Chapter 9: Tuesday Evening

After dinner, Mum grabbed the new paint Dad had bought her and went back into my room. Dad loaded the dishwasher and then washed the things that wouldn’t go into that while Tara and I dried them and put them away. There wasn’t much to do because nobody had cooked anything. We chatted about various things while we worked, then I brought up how good it was to have Mum sitting at dinner with us instead of being hidden away in my room painting.

“Does that mean she’s finished her ‘episode’ thing?” asked Tara.

Dad shrugged, “Not completely. She’s started to come out of it though. For the next day or two she will phase in and out. She’ll be more able to think about other things but then she’ll lock into something and lose track again.”

“How are we supposed to tell?” I wanted to know.

“Yeah! How do we tell when she’s normal and when she’s off with the fairies?” Tara echoed my question, but with a bit less tact.

“You know your Mum. When is she ever completely normal?” Dad said that with a smile so it wasn’t as bad as it might sound. “This isn’t an exact thing. She doesn’t switch on and off; it’s more like she fades in and out. Watch her and notice what she’s saying and doing. You’re both pretty smart. You’ll soon figure out how to tell.”

In the meantime, Dan had gathered up all the empty food containers and put them out with the rubbish, I mean the trash. It was collection night so he roamed around the house emptying all the “rubbish bins” inside the house and filling and putting the “trash can” out beside the street so that the “refuse disposal engineers” could do their job in the morning. (Sometimes the whole language thing makes me laugh!)

Once all the chores were done, Tara and I had to do our homework. Tara and I both had math to do. Mine was easy and I powered through it quickly, but Tara had to keep getting Dad to help her because she was confused about something. Normally she’s pretty good at math so I think she was getting pretty frustrated. Maybe having her period was making things worse. All I know is that she was getting grumpy. Once I finished my math, I had a book report for English to work on that was due Friday. Since I was going out Thursday night, I figured I better make sure it was finished before then. The first half of the report was on the computer in my room, so I went in there to work on it.

I hadn’t been in my room since the night before so when I stepped into my room I looked around curiously. It was amazing. My room was rapidly turning into a full-on art gallery. The first picture had been a total shock and seemed completely weird and bizarre and out of place. But now everything seemed to fit. Each painting fitted in its place in the room, forming the overall impression of a room full of fun and life. Sure it was confronting seeing naked me, over and over again, but I’d gotten used to that now and I was thinking more like this was my bedroom, so why shouldn’t I have pictures of me in my room?

I’ve already described the second one Mum painted of me standing beside the mirror. The third one I’d seen Mum working on over my bed was finished. It showed me, naked of course, sitting on a flying carpet, hovering in the air above my bed. I was sitting upright like I’d sat in front of the mirror the other day, with the soles of my feet together and my heels tucked into my crotch and my knees flat on the carpet. My hands clutched my ankles and it looked as if I was holding them so I wouldn’t fall off. My shoulders were back and my chin was up in what was now a pretty familiar pose, but my hair, hanging loose, flew out behind me and my face was filled with excitement as I zoomed through the air on that flying carpet. I loved it! It looked so alive and so much fun.

Mum was working on a different section of wall, near my bookcase. Last year for my birthday, Tara had given me a little basketball hoop with a suction pad and a soft half-sized basketball to go with it. The hoop was stuck to the blank piece of wall near my bookshelf. Mum was about halfway through a three-quarter rear view of me doing a jump shot towards the ring, with the basketball just leaving my hands. As far as I can remember, I’ve never played basketball naked, but that wasn’t stopping Mum. I guess I sort of laughed. Then I looked more closely, even though the painting wasn’t finished, something didn’t look right.

Mum noticed me round about then, “Oh, good! I’m glad you’re here. I need you to do me a favor.”

“What do you want Mum? I came in to use my computer. I have homework to do.”

“Never mind about that! This painting isn’t working and I have no idea why. I need you to model for me.”

“Mum! I have to do my homework.”

“This won’t take long. A few minutes at the most. I don’t need you to stand there and pose while I do a whole painting. All I need from you is to do a few throws for me so I can see it happening.”

“Okay Mum, I can do a few throws.” I grabbed the little ball out of the closet where I kept it and then lined up and did a nice little jump shot. The ball hit the rim and dropped in. “Yes!” Practice does make a difference! I held my hands up and did the standard signal for three points!

“Bec! Don’t be difficult!”

“What?”

“You need to take your clothes off. I can’t see what your muscles are doing when they’re covered up!”

