Chapter 14

In the end, it was Debbie who spoke first. "We love you Mommy. We will always love you. It doesn't matter what you decide to do ... we'll love you."

"I know" Ramona sighed. "Will you two do the dishes?" she asked.

They both nodded and, after a warning to be careful with her good china, she went to soak in a hot bath. She always thought better in a hot bath.

Back in the kitchen Robby and Debbie worked on the dishes silently. Seeing their mother in such obvious distress had sobered them. They'd never seen her like that, and it impressed on them like nothing else could how serious this was to their mother.

When the last dish had been carefully dried and put away in the china cabinet, Debbie went to her brother for a hug. The hug turned into a kiss and Debbie felt his arousal pushing at her.

She touched his face, and then pushed him away. "If Mom can't do that tonight, then we shouldn't either." she said, drawing on that special secret set of rules that only women have access to.

Robby groaned, but didn't argue. He too had taken long strides toward manhood, and knew that sometimes you just did what the woman wanted, whether you understood it or not.

Instead of chasing their newfound joy, they sat together on the couch and watched TV for a while, just being together. Had you asked them what they were watching they wouldn't have been able to tell you. Like their mother, they were thinking about what life might be like in the Nettleton mansion. Oddly they weren't thinking about the glitter and expensive wood and trimmings. They were both thinking of being able to love each other in those rooms, where their love had taken root, and grown and blossomed.

When they heard the bathroom door open, and saw their mother in her robe, heading toward her bedroom, they stood and went to their own rooms too, hoping to find sleep. Debbie dropped Robby off at his door, kissing him a long, sensual kiss.

Inside his room, Robby still tasted that kiss. Like any man, when the woman he loves kisses him like that, it gets him going. It was a warm night and he lay down naked on his bed, his erection standing tall. He reached for a tissue and began to stroke his lust away.

Ramona had been able, in the bath, to let her mind wander. She let it go where it wanted to, beginning with memories that were tattered, like a battle flag shot to pieces and torn by the wind. Those were the oldest memories she had, of her mother, and her bedroom, and her dolls. There was no pain in those memories. Then there was the memory of Bobby, pulling her through the darkness of the secret passageway, telling her to be quiet. She shook the screams out of her head and pushed her mind to her mother's face, eyes open and staring. She hadn't understood what was happening then, and only later in life did she learn what that meant. Instead of letting her manufactured memories mar her mother's face, she tried to remember the eyes, eyes that looked like they were focused on some far distant place ... a better place ... where there were no screams ever.

A sudden memory assailed her, unremembered these long years. She had been at the woman's house, and had cried that she wanted her dolly. The woman had held her, saying that the dolly was gone, but that she'd get her a new one. That doll was probably still in her room next door. The doll wasn't gone. It had lain there, alone all this time, waiting for Lizzy to come back and hold her again.

She had caught herself half crouching in the bath, unconsciously having started to get up and go get her dolly. The air was cool and she sank back down in the tub. Somehow, knowing that her doll was there was comforting. It would be there tomorrow, and she'd go get it then.

Her mind stayed in the house, in the room where she now believed her doll lay. All she had of that room were good memories. It occurred to her that it wasn't the house that had killed her parents. Men had done that. Greed had done that. The house couldn't stop it from happening. The house had, in fact, protected Bobby and her as they hid in its dark secret places. Then she thought about what the house looked like now, the last time she'd seen it. It wasn't dark and painful there ... not really. There was pain associated with it, and that pain would never really go away, but the house wasn't responsible for that.

And now, against all odds, Bobby offered her something that, if somehow it worked, would fulfill all her dreams and let her spend the rest of her life sharing that love.

Except that she couldn't believe it would work.

Her own doubts were strong, but her mind flitted back to what her son had said. He had said it WOULD work. Her children, who had been so violently opposed to the man next door, had altered their opinions to the point that they were in FAVOR of this crazy idea.

She sat on the edge of her bed, wrapped in her fluffy robe. She wanted to hear somebody tell her it would work again. She stood and went towards her son's room.

Robby lay on his bed in the warm evening. He was naked and his hand was wrapped firmly around his straining prick. He had given it only a few leisurely strokes when he heard a soft tapping at his door. His face broke into a grin as he thought Debbie had relented, and was going to allow him that special closeness after all.

