Chapter 6

Why Julie elected to disrobe before using her toy is a matter for philosophers or psychologists to decide. Maybe it was because she’d always been naked when she used it. For whatever reason, that’s what she did. She also didn’t get under the covers, but that’s not so strange. It was the middle of the day, almost lunch time. Her door was closed and that seemed sufficient to her addled mind.

That it was almost lunch time is the only reason Robby and Randy emerged from their room. They expected to find their mother making them lunch and when she wasn’t in the kitchen they didn’t know what to do. Their choice of action might seem peculiar, unless one reflects on their age, and the fact that they quite consciously avoided their parent, who might, at any time, tell them to stop playing video games and go outside, or give them some chore to complete. They didn’t go looking for their mother at that point. They went looking for Erica, instead.

Again, who knows why two teenage boys thought Erica would know where their missing mother was, but that’s where they began their investigation. Erica was, of course, still in her room. She knew she was in big trouble and she wasn’t going to compound it by going AWOL from the last place her mother had told her to be.

“Where’s mom?” asked Randy, opening Erica’s door without knocking.

“How many times do I have to tell you to knock?!” yelled Erica. She wanted someone to be mad at. “What if I’d been naked, you assholes?”

“Five bucks,” said Robby, smiling. “You weren’t naked. And we wouldn’t want to look at you even if you were. Where’s Mom?”

“Why do you need to know?” said their recalcitrant sister.

“Because we’re hungry and she’s not in the kitchen making us lunch,” said Randy.

“Go make your own lunch!” yelled Erica. “Did it ever occur to you that she might have more important things to do than cater to your every whim?”

“Like what?” asked Randy.

This was approaching territory Erica didn’t want them anywhere near. She might have felt a naive, child-like hope that her mom might understand all this, but she knew if her brothers ever found out about it they’d make her life miserable forever.

“You go see if you can be a little less helpless in the kitchen, and I’ll go find Mom,” she said.

“Okay,” said Randy, happily. To him, his problem had been solved and he probably wouldn’t have to do anything else. He could feed himself if needed, but why go to all that effort?

Erica hurried to her mother’s room, perhaps by instinct. She tapped three times and then went in.

“Mom, the twins are crying about not having -”

That was as far as she got before she recognized that her mother was nude, writhing on the bed, shoving something long and dark in and out of her vagina rapidly.

“Oh!” gasped both women, simultaneously.

“Fuck!” squealed Julie.

“Five -” Erica stopped and turned around to close the door hurriedly.

“Mom!” she gasped. “What if I’d been Randy or Robby?”

Julie threw the dildo, which hit the wall and bounced, making a soft thud. She leapt off the bed and started pulling her clothes on again.

“It’s okay, Mom,” said Erica, again by instinct. “I get it. I have to do the same thing sometimes.” She blinked. “I mean I don’t have one of those, but you know what I mean.”

Julie couldn’t talk. She was too embarrassed. She was also angry with herself for being so weak. She’d let her emotions get the better of her and now her daughter had caught her masturbating. She tied her second shoe and finally looked at Erica.

“Erica,” she sighed. That was all she had.

“It’s kind of nice to know somebody else does that,” said Erica, who had matured a heck of a lot that summer. “I mean I don’t have a ... thing ... but it’s the same thing, right?”

Julie was astonished by how easily Erica was handling all this. It calmed her quickly and suddenly she could think again.

“It’s called a dildo,” she said.

“I knew that,” said Erica. “It just felt funny to say it. You know ... in front of you.”

“You saw me using it,” said Julie.

“It looks bigger than Uncle Bob’s finger,” said Erica, artlessly.

Julie closed her eyes. She’d had a firm image of Bob’s face in her mind when she was interrupted only seconds before an orgasm got there. She’d known it was going to be a doozy of an orgasm, too. That might have been because she was overflowing with tension and stress and that orgasm might have been a catharsis. She’d also realized, during her masturbation session, that she was jealous of her daughter. Just identifying jealousy as part of her stress load had helped. Jealousy was something she thought she could do something about.

“Let’s not talk about Uncle Bob’s finger right now,” said Julie. “You said the twins are looking for lunch?”

“Yes, but they need to learn to cook,” said Erica. “They expect you to jump whenever they want something.”

“I’m their mother,” said Julie. “That’s what mothers do.”

“They could also do their own laundry,” snorted Erica.

“As could you,” pointed out Julie.

“Okay, I’ll start doing my own. You’ll have to help me make sure I don’t ruin anything, but once I learn, I’ll do all my own laundry.”

“I don’t mind doing it,” said Julie. She’d been doing the job of two parents for years. She was inured to it.

“You should be free to...” Erica stopped talking, but her gaze went to the big black dildo lying on the floor where it had bounced. “Why is it black?” she suddenly asked.

“It was the only one that had the shape and size I thought I’d like,” said Julie, amazed that she could have this conversation with her little girl. Then again, her little girl had a better sex life than her adult mother.

