back in and turn around. I’ll get started on your hair.”
“But you’re naked.”
“Yeah, well. Turn around and you won’t be able to see me, then you’ll stop worrying about it.”
He wanted to protest more but I gently moved him back under the water. By holding and pushing on his shoulders, I positioned Freddy so he was facing away from me and his head was in the middle of the stream of water.
I could feel a bit of resistance from him. He wanted to argue more, but now his mouth was under water so he had to keep it closed.
“I bet you’re thinking that we shouldn’t be doing this,” I said. “Both of us naked in the shower like this. I’m sure you think it’s a rule or something. But every rule has exceptions, and one of the exceptions is when somebody is hurt. That’s when making sure that person is okay becomes more important than sticking to the rules. With your hurt arm, I bet your mum, or Jenny, or maybe even Tabitha would be doing exactly what I’m doing right now.”
I ran my hand through his hair. It came out muddy.
“I would’ve kept my undies on, if I could, but I don’t have a sleepover bag with a change of undies, so I want to keep those ones dry.”
I started working a handful of shampoo into his hair. It foamed up quite nicely and soon streaks of foam were running down his body, carrying the mud away with it. The white tiles at our feet clearly showed how dirty the water was. At least his hair was fairly short so this wouldn’t be too much of a major challenge.
As I worked, I gradually felt the resistance in his body crumble away. The sensation of my rubbing the shampoo into his head overwhelmed his sense of what was right and proper. Or maybe I convinced him with my bullshit story. Who knows?
I shifted him around so that the back of his head was getting more of the water. Apparently that meant that he could talk, so he started talking.
“I don’t have my sleepover bag, either.” He’d obviously been thinking about what I’d said. “That means the only clothes I have are my basketball outfit and I can’t wear that until it gets washed.”
“I’m sure we can find something among Uncle Alex’s things that you could wear.”
“I doubt it,” said Freddy. “I’m a lot smaller than him. Everything would be way too big.”
“Well, this morning, I walked around in a towel for a while. And then I put on one of Uncle Alex’s dresses. Did you know that Uncle Alex has a stash of women’s fancy dresses? I bet he has fun playing dress-up in those fancy dresses.”
“They probably belong to Aunty Viv,” said Freddy, sounding doubtful.
I sighed. “That’s what Jenny said, too. I’ll be very disappointed if it turns out that you’re right and I’m wrong. My version of the story is so much funnier. Now we rinse.”
I helped the rinsing along by running my hands through his hair. I was surprised to find that I was actually enjoying this. Freddy was a sweet kid and washing his hair like this was kind of fun.
Even after the shampoo and rinse, the water was still coming out of his hair with a hint of brown. I sighed. “We’re going to have to do another round of shampoo. That mud really got into your hair.”
I started to work another handful of shampoo into his hair. This time I made sure to enjoy every aspect of the sensation. The wet soapy hair, the feel of his scalp under my fingers, the way he so meekly moved wherever I put him. I was even enjoying the conversation.
Freddy was quiet for a moment. Then he spoke up. “Tabs and I used to have baths together. But that stopped a while ago now. So, I guess I’ve seen Tabs naked, but that was ages ago.”
He’d apparently been thinking about my earlier comment.
“I don’t remember taking much notice. She was just Tabs, you know? We played together with the toy boats and the mini buckets and stuff like that. We talked and laughed about whatever and we washed ourselves and splashed water around. But I don’t remember taking much notice of what she looked like.”
“Uh huh. She wouldn’t have had any tits back then. But you must have noticed that you had a dick and she had a twat.”
He went silent again. I didn’t think he was going to respond, but then he said, “I know what you’re saying, but we never use those words. I guess I was aware of those things in the same way that I was aware that she had ears and shoulders and a tummy button. But none of that was important. She was so familiar that I didn’t have to look at her that closely.”
“Good answer,” I said. “I can understand that. Rinse again.”
He tended to move his head out of the water when he wanted to talk. I moved his head back into the water and gently massaged the last of the shampoo out of his hair.
He waited until the shampoo had stopped streaming down his face before he spoke again.
“We sometimes washed each other’s hair, like you’re washing mine now, except we were sitting in the bath. I liked that. Me washing her hair, and Tabs washing mine. Tabs has really long hair, longer than yours. It was fun to wash her hair. Mum or Dad or Jenny would help, of course, but they got us to do most of the washing so that they wouldn’t get wet. I guess that was when we were getting a bit older but before we stopped having baths together. I miss doing that with her.”