"Yeah." he said toward the door. It opened and a female figure slipped in quietly.

But it wasn't his sister. It was his mother.

Ramona knew instantly what her son was doing when she slid through the door. His pale body was stark against the dark blue bedspread he was lying on. She saw the head of his penis protruding from his closed fist as his hand moved upward and his foreskin slid over the large knob at the tip. Her mind instantly returned to what she'd seen the day before, as that same long penis had plumbed her daughter's depths.

As happens so often in life, little things ... powerful little things ... have the capacity to alter the way we look at things.

I'll give you an example. When newlyweds come back from a honeymoon, we look at them a little differently than we did before they got married. We look at them as fully realized sexual beings. We know they have lain together while he rutted in her pussy and delivered up his seed to his chosen mate. We know that she welcomed that. Before this we knew them as Ralph and Cindy, and might have known a little about them beyond that. And there might even have been a little fantasy about what Ralph or Cindy was like behind closed doors.

But now we KNOW they are sexual beings, and that may change the way we interact with them, even if it's only in a few unimportant ways.

Ramona knew her son was a sexual being. She had actually seen the evidence of it. Robby knew his mother was a sexual being. He had actually seen the evidence of that.

And, in this case, there was another little powerful thing that altered what would have been their normal behavior. And it was the same for both. For Ramona, that little powerful thing was her unsatisfied lust, which her brother had left her with. For Robby it was the lust his sister had refused to sate.

Robby, who would normally have rolled over and doubled up to hide what he was doing from his mother, just said "Mom!"

Ramona, who would have backed out the door, or at least turned her back on him, just said "Oh!"

Robby, startled and not thinking too clearly, said "I thought you were..."

"Debbie" his mother finished for him.

Part of the reason Robby was so unsettled was the gap in his mother's robe, which showed an awful lot of white skin, clear down to the point where it was obvious she was probably naked under it. Now Robby did think about rolling over to hide his erection from his mother. But that seemed childish to him, so instead, he rolled off the bed and stood, to reach for the gym shorts that were on his desk chair. He bent over and stepped into them, pulling them up. While that hid his penis from his mother's eyes, it did nothing to make his erection less obvious, since the shorts tented out almost obscenely.

Ramona thought now about turning to leave too, embarrassed about the feelings in her loins that were produced by her memory of her son's penis sliding into her daughter's mound, and seeing that penis again. But that would have left everything unsettled and she needed something to settle herself down.

"I'm sorry." she said softly. "I just wanted to talk." She felt the strangest urge to ask him to take the shorts back off.

"Oh." he said, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. His eyes strayed to her open robe again, and he made his eyes go elsewhere. "What about?" he asked, realizing immediately how stupid that sounded.

Ramona, though, heard invitation in his question, and never thought about how obvious it was about which she wanted to speak.

"Did you really mean what you said? About it working? About what Robert ... suggested" she asked.

Robby forgot that he wasn't supposed to argue in favor of the proposal. His mind latched onto something that was firm in his mind, and allowed him to think of something other than his mother's naked body under her robe.

"Sure" he said easily. "Nobody knows who you are. Debbie and I didn't even know. And the whole town knows by now that a Nettleton has come back to the manor, right? Has anybody said anything to you about that?"

"No" she admitted, liking the feeling that he might be right. Her nervous hands toyed with the loose ends of the knot holding her robe closed.

"And don't you think that, if anybody had any suspicion about who you are, that they'd have said something to somebody? I mean even if they didn't say anything directly to you, wouldn't there at least be rumors? And wouldn't you hear those rumors at the bank?"

That idea caused real hope to bloom in Ramona's heart. He was right. There WOULD be rumors if anybody suspected. And it was a small town, where rumors flowed freely and quickly.

"I know it seems weird, but I think you should do it." said her son.

Ramona wanted to pace. Everything she had heard made her heart leap for joy. She wanted to believe. Still it was hard.

"So you wouldn't mind going to live ... there." Ramona unconsciously turned to face the direction of the Nettleton mansion.

"Mom, I don't think Debbie and I care where we live as long as we can all be happy." His mind flitted to the image of his mother, her legs spread as his uncle powered his prick deep into her, and her exhortations of joy. He spoke without meaning to. "And it was obvious that being with him makes you happy."

