Chapter 1

My name is Penelope, but no one calls me that anymore. To my friends and family, I'm Penny. I don't really care which you call me, but the rest of what I have to tell is so personal you might as well use my familiar name. My son and daughter call me Mom. My ex-husband sometimes called me Cunt, at least at the end. Please don't call me that. Not ever.

I married my college boyfriend a month after graduating from Yale with a degree in Political Science. I was pregnant two months later, and soon gave birth to a son, Dexter. Most everyone, including me, calls him Dex. Even as an infant, he had bright blue eyes which melted my soul. A little more than a year later, my daughter was born. Like her brother, Kira had blue eyes and auburn hair. Four months after Kira's birth, I caught my husband with another woman and I filed for divorce, leaving me alone to raise our children.

For the next fourteen years or so, I dedicated myself to my kids and my career. It wasn't easy, but I did the best I could. I rarely took time for myself, and on the rare occasions I went on a date with a man, it only twice led to more than a kiss, and never to anything long-term. In some ways, that was fine, but in others, it left me very lonely and often depressed.

Still, like I said, I did my best. Raising two children alone took a lot of time and I sacrificed my own needs to see that they had attention and love and were in a home where we spent time together as often as possible. They were both well-adjusted, as much as any teenagers could be, I suppose.

Dex was fifteen when he started showing an interest in girls. At first, that just meant inviting one or two from school to a weekend outing along with his three or four closest male friends. But I saw the way he flirted with the girls, even though he did his best to avoid letting me see. I started to wonder whether he had become sexual with any of them, and that thought made me cringe to realize just how much he'd grown up. I didn't like thinking about Dex as a young adult, but I found it impossible to ignore the way he'd finally started to grow taller and was less and less interested in spending time with me or his sister, instead preferring to go out with friends on the weekends, often leaving Kira and me by ourselves.

Kira was very much Dex's opposite. Where he became outgoing and charismatic around his friends, she was reserved, shy, and awkward whenever I saw her interact with others. Kira had a couple of female friends with whom she felt at ease, but around Dex's friends or others she didn't know well, she rarely spoke and generally tried to avoid conversations.

I'd had 'the talk' with Dexter when he was twelve, around the time I expected his body was changing and his natural urges would probably start kicking in. While he didn't start growing much until he turned fourteen, I knew he was already experiencing the early stages of pubescence where boys started to notice and become interested in their classmates. He was embarrassed when I explained condoms and consent, telling me that he'd already heard about all that in the sex ed classes he started that year, but I told him anyway, doing my best despite my own discomfort at talking to my son about such intimate topics.

Kira had been easier. Not long after I'd had that talk with Dex, I did the same with Kira when she was still eleven. Despite her shyness around others, my daughter was always open and frank with me, and I tried to be the same with her. She was naturally curious, thoughtful, and when I started my discussion with her about sexuality and precautions, Kira stopped me often, asking questions. She wanted to know if masturbation was normal, whether her period would start soon, how big her breasts might be, what it felt like to have sex. While I avoided explicit descriptions, I did my best to be honest in answering her many queries.

At thirteen, Kira finally got her first period and had started to grow into her teen body rapidly. By fourteen, she had breasts large enough that she wanted me to buy her shirts which fit more loosely, and her hips had grown curvy to the point where she insisted on hiding her features with baggy pants. Kira wasn't exactly ashamed of her body, so I thought, but she was all-to-aware of how the boys and some girls were starting to notice her maturing features and it clearly made her uncomfortable.

In the summer between school semesters, Kira was fourteen and heading into high school. Dex was fifteen and ready to start his sophomore year. While neither admitted to having a girlfriend or boyfriend, there were several times Dexter had openly flirted with a classmate when we were at the pool or during our occasional outings to the lake or to see a movie. Kira never showed interest in flirting with any boys or girls who spoke to her, at least not where I saw it.

It was a surprise to hear my daughter ask a question of me as we lounged by the pool late one afternoon in early August, just a couple of weeks before the start of her freshman year.

"Mom ... if I wanted to get birth control ... would you let me?"

I had to pause to process what she was saying. I swallowed all of the other questions which fired into my mind and replied, "I ... I take it you are thinking of becoming sexually active?" I'd never actively discouraged either of my children from making that decision for themselves, though I had made it clear that I hoped they would wait until they were older. At fourteen, I didn't like to know that Kira was considering such things. But, I am a pragmatic parent. Horny teens are going to seek out new experiences, new relationships, and if they are mature enough to ask about it, there wasn't much I could do to stop them.