“Oh!” It hadn’t occurred to me that Mum would want me to model naked. Pretty stupid, I guess. I shook my head. Every other time I’d ended up naked in front of Mum in the last week had either been an accident or she’d whipped the clothes off my back when I was distracted. This was the first time I was voluntarily taking my clothes off for my mother, and yes I was stripping off. I hardly hesitated. I figured it was just as well no one would ever know about this because probably some sicko out there would decide this was some sex thing my mother had going. There wasn’t anything sexy about this at all, she was into her painting and wanted to see what she was painting. It was nothing more than that.

Mum had me put my hair into a pony-tail and then stand with my back to her and go through a full squat, jump, shoot routine several times while she watched me from behind. I was shooting away from her and the hoop, so I aimed at the top of the door to my closet. Okay, maybe it was a bit sexy to be doing this in front of Mum while completely stark naked – it sure felt, I don’t know, wicked or something.

Then I put my clothes back on and sat down at my computer to do my homework while Mum went back to her painting. Just another normal evening in the Freeman household!

My desk is the other side of the bookcase from the bit of wall Mum was working on so I couldn’t really see what she was doing, but after maybe ten or fifteen minutes I could tell things were still not right with the painting because Mum was grumbling to herself and kept stopping to wipe bits away and re-do them. Eventually she came over and almost pulled me out of my chair in her hurry to have me model again. I stripped off my clothes again and did a few more throws, trying hard to squat, push up and offload exactly the same each time. This time Mum had me turn slightly each time, so she saw it from a slightly different angle each time I threw. After four or five throws Mum got a pleased look in her face and turned back to the painting without saying anything to me. I figured that meant she was done for now, but would probably want to see more in a little while, so I sat down to do more of my book report exactly as I was. I mean, sure I was naked, but the central heating was going so I wasn’t cold and it was a hassle to keep putting my clothes on and taking them off so it seemed logical. It also felt a bit naughty to be sitting doing my homework naked.

In the distance I heard the phone ring, but someone answered it and there was no yell for me, so I didn’t think much more about that. I kept typing away. I had it all pretty well planned out in my head what I had to say, All I had to do was get it into the computer. Feeling the surface of the chair under my bare bottom and thighs was a really weird sensation. Somehow the idea of doing homework in the nude helped me stay focussed, so I was flying through the work and only had about a paragraph to go, when suddenly...

Suddenly there was a knock and the door opened. Dad was standing in the doorway, together with Liz, wearing her black bike leathers and holding her helmet and her small overnight bag. I was surprised to see Liz and I started to greet her when I suddenly registered that she and DAD were standing in my doorway and I was STARK NAKED! I screamed and scrambled out of my chair, leaving it lying on its back on the floor. I scurried across the floor and scooped up my pile of clothes, holding them pathetically in front of me.

“DAD! GET OUT!”

Dad was standing there, blinking and looking pretty well like he’d been hit by a truck.

“Dad, you’re supposed to knock and then wait before you open the door. I’m all naked and you shouldn’t have come in.” I kind of slumped down onto the floor, still clutching my clothes in front of me. It didn’t make me feel much better. I promptly burst into tears.

Dad started spluttering, “Your mother’s in here painting. You were supposed to be doing your homework. How was I supposed to know... ?”

I pointed pathetically at the computer, “I was doing my homework!”

“But why were you... ? Never mind.” He shook his head, obviously not coping very well with the conversation. That made two of us. He pushed Liz in the back so that she stumbled into the room. “Your friend’s here! She’s staying the night. I said it would be okay!”

And with that he stepped back out of the room and closed the door in a hurry – not quite slamming it, but pretty close.

Liz stood there and stared at me, her bag in one hand and her helmet in the other. I sat on the floor, clutching my clothes to myself and looked back at her. I’d stopped crying as quickly as I’d started but I could still feel the wetness on my cheeks. I must have looked completely pathetic. I was vaguely aware of Mum still painting in the background. I think she’d completely tuned out the whole shouting match.

Suddenly Liz burst out laughing. She dropped her bag on the floor and propped her helmet on top, and then she came over to me and reached down to grab my hands. She pulled me to my feet and hugged me – not seeming to care that I was still clutching my clothes. Her leather gear felt cold against my skin. She grabbed one sleeve of my top, which was dangling uselessly from one hand and used it to wipe my face dry.

“You never told me you did your homework in the nude!” she said to me rather accusingly.

“I don’t! ... well I didn’t! ... well I...” I flapped one hand at where Mum stood painting naked pictures of me, hoping that would explain everything. Then I went to my closet and pulled out a robe to put on, silently cursing myself for not having done that in the first place. I was feeling like I hadn’t been that embarrassed for ages, but then I stopped myself and decided I hadn’t been that embarrassed for at least twelve hours – which was as good as I could possibly hope for, given the week I was having.

“Mum was having trouble with her painting and she got me to take my clothes off so she could see.” I gestured at Mum, who was staring intently at her latest masterpiece.