His comment brought again to Ramona's brain the sight of him on top of his sister, making her ... happy. That fanned the fires of her unsatisfied loins. She felt the sudden need to leave the room. What she was thinking wasn't right. Not about her own son.

"Thank you." she said breathlessly. "I have to go now." She moved toward him, though, instead of turning and leaving.

Robby stood up. What happened then was a result of completely normal urges on a very complicated level. It was completely normal for son to expect his mother to hug him, and it was completely normal for her to feel the urge to do that on a motherly level. It was completely normal for her to kiss him on the cheek and wish him a good night. All those things were normal on an unconscious level. But their embrace was also between two people who were very aware of the sexual nature of each other, on a level that had nothing to do with mother and son.

That caused Robby to move his head fractionally as she kissed him, which resulted in that kiss being on his lips, instead of his cheek. And, her nervous picking at the loose knot of her robe had caused it to fall apart as she stepped toward him, and, when she pressed her breasts to his chest, there was no cloth between them.

The kiss, and the feel of her hot, soft breasts pressing against his naked chest, shocked them both and unleashed something that, until then, had been on a tether of sorts. What resulted was not the simple kiss good night that each had expected. What resulted was a tight clasp as soft lips demanded something much more intimate. Robby's penis, never having gotten soft, pressed the fabric of his shorts between his mother's legs, where it contacted her swollen and sensitive labia and prodded her clitoris, sending an electric shock through her body.

You hear of moments suspended in time, or of time moving in slow motion as minds whirl at light speed, watching something unfold. That was what happened to both of them as, on one level they felt the emotions that demanded their lusts be satisfied. On another level, though, both knew that what their bodies wanted was something that could ruin everything. And both, having found something precious in recent weeks, were strongly averse to having everything ruined.

Their lips slid off each others so they were cheek to cheek.

"We can't." said Ramona, her voice a croak.

"I know." said Robby, his voice tight.

"I want to." confessed his mother.

"Me too." confessed her son.

They managed to push each other away, but he drank in her nakedness through the gap of the robe, and her eyes went to the bulge that had so electrified her just seconds ago.

"I have to leave." she said, panic in her voice.

"It's OK Mom" he managed. "I love you."

"We'll talk about this later." she gasped.

"OK." he said simply.

Ramona almost ran from the room then, fleeing to the safety of her bedroom, where she threw off her robe and bounced onto her bed, legs spread, fingers dipping into slipperiness that brought her to orgasm almost instantly.

In his room, Robby didn't even get his shorts off before he grasped his penis and jerked it furiously, spurting semen in long arcing ropes that landed on his floor.

The next morning Ramona woke early. She didn't want to face her son and, since she had left work early the day before, she went in early to get her work caught up. That had the side benefit that she didn't have to face her son either. She was very uncomfortable that the penis she visualized in her mind, when she had her orgasm the night before, had flitted back and forth between Robert's and her son's.

She had an hour of uninterrupted work before Renee came in and demanded to know what had happened the night before. Ramona tried to play it off as a normal first date, and that there was just light conversation between her, her children and Robert Nettleton.

"Did he kiss you good night?" Renee asked avidly.

"No." said Ramona truthfully. She didn't count a kiss on the hand as a good night kiss.

"Did he try?" asked Renee, unwilling to give up her fantasy that her friend would bag this rich bachelor. "Please tell me he tried at least."

"He kissed my hand, like he did yours." said Ramona.

"I thought I told you to be bad!" complained Renee. "Did you wear the dress?"

Ramona ducked her head. "I meant to, honestly I did. But the kids wanted to stay and meet him, and I couldn't wear it with them there."

"Remind me to talk to those kids of yours." said Renee trying to sound gruff. "At least tell me he asked you out again."

Ramona tried to smile uncertainly. "He did ask if he could call on me again."

"Oooooo that's so continental and romantic." gushed Renee. "And THIS time those kids are coming to my house, or you're going out with him or something. Maybe you could suggest that you eat at HIS house. There have just GOT to be at least ten or fifteen beds in that place!"

Ramona didn't have to try to blush. It was easy. Renee was so blatant about her innuendo.

"Renee!" she scolded. "You're trying to get me to act like a slut."

