Chapter 4: Jessica Says

Eugenia never called again.

I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed. One thing was for sure, though. I was determined.

Having Brian finally in first grade gave me more time to myself. I had visions of a life of leisure. Ha! I finally got the oven cleaned. I sewed slip-covers for the worn-out sofa and armchair. I got the last of the hard water stains out of the bathtub. But most of all, I got a shower each afternoon before the children came home. I got a good meal on the table and served my family. And once the children were in bed, I fucked my husband.

I never use words like that! But that doesn’t mean I don’t know them.

If Hayden had languished for lack of sex with his wife so much that he’d been driven to the arms of another woman, now he was more likely to be worn out. On nights that he seemed too tired to make love to me, I sucked him. On nights when I was slow to get things started, he ate me.

We slowed down some as the winter progressed, but our sex evolved to lovemaking and neither of us was ever left unsatisfied. Every month I waited for the news that I was pregnant again, but my monthly visitor always came.

I was wearing down as a full-time Susie Housewife. I didn’t mind the work of caring for the home—it was pretty much all I’d known my adult life—but I was lonely. I searched the want ads and eventually found a part-time job in the circulation department of the newspaper. It wasn’t difficult work. Mostly, I took subscription information over the phone, listened to customer complaints, and changed order quantities for the paper carriers. But it got me out of the house. It complicated matters a little for transportation, but we found a good deal on a used Chevy station wagon. It wasn’t elegant, but I was getting called on more often to take a few kids places. And even our family had difficulty fitting in the pickup.

“Since he’s the smallest child in our class, I’ve tried to keep an eye on Brian,” Mrs. Chapman said. My son’s first grade teacher was meeting with the parents of her students to give us an end-of-school-year evaluation of their progress and explain their placement in the next grade. “Small children often have difficulty socializing with much bigger children. They tend to get ... pushed around a little.”

“Bullied,” I said flatly. Twice, Brian had come home from school with skinned knees or elbows and said he’d fallen on the playground. Sad though it was, I was used to Brian being bullied, first by his sister and then by Drew next door.

“Yes. We tend not to use that word unless there is a sustained act by a single individual. There are some older children who seem to relish picking on younger ones, but Brian doesn’t seem to get an unusual amount of their attention. I notice an older girl—a third grader who is very popular in her class—seems to have some influence, extending her protective wings, as it were, over Brian.”

“That could only be Jessica,” I sighed. Brian, Drew, and Jessica were in three different grades but only sixteen months separated the ages of Jessica and Brian with Drew sandwiched between. “I wish his sister had taken on that role.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say she was completely absent. Though Elizabeth’s temper is probably more of a deterrent than any active protection of her brother,” Mrs. Chapman said. “I just wanted to let you know that Brian has excelled academically, due in part to the fact that he was already an advanced reader when he entered first grade. This year we have selected thirty students for an accelerated curriculum in second grade. I believe Brian will fit well with this group. They tend to be bright and a bit more pacifistic than some of the others. It should be good for him.”

“Thank you. I’m glad he’s progressing well,” I said. “I appreciate your efforts.”

I didn’t give much consideration to the role Jessica played in Brian’s life. As far as I could see, school had changed things. She was two years ahead of him and that put her in a different world. I seldom saw them together when the children played, Jessica was more likely to be indoors and Brian had made friends with a new neighbor, Geoff Hopkins. The Hopkins family had moved in the previous fall and the boys seemed to hit it off well together. They often played, sometimes in our attic where Brian’s electric train was set up.

I absorbed two things from the teacher meeting. My child was still alive and he was doing well in school. I checked them off my list.

Time sped by.

Sadly, the hoped-for end of school bullying did not come but Brian seemed almost oblivious to it. He came home with his share of scrapes and bruises but nothing we could pin on a single bully. I cornered Betts in the spring when she was in sixth grade and Brian was in second. Brian had come home with a bruise on his right cheek and said he got it playing football on the playground. Football! He was still the smallest in his class and I wasn’t sure he could lift a football much less play the game.

“Betts, do you watch out for Brian at school?” I asked. “What was he doing playing football.”

“Um ... He’s okay. Jessica says.”

“Exactly what does that mean?”

“He was playing with some first graders and they were too close to the sports field where the older boys were playing touch football. It was just a stray pass and a boy got pushed into him. Jessica says it won’t happen again,” Betts said.

“And how would Jessica know this?” Betts shrugged and went out to brush and saddle her show horse, Paprika. She’d pretty much abandoned Silk and Brian adopted her. Unfortunately, Brian was still too short to saddle the smaller horse, so he didn’t get much riding time in.

I went off to visit Ellen and find out what was going on with Jessica.

“Oh, Marilyn. You know Jessica has always been protective of Brian. You don’t see them together much, but she gets her friends to watch out for him.”

“How does she do this? She can’t be everywhere at once.”

“Like you, I have an angel and a devil for children,” Ellen sighed. It was only four in the afternoon but she always seemed to have a bottle of white wine chilled and she poured me a glass. I agreed that we each had one easy child and one problem child, though I didn’t think Betts was anywhere near as devilish as Drew. “Each of my children have become friends with like-minded children. Drew’s friends are large and stupid. Jessica’s are smart and gregarious. And they’d do anything for her. Jessica says, ‘watch out for Brian,’ and they keep an eye on him.”

I sighed. Betts would be out of elementary school at the end of the year. Jessica would be there only two more years. Then where would my boy be?

I met a woman at the newspaper office.

Hayden and I had fueled our continued fantasies over the years with one of us occasionally pointing out an attractive woman to the other and whispering, “How about that one?” If any of our friends had known about our little fantasies ... well, we probably wouldn’t have had many friends. But that night we would have sex and whisper to each other about what the ‘other woman’ would be doing to us.

“I dreamt we were in a spa,” I whispered.

“What kind of spa?” he asked.

“It was like ancient Rome. We had a long soak and then a very oily massage.”

“I’d have gone to sleep.”

“Not with the woman who was oiling you playing with your balls the whole time.”

“Marilyn!” I squeezed some baby oil into my hand and began massaging him as I continued to tell my little fantasy.

“I was getting the same treatment. I thought it was the same woman but maybe they were twins.”

“Twins?”

“Either that or she was using one hand on you and the other on me. But it felt so good. I was close to the edge but she wouldn’t let me have an orgasm.” I felt his cock jerk and pressed down hard on it to prevent him from bathing my hand. He moaned. “Then she wrapped us in towels and took us to a feast where we were served fruit and wine.”

“Instead of coming, we went to dinner?”

“Yes. But our little lapdog—that’s what our woman was called—sort of ate with us.”

“That’s nice of her.”

“Yes. She crawled beneath the table and put her head between our legs to lick us while we ate our meal. That’s what makes me think she was twins. How could she be licking us both at the same time?” Hayden moaned again. I pinched. He whined.

“Did they ever let us come?” he cried. His fingers were in my greasy slit and I was nearly as ready as he was.

“They led us to a bed and stretched us out. They kept teasing, rubbing their nipples across our lips. They put our fingers in their pussies,” I whispered. I still seldom spoke that word aloud. It seemed so dirty. “They rubbed our sex. I thought it was the end. But just then, they disappeared in a wisp of smoke, like in the Arabian nights.”