Chapter 2B

As soon as I thought of Dad, I got sad and sat down on the bed to mope. This was all old and well-trodden ground though, and I was able to get past it without breaking into tears.

I was trying to get my mind somewhere else, when out of nowhere I realized that I had no idea how my mother knew Mrs. Reynolds. They were obviously on a first-name basis and Mom had been willing to send me over there in the first place, even if she did have a fit of paranoia after the fact, so I had to assume that they knew each other fairly well. Even though we lived within walking distance from each other, they never visited and I had never heard of Mrs. Reynolds before the last couple of weeks. They must have met long ago, then. They had probably been friends before either of them got married. Even though she did not look it, I knew Mrs. Reynolds could only have been a year or two younger than Mom. I did the math and came up with an interesting number. Mom was 38. If Mrs. Reynolds was 37 and had a 19-year-old son, even allowing for her being pregnant at the altar, she must have married in, or right after High School. This meant they could have been friends in school, probably at the same age I was now. I did not see how I could follow-up on that without knowing her maiden name and I didn't remember if any of the articles in the society section of the paper had mentioned it.

I tried to approach it from another direction. Mr. Reynolds had been in his late 40's when he died. He must have been around 30 when he married her. Old enough to be established in business or at least on his way up the ladder. I thought Mrs. Reynolds must miss her husband terribly. She had several pictures of the two of them in the hall of her house. I looked at them whenever I passed and I remembered thinking that he looked a lot older than she was in them. I remembered some were formal photographs like you have taken in a studio. Some were taken at parties, and some were vacation shots, taken of them on the beach. I recalled one of them with Mrs. Reynolds in a really skimpy bikini, her impressive bust practically hanging out of her top. They both looked so happy in that one and Mr. Reynolds had looked young as well. I thought that might have been taken on their honeymoon. There was another photo near it that was of them at their wedding. There was something about that one that rang a bell, but I could not put my finger on it.

I was still trying to put the pieces together when there was a knock at my door.

"Come in," I said, and it opened. Mom and Mrs. Reynolds came in. I popped to my feet and came to attention again for Mrs. Reynolds. This was going to be a hard habit to break, I thought. I had been taught submissive obedience under circumstances that guaranteed I would remain so a long time.

"Samantha," Mom said, "Mrs. Reynolds has been telling me what a nice young lady you are and how much she enjoys your company."

I blushed deeply. That was plainly a load of crap that Mrs. Reynolds had handed my mother, but it still made me go all fuzzy inside. Praise was something I rarely heard.

My mother continued, "She would like to invite you to stay with her over the weekend. You have my permission to go, if you want to. I have a chance to work some overtime and the extra money will certainly help us out. Not having to worry about you being unsupervised would be a great load off my mind. Would you like to spend the weekend at Mrs. Reynolds' house?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said, eagerly. I was looking at my mother, but Mrs. Reynolds knew I was talking to her. I was suddenly so happy I could not keep still. I broke my position of attention and started wiggling. My big bra waved one way and then the other as I twisted back and forth.

Mrs. Reynolds looked past me at the pile of too-small clothes I had pulled out of the closet. She said to my mother, "I'd also like to take her shopping, if you wouldn't mind. I think she is having a growth spurt and she needs some new clothes. I'd love to buy her a new wardrobe. There are some darling things I would like to see her in."

Hearing that the woman who wore more beautiful clothes in a day than I was ever likely to own in my life wanted to buy me a new wardrobe was the best news I had heard since I was five and Mom woke me up on Christmas morning to tell me that Santa Claus had come and left me a room full of presents. I started bouncing with joy, just like I was a little girl again.

Mrs. Reynolds whipped her head around and gave me an imperial look that froze me in mid-leap. "Stop!" she said sharply, but in a normal tone of voice.

The words "No jumping. No violent exercise," echoed in my head. I had disobeyed. My body knew the penalty for disobedience. I nearly wet myself. The memory of the cold steel blades of the shears biting into my skin jumped into my mind and burned with a cold fire. My nipples wrinkled up so quick I thought my breasts were trying to crawl out of my bra. I snapped back to attention instantly, and focused on Mrs. Reynolds with every fiber of my being. If she had snapped her fingers, my heart would have stopped in my chest.

My instantaneous response to her simple command was not lost on my mother, who stared at me with an incredulous look, as though she had seen a magic trick and could not figure out how it was done. She began to ask, "Ah, how..."

Mrs. Reynolds interrupted her, "Yvette, may I speak with Samantha alone for a minute?" She backed my mother out the door with the force of her presence and closed it. Mom was still looking at me with her hand to her mouth as the door closed and cut her line of sight.