Kira responded, "I don't know ... maybe."

"So, there's a boy you like?" I asked.

Kira shrugged, brushing her shoulder-length auburn hair out of her eyes. "I don't know," she repeated. "Just ... in case there is ... I want to start taking birth control."

I struggled with a response a moment but I'd long before made up my mind to let Kira determine when the time was right for such a decision. "Alright. I can make an appointment in the morning." I glanced at her a moment, shaking my head slowly to see the young woman lounging on a deck chair. When had Kira grown up so much? She was only fourteen, but her body was that of a young woman maturing. She had breasts which caught the eyes of men and boys alike, hips which suggested sensuality, and while Kira might have been five or ten pounds overweight, it only made her look more mature, more beautiful. "Kira, promise me that ... whatever you're thinking of doing with a boy, you'll wait until you are on birth control, alright? It will take a few days to get you into the doctor's office, and it takes more days before you are protected. Promise me that, please."

Kira nodded, looking a bit shy again. "Of course ... not ... not planning anything, Mom, just ... just in case."

I watched her a moment, then asked, "care to tell me who the boy is? Anyone I know?"

Kira looked away, blushing. "No one ... not really..."

I waited for her to continue, but my daughter remained silent, turning over on her side and facing away from me. I wondered whether I had had a butt that nice at fourteen. I didn't think so, but seeing Kira's red bikini bottoms spread out and filled made me think about my own teen years for a while.

I was sixteen when I lost my virginity to a boy I was dating. He was also sixteen, and, like me, a virgin. We'd been seeing each other for a few months, both on chaperoned dates and in stolen moments between our sophomore classes. We kissed a lot, and after a couple of weeks, I let him see and suck on my boobs. We started petting at movies or in the backseat of cars as my parents or his took us places, careful to not get caught. The first time his fingers touched my pussy, his mom was just a couple of feet in front of us in her sedan.

Neither of us knew much about sex, really, our school system not having adopted a comprehensive sex ed course and I had no access to pornography or other sources of information. I felt a dull cloud in my memories as tried to recall what I might have known before my first time. I couldn't say why I had a hard time remembering something from the years before those moments. Whatever it was, it skittered away before I could bring it forward and remember.

My parents never discussed sex with me, both straight-laced church-going types, not stuffy, but never giving me their thoughts on sex beyond 'wait until you get married.'

My boyfriend and I finally went all the way in a park near my house. I'd never sucked his dick, and he'd never gone down on me, so we went right from petting on a bench to me bending over behind some trees. My hymen tore easily, and thankfully, it didn't much hurt, bleeding only a little. He didn't wear a condom, and he came in me no more than a minute later. I knew just enough about what might happen to squat down and use my fingers to scrape out as much of his semen as I could. It wasn't everything I'd dreamed it would be, but I didn't really know enough to see how unfilling it was at that time.

We had sex a few more times that year before we broke up. Each time was roughly the same. I never blew him, he never ate me. We just didn't really know much beyond petting and intercourse. It got better over the weeks, more enjoyable, but it was never very fulfilling and I never came with him. I think I'd been masturbating almost three years at that point, so perhaps I hadn't yet put together that my orgasms could be tied to our mating sessions. I'm sure that contributed to the lack of fulfillment I felt each time we were together. We were very lucky that I didn't get pregnant. He never wore a condom, and he never pulled out.

Those memories made me think hard on my daughter's life. I wanted better for her. I wanted her to know more about sex than I had. Not just how to put on a condom or how to avoid getting pregnant. I really wanted her to understand that sex was more than just bending over and letting a guy fill her with cum.

But I had no idea how to have that conversation. I certainly wasn't going to have it at the pool, not where others might overhear us. Perhaps, I thought, I'd get up the courage to bring it up soon.

Kira and I spent another hour poolside, and I let my thoughts about my experiences and my daughter's budding sexuality fall away as I relaxed. I drove us home later and cooked a frozen pizza. Dex was out with friends. I'd given him permission to stay over with his best friend Donnie, and expected that Kira and I would be alone for the weekend.

"Movie?" I asked as I dished out slices.

Kira shrugged, "sure."

