Chapter 4

She who hesitates is not lost but still she does lose and what she loses is very precious indeed.

“Jarrett...” Debbie now mewled as she stalled. There had to be a third option for neither could Debbie ever see herself suffering the indignity of just lying there and allowing her own son to strip her to her bra nor could she risk her predicament going even further than that. Meanwhile, Debbie’s brilliant mind raced as she tried to find the key, those magic words or actions that would get her out of this mess and, perhaps even more importantly, allow her to do so while keeping what remained of her dignity intact.

“Yeah, I get it, mom. It’s a choice you don’t want to make and a question you don’t want to answer. And yet an answer is still required and if you won’t give me one by word then you’ll have to do so by how you react to what I do now.”

All of Debbie’s shirt was now in front of her body as what had been behind her before had been lifted over her head and then brought down in front of her face until it was released into her neck. In fact, the only thing that kept her entire turtleneck from now sliding down her arms was the small amount of fabric that curled around her shoulders. Jarrett, apparently, knew this too and so this was where Jarrett’s hands now went as he pulled that fabric free. He then started to pull it down Debbie’s arms while the pretty Catholic mom cried out in both shame and embarrassment; it was only a moment later that her will finally broke.

“NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!” Debbie now wailed and then she said the words that even her own ears couldn’t believe.

“OK! OK! OH! I’LL ... I’LL LET YOU DO IT! JARRETT! JARRETT! JARRETT! PLEASE JUST STOP AND I’LL ... I’LL LET YOU TAKE OFF MY SHIRT. JARRETT PLEASE JUST STOP AND I’LL LET YOU TAKE OFF MY SHIRT!!!”

It was a mad cry of both desperation and panic on her part but Debbie now wasn’t so much thinking anymore as she was simply reacting. In that moment, the pretty Catholic mom probably would have said or promised anything; if only to stop her very own son from taking off her shirt. In the end, however wise Debbie’s latest yowling had been, it did evoke the desired response. For Jarrett now stopped pulling on her shirt and allowed his hands to fall to his sides. His brown eyes stared down into hers and he seemed to be discerning if his mother was playing a trick.

“Fine,” Jarrett said in a very serious tone. “Then I’m going to take my knees off your hands so I can lift up your arms one at a time but I’m warning you, if you are trying to trick me then I’m going to take it all and if you think I can’t do it then just go ahead and try.”

“I-what...,” Debbie now stammered in confusion.

“I ... Jarrett I ... d-don’t understand. Whuh-what d-do you muh-mean, yuh-you’re going to take it all. What ... what does that even mean?”

“I mean that if you are trying to deceive me, and the moment I let your hands up, you’re going to fight like a bat out of hell then I’m just going to do the same thing I did before only ten times worse. I’m gonna pulverize both your arms until you can’t even move them and then, to teach you a lesson about not trying to double-cross me, I’m going to take all of your clothes, right down to your bra and your panties, and peel then right off your body.”

It was the same threat Jarrett had made earlier and yet that seemed so long ago that it hadn’t even registered. Now, though, in Debbie’s new reality, the thought of being stripped completely naked by her very own son brought forth a very real fear. It was something that might actually happen, this unbelievably repulsive idea; it was so horrifying as to be incomprehensible even though it now seemed entirely possible. And so as much as Debbie didn’t want to believe it, in the end she couldn’t deny it. How could she not? After all, here her own fourteen-year-old son was, sitting astride her body as he pinned her to the couch. Only a moment before he had been sliding her turtleneck down her arms. If he hadn’t stopped when he did Debbie was sure that would have gotten it off.

“I-no-no-no Juh-Jarrett. I-I-I won’t fuh-fight you. Just ... just as long as you keep to your promise that if I luh-let you tuh-take off my shuh-shirt that this is where it ends. Do you give me your word that you won’t take off my bra?”

Jarrett now looked down at her with an evil and smug smirk running across his face. He then raised his right hand as he pressed three fingers together. It was a gesture he had learned in The Cub Scouts while his left hand covered his heart.

“Scout’s Honor mom. You do have my solemn promise that I, Deborah Ann Kressel’s fourteen-year-old son won’t take off her bra as long as she just lies there while I take off her shirt.”

Even as brilliant as she was Debbie still couldn’t believe what she was agreeing to. Was she really going to do this? Was she merely going to look up and stare into her son’s eyes as he took off her shirt and just left her with her bra?