“It looks big,” commented Erica. “It might be even bigger than Uncle Bob’s.”

Erica’s eyes got round and she clamped both hands over her mouth.

“Sorry,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands.

“I think we’re past the stage where we need to be sorry about speaking plainly,” sighed Julie. “I’m actually proud that you have been so ... forthcoming ... about what happened.”

“I’ll give it all up if you promise not to call the police on him,” said Erica, speaking very plainly.

“You’ll give it all up no matter what I decide to do,” said Julie, sternly.

Erica’s body language made it clear that was like getting a sentence of life, without parole. Julie felt a twinge of reluctance, but then her resolve stiffened.

“Sweetheart, I know both of you were trying to keep everything under control, but look at it. In just ... what? Two months? In just two months you went from nothing to doing everything lovers do except have intercourse. Do you really believe you wouldn’t be tempted to do even that in the next two months? That’s what nature drives us to do, Erica.”

“That’s what Uncle Bob said, too,” sighed Erica. “He already wants to, but he said he won’t because I’m not ready, yet.”

“See? He said you’re not ready yet. But that means there will come a time when he thinks you are ready. And that time won’t be when you’re eighteen or twenty. It will be soon. It will probably be before you’re even fifteen!”

Erica thought about that.

“We’re being straight with each other, right?” she said.

Julie nodded.

“Okay, then, say I did want to someday. If I was on the pill that would make it okay, right?”

“No,” said Julie, trying to control her anger. “All the pill would do is inhibit conception. And that’s only in 97% of the time. It’s still possible to get pregnant when you’re taking birth control pills. But that doesn’t matter. Being on the pill doesn’t make it fine and dandy to have sex with your uncle. It doesn’t make it fine and dandy to have sex with anybody right now. You need to wait until you’re at least seventeen, and I’d like it much better if you waited until you met the man you’re going to marry, the man you love more than any other man, the man you want to give your virginity to.”

“So I can’t give my virginity to Uncle Bob,” said Erica.

“Of course not!” yelled Julie. “You shouldn’t be doing anything with him!”

“It’s not fair,” said Erica, her face showing signs of stubbornness. “Nobody else ever looks at me like he does, or says the kind of things to me he does. He makes me feel pretty. Everybody else treats me like a boy!”

“Sweetheart, that will change,” groaned Julie. “Have a little patience. The last thing you need are boys chasing you around trying to get in your pants.”

“Uncle Bob said that, too. And that’s easy for you to say,” said Erica. “You have big, beautiful boobs, and a fantastic shape, and you’re beautiful and guys would love to mess around with you. But look at me, Mom. I don’t have any of those things. It just isn’t fair!”

“I know, Baby,” said Julie, opening her arms to her distressed daughter.

It was only as Erica rushed into her mother’s arms that Julie realized she should have given Erica this hug as soon as she got home.

That’s because this hug magically made everything okay.

It didn’t make it all go away ... but it made it okay.

And that’s when, proving Erica’s earlier concern was valid, Randy opened his mother’s bedroom door without knocking and marched in.

“We’re starving, and we don’t know how to cook!” he complained.

Julie let Erica loose and stood, with her hands on her hips.

“We’re going to remedy that. You’re going to get cooking lessons.”

“Great,” groaned Robby, from behind his brother.

“And I’m also going to teach you how to do your own laundry,” said Julie.

Both boys groaned this time.

Julie smiled the smile of a puma about to pounce on a rabbit.

“And that’s just for starters,” she said.

The distraction of starting the domestic education of the twins was actually a helpful distraction for Julie, because it took her mind off of Bob. She still had no idea what to do about him, or even how to approach him. Making the boys learn how to make a meal and then watching as they went through the process of washing and drying their clothes settled her down.

It wasn’t until three hours later, when she finally released the boys and they dashed back to their room, that Julie took stock of her emotions.

She thought it was ironic that she was still horny. True, her masturbation session had been interrupted at the critical point, but she still thought her libido might have gone back to sleep while she talked about oven temperatures and how the food processor worked, and then how to separate colors from whites and what settings to use on the machine.

But it hadn’t. Erica’s description of the things she and Bob had done had awakened something in her she’d thought was sleeping, possibly even dead.

Now she was alone with her thoughts, and she realized she had to do something. She also remembered she’d told him not to leave his house. She looked at her watch. Five hours had passed!

She called him.

“You’re there!” she said, surprised that he still was.

“You told me to stay here,” he said, simply.

“Can I come talk to you?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said. “Do I need to be ready for you and the police to arrive at the same time?”

“No,” she sighed. “That’s part of what I want to talk about.”

“I’ll understand if you want to prosecute me,” he said.

“I know. I think that’s part of the problem. You should be prosecuted, but I don’t want to do that. I think I’m confused.”

“Come on over,” he said. “I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”

Julie walked to his house again. She told herself it would give her time to think. She did that, but she still came to no conclusion about what to do.