"Preference?"

"I'll find something."

While I gathered napkins and brought our food, Kira flipped through the options, finally settling on Easy A, a movie starring Emma Stone about a high school girl who gets an undeserved reputation for sleeping around. We settled in and ate our pizza. The movie was decent, and when it ended, Kira slid onto the couch next to me. She had the look which said something was on her mind.

"I know a girl like that. Sort of."

"Like Olive?" I asked, referring to Stone's character in the movie.

"Yeah. Bonnie. She had sex with her boyfriend over Christmas and then when they broke up, she had sex with another guy over spring break. Some people call her a slut."

"And what do you call her?" I asked softly.

Kira shrugged. "Nothing, really."

"Do you think it's wrong, what she did?" I like to ask questions of my kids rather than moralize directly. I felt it helped them think about more complicated subjects themselves before I gave my views.

Kira shrugged again, "not really. Do you think it's wrong?"

I shook my head. "No. I'm not exactly thrilled to know a girl your age is sexually active, but ... it's her decision. I just hope they were using protection."

Kira grew silent a moment. "When I get birth control ... will I still have to use condoms?" my daughter asked quietly.

"Yes. Birth control only prevents pregnancy, it doesn't stop you from getting infections or diseases."

"Oh," she said, and I thought I detected disappointment. "What about if he's never been with anyone?"

"Kira..." I replied gently, "you can't trust someone to be completely honest about that. People lie all the time about how many partners they've had or who they've been with. It's not always malicious, sometimes it is really better not to know, but ... you have to assume that your partner has been exposed, whether they've had intercourse or not."

"I know," she said, tossing her hair a moment before settling it behind her head, "I just ... nothing."

"Tell me."

"No ... I'm just thinking, that's all."

I decided to push again at the question I asked her by the pool. "Who's the boy?"

Kira looked away, suddenly blushing, as if that question was more embarrassing than talking to me about using protection. "No one, Mom."

I never liked to force Kira or Dex to discuss details of things such as that unless I felt their well-being was at risk. The identity of Kira's potential lover was leaning over the line. "Come on. I promise not to tell anyone. I'd just like to know, Kira. You know, who you are interested in ... being with. Someone you know at school? Another rising freshman?"

It took a moment before she finally replied, "no ... just ... he's a year older than me. He doesn't know that I like him, not really. That's all. I just ... you know me, Mom, I dream about things but I never follow them through. That's all. Just a dream."

I wasn't convinced but Kira's dodging made me feel I'd get nothing more out of her. "Well ... alright. But, if you do decide to be serious with anyone, you'll tell me, right?"

"Yeah ... yeah."

"Ok. Well ... I'll set up an appointment for you on Monday, hopefully we can get it in before school starts and you decide to let this mystery boy know you like him."

Kira chuckled quietly, "okay. Thanks, Mom."

"You're welcome." I hugged my daughter a moment, then said, "just remember your promise to me. You'll wait until I tell you it is safe, alright? No rushing into anything. And ... I want us to talk ... woman to woman before that, as well. Since you're considering it ... there are some things I want you to know about sex that I wish I had known when I was your age."

Kira looked at me without shame or embarrassment. "Yes. I'd like that. Okay..."

I kissed her forehead and went to bathe.

Thinking of my first time again, I settled into the hot water and relaxed in the bath, my fingers idly stroking my labia, circling my clit slowly. While I knew it had been naïve and irresponsible, I had always enjoyed the way it felt when a man came inside me. Even after my first time, and long after I was no longer with that boy, I'd taken more than a few risks letting men fuck me without a condom, letting them ejaculate into my pussy, sometimes into my ass. I knew it was risky, but I couldn't help that it had turned me on.

I tried to remember the last time I'd felt the wonderful eruption of cum in my body. It would have been my ex-husband in the days before I caught him cheating. I'd had only two lovers since, and both had worn condoms. As I played with my pussy under the water, I found myself orgasming quickly to memories of men I'd let fill me with cum.

We had been able to get Kira in to see the doctor just a few days later. The woman was very patient and understanding, and explained the options available, which included pills, quarterly shots, or a vaginal ring. Kira preferred the shots, so she was soon sticking out her arm and getting her first treatment. She'd have to come back every three months for another, but otherwise, it would protect her against pregnancy at a very high rate.