Mrs. Reynolds waited until we could hear Mom walking back up the uncarpeted hallway to the front of the house. She turned to me and stepped closer. I was frozen. She thought for a second and then she unbuttoned her jacket and opened it. The sight of her breasts broke my trance. They meant reward, not punishment. I stepped close to her and put my palms over her nipples. I put my face between her breasts and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

She pulled my face firmly to her and stroked my hair. I kissed her tenderly between her breasts. She stroked her hand down my back all the way to my bottom and then she slid her hand under my pleated skirt and squeezed my naked cheek.

"I thought so," she said. "You better get your panties on before your mother notices." She patted my bare behind for extra emphasis.

I grinned and went to my dresser and got out a clean pair. I sat on the bed and pulled them on. As I did so, Mrs. Reynolds closed her jacket. My expression revealed my disappointment at this.

Mrs. Reynolds smiled and said, "Quickly now. Get the other bra I gave you."

I reached under the clothes on the bed and pulled out my bookbag. I took out the bra and handed it to her.

"Bend over here and let me take that one off." I bent at the waist and she unhooked the back of the bra. "Keep your head up for me, you're letting them droop," she said. I raised my head and looked straight ahead while she dropped one bra off and slipped the other on. She hooked the back and I felt three separate tugs. I stood up and could tell that this bra had a wider band and even firmer cups. These cups looked enormous on my small body. I could feel the air inside them on my breasts. I supposed that they were to hide my deformity, but she still did not explain and I dared not ask her to. I looked down at the bra. It was cut very modestly, and showed no cleavage and no part of my breasts. "Just as well," I thought.

"Listen!" she said, emphatically, pointing a finger at my nose. "Keep this on until I take it off. I know you'll feel dirty in the morning, but take a sponge bath instead of a tub bath or shower. No cheerleading. Come straight to me after school. NO jumping!"

I nodded as hard as I could until I wondered if nodding qualified as exercise and stopped abruptly.

Mrs. Reynolds reached out and touched my cheek, then she opened her jacket again and said, "Say goodbye, now."

I stepped up and kissed both her breasts, then I stepped back and grinned. I would play that game any time she wanted. It made us both happy and it was just so deliciously naughty to be playing it with my mother down the hall.

She opened the door and stepped out. As she walked away she called out, "See you tomorrow, then!"

With my door open I could just make out their voices down the hall. I heard Mrs. Reynolds ask my mother if she had noticed that I seemed to be 'filling out on top'. I heard my mother agree and the rest of the conversation was inaudible. I pulled on the one blouse I owned that had a chance of fitting over the bigger bra and sat down at my vanity to brush my hair. I was looking at the bulge that the bra made under my top and comparing it to Mrs. Reynolds size when something I had seen but not noticed at the time came vividly into focus. When I had kissed Mrs. Reynolds' breasts I had seen a lipstick smudge on her nipple. I wasn't wearing any lipstick, but I knew the color. It was called Coral. It was the color that my mother was wearing.

A big piece of the puzzle fell into place like a thunderbolt in the night. It explained a lot about Mrs. Reynolds and my mother, it explained a lot about my mother and my Dad, and it explained a lot about me. As I turned it all over in my head, I understood that it also explained a lot about Mrs. Reynolds and me. There was still a big piece missing, though; but I was too hungry to think any more about it.

I finished my touch-up and went down the hall. Mrs. Reynolds had left and my mother was just putting our dinners into the microwave. "Bambi, er... Mrs. Reynolds seems to think the world of you," she said. "Do you like her?"

"Yes, Mom. I like her a lot. At first, I didn't think I would. But as I've gotten to know her better, I realize that I do." I had been prepared to BS my mother as thoroughly as Mrs. Reynolds had, but as the words came out of my mouth, I realized that I had spoken the truth. I decided to stick with that as far as I could.

"You seem to have a lot of respect for her."

"Oh, yes! She's much more strict with me than you are. But I've learned a lot from her, too."

"Oh? What has she been teaching you?"

"I don't think you can say she's been 'teaching' me. The things I've learned have been more stuff that I've learned on my own from being around her."

"Like what?"

"Obedience. But you've probably noticed that. It's strange. Once I learned to obey, it opened the door to a lot of other stuff. I learned that I can do things that I never thought I could do. I learned that sometimes there are consequences that have to be faced. I learned that trust is more powerful than fear. I learned that sometimes when you lose something precious, you get something even more valuable in its place. And I learned that knowing someone and understanding them are completely different things."

Mom looked at me with the same "I don't know you" expression I had seen before. Before she could think of something else to ask me, the microwave went off and she got busy setting the table and serving the food. Neither of us said anything for a long time. I guess we both had things to think about. I wolfed down my food and when she saw how hungry I was, she gave me half of hers, too. I was on the last mouthful before she spoke again.

"Mrs. Reynolds asked me if I had noticed that you seemed to be having a late growth spurt. I am quite aware that you have matured physically, but now I see that you are growing up in more ways than one."