“Hello Mrs Freeman!” said Liz, always the polite one. I’m not sure Mum even heard. Liz seemed a bit put out at being ignored, but then she realized Mum was completely absorbed in what she was doing. Liz looked at the now mostly-finished painting of me throwing the basketball for a bit, then turned and did a slow scan around the room, carefully examining each of the other paintings.

“Wow!” She ended up looking at the big one of me on the sofa, touching my boob. I watched her nervously, hoping she wouldn’t laugh at me or find it disgusting or ... I don’t know what else. All she did was slowly shake her head and say “Wow!” again.

“When you said your mother was painting nude pictures of you on your bedroom wall, I kind of found it hard to believe. You weren’t kidding me at all were you? I didn’t think they’d be ... Wow! And they’re so big! I knew your mom was a good painter, but these are really, really good. And they’re really ... um ... they’re really sexy! How on earth do you sleep in here?”

“I haven’t! Sunday night I slept on the couch, last night I slept with Tara in her room.”

“And you say your mom’s done all this in three days?” I nodded. “Wow!”

Mum chose that moment to decide she needed me to pose some more. I saw her turn towards me and I knew what was going to happen. It was like watching a train wreck. I knew what was going to happen but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. Mum came straight towards me and started tugging at my robe.

“Come on, dear, just one more time. I’ve nearly got it.”

“I can’t, Mum! Liz is here. I can’t do this in front of Liz.” I clutched my robe tightly, holding it closed against Mum’s insistent hands.

Mum turned and seemed to notice Liz for the first time. “Oh! Hello Liz dear! How long have you been here?”

“I only got here a few minutes ago. Hello Mrs Freeman, it’s nice to see you again.”

Liz came up and gave Mum a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Liz doesn’t have a mother and she’s kind of half adopted mine as a stand-in for her. Mum has quite cheerfully started describing Liz as her favorite daughter any time she wants to annoy Tara or me. Mum returned the hug and kiss, but wasn’t so easily distracted. She turned back to me with a glare.

“Now sweetie, one more time, please!”

“I can’t, Mum! Not in front of Liz.”

Liz grinned. “Hey. I don’t know what your problem is, girlfriend.” She gestured around the room. “If these are as accurate as I think they are, then I’m already seeing everything you’ve got to show.”

“Yes, but...” Damn her, she had a really good point, but I wasn’t ready to give in. “ ... but it’s different. Those are paintings.”

Liz looked around the room then back at me. She nodded. “I know how to fix this. I wanted to get out of these leathers anyway.”

With that she slid off her leather jacket, folded it, picked up the chair and hung her jacket over the back of the chair. She then kicked her shoes off and pulled her socks off, one at a time, tucking them inside her shoes. Without even hesitating, Liz then undid the button and the zipper on her leather pants and pushed them down to the floor, stepping out of them and hanging them over the back of the chair with the jacket. I stared in amazement as Liz’s hands went to the hem of her t-shirt and whipped it over her head, leaving her in bra and panties. They quickly followed and Liz, now naked as the day she was born, calmly folded up her t-shirt and underwear and tucked them inside her bag.

She turned and pointed at my robe, “Now you!”

I stood there and gaped at her. Liz is a bit shorter than me and has a fuller figure. She isn’t fat, so much as having more curves where I’m mostly skin and bone. Liz’s hair is jet black and hangs straight to her shoulders. Her skin is a beautiful pale olive sort of color. Both her parents were born in America, but I think her mother’s family came from somewhere Mediterranean, like Greece maybe, I don’t think even Liz knows for sure. As I understand it, her mom’s mother had been kicked out of the family when she was pregnant with Liz’s mom. Liz had two small but perfectly formed breasts, that made me a tiny bit jealous but I got over that straight away.

In all the time we’d been friends, Liz and I had never really been naked in front of each other. I mean, we’d got changed together, but not been naked and stood looking at each other like we did now. Yes, we were both naked, because in the meantime, Mum had removed the gown from my unresisting fingers and slid it off my shoulders. Mum’s paintings had convinced me that I could sometimes, under the right circumstances, look kind of nice, but Liz was outright pretty.

Now Mum pushed the ball into my hands and instructed me to throw the ball to Liz. I did that a few times, carefully going through the same movements as before, while Liz caught the ball and returned it to me each time without saying a word, but her eyes were full of laughter.

It only took three times before Mum was satisfied. This time I got a little pat on the shoulder and a quick “Thanks sweetie!” from Mum before she headed back to work on her painting.

Liz came up to me and she grabbed both my hands in hers. “Well, look at you, the naked model!”

“I can’t believe you did that! You took all your clothes off so I would! Do you have some secret other life as a nudist or something?”