The doctor patiently explained that the shot did not protect against STIs and that she strongly recommended using condoms, letting us know that a program at the nearby health clinic gave out free condoms for anyone under eighteen. We thanked her and I let Kira go in by herself to request what she needed. She returned with a brown bag containing an unopened package of regular latex condoms.

Kira sat in the car and I pulled away a moment later, proud of her. Not that I wanted her having sex at fourteen, but she'd shown a tremendous maturity to approach her sexuality with an eye towards protecting herself.

"I didn't know what size to get," Kira stated out of the blue.

"What?"

"I didn't know what size to get," she repeated, holding up the bag. "They asked if I needed large or small or regular ones. How would I even know?"

I chuckled a moment as she started at me curiously. "Well ... the condom size depends on how large the man's penis is. Most of the time, regular is fine. If a guy's penis is really large, say, eight inches or more, you should get the larger ones. If he's especially small, go for a smaller size. But most times, regular works fine."

"I just told them I didn't know, I guess these are the regular size?" Kira asked, pulling the box from the brown bag.

I nodded, "yeah, those are regulars. Most condoms are, but they make Magnums and XXL styles for larger guys, some for smaller, too." I paused, then added, "I guess you don't exactly know how big this mystery guy is, so how would you know?"

Kira looked uncomfortable as she put the condoms back in the bag. "No ... no idea."

"Well," I replied, smiling at her, "I'm proud of you, Kira. It took courage to ask me about birth control, and it took courage to go in there and ask for condoms. I'm proud of you."

My daughter smiled, saying, "thanks..."

"So," I said, changing the subject, "let's go see how much of the house is still standing after your brother has been left alone all morning."

Kira looked away, and said nothing.

The kids started school and life went on a few weeks as it always had. Dexter spent less and less time with us as his friends got their drivers licenses and old cars, and he was often out with them in the evenings. I made sure he kept up his school work, but otherwise, I left him to enjoy his time as he pleased. Kira went out only once or twice a month, the few friends she had were too young to drive, and whatever had happened about the mystery boy, she didn't mention it further. I checked her bedside table one night and verified that the box of condoms was still unopened.

One rare Friday night found Kira staying with a female friend while Dex was unusually home. "Not heading out tonight?" I asked as he lounged on the couch playing Xbox games.

"Nah," Dex said casually, "not feeling it tonight."

"Everything alright?"

"Yeah, just wanted to spend a night in." His eyes darted my way briefly then returned to his game. "Where's Kira?"

"Sleeping over with Dolly."

"Oh," Dex paused the game and stood, stretching, then said, "I need to shower." With that, he passed me quickly and headed upstairs to use the bathroom he shared with his sister. I shrugged and made pasta and a salad. He returned as I wash finishing, wearing only a pair of shorts. It was a look Dexter had often sported around the house before he'd turned fifteen, but rarely had I seen him like that since.

He'd clearly grown up a lot in the last year. His chest had dark, sparse hairs and his stomach showed that he was continuing to work out for the upcoming baseball season. I caught his eyes a moment and smiled, remembering the first time I'd held him in my arms and looked into those bright blue orbs which shined back at me.

"What?" He said as I watched him.

"Nothing. Just thinking about when you were born. Your eyes haven't changed."

"Jeez," he groaned, "you still think I'm a baby sometimes."

"No," I replied, "no, just that ... well, you are still my baby I suppose, but ... you're not little any more. Can't help that I always loved your eyes, Dex. I'm sure you've caught your girlfriends looking at them."

He shook his head, "I don't have a girlfriend, Mom."

"I mean female friends. And don't tell me you haven't noticed. I've seen you flirting with them. I'm sure they are lining up to get to know you better."

Dex started to blush and looked away, "yeah, whatever. Supper ready?"

I nodded and turned back to the plates, but not before noticing the way my son's shorts were tented. It took a second to realize that his penis was hard. That was something I'd never noticed before and tried not to think about further as I dished out penne and sauce. I knew my son was mature enough to grow erect at most everything, but I was uncomfortable seeing it so obvious in front of me. I cleared my throat, hoping to also clear away the lingering thoughts I had about how my son might have changed down there since I'd last seen him naked when he was about eleven. Then, he'd been small and underdeveloped, now ... it was clear his genitals had matured along with the rest of him. I cleared my throat again, and tried to get on with serving dinner.