"Oh posh!" said Renee. "All I'm doing is trying to get you to let him see the woman in you. You're a sexy, desirable woman, Ramona, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Ramona shooed her friend away from her desk and went back to work. She noticed that several other employees seemed to be watching her from time to time, but no one else gave her the third degree. Frank Peterson did stop by her desk, but all he said was "I trust everything went well last night?" When she nodded he grinned like a Cheshire cat and left.

Everything was fine until a delivery boy came in around ten in the morning with a dozen red roses. This time they were for Ramona. Renee got to her desk at the same time as he did and plucked the card out of the little plastic holder it was in before Ramona could get it herself.

"Thank you for a wonderful night." she read. She raised an eyebrow at her friend. "A wonderful night?" she asked. "As in ALL night maybe? Are you holding out on me Ramona?"

Ramona stood up and snatched the card from her friend's hand. "I told you. All I got was a kiss on the hand. I didn't even get a hug. Get your mind out of the gutter Renee."

Renee grinned. "Well, if he gave you a dozen roses for letting him kiss your hand, I can't WAIT to see what you get when you finally cave and let him make you REALLY happy." She skipped off to her desk before Ramona could make an angry retort.

Robert's proposal weighed heavily on Ramona's mind all morning. Finally she took the phone book and leafed through it until she found the number for the clerk of the Howard County Court. She waited until lunch, when the bank was closed and almost everyone was either at lunch or out of earshot, and dialed the number.

It she got transferred to three different people before a woman came on the line who said she took care of adoption records. Ramona posed as a family member of someone who had been adopted and wanted to know who her parents were.

"I know this isn't what you're going to want to hear," said the woman on the phone. "But those records are sealed, and only with a court order can they be opened."

"What would it take to get a court order?" asked Ramona, her heart in her throat.

"There are very few things that the judge will accept." said the woman. "In my experience, about the only thing that will usually work is if there is some medical reason. By that I mean that the adopted child has some kind of medical need to know who the parents were so that doctors will be able to understand how to treat something. Even that's pretty rare these days, because medical science has progressed so far." she said apologetically.

"No, there's nothing medical. She just wants to know who her parents were." said Ramona.

"I'm afraid that's not going to cut any mustard with the system." said the woman.

"So there's really no way to do this." said Ramona, hope surging in her.

"Well, there are a few special circumstances. When was the adoption?" asked the woman.

Ramona's hope faded just as quickly as it had arisen. "It was back in the thirties." she said.

"Oh, I'm sorry." said the woman, her voice taking on a note of sorrow. "I didn't realize it was that far back. I can tell you right now that there's nothing we can do. There was a fire in the basement of the courthouse back in the early 1950s, and the adoption records from before that were destroyed."

"There's nothing left?" asked Ramona, shocked.

"Nothing from before 1951 or so." said the woman. "I'm really sorry."

Ramona hung up the phone and stared at nothing. Even if someone suspected something, there was nothing to prove who she really was, or at least who she had been. Excitement ripped through her and she sat back in her chair, out of breath. She'd been holding her breath unconsciously and now panted.

For the rest of the day she was like a school girl, who imagines taking on the name of a boy, and practices writing it out that way, as if she were already married. Now she couldn't wait for Robert to contact her.

But he didn't.

When she went home that night she thought about stopping at the mansion, to see him, to scream that she would, indeed marry him.

But she didn't.

Instead she went into the house, bursting with the joy of her decision, and wanting to share it with her children.

But they weren't home.

There were two notes on the fridge, one from Debbie that said she had gone over to Crystal's house, and would be eating dinner there, returning home not later than nine that night. The other was from Robby, saying he'd gone to the pool, would eat out with his friends and come home "sometime tonight."

She was so full of energy she couldn't sit still, and trying to do things around the house didn't satisfy her either. She had made a habit of jogging in college, and had kept it up off and on when she got married, but hadn't run for years, ever since giving birth. She tied her hair back into a pony tail and went looking for something to jog in. In the end she had to go to Robby's room, where she found his gym shorts hanging off his desk chair. She pulled them on, acutely aware that his stiff penis had been covered by them when she last felt them against her own pussy, and shivered at the thought. On a wild impulse she took them off, removed her panties, and pulled them back on so the cloth would be right next to her pussy. Then she put on a tank top over her bra and left at almost a sprint.