I could see her looking at my bulging blouse. I looked away from her for a moment. I realized that I would not be able to hide what was happening to me from her forever. Eventually she would find out. I was terribly sad about it, but I had resigned myself to losing my breasts over the past few days. Over and above Mrs. Reynolds instructions not to discuss it, I wanted to keep it from Mom as long as possible. It would hurt her terribly, especially if she found out how it happened.

As soon as I thought about protecting Mom from being hurt by what Mrs. Reynolds had done to me, another piece of the puzzle fell into place. I understood why she had been treating me the way she had. I understood why she put her own ideas of what was best for me ahead of our relationship. I understood why she had such a hard time relating to me as a person and why she and Dad never really got along.

Their marriage was doomed from the start because Mom got married for the wrong reasons. She married Dad because it was something she thought she had to do, not something that she wanted to do. I realized that I was lucky to have been born at all.

There was still something missing, though. I still did not have all the pieces. I decided to ask a very leading question.

"Mom, when did you and Mrs. Reynolds meet?"

She looked like I had touched a raw nerve. I thought she would evade the question or just refuse to answer. She was quiet for so long that I was tempted to change the subject, but as long as she was thinking about it, I decided to wait for her. Eventually, she worked herself up to talking about it.

"We met in school when we were both a bit younger than you are now. We... we were really good friends for a couple of years. Then I graduated. She got married... I got married. I thought it would be best if we... This was all a long time ago."

"Mom, I understand that sometimes we do things we don't want to for lots of reasons, because we think it's what we are supposed to do, or what we are expected to do, or think we need to do"

Mom was on the verge of tears. I could see that the shame and the guilt of years of living a lie had taken a toll on her. I wanted to tell her what I knew, and I had come very close to blurting it out, but that would have meant throwing the sacrifices she had made back in her face and I couldn't do that to her.

"Mom... I want you to do something for me. I want you to promise me something."

She blinked back the tears and looked at me. She was so seriously messed up that I did not know if there was anything that could be done that would not just make things worse. "What's that, dear?" she said.

"I want you to think about what you want to do for a change. I want you to do something because it's what YOU want, without consideration for anyone or anything else, OK? Don't feel you have to work that overtime on our account. We'll get by without it. While I'm at Mrs. Reynolds', go do something for yourself. Please?"

She did not trust her voice. She just nodded at me. She was losing it. I could see the tears coming. She was going to have herself a cry. She was entitled. She got up and bent over me to kiss my cheek, something she had not done in a long time. I indulged in one of my bad habits. I pushed my luck. I turned my head so that it wasn't my cheek she kissed, but my lips.

Before she could pull away, I threw my arm around her neck and held her mouth to mine. I kissed her as good as I could. After a second, she kissed back. She kissed me so intensely that I knew in that moment, it wasn't me she was kissing, it was a girl named Bambi that she had never stopped loving. The kiss ended too quickly. She moved away and I let go of her. She backed away from me and smacked into the kitchen counter so hard I thought she would fall, but she caught herself and stood there looking like I had stripped her naked. In a way, I suppose I had. I regretted pushing her buttons, but I could not have lived with myself if I had not tried to undo some of what she had done to herself for 18 years. Much of it was on my account after all.

I wanted her to know what I could not tell her. I wanted her to hear the words I could not say. I wanted her to understand that I forgave her for not wanting me, for accepting me as the consequence of a mistake made years earlier. I knew all about the consequences of mistakes. I tried to think of something I could say to her that would ease her pain, but anything that would not make it worse would only be like bailing the ocean with a teaspoon. So before she bolted, I said the only thing I could think of, as lame as it was.

"Thank you." I said. Her face was so screwed up that I could not read anything in it, so I could not tell if it helped any or not. She ran off to her room and shut herself in. I could hear the sobs even through the closed door. I never thought that I would be sitting in the kitchen, listening to my mother crying her eyes out and think of it as a good thing. Sometimes bad things are really good things. Sometimes our worst enemies are our friends. Sometimes our lovers are our worst enemies. Sometimes the world is just a really fucked-up place and if you find any joy at all in it, you should consider yourself damn lucky. I told myself I was too young to be this cynical. I got an image of a raised middle finger back for my trouble. I laughed. "Just do what you can," I told myself. "Don't focus on the pain and the futility. Focus on the good, however small it may be."

I cleaned up the kitchen and sat down to watch some TV until bedtime. My bra was itching and starting to feel hot and tight. I already looked forward to getting the darn thing off.

I went to bed at the usual time, but I had a hard time getting to sleep. I usually sleep on my back, so the bra wasn't really in the way. I felt like my whole system had gone into overdrive. My heart was beating really fast and I could hear it pounding in my ears. I was sweating and I kept having the creepiest feeling in my breasts. I can't even begin to describe what it felt like. After I had lay there for an hour, trying to sleep, I started to feel hungry again. I got up and dug the sandwiches out of my bag. I ate them all, one after the other. When finished I was still hungry, but I climbed back into bed and waited for sleep. Sometime during the night, I finally drifted off.