I was finally satisfied that his hair was clean. “Okay, now we do some conditioner.”
I gripped his shoulders and moved him so his head was out of the water and started working a couple of squirts worth of conditioner into his hair, raking my fingers through his hair to spread it out evenly.
“I usually use the two-in-one stuff that Mum gets for me,” said Freddy. “That way I only have to put it in my hair once, and then rinse it out.”
“Fair enough, but this time we needed to do a bit more than that because of all the stinky mud that was in your hair. I reckon we’ve got it all out now.”
“That’s good. Thank you, Jacinta. I don’t think I’d have been able to do all this on my own.”
I stood him out of the water to let the conditioner set. While we waited, I got some body wash and gently washed around the back of his neck, across his shoulders and down his back, revelling in the feeling of his smooth skin under my hands. I didn’t have words for what I was feeling. It wasn’t sexual. I wasn’t even remotely turned on. Feeling his skin under my hands was like reassurance that he was there and that by washing him, I could help him feel better. And him feeling better was making me feel better. Maybe my feelings were more like protective. Wanting him to be safe and clean and happy.
I’d never had those feelings before. Doing this sort of thing for Jackie when she was off her face had always felt like a chore. Something you did because it had to get done. But washing Freddy like this was something diffeent. I don’t have the words to properly describe the warm and fuzzy feelings I was having.
To keep those feelings going, I washed out along one of his arms, and then the other. Maybe one day, I’ll have my own kid, and I’ll have to wash them like this every day. Mothers do that all the time, right? Understanding hit me like a thunderclap. I was feeling like a mother to Freddy. How weird is that?
Freddy giggled. “Did you know that your ... um ... your...”
I realised he’d been watching me over his shoulder as I washed down his arms. I could see where his eyes were looking. “Are you talking about my tits?”
“Um, yeah. They kind of wobble about when you move your arms. It’s kind of funny to see.”
“Well yeah, of course they wobble,” I said. “That’s probably enough time. Let’s rinse the conditioner out of your hair.”
I thought about my tits wobbling while I ran my fingers through his hair, helping the water wash away the conditioner. It wasn’t something I’d spent any time thinking about. It was true. Tits do wobble. Something made me want to explain.
“They wobble because they’re just flesh wrapped in skin. There’s nothing inside apart from the flesh to keep them still. There’s no bone or muscle or cartilage or anything like that, so they’re like two bags of jelly stuck to the outside of my ribs. That’s why they wobble when I move. That’s part of the reason why we girls wear bras. If we’re moving around a lot, our tits wobble so much they start bouncing around and it can kind of hurt. I hate wearing a bra but sometimes it’s too uncomfortable if I don’t.”
My explanation was as much for me as it was for him. I’d come up with the answer on the spot. But instead of just saying whatever bullshit came into my head, I was trying to explain things to him like I wanted him to learn new things and understand more. Huh! And of all the wild things in the world to be talking about, I was talking about why tits wobble.
I wasn’t finished. “It’s a weird thing. As a kid you don’t have tits. But then suddenly they start growing and then you have to start wearing bras, especially if you’re doing anything active. Tabitha’s about twelve, isn’t she? Mine were growing by then. Has she started growing tits yet?”
Freddy was quiet. After a moment of thinking, he said, “I don’t know. I’ve never noticed.”
I grabbed Freddy’s wet shoulders and spun him around to face me. “How can you not know? Starting to grow tits is like a huge milestone in a girl’s life. It’s something to celebrate, like, I don’t know, like your baby teeth falling out and like your birthdays and like winning your first trophy, and all those sorts of things. She’s your sister. How can you not know if she’s started growing tits?”
I stopped talking. Freddy was looking upset again. Well, shit. Maybe it’s different with boys. How am I to know what boys are supposed to notice?
I had to undo things, and fast.
“Sorry, Freddy. I’m not angry or anything. Was that harsh? I didn’t mean to be harsh. Of course you wouldn’t notice something like that. Just ignore me. I’m sooo not used to talking to kids your age. I don’t know how to say things without them coming out sounding wrong.”
He looked up at me and gave me half a smile. “It’s okay. I’m sorry too.”
I don’t think he knew what he was apologising for.
I ran my hands through his hair. Then I leaned down and kissed his forehead. His skin tasted faintly